The Battle of Lewes 1264 by Maria Caulfield

Author:Maria Caulfield [Caulfield, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bretwalda Books
Published: 2014-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

Fletching, ten miles north of Lewes. Simon de Montfort camped his army here while he scouted ahead for places to offer battle and while he sent messages to the king.

In any case, one chronicler tells us, Simon did not intend to launch a surprise attack on the king. Perhaps he still hoped for some peaceful resolution before serious amounts of killing took place. Or perhaps he had decided that if a fight had to take place it should take place on ground of his own choosing where his lack of mounted knights would not be such a drawback. If so, he chose his ground well.

There may have been more to it than that. Besieging a castle is one thing, but actually drawing your sword in the presence of the annointed king is quite another. Many nobles and knights had shown themselves to be very uneasy about joining a rebellion, no matter how much they despised the king and his officials. De Montfort must have suspected that if he attacked the king he would alienate those of his supporters who were uncertain about the legality or morality of civil war. But if the king attacked him first then de Montfort could plead that he acted in self defence. The drafting of the letter sent to Lewes had been undertaken especially to show that the rebels were prepared to go out of their way to try to find a peaceful solution.

Simon de Montfort deployed his army on the crest of Offham Hill from where he could look down on Lewes. The left flank of this position rested on the cliff-like slope that dropped precipitously down to the River Ouse. The right flank, a thousand yards from the left, rested on the slopes of Cuckoo Bottom. These were not quite so steep as those falling to the river, but they were too steep for cavalry and that was what mattered most. The land between the two was almost flat, ideal for the deployment of an army. To the south a long, fairly gentle slope ran down to Lewes, up which the royal army would need to advance if it were to attack. Behind his position the land varied. To the west, at the right of de Montfort’s army, the land rose another 70 feet or so to peak at Mount Harry before falling down to the lowlands at Allington. At the east, or left end, of de Montfort’s position the line was backed by the steep sided coombe in which the skirmish of the previous day had taken place. The buildings of the now closed Lewes Racecourse stand in front of the centre of the line taken by de Montfort’s army.

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