[Original]
At the battle of Lewes, the king and Prince Edward were captured and locked up in the Castle of Wallingford. As soon as Eleanor heard their sad fate she sent word to Sir Warren de Basingbourne, her son's favorite knight, that Wallingford was feebly guarded and could not resist an attack. Sir Warren lost no time in crossing the country with three hundred horsemen, and laid siege to the castle, which, contrary to his expectation, was warmly defended. At last the besiegers called out to Sir Warren that "if they wanted Prince Edward, they should have him bound hand and foot, and shot from the mangonel"—a war engine used for throwing stones. On hearing this, the prince begged leave to speak with his friends, and appearing on the wall "assured them that if they persevered in the siege, he should be destroyed." Thereupon Sir Warren and his chevaliers withdrew.
The royal prisoners were afterwards removed to Kenilworth Castle, and Lady Maud Mortimer, who was warmly attached to the queen, helped Prince Edward to escape. Having sent him the necessary instructions, she had a swift horse concealed in a thicket on a certain day when it was planned that he was to ride races with his attendants. When all the horses were tired out, he approached the spot where Lady Maud's fresh one awaited him, and after mounting, he turned to his guard and said: "Commend me to my sire, the king, and tell him I shall soon be at liberty." He then galloped off to a hill, about a mile distant, where a band of armed knights awaited him.
Although the queen was living in France at this time, she made several secret visits to England, to ascertain the true state of affairs there. After her husband's dreadful defeat at Lewes, she pawned all her jewels, and, with the money thus raised, collected a powerful army that might have subdued the whole kingdom if they had ever reached it. But the Almighty mercifully ordained otherwise, and before Queen Eleanor, with her foreign troops, set sail, the battle of Evesham was fought and won by Prince Edward.
A.D. 1265. At this battle King Henry was wounded in the shoulder and would have been cut down by one of his own soldiers, who mistook him for an enemy, had he not cried out in a feeble voice: "Slay me not, I am Henry of Winchester, your king."
An officer who happened to be within hearing, conducted him to Prince Edward, and thus the royal father and son met once more. After tenderly embracing his sire, the prince knelt to receive his blessing.
A succession of victories for Edward soon put an end to the barons' wars and reinstated the royal family of England. It is much to the credit of King Henry, that after he was restored to power, not one of his enemies was brought to the scaffold. But he punished them with such heavy fines that many of the rebel barons were reduced to penury.
A.D. 1269. Henry III. lived to witness the completion of St. Edward's chapel at Westminster, which he had begun fifty years before. On St. Edward's day, October 13, 1269, assisted by his two sons and his brother, the King of the Romans, he bore the bier of Edward the Confessor to the chapel and deposited it in the new receptacle. This ceremony was witnessed by the whole court, and Queen Eleanor offered at the shrine a silver image of the Virgin, besides jewels of great value. King Henry reserved the old coffin of the saint for his own use, and was placed in it just three years later, having expired on the 16th of November, 1272.