22. The Battle of Lewes. 1264.—The Mise of Amiens required an unconditional surrender of England to the king. The Londoners and the trading towns were the first to reject it. Simon put himself at the head of a united army of barons and citizens. In the early morning of May 14 he caught the king's army half asleep at Lewes. Edward charged at the Londoners, against whom he bore a grudge since they had ill-treated his mother, and cleared them off the field with enormous slaughter. When he returned the battle was lost. Henry himself was captured, and Richard, king of the Romans, was found hiding in a windmill. Edward, in spite of his success, had to give himself up as a prisoner.
Seal of Robert Fitzwalter, showing a mounted knight in complete mail armour. Date, about 1265.
Effigy of a knight at Gosperton, showing armour worn from about 1250 to 1300. Date, about 1270.
23. Earl Simon's Government. 1264-1265.—Simon followed up his victory by an agreement called the Mise of Lewes, according to which all matters of dispute were again to be referred to arbitration. In the meantime there were to be three Electors, Earl Simon himself, the Earl of Gloucester, and the Bishop of Chichester. These were to elect nine councillors, who were to name the ministers of state. To keep these councillors within bounds a Parliament was called, in which with the barons, bishops, and abbots there sat not only chosen knights for each shire, but also for the first time two representatives of certain towns. This Parliament met in 1265. It was not, indeed, a full parliament, as only Simon's partisans amongst the barons were summoned, but it was the fullest representation of England as a whole which had yet met, and not a merely baronial committee like that proposed in 1258. The views of Simon were clearly indicated in an argumentative Latin poem written after the battle of Lewes by one of his supporters. In this poem the king's claim to do as he likes with his own is met by a demand that he shall rule according to law. Such a demand was made by others than the poet. "The king," a great lawyer of the day had said, "is not subject to any man, but to God and the law." The difficulty still remained of ascertaining what the law was. The poet did not, indeed, anticipate modern theories, and hold that the law was what the representatives of the people made it to be; but he held that the law consisted in the old customs, and that the people themselves must be appealed to as the witnesses of what those old customs were. "Therefore," he wrote, "let the community of the kingdom advise, and let it be known what the generality thinks, to whom their own laws are best known. Nor are all those of the country so ignorant that they do not know better than strangers the customs of their own kingdom which have been handed down to them by their ancestors."[14] The poet, in short, regarded the Parliament as a national jury, whose duty it was to give evidence on the laws and customs of the nation, in the same way that a local jury gave evidence on local matters.