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Montfort then marched southwards from the capital. Besides the baronial
retinues, a swarm of Londoners, eager for the fray, though unaccustomed
to military restraints, accompanied him. On May 13 he encamped at
Fletching, a village hidden among the dense oak woods of the Weald,
some nine miles north of Lewes. A last effort of diplomacy was
attempted by Bishop Cantilupe of Worcester who, despite papal censures,
still accompanied the baronial forces. But the royalists would not
listen to the mediation of so pronounced a partisan. Nothing therefore
was left but the appeal to the sword.
The royal army was the more numerous, and included the greater names.
Of the heroes of the struggle of 1258 the majority was in the king's
camp, including most of the lords of the Welsh march, and the hardly
less fierce barons of the north, whose grandfathers had wrested the
Great Charter from John. The returned Poitevins with their followers
mustered strongly, and the confidence of the royalists was so great
that they neglected all military preparations.


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