ove the town; desperately the
barons fought, but, one by one, they fell overpowered by numbers.
Though the earl was sixty-five years of age he fought "stoutly, like a
giant, for the liberties of England" to the end.

We will not dwell on the horror of the battle. Popular tradition still
points to the spot where the great leader was slain, and there, beside
a spring called Battlewell, was placed a sacred rood. Two young de
Montforts fell by their father's side, and many barons, knights, and
common soldiers; but few fled. The stragglers from the defeated army
were, many of them, slaughtered, as they attempted their escape; and
by Offenham Ferry, where in those times probably stood a bridge, there
is a meadow, once an island, which to this day bears the name of
"Deadman's Ait." The chroniclers tell of the shameful mutilation of
the earl's corpse, and how the limbs were distributed through the
country, but the dismembered body was buried reverently by the monks
in the most sacred part of their church, even before the High Altar.
The severed hands were sent by a servant to the wife of Roger
Mortimer, at Wigmore Castle in Shropshire. They arrived, so says the
legend, while the Mass was being celebrated, and, at the raising of
the Host, they were seen, before the bag containing them was opened,
clasped in the attitude of prayer above the head of the messenger. In
fear and trembling, Lady Mortimer returned the bloody trophy.

Prince Edward himself attended the funeral of Henry de Montfort, his
cousin and friend, in the Abbey church.

"Such," sings Robert of Gloucester, "was the murder of Evesham, for
battle none it was."

As in the case of other national heroes of old times, popular fancy
was allowed to play unfettered round the memory of this noble family.
In the well-known ballad preserved by Bishop Percy, of "The Beggar's
Daughter of Bednall Green," it is imagined that Henry de Montfort was
rescued at night from the field of battle while still living, by "a
baron's faire daughter," in search of her father's body; that she
nursed him, and that, on his recovery they married, their daughter
being "prettye Bessee."

The miracles we read of, and to which reference has been made, are
many and varied. For some time the fear of royal censure and
punishment prevented cures being openly attributed to "Saint Simon,"
but it was not long before the fame of his healing power spread, and
persons were brought from all parts of the cou