borders of Wales, Leicester followed him with an
army to Hereford [g]; continued still to menace and negotiate; and
that he might add authority to his cause, he carried both the king and
prince along with him. The Earl of Gloucester here concerted with
young Edward the manner of that prince's escape. He found means to
convey to him a horse of extraordinary swiftness; and appointed Roger
Mortimer, who had returned into the kingdom, to be ready at hand with
a small party to receive the prince, and to guard him to a place of
safety. Edward pretended to take the air with some of Leicester's
retinue, who were his guards; and making matches between their horses,
after he thought he had tired and blown them sufficiently, he suddenly
mounted Gloucester's horse and called to his attendants, that he had
long enough enjoyed the pleasure of their company, and now bid them
adieu. They followed him for some time, without being able to
overtake him; and the appearance of Mortimer with his company put an
end to their pursuit.
[FN [g] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 67. Ann. Waverl. p. 218. W. Heming. p.
585. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 383, 384.]

The royalists, secretly prepared for this event, immediately flew to
arms; and the joy of this gallant prince's deliverance, the
oppressions under which the nation laboured, the expectation of a new
scene of affairs, and the countenance of the Earl of Gloucester,
procured Edward an army which Leicester was utterly unable to
withstand. This nobleman found himself in a remote quarter of the
kingdom, surrounded by his enemies, barred from all communication with
his friends by the Severn, whose bridges Edward had broken down, and
obliged to fight the cause of his party under these multiplied
disadvantages. In this extremity he wrote to his son, Simon de
Montfort, to hasten from London with an army for his relief; and Simon
had advanced to Kenilworth with that view, where, fancying that all
Edward's force and attention were directed against his father, he lay
secure and unguarded. But the prince, making a sudden and forced
march, surprised him in his camp, dispersed his army, and took the
Earl of Oxford and many other noblemen prisoners, almost without
resistance. Leicester, ignorant of his son 's fate, passed the Severn
in boats during Edward's absence, and lay at Evesham, in expectation
of being every hour joined by his friends from London; when the
prince, who availed himself of every favourable