ge of Pevensey by his
father's danger, he wasted time in plundering the lands of the
royalists, and only left London on July 8, whence he led his men by
slow stages to Kenilworth. On July 31 young Simon's troops took up
their quarters for the night in the open country round Kenilworth
castle. They had no notion that the enemy was at hand and troubled
neither to defend themselves nor to keep watch. Edward, warned by spies
of their approach, abandoned his close guard of the Severn fords, and
in the early morning of August 1 fell suddenly upon the sleeping host
and scattered it with little difficulty. The younger Simon and a few of
his followers took refuge in the castle. As a fighting force the army
of relief ceased to exist.

Leicester, knowing nothing of his son's disaster, made his way, on
August 3, from Kempsey to Evesham, where he rested for the night. Next
morning, after mass and breakfast, the army was about to continue its
march, when scouts descried troops advancing upon the town. At first it
was hoped that they were the followers of young Simon, but their near
approach revealed them to be the army of the marchers. With
extraordinary rapidity Edward led his troops back to Worcester as soon
as he had won the fight at Kenilworth. Learning there that Simon had
crossed the river in his absence, he at once turned back to meet him,
seeking to elude his vigilance by a long night march by circuitous
routes. The result was that for the second time he caught his enemy in
a trap.

Evesham, like Lewes, stands on a peninsula. It is situated on the right
bank of a wide curve of the Avon, and approachable only by crossing
over the river, or by way of the sort of isthmus between the two bends
of the Avon a little to the north of the town. Edward occupied this
isthmus with his best troops, and thus cut off all prospect of escape
by land. The other means of exit from the town was over the bridge
which connects it with its south-eastern suburb of Bengeworth, on the
left bank of the river. Edward, however, took the precaution to detach
Gloucester with a strong force to hold Bengeworth, and thus prevent
Simon's escape over the bridge. The weary and war-worn host of
Montfort, then, was out-generalled in such fashion that effective
resistance to a superior force, flushed by recent victory, was
impossible. Simon himself saw that his last hour was come; yet he could
not but admire the skilful plan which had so easily discomfited him.