n, who was resting there, and, on April 4, the king and his son
burst upon the place. Their first assault was unsuccessful, but next
day the walls were scaled, the town captured, and many leading barons,
including young Simon, taken prisoner. The victors thereupon marched
northwards, devastated Montfort's Leicestershire estates, and thence
proceeded to Nottingham, which opened its gates in a panic.

Leicester himself had not been idle. While his sons were courting
disaster in the west and midlands, he threw himself into London, where
he was rapturously welcomed. The Londoners, however, became very
unruly, committed all sorts of excesses against the wealthy royalists,
and cruelly plundered and murdered the Jews. Montfort himself did not
disdain to share in the spoils of the Jewry, though he soon turned to
nobler work. He was anxious to open up communications with his allies
in the Cinque Ports. But Earl Warenne, in Rochester castle, blocked the
passage of the Dover road over the Medway. Accordingly Montfort marched
with a large following of Londoners to Rochester, captured the town,
and assaulted the castle with such energy that it was on the verge of
surrendering. The news of Warenne's peril reached Henry in the
midlands. In five days the royalists made their way from Nottingham to
Rochester, a distance of over 160 miles. On their approach Montfort
withdrew into London.

Flushed with their successes at Northampton and Rochester, the
royalists marched through Kent and Sussex, plundering and devastating
the lands of their enemies. Though masters of the open country, they
had to encounter the resistance of the Clare castles, and the solid
opposition of the Cinque Ports. Their presence on the south coast was
specially necessary, for Queen Eleanor, who had gone abroad, was
waiting, with an army of foreign mercenaries, on the Flemish coast, for
an opportunity of sailing to her husband's succour. The royal army was
hampered by want of provisions, and was only master of the ground on
which it was camped. As a first fruit of the alliance with Llewelyn,
Welsh soldiers lurked behind every hedge and hill, cut off stragglers,
intercepted convoys, and necessitated perpetual watchfulness. At last
the weary and hungry troops found secure quarters in Lewes, the centre
of the estates of Earl Warenne.

Montfort then marched southwards from the capital. Besides the baronial
retinues, a swarm of Londoners, eager for the fray, though unacc