The battles of Jaffa and Evesham

Today is the date of two very significant medieval battles, with two very different outcomes. On August 4th, 1192, the second battle of Jaffa was fought. Four days earlier, Richard I had forced his way onto the beach at Jaffa, carrying a sword in one hand, a crossbow in the other. He and his men managed to get inside the city and recaptured it from the Saracens, his unlikely success due in part to the fact that the Saracens were occupied in looting the town. The walls had been seriously damaged in the assault, though, so Richard and his men encamped outside the city. When Saladin learned of this, he saw a golden opportunity, for if he could kill or capture the English king, his war would be won. But a Genoese archer had risen early to answer nature’s call and saw the glint of the rising sun on the shields of the approaching Saracen army; sometimes history can be affected by something so simple as a full bladder. Richard quickly mobilized an inspired defense, having his spearmen anchor the shafts of their weapons into the ground, with crossbowmen standing behind them, sheltered by their shields, all with their weapons spanned so that once a man shot, he’d be passed another crossbow, allowing the fire to be continuous.
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Lionheart, page 546
Their shields and spears firmly rooted in the dry Outremer dirt, their backs protected by the sand cliffs leading down to the sea, the men turned toward their king, astride a restive black stallion. With all eyes upon him, Richard tore his own gaze from the dust clouds being kicked up to the east; time was running out. Raising his hand for quiet, he began to speak. “I know you are fearful. But we are not defeated. If we hold fast, we can prevail over our foes. Yet to do that, every man must do his part. If even one of you gives in to your fears and tries to flee, you doom us all. Rather than let that happen, I will personally kill anyone who seeks to run.”
He paused to let his warning sink in. “We are all going to die, but in God’s time, not Sasladin’s. For most people, their deaths have no meaning. If we die this day, we die for the Lord Christ and the Holy Sepulchre. Can there be a greater glory than that?” Again, he paused, his gaze moving intently from man to man. “When we took the cross, we pledged our lives. In return, we were promised remission of our earthly transgressions. It does not matter how dark your sins are—and I’d wager some of them are very dark indeed.” As he’d hoped, that bit of gallows humor elicited some tight smiles. “So our salvation is assured. But our defeat is not. If we hold firm, they will not be able to penetrate our defenses. You are brave men and I am proud to fight alongside you. I know you can do this. You need only have faith—in God, in your own courage, and in me.”
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Despite being greatly outnumbered, Richard’s men did hold firm and time and time again the Saracen charges failed, the men veering off at the last moment rather than impaling their horses on that barbed wall of spears. After six hours, they were understandably exhausted and discouraged and it was then that Richard took the offensive, he and his small band of knights charging into the thick of the enemy army. Against all odds, they prevailed. It was his twin victories at Jaffa that did so much to burnish the legend of the Lionheart.
The second battle took place on August 4, 1265, when Simon de Montfort and his men were trapped at Evesham by Prince Edward, who’d ambushed Simon’s son Bran just four days earlier. I did a post about that on August 1st.
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Falls the Shadow, page 516-517
They crowded into the churchyard just east of the bell tower, pressing in so they might hear Simon speak. A hush slowly fell as he reined in his stallion before them, looked out upon their upturned, ashen faces.
“Scriptures say that man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. That you know right well. You know, too, that death comes to us all, to the king in his palace and the crofter in his hut. All a man can do is hope to face it with courage and a measure of grace. Most of us shall die this day, for we meet a foe twice our numbers, and there will be no quarter given. But we do not die in vain, that I can promise you.”
Simon paused, drawing a steadying breath as lightning seared the sky above their heads. “You’ve every right to ask why it must be. I would that I had an answer for you. But the Ways of the Almighty are not for mortal men to fathom. The Holy Land is soaked with the blood of true believers, those who died for Christ before the walls of Jerusalem. Because they died, does that mean their faith was false? So, too, is our cause just, and it will triumph. The men of England will cherish their liberties all the more, knowing that we died for them.”
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And die they did, even the squires. One chronicler would write, “Such was the murder of Evesham, for battle it was none.” As I said, two very different battles, but sharing two common threads. Their thinking was very medieval, and the events proved yet again that reality can trump fiction, at least when writing of the Plantagenets. I would never have dared to invent the scene in which Richard rode his stallion alone along the Saracen lines, offering a challenge to single combat that none of Saladin’s warriors would accept, and had the story been reported by crusader chroniclers, I’d still have dismissed it as too unlikely to be true. But it came from two Saracen chroniclers. As for Evesham, what writer would have dared to have a savage storm break out at the height of the battle? Or to have Simon’s son Bran reach Evesham too late to save his father or brothers, but just in time to see Simon’s head on a pike?
I’ve been told by readers over the years that they found Simon de Montfort’s death at Evesham profoundly moving. I found the greatest challenge was not in writing of the battle, but of the aftermath—writing about the pain and shock and fear of his wife and daughter and surviving sons when they learned what had occurred on that hot August afternoon in 1265. Whenever men die in combat, hearts are broken and widows and orphans left to grieve. That aspect of war is tragically timeless.