POLITICAL HISTORY 



control of the castles and communications of the south, including Surrey. 

 We must look for a moment beyond the county itself to understand the 

 part which it played. The barons held London, the Cinque Ports, except 

 perhaps the castle of Hastings, certainly the castle of Dover, and also the 

 castles of Canterbury, Tonbridge and Blechingley. The king's friends 

 held Rochester, Farnham, Guildford, Reigate, and the castles of the mid- 

 Sussex ports, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes and Pevensey. The king's army 

 was in the midlands, a hostile country, and his object was to transfer the 

 war to the south and to master the coast sufficiently to enable his foreign 

 friends to communicate with and support him. His wife was gathering 

 an army abroad. The barons meantime were besieging Rochester, 

 hoping to complete their hold of the roads from the Kentish ports. The 

 king, probably really guided by his brother's advice or by that of Edward 

 his son, marched from the midlands as if to attack London. Turning 

 aside however from the city he seized Kingston Bridge. There was a 

 bridge at Kingston in the seventh year of Henry III., 1 very possibly for 

 long before. It was a most important passage, for there was no bridge 

 below it except London. Above it Staines Bridge, which is said to have 

 existed under Henry III., was the only other one in Surrey. 2 He took 

 a castle of de Clare's at Kingston. 3 But the de Clares did not hold land 

 at Kingston, and the castle was probably only a temporary fortification 

 erected to guard the crossing at this time. The threat to London or the 

 transference of the royal army to the southern counties caused de Mont- 

 fort and de Clare to raise the siege of Rochester and to retreat to London 

 before the king could come upon their rear. He skirted the hills south 

 of London, being at Croydon on April 27, the same day on which he 

 left Kingston. He marched probably by the old track, of which the 

 Ridgeway at Wimbledon is a part. He dispersed a small party of 

 baronial troops who had been left in observation of Rochester, took 

 de Warenne with him out of the fortress, stormed de Clare's castle of 

 Tonbridge, capturing the Countess of Gloucester, and went to the south 

 coast, where, with de Warenne's castles and lands as his base, he prepared 

 to establish himself to await the coming of his foreign allies. 



De Montfort and de Clare determined to fight before the king could 

 further strengthen himself. Their direct road for reaching him, and 

 indeed the only road to the coast now open to them, was the old Roman 

 road which ran near Croydon, through Godstone, near de Clare's castle 

 of Blechingley, and thence probably by two branches towards the mouth 

 of the Ouse on the one hand and Pevensey on the other, with perhaps 

 a branch westward to Shoreham also. The castles at or near the ex- 

 tremities of all these lines, at Pevensey, Lewes and Bramber, were in the 

 hands of the king's partisans. On the left flank of the barons as they 

 advanced was the castle of Tonbridge, now occupied by a considerable 

 royalist garrison, who were not far by a cross march from the baronial 

 line of communications in Surrey. It was a bold venture by the baronial 



1 Close Rolls, 7 Hen. III. m. iv. * There is no record of Chertsey Bridge so early. 



8 Hemingburgh, i. 313, E. Hut. S. ed. 



345 Z* 



