On a stormy morning near Evesham, Prince Edward (later Edward I) trapped Simon de Montfort's smaller force in a loop of the River Avon. The royalists, many wearing the same cross emblem as the rebels to sow confusion, overwhelmed and mutilated de Montfort's body afterward. The victory restored royal authority and effectively ended the baronial revolt against Henry III.
Simon de Montfort had, for a brief period, effectively ruled England and summoned one of the first parliaments to include commoners. But his alliance of barons fractured, and Prince Edward outmaneuvered him by force-marching his army through the night to cut off de Montfort's retreat at Evesham.
A violent thunderstorm broke over the battlefield as the two forces closed, and chroniclers described the sky turning black, which some saw as an omen. De Montfort, seeing the royal banners arrayed against him and realizing he had been trapped, is said to have remarked, "They have learned their skill from me. May the Lord have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are theirs."
The battle was less a fight than a massacre; de Montfort was killed and his corpse dismembered, his head and testicles sent as a grim trophy to a nobleman's wife. Yet paradoxically, the parliamentary institutions de Montfort had championed survived him and became a cornerstone of English governance.