The Battle of Lewes on 14th May 1264 was a significant event in the Second Barons War in which Henry III’s nobles rebelled against his authority under the leadership of Simon de Montfort.
The barons were victorious, forcing the King to give them concessions and to accept the Provisions of Oxford, giving baronial rights of representation in government. De Montfort’s success was short-lived, as he was killed at the Battle of Evesham the following year.
The Battle Weekend commemorates these momentous events and is the only such commemoration to stage a large-scale pitched battle in the streets of a town in the UK. The Royal and Rebel forces fight it out on the cobbles in a dramatic recreation of the thirteenth-century conflict.
