Adam and the prince

On Ascension Day (30 May) 1266, Adam Gurdun and his gang descended upon Shortgrave, a grange in Bedfordshire belonging to Dunstable priory. They stayed all day, looting the manor and eating up the stores, and then rode off taking all they could carry.

The outlaws rode back to their hideout in the forests of Alton in Hampshire, via Kimble and the Chiltern Hills. Adam’s men were in the habit of lying in wait for travellers between the town of Alton and Farnham Castle:

“Which was then in a valley rendered tortuous by well-wooded promontories, and because of this advantageous for robbers…” (William Rishanger)

The outlaws didn’t know it, but they were being tracked. Robert Chadd, a deserter, had told the Lord Edward of the location of Adam’s hideout. Guided by Chadd, the prince set off with his knights and discovered the outlaw camp at dusk, ‘about the setting of the sun’. There are several versions of what happened next. One account says that Edward challenged Adam to ‘take his arms and defend himself like a brave man’, after which the two engaged in single combat. Another says that Edward went berserk and charged at Adam without waiting for his men; the prince ended up stranded on the wrong side of a ditch and had to fight the outlaws all by himself until help arrived.

This might sound unlikely, but armoured princes with all the best gear and training were capable of doing some serious damage. Take the account of King Louis VII of France, when he found himself in a tight spot in Asia Minor:

“During the fighting the king lost his small and famous royal guard, but he remained in good heart and nimbly and courageously scaled the side of the mountain by gripping the tree roots that God had provided for his safety. The enemy climbed after him, hoping to capture him, and the archers in the distance continued to shoot arrows at him. But God willed that his cuirass should protect him from the arrows, and to prevent himself from being captured he defended the crag with his bloody sword, cutting off many heads and hands.”

It seems Edward and the outlaw knight fought for a while, until Adam suffered a ‘savage wound’ and had to yield. His life was spared, but Edward ordered all his followers to be hanged on the trees of the wood. This was the fate of penniless thieves, who could not afford to pay ransoms. One later account says that Edward promised Adam life and fortune if he surrendered.

The harsher reality was that Adam was sent off to Windsor as a prisoner. Edward cheerfully quipped he could provide company for Robert Ferrers, Earl of Derby, recently captured by royalist forces at Chesterfield. Adam was given to the queen, Eleanor of Provence, but was later able to buy back his estates at a stiff price. Meanwhile his men rotted on the trees of Alton wood.