Edward and the outlaw

On 26 May 1266 Lord Edward fought a duel against Sir Adam Gurdon. The fight took place near Alton Pass in the woods of Hampshire, a notorious ambush spot on the king's road between London and Southampton.

Adam Gurdun was one of the more attractive of Simon de Montfort's followers. He had been in rebellion in 1263, when he raised an army of peasants and local knights in Dorset and seized the royal castle of Dunster. From this remote stronghold, on the edge of Exmoor, he waged guerilla war for two years until Earl Simon's defeat and death at the battle of Evesham. Following that disaster, Adam abandoned Dorset and roved about the Midlands at the head of a band of 'free lances'.

The royalists were unable to deal with Adam until the spring of 1266, after they had retaken the Cinque Ports. Once that was done, Edward gathered a small army to hunt down Adam and his outlaw band. The future king was helped by a turncoat, Robert Chadd, who had deserted Adam and offered to lead Edward to the rebel camp in the woods. Guided by Chadd, Edward tracked his prey to Alton Wood. Adam and his followers, about eighty horsemen, had just returned from plundering a grange belonging to Dunstable priory.

The accounts of the duel are a little confused. Several say that Edward ordered his men to stand back so he could fight the outlaw chief in single combat. One, Thomas Wykes, says that Edward got stuck on the wrong side of a ditch and had to fight the outlaws by himself until his men climbed over. This might sound like hero-worship, but Edward was big and strong and vicious, and had all the best training and kit. Adam Gurdun, on the other hand, was at least twice the prince's age, while most of his followers were unarmoured serfs.

Even allowing for exaggeration, medieval aristocrats raised to war were pretty formidable. For instance, Louis VII of France – not renowned as an especially fighty king – is said to have single-handedly butchered a 'rabble' of Turks at Cadmus, slicing off heads and hands with his 'bloody sword'. Richard Marshal, son of the famous Earl William, staged an equally impressive last stand near Kildare in 1234 before he was unhorsed and captured. And so on.

All the accounts agree that Adam was eventually beaten into surrender. He was sent off in chains to Windsor, while his luckless followers were hanged on the trees of the wood. Edward quipped that Robert de Ferrers, already in custody at Windsor, now had a friend to keep him company.

Adam was given over to the queen, Eleanor of Provence, and allowed to buy back his estates at a stiff price. He was one of several former Montfortians who proved remarkably loyal to Edward I, serving frequently in Wales and on commissions of array. In 1297, aged about 85, he took charge of the defence of the Hampshire coast against French invasion. He eventually died in 1305, fabulously old for the time, his rebel career a distant memory.