But both were spent with long marching, and while the Earl, listening reluctantly to the request of the King who accompanied him, halted at Evesham for mass and dinner, the army of the younger Simon halted for the same purpose at Alcester.
[Sidenote: Battle of Evesham] "Those two dinners doleful were, alas!" sings Robert of Gloucester; for through the same memorable night Edward was hurrying back from the Severn by country cross-lanes to seize the fatal gap that lay between them.

As morning broke his army lay across the road that led northward from Evesham to Alcester.

Evesham lies in a loop of the river Avon where it bends to the south; and a height on which Edward ranged his troops closed the one outlet from it save across the river.

But a force had been thrown over the river under Mortimer to seize the bridges, and all retreat was thus finally cut off.

The approach of Edward's army called Simon to the front, and for the moment he took it for his son's.