The poem is taken to be written by a cleric closely associated with de Montfort's household—hence its many Biblical references and its knowledge of the baronial constitutional position.
[1] The first part of the poem, lines 1-484, is concerned with the actual battle, designating the (outnumbered) de Montfort as David to Henry III of England's Goliath.
[2] The second part (lines 485–968) reflect the constitutional debate, beginning with a statement of the royalist position that "the degenerate race of the English, which used to serve, inverting the natural order of things, ruled over the king and his children".
[5] The alternative the Song proposed was the action of the community of the realm (or at least of that part most involved with the kingdom and its laws: "Therefore the community of the realm take counsel, and let there be decreed what is the opinion of the commonalty, to whom their own laws are best known".
[6] The Song of Lewes also provided a telling description of Prince Edward: "He is a lion by his pride and ferocity; by his inconstancy and changeableness he is a pard".