Chapter V: Part 5

The king made no answer. Douglas spurred to the head of his troop, and rode off at speed. He neared the scene of conflict. Suddenly a change came. The horsemen appeared confused. Panic seemed to have stricken their ranks. In a moment away they went, in full flight, many of the horses with empty saddles, while the gallant troop of Scotch stood unmoved.

"Halt!" cried Douglas. "Randolph has gained the day. Since we are not soon enough to help him in the battle, do not let us lessen his glory by approaching the field." And the noble knight pulled rein and galloped back, unwilling to rob Randolph of any of the honor of his deed.

The English vanguard was now in sight. From it rode out a number of knights, eager to see the Scotch array more nearly. King Robert did the same. He was in armor, but was poorly mounted, riding only a little pony, with which he moved up and down the front of his army, putting his men in order. A golden crown worn over his helmet was his sole mark of distinction. The only weapon he carried was a steel battle-axe. As the English knights came nearer, he advanced a little to have a closer look at them.

Here seemed an opportunity for a quick and decisive blow. The Scottish king was at some distance in front of his men, his rank indicated by his crown, his horse a poor one, his hand empty of a spear. He might be ridden down by a sudden onset, victory to the English host be gained by a single blow, and great glory come to the bold knight that dealt it.

So thought one of the English knights, Sir Henry de Bohun by name. Putting spurs to his powerful horse, he galloped furiously upon the king, thinking to bear him easily to the ground. Bruce saw him coming, but made no movement of flight. He sat his pony warily, waiting the onset, until Bohun was nearly upon him with his spear. Then a quick touch to the rein, a sudden movement of the horse, and the lance-point sped past, missing its mark.

The Scotch army stood in breathless alarm; the English host in equally breathless expectation; it seemed for the moment as if Robert the Bruce were lost. But as De Bohun passed him, borne onward by the career of his steed, King Robert rose in his stirrups, swung his battle-axe in the air, and brought it down on his adversary's head with so terrible a blow that the iron helmet cracked as though it were a nutshell, and the knight fell from his horse, dead before he reached the ground.

King Robert turned and rode back, where he was met by a storm of reproaches from his nobles, who declared that he had done grave wrong in exposing himself to such danger, when the safety of the army depended on him. The king heard their reproaches in silence, his eyes fixed on the fractured edge of his weapon.

"I have broken my good battle-axe," was his only reply.

This incident ended the day. Night was at hand. Both armies rested on the field. But at an early hour of the next day, the 24th of June, the battle began, one of the critical battles of history.

Through the Scottish ranks walked barefooted the abbot of Inchaffray, exhorting the men to fight their best for freedom. The soldiers kneeled as he passed.

"They kneel down!" cried King Edward, who saw this. "They are asking forgiveness!"

"Yes," said a baron beside him, "but they ask it from God, not from us. These men will conquer, or die upon the field."

The battle began with a flight of English arrows. The archers, drawn up in close ranks, bent their bows, and poured their steel shafts as thickly as snow-flakes on the Scotch, many of whom were slain. Something must be done, and that speedily, or those notable bowmen would end the battle of themselves. Flesh and blood could not long bear that rain of cloth-yard shafts, with their points of piercing steel.

But Bruce had prepared for this danger. A body of well-mounted men-at-arms stood ready, and at the word of command rushed at full gallop upon the archers, cutting them down to right and left. Having no weapons but their bows and arrows, the archers broke and fled in utter confusion, hundreds of them being slain.

This charge of the Scotch cavalry was followed by an advance in force of the English horsemen, who came forward in such close and serried ranks and with so vast an array that it looked as if they would overwhelm the narrow lines before them. But suddenly trouble came upon this mighty mass of knights and men-at-arms. The seemingly solid earth gave way under their horses' feet, and down they went into the hidden pits, the horses hurled headlong, the riders flung helplessly upon the ground, from which the weight of their armor prevented their rising.

In an instant the Scotch footmen were among them, killing the defenceless knights, cutting and slashing among the confused mass of horsemen, breaking their fine display into irretrievable disorder. Bruce brought up his men in crowding multitudes. Through the English ranks they glided, stabbing horses, slaying their iron-clad riders, doubly increasing the confusion of that wild whirl of horsemen, whose trim and gallant ranks had been thrown into utter disarray.

The English fought as they could, though at serious disadvantage. But their numbers were so great that they might have crushed the Scotch under their mere weight but for one of these strange chances on which the fate of so many battles have depended. As has been said, the Scotch camp-followers had been sent back behind a hill. But on seeing that their side seemed likely to win the day, this rabble came suddenly crowding over the hill, eager for a share in the spoil.

It was a disorderly mob, but to the sorely-pressed English cavalry it seemed a new army which the Bruce had held in reserve. Suddenly stricken with panic, the horsemen turned and fled, each man for himself, as fast as their horses could carry them, the whole army breaking rank and rushing back in terror over the ground which they had lately traversed in such splendor of appearance and confidence of soul.

After them came the Scotch, cutting, slashing, killing, paving the earth with English slain. King Edward put spurs to his horse and fled in all haste from the fatal field. A gallant knight, Sir Giles de Argentine, who had won glory in Palestine, kept by him till he was out of the press. Then he drew rein.

"It is not my custom to fly," he said.

Turning his horse and shouting his war-cry of "Argentine! Argentine!" he rushed into the densest ranks of the Scotch, and was quickly killed.

Many others of high rank fell, valiantly fighting, men who knew not the meaning of flight. But the bulk of the army was in hopeless panic, flying for life, red lines constantly falling before the crimsoned claymores of the Scotch, until the very streams ran red with blood.

King Edward found war less than ever to his royal taste. He fled to Stirling Castle and begged admittance.

"I cannot grant it, my liege," answered Mowbray. "My compact with the Bruce obliges me to surrender the castle to-morrow. If you enter here it will be to become prisoner to the Scotch."

Edward turned and continued his flight, his route lying through the Torwood. After him came Lord Douglas, with a body of cavalry, pressing forward in hot haste. On his way he met a Scotch knight, Sir Lawrence Abernethy, with twenty horsemen, riding to join Edward's army.

"Edward's army? He has no army," cried Douglas. "The army is a rout. Edward himself is in flight. I am hot on his track."

"I am with you, then," cried Abernethy, changing sides on the instant, and joining in pursuit of the king whom he had just before been eager to serve.

Away went the frightened king. On came the furious pursuers. Not a moment was given Edward to draw rein or alight. The chase was continued as far as Dunbar, whose governor, the earl of March, opened his gates to the flying king, and shut them against his foes. Giving the forlorn monarch a small fishing-vessel, he set him on the seas for England, a few distressed attendants alone remaining to him of the splendid army with which he had marched to the conquest of Scotland.

Thus ended the battle which wrested Scotland from English hands, and made Robert Bruce king of the whole country. From the state of an exile, hunted with hounds, he had made himself a monarch, and one who soon gave the English no little trouble to protect their own borders.

_THE SIEGE OF CALAIS._

Terrible and long-enduring had been the siege of Calais. For a whole year it had continued, and still the sturdy citizens held the town. Outside was Edward III., with his English host, raging at the obstinacy of the French and at his own losses during the siege. Inside was John de Vienne, the unyielding governor, and his brave garrison. Outside was plenty; inside was famine; between were impregnable walls, which all the engines of Edward failed to reduce or surmount. No resource was left the English king but time and famine; none was left the garrison but the hope of wearying their foes or of relief by their king. The chief foe they fought against was starvation, an enemy against whom warlike arms were of no avail, whom only stout hearts and inflexible endurance could meet; and bravely they faced this frightful foe, those stout citizens of Calais.

An excellent harbor had Calais. It had long been the sheltering-place for the pirates that preyed on English commerce. But now no ship could leave or enter. The English fleet closed the passage by sea; the English army blocked all approach by land; the French king, whose great army had just been mercilessly slaughtered at Crecy, held aloof, nothing seemed to remain for Calais but death or surrender, and yet the valiant governor held out against his foes.

As the days went on and no relief came he made a census of the town, selected seventeen hundred poor and unsoldierly folks, "useless mouths," as he called them, and drove them outside the walls. Happily for them, King Edward was just then in a good humor. He gave the starving outcasts a good dinner and twopence in money each, and passed them through his ranks to make their way whither they would.

More days passed; food grew scarcer; there were more "useless mouths" in the town; John de Vienne decided to try this experiment again. Five hundred more were thrust from the gates. This time King Edward was not in a good humor. He bade his soldiers drive them back at sword's-point. The governor refused to admit them into the town. The whole miserable multitude died of starvation in sight of both camps. Such were the amenities of war in the Middle Ages, and in fact, of war in almost all ages, for mercy counts for little when opposed by military exigencies.

A letter was now sent to the French king, Philip de Valois, imploring succor. They had eaten, said the governor, their horses, their dogs, even the rats and mice; nothing remained but to eat one another. Unluckily, the English, not the French, king received this letter, and the English host grew more watchful than ever. But Philip de Valois needed not letters to tell him of the extremity of the garrison; he knew it well, and knew as well that haste alone could save him one of his fairest towns.

But he had suffered a frightful defeat at Crecy only five days before the siege of Calais began. Twelve hundred of his knights and thirty thousand of his foot-soldiers--a number equal to the whole English force--had been slain on the field; thousands of others had been taken prisoner; a new army was not easily to be raised. Months passed before Philip was able to come to the relief of the beleaguered stronghold. The Oriflamme, the sacred banner of the realm, never displayed but in times of dire extremity, was at length unfurled to the winds, and from every side the great vassels of the kingdom hastened to its support. France, ever prolific of men, poured forth her sons until she had another large army in the field. In July of 1347, eleven months after the siege began, the garrison, weary with long waiting, saw afar from their lookout towers the floating banners of France, and beneath them the faintly-seen forms of a mighty host.

The glad news spread through the town. The king was coming with a great army at his back! Their sufferings had not been in vain; they would soon be relieved, and those obstinate English be driven into the sea! Had a fleet of bread-ships broken through the blockade, and sailed with waving pennons into the harbor, the souls of the garrison could not have been more uplifted with joy.

Alas! it was a short-lived joy. Not many days elapsed before that great host faded before their eyes like a mist under the sun-rays, its banners lifting and falling as they slowly vanished into the distance, the gleam of its many steel-headed weapons dying out until not a point of light remained. Their gladness turned into redoubled misery as they saw themselves thus left to their fate; their king, who had marched up with such a gallant show of banners and arms, marching away without striking a blow. It was hard to believe it; but there they went, and there the English lay.

The soil of France had never seen anything quite so ludicrous--but for its tragic side--as this march of Philip the king. Two roads led to the town, but these King Edward, who was well advised of what was coming, had taken care to intrench and guard so strongly that it would prove no light nor safe matter to force a way through. Philip sent out his spies, learned what was before him, and, full of the memory of Crecy, decided that it would be too costly an experiment to attack those works. But were not those the days of chivalry? was not Edward famed for his chivalrous spirit? Surely he, as a noble and puissant knight, would not take an unfair advantage of his adversary. As a knight of renown he could not refuse to march into the open field, and trust to God and St. George of England for his defence, as against God and St. Denys of France.

Philip, thereupon, sent four of his principal lords to the English king, saying that he was there to do battle, as knight against knight, but _could find no way to come to him_. He requested, therefore, that a council should meet to fix upon a place of battle, where the difference between him and his cousin of England might be fairly decided.

Surely such a request had never before been made to an opposing general. Doubtless King Edward laughed in his beard at the naïve proposal, even if courtesy kept him from laughing in the envoys' faces. As regards his answer, we cannot quote its words, but its nature may be gathered from the fact that Philip soon after broke camp, and marched back over the road by which he had come, saying to himself, no doubt, that the English king lacked knightly honor, or he would not take so unfair an advantage of a foe. And thus ended this strange episode in war, Philip marching away with all the bravery of his host, Edward grimly turning again to the town which he held in his iron grasp.

The story of the siege of Calais concludes in a highly dramatic fashion. It was a play presented upon a great stage, but with true dramatic accessories of scenery and incident. These have been picturesquely preserved by the old chroniclers, and are well worthy of being again presented. Froissart has told the tale in his own inimitable fashion. We follow others in telling it in more modern phrase.

When the people of Calais saw that they were deserted by their king, hope suddenly fled from their hearts. Longer defence meant but deeper misery. Nothing remained but surrender. Stout-hearted John de Vienne, their commander, seeing that all was at an end, mounted the walls with a flag of truce, and made signs that he wished to speak with some person of the besieging host. Word of this was brought to the English king, and he at once sent Sir Walter de Manny and Sir Basset as his envoys to confer with the bearer of the flag. The governor looked down upon them from the walls with sadness in his eyes and the lines of starvation on his face.

"Sirs," he said, "valiant knights you are, as I well know. As for me, I have obeyed the command of the king, my master, by doing all that lay in my power to hold for him this town. Now succor has failed us, and food we have none. We must all die of famine unless your noble and gentle king will have mercy on us, and let us go free, in exchange for the town and all the goods it contains, of which there is great abundance."

"We know something of the intention of our master," answered Sir Walter. "He will certainly not let you go free, but will require you to surrender without conditions, some of you to be held to ransom, others to be put to death. Your people have put him to such despite by their bitter obstinacy, and caused him such loss of treasure and men, that he is sorely grieved against them."

"You make it too hard for us," answered the governor. "We are here a small company of knights and squires, who have served our king to our own pain and misery, as you would serve yours in like case; but rather than let the least lad in the town suffer more than the greatest of us, we will endure the last extremity of pain. We beg of you to plead for us with your king for pity, and trust that, by God's grace, his purpose will change, and his gentleness yield us pardon."

The envoys, much moved by the wasted face and earnest appeal of the governor, returned with his message to the king, whom they found in an unrelenting mood. He answered them that he would make no other terms. The garrison must yield themselves to his pleasure. Sir Walter answered with words as wise as they were bold,--

"I beg you to consider this more fully," he said, "for you may be in the wrong, and make a dangerous example from which some of us may yet suffer. We shall certainly not very gladly go into any fortress of yours for defence, if you should put any of the people of this town to death after they yield; for in like case the French will certainly deal with us in the same fashion."

Others of the lords present sustained Sir Walter in this opinion, and presented the case so strongly that the king yielded.

"I will not be alone against you all," he said, after an interval of reflection. "This much will I yield. Go, Sir Walter, and say to the governor that all the grace I can give him is this. Let him send me six of the chief burgesses of the town, who shall come out bareheaded, barefooted, and barelegged, clad only in their shirts, and with halters around their necks, with the keys of the tower and castle in their hands. These must yield themselves fully to my will. The others I will take to mercy."

Sir Walter returned with this message, saying that no hope of better terms could be had of the king.

"Then I beg you to wait here," said Sir John, "till I can take your message to the townsmen, who sent me here, and bring you their reply."

Into the town went the governor, where he sought the market-place, and soon the town-bell was ringing its mustering peal. Quickly the people gathered, eager, says Jehan le Bel, "to hear their good news, for they were all mad with hunger." Sir John told them his message, saying,--

"No other terms are to be had, and you must decide quickly, for our foes ask a speedy answer."

His words were followed by weeping and much lamentation among the people. Some of them must die. Who should it be? Sir John himself shed tears for their extremity. It was not in his heart to name the victims to the wrath of the English king.

At length the richest burgess of the town, Eustace de St. Pierre, stepped forward and said, in tones of devoted resolution,--

"My friends and fellows, it would be great grief to let you all die by famine or otherwise, when there is a means given to save you. Great grace would he win from our Lord who could keep this people from dying. For myself, I have trust in God that if I save this people by my death I shall have pardon for my faults. Therefore, I offer myself as the first of the six, and am willing to put myself at the mercy of King Edward."

He was followed by another rich burgess, Jehan D'Aire by name, who said, "I will keep company with my gossip Eustace."

Jacques de Wisant and his brother, Peter de Wisant, both rich citizens, next offered themselves, and two others quickly made up the tale. Word was taken to Sir Walter of what had been done, and the victims apparelled themselves as the king had commanded.

It was a sad procession that made its way to the gate of the town. Sir John led the way, the devoted six followed, while the remainder of the towns-people made their progress woful with tears and cries of grief. Months of suffering had not caused them deeper sorrow than to see these their brave hostages marching to death.

The gate opened. Sir John and the six burgesses passed through. It closed behind them. Sir Walter stood waiting.

"I deliver to you, as captain of Calais," said Sir John, "and by the consent of all the people of the town, these six burgesses, who I swear to you are the richest and most honorable burgesses of Calais. Therefore, gentle knight, I beg you pray the king to have mercy on them, and grant them their lives."

"What the king will do I cannot say," answered Sir Walter, "but I shall do for them the best I can."

The coming of the hostages roused great feeling in the English host. Their pale and wasted faces, their miserable state, the fate which threatened them, roused pity and sympathy in the minds of many, and not the least in that of the queen, who was with Edward in the camp, and came with him and his train of nobles as they approached the place to which the hostages had been led.

When they were brought before the king the burgesses kneeled and piteously begged his grace, Eustace saying,--

"Gentle king, here be we six, who were burgesses of Calais, and great merchants. We bring you the keys of the town and the castle, and submit ourselves fully to your will, to save the remainder of our people, who have already suffered great pain. We beseech you to have mercy and pity on us through your high nobleness."

His words brought tears from many persons there present, for naught so piteous had ever come before them. But the king looked on them with vindictive eyes, and for some moments stood in lowering silence. Then he gave the harsh command to take these men and strike off their heads.

At this cruel sentence the lords of his council crowded round the king, begging for compassion, but he turned a deaf ear to their pleadings. Sir Walter de Manny then said, his eyes fixed in sorrow on the pale and trembling victims,--

"Noble sire, for God's sake restrain your wrath. You have the renown of all gentleness and nobility; I pray you do not a thing that can lay a blemish on your fair fame, or give men cause to speak of you despitefully. Every man will say it is a great cruelty to put to death such honest persons, who of their own will have put themselves into your hands to save the remainder of their people."

These words seemed rather to heighten than to soften the king's wrath. He turned away fiercely, saying,--

"Hold your peace, Master Walter; it shall be as I have said.--Call the headsman. They of Calais have made so many of my men to die, that they must die themselves."

The queen had listened sadly to these words, while tears flowed freely from her gentle eyes. On hearing the harsh decision of her lord and king, she could restrain herself no longer. With streaming eyes she cast herself on her knees at his feet, and turned up to him her sweet, imploring face.

"Gentle sir," she said, "since that day in which I passed over sea in great peril, as you know, I have asked no favor from you. Now I pray and beseech you with folded hands, in honor of the Son of the Virgin Mary, and for the love which you bear me, that you will have mercy on these poor men."

The king looked down upon her face, wet with tears, and stood silent for a few minutes. At length he spoke.

"Ah, dame, I would you had been in some other place this day. You pray so tenderly that I cannot refuse you. Though it is much against my will, nevertheless take them, I give them to you to use as you will."

The queen, filled with joy at these words of grace and mercy, returned glad thanks to the king, and bade those near her to take the halters from the necks of the burgesses and clothe them. Then she saw that a good dinner was set before them, and gave each of them six nobles, afterwards directing that they should be taken in safety through the English army and set at liberty.

Thus ended that memorable siege of Calais, with one of the most dramatic incidents which history has to tell. For more than two centuries the captured city remained in English hands, being theirs long after they had lost all other possessions on the soil of France. At length, in 1558, in the reign of Queen Mary, it was taken by the French, greatly to the chagrin of the queen, who is reported to have said, "When I die, you will find the word _Calais_ written on my heart."

_THE BLACK PRINCE AT POITIERS._

Through the centre of France marched the Black Prince, with a small but valiant army. Into the heart of that fair kingdom had he come, ravaging the land as he went, leaving misery and destitution at every step, when suddenly across his line of march there appeared an unlooked-for obstacle. The plundering marches of the English had roused the French. In hosts they had gathered round their king, marched in haste to confront the advancing foe, and on the night of Saturday, September 17, 1356, the English found their line of retreat cut off by what seemed an innumerable array of knights and men-at-arms, filling the whole country in their front as far as eye could see, closing with a wall of hostile steel their only road to safety.

The danger was great. For two years the Black Prince and his army of foragers had held France at their mercy, plundering to their hearts' content. The year before, the young prince had led his army up the Garonne into--as an ancient chronicler tells us--"what was before one of the fat countries of the world, the people good and simple, who did not know what war was; indeed, no war had been waged against them till the prince came. The English and Gascons found the country full and gay, the rooms adorned with carpets and draperies, the caskets and chests full of fair jewels. But nothing was safe from these robbers. They, and especially the Gascons, who are very greedy, carried off everything." When they reached Bordeaux their horses were "so laden with spoils that they could hardly move."

Again the prince had led his army of freebooters through France, but he was not to march out again with the same impunity as before. King John, who had just come to the throne, hastily gathered an army and marched to his country's relief. On the night named, the Black Prince, marching briskly forward with his small force of about eight thousand men, found himself suddenly in face of an overwhelming array of not less than sixty thousand of the best fighting blood of France.

The case seemed hopeless. Surrender appeared the only resource of the English. Just ten years before, at Crecy, Edward III., in like manner driven to bay, had with a small force of English put to rout an overwhelming body of French. In that affair the Black Prince, then little more than a boy, had won the chief honor of the day. But it was beyond hope that so great a success could again be attained. It seemed madness to join battle with such a disproportion of numbers. Yet the prince remembered Crecy, and simply said, on being told how mighty was the host of the French,--

"Well, in the name of God, let us now study how we shall fight with them at our advantage."

Small as was the English force, it had all the advantages of position. In its front were thick and strong hedges. It could be approached only by a deep and narrow lane that ran between vineyards. In the rear was higher ground, on which the small body of men-at-arms were stationed. The bowmen lay behind the hedges and in the vineyards, guarding the lane of approach. Here they lay that night, awaiting the fateful morrow.

With the morning's light the French army was drawn up in lines of assault. "Then trumpets blew up through the host," says gossipy old Froissart, "and every man mounted on horseback and went into the field, where they saw the king's banner wave with the wind. There might have been seen great nobles of fair harness and rich armory of banners and pennons; for there was all the flower of France; there was none durst abide at home, without he would be shamed forever."

It was Sunday morning, a suitable day for the church to take part in the affair. Those were times in which the part of the church was apt to be played with sword and spear, but on this occasion it bore the olive-branch. At an early hour the cardinal of Perigord appeared on the scene, eager to make peace between the opposing forces. The pope had commissioned him to this duty.

"Sir," he said, kneeling before King John, "ye have here all the flower of your realm against a handful of Englishmen, as regards your company. And, sir, if ye may have them accorded to you without battle, it shall be more profitable and honorable than to adventure this noble chivalry. I beg you let me, in the name of God and humility, ride to the prince and show him in what danger ye have him in."

"That pleases me well," answered the king. "Go; but return again shortly."

The cardinal thereupon rode to the English side and accosted the prince, whom he found on foot among his men. A courteous greeting passed.

"Fair son," said the envoy of peace, "if you and your council know justly the power of the French king, you will suffer me to treat for peace between you."

"I would gladly fall to any reasonable way," answered the prince, "if but my honor and that of my people be saved."

Some further words passed, and the cardinal rode again to the king.

"Sir," he said, "there seems hope of making peace with your foes, nor need you make haste to fight them, for they cannot flee if they would. I beg you, therefore, to forbear for this day, and put off the battle till to-morrow sunrise. That may give time to conclude a truce."

This advice was not pleasing to the king, who saw no wisdom in delay, but the cardinal in the end persuaded him to consent to a day's respite. The conference ended, the king's pavilion of red silk was raised, and word sent through the army that the men might take their ease, except the advanced forces of the constable and marshal.

All that day the cardinal kept himself busy in earnest efforts to effect an agreement. Back and forth he rode between the tents of the king and the prince, seeking to make terms of peace or surrender. Offer after offer was made and refused. The king's main demand was that four of the principal Englishmen should be placed in his hands, to deal with as he would, and all the others yield themselves prisoners. This the prince refused. He would agree to return all the castles and towns he had taken, surrender all prisoners, and swear not to bear arms against the French for seven years; this and no more he would offer.

King John would listen to no such terms. He had the English at his mercy, as he fully believed, and it was for him, not for them, to make terms. He would be generous. The prince and a hundred of his knights alone should yield themselves prisoners. The rest might go free. Surely this was a most favorable offer, pleaded the cardinal. But so thought not the Black Prince, who refused it absolutely, and the cardinal returned in despair to Poitiers.

That day of respite was not wasted by the prince. What he lacked in men he must make up in work. He kept his men busily employed, deepening the dikes, strengthening the hedges, making all the preparations that skill suggested and time permitted.

The sun rose on Monday morning, and with its first beams the tireless peace-maker was again on horse, with the forlorn hope that the bloody fray might still be avoided. He found the leaders of the hosts in a different temper from that of the day before. The time for words had gone; that for blows had come.

"Return whither ye will," was King John's abrupt answer; "bring hither no more words of treaty or peace; and if you love yourself depart shortly."

To the prince rode the good cardinal, overcome with emotion.

"Sir," he pleaded, "do what you can for peace. Otherwise there is no help from battle, for I can find no spirit of accord in the French king."

"Nor here," answered the prince, cheerfully. "I and all my people are of the same intent,--and God help the right!"

The cardinal turned and rode away, sore-hearted with pity. As he went the prince turned to his men.

"Though," he said, "we be but a small company as compared with the power of our foes, let not that abash us; for victory lies not in the multitude of people, but goes where God sends it. If fortune makes the day ours, we shall be honored by all the world; but if we die, the king, my father, and your good friends and kinsmen shall revenge us. Therefore, sirs and comrades, I require you to do your duty this day; for if God be pleased, and Saint George aid, this day you shall see me a good knight."

The battle began with a charge of three hundred French knights up the narrow lane. No sooner had they appeared than the vineyards and hedges rained arrows upon them, killing and wounding knights and horses; the animals, wild with pain, flinging and trampling their masters; the knights, heavy with armor and disabled by wounds, strewing that fatal lane with their bodies; while still the storm of steel-pointed shafts dealt death in their midst.

The horsemen fell back in dismay, breaking the thick ranks of footmen behind them, and spreading confusion wherever they appeared. At this critical moment a body of English horse, who were posted on a little hill to the right, rushed furiously upon the French flank. At the same time the archers poured their arrows upon the crowded and disordered mass, and the prince, seeing the state of the enemy, led his men-at-arms vigorously upon their broken ranks.

"St. George for Guienne!" was the cry, as the horsemen spurred upon the panic-stricken masses of the French.

"Let us push to the French king's station; there lies the heart of the battle," said Lord Chandos to the prince. "He is too valiant to fly, I fancy. If we fight well, I trust, by the grace of God and St. George, we shall have him. You said we should see you this day a good knight."

"You shall not see me turn back," said the prince. "Advance, banner, in the name of God and St. George!"

On went the banner; on came the array of fighting knights; into the French host they pressed deeper and deeper, King John their goal. The field was strewn with dead and dying; panic was spreading in widening circles through the French army; the repulsed horsemen were in full flight and thousands of those behind them broke and followed. King John fought with knightly courage, his son Philip, a boy of sixteen, by his side, aiding him by his cries of warning. But nothing could withstand the English onset. Some of his defenders fell, others fled; he would have fallen himself but for the help of a French knight, in the English service.

"Sir, yield you," he called to the king, pressing between him and his assailants.

"To whom shall I yield?" asked the king. "Where is my cousin, the prince of Wales?"

"He is not here, sir. Yield, and I will bring you to him."

"And who are you?"

"I am Denis of Morbecque, a knight of Artois. I serve the English king, for I am banished from France, and all I had has been forfeited."

"Then I yield me to you," said the king, handing him his right gauntlet.

Meanwhile the rout of the French had become complete. On all sides they were in flight; on all sides the English were in pursuit. The prince had fought until he was overcome with fatigue.

"I see no more banners or pennons of the French," said Sir John Chandos, who had kept beside him the day through. "You are sore chafed. Set your banner high in this bush, and let us rest."

The prince's pavilion was set up, and drink brought him. As he quaffed it, he asked if any one had tidings of the French king.

"He is dead or taken," was the answer. "He has not left the field."

Two knights were thereupon sent to look for him, and had not got far before they saw a troop of men-at-arms wearily approaching. In their midst was King John, afoot and in peril, for they had taken him from Sir Denis, and were quarrelling as to who owned him.

"Strive not about my taking," said the king. "Lead me to the prince. I am rich enough to make you all rich."

The brawling went on, however, until the lords who had been sent to seek him came near.

"What means all this, good sirs?" they asked. "Why do you quarrel?"

"We have the French king prisoner," was the answer; "and there are more than ten knights and squires who claim to have taken him and his son."

The envoys at this bade them halt and cease their clamor, on pain of their heads, and taking the king and his son from their midst they brought him to the tent of the prince of Wales, where the exalted captives were received with all courtesy.

The battle, begun at dawn, was ended by noon. In that time was slain "all the flower of France; and there was taken, with the king and the Lord Philip his son, seventeen earls, besides barons, knights, and squires."

The men returning from the pursuit brought in twice as many prisoners as their own army numbered in all. So great was the host of captives that many of them were ransomed on the spot, and set free on their word of honor to return to Bordeaux with their ransom before Christmas.

The prince and his comrades had breakfasted that morning in dread; they supped that night in triumph. The supper party, as described by Froissart, is a true picture of the days of chivalry,--in war all cruelty, in peace all courtesy; ruthless in the field, gentle and ceremonious at the feast. Thus the picturesque old chronicler limns it,--

"The prince made the king and his son, the Lord James of Bourbon, the Lord John d'Artois, the earl of Tancarville, the Lord d'Estampes, the Earl Dammartyn, the earl of Greville, and the earl of Pertney, to sit all at one board, and other lords, knights, and squires at other tables; and always the prince served before the king as humbly as he could, and would not sit at the king's board, for any desire that the king could make; but he said he was not sufficient to sit at the table with so great a prince as the king was; but then he said to the king, 'Sir, for God's sake, make none evil nor heavy cheer, though God did not this day consent to follow your will; for, sir, surely the king my father shall bear you as much honor and amity as he may do, and shall accord with you so reasonably, and ye shall ever be friends together after; and, sir, methinks you ought to rejoice, though the journey be not as you would have had it; for this day ye have won the high renown of prowess, and have passed this day in valiantness all other of your party. Sir, I say not this to mock you; for all that be on our party, that saw every man's deeds, are plainly accorded by true sentence to give you the prize and chaplet."

So ended that great day at Poitiers. It ended miserably enough for France, the routed soldiery themselves becoming bandits to ravage her, and the people being robbed for ransom till the whole realm was given over to misery and woe.

It ended famously for England, another proud chaplet of victory being added to the crown of glory of Edward III. and his valiant son, the great day at Crecy being matched with as great a day at Poitiers. Agincourt was still to come, the three being the most notable instances in history of the triumph of a handful of men well led over a great but feebly-handled host. The age of knighthood and chivalry reached its culmination on these three memorable days. It ended at Agincourt, "villanous gunpowder" sounding its requiem on that great field. Cannon, indeed, had been used by Edward III. in his wars; but not until after this date did firearms banish the spear and bow from the "tented field."

_WAT TYLER AND THE MEN OF KENT._

In that year of woe and dread, 1348, the Black Death fell upon England. Never before had so frightful a calamity been known; never since has it been equalled. Men died by millions. All Europe had been swept by the plague, as by a besom of destruction, and now England became its prey. The population of the island at that period was not great,--some three or four millions in all. When the plague had passed more than half of these were in their graves, and in many places there were hardly enough living to bury the dead.

We call it a calamity. It is not so sure that it was. Life in England at that day, for the masses of the people, was not so precious a boon that death had need to be sorely deplored. A handful of lords and a host of laborers, the latter just above the state of slavery, constituted the population. Many of the serfs had been set free, but the new liberty of the people was not a state of unadulterated happiness. War had drained the land. The luxury of the nobles added to the drain. The patricians caroused. The plebeians suffered. The Black Death came. After it had passed, labor, for the first time in English history, was master of the situation.

Laborers had grown scarce. Many men refused to work. The first general strike for higher wages began. In the country, fields were left untilled and harvests rotted on the ground. "The sheep and cattle strayed through the fields and corn, and there were none left who could drive them." In the towns, craftsmen refused to work at the old rate of wages. Higher wages were paid, but the scarcity of food made higher prices, and men were little better off. Many laborers, indeed, declined to work at all, becoming tramps,--what were known as "sturdy beggars,"--or haunting the forests as bandits.

The king and parliament sought to put an end to this state of affairs by law. An ordinance was passed whose effect would have made slaves of the people. Every man under sixty, not a land-owner or already at work (says this famous act), must work for the employer who demands his labor, and for the rate of wages that prevailed two years before the plague. The man who refused should be thrown into prison. This law failed to work, and sterner measures were passed. The laborer was once more made a serf, bound to the soil, his wage-rate fixed by parliament. Law after law followed, branding with a hot iron on the forehead being finally ordered as a restraint to runaway laborers. It was the first great effort made by the class in power to put down an industrial revolt.

The peasantry and the mechanics of the towns resisted. The poor found their mouth-piece in John Ball, "a mad priest of Kent," as Froissart calls him. Mad his words must have seemed to the nobles of the land. "Good people," he declared, "things will never go well in England so long as goods be not in common, and so long as there be villains and gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords greater folk than we? On what grounds have they deserved it? Why do they hold us in serfage? If we all came of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in their pride? They are clothed in velvet, and warm in their furs and their ermines, while we are covered with rags. They have wine and spices and fair bread; and we have oat-cake and straw, and water to drink. They have leisure and fine houses; we have pain and labor, the rain and the wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and of our toil that these men hold their state."

So spoke this early socialist. So spoke his hearers in the popular rhyme of the day:

"When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"

So things went on for years, growing worse year by year, the fire of discontent smouldering, ready at a moment to burst into flame.

At length the occasion came. Edward the Third died, but he left an ugly heritage of debt behind him. His useless wars in France had beggared the crown. New money must be raised. Parliament laid a poll-tax on every person in the realm, the poorest to pay as much as the wealthiest.

Here was an application of the doctrine of equality of which the people did not approve. The land was quickly on fire from sea to sea. Crowds of peasants gathered and drove the tax-gatherers with clubs from their homes. Rude rhymes passed from lip to lip, full of the spirit of revolt. All over southern England spread the sentiment of rebellion.

The incident which set flame to the fuel was this. At Dartford, in Kent, lived one Wat Tyler, a hardy soldier who had served in the French wars. To his house, in his absence, came a tax-collector, and demanded the tax on his daughter. The mother declared that she was not taxable, being under fourteen years of age. The collector thereupon seized the child in an insulting manner, so frightening her that her screams reached the ears of her father, who was at work not far off. Wat flew to the spot, struck one blow, and the villanous collector lay dead at his feet.

Within an hour the people of the town were in arms. As the story spread through the country, the people elsewhere rose and put themselves under the leadership of Wat Tyler. In Essex was another party in arms, under a priest called Jack Straw. Canterbury rose in rebellion, plundered the palace of the archbishop, and released John Ball from the prison to which this "mad" socialist had been consigned. The revolt spread like wildfire. County after county rose in insurrection. But the heart of the rebellion lay in Kent, and from that county marched a hundred thousand men, with Wat Tyler at their head, London their goal.

To Blackheath they came, the multitude swelling as it marched. Every lawyer they met was killed. The houses of the stewards were burned, and the records of the manor courts flung into the flames. A wild desire for liberty and equality animated the mob, yet they did no further harm. All travellers were stopped and made to swear that they would be true to King Richard and the people. The king's mother fell into their hands, but all the harm done her was the being made to kiss a few rough-bearded men who vowed loyalty to her son.

The young king--then a boy of sixteen--addressed them from a boat in the river. But his council would not let him land, and the peasants, furious at his distrust, rushed upon London, uttering cries of "Treason!" The drawbridge of London Bridge had been raised, but the insurgents had friends in the city who lowered it, and quickly the capital was swarming with Wat Tyler's infuriated men.

Soon the prisons were broken open, and their inmates had joined the insurgent ranks. The palace of the Duke of Lancaster, the Savoy, the most beautiful in England, was quickly in flames. That nobleman, detested by the people, had fled in all haste to Scotland. The Temple, the head-quarters of the lawyers, was set on fire, and its books and documents reduced to ashes. The houses of the foreign merchants were burned. There was "method in the madness" of the insurgents. They sought no indiscriminate ruin. The lawyers and the foreigners were their special detestation. Robbery was not permitted. One thief was seen with a silver vessel which he had stolen from the Savoy. He and his plunder were flung together into the flames. They were, as they boasted, "seekers of truth and justice, not thieves or robbers."

Thus passed the first day of the peasant occupation of London, the people of the town in terror, the insurgents in subjection to their leaders, and still more so to their own ideas. Many of them were drunk, but no outrages were committed. The influence of one terrible example repressed all theft. Never had so orderly a mob held possession of so great a city.

On the second day, Wat Tyler and a band of his followers forced their way into the Tower. The knights of the garrison were panic-stricken, but no harm was done them. The peasants, in rough good humor, took them by the beards, and declared that they were now equals, and that in the time to come they would be good friends and comrades.

But this rude jollity ceased when Archbishop Sudbury, who had been active in preventing the king from landing from the Thames, and the ministers who were concerned in the levy of the poll-tax, fell into their hands. Short shrift was given these detested officials. They were dragged to Tower Hill, and their heads struck off.

"King Richard and the people!" was the rallying cry of the insurgents. It went ill with those who hesitated to subscribe to this sentiment. So evidently were the peasants friendly to the king that the youthful monarch fearlessly sought them at Mile End, and held a conference with sixty thousand of them who lay there encamped.

"I am your king and lord, good people," he boldly addressed them; "what will ye?"

"We will that you set us free forever," was the answer of the insurgents, "us and our lands; and that we be never named nor held for serfs."

"I grant it," said the king.