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Title: The Last Of The Barons, Volume 12.

Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Release Date: March 2005  [EBook #7726]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on May 6, 2003]

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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST OF THE BARONS, V12 ***


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BOOK XII.

THE BATTLE OF BARNET.




CHAPTER I.

A KING IN HIS CITY HOPES TO RECOVER HIS REALM--A WOMAN IN HER CHAMBER
FEARS TO FORFEIT HER OWN.

Edward and his army reached St. Alban's.  Great commotion, great joy,
were in the Sanctuary of Westminster!  The Jerusalem Chamber, therein,
was made the high council-hall of the friends of York.  Great
commotion, great terror, were in the city of London.  Timid Master
Stokton had been elected mayor; horribly frightened either to side
with an Edward or a Henry, timid Master Stokton feigned or fell ill.
Sir Thomas Cook, a wealthy and influential citizen, and a member of
the House of Commons, had been appointed deputy in his stead.  Sir
Thomas Cook took fright also, and ran away.  [Fabyan.]  The power of
the city thus fell into the hands of Ureswick, the Recorder, a zealous
Yorkist.  Great commotion, great scorn, were in the breasts of the
populace, as the Archbishop of York, hoping thereby to rekindle their
loyalty, placed King Henry on horseback, and paraded him through the
streets from Chepeside to Walbrook, from Walbrook to St. Paul's; for
the news of Edward's arrival, and the sudden agitation and excitement
it produced on his enfeebled frame, had brought upon the poor king one
of the epileptic attacks to which he had been subject from childhood,
and which made the cause of his frequent imbecility; and, just
recovered from such a fit,--his eyes vacant, his face haggard, his
head drooping,--the spectacle of such an antagonist to the vigorous
Edward moved only pity in the few and ridicule in the many.  Two
thousand Yorkist gentlemen were in the various Sanctuaries; aided and
headed by the Earl of Essex, they came forth armed and clamorous,
scouring the streets, and shouting, "King Edward!" with impunity.
Edward's popularity in London was heightened amongst the merchants by
prudent reminiscences of the vast debts he had incurred, which his
victory only could ever enable him to repay to his good citizens.
[Comines.]  The women, always, in such a movement, active partisans,
and useful, deserted their hearths to canvass all strong arms and
stout hearts for the handsome woman-lover.  [Comines.]  The Yorkist
Archbishop of Canterbury did his best with the ecclesiastics, the
Yorkist Recorder his best with the flat-caps.  Alwyn, true to his
anti-feudal principles, animated all the young freemen to support the
merchant-king, the favourer of commerce, the man of his age!  The city
authorities began to yield to their own and the general metropolitan
predilections.  But still the Archbishop of York had six thousand
soldiers at his disposal, and London could be yet saved to Warwick, if
the prelate acted with energy and zeal and good faith.  That such was
his first intention is clear, from his appeal to the public loyalty in
King Henry's procession; but when he perceived how little effect that
pageant had produced; when, on re-entering the Bishop of London's
palace, he saw before him the guileless, helpless puppet of contending
factions, gasping for breath, scarcely able to articulate, the
heartless prelate turned away, with a muttered ejaculation of
contempt.

"Clarence had not deserted," said he to himself, "unless he saw
greater profit with King Edward!"  And then he began to commune with
himself, and to commune with his brother-prelate of Canterbury; and in
the midst of all this commune arrived Catesby, charged with messages
to the archbishop from Edward,--messages full of promise and affection
on the one hand, of menace and revenge upon the other.  Brief:
Warwick's cup of bitterness had not yet been filled; that night the
archbishop and the mayor of London met, and the Tower was surrendered
to Edward's friends.  The next day Edward and his army entered, amidst
the shouts of the populace; rode to St. Paul's, where the archbishop
[Sharon Turner.  It is a comfort to think that this archbishop was,
two years afterwards, first robbed, and then imprisoned, by Edward
IV.; nor did he recover his liberty till a few weeks before his death,
in 1476 (five years subsequently to the battle of Barnet).] met him,
leading Henry by the hand, again a captive; thence Edward proceeded to
Westminster Abbey, and, fresh from his atrocious perjury at York,
offered thanksgiving for its success.  The Sanctuary yielded up its
royal fugitives, and, in joy and in pomp, Edward led his wife and her
new-born babe, with Jacquetta and his elder children, to Baynard's
Castle.

The next morning (the third day), true to his promise, Warwick marched
towards London with the mighty armament he had now collected.  Treason
had done its worst,--the metropolis was surrendered, and King Henry in
the Tower.

"These things considered," says the Chronicler, "the earl saw that all
calculations of necessity were brought to this end,--that they must
now be committed to the hazard and chance of one battle."  [Hall.]  He
halted, therefore, at St. Alban's, to rest his troops; and marching
thence towards Barnet, pitched his tents on the upland ground, then
called the Heath or Chase of Gladsmoor, and waited the coming foe.

Nor did Edward linger long from that stern meeting.  Entering London
on the 11th of April, he prepared to quit it on the 13th.  Besides the
force he had brought with him, he had now recruits in his partisans
from the Sanctuaries and other hiding-places in the metropolis, while
London furnished him, from her high-spirited youths, a gallant troop
of bow and bill men, whom Alwyn had enlisted, and to whom Edward
willingly appointed, as captain, Alwyn himself,--who had atoned for
his submission to Henry's restoration by such signal activity on
behalf of the young king, whom he associated with the interests of his
class, and the weal of the great commercial city, which some years
afterwards rewarded his affection by electing him to her chief
magistracy.  [Nicholas Alwyn, the representative of that generation
which aided the commercial and anti-feudal policy of Edward IV. and
Richard III., and welcomed its consummation under their Tudor
successor, rose to be Lord Mayor of London in the fifteenth year of
the reign of Henry VII.--FABYAN.]

It was on that very day, the 13th of April, some hours before the
departure of the York army, that Lord Hastings entered the Tower, to
give orders relative to the removal of the unhappy Henry, whom Edward
had resolved to take with him on his march.

And as he had so ordered and was about to return, Alwyn, emerging from
one of the interior courts, approached him in much agitation, and said
thus: "Pardon me, my lord, if in so grave an hour I recall your
attention to one you may haply have forgotten."

"Ah, the poor maiden; but you told me, in the hurried words that we
have already interchanged, that she was safe and well."

"Safe, my lord,--not well.  Oh, hear me.  I depart to battle for your
cause and your king's.  A gentleman in your train has advised me that
you are married to a noble dame in the foreign land.  If so, this girl
whom I have loved so long and truly may yet forget you, may yet be
mine.  Oh, give me that hope to make me a braver soldier."

"But," said Hastings, embarrassed, and with a changing countenance,
"but time presses, and I know not where the demoiselle--"

"She is here," interrupted Alwyn; "here, within these walls, in yonder
courtyard.  I have just left her.  You, whom she loves, forgot her!
I, whom she disdains, remembered.  I went to see to her safety, to
counsel her to rest here for the present, whatever betides; and at
every word I said, she broke in upon me with but one name,--that name
was thine!  And when stung, and in the impulse of the moment, I
exclaimed, 'He deserves not this devotion.  They tell me, Sibyll, that
Lord Hastings has found a wife in exile.'  Oh, that look! that cry!
they haunt me still.  'Prove it, prove it, Alwyn,' she cried.  'And--'
I interrupted, 'and thou couldst yet, for thy father's sake, be true
wife to me?'"

"Her answer, Alwyn?"

"It was this, 'For my father's sake only, then, could I live on; and--'
her sobs stopped her speech, till she cried again, 'I believe it not!
thou hast deceived me.  Only from his lips will I hear the sentence.'
Go to her, manfully and frankly, as becomes you, high lord,--go!  It
Is but a single sentence thou hast to say, and thy heart will be the
lighter, and thine arm the stronger for those honest words."

Hastings pulled his cap over his brow, and stood a moment as if in
reflection; he then said, "Show me the way; thou art right.  It is due
to her and to thee; and as by this hour to-morrow my soul may stand
before the Judgment-seat, that poor child's pardon may take one sin
from the large account."




CHAPTER II.

SHARP IS THE KISS OF THE FALCON'S BEAR.

Hastings stood in the presence of the girl to whom he had pledged his
truth.  They were alone; but in the next chamber might be heard the
peculiar sound made by the mechanism of the Eureka.  Happy and
lifeless mechanism, which moves, and toils, and strives on, to change
the destiny of millions, but hath neither ear nor eye, nor sense nor
heart,--the avenues of pain to man!  She had--yes, literally--she had
recognized her lover's step upon the stair, she had awakened at once
from that dull and icy lethargy with which the words of Alwyn had
chained life and soul.  She sprang forward as Hastings entered; she
threw herself in delirious joy upon his bosom.  "Thou art come, thou
art!  It is not true, not true.  Heaven bless thee! thou art come!"
But sudden as the movement was the recoil.  Drawing herself back, she
gazed steadily on his face, and said, "Lord Hastings, they tell me thy
hand is another's.  Is it true?"

"Hear me!" answered the nobleman.  "When first I--"

"O God! O God! he answers not, he falters!  Speak!  Is it true?"

"It is true.  I am wedded to another."

Sibyll did not fall to the ground, nor faint, nor give vent to noisy
passion.  But the rich colour, which before had been varying and
fitful, deserted her cheek, and left it of an ashen whiteness; the
lips, too, grew tightly compressed, and her small fingers, interlaced,
were clasped with strained and convulsive energy, so that the
quivering of the very arms was perceptible.  In all else she seemed
composed, as she said, "I thank you, my lord, for the simple truth; no
more is needed.  Heaven bless you and yours!  Farewell!"

"Stay! you shall--you must hear me on.  Thou knowest how dearly in
youth I loved Katherine Nevile.  In manhood the memory of that love
haunted me, but beneath thy sweet smile I deemed it at last effaced; I
left thee to seek the king, and demand his assent to our union.  I
speak not of obstacles that then arose; in the midst of them I learned
Katherine was lone and widowed,--was free.  At her own summons I
sought her presence, and learned that she had loved me ever,--loved me
still.  The intoxication of my early dream returned; reverse and exile
followed close; Katherine left her state, her fortunes, her native
land, and followed the banished man; and so memory and gratitude and
destiny concurred, and the mistress of my youth became my wife.  None
other could have replaced thy image; none other have made me forget
the faith I pledged thee.  The thought of thee has still pursued me,--
will pursue me to the last. I dare not say now that I love thee still,
but yet--"  He paused, but rapidly resumed, "Enough, enough! dear art
thou to me, and honoured,--dearer, more honoured than a sister.  Thank
Heaven, at least, and thine own virtue, my falsehood leaves thee pure
and stainless.  Thy hand may yet bless a worthier man.  If our cause
triumphs, thy fortunes, thy father's fate, shall be my fondest care.
Never, never will my sleep be sweet, and my conscience laid to rest,
till I hear thee say, as honoured wife--perchance, as blessed and
blessing mother--'False one, I am happy!'"

A cold smile, at these last words, flitted over the girl's face,--the
smile of a broken heart; but it vanished, and with that strange
mixture of sweetness and pride,--mild and forgiving, yet still
spirited and firm,--which belonged to her character, she nerved
herself to the last and saddest effort to preserve dignity and conceal
despair.  "Farther words, my lord, are idle; I am rightly punished for
a proud folly.  Let not woman love above her state.  Think no more of
my destiny."

"No, no," interrupted the remorseful lord, "thy destiny must haunt me
till thou hast chosen one with a better right to protect thee."

At the repetition of that implied desire to transfer her also to
another, a noble indignation came to mar the calm for which she had
hitherto not vainly struggled.  "Oh, man!" she exclaimed, with
passion, "does thy deceit give me the right to deceive another?  I--I
wed!--I--I--vow at the altar--a love dead, dead forever--dead as my
own heart!  Why dost thou mock me with the hollow phrase, 'Thou art
pure and stainless?'  Is the virginity of the soul still left?  Do the
tears I have shed for thee; doth the thrill of my heart when I heard
thy voice; doth the plighted kiss that burns, burns now into my brow,
and on my lips,--do these, these leave me free to carry to a new
affection the cinders and ashes of a soul thou hast ravaged and
deflowered?  Oh, coarse and rude belief of men, that naught is lost if
the mere form be pure!  The freshness of the first feelings, the bloom
of the sinless thought, the sigh, the blush of the devotion--never,
never felt but once! these, these make the true dower a maiden should
bring to the hearth to which she comes as wife.  Oh, taunt!  Oh,
insult! to speak to me of happiness, of the altar!  Thou never
knewest, lord, how I really loved thee!"  And for the first time, a
violent gush of tears came to relieve her heart.

Hastings was almost equally overcome.  Well experienced as he was in
those partings when maids reproach and gallants pray for pardon, but
still sigh, "Farewell,"--he had now no words to answer that burst of
uncontrollable agony; and he felt at once humbled and relieved, when
Sibyll again, with one of those struggles which exhaust years of life,
and almost leave us callous to all after-trial, pressed back the
scalding tears, and said, with unnatural sweetness: "Pardon me, my
lord, I meant not to reproach; the words escaped me,--think of them no
more.  I would fain, at least, part from you now as I had once hoped
to part from you at the last hour of life,--without one memory of
bitterness and anger, so that my conscience, whatever its other
griefs, might say, 'My lips never belied my heart, my words never
pained him!'  And now then, Lord Hastings, in all charity, we part.
Farewell forever, and forever!  Thou hast wedded one who loves thee,
doubtless, as tenderly as I had done.  Ah, cherish that affection!
There are times even in thy career when a little love is sweeter than
much fame.  If thou thinkest I have aught to pardon thee, now with my
whole heart I pray, as while life is mine that prayer shall be
murmured, 'Heaven forgive this man, as I do!  Heaven make his home the
home of peace, and breathe into those now near and dear to him, the
love and the faith that I once--'"  She stopped, for the words choked
her, and, hiding her face, held out her hand, in sign of charity and
of farewell.

"Ah, if I dared pray like thee," murmured Hastings, pressing his lips
upon that burning hand, "how should I weary Heaven to repair, by
countless blessings, the wrong which I have done thee!  And Heaven
will--oh, it surely will!"  He pressed the hand to his heart, dropped
it, and was gone.

In the courtyard he was accosted by Alwyn--

"Thou hast been frank, my lord?"

"I have."

"And she bears it, and--"

"See how she forgives, and how I suffer!" said Hastings, turning his
face towards his rival; and Alwyn saw that the tears were rolling down
his cheeks--"Question me no more."  There was a long silence.  They
quitted the precincts of the Tower, and were at the river-side.
Hastings, waving his hand to Alwyn, was about to enter the boat which
was to bear him to the war council assembled at Baynard's Castle, when
the trader stopped him, and said anxiously,--

"Think you not, for the present, the Tower is the safest asylum for
Sibyll and her father?  If we fail and Warwick returns, they are
protected by the earl; if we triumph, thou wilt insure their safety
from all foes?"

"Surely; in either case, their present home is the most secure."

The two men then parted.  And not long afterwards, Hastings, who led
the on-guard, was on his way towards Barnet; with him also went the
foot volunteers under Alwyn.  The army of York was on its march.
Gloucester, to whose vigilance and energy were left the final
preparations, was necessarily the last of the generals to quit the
city.  And suddenly, while his steed was at the gate of Baynard's
Castle, he entered, armed cap-a-pie, into the chamber where the
Duchess of Bedford sat with her grandchildren.

"Madame," said he, "I have a grace to demand from you, which will,
methinks, not be displeasing.  My lieutenants report to me that an
alarm has spread amongst my men,--a religious horror of some fearful
bombards and guns which have been devised by a sorcerer in Lord
Warwick's pay.  Your famous Friar Bungey has been piously amongst
them, promising, however, that the mists which now creep over the
earth shall last through the night and the early morrow; and if he
deceive us not, we may post our men so as to elude the hostile
artillery.  But, sith the friar is so noted and influential, and sith
there is a strong fancy that the winds which have driven back Margaret
obeyed his charm, the soldiers clamour out for him to attend us, and,
on the very field itself, counteract the spells of the Lancastrian
nigromancer.  The good friar, more accustomed to fight with fiends
than men, is daunted, and resists.  As much may depend on his showing
us good will, and making our fellows suppose we have the best of the
witchcraft, I pray you to command his attendance, and cheer up his
courage.  He waits without."

"A most notable, a most wise advice, beloved Richard!" cried the
duchess.  "Friar Bungey is, indeed, a potent man.  I will win him at
once to your will;" and the duchess hurried from the room.

The friar's bodily fears, quieted at last by assurances that he should
be posted in a place of perfect safety during the battle, and his
avarice excited by promises of the amplest rewards, he consented to
accompany the troops, upon one stipulation,--namely, that the
atrocious wizard, who had so often baffled his best spells,--the very
wizard who had superintended the accursed bombards, and predicted
Edward's previous defeat and flight (together with the diabolical
invention, in which all the malice and strength of his sorcery were
centred),--might, according to Jacquetta's former promise, be
delivered forthwith to his mercy, and accompany him to the very spot
where he was to dispel and counteract the Lancastrian nigromancer's
enchantments.  The duchess, too glad to purchase the friar's
acquiescence on such cheap terms, and to whose superstitious horror
for Adam's lore in the black art was now added a purely political
motive for desiring him to be made away with,--inasmuch as in the
Sanctuary she had at last extorted from Elizabeth the dark secret
which might make him a very dangerous witness against the interests
and honour of Edward,--readily and joyfully consented to this
proposition.

A strong guard was at once despatched to the Tower with the friar
himself, followed by a covered wagon, which was to serve for
conveyance to Bungey and his victim.

In the mean while, Sibyll, after remaining for some time in the
chamber which Hastings had abandoned to her solitary woe, had passed
to the room in which her father held mute commune with his Eureka.

The machine was now thoroughly completed,--improved and perfected, to
the utmost art the inventor ever could attain.  Thinking that the
prejudice against it might have arisen from its uncouth appearance,
the poor philosopher had sought now to give it a gracious and imposing
appearance.  He had painted and gilt it with his own hands; it looked
bright and gaudy in its gay hues; its outward form was worthy of the
precious and propitious jewel which lay hidden in its centre.

"See, child, see!" said Adam; "is it not beautiful and comely?"

"My dear father, yes!" answered the poor girl, as still she sought to
smile; then, after a short silence, she continued, "Father, of late,
methinks, I have too much forgotten thee; pardon me, if so.
Henceforth, I have no care in life but thee; henceforth let me ever,
when thou toilest, come and sit by thy side.  I would not be alone,--I
dare not!  Father, Father!  God shield thy harmless life!  I have
nothing to love under heaven but thee!"

The good man turned wistfully, and raised, with tremulous hands, the
sad face that had pressed itself on his bosom.  Gazing thereon
mournfully, he said, "Some new grief hath chanced to thee, my child.
Methought I heard another voice besides thine in yonder room.  Ah, has
Lord Hastings--"

"Father, spare me!  Thou wert too right; thou didst judge too wisely.
Lord Hastings is wedded to another!  But see, I can smile still, I am
calm.  My heart will not break so long as it hath thee to love and
pray for!"

She wound her arms round him as she spoke, and he roused himself from
his world out of earth again.  Though he could bring no comfort, there
was something, at least, to the forlorn one, in his words of love, in
his tears of pity.

They sat down together, side by side, as the evening darkened,--the
Eureka forgotten in the hour of its perfection!  They noted not the
torches which flashed below, reddened at intervals the walls of their
chamber, and gave a glow to the gay gilding and bright hues of the
gaudy model.  Yet those torches flickered round the litter that was to
convey Henry the Peaceful to the battlefield, which was to decide the
dynasty of his realm!  The torches vanished, and forth from the dark
fortress went the captive king.

Night succeeded to eve, when again the red glare shot upward on the
Eureka, playing with fantastic smile on its quaint aspect.  Steps and
voices, and the clatter of arms, sounded in the yard, on the stairs,
in the adjoining chamber; and suddenly the door was flung open, and,
followed by some half score soldiers, strode in the terrible friar.

"Aha, Master Adam! who is the greater nigromancer now?  Seize him!
Away!  And help you, Master Sergeant, to bear this piece of the foul
fiend's cunning devising.  Ho, ho! see you how it is tricked out and
furbished up,--all for the battle, I warrant ye!"

The soldiers had already seized upon Adam, who, stupefied by
astonishment rather than fear, uttered no sound, and attempted no
struggle.  But it was in vain they sought to tear from him Sibyll's
clinging and protecting arms.  A supernatural strength, inspired by a
kind of superstition that no harm could chance to him while she was
by, animated her slight form; and fierce though the soldiers were,
they shrunk from actual and brutal violence to one thus young and
fair.  Those small hands clung so firmly, that it seemed that nothing
but the edge of the sword could sever the child's clasp from the
father's neck.

"Harm him not, harm him at your peril, friar!" she cried, with
flashing eyes.  "Tear him from me, and if King Edward win the day,
Lord Hastings shall have thy life; if Lord Warwick, thy days are
numbered, too.  Beware, and avaunt!"

The friar was startled.  He had forgotten Lord Hastings in the zest of
his revenge.  He feared that, if Sibyll were left behind, the tale she
might tell would indeed bring on him a powerful foe in the daughter's
lover; on the other hand, should Lord Warwick get the better, what
vengeance would await her appeal to the great protector of her father!
He resolved, therefore, on the instant, to take Sibyll as well as her
father; and if the fortune of the day allowed him to rid himself of
Warner, a good occasion might equally occur to dispose forever of the
testimony of Sibyll.  He had already formed a cunning calculation in
desiring Warner's company; for while, should Edward triumph, the
sacrifice of the hated Warner was resolved upon, yet, should the earl
get the better, he could make a merit to Warner that he (the friar)
had not only spared, but saved, his life, in making him his companion.
It was in harmony with this double policy that the friar mildly
answered to Sibyll,--

"Tusk, my daughter!  Perhaps if your father be true to King Edward,
and aid my skill instead of obstructing it, he may be none the worse
for the journey he must take; and if thou likest to go with him,
there's room in the vehicle, and the more the merrier.  Harm them not,
soldiers; no doubt they will follow quietly."

As he said this, the men, after first crossing themselves, had already
hoisted up the Eureka; and when Adam saw it borne from the room, he
instinctively followed the bearers.  Sibyll, relieved by the thought
that, for weal or for woe, she should, at least, share her father's
fate, and scarce foreboding much positive danger from the party which
contained Hastings and Alwyn, attempted no further remonstrance.

The Eureka was placed in the enormous vehicle,--it served as a barrier
between the friar and his prisoners.

The friar himself, as soon as the wagon was in motion, addressed
himself civilly enough to his fellow-travellers, and assured them
there was nothing to fear, unless Adam thought fit to disturb his
incantations.  The captives answered not his address, but nestled
close to each other, interchanging, at intervals, words of comfort,
and recoiling as far as possible from the ex-tregetour, who, having
taken with him a more congenial companion in the shape of a great
leathern bottle, finally sunk into the silent and complacent doze
which usually rewards the libations to the Bromian god.

The vehicle, with many other baggage-wagons in the rear of the army in
that memorable night-march, moved mournfully on; the night continued
wrapped in fog and mist, agreeably to the weatherwise predictions of
the friar.  The rumbling groan of the vehicle, the tramp of the
soldiers, the dull rattle of their arms, with now and then the neigh
of some knight's steed in the distance, were the only sounds that
broke the silence, till once, as they neared their destination, Sibyll
started from her father's bosom, and shudderingly thought she
recognized the hoarse chant and the tinkling bells of the ominous
tymbesteres.




CHAPTER III.

A PAUSE.

In the profound darkness of the night and the thick fog, Edward had
stationed his men at a venture upon the heath at Gladsmoor, [Edward
"had the greater number of men."--HALL, p. 296.] and hastily environed
the camp with palisades and trenches.  He had intended to have rested
immediately in front of the foe, but, in the darkness, mistook the
extent of the hostile line; and his men were ranged only opposite to
the left side of the earl's force (towards Hadley), leaving the right
unopposed.  Most fortunate for Edward was this mistake; for Warwick's
artillery, and the new and deadly bombards he had constructed, were
placed on the right of the earl's army; and the provident earl,
naturally supposing Edward's left was there opposed to him, ordered
his gunners to cannonade all night.  Edward, "as the flashes of the
guns illumined by fits the gloom of midnight, saw the advantage of his
unintentional error; and to prevent Warwick from discovering it,
reiterated his orders for the most profound silence."  [Sharon
Turner.]  Thus even his very blunders favoured Edward more than the
wisest precautions had served his fated foe.

Raw, cold, and dismal dawned the morning of the fourteenth of April,
the Easter Sabbath.  In the fortunes of that day were involved those
of all the persons who hitherto, in the course of this narrative, may
have seemed to move in separate orbits from the fiery star of Warwick.
Now, in this crowning hour, the vast and gigantic destiny of the great
earl comprehended all upon which its darkness or its light had fallen:
not only the luxurious Edward, the perjured Clarence, the haughty
Margaret, her gallant son, the gentle Anne, the remorseful Isabel, the
dark guile of Gloucester, the rising fortunes of the gifted Hastings,
--but on the hazard of that die rested the hopes of Hilyard, and the
interests of the trader Alwyn, and the permanence of that frank,
chivalric, hardy, still half Norman race, of which Nicholas Alwyn and
his Saxon class were the rival antagonistic principle, and Marmaduke
Nevile the ordinary type.  Dragged inexorably into the whirlpool of
that mighty fate were even the very lives of the simple Scholar, of
his obscure and devoted child.  Here, into this gory ocean, all
scattered rivulets and streams had hastened to merge at last.

But grander and more awful than all individual interests were those
assigned to the fortunes of this battle, so memorable in the English
annals,--the ruin or triumph of a dynasty; the fall of that warlike
baronage, of which Richard Nevile was the personation, the crowning
flower, the greatest representative and the last,--associated with
memories of turbulence and excess, it is true, but with the proudest
and grandest achievements in our early history; with all such liberty
as had been yet achieved since the Norman Conquest; with all such
glory as had made the island famous,--here with Runnymede, and there
with Cressy; the rise of a crafty, plotting, imperious Despotism,
based upon the growing sympathy of craftsmen and traders, and ripening
on the one hand to the Tudor tyranny, the Republican reaction under
the Stuarts, the slavery, and the civil war, but on the other hand to
the concentration of all the vigour and life of genius into a single
and strong government, the graces, the arts, the letters of a polished
court, the freedom, the energy, the resources of a commercial
population destined to rise above the tyranny at which it had first
connived, and give to the emancipated Saxon the markets of the world.
Upon the victory of that day all these contending interests, this vast
alternative in the future, swayed and trembled.  Out, then, upon that
vulgar craving of those who comprehend neither the vast truths of life
nor the grandeur of ideal art, and who ask from poet or narrator the
poor and petty morality of "Poetical Justice,"--a justice existing not
in our work-day world; a justice existing not in the sombre page of
history; a justice existing not in the loftier conceptions of men
whose genius has grappled with the enigmas which art and poetry only
can foreshadow and divine,--unknown to us in the street and the
market, unknown to us on the scaffold of the patriot or amidst the
flames of the martyr, unknown to us in the Lear and the Hamlet, in the
Agamemnon and the Prometheus.  Millions upon millions, ages upon ages,
are entered but as items in the vast account in which the recording
angel sums up the unerring justice of God to man.

Raw, cold, and dismal dawned the morning of the fourteenth of April.
And on that very day Margaret and her son, and the wife and daughter
of Lord Warwick, landed, at last, on the shores of England.  [Margaret
landed at Weymouth; Lady Warwick, at Portsmouth.]  Come they for joy
or for woe, for victory or despair?  The issue of this day's fight on
the heath of Gladsmoor will decide.  Prank thy halls, O Westminster,
for the triumph of the Lancastrian king,--or open thou, O Grave, to
receive the saint-like Henry and his noble son.  The king-maker goes
before ye, saint-like father and noble son, to prepare your thrones
amongst the living or your mansions amongst the dead!




CHAPTER IV.

THE BATTLE.

Raw, cold, and dismal dawned the morning of the fourteenth of April.
The heavy mist still covered both armies, but their hum and stir was
already heard through the gloaming,--the neighing of steeds, and the
clangour of mail.  Occasionally a movement of either force made dim
forms, seeming gigantic through the vapour, indistinctly visible to
the antagonistic army; and there was something ghastly and unearthlike
in these ominous shapes, suddenly seen, and suddenly vanishing, amidst
the sullen atmosphere.  By this time, Warwick had discovered the
mistake of his gunners; for, to the right of the earl, the silence of
the Yorkists was still unbroken, while abruptly, from the thick gloom
to the left, broke the hoarse mutter and low growl of the awakening
war.  Not a moment was lost by the earl in repairing the error of the
night: his artillery wheeled rapidly from the right wing, and, sudden
as a storm of lightning, the fire from the cannon flashed through the
dun and heavy vapour, and, not far from the very spot where Hastings
was marshalling the wing intrusted to his command, made a deep chasm
in the serried ranks.  Death had begun his feast!

At that moment, however, from the centre of the Yorkist army, arose,
scarcely drowned by the explosion, that deep-toned shout of
enthusiasm, which he who has once heard it, coming, as it were, from
the one heart of an armed multitude, will ever recall as the most
kindling and glorious sound which ever quickened the pulse and
thrilled the blood,--for along that part of the army now rode King
Edward.  His mail was polished as a mirror, but otherwise unadorned,
resembling that which now invests his effigies at the Tower, [The suit
of armour, however, which the visitor to the Royal Armoury is expected
to believe King Edward could have worn, is infinitely too small for
such credulity.  Edward's height was six feet two inches.] and the
housings of his steed were spangled with silver suns, for the silver
sun was the cognizance on all his banners.  His head was bare, and
through the hazy atmosphere the gold of his rich locks seemed
literally to shine.  Followed by his body squire, with his helm and
lance, and the lords in his immediate staff, his truncheon in his
hand, he passed slowly along the steady line, till, halting where he
deemed his voice could be farthest heard, he reined in, and lifting
his hand, the shout of the soldiery was hushed; though still, while he
spoke, from Warwick's archers came the arrowy shower, and still the
gloom was pierced and the hush interrupted by the flash and the roar
of the bombards.

"Englishmen and friends," said the martial chief, "to bold deeds go
but few words.  Before you is the foe!  From Ravenspur to London I
have marched, treason flying from my sword, loyalty gathering to my
standard.  With but two thousand men, on the fourteenth of March, I
entered England; on the fourteenth of April, fifty thousand is my
muster roll.  Who shall say, then, that I am not king, when one month
mans a monarch's army from his subjects' love?  And well know ye, now,
that my cause is yours and England's!  Those against us are men who
would rule in despite of law,--barons whom I gorged with favours, and
who would reduce this fair realm of King, Lords, and Commons to be the
appanage and property of one man's measureless ambition,--the park,
forsooth, the homestead to Lord Warwick's private house!  Ye gentlemen
and knights of England, let them and their rabble prosper, and your
properties will be despoiled, your lives insecure, all law struck
dead.  What differs Richard of Warwick from Jack Cade, save that if
his name is nobler, so is his treason greater?  Commoners and soldiers
of England, freemen, however humble, what do these rebel lords (who
would rule in the name of Lancaster) desire?  To reduce you to
villeins and to bondsmen, as your forefathers were to them.  Ye owe
freedom from the barons to the just laws of my sires, your kings.
Gentlemen and knights, commoners and soldiers, Edward IV. upon his
throne will not profit by a victory more than you.  This is no war of
dainty chivalry,--it is a war of true men against false.  No quarter!
Spare not either knight or hilding.  Warwick, forsooth, will not smite
the Commons.  Truly not,--the rabble are his friends!  I say to you--"
and Edward, pausing in the excitement and sanguinary fury of his tiger
nature,--the soldiers, heated like himself to the thirst of blood, saw
his eyes sparkle, and his teeth gnash, as he added in a deeper and
lower, but not less audible voice, "I say to you, SLAY ALL!  [Hall.]
What heel spares the viper's brood?"

"We will! we will!" was the horrid answer, which came hissing and
muttered forth from morion and cap of steel.

"Hark! to their bombards!" resumed Edward.  "The enemy would fight
from afar, for they excel us in their archers and gunners.  Upon them,
then, hand to hand, and man to man!  Advance banners, sound trumpets!
Sir Oliver, my bassinet!  Soldiers, if my standard falls, look for the
plume upon your king's helmet!  Charge!"

Then, with a shout wilder and louder than before, on through the hail
of the arrows, on through the glare of the bombards, rather with a
rush than in a march, advanced Edward's centre against the array of
Somerset; but from a part of the encampment where the circumvallation
seemed strongest, a small body of men moved not with the general body.

To the left of the churchyard of Hadley, at this day, the visitor may
notice a low wall; on the other side of that wall is a garden, then
but a rude eminence on Gladsmoor Heath.  On that spot a troop in
complete armour, upon destriers pawing impatiently, surrounded a man
upon a sorry palfrey, and in a gown of blue,--the colour of royalty
and of servitude; that man was Henry the Sixth.  In the same space
stood Friar Bungey, his foot on the Eureka, muttering incantations,
that the mists he had foretold, [Lest the reader should suppose that
the importance of Friar Bungey upon this bloody day has been
exaggerated by the narrator, we must cite the testimony of sober
Allerman Fabyan: "Of the mists and other impediments which fell upon
the lords' party, by reason of the incantations wrought by Friar
Bungey, as the fame went, me list not to write."] and which had
protected the Yorkists from the midnight guns, might yet last, to the
confusion of the foe.  And near him, under a gaunt, leafless tree, a
rope round his neck, was Adam Warner, Sibyl still faithful to his
side, nor shuddering at the arrows and the guns, her whole fear
concentrated upon the sole life for which her own was prized.  Upon
this eminence, then, these lookers-on stood aloof.  And the meek ears
of Henry heard through the fog the inexplicable, sullen, jarring
clash,--steel had met steel.

"Holy Father!" exclaimed the kingly saint, "and this is the Easter
Sabbath, Thy most solemn day of peace!"

"Be silent," thundered the friar; "thou disturbest my spells.
Barabbarara, Santhinoa, Foggibus increscebo, confusio inimicis,
Garabbora, vapor et mistes!"

We must now rapidly survey the dispositions of the army under Warwick.
In the right wing, the command was entrusted to the Earl of Oxford and
the Marquis of Montagu.  The former, who led the cavalry of that
division, was stationed in the van; the latter, according to his usual
habit--surrounded by a strong body-guard of knights and a prodigious
number of squires as aides-de-camp--remained at the rear, and directed
thence by his orders the general movement.  In this wing the greater
number were Lancastrian, jealous of Warwick, and only consenting to
the generalship of Montagu because shared by their favourite hero,
Oxford.  In the mid-space lay the chief strength of the bowmen, with a
goodly number of pikes and bills, under the Duke of Somerset; and this
division also was principally Lancastrian, and shared the jealousy of
Oxford's soldiery.  The left wing, composed for the most part of
Warwick's yeomanry and retainers, was commanded by the Duke of Exeter,
conjointly with the earl himself.  Both armies kept a considerable
body in reserve, and Warwick, besides this resource, had selected from
his own retainers a band of picked archers, whom he had skilfully
placed in the outskirts of a wood that then stretched from Wrotham
Park to the column that now commemorates the battle of Barnet, on the
high northern road.  He had guarded these last-mentioned archers
(where exposed in front to Edward's horsemen) by strong tall
barricades, leaving only such an opening as would allow one horseman
at a time to pass, and defending by a formidable line of pikes this
narrow opening left for communication, and to admit to a place of
refuge in case of need.  These dispositions made, and ere yet Edward
had advanced on Somerset, the earl rode to the front of the wing under
his special command, and, agreeably to the custom of the time,
observed by his royal foe, harangued the troops.  Here were placed
those who loved him as a father, and venerated him as something
superior to mortal man; here the retainers who had grown up with him
from his childhood, who had followed him to his first fields of war,
who had lived under the shelter of his many castles, and fed, in that
rude equality of a more primeval age which he loved still to maintain,
at his lavish board.  And now Lord Warwick's coal-black steed halted,
motionless in the van.  His squire behind bore his helmet,
overshadowed by the eagle of Monthermer, the outstretched wings of
which spread wide into sable plumes; and as the earl's noble face
turned full and calm upon the bristling lines, there arose not the
vulgar uproar that greeted the aspect of the young Edward.  By one of
those strange sympathies which pass through multitudes, and seize them
with a common feeling, the whole body of those adoring vassals became
suddenly aware of the change which a year had made in the face of
their chief and father.  They saw the gray flakes in his Jove-like
curls, the furrows in that lofty brow, the hollows in that bronzed and
manly visage, which had seemed to their rude admiration to wear the
stamp of the twofold Divinity,--Beneficence and Valour.  A thrill of
tenderness and awe shot through the veins of every one, tears of
devotion rushed into many a hardy eye.  No! there was not the ruthless
captain addressing his hireling butchers; it was the chief and father
rallying gratitude and love and reverence to the crisis of his stormy
fate.

"My friends, my followers, and my children," said the earl, "the field
we have entered is one from which there is no retreat; here must your
leader conquer or here die.  It is not a parchment pedigree, it is not
a name derived from the ashes of dead men, that make the only charter
of a king.  We Englishmen were but slaves, if, in giving crown and
sceptre to a mortal like ourselves, we asked not in return the kingly
virtues.  Beset of old by evil counsellors, the reign of Henry VI. was
obscured, and the weal of the realm endangered.  Mine own wrongs
seemed to me great, but the disasters of my country not less.  I
deemed that in the race of York, England would know a wiser and
happier rule.  What was, in this, mine error, ye partly know.  A
prince dissolved in luxurious vices, a nobility degraded by minions
and blood-suckers, a people plundered by purveyors, and a land
disturbed by brawl and riot.  But ye know not all: God makes man's
hearth man's altar: our hearths were polluted, our wives and daughters
were viewed as harlots, and lechery ruled the realm.  A king's word
should be fast as the pillars of the world.  What man ever trusted
Edward and was not deceived?  Even now the unknightly liar stands in
arms with the weight of perjury on his soul.  In his father's town of
York, ye know that he took, three short weeks since, solemn oath of
fealty to King Henry.  And now King Henry is his captive, and King
Henry's holy crown upon his traitor's head.  'Traitors' calls he Us?
What name, then, rank enough for him?  Edward gave the promise of a
brave man, and I served him.  He proved a base, a false, a licentious,
and a cruel king, and I forsook him; may all free hearts in all free
lands so serve kings when they become tyrants!  Ye fight against a
cruel and atrocious usurper, whose bold hand cannot sanctify a black
heart; ye fight not only for King Henry, the meek and the godly,--ye
fight not for him alone, but for his young and princely son, the
grandchild of Henry of Agincourt, who, old men tell me, has that
hero's face, and who, I know, has that hero's frank and royal and
noble soul; ye fight for the freedom of your land, for the honour of
your women, for what is better than any king's cause,--for justice and
mercy, for truth and manhood's virtues against corruption in the laws,
slaughter by the scaffold, falsehood in a ruler's lips, and shameless
harlotry in the councils of ruthless power.  The order I have ever
given in war I give now; we war against the leaders of evil, not
against the hapless tools; we war against our oppressors, not against
our misguided brethren.  Strike down every plumed crest, but when the
strife is over, spare every common man!  Hark! while I speak, I hear
the march of your foe!  Up standards!--blow trumpets!  And now, as I
brace my bassinet, may God grant us all a glorious victory, or a
glorious grave!  On, my merry men! show these London loons the stout
hearts of Warwickshire and Yorkshire.  On, my merry men!  A Warwick! A
Warwick!"

As he ended, he swung lightly over his head the terrible battle-axe
which had smitten down, as the grass before the reaper, the chivalry
of many a field; and ere the last blast of the trumpets died, the
troops of Warwick and of Gloucester met, and mingled hand to hand.

Although the earl had, on discovering the position of the enemy, moved
some of his artillery from his right wing, yet there still lay the
great number and strength of his force.  And there, therefore,
Montagu, rolling troop on troop to the aid of Oxford, pressed so
overpoweringly upon the soldiers under Hastings, that the battle very
soon wore a most unfavourable aspect for the Yorkists.  It seemed,
indeed, that the success which had always hitherto attended the
military movements of Montagu was destined for a crowning triumph.
Stationed, as we have said, in the rear, with his light-armed squires,
upon fleet steeds, around him, he moved the springs of the battle with
the calm sagacity which at that moment no chief in either army
possessed.  Hastings was thoroughly outflanked, and though his men
fought with great valour, they could not resist the weight of superior
numbers.

In the midst of the carnage in the centre, Edward reined in his steed
as he heard the cry of victory in the gale.

"By Heaven!" he exclaimed, "our men at the left are cravens! they fly!
they fly!--Ride to Lord Hastings, Sir Humphrey Bourchier, bid him
defile hither what men are left him; and now, ere our fellows are well
aware what hath chanced yonder, charge we, knights and gentlemen, on,
on!--break Somerset's line; on, on, to the heart of the rebel earl!"

Then, visor closed, lance in rest, Edward and his cavalry dashed
through the archers and billmen of Somerset; clad in complete mail,
impervious to the weapons of the infantry, they slaughtered as they
rode, and their way was marked by corpses and streams of blood.
Fiercest and fellest of all was Edward himself; when his lance
shivered, and he drew his knotty mace from its sling by his saddlebow,
woe to all who attempted to stop his path.  Vain alike steel helmet or
leathern cap, jerkin or coat of mail.  In vain Somerset threw himself
into the melee.  The instant Edward and his cavalry had made a path
through the lines for his foot-soldiery, the fortunes of the day were
half retrieved.  It was no rapid passage, pierced and reclosed, that
he desired to effect,--it was the wedge in the oak of war.  There,
rooted in the very midst of Somerset's troops, doubling on each side,
passing on but to return again, where helm could be crashed and man
overthrown, the mighty strength of Edward widened the breach more and
more, till faster and faster poured in his bands, and the centre of
Warwick's army seemed to reel and whirl round the broadening gap
through its ranks, as the waves round some chasm in a maelstrom.

But in the interval, the hard-pressed troops commanded by Hastings
were scattered and dispersed; driven from the field, they fled in
numbers through the town of Barnet; many halted not till they reached
London, where they spread the news of the earl's victory and Edward's
ruin.  [Sharon Turner.]

Through the mist, Friar Bungey discerned the fugitive Yorkists under
Hastings, and heard their cries of despair; through the mist, Sibyll
saw, close beneath the intrenchments which protected the space on
which they stood, an armed horseman with the well-known crest of
Hastings on his helmet, and, with lifted visor, calling his men to the
return, in the loud voice of rage and scorn.  And then she herself
sprang forwards, and forgetting his past cruelty in his present
danger, cried his name,--weak cry, lost in the roar of war!  But the
friar, now fearing he had taken the wrong side, began to turn from his
spells, to address the most abject apologies to Adam, to assure him
that he would have been slaughtered at the Tower but for the friar's
interruption; and that the rope round his neck was but an
insignificant ceremony due to the prejudices of the soldiers.  "Alas,
Great Man," he concluded, "I see still that thou art mightier than I
am; thy charms, though silent, are more potent than mine, though my
lungs crack beneath them!  Confusio Inimicis Taralorolu, I mean no
harm to the earl.  Garrabora, mistes et nubes!--Lord, what will become
of me!"

Meanwhile, Hastings--with a small body of horse, who being composed of
knights and squires, specially singled out for the sword, fought with
the pride of disdainful gentlemen, and the fury of desperate soldiers
--finding it impossible to lure back the fugitives, hewed their own way
through Oxford's ranks to the centre, where they brought fresh aid to
the terrible arm of Edward.




CHAPTER V.

THE BATTLE.

The mist still continued so thick that Montagu was unable to discern
the general prospects of the field; but, calm and resolute in his
post, amidst the arrows which whirled round him, and often struck,
blunted, against his Milan mail, the marquis received the reports of
his aides-de-camp (may that modern word be pardoned?) as one after one
they emerged through the fog to his side.

"Well," he said, as one of these messengers now spurred to the spot,
"we have beaten off Hastings and his hirelings; but I see not 'the
Silver Star' of Lord Oxford's banner."  [The Silver Star of the De
Veres had its origin in a tradition that one of their ancestors, when
fighting in the Holy Land, saw a falling star descend upon his shield.
Fatal to men nobler even than the De Veres was that silver falling
star.]

"Lord Oxford, my lord, has followed the enemy he routed to the
farthest verge of the heath."

"Saints help us!  Is Oxford thus headstrong?  He will ruin all if he
be decoyed from the field!  Ride back, sir!  Yet hold!"--as another of
the aides-de-camp appeared.  "What news from Lord Warwick's wing?"

"Sore beset, bold marquis.  Gloucester's line seems countless; it
already outflanks the earl.  The duke himself seems inspired by hell!
Twice has his slight arm braved even the earl's battle-axe, which
spared the boy but smote to the dust his comrades!"

"Well, and what of the centre, sir?" as a third form now arrived.

"There rages Edward in person.  He hath pierced into the midst.  But
Somerset still holds on gallantly!"  Montagu turned to the first aide-
de-camp.

"Ride, sir!  Quick!  This to Oxford--No pursuit!  Bid him haste, with
all his men, to the left wing, and smite Gloucester in the rear.
Ride, ride, for life and victory!  If he come but in time the day is
ours!"  [Fabyan.]

The aide-de-camp darted off, and the mist swallowed up horse and
horseman.

"Sound trumpets to the return!" said the marquis.  Then, after a
moment's musing, "Though Oxford hath drawn off our main force of
cavalry, we have still some stout lances left; and Warwick must be
strengthened.  On to the earl!  Laissez aller!  A Montagu! a Montagu!"
And lance in rest, the marquis and the knights immediately around him,
and hitherto not personally engaged, descended the hillock at a
hand-gallop, and were met by a troop outnumbering their own, and
commanded by the Lords D'Eyncourt and Say.

At this time Warwick was indeed in the same danger that had routed the
troops of Hastings; for, by a similar position, the strength of the
hostile numbers being arrayed with Gloucester, the duke's troops had
almost entirely surrounded him [Sharon Turner]; and Gloucester himself
wondrously approved the trust that had consigned to his stripling arm
the flower of the Yorkist army.  Through the mists the blood-red
manteline he wore over his mail, the grinning teeth of the boar's head
which crested his helmet, flashed and gleamed wherever his presence
was most needed to encourage the flagging or spur on the fierce.  And
there seemed to both armies something ghastly and preternatural in the
savage strength of this small slight figure thus startlingly
caparisoned, and which was heard evermore uttering its sharp war-cry,
"Gloucester to the onslaught!  Down with the rebels, down!"

Nor did this daring personage disdain, in the midst of his fury, to
increase the effect of valour by the art of a brain that never ceased
to scheme on the follies of mankind.  "See, see!" he cried, as he shot
meteor-like from rank to rank, "see, these are no natural vapours!
Yonder the mighty friar, who delayed the sails of Margaret, chants his
spells to the Powers that ride the gale.  Fear not the bombards,--
their enchanted balls swerve from the brave!  The dark legions of Air
fight for us!  For the hour is come when the fiend shall rend his
prey!"  And fiendlike seemed the form thus screeching forth its
predictions from under the grim head-gear; and then darting and
disappearing amidst the sea of pikes, cleaving its path of blood!

But still the untiring might of Warwick defied the press of numbers
that swept round him tide upon tide.  Through the mist, his black
armour, black plume, black steed, gloomed forth like one thundercloud
in the midst of a dismal heaven.  The noble charger bore along that
mighty rider, animating, guiding all, with as much ease and lightness
as the racer bears its puny weight; the steed itself was scarce less
terrible to encounter than the sweep of the rider's axe.  Protected
from arrow and lance by a coat of steel, the long chaffron, or pike,
which projected from its barbed frontal dropped with gore as it
scoured along.  No line of men, however serried, could resist the
charge of that horse and horseman.  And vain even Gloucester's
dauntless presence and thrilling battle-cry, when the stout earl was
seen looming through the vapour, and his cheerful shout was heard, "My
merry men, fight on!"

For a third time, Gloucester, spurring forth from his recoiling and
shrinking followers, bending low over his saddle-bow, covered by his
shield, and with the tenth lance (his favourite weapon, because the
one in which skill best supplied strength) he had borne that day,
launched himself upon the vast bulk of his tremendous foe.  With that
dogged energy, that rapid calculation, which made the basis of his
character, and which ever clove through all obstacles at the one that,
if destroyed, destroyed the rest,--in that, his first great battle, as
in his last at Bosworth, he singled out the leader, and rushed upon
the giant as the mastiff on the horns and dewlap of the bull.
Warwick, in the broad space which his arm had made around him in the
carnage, reined in as he saw the foe and recognized the grisly
cognizance and scarlet mantle of his godson.  And even in that moment,
with all his heated blood and his remembered wrong and his imminent
peril, his generous and lion heart felt a glow of admiration at the
valour of the boy he had trained to arms,--of the son of the beloved
York.  "His father little thought," muttered the earl, "that that arm
should win glory against his old friend's life!"  And as the half-
uttered word died on his lips, the well-poised lance of Gloucester
struck full upon his bassinet, and, despite the earl's horsemanship
and his strength, made him reel in his saddle, while the prince shot
by, and suddenly wheeling round, cast away the shivered lance, and
assailed him sword in hand.

"Back, Richard! boy, back!" said the earl, in a voice that sounded
hollow through his helmet; "it is not against thee that my wrongs call
for blood,--pass on!"

"Not so, Lord Warwick," answered Richard, in a sobered and almost
solemn voice, dropping for the moment the point of his sword, and
raising his visor, that he might be the better heard,--"on the field
of battle all memories sweet in peace must die!  Saint Paul be my
judge, that even in this hour I love you well; but I love renown and
glory more.  On the edge of my sword sit power and royalty, and what
high souls prize most,--ambition; these would nerve me against my own
brother's breast, were that breast my barrier to an illustrious
future.  Thou hast given thy daughter to another!  I smite the father
to regain my bride.  Lay on, and spare not!--for he who hates thee
most would prove not so fell a foe as the man who sees his fortunes
made or marred, his love crushed or yet crowned, as this day's battle
closes in triumph or defeat.  REBEL, DEFEND THYSELF!"

No time was left for further speech; for as Richard's sword descended,
two of Gloucester's followers, Parr and Milwater by name, dashed from
the halting lines at the distance, and bore down to their young
prince's aid.  At the same moment, Sir Marmaduke Nevile and the Lord
Fitzhugh spurred from the opposite line; and thus encouraged, the band
on either side came boldly forward, and the melee grew fierce and
general.  But still Richard's sword singled out the earl, and still
the earl, parrying his blows, dealt his own upon meaner heads.
Crushed by one sweep of the axe fell Milwater to the earth; down, as
again it swung on high, fell Sir Humphrey Bourchier, who had just
arrived to Gloucester with messages from Edward, never uttered in the
world below.  Before Marmaduke's lance fell Sir Thomas Parr; and these
three corpses making a barrier between Gloucester and the earl, the
duke turned fiercely upon Marmaduke, while the earl, wheeling round,
charged into the midst of the hostile line, which scattered to the
right and left.

"On! my merry men, on!" rang once more through the heavy air.  "They
give way, the London tailors,--on!" and on dashed, with their joyous
cry, the merry men of Yorkshire and Warwick, the warrior yeomen!
Separated thus from his great foe, Gloucester, after unhorsing
Marmaduke, galloped off to sustain that part of his following which
began to waver and retreat before the rush of Warwick and his
chivalry.

This, in truth, was the regiment recruited from the loyalty of London;
and little accustomed, we trow, were the worthy heroes of Cockaigne to
the discipline of arms, nor trained to that stubborn resistance which
makes, under skilful leaders, the English peasants the most enduring
soldiery that the world has known since the day when the Roman
sentinel perished amidst the falling columns and lava floods [at
Pompeii], rather than, though society itself dissolved, forsake his
post unbidden.  "Saint Thomas defend us!" muttered a worthy tailor,
who in the flush of his valour, when safe in the Chepe, had consented
to bear the rank of lieutenant; "it is not reasonable to expect men of
pith and substance to be crushed into jellies and carved into
subtleties by horse-hoofs and pole-axes.  Right about face!  Fly!"--
and throwing down his sword and shield, the lieutenant fairly took to
his heels as he saw the charging column, headed by the raven steed of
Warwick, come giant-like through the fog.  The terror of one man is
contagious, and the Londoners actually turned their backs, when
Nicholas Alwyn cried, in his shrill voice and northern accent, "Out on
you!  What will the girls say of us in East-gate and the Chepe?
Hurrah for the bold hearts of London!  Round me, stout 'prentices! let
the boys shame the men!  This shaft for Cockaigne!"  And as the troop
turned irresolute, and Alwyn's arrow left his bow, they saw a horseman
by the side of Warwick reel in his saddle and fall at once to the
earth; and so great evidently was the rank of the fallen man that even
Warwick reined in, and the charge halted midway in its career.  It was
no less a person than the Duke of Exeter whom Alwyn's shaft had
disabled for the field.  This incident, coupled with the hearty
address of the stout goldsmith, served to reanimate the flaggers, and
Gloucester, by a circuitous route, reaching their line a moment after,
they dressed their ranks, and a flight of arrows followed their loud
"Hurrah for London Town!"

But the charge of Warwick had only halted, and (while the wounded
Exeter was borne back by his squires to the rear) it dashed into the
midst of the Londoners, threw their whole line into confusion, and
drove them, despite all the efforts of Gloucester, far back along the
plain.  This well-timed exploit served to extricate the earl from the
main danger of his position; and, hastening to improve his advantage,
he sent forthwith to command the reserved forces under Lord St. John,
the Knight of Lytton, Sir John Coniers, Dymoke, and Robert Hilyard, to
bear down to his aid.

At this time Edward had succeeded, after a most stubborn fight, in
effecting a terrible breach through Somerset's wing; and the fog
continued still so dense and mirk, that his foe itself--for Somerset
had prudently drawn back to re-form his disordered squadron--seemed
vanished from the field.  Halting now, as through the dim atmosphere
came from different quarters the many battle-cries of that feudal-day,
by which alone he could well estimate the strength or weakness of
those in the distance, his calmer genius as a general cooled, for a
time, his individual ferocity of knight and soldier.  He took his
helmet from his brow to listen with greater certainty; and the lords
and riders round him were well content to take breath and pause from
the weary slaughter.

The cry of "Gloucester to the onslaught!" was heard no more.  Feebler
and feebler, scatteringly as it were, and here and there, the note had
changed into "Gloucester to the rescue!"

Farther off rose, mingled and blent together, the opposing shouts, "A
Montagu! a Montagu!  Strike for D'Eyncourt and King Edward!"--"A Say!
A Say!"

"Ha!" said Edward, thoughtfully, "bold Gloucester fails, Montagu is
bearing on to Warwick's aid, Say and D'Eyncourt stop his path.  Our
doom looks dark!  Ride, Hastings,--ride; retrieve thy laurels, and
bring up the reserve under Clarence.  But hark ye, leave not his
side,--he may desert again!  Ho! ho!  Again, 'Gloucester to the
rescue!'  Ah, how lustily sounds the cry of 'Warwick!'  By the flaming
sword of Saint Michael, we will slacken that haughty shout, or be
evermore dumb ourself, ere the day be an hour nearer to the eternal
judgment!"

Deliberately Edward rebraced his helm, and settled himself in his
saddle, and with his knights riding close each to each, that they
might not lose themselves in the darkness, regained his infantry, and
led them on to the quarter where the war now raged fiercest, round the
black steed of Warwick and the blood-red manteline of the fiery
Richard.




CHAPTER VI.

THE BATTLE.

It was now scarcely eight in the morning, though the battle had
endured three hours; and, as yet, victory so inclined to the earl that
nought but some dire mischance could turn the scale.  Montagu had cut
his way to Warwick; Somerset had re-established his array.  The fresh
vigour brought by the earl's reserve had well-nigh completed his
advantage over Gloucester's wing.  The new infantry under Hilyard, the
unexhausted riders under Sir John Coniers and his knightly compeers,
were dealing fearful havoc, as they cleared the plain; and Gloucester,
fighting inch by inch, no longer outnumbering but outnumbered, was
driven nearer and nearer towards the town, when suddenly a pale,
sickly, and ghostlike ray of sunshine, rather resembling the watery
gleam of a waning moon than the radiance of the Lord of Light, broke
through the mists, and showed to the earl's eager troops the banner
and badges of a new array hurrying to the spot.  "Behold," cried the
young Lord Fitzhugh, "the standard and the badge of the Usurper,--a
silver sun!  Edward himself is delivered into our hands!  Upon them,
bill and pike, lance and brand, shaft and bolt!  Upon them, and crown
the day!"

The same fatal error was shared by Hilyard, as he caught sight of the
advancing troop, with their silvery cognizance.  He gave the word, and
every arrow left its string.  At the same moment, as both horse and
foot assailed the fancied foe, the momentary beam vanished from the
heaven, the two forces mingled in the sullen mists, when, after a
brief conflict, a sudden and horrible cry of "Treason! Treason!"
resounded from either band.  The shining star of Oxford, returning
from the pursuit, had been mistaken for Edward's cognizance of the
sun.  [Cont. Croyl., 555; Fabyan, Habington, Hume, S. Turner.]  Friend
was slaughtering friend, and when the error was detected, each
believed the other had deserted to the foe.  In vain, here Montagu and
Warwick, and there Oxford and his captains, sought to dispel the
confusion, and unite those whose blood had been fired against each
other.  While yet in doubt, confusion, and dismay, rushed full into
the centre Edward of York himself, with his knights and riders; and
his tossing banners, scarcely even yet distinguished from Oxford's
starry ensigns, added to the general incertitude and panic.  Loud in
the midst rose Edward's trumpet voice, while through the midst, like
one crest of foam upon a roaring sea, danced his plume of snow.  Hark!
again, again--near and nearer--the tramp of steeds, the clash of
steel, the whiz and hiss of arrows, the shout of "Hastings to the
onslaught!"  Fresh, and panting for glory and for blood, came on King
Edward's large reserve; from all the scattered parts of the field
spurred the Yorkist knights, where the uproar, so much mightier than
before, told them that the crisis of the war was come.  Thither, as
vultures to the carcass, they flocked and wheeled; thither D'Eyncourt
and Lovell, and Cromwell's bloody sword, and Say's knotted mace; and
thither, again rallying his late half-beaten myrmidons, the grim
Gloucester, his helmet bruised and dinted, but the boar's teeth still
gnashing wrath and horror from the grisly crest. But direst and most
hateful of all in the eyes of the yet undaunted earl, thither, plainly
visible, riding scarcely a yard before him, with the cognizance of
Clare wrought on his gay mantle, and in all the pomp and bravery of a
holiday suit, came the perjured Clarence.  Conflict now it could
scarce be called: as well might the Dane have rolled back the sea from
his footstool, as Warwick and his disordered troop (often and aye,
dazzled here by Oxford's star, there by Edward's sun, dealing random
blows against each other) have resisted the general whirl and torrent
of the surrounding foe.  To add to the rout, Somerset and the on-guard
of his wing had been marching towards the earl at the very time that
the cry of "treason" had struck their ears, and Edward's charge was
made; these men, nearly all Lancastrians, and ever doubting Montagu,
if not Warwick, with the example of Clarence and the Archbishop of
York fresh before them, lost heart at once,--Somerset himself headed
the flight of his force.

"All is lost!" said Montagu, as side by side with Warwick the brothers
fronted the foe, and for one moment stayed the rush.

"Not yet," returned the earl; "a band of my northern archers still
guard yon wood; I know them,--they will fight to the last gasp!
Thither, then, with what men we may.  You so marshal our soldiers, and
I will make good the retreat.  Where is Sir Marmaduke Nevile?"

"Here!"

"Horsed again, young cousin!  I give thee a perilous commission.  Take
the path down the hill; the mists thicken in the hollows, and may hide
thee.  Overtake Somerset; he hath fled westward, and tell him, from
me, if he can yet rally but one troop of horse--but one--and charge
Edward suddenly in the rear, he will yet redeem all.  If he refuse,
the ruin of his king and the slaughter of the brave men he deserts be
on his head!  Swift, a tout bride, Marmaduke.  Yet one word," added
the earl, in a whisper,--"if you fail with Somerset, come not back,
make to the Sanctuary.  You are too young to die, cousin!  Away! keep
to the hollows of the chase."

As the knight vanished, Warwick turned to his comrades "Bold nephew
Fitzhugh, and ye brave riders round me,--so we are fifty knights!
Haste thou, Montagu, to the wood! the wood!"

So noble in that hero age was the Individual MAN, even amidst the
multitudes massed by war, that history vies with romance in showing
how far a single sword could redress the scale of war.  While Montagu,
with rapid dexterity, and a voice yet promising victory, drew back the
remnant of the lines, and in serried order retreated to the outskirts
of the wood, Warwick and his band of knights protected the movement
from the countless horsemen who darted forth from Edward's swarming
and momently thickening ranks.  Now dividing and charging singly, now
rejoining, and breast to breast, they served to divert and perplex and
harass the eager enemy.  And never in all his wars, in all the former
might of his indomitable arm, had Warwick so excelled the martial
chivalry of his age, as in that eventful and crowning hour.  Thrice
almost alone he penetrated into the very centre of Edward's body-
guard, literally felling to the earth all before him.  Then perished
by his battle-axe Lord Cromwell and the redoubted Lord of Say; then,
no longer sparing even the old affection, Gloucester was hurled to the
ground.  The last time he penetrated even to Edward himself, smiting
down the king's standard-bearer, unhorsing Hastings, who threw himself
on his path; and Edward, setting his teeth in stern joy as he saw him,
rose in his stirrups, and for a moment the mace of the king, the axe
of the earl, met as thunder encounters thunder; but then a hundred
knights rushed into the rescue, and robbed the baffled avenger of his
prey.  Thus charging and retreating, driving back with each charge
farther and farther the mighty multitude hounding on to the lion's
death, this great chief and his devoted knights, though terribly
reduced in number, succeeded at last in covering Montagu's skilful
retreat; and when they gained the outskirts of the wood, and dashed
through the narrow opening between the barricades, the Yorkshire
archers approved their lord's trust, and, shouting, as to a marriage
feast, hailed his coming.

But few, alas! of his fellow-horsemen had survived that marvellous
enterprise of valour and despair.  Of the fifty knights who had shared
its perils, eleven only gained the wood; and, though in this number
the most eminent (save Sir John Coniers, either slain or fled) might
be found, their horses, more exposed than themselves, were for the
most part wounded and unfit for further service.  At this time the sun
again, and suddenly as before, broke forth,--not now with a feeble
glimmer, but a broad and almost a cheerful beam, which sufficed to
give a fuller view than the day had yet afforded of the state and
prospects of the field.

To the right and to the left, what remained of the cavalry of Warwick
were seen flying fast,--gone the lances of Oxford, the bills of
Somerset.  Exeter, pierced by the shaft of Alwyn, was lying cold and
insensible, remote from the contest, and deserted even by his squires.

In front of the archers and such men as Montagu had saved from the
sword, halted the immense and murmuring multitude of Edward, their
thousand banners glittering in the sudden sun; for, as Edward beheld
the last wrecks of his foe, stationed near the covert, his desire of
consummating victory and revenge made him cautious, and, fearing an
ambush, he had abruptly halted.

When the scanty followers of the earl thus beheld the immense force
arrayed for their destruction, and saw the extent of their danger, and
their loss,--here the handful, there the multitude,--a simultaneous
exclamation of terror and dismay broke from their ranks.

"Children!" cried Warwick, "droop not!  Henry at Agincourt had worse
odds than we!"

But the murmur among the archers, the lealest part of the earl's
retainers, continued, till there stepped forth their captain, a gray
old man, but still sinewy and unbent, the iron relic of a hundred
battles.

"Back to your men, Mark Forester!" said the earl, sternly.

The old man obeyed not.  He came on to Warwick, and fell on his knees
beside his stirrup.

"Fly, my lord! escape is possible for you and your riders.  Fly
through the wood, we will screen your path with our bodies.  Your
children, father of your followers, your children of Middleham, ask no
better fate than to die for you!  Is it not so?" and the old man,
rising, turned to those in hearing.  They answered by a general
acclamation.

"Mark Forester speaks well," said Montagu.  "On yon depends the last
hope of Lancaster.  We may yet join Oxford and Somerset!  This way
through the wood,--come!" and he laid his hand on the earl's rein.

"Knights and sirs," said the earl, dismounting, and partially raising
his visor as he turned to the horsemen, "let those who will, fly with
Lord Montagu!  Let those who, in a just cause, never despair of
victory, nor, even at the worst, fear to face their Maker, fresh from
the glorious death of heroes, dismount with me!"  Every knight sprang
from his steed, Montagu the first. "Comrades!" continued the earl,
then addressing the retainers, "when the children fight for a father's
honour, the father flies not from the peril into which he has drawn
the children.  What to me were life, stained by the blood of mine own
beloved retainers, basely deserted by their chief?  Edward has
proclaimed that he will spare none.  Fool! he gives us, then, the
superhuman mightiness of despair!  To your bows!--one shaft--if it
pierce the joints of the tyrant's mail--one shaft may scatter yon army
to the winds!  Sir Marmaduke has gone to rally noble Somerset and his
riders; if we make good our defence one little hour, the foe may be
yet smitten in the rear, and the day retrieved!  Courage and heart
then!"  Here the earl lifted his visor to the farthest bar, and showed
his cheerful face--"Is this the face of a man who thinks all hope is
gone?"

In this interval, the sudden sunshine revealed to King Henry, where he
stood, the dispersion of his friends.  To the rear of the palisades,
which protected the spot where he was placed, already grouped "the
lookers-on and no fighters," as the chronicler [Fabyan] words it, who,
as the guns slackened, ventured forth to learn the news, and who now,
filling the churchyard of Hadley, strove hard to catch a peep of Henry
the saint, or of Bungey the sorcerer.  Mingled with these gleamed the
robes of the tymbesteres, pressing nearer and nearer to the barriers,
as wolves, in the instinct of blood, come nearer and nearer round the
circling watch-fire of some northern travellers.  At this time the
friar, turning to one of the guards who stood near him, said, "The
mists are needed no more now; King Edward hath got the day, eh?"

"Certes, great master," quoth the guard, "nothing now lacks to the
king's triumph except the death of the earl."

"Infamous nigromancer, hear that!" cried Bungey to Adam.  "What now
avail thy bombards and thy talisman!  Hark yet--tell me the secret of
the last,--of the damnable engine under my feet, and I may spare thy
life."

Adam shrugged his shoulders in impatient disdain.  "Unless I gave thee
my science, my secret were profitless to thee.  Villain and numskull,
do thy worst."

The friar made a sign to a soldier who stood behind Adam, and the
soldier silently drew the end of the rope which girded the scholar's
neck round a bough of the leafless tree.  "Hold!" whispered the friar,
"not till I give the word.  The earl may recover himself yet," he
added to himself; and therewith he began once more to vociferate his
incantations.  Meanwhile the eyes of Sibyll had turned for a moment
from her father; for the burst of sunshine, lighting up the valley
below, had suddenly given to her eyes, in the distance, the gable-ends
of the old farmhouse, with the wintry orchard,--no longer, alas!
smiling with starry blossoms.  Far remote from the battlefield was
that abode of peace,--that once happy home, where she had watched the
coming of the false one!

Loftier and holier were the thoughts of the fated king.  He had turned
his face from the field, and his eyes were fixed upon the tower of the
church behind.  And while he so gazed, the knoll from the belfry began
solemnly to chime.  It was now near the hour of the Sabbath prayers,
and amidst horror and carnage, still the holy custom was not
suspended.

"Hark!" said the king, mournfully, "that chime summons many a soul to
God!"

While thus the scene on the eminence of Hadley, Edward, surrounded by
Hastings, Gloucester, and his principal captains, took advantage of
the unexpected sunshine to scan the foe and its position, with the eye
of his intuitive genius for all that can slaughter man.  "This day,"
he said, "brings no victory, assures no crown, if Warwick escape
alive.  To you, Lovell and Ratcliffe, I intrust two hundred knights,--
your sole care the head of the rebel earl!"

"And Montagu?" said Ratcliffe.

"Montagu?  Nay, poor Montagu, I loved him as well once as my own
mother's son; and Montagu," he muttered to himself, "I never wronged,
and therefore him I can forgive.  Spare the marquis.--I mislike that
wood; they must have more force within than that handful on the skirts
betrays.  Come hither, D'Eyncourt."

And a few minutes afterwards, Warwick and his men saw two parties of
horse leave the main body, one for the right hand, one the left,
followed by long detachments of pikes, which they protected; and then
the central array marched slowly and steadily on towards the scanty
foe.  The design was obvious,--to surround on all sides the enemy,
driven to its last desperate bay.  But Montagu and his brother had not
been idle in the breathing-pause; they had planted the greater portion
of the archers skilfully among the trees.  They had placed their
pikemen on the verge of the barricades made by sharp stakes and fallen
timber, and where their rampart was unguarded by the pass which had
been left free for the horsemen, Hilyard and his stoutest fellows took
their post, filling the gap with breasts of iron.

And now, as with horns and clarions, with a sea of plumes and spears
and pennons, the multitudinous deathsmen came on, Warwick, towering in
the front, not one feather on his eagle crest despoiled or shorn,
stood, dismounted, his visor still raised, by his renowned steed.
Some of the men had by Warwick's order removed the mail from the
destrier's breast; and the noble animal, relieved from the weight,
seemed as unexhausted as its rider; save where the champed foam had
bespecked its glossy hide, not a hair was turned; and the on-guard of
the Yorkists heard its fiery snort as they moved slowly on.  This
figure of horse and horseman stood prominently forth amidst the little
band.  And Lovell, riding by Ratcliffe's side, whispered, "Beshrew me,
I would rather King Edward had asked for mine own head than that
gallant earl's!"

"Tush, youth," said the inexorable Ratcliffe, "I care not of what
steps the ladder of mine ambition may be made!"

While they were thus speaking, Warwick, turning to Montagu and his
knights, said,--

"Our sole hope is in the courage of our men.  And, as at Towton, when
I gave the throne to yon false man, I slew, with my own hand, my noble
Malech, to show that on that spot I would win or die, and by that
sacrifice so fired the soldiers, that we turned the day, so now--oh,
gentlemen, in another hour ye would jeer me, for my hand fails: this
hand that the poor beast hath so often fed from!  Saladin, last of thy
race, serve me now in death as in life.  Not for my sake, oh noblest
steed that ever bore a knight,--not for mine this offering!"

He kissed the destrier on his frontal, and Saladin, as if conscious of
the coming blow, bent his proud crest humbly, and licked his lord's
steel-clad hand.  So associated together had been horse and horseman,
that had it been a human sacrifice, the bystanders could not have been
more moved.  And when, covering the charger's eyes with one hand, the
earl's dagger descended, bright and rapid, a groan went through the
ranks.  But the effect was unspeakable!  The men knew at once that to
them, and them alone, their lord intrusted his fortunes and his life;
they were nerved to more than mortal daring.  No escape for Warwick--
why, then, in Warwick's person they lived and died!  Upon foe as upon
friend, the sacrifice produced all that could tend to strengthen the
last refuge of despair.  Even Edward, where he rode in the van, beheld
and knew the meaning of the deed.  Victorious Towton rushed back upon
his memory with a thrill of strange terror and remorse.

"He will die as he has lived," said Gloucester, with admiration.  "If
I live for such a field, God grant me such a death!"

As the words left the duke's lips, and Warwick, one foot on his dumb
friend's corpse, gave the mandate, a murderous discharge from the
archers in the covert rattled against the line of the Yorkists, and
the foe, still advancing, stepped over a hundred corpses to the
conflict.  Despite the vast preponderance of numbers, the skill of
Warwick's archers, the strength of his position, the obstacle to the
cavalry made by the barricades, rendered the attack perilous in the
extreme.

But the orders of Edward were prompt and vigorous.  He cared not for
the waste of life, and as one rank fell, another rushed on.  High
before the barricades stood Montagu, Warwick, and the rest of that
indomitable chivalry, the flower of the ancient Norman heroism.  As
idly beat the waves upon a rock as the ranks of Edward upon that
serried front of steel.  The sun still shone in heaven, and still
Edward's conquest was unassured.  Nay, if Marmaduke could yet bring
back the troops of Somerset upon the rear of the foe, Montagu and the
earl felt that the victory might be for them.  And often the earl
paused, to hearken for the cry of "Somerset" on the gale, and often
Montagu raised his visor to look for the banners and the spears of the
Lancastrian duke.  And ever, as the earl listened and Montagu scanned
the field, larger and larger seemed to spread the armament of Edward.
The regiment which boasted the stubborn energy of Alwyn was now in
movement, and, encouraged by the young Saxon's hardihood, the
Londoners marched on, unawed by the massacre of their predecessors.
But Alwyn, avoiding the quarter defended by the knights, defiled a
little towards the left, where his quick eye, inured to the northern
fogs, had detected the weakness of the barricade in the spot where
Hilyard was stationed; and this pass Alwyn (discarding the bow)
resolved to attempt at the point of the pike, the weapon answering to
our modern bayonet.  The first rush which he headed was so impetuous
as to effect an entry.  The weight of the numbers behind urged on the
foremost, and Hilyard had not sufficient space for the sweep of the
two-handed sword which had done good work that day.  While here the
conflict became fierce and doubtful, the right wing led by D'Eyncourt
had pierced the wood, and, surprised to discover no ambush, fell upon
the archers in the rear.  The scene was now inexpressibly terrific;
cries and groans, and the ineffable roar and yell of human passion,
resounded demonlike through the shade of the leafless trees.  And at
this moment, the provident and rapid generalship of Edward had moved
up one of his heavy bombards.  Warwick and Montagu and most of the
knights were called from the barricades to aid the archers thus
assailed behind; but an instant before that defence was shattered into
air by the explosion of the bombard.  In another minute horse and foot
rushed through the opening.  And amidst all the din was heard the
voice of Edward, "Strike, and spare not; we win the day!"  "We win the
day! victory! victory!" repeated the troops behind.  Rank caught the
sound from rank, and file from file; it reached the captive Henry, and
he paused in prayer; it reached the ruthless friar, and he gave the
sign to the hireling at his shoulder; it reached the priest as he
entered, unmoved, the church of Hadley.  And the bell, changing its
note into a quicker and sweeter chime, invited the living to prepare
for death, and the soul to rise above the cruelty and the falsehood,
and the pleasure and the pomp, and the wisdom and the glory of the
world!  And suddenly, as the chime ceased, there was heard, from the
eminence hard by, a shriek of agony,--a female shriek,--drowned by the
roar of a bombard in the field below.

On pressed the Yorkists through the pass forced by Alwyn.  "Yield
thee, stout fellow," said the bold trader to Hilyard, whose dogged
energy, resembling his own, moved his admiration, and in whom, by the
accent in which Robin called his men, he recognized a north-
countryman; "yield, and I will see that thou goest safe in life and
limb.  Look round, ye are beaten."

"Fool!" answered Hilyard, setting his teeth, "the People are never
beaten!"  And as the words left his lips, the shot from the recharged
bombard shattered him piecemeal.

"On for London and the crown!" cried Alwyn,--"the citizens are the
People!"

At this time, through the general crowd of the Yorkists, Ratcliffe and
Lovell, at the head of their appointed knights, galloped forward to
accomplish their crowning mission.

Behind the column which still commemorates "the great battle" of that
day, stretches now a trilateral patch of pasture-land, which faces a
small house.  At that time this space was rough forest-ground, and
where now, in the hedge, rise two small trees, types of the diminutive
offspring of our niggard and ignoble civilization, rose then two huge
oaks, coeval with the warriors of the Norman Conquest. They grew close
together; yet, though their roots interlaced, though their branches
mingled, one had not taken nourishment from the other.  They stood,
equal in height and grandeur, the twin giants of the wood.  Before
these trees, whose ample trunks protected them from the falchions in
the rear, Warwick and Montagu took their last post. In front rose,
literally, mounds of the slain, whether of foe or friend; for round
the two brothers to the last had gathered the brunt of war, and they
towered now, almost solitary in valour's sublime despair, amidst the
wrecks of battle and against the irresistible march of fate.  As side
by side they had gained this spot, and the vulgar assailants drew
back, leaving the bodies of the dead their last defence from death,
they turned their visors to each other, as for one latest farewell on
earth.

"Forgive me, Richard," said Montagu,--"forgive me thy death; had I not
so blindly believed in Clarence's fatal order, the savage Edward had
never passed alive through the pass of Pontefract."

"Blame not thyself," replied Warwick.  "We are but the instruments of
a wiser Will.  God assoil thee, brother mine.  We leave this world to
tyranny and vice.  Christ receive our souls!"

For a moment their hands clasped, and then all was grim silence.

Wide and far, behind and before, in the gleam of the sun, stretched
the victorious armament, and that breathing-pause sufficed to show the
grandeur of their resistance,--the grandest of all spectacles, even in
its hopeless extremity,--the defiance of brave hearts to the brute
force of the many.  Where they stood they were visible to thousands,
but not a man stirred against them.  The memory of Warwick's past
achievements, the consciousness of his feats that day, all the
splendour of his fortunes and his name, made the mean fear to strike,
and the brave ashamed to murder!  The gallant D'Eyncourt sprang from
his steed, and advanced to the spot.  His followers did the same.

"Yield, my lords, yield!  Ye have done all that men could do!"

"Yield, Montagu," whispered Warwick.  "Edward can harm not thee.  Life
has sweets; so they say, at least."

"Not with power and glory gone.--We yield not, Sir Knight," answered
the marquis, in a calm tone.

"Then die, and make room for the new men whom ye so have scorned!"
exclaimed a fierce voice; and Ratcliffe, who had neared the spot,
dismounted and hallooed on his bloodhounds.

Seven points might the shadow have traversed on the dial, and, before
Warwick's axe and Montagu's sword, seven souls had gone to judgment.
In that brief crisis, amidst the general torpor and stupefaction and
awe of the bystanders, round one little spot centred still a war.

But numbers rushed on numbers, as the fury of conflict urged on the
lukewarm.  Montagu was beaten to his knee, Warwick covered him with
his body; a hundred axes resounded on the earl's stooping casque, a
hundred blades gleamed round the joints of his harness.  A
simultaneous cry was heard; over the mounds of the slain, through the
press into the shadow of the oaks, dashed Gloucester's charger.  The
conflict had ceased, the executioners stood mute in a half-circle.
Side by side, axe and sword still griped in their iron hands, lay
Montagu and Warwick.

The young duke, his visor raised, contemplated the fallen foes in
silence.  Then dismounting, he unbraced with his own hand the earl's
helmet.  Revived for a moment by the air, the hero's eyes unclosed,
his lips moved, he raised, with a feeble effort, the gory battle-axe,
and the armed crowd recoiled in terror.  But the earl's soul, dimly
conscious, and about to part, had escaped from that scene of strife,
its later thoughts of wrath and vengeance, to more gentle memories, to
such memories as fade the last from true and manly hearts!

"Wife! child!" murmured the earl, indistinctly.  "Anne! Anne! Dear
ones, God comfort ye!"  And with these words the breath went, the head
fell heavily on its mother earth, the face set, calm and undistorted,
as the face of a soldier should be, when a brave death has been worthy
of a brave life.

"So," muttered the dark and musing Gloucester, unconscious of the
throng, "so perishes the Race of Iron.  Low lies the last baron who
could control the throne and command the people.  The Age of Force
expires with knighthood and deeds of arms.  And over this dead great
man I see the New Cycle dawn.  Happy, henceforth, he who can plot and
scheme, and fawn and smile!"  Waking with a start from his revery, the
splendid dissimulator said, as in sad reproof, "Ye have been over
hasty, knights and gentlemen.  The House of York is mighty enough to
have spared such noble foes.  Sound trumpets!  Fall in file!  Way,
there,--way!  King Edward comes.  Long live the king!"




CHAPTER VII.

THE LAST PILGRIMS IN THE LONG PROCESSION TO THE COMMON BOURNE.

The king and his royal brothers, immediately after the victory, rode
back to London to announce their triumph.  The foot-soldiers still
stayed behind to recruit themselves after the sore fatigue.  And
towards the eminence by Hadley church, the peasants and villagers of
the district had pressed in awe and in wonder; for on that spot had
Henry (now sadly led back to a prison, never again to unclose to his
living form) stood to watch the destruction of the host gathered in
his name; and to that spot the corpses of Warwick and Montagu were
removed, while a bier was prepared to convey their remains to London;
[The bodies of Montagu and the earl were exhibited bareheaded at St.
Paul's church for three days, "that no pretence of their being alive
might stir up any rebellion afterwards; . . . they were then carried
down to the Priory of Bisham, in Berkshire, where among their
ancestors by the mother's side (the Earls of Salisbury), the two
unquiet brothers rest in one tomb. . . .  The large river of their
blood, divided now into many streams, runs so small, they are hardly
observed as they flow by."  (Habington's "Life of Edward IV.," one of
the most eloquent compositions in the language, though incorrect as a
history).--"Sic transit gloria mundi."] and on that spot had the
renowned friar conjured the mists, exorcised the enchanted guns, and
defeated the horrible machinations of the Lancastrian wizard.

And towards the spot, and through the crowd, a young Yorkist captain
passed with a prisoner he had captured, and whom he was leading to the
tent of the Lord Hastings, the only one of the commanders from whom
mercy might be hoped, and who had tarried behind the king and his
royal brothers to make preparations for the removal of the mighty
dead.

"Keep close to me, Sir Marmaduke," said the Yorkist; we must look to
Hastings to appease the king: and, if he hope not to win your pardon,
he may, at least, after such a victory, aid one foe to fly."

"Care not for me, Alwyn," said the knight; "when Somerset was deaf
save to his own fears, I came back to die by my chieftain's side,
alas, too late! too late!  Better now death than life!  What kin,
kith, ambition, love, were to other men was Lord Warwick's smile to
me!"

Alwyn kindly respected his prisoner's honest emotion, and took
advantage of it to lead him away from the spot where he saw knights
and warriors thickest grouped, in soldier-like awe and sadness, round
the Hero-Brothers.  He pushed through a humbler crowd of peasants and
citizens, and women with babes at their breast; and suddenly saw a
troop of timbrel-women dancing round a leafless tree, and chanting
some wild but mirthful and joyous doggerel.

"What obscene and ill-seasoned revelry is this?" said the trader to a
gaping yeoman.

"They are but dancing, poor girls, round the wicked wizard whom Friar
Bungey caused to be strangled, and his witch daughter."

A chill foreboding seized upon Alwyn: he darted forward, scattering
peasant and tymbestere with his yet bloody sword.  His feet stumbled
against some broken fragments; it was the poor Eureka, shattered, at
last, for the sake of the diamond!  Valueless to the great friar,
since the science of the owner could not pass to his executioner,--
valueless the mechanism and the invention, the labour and the genius;
but the superstition and the folly and the delusion had their value,
and the impostor who destroyed the engine clutched the jewel!

From the leafless tree was suspended the dead body of a man; beneath,
lay a female, dead too; but whether by the hand of man or the mercy of
Heaven, there was no sign to tell.  Scholar and Child, Knowledge and
Innocence, alike were cold; the grim Age had devoured them, as it
devours ever those before, as behind, its march, and confounds, in one
common doom, the too guileless and the too wise!

"Why crowd ye thus, knaves?" said a commanding voice.

"Ha, Lord Hastings! approach! behold!" exclaimed Alwyn.

"Ha, ha!" shouted Graul, as she led her sisters from the spot,
wheeling, and screaming, and tossing up their timbrels, "ha! the witch
and her lover!  Ha, ha!  Foul is fair!  Ha, ha!  Witchcraft and death
go together, as thou mayest learn at the last, sleek wooer."

And, peradventure, when, long years afterwards, accusations of
witchcraft, wantonness, and treason resounded in the ears of Hastings,
and, at the signal of Gloucester, rushed in the armed doomsman, those
ominous words echoed back upon his soul!

At that very hour the gates of the Tower were thrown open to the
multitude.  Fresh from his victory, Edward and his brothers had gone
to render thanksgivings at St. Paul's (they were devout, those three
Plantagenets!), thence to Baynard's Castle, to escort the queen and
her children once more to the Tower.  And, now, the sound of trumpets
stilled the joyous uproar of the multitude, for in the balcony of the
casement that looked towards the chapel the herald had just announced
that King Edward would show himself to the people.  On every inch of
the courtyard, climbing up wall and palisade, soldier, citizen, thief,
harlot, age, childhood, all the various conditions and epochs of
multiform life, swayed, clung, murmured, moved, jostled, trampled,--
the beings of the little hour!

High from the battlements against the weltering beam floated Edward's
conquering flag,--a sun shining to the sun.  Again, and a third time,
rang the trumpets, and on the balcony, his crown upon his head, but
his form still sheathed in armour, stood the king.  What mattered to
the crowd his falseness and his perfidy, his licentiousness and
cruelty?  All vices ever vanish in success!  Hurrah for King Edward!
THE MAN OF THE AGE suited the age, had valour for its war and cunning
for its peace, and the sympathy of the age was with him!  So there
stood the king; at his right hand, Elizabeth, with her infant boy (the
heir of England) in her arms, the proud face of the duchess seen over
the queen's shoulder.  By Elizabeth's side was the Duke of Gloucester,
leaning on his sword, and at the left of Edward, the perjured Clarence
bowed his fair head to the joyous throng!  At the sight of the
victorious king, of the lovely queen, and, above all, of the young
male heir, who promised length of days to the line of York, the crowd
burst forth with a hearty cry, "Long live the king and the king's
son!"  Mechanically Elizabeth turned her moistened eyes from Edward to
Edward's brother, and suddenly, as with a mother's prophetic instinct,
clasped her infant closer to her bosom, when she caught the glittering
and fatal eye of Richard, Duke of Gloucester (York's young hero of the
day, Warwick's grim avenger in the future), fixed upon that harmless
life, destined to interpose a feeble obstacle between the ambition of
a ruthless intellect and the heritage of the English throne!




NOTES.

I.

The badge of the Bear and Ragged Staff was so celebrated in the
fifteenth century, that the following extract from a letter addressed
by Mr. Courthope, Rouge Croix, to the author, will no doubt interest
the reader, and the author is happy in the opportunity afforded of
expressing his acknowledgments for the courteous attention with which
Mr. Courthope has honoured his inquiries:--

"COLLEGE OF ARMS.
"As regards the badge of Richard Nevile, Earl of Warwick,--namely, the
Bear and Staff,--I agree with you, certainly, as to the probability of
his having sometimes used the whole badge, and sometimes the Staff
only, which accords precisely with the way in which the Bear and Staff
are set forth in the Rous Roll to the early earls (Warwick) before the
Conquest.  We there find them figured with the Staff upon their
shields and the Bear at their feet, and the Staff alone is introduced
as a quartering upon their shields.

"The story of the origin of these badges is as follows:

"Arth, or Arthgal, is reputed to have been the first Earl of Warwick,
and being one of the knights of King Arthur's Round Table, it behooved
him to have a cognizance; and Arth or Narth signifying in British the
same as Ursus in Latin, he took the Bear for such cognizance.  His
successor, Morvidus, Earl of Warwick, in single combat, overcame a
mighty giant (who had encountered him with a tree pulled up from the
root, the boughs of which had been torn from it), and in token of his
success assumed the Ragged Staff.  You will thus see that the origins
of the two were different, which would render the bearing of them
separately not unlikely, and you will likewise infer that both came
through the Beauchamps.  I do not find the Ragged Staff ever
attributed to the Neviles before the match with Beauchamp.

"As regards the crest or cognizance of Nevile, the Pied Bull has been
the cognizance of that family from a very early time, and the Bull's
head, its crest, and both the one and the other may have been used by
the king-maker, and by his brother, the Marquis Montagu; the said Bull
appears at the feet of Richard Nevile in the Rous Roll, accompanied by
the Eagle of Monthermer; the crests on either side of him are those of
Montagu and Nevile.  Besides these two crests, both of which the
Marquis Montagu may have used, he certainly did use the Gryphon,
issuant out of a ducal coronet, as this appears alone for his crest,
on his garter plate, as a crest for Montagu, he having given the arms
of that family precedence over his paternal coat of Nevile; the king-
maker, likewise, upon his seal, gives the precedence to Montagu and
Monthermer, and they alone appear upon his shield."

II.

Hume, Rapin, and Carte, all dismiss the story of Edward's actual
imprisonment at Middleham, while Lingard, Sharon Turner, and others,
adopt it implicitly.  And yet, though Lingard has successfully
grappled with some of Hume's objections, he has left others wholly
unanswered.  Hume states that no such fact is mentioned in Edward's
subsequent proclamation against Clarence and Warwick.  Lingard
answers, after correcting an immaterial error in Hume's dates, "that
the proclamation ought not to have mentioned it, because it was
confined to the enumeration of offences only committed after the
general amnesty in 1469;" and then, surely with some inconsistency,
quotes the attainder of Clarence many years afterwards, in which the
king enumerates it among his offences, "as jeopardyng the king's royal
estate, person, and life, in strait warde, putting him thereby from
all his libertye after procuring great commotions."  But it is clear
that if the amnesty hindered Edward from charging Warwick with this
imprisonment only one year after it was granted, it would, a fortiori,
hinder him from charging Clarence with it nine years after.  Most
probable is it that this article of accusation does not refer to any
imprisonment, real or supposed, at Middleham, in 1469, but to
Clarence's invasion of England in 1470, when Edward's state, person,
and life were jeopardized by his narrow escape from the fortified
house, where he might fairly be called "in straite warde;" especially
as the words, "after procuring great commotions," could not apply to
the date of the supposed detention in Middleham, when, instead of
procuring commotions, Clarence had helped Warwick to allay them, but
do properly apply to his subsequent rebellion in 1470.  Finally,
Edward's charges against his brother, as Lingard himself has observed
elsewhere, are not proofs, and that king never scrupled at any
falsehood to serve his turn.  Nothing, in short, can be more improbable
than this tale of Edward's captivity,--there was no object in it.  At
the very time it is said to have taken place, Warwick is absolutely
engaged in warfare against the king's foes.  The moment Edward leaves
Middleham, instead of escaping to London, he goes carelessly and
openly to York, to judge and execute the very captain of the rebels
whom Warwick has subdued, and in the very midst of Warwick's armies!
Far from appearing to harbour the natural resentment so vindictive a
king must have felt (had so great an indignity been offered to him),
almost immediately after he leaves York, he takes the Nevile family
into greater power than ever, confers new dignities upon Warwick, and
betroths his eldest daughter to Warwick's nephew.  On the whole, then,
perhaps some such view of the king's visit to Middleham which has been
taken in this narrative, may be considered not the least probable
compromise of the disputed and contradictory evidence on the subject.


THE END.





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*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*