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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Last Of The Barons, by Lytton, Volume 12.
+#153 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
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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]
+
+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST OF THE BARONS, V12 ***
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen
+and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+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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