Historic Boys Part 14

Almost as he spoke, there burst from the thicket, not a hundred yards away, a splendid red deer, whose spreading antlers proclaimed him to be a "stag of twelve" or "stag-royal." Fast after him dashed the excited hunters; but, leading them all, spurred a st.u.r.dy young fellow of eager fifteen--tall and slender, but quick and active in every movement, as he yielded himself to the free action of his horse and cheered on the hounds.

The excitement was contagious, and Lionel, spite of the caution of his friend the archer, could not restrain himself. His "view halloo" was shouted with boyish impetuosity as, fast at the heels of the other young hunter, he spurred his willing horse. But now the deer turned to the right and made for a distant thicket, and Lionel saw the young hunter spring from his lagging steed, and, with a stout cord reeled around his arm, dash after the stag afoot, while hounds and hunters panted far behind.

It was a splendid race of boy and beast. The lad's quick feet seemed scarcely to touch the ground, every spring bringing him nearer and nearer to his n.o.ble prey. There is a final spurt; the coil of cord flies from the hunter's arm, as his quick fling sends it straight in air; the noose settles over the broad antlers of the buck; the youth draws back with a sudden but steady jerk, and the defeated deer drops to earth, a doomed and panting captive.

"There is but one lad in all England can do that!" cried enthusiastic Lionel, as with a loud huzza, he spurred toward the spot so as to be "in at the death."

"Lend me thy knife, page," the boy hunter demanded, as Lionel sprang from his horse, "mine I think hath leaped from my belt into yonder pool."

Flas.h.!.+ gleamed the sharp steel in air; deep to the hilt it plunged into the victim's throat, and, kneeling on the body of the dying stag, Harry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales, the fleetest and most fearless of England's youthful hunters, looked up into Lionel's admiring face.

"Hey O!" he cried. "Sure, 't is Lionel Langley! Why, how far'st thou, lad, and how cam'st thou here?"

"I come, my Lord," Lionel replied, "with Sir Walter Blount's following of squires and archers, whom his Majesty, the King, hath sent to thy succour."

"You are right welcome all," said Prince Harry, "and you come in good stead, for sure we need your aid. But wind this horn of mine, Lionel, and call in the hunt." And as Lionel's notes sounded loud and clear, the rest of the chase galloped up, and soon the combined trains rode on to the English camp in the Vale of Conway.

There, in the train of Prince Harry, Lionel pa.s.sed the winter and spring; while his young leader, then scarce sixteen, led his hardy troops, a miniature army of scarce three thousand men, up and down the eastern marches of Wales, scouring the country from Conway Castle to Harlech Hold, and from the Irish Sea to Snowden and to Shrewsbury gates. The battles fought were little more than forays and skirmishes,--the retaliations of fire and sword, now in English fields and now on Welsh borders; but it was a good "school of the soldier," in which Lionel learned the art of war, and Harry of Monmouth bore himself right gallantly.

But greater troubles were brewing, and braver deeds in store. On a fair July morning in the year 1403, Lionel, who now served the prince as squire of the body, entering his pavilion hastily, said, in much excitement:

"My Lord, my Lord, the Earl of Worcester has gone!"

"Gone?" echoed the prince. "What dost thou mean? Gone? When--where--how?"

"None know, my Lord," Lionel replied. "This morning his pavilion was found deserted, and with him are fled Sir Herbert Tressell, and the squires and archers of my lord of Worcester's train."

Now, the Earl of Worcester was the "tutor," or guardian, of the prince, a trusted n.o.ble of the House of Percy, and appointed by the king to have the oversight or guidance of young Harry; and his sudden flight from camp greatly surprised the prince.

"My lord Prince," said Sir Walter Blount, entering as hastily as had Lionel, "here is a courier from the wors.h.i.+pful Constable of Chester, with secret tidings that the Percies are in arms against my lord the king."

"The Percies up, and my lord of Worcester fled?" exclaimed the prince.

"This bodes no good for us. Quick, get thee to horse, Lionel. Speed like the wind to Shrewsbury. Get thee fair escort from my lord of Warwick, and then on to the king at Burton." And in less than ten minutes Lionel was a-horse, bearing the prince's billet that told the doleful news of the new rebellion, spurring fast to Shrewsbury and the King.

Before three days had pa.s.sed the whole great plot was known, and men shook their heads in dismay and doubt at the tidings that the great houses of Percy and of Mortimer, rebelling against the king for both real and fancied grievances, had made a solemn league with the Welsh rebel, Owen Glendower, to dethrone King Henry, whom the Percies themselves had helped to the throne. A fast-growing army, led by the brave Sir Henry Percy,--whom men called Hotspur, from his mighty valor and his impetuous temper,--and by the Earl of Douglas, most valiant of the Scottish knights, was even now marching upon Shrewsbury to raise the standard of revolt.

"Hotspur a rebel? Worcester a traitor?" exclaimed the king in amazement, as he read Lionel's tidings. "Whom may we trust if these be false?"

But Henry the Fourth of England was not one to delay in action, nor to "cry over spilled milk." His first surprise over, he sent a fleet courier to London announcing the rebellion to his council, but bravely a.s.suring them for their consolation that he was "powerful enough to conquer all his enemies." Then he gave orders to break the camp at Burton and march on Shrewsbury direct; and, early next morning, Lionel was spurring back to his boy general, Prince Harry, with orders from the king to meet him at once with all his following at Bridgenorth Castle.

So, down from the east marches of Wales to Bridgenorth towers came Prince Harry speedily, with his little army of trusty knights and squires, stalwart archers and men-at-arms,--hardy fighters all, trained to service in the forays of the rude Welsh wars, in which, too, their gallant young commander had himself learned coolness, caution, strategy, and unshrinking valor--the chief attributes of successful leaders.h.i.+p.

Where Bridgenorth town stands upon the sloping banks of Severn, "like to old Jerusalem for pleasant situation," as the pilgrim travellers reported, there rallied in those bright summer days of 1403 a hastily summoned army for the "putting down of the rebel Percies." With waving banners and with gleaming lances, with the clank of heavy armor and ponderous engines of war, with the royal standard borne by Sir Walter Blount and his squires, out through the "one mighty gate" of Bridgenorth Castle pa.s.sed the princely leaders, marshalling their army of fourteen thousand men across the broad plain of Salop toward the towers and battlements of the beleaguered town of Shrewsbury.

The king himself led the right wing, and young Harry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales, the left. So rapidly did the royal captains move, that the impetuous Hotspur, camped under the walls of the stout old castle, only knew of their near approach when, on the morning of July 20th, he saw upon the crest of a neighboring hill the waving banners of King Henry's host.

The gates of Shrewsbury opened to the king, and across the walls of the ancient town royalist and rebel faced each other, armed for b.l.o.o.d.y fight.

Lionel's young heart beat high as he watched the warlike preparations, and, glancing across to where near Haughmond Abbey floated the rebel standard, he found himself humming one of the rough old war tunes he had learned in Wales:

"Oh, we hope to do thee a gleeful thing With a rope, a ladder, and eke a ring; On a gallows high shalt thou swing full free-- And thus shall the ending of traitors be."

"Nay, nay, Lionel, be not so sure of that," said the prince, as he, too, caught up the spirited air. "Who faces Hotspur and Douglas, as must we, will be wise not to talk rope and gallows till he sees the end of the affair. But come to the base-court. I'll play thee a rare game of--hark, though," he said, as a loud trumpet-peal sounded beyond the walls, "there goeth the rebel defiance at the north gate. Come, attend me to the king's quarters, Lionel." And hastening across the inner court of the castle, the two lads entered the great guard-room just as the warders ushered into the king's presence the knights who, in accordance with the laws of battle, bore to the king the defiance of his enemies.

"Henry of Hereford and Lancaster!" said the herald, flinging a steel gauntlet on the floor with a ringing clash, "there lieth my lord of Percy's gage! thus doth he defy thee to battle!"

The Prince Harry, with the flush of excitement on his fair young face, sprang from his father's side and picked up the gage of battle. "This shall be my duty," he said, and then the herald read before the king the paper containing the manifesto, or "defiance," of the Percies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRINCE HENRY PICKS UP THE GAGE OF THE PERCIES'

DEFIANCE.--"THIS SHALL BE MY DUTY," HE SAID.]

In spirited articles the missive accused the king of many wrongs and oppressions, each article closing with the sentence: "Wherefore, thou art forsworn and false," while the following hot and ringing words concluded the curious paper: "For the which cause, we defy thee, thy fautores,[U]

and complices, as common traytoures and destroyers of the realme and the invadours, oppressors, and confounders of the verie true and right heires to the crown of England, which thynge we intende with our handes to prove this daie, Almighty G.o.d helping us."

The king took the paper from the herald's hand and simply said:

"Withdraw, sir herald, and a.s.sure your lord that we will reply to him with the sword, and prove in battle his quarrel to be false and traitorous and feigned."

And then the herald withdrew, courteously escorted; but it is said that King Henry, saddened at the thought of the valiant English blood that must be shed, sent, soon after, gentle words and offers of pardon to the Percies if they would return to their allegiance--all of which the Earl of Worcester, envious of the king, misreported to his generous but hot-headed nephew, Sir Harry Percy. So wrong a message did the false earl give, that both Hotspur and the Douglas flamed with rage, and without waiting for Owen Glendower's forces and the expected reenforcements from the north, gave orders for instant battle, thus hastening the conflict before they were really ready. "The more haste, the less speed" is a strong old adage, boys, that holds good both in peace and war, and bitterly was it repented of on that "sad and sorry field of Shrewsbury."

So, out through the north gate of Shrewsbury, on a Friday afternoon, swept the army of the king, fourteen thousand strong, and, back from the abbey foregate and the Severn's banks, dropped the Percies' host, thirteen thousand banded English, Scotch, and Welsh. In a s.p.a.ce of open, rolling country known as Hately Field--fit name for a place of battle between former friends,--three miles from Shrewsbury town, the rival armies pitched their tents, drew their battle lines, and waited for the dawn.

It is the morning of Sat.u.r.day, the twenty-second of July, 1403. Both camps are astir, and in the gray light that precedes the dawn the preparation for battle is made. The sun lights up the alder-covered hills, the trumpet sounds to arms, the standards sway, the burnished armor gleams and rings as knights and squires fall into their appointed places; the cloth-yard shafts are fitted to the archer's bows, and then, up from a sloping field, sweet with the odor of the pea-blossoms that cover it, there comes in loud defiance the well-known war-cry of the Percies: "_Esperance, esperance!_ Percy, ho, a Percy!" and Hotspur with his Northumbrian archers sweeps to the attack amidst a terrible flight of arrows and of spears.

"Play up, sir trumpeter!" shouted Harry of Monmouth, rising in his stirrups. "Play up your answering blast. Shake out our standard free. Now, forward all! Death to traitors! St. George--St. George for England!"

"St. George for England!" came the answering echo from King Henry's line; "_Esperance_, Percy!" sounded again from the rebel ranks, and "in a place called Bullfield," both armies closed in conflict.

"So furiously, the armies joined," runs the old chronicle: "the arrows fell as fall the leaves on the ground after a frosty night at the approach of winter. There was no room for the arrows to reach the ground; every one struck a mortal man." The first attack was against the king's own ranks. Hotspur, with his Northumbrian arrows, and Douglas, with his Scottish spears, pressed hotly upon them, while Worcester's Ches.h.i.+re archers from a slope near by sent their whizzing messengers straight into the king's lines. Though answering valiantly, the terrible a.s.sault was too severe for the king's men. They wavered, staggered, swayed, and broke--a ringing cheer went up from the enemy, when, just at the critical moment, with an "indignant onset," Harry of Monmouth dashed to his father's aid.

His resistless rush changed the tide of battle, and the king's line was saved.

A sorry record is the story of that fearful fight. For three long hours the battle raged from Haughmond Abbey on to Berwick Bridge, and ere the noon of that b.l.o.o.d.y day, twelve thousand valiant Englishmen fell on the fatal field. "So faute thei, to gret harm of this nacion," says one queer old chronicle; and another says: "It was more to be noted vengeable, for there the father was slain of the son and the son of the father." The great historian Hume tells us that "We shall scarcely find any battle in those ages where the shock was more terrible and more constant."

The fire of pa.s.sion and of fight spread even to the youngest page and squire, and as Lionel pressed close after the "gilded helmet and the three-plumed crest" of his brilliant young prince, his face flamed with the excitement of the battle-hour. Again and again he saw the king unhorsed and fighting desperately for his crown and life; again and again he saw the fiery Hotspur and Douglas, the Scot, charge furiously on the king they had sworn to kill. Backward and forward the tide of battle rolls; now royalist, now rebel seems the victor. Hark! What shout is that?

"The king, the king is down!"

And where Hotspur and the Douglas fight around the hillock now known as the "King's Croft," Lionel misses the golden crest, he misses the royal banner of England!

"Sir Walter Blount is killed! the standard is lost!" is now the sorry cry.

But now the prince and his hardy Welsh fighters charge to the rescue, and Lionel gave a cry of terror as he saw a whizzing arrow tear into the face of his beloved prince. Young Harry reeled with his hurt, and Lionel with other gentlemen of the guard caught him in their arms. There was confusion and dismay.

"The prince is hurt!" cried Lionel, and almost as an echo rose those other shouts:

"The king is slain!"

"Long live the Percy!"

"Back to the rear, my lord!" pleaded Lionel, as he wiped the blood from the fair young face of the prince.