Chapter VIII.ON FRENCH FIELDS.

The Black Prince being made a Knight of the Garter.(From the picture by C. W. Cope, R.A., in Westminster Palace.)

“Now all the youth of England are on fire,And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thoughtReigns solely in the breast of every man.”

“Now all the youth of England are on fire,

And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;

Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought

Reigns solely in the breast of every man.”

YOU are gazing upon the death-chamber of a king. He lies upon his bed in the silent, darkened room, and sleep comes and goes from his troubled pillow. Conscience smites him and disease racks his bones. He has been a man of blood all his days, and many crimes are laid to his charge. He has murdered the king whose crown he wears; the blood of an archbishop is upon his head. As fitful slumber seizes him, you perceive a noble youth enter the room. Comely is he in face and figure, though he bears the marks of recent grief. He stands by his father’s couch, and watches the sufferer. As he does so, his eye falls on the king’s crown, and he muses on the weight and cares of majesty. Then he glances again at the prostrate form on the bed, and a great grief surges into his heart, for, to all seeming, the king, his father, is dead. He bursts into tears, and taking up the crown places it on his own head.

“My due from thee is this Imperial crown,Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,Derives itself to me. Lo! here it sits,Which God shall guard: and put the world’s whole strengthInto one giant arm, it shall not forceThis lineal honour from me: this from theeWill I to mine leave, as ’tis left to me.”

“My due from thee is this Imperial crown,

Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,

Derives itself to me. Lo! here it sits,

Which God shall guard: and put the world’s whole strength

Into one giant arm, it shall not force

This lineal honour from me: this from thee

Will I to mine leave, as ’tis left to me.”

But while he speaks, the king awakes, and his roving eye sees the crown which his son is even now wearing. “Sire,” cries the young prince, “I never thought to hear thee speak again.” Then the dying king reproves him:——

“Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chairThat thou wilt needs invest thee with my honoursBefore thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!Thou seek’st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignityIs held from falling with so weak a windThat it will quickly drop: my day is dim.Thou hast stolen that which, after some few hours,Were thine without offence.”

“Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:

I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.

Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair

That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours

Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!

Thou seek’st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.

Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity

Is held from falling with so weak a wind

That it will quickly drop: my day is dim.

Thou hast stolen that which, after some few hours,

Were thine without offence.”

The prince, stricken to the heart by his father’s reproaches, flings himself upon his knees to ask pardon for his presumption, and to assure the king of the innocence of his deed. He swears that no rebel or vain spirit has prompted him to seize the crown.

“Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,——And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,——I spake unto this crown as having sense....Accusing it, I put it on my head,To try with it, as with an enemyThat had before my face murdered my father,The quarrel of a true inheritor.”

“Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,——

And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,——

I spake unto this crown as having sense....

Accusing it, I put it on my head,

To try with it, as with an enemy

That had before my face murdered my father,

The quarrel of a true inheritor.”

The dying king gladly accepts his son’s explanation, and blessing him passes away; while the new king, in an agony of grief, swears to throw off the waywardness and wildness of his ways. And so, amidst the loud acclaim of his subjects, the crown is placed for the second time on his head, and he begins to reign. Never king will be better loved; he will give his people their fill of martial glory, and loudly they will boast:——

“Oh, when shall EnglishmenWith such acts fill a pen,Or England breed againSuch a King Harry!”

“Oh, when shall Englishmen

With such acts fill a pen,

Or England breed again

Such a King Harry!”

And now two years have flown, and you see him again following the will o’ the wisp of that French dominion which the third Edward vainly sought. It is easy to pick a quarrel with France; her king has lost his wits, and his selfish kinsmen are tearing the realm in twain with their enmities and quarrels. So with the might of England at his back Harry crosses the Channel, and his great guns begin to thunder before the walls of Harfleur. Before the town falls his army is fearfully wasted by hunger and disease; nevertheless, he does not mean to return without doing a deed that “will dazzle all the eyes of France.” From Harfleur he writes to the Dauphin and offers to fight him man to man for the kingdom, pleading that the quarrel may thus be settled without the shedding of innocent blood. But the sluggish, mean-spirited Dauphin makes no answer, so Harry cries:——

“The game’s afoot;Follow your spirit, and, upon this charge,Cry, ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George.’ ”

“The game’s afoot;

Follow your spirit, and, upon this charge,

Cry, ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George.’ ”

It is the evening of October 24th, in the year of grace 1415. Five thousand English bowmen and five thousand men-at-arms, weary, half-starved, wasted, ragged, and footsore, are stumbling on through French fields for Calais, dreaming of the homes they are never likely to see again. Suddenly the news comes in that a huge French army bars the way. Out go the scouts, and one of them, a Welshman, speedily returns with the brave report: “There are enough to be killed, enough to be taken, and enough to run away.” In sooth, there are 60,000 of them, fresh, well-equipped, and in the most confident of spirits; the odds are six to one. “Oh that we now had here but one ten thousand of those men in England who do no work to-day!” cries a noble, but King Harry reproves him,——

“No, my fair cousin:If we are marked to die, we are enowTo do our country loss; and if to live,The fewer men, the greater share of honour.”

“No, my fair cousin:

If we are marked to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.”

So the night rolls down, and the English few betake themselves to prayers; while in the French camp the knights are revelling and feasting and dicing for the ransoms of the captives they hope to take on the morrow. The morning sun sees the English army drawn up in a field of freshly-sown corn, face to face with the French host, that stretches across the plain by the hamlet of Agincourt. Every archer carries a five-foot stake as a protection against cavalry; every man of them is stripped to the waist, and has one shoe off, the better to keep firm footing on the slippery ground.

And now the gallant king, in full armour, with a jewelled crown glittering on his helmet, rides along the ranks. He prays aloud for victory, and turning to his men bids them fight boldly, for God is on their side. England, he declares, shall never pay ransom for him; he will conquer, or leave his bones on the field. Then he reminds his archers that their foes have sworn to put out the right eye and cut off the left hand of every bowman whom they capture, so that he shall never loose arrow again. A momentary hush falls on the English as they kneel to commend their souls to high heaven. Then their lips tighten, their thews and sinews become steel, and their hearts bound in expectation of the fray.

“What time is it?” asks the king. “The bells are ringing prime, my lord,” is the reply. “Now is good time,” says he; “England prayeth for us, so let us be of good cheer. Banners advance!”

With a loud shout the English bowmen advance twenty paces, and firmly plant their stakes to form a formidable palisade. On come the heavy-armed cavalry of the enemy in dense masses, thirty deep. The archers step forward a few yards, and slowly and steadily begin to shoot. Not an arrow is wasted; every shaft flies home. To stand still on the French side is to be shot down like a dog; to turn back is impossible with the huge press of soldiery behind. So, as the death-hail falls, the French men-at-arms spur their heavy chargers through the mire of the freshly-ploughed field. The deadly arrows never cease to fall, and down go horse and man until they lie in ghastly heaps two spears high. The French army is a helpless, heaving mass.

“Now’s the day and now’s the hour” for the English archers. They sling their bows on their backs, they leap forward, and throwing themselves on the struggling heaps ply sword and mace, axe and bill, with almost superhuman strength. The living fall on the dead, the dead on the living, and the English climb the horrible, writhing mounds and hew and hack at the high-born French knights. King Harry is in the thickest press. Certain French knights swear to take or slay the English king. They hew their way to him; a shrewd blow slices the crown from his helmet, but it is the last blow ever struck by that arm.

The first line is swept to earth, the second line has fallen like wheat before the reaper’s sickle, and now the third line advances. Taken in flank by the archers, it turns and flees. In three hours the battle is over. Eleven thousand Frenchmen lie dead upon the field, prince and peasant “in one red burial blent.” Agincourt is won, and the English archer has gained a renown that shall not dim its lustre while the name of Britain endures.

Once more King Harry is in France, and again none may stand against him. Rouen, after horrible sufferings, has surrendered; the French princes are busy murdering one another; the young King of Burgundy throws in his lot with the English, and the kingdom is at Henry’s feet. So a treaty is made: Henry is to marry the fair Katherine, daughter of the poor, witless King of France; he is to rule in his father-in-law’s name, and succeed him at his death. So Henry begins his wooing, and right merrily it goes despite his bad French and Katherine’s broken English. On Trinity Sunday in the year 1420 he leads the princess to the high altar of the church at Troyes, and they are married. Then the hero of Agincourt and his bride enter Paris amidst the approving shouts of the populace, many of whom wear the red cross, the badge of England. But a third campaign is necessary before the French and their Scottish allies are beaten and all north France up to the Loire owns Henry’s sway.

And now, in the midst of his splendour, his health fails, and the doctors are mystified at his malady. As he sinks day by day, he learns that a son has been born to him at Windsor. At once an old prophecy flashes into his mind——

“I, Henry, born at Monmouth,Shall small time reign and much get;But Henry of Windsor shall long reign and lose all.But as God wills, so be it.”

“I, Henry, born at Monmouth,

Shall small time reign and much get;

But Henry of Windsor shall long reign and lose all.

But as God wills, so be it.”

His last hour has come. He busies himself with prayer, and the priests sing psalms over him. When they reach the second verse of the 147th Psalm he cries, “Good Lord, Thou knowest that my mind was to build up the walls of Jerusalem.” He speaks no more. His life is done; his comet-like career is over. So he dies, leaving his infant son to reap the bitter harvest that he has sown.

THE MORNING OF AGINCOURT.(From the picture by Sir John Gilbert, P.R.A.)

“King of France!”She cried, “at Chinon, when my gifted eyeKnew thee disguised, what inwardly the spiritPrompted, I promised, with the sword of God,To drive from Orleans far the English wolvesAnd crown thee in the rescued walls of Rheims.All is accomplished. I have here this dayFulfilled my mission, and anointed theeKing over this great nation.”

“King of France!”

She cried, “at Chinon, when my gifted eye

Knew thee disguised, what inwardly the spirit

Prompted, I promised, with the sword of God,

To drive from Orleans far the English wolves

And crown thee in the rescued walls of Rheims.

All is accomplished. I have here this day

Fulfilled my mission, and anointed thee

King over this great nation.”

Seven years have sped by, and the scene shifts to the ancient cathedral of Rheims. A great concourse of nobles in glittering armour with pennons and banners fills the nave. Trumpets are sounding, and outside the crowd raises cheer upon cheer. The sun streams in through the painted windows, casting rainbow hues on the exultant throng. Ten thousand candles are burning, and the smoke of incense is ascending. At the high altar, clad in the ermine robe of state, kneels the Dauphin of France. An archbishop, wearing his mitre and the splendid robes of his high office, places the crown upon the prince’s head, and anoints him with the sacred oil out of the ancient flask which the priests say came straight from heaven. The Dauphin is king in very deed, and a great shout of joy echoes and re-echoes from the vaulted roof. And now all eyes turn to the striking figure by the side of the newly-made king. You see a noble maiden, clad in knightly armour, and holding a drawn sword in one hand and a white banner in the other. She kneels at her prince’s feet, and tears of joy fall from her eyes as she greets him “King” for the first time. “Now,” she says, “is the will of God fulfilled.”

Who is this maiden, and why holds she such an honoured place amidst this noble throng? Let the old chroniclers relate her story. It is one of the most wondrous ever told. What Wallace did for Scotland this maid has done for France.

In the year 1429 there was a young girl living in Domremy, a village in the east of France. She was named Joan, and was the daughter of James Darc and Isobel, his wife. Joan was but a country maid that was wont to herd the cattle by day and sew and spin in the evening. She was a strong, handsome girl, nobly formed, with dark hair and lustrous eyes. About her thirteenth year she grew silent and dreamy, and loved to steal away from her companions to the village church, where she knelt for hours together in silent prayer. One day she was standing in her father’s garden when she heard a Voice, and saw a great light. The Voice bade her be diligent in work and prayer, for God had chosen her to save France. She replied that she was but a poor girl who could not ride, or lead soldiers in the wars; but the Voice spoke to her again and again, telling her that she must go. The saints appeared to her, too, and they gave her the same message, and added words of counsel and warning. The Visions and the Voices were with her night and day, and at length she felt that shemustdo their bidding.

Truly her land was in a piteous condition at the time. King Harry of England was dead, and so was the old French king, his father-in-law, and the English baby born at Windsor had been crowned King of France. His uncle, the Duke of Bedford, the famous Talbot, and many another knight of renown, were leading English armies to and fro, besieging towns, burning villages, and filling the land with slaughter. Woeful tales of death, plunder, and famine found their way to the quiet little village of Domremy, and Joan’s heart was filled with grief at the miseries of her beloved France. The Scots had come to the help of their old friends, the French, and though they managed to win a great victory, they were badly beaten at Verneuil, where the field was dyed with Scottish blood.

As for the Dauphin, the rightful King of France, he only held the country south of the Loire, and did not hold even that securely. His strongest fortress was the city of Orleans, which was even now closely besieged by the English. To make matters worse, the Dauphin was a man of no spirit and enterprise. He was half-hearted in his own cause, and, indeed, was not fully assured that he was the son of the late king, and therefore lawfully entitled to the crown. It is said that he had prayed secretly that a sign might be given to him to prove that he was the rightful heir, and that hitherto no sign had been vouchsafed. He had very little hope of beating the English, for, like the rest of his countrymen, he had lost heart and deemed his foes unconquerable. A handful of English archers by their very presence could send five hundred Frenchmen flying in terror to the woods.

By this time the Voices and the Visions had so wrought upon the Maid that she left home without taking leave of her father and mother (not that she did not hold them in honour and respect, but lest they should hinder her intent), and went to Vaucouleurs hoping for an audience with Robert de Baudricourt, the commander of the town. Now, her uncle lived in the town, and to him she betook herself, and told him how the saints and angels had urged her on her mission, and how the Voices had said, “Daughter of God, go on! We will be with you.” The uncle listened and believed, and led her to the captain, who laughed at her, and bade her uncle chastise her for a foolish maiden.

But again she came to him and told him how a terrible misfortune had happened that very day to the Dauphin’s army near Orleans. As Vaucouleurs was many leagues from Orleans, and even the swiftest runner could not have brought the news so quickly, the captain gave ear to her; and when he knew that she had spoken the truth, he saw that she was no mere hysterical country girl, but one endowed with supernatural gifts. “My lord captain,” she said, “know that for some years back, at divers times, God hath made known to me and commanded me to go to the gentle Dauphin, who should be and is the true King of France, that he may give me men-at-arms, whereby I may raise the siege of Orleans, take him to be anointed at Rheims, win back Paris, and drive the English from the realm.” Robert hearkened to her words, and furnished her with man’s attire. A young knight gave her a horse, which to the surprise of all she rode well; and, dressed in a gray doublet and black hose, she rode away to seek the Dauphin, who was then at Chinon. To test her, the Dauphin dressed one of his knights in his princely attire, and himself, in a plain and sober dress, mingled with his courtiers. But Joan went straight to him, and kneeling on one knee, cried, “Fair sir, you are the Dauphin, to whom I am come.”

“Nay,” said he, “yonder is the Dauphin,” pointing to a richly-dressed knight in the company.

“No, fair sir,” repeated the maid, “it is to you that I am sent.”

The Dauphin was surprised, but he did not yet believe in her. One day she took him aside where nobody could hear and whispered to him the purport of his secret prayer, and assured him that he was the rightful king. Then the Dauphin had faith in her, and when his council and the clergy had examined her straitly, and at last had reported that “to doubt the maid would be to resist the Holy Spirit,” he agreed to send her with a train of provisions which he hoped to be able to get secretly into Orleans. While armour was being made for her, she bade the Dauphin’s servants dig behind the altar of the Chapel of St. Catherine at Fierbois, and there they would find a sword with five crosses on the blade. The sword was found, and she girt herself with it, and taking her banner of white with the image of the Lord and two angels on it, thus she led her small company towards Orleans.

As she lay at Blois she sent a letter to the English captain who was besieging Orleans, bidding him depart in peace, or else she would fall upon him with blows, and “we shall see who hath the better right, God or you.” The English laughed at her words, and threatened to burn her as a witch if they caught her. Nevertheless she advanced, and entered the town, whereat the spirits of the citizens rose and their confidence returned. And now, being strengthened by fresh troops and fresh stores, they no longer acted merely on the defensive, but began to assault the English forts, and with Joan as leader captured two of them. Then Joan led them against the Bulwark and the Round Towers. All morning they fought without success, and at one o’clock in the afternoon a bolt from an English cross-bow wounded her in the shoulder. The arrow was extracted, and still the fight went on.

After sunset the captain wished to withdraw for the night, but Joan begged him to fall to again. She mounted her horse and rode to a quiet place and prayed, and then returned to the fight. She alighted from her horse, and taking her standard in her hand, waved it to and fro so that all men saw it. “Take heed,” she said, “when the float of my banner shall touch the Bulwark.” “It touches! it touches!” they cried. Then said she to her men, “All is yours; enter in.”

With a great rush the French climbed the scaling-ladders, captured the Round Towers, stormed the Bulwark, and put to the sword most of the defenders. That night the English, terrified by the reappearance of the Maid, raised the siege and departed, leaving their big guns and much victual behind them. So the town of Orleans was delivered, and Frenchmen everywhere began to believe that the Maid was really an angel of God sent to deliver France.

Without delay Joan rode to the Dauphin and besought him to make ready to be crowned at Rheims, the old coronation place of the French kings. But he would not set forth until the way was cleared of English. So with six hundred lances and some infantry Joan led an attack on them, and drove them before her. And now in June the Dauphin at her entreaty gat him on the road for Rheims, Joan warning him that “she would only last for a year, or not much longer, and that he must make haste.” At Troyes the garrison yielded, and ere long the Dauphin was in Rheims, and the scene in which you saw the Maid for the first time took place.

Hardly was the coronation over ere Joan urged the king to march on Paris. As he advanced, town after town opened its gates to him, and Bedford dared not give him battle. But when the first attack on Paris failed, he withdrew, like the coward that he was, and would not persevere, in spite of all Joan’s prayers and tears. Almost broken-hearted, she hung up her arms in the church of St. Denis, and begged leave to go home to her father and mother and herd the cattle as of yore. The king, however, would not let her go, but gave her a pension and a title of nobility.

Now in Easter week of this fateful year the Voices spoke again to her and said that she should be taken prisoner before Midsummer Day. They encouraged her to be resigned to her fate, for God would help her. The Maid knew full well that to be captured meant being burned as a witch; nevertheless she halted not in her purpose, deeming her end glorious if only she could give her body to be burned for her country.

The town of Compiègne was closely besieged by the English and the Burgundians, and was likely to yield. So the Maid rode thither with her brothers and two or three hundred men to raise the siege. She charged the Burgundians, but was surrounded and taken prisoner and held to ransom. The French would not pay a franc for her, and so her captors sold her to the English, who “feared not any captain, not any chief in war, as they had feared the Maid.” She was brought before the Bishop of Beauvais and tried for witchcraft. After a long and tedious trial, and after suffering every kind of insult and hardship, she was found guilty, and was tricked into signing a paper confessing her guilt. And all the time the miserable French king made no sign, and lifted not his little finger to save her.

On May 30, 1431, they led her into the market-place of Rouen and burnt her alive. With her dying words she testified to the truth of her Visions, and underwent her awful doom with the courage of a martyr. So she died, pressing to her lips a rude cross which a pitiful soldier held out to her. The old legends tell that as the flames leaped round her, and her spirit departed, a pure white dove, the harbinger of peace, rose from out the smouldering pile and winged its way towards heaven. In very truth peace did spring from her ashes. Her heroic example gave new life to the crushed spirit of her countrymen, who rose and drove the invader from their shores. Four years later, nothing was left of all the English conquests in France but the town of Calais.

THE CORONATION OF CHARLES VII. AT RHEIMS.(From the painting by J. E. Lenepveu in the Pantheon, Paris.)

JOAN OF ARC STORMING THE “BULWARK” (ORLEANS).(From the painting by J. E. Lenepveu.)

Chapter IX.THE WARS OF THE ROSES.

“Heard ye the din of battle bray,Lance to lance, and horse to horse?Long years of havoc urge their destined course,And through the kindred, squadrons mow their way.”

“Heard ye the din of battle bray,

Lance to lance, and horse to horse?

Long years of havoc urge their destined course,

And through the kindred, squadrons mow their way.”

AGREAT noble now rides by on a magnificent coal-black steed. At once your eye is attracted by him, and you feel that here is a Paladin worthy of the pen of poet and romancer. Mark his great stature; his vast width and depth of chest; his high forehead; his black, curling hair fretted from the temples by the friction of his helmet; his handsome oval face; his bold features; and his massive jaw, which speaks only too plainly of his masterful nature and inflexible determination. You can readily believe that he is the idol of thousands of his countrymen, and “a setter up and plucker down” of kings.

Who is this remarkable man? He is none other than Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the richest and most powerful noble in England. Thirty thousand men eat his bread daily at the tables of his various great castles; his retainers alone constitute an army, all clad in scarlet coats with the “ragged staff” worked on back and front. His boundless wealth, his profuse hospitality, his great family connections raise him head and shoulders above his peers. He is the premier noble of England, the arbiter of her destinies, and the “last of the barons.”

He lives in an age of battle, murder, and sudden death. His land is torn by the long and fierce quarrels of two great families which are selfishly and ruthlessly fighting for the crown. Henry the Sixth, a mild, merciful, long-suffering, pious man, weak of health and weak of purpose, a hater of strife and bloodshed and a lover of religion and learning, sits insecurely on the throne, bolstered thereon by his strong-willed, indomitable queen, Margaret of Anjou. He is the grandson of that Lancastrian king who thrust from the throne the grandson of Edward the Third. His hereditary right to the crown is inferior to that of Richard, Duke of York; but his family has now been in possession of the throne for more than half a century, and the brilliant victories of his father have made men proud of the Lancastrian lineage. But feeble son has succeeded valiant sire. France has been lost; there is no child to succeed him; and he is surrounded by ambitious, quarrelsome nobles, who make him a pawn in their selfish game. Already the great houses of the realm have taken sides, and are sporting either the red or the white rose. The citizens of London, the wealthy traders and craftsmen now rising into a powerful caste, throw in their lot with York, and the yeomen of the South and Midlands are for him too. And now, in the year 1453, the poor king goes mad, and York is made Protector of the realm. He quite expects to be king when Henry passes away.

But a new arrival comes on the scene to dash all his hopes and force him to the arbitrament of the sword. Queen Margaret bears a son, Henry recovers, and York is dismissed from his post. He appeals to his friend the great Warwick, and soon a large force rallies to his standard. The rival armies meet at the old town of St. Albans, but ere the fight begins York seeks the king and endeavours to make terms. But Henry, who is as clay in the hands of his implacable wife—“the foreign woman” as the English folk call her—is for the moment moulded into something resembling courage. “I will live and die this day in the quarrel,” he exclaims, and York is cavalierly dismissed. The royalists barricade the streets, and bid the foe come on. The great earl by skilful generalship breaks into the gardens behind the houses, and his archers gain the streets with trumpets blowing and the war-cry “A Warwick! a Warwick!” A tough street fight follows, but it is soon over. The king’s chief supporter is dead, and he himself is in the hands of York. The wars of the Roses have begun, and for more than thirty years the realm will be plunged in a civil war so ghastly and unrelenting that even now it marks the blackest page in our national history.

Not that the people generally will join in the strife. The family feuds of great nobles concern them but little; they merely desire peace and good government, that they may till their lands, labour in their workshops, buy and sell, and fill their exhausted purses without distraction. Right willingly would they let the sword rust in its scabbard and the unstrung bow hang idly on the wall. But the land is full of men who have made war their trade in France, and they are eager to be hired for any adventure that is going. These roving mercenaries, the gentry, and their hosts of retainers constitute the armies which will maintain the long and bitter contest. But despite the bloody duels of factious nobles, the business of the country is not interrupted. The judges go on circuit as of old, taking their commissions from whichever king is in the ascendant; and the peasant pauses in his hillside furrow and leans on the handles of his plough to view the nobles of the land dashing themselves to pieces in battle on the plain below. The war is a war of nobles, and not of the commonalty.

The wild northern levies triumph, and the king is recovered. Then Margaret arrays her prisoners, and sets up the little prince, her son, to judge them. “Fair son,” she cries, “what deaths shall they die?” and the lad forthwith orders their heads to be struck off. The wild, lawless host tarries eight days at St. Albans, and this delay enables Warwick to unite with the new Duke of York and reach London. The king and queen gain nothing from their victory. They are forced to march north, and the Londoners, glad to be saved from Margaret and her Border freebooters, welcome York’s heir, and sing:—

“He that could London forsake, we will no more to us take.”

They crown the young man at Westminster, and as Edward the Fourth he takes up the sceptre. It is Warwick who has made him king.

Now comes the story of a great quarrel and its dramatic sequel. Edward has fallen in love with beautiful Elizabeth Woodville, the daughter of a Red Rose father, and the widow of a Red Rose husband. He marries her secretly, and all the while Warwick is negotiating a foreign marriage for him with the French king’s sister. When Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville is announced, Warwick’s annoyance and disgust know no bounds. He dissembles, however, though day by day he grows angrier and angrier as he sees power slipping from him and passing to the “upstart” relatives of the new queen.

Edward, instigated by his new domestic circle, is bent on throwing off the Neville yoke. So he heaps honours, high offices, lands, and wealth on the Greys and the Woodvilles, and Warwick is furious. Such treatment he will not brook. He who has set up the king can pull him down again. So he seeks “false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,” who is now jealous of his brother, the king, and eager for a throne. Clarence marries Warwick’s daughter, and the strings of insurrection are vigorously pulled by the wily earl. Edward rouses himself at last and hastens northward, where his cannon soon put the rebels to flight, and their captured leader reveals Warwick’s plot to make Clarence king. At once the pair of conspirators flee to France.

Warwick and that crafty intriguer, Louis the Eleventh, now concoct a plan for driving their common enemy, King Edward, off the throne, and restoring Henry the Sixth. Queen Margaret at first indignantly refuses to accept the support of the man who has driven her into exile, and cast foul aspersions on her character; but Warwick goes on bended knee to her, and withdraws every charge. The queen keeps him in this humiliating position for a quarter of an hour, and then relents. She agrees that her son shall marry Warwick’s daughter, but only when he has restored Henry to his throne. Then the king-maker, who has broken so many solemn oaths, swears on a piece of the true cross to remain faithful to the Lancastrian cause. A fleet is fitted out, Warwick lands at Dartmouth, proclaims King Henry, and summons the national levies to his banner. As Edward lies in bed at Doncaster, two friends burst into his chamber and bid him rise and flee, for his foes are within an hour’s march. He flings on his clothes, and without armour or money rides at breakneck speed to Lynn, where he sets sail for Holland. Once more the king-maker has made and unmade a king.

The old king is clad in a robe of blue velvet, brought out of the Tower, set on horseback, and led to St. Paul’s amidst crowds of Londoners who shout “God save King Henry.” The poor old king knows full well that the proud noble who bears his train in the state procession is his and England’s master, and that he must do his bidding or return whence he came. Warwick has again triumphed, but his hold on power is far from secure. The Lancastrians have no desire for a puppet king whose strings are worked by their old enemy, and the Yorkists are busy preparing for the return of Edward. Next spring he appears in the Humber, and pushes on to London, where the gates are opened to him, and he secures the person of King Henry. Warwick is in battle-array to the north of Barnet, his forces “under a hedge-side.” Clarence, who has made peace with his brother, offers mediation; but Warwick, angry at his double faithlessness, contemptuously rejects his advances.

“Last scene of all, to end this strange, eventful history.” Raw, cold, and dismal dawns the morning on Easter Sunday in the year 1471. A heavy mist, which many a soldier ascribes to magical arts, rolls over the field and hides the opposing armies from each other. The battle begins, and men fight as in a dream, striking wildly at each other, and scarce distinguishing friend from foe. Now Warwick thinks the day is his; now Edward believes victory to be in his grasp. Then comes a lift of the cloud, and both generals perceive that their hopes are vain. For three hours the desperate fight rages; the bombards roar, and sword and arrow do their deadly work. Now deluded by the mist, the two wings of Warwick’s army are busy fighting each other, and the fatal cry “Treason! treason!” is heard on the field. Warwick’s men give way, his brother is slain, and there is only safety for the great earl in flight. He leaps on horseback and gallops to a neighbouring wood, from which there is no egress. He is followed and surrounded, and though he plies his great battle-axe fiercely he is overborne by superior numbers and slain. The king-maker will never make or unmake kings again.

“Now lies he there,And none so poor to do him reverence.”

“Now lies he there,

And none so poor to do him reverence.”

DEATH OF WARWICK.(From the picture by T. A. Houston, R.S.A.)

“Let us sit upon the groundAnd tell sad stories of the death of kings.”

“Let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings.”

Now hand in hand two pathetic figures appear. They are victims marked for the slaughter; their tender age and innocence will not save them, for they stand between a bold, unscrupulous man and the throne. You have already made acquaintance with their father, the fourth Edward, he who owed all to the king-maker, whom he left dead on Barnet Field. But Edward has gone to his account, leaving his two young sons and their mother to the tender mercies of selfish, intriguing nobles, brutalized by a long course of civil war. As Protector of the realm, their father’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, aims at the throne, and his first step is to secure the custody of the two royal lads, who are now in the guardianship of their maternal uncle, Earl Rivers, and of Lord Richard Grey. The elder—a boy of thirteen—is seized and brought to London by his Uncle Richard, while the lad’s guardians are flung into prison. The false uncle treats his young charge with every show of loyal and submissive regard, and brings him in great state to London for his coronation. The wretched mother knows instinctively the fate in store for her offspring, and takes sanctuary at Westminster with her second son, the little Duke of York, a boy of eleven years of age. With fair and specious words a prince of the Church persuades the widow to surrender the lad, and forthwith he joins his brother in the Tower.

And now Gloucester ruthlessly hurries to the block those who by the ties of kindred and friendship are likely to befriend the boys, and ere long no man dares raise his voice against any of his bloodthirsty acts. He is a dictator—and dictators easily develop into kings. His minions offer him the crown, which, after a slight show of refusal, he accepts. Then with consummate skill he proceeds to bolster up the throne which his successful villainy has won. He is crowned with great pomp and ceremony, and soon after the little princes disappear. What becomes of them is not clearly known, but gradually a rumour spreads that the unnatural uncle has done them to death. His crime profits him little; a great wave of pity for the untimely fate of the unhappy boys swells up in the land, and men recoil in horror from a murderer king. Two years later avenging justice smites him; he lies dead on the battlefield, and another fills his throne.

Sir Thomas More, writing twenty-eight years after Richard’s death, tells the story of the crime, and there is no good reason to dispute its substantial accuracy. He tells us that the king plotted the death of the young princes while making a holiday progress through the country. From Gloucester he dispatched one of his pages to Sir Robert Brackenbury, the governor of the Tower, commanding him to make away with the lads quietly and speedily. Brackenbury indignantly refused the office of assassin, but a more facile tool was found in Sir James Tyrell, who had already stained his hands in secret crime. The princes were confined in the Portcullis Tower, under the constant supervision of four keepers, their personal attendant being a fellow known as Black Will or Will Slaughter.

Richard roused Tyrell from his bed at midnight, and sent him to the Tower with an order commanding Brackenbury to give up the keys of the fortress. “Then,” says Sir Thomas More, “Sir James Tyrell desired that the princes should be murdered in bed, to the execution whereof he appropriated Miles Forest, one of their keepers, a fellow flesh-bred in murder, and to him joined John Dighton, his own horse-keeper, a big, broad, square knave. The young king had certainly a clear apprehension of his fate, for he was heard sighingly to say, ‘I would mine uncle would let me have my life, though he taketh my crown.’ After which time the prince never tied his points nor anything attended to himself, but that young babe, his brother, lingered in thought and heaviness till the traitorous deed delivered them from their wretchedness.

“All their other attendants being removed from them, and the harmless children in bed, these men came into their chamber, and suddenly lapping them in the clothes smothered and stifled them till thoroughly dead. Then laying out their bodies on the bed, they fetched Sir James to see them, who caused the murderers to bury them at the stairfoot, deep in the ground, under a heap of stones. Then rode Sir James in great haste to King Richard, and showed him the manner of the murder, who gave him great thanks.”

More than two centuries later the skeletons of two young lads were found under a staircase leading to the chapel in the White Tower. In all probability they were the mortal remains of the unhappy princes.

On the eve of the battle which resulted in the overthrow and death of the murderer king, Shakespeare depicts him as visited by the ghosts of the many whom he has foully slain. The spirits of the murdered boys appear hand in hand:—

“Dream on thy cousins smothered in the Tower:Let us be lead within thy breast, Richard,And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death.Thy nephews’ souls bid thee despair and die!”

“Dream on thy cousins smothered in the Tower:

Let us be lead within thy breast, Richard,

And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death.

Thy nephews’ souls bid thee despair and die!”

And thus do they hearten the avenger, whose forces are even now marshalled on Bosworth Field:—

“Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and wake in joy;Good angels guard thee from the boar’s annoy!Live, and beget a happy race of kings.”

“Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and wake in joy;

Good angels guard thee from the boar’s annoy!

Live, and beget a happy race of kings.”

The Little Princes in the Tower.(From the picture by Paul Delaroche.)

RICHARD III. AT THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH.(From the picture by A. Cooper. By permission of Messrs. Henry Graves and Co.)

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