Deeply touched by the distress of the peasantry, the Archbishop of York, William de Melton, and the Mayor, Nicholas Fleming, attempted to organise an army, and check the depredations of the Scots, who had carried their wild riders to the gates of York, and set the suburbs on fire.
Perhaps history can furnish no more rash undertaking than this: Randolph and Douglas were cool and experienced captains, and ferocious soldiers; the troops they commanded were veterans, accustomed to victory, and experienced in the hardships and toils of the field; men who could only be approached by tried and steady soldiers, and who were not likely to yield the palm to the flower of the English army. Tomeet these, the Archbishop had to rely upon burghers and peasants, men little accustomed to the use of arms, and entirely deficient in military training, and for whom no competent leaders could be found. No lack of energy was shown by the Archbishop and Mayor, and the hasty and untried levies responded to their exhortations with equal zeal. There was no time to prepare the volunteers for the ordeal, no opportunities for testing their courage in skirmishes, for training them to advance upon such dangerous enemies as the Scots, or to retire before them in good order if they found them too strongly posted to be attacked with any prospect of success.
As though to compensate all physical defects by an extraordinary weight of spiritual influence, the numbers of the army were augmented by many priests, who are supposed to have been brought together at York for the celebration of the feast of St. Matthew.
Ten thousand men were all that the Archbishop could bring into the field, and with these he marched after the Scots, who prepared to receive his attack at “Myton Meadow, near the Swale water,” supposed to be a large field, at that time unenclosed, and situate some threemiles east of Boroughbridge, just above the confluence of the rivers Ure and Swale, and in the immediate locality of the obscure village of Myton.
Half the army of Douglas and Randolph would probably have sufficed to worst the English in fair and open field, but the Scots commanders had been long accustomed to foil the English by ambuscades and surprises, the fatal English archers, and their usual superiority in numbers, necessitating the utmost caution on the part of the Scots when engaging with their formidable Southern foes; and on this unfortunate day the Scots prepared an ambush, which was certain to foil the onset of the English, and to cast them into that confusion which ends in panic where undisciplined troops are concerned.
On the English approaching the bridge across the Swale, the Scots, or more probably an advanced division of them, feigned a retreat, drawing the Englishmen within the toils of an ambush, that was prepared for their destruction. To ensure their more complete defeat, they were permitted to cross the bridge, and while pushing on, no doubt in some uncertainty, they were suddenly involved in dense clouds of smoke,which, drifting before the wind, veiled the movements of the enemy. The Scots had fired three haystacks, and were coming furiously down upon their enemies under cover of the smoke, having concentrated their forces “after the manner of a shield.” Before the onset was delivered, the Scottish army separated into two divisions, and uttering their dreadful battle-cry, one division threw itself between the English and the bridge, cutting off every prospect of retreat, while the other charged full upon the Archbishop’s troops.
Confused by the drifting smoke, the dreadful war-cries of Douglas and Randolph, the English troops were so completely taken by surprise that they were half-beaten before a blow was struck. With no regular troops to maintain the van and rear, and give them steadiness by example, and without leaders to form them in the best way to meet the charging enemy into whose hand they were so rashly delivered, the confused mass of Englishmen were held at utter disadvantage. With steady charge the Scottish spearmen bore down upon them, the billmen and swordmen rushed upon their ranks like a tempest, and the men-at-arms taking them in the rear, a bloody massacre ensued. Utterly unable to maintaintheir ranks, hurled upon each other by the furious charges of the enemy, smitten, broken, trampled under foot, the English, after a vain attempt at defence, broke, and sought to secure their safety by a headlong flight. Beset on every side, followed close by the victors, cut off from the bridge, the wretched troops lost all heart, and, seized with panic, thought not of attempting to make a stand against their enemies, but turned all their energies to secure their escape. A scene of dreadful carnage followed: the Scots were pitiless in their triumph, and cut down the fugitives with remorseless activity. The English vainly attempted to cross the Swale, and dreadful and tragic scenes took place on the bank and in the waters of the river. The fugitives who hesitated to cast themselves into the water fell by the sword of the pursuer, and of those who attempted to pass the river about a thousand were drowned. The approach of night alone saved the army from utter destruction, and the total loss was computed at nearly 4,000 men, of whom 300 were priests, arrayed in full canonicals, but who were put to the sword with merciless severity by the Scots, who lost few men themselves, and treating the slaughter of the churchmenas a pleasant joke referred to the battle as the Chapter of Mitton. It was fought on the 13th, September, 1319.
Sir Nicholas Fleming, who was serving as Mayor of York for the seventh year, was slain on the field. The pursuit was close, but the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely, although hardly pushed, succeeded in effecting their escape. The Archbishop’s cross was among the missing, however, the cross-bearer having secreted it in the hope of preserving it from the Scots; but a peasant finding it by chance was tempted to conceal it in his hut for some days, when the pricking of his conscience becoming too severe he penitently restored it to the rightful owner.
The loss of the Scots was insignificant, but the churchyard of Myton received a huge and ghastly burthen of slain Yorkshiremen. The corpse of Sir Nicholas Fleming was tenderly cared for, and buried in the church of St. Wilfred, York, the citizens deeply lamenting the loss of their patriotic mayor, for the repose of whose soul special provisions were made by the Archbishop.
From the bloody field of Myton the hardyScots pursued their way triumphantly to Castleford, where they crossed the river Aire, and proceeding through Airedale, Wharfedale, and Craven, bore off many captives and much plunder, entering Scotland in safety.
On the 1st of July, 1312, a dark and tragic deed was enacted on the gentle eminence of Blacklow, where the Avon winds through a calm and peaceful scene. The sun shone brightly on the flashing waters of the river, on the summer foliage of wood and grove, and on the polished steel mail of armed men, for the English barons, Arundel, Lancaster, and Hereford, were actors in the tragedy, and their banners waved from the ranks of numerous men-at-arms, pikemen, and archers, for at length, by mingled violence and guile, they had won into their own hands the life of the King’s favourite, and him they now called upon to conclude the drama of life with what spirit and courage he could command for so trying an occasion. Then stood forward the handsome and talented young knight, the favourite of his unhappy monarch, hurried by rough hands to the fatal block, and the grimheadsman performed his unholy office, striking off the head of Piers Gaveston, sometime Earl of Cornwall, and—with all his faults—an accomplished knight, deserving of a better fate.
Chief of the self-constituted judges who thus presumed to rid themselves of a personal enemy, was Thomas Earl of Lancaster, the grandson of Henry the Third, and the most potent noble in the whole realm of England. To this exalted person, a prince of many virtues, Gaveston had humbled himself, and pleaded, but vainly pleaded, for mercy. Lancaster could not forgive the gibes of his fallen enemy. The “stage-player” and “old hog” now held the life of the offender in his hands; his proud heart indignantly remembered the shame and mortification of that day when, in the lists of the tournament, his haughty crest was abased to the very dust, as the lance of the upstart Gaveston hurled him from his saddle. So Lancaster avenged himself for defeat and unmerited insult, and the rude barons declared that he had done well.
But Edward of Cærnarvon remembered the deed of shame, and waited, as weak and gentle-minded men will sometimes wait, until circumstances should enable him to demand of Lancastera full reckoning for the blood that had been shed. In the first bitterness of his wrath he attempted to meet the barons in the field, but they were too powerful for so unwarlike a monarch as Edward to contend with, and being averse to endanger the peace of the Kingdom by attacking the King in his own person, they submitted to his clemency, and were restored to favour. Persuaded to pardon the crime Edward would not legalize it by declaring Piers Gaveston a traitor, although importuned to take this step by the most powerful of the barons.
Time passed, and all men forgot the Gascon knight Piers Gaveston, or only remembered him to blame his follies and exult in the sharp and sudden punishment that overtook him.
After the triumphs achieved by Edward the I. in his attempts to subjugate Scotland, and destroy its national life by ruthlessly slaying her patriots with the soldier’s sword or the headsman’s axe, it was with extreme bitterness that the English endured the humiliation of defeated armies and invaded provinces. They had taken to the sword, and when that sword fell from the hands of Edward at Burgh-on-Sands it was seized by Randolph and Douglas, and mercilessly it was used, until inthe invaded, blood-stained Northern provinces of England the fear and hatred of the Scots became a passion, and he was indeed a bold or foolish man who presumed to enter into negotiations with the national enemy.
Naturally King Edward’s hold upon the loyalty of his subjects was weakened by the Northern troubles, for the stubborn English mind regarded the red-handed crimes of the father as the virtuous enterprise of a great monarch, and contrasted with his success the feeble efforts of his son: it was the glory of Berwick and Falkirk contrasted with the disasters of Bannockburn and Berwick: it was the ravaged, outraged Scotland of the first Edward contrasted with the wasted and blood-stained Northumbria of the second Edward.
So troubles thickened around the life-path of Edward of Cærnarvon. His authority was subverted, and so low had he descended in the estimation of his feudatories, that Queen Isabella was denied admission into the King’s Castle of Leeds, in Kent, then held by the Lord of Badlesmere, under his majesty’s authority, and for his majesty’s use. The Queen’s attendants naturally insisted upon being admitted, and endeavoured to force their way into the castle, when the garrisonproceeded to extremities, and several of her majesty’s suite were slain. This high-handed proceeding of Badlesmere caused a revulsion of feeling in favour of the King, and availing himself of the transient emotion, he gathered together a powerful army. For once his actions were energetic, and his blows fell heavily. He took Badlesmere prisoner, and loaded him with chains, at the same time inflicting a heavy and well-merited punishment upon his lawless vassals. He made an unexpected visit to the Lords of the Marches, and captured and hanged twelve knights. Like all weak-minded men he knew no moderation in the hour of success, and presumed more upon a transient advantage than a great monarch would have done if successful in the utter destruction of a hostile party.
This sudden change in the royal fortunes alarmed the barons, and many made submission; but Edward cast them into prison, and seized their castles. Great Lancaster was now sorely discomposed, and learned, too late, to fear the monarch whose authority he had so openly slighted. It had been long suspected that this potent noble had entered into a confederacy with the Scots, to avert the doom which would probablyovertake him if deserted by the English barons, or defeated by the royal forces. The time had now arrived when it was necessary to call in the national enemy to his rescue; and in this crisis of his fortunes he openly avowed his unpatriotic measures, took up arms, and urgently appealed to the King of Scotland for assistance. Before those redoubtable warriors, Moray and Douglas, assembled their men-at-arms and pikemen, the promptitude of Edward had prevailed.
Finding that he could not maintain himself against King Edward until succoured by the Scottish reinforcements, Lancaster marched northward, and was joined by the Earl of Hereford. This accession of strength did not, however, enable him to assume the offensive, although it encouraged him to make a stand at Burton-upon-Trent, where he took up a position that commanded the bridge, in the vain hope of holding the royal forces at bay, and of receiving reinforcements from the disaffected barons.
The noble blood that had already been shed in requital of treason against the crown had operated forcibly upon the reasoning faculties of Edward’s violent and restless barons, and they prudently kept their steeds in stall, and swordsin scabbard, leaving Lancaster and Hereford, with their band of adherents, to make the best of their quarrel with the King, alone, and unaided, unless they could succeed in reaching the Scottish border and forming a junction with the Scots under Randolph and Douglas. It would have fared ill with the nation if Lancaster’s design had succeeded, for although Robert Bruce was too wise a monarch to attempt to annex any of the English territory, being satisfied to strictly maintain the integrity of the Kingdom of Scotland, yet Lancaster might have involved the nation in the distractions of a wide-extending civil war, for placed in so desperate a position he would necessarily have urged the Scots to press any advantage that their arms might have achieved, and although the resistance of the English would have been the rising of the nation against a foreign invader, yet Lancaster might have succeeded in winning over some of the barons, especially as Edward knew not the art of attaching them to his interests, but was possessed of an unhappy facility in disgusting them by his too-obvious lack of the qualities necessary to a great prince in the middle ages.
Lancaster failed in his proposed operations, andwas obliged to beat a hasty retreat to secure himself from the advancing royalists. On the 16th March he approached Boroughbridge, to find it defended by the Warden of the Western Marches, Sir Andrew Harcla, and the Sheriff of Yorkshire, Sir Simon Ward. The crisis had come: but the conflict was not to win a sceptre, or a protectorship, but to escape from the axe and block wherewith traitors were requited for their misdeeds in the days of the Plantagenets.
In happier and more fortunate times Earl Lancaster had bestowed the accolade of knighthood upon Andrew Harcla, and he now endeavoured to induce the loyal knight to make common cause with him against King Edward. Harcla was too prudent a man to take so rash and ruinous a step, and Lancaster drew up his soldiers to attempt to force the old wooden bridge, which spanned the river Ure.
The hasty levies which Harcla and Ward had called to arms consisted largely of northern archers, famous for their skill with the bow, and they were strongly posted at the head of the bridge. To ford the river was impossible, it being sixty yards wide at that part; to follow the course of the river and seek to cross at someother point, with Ward and Harcla marchingen rapporton the opposite side of the river, and with the royal troops nigh at hand, closing in upon their rear, was to risk an almost inevitable and irremediable disaster. Lancaster’s one path to freedom was by the storming of the bridge, and they accordingly prepared for their last passage-at-arms.
The archers were ordered forward to clear the bridge, and a deadly trial of skill commenced; the long, keenly-barbed shafts sweeping like a hail of death from end to end of the bridge: in a moment the dead lay thick at either end, and the brave and determined archers of either army mutually faced with admirable courage the fierce sleet of death that smote them down in bloody heaps. It could not last: the superiority of the northern archers was beyond dispute, and Lancaster ordered back the remains of his archers to a less exposed position, to make room for bills and pikes, and the lances of the dismounted men-at-arms, for the bridge was too old and full of holes to admit of a charge of horse. A violent conflict ensued, blood was spilled freely, and the bridge was heaped with the slain, for the old Northumbrian war-fury rose to the fiercemusic of clashing steel and resonant war-cries, and the defensive position of the royal troops, so deeply massed at the head of the bridge, gave them every advantage over their assailants, who could only bring a few lances to the front in the hopeless struggle to beat a bloody pathway for their escape. The insurgents fought desperately, as men entrapped, fighting for bare life, or exacting the heaviest price from the slayer. Hereford set a noble example to the unfortunate soldiers, charging on foot, sword in hand, the foremost man in the sanguinary toil; but an untoward stroke mocked his valour, and discouraged the devoted vassals who fought beneath his flag. Under the rickety old bridge, with its gaping timbers, lurked a felon Welshman, armed with a long spear, waiting for some noble victim, whom he could thus slay without risking his own person. The wished-for opportunity at length occurred, as Hereford headed the desperate charge of the Lancastrians, and sustained the fight in the vicinity of his concealed enemy. Suddenly, to the dismay and horror of his friends, he reeled and fell heavily upon the bridge; the pallor of death overspread his features, and the blood gushed from his wounds. The Welshmanhad gashed his bowels by a murderous stroke of his lance.
Lancaster now attempted to ford the river with a portion of his troops, but this proved impossible in face of the deadly superiority of the opposing archers. Sir Roger Clifford was wounded in the head; Sir William Sulley and Sir Roger Bernefield were slain outright; the Earl’s army was utterly demoralised, his loss was severe, and abandoning the last hope of forcing the river, he utterly lost heart, and retired into the town, taking refuge in a chapel.
De Harcla now ordered the royal troops to advance, and they rushed furiously over the bridge, bearing down the last feeble defence of the disheartened Lancastrians, and pursuing the scattered fugitives with a cruel ardour. Many archers and pikemen fell by sword and bill in that dark hour, vassals whose only crime was obedience to the lords whose badge they wore. Many knights and barons surrendered their swords, and were rudely haled away in bonds, to await the punishment that follows unsuccessful treason. That day the shadow of death gloomed over many a brave young soldier, whose valour might have been worthily employed in defendingthe northern borders against the incursions of the Scots.
Earl Lancaster was speedily surprised in the chapel where he had hidden his unhappy head. Exulting in having achieved so notable a capture, the rough soldiers laid rude hands upon him, whereon he sadly gazed upon the crucifix, and fervently and pathetically ejaculated, “Good Lord, I render myself unto Thee, and put me unto Thy mercy!” And great was his need of the Divine, for of human mercy he was to receive none. His knightly armour was torn off, never to be resumed, and, after many insults, he was conveyed to York, to be hailed with derisive cries of “King Arthur!” by the rude populace, as they cast the street mud at him. In his famous Castle of Pontefract was a new dungeon, built by his directions, and to which entrance was obtained by means of a trap-door in the turret of the tower. To Pontefract the Earl was carried, and lowered into this gloomy dungeon, so close a type of the grave to which he was hourly drawing near.
King Edward was not long in reaching Pontefract with his army; when Lancaster was brought to trial before his majesty and the loyal baronswho marched with him. Among them were the Spencers, around whom he had hoped to draw the toils, and whom he regarded with indignation and disgust, as the rapacious, upstart favourites of a weak and foolish prince. The Spencers looked upon him as their most dangerous enemy, and Edward was only fierce when defending his favourites: who should speak of mercy in such an hour as that? Certainly none of Edward’s barons, however deeply they might deplore the fate of the noble Earl, for their plea for mercy might be regarded as a proof of disloyalty, and Edward was showing a leven of that savage spirit which existed so strongly in his father, and was shown by the butchering of so many noble Scotchmen on the scaffold.
The condemnation and sentence were speedily arrived at. Lancaster was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, but being of the royal blood he was spared the torture which meaner traitors were subjected to, and the punishment was commuted to decollation.
On the 22nd of March the headsman waited for Lancaster, who was led to the scaffold, mounted on a miserable hack, insulted and reviled by the spectators, many of whom peltedhim with mud. Calm and dignified, he implored the grace of heaven to enable him patiently to endure the sorrow of that bitter hour. The block was placed upon a hill near his castle, and he knelt with his face to the east, expecting the stroke of the executioner; but his pitiless enemies ordered him to turn to the north, from whence he had expected the Scottish succours, and in this position he received his death-blow.
The rebellion of Lancaster involved many noblemen in his ruin. Ninety-five knights and barons were cast into prison, and stood their trial for high treason. Other bloody executions followed with merciless barbarity. The lords Warren-de-Lisle, William de Fouchet, Thomas Mandute, Fitz-William, Henry de Bradburne, and William Cheney, suffered at Pontefract; and Clifford, Mowbray, and Deynville were decapitated at York. Thus bloodily did King Edward avenge the death of Gaveston—for there can be little doubt that the blow aimed at the Spencers, and the recollection of Gaveston’s doom, were the motives that moved him to such a cruel exercise of his power over his revolted and defeated subjects. Perhaps a more humane and generous policy might have averted the evil days, when hewas left as helpless in the hands of his enemies as was Lancaster on the day of his defeat and capture. In reguerdon of his great service to the crown, Sir Andrew Harcla was exalted to the rank of Earl of Carlisle.
Among the revolted barons who fought with Lancaster and Hereford at Boroughbridge, was John de Mowbray, lord of the vale of Mowbray, of Kirby Malzeard, and Thirsk and Upsall Castles. Tradition still retains his name, and gives a strangely wild and legendary account of his death; probable enough, but not to be received as authentic history. In the breaking up of the Lancastrian troops, in the last stormy passage of the day, John de Mowbray, disengaging himself from the press, put spurs to his horse, and rode off, in the direction of Upsall Castle, near Thirsk, where he hoped to secure his safety. The royalists, however, were soon on his track, pressed him hard, and reached him as he was making his way through a lane, within sight of Upsall Castle. In a moment he was seized and unhelmed, and his throat stretched across the trunk of a fallen tree as one of the King’s men struck off his head. His armour was then stripped off and suspended from the branches of an oak tree,his body being cast into a way-side ditch. The tradition is preserved in the name of the lane which is still called Chop Head Loaning. The Rev. Thomas Parkinson,F.R.H.S., gives this tradition at length in his interesting volume, “Yorkshire Legends and Traditions,” and quotes Mrs. Susan K. Phillips’ poetical version of the legend—a poem which would have delighted Sir Walter Scott.
The blood-stained old wooden bridge across the Ure has long ceased to bear the traffic of the locality, and a handsome stone erection now replaces it. Harcla and Ward’s old fighting ground, that bristled with sword and spear and deadly bill on the 16th of March, 1321, is now more prosaic soil, burdened with houses, timber, and coal-yards; and is partly cleft by a short canal, the property of the River Ure Navigation. When the river was embanked in 1792, the excavators at the Old Banks, below the bridge, discovered some presumed relics of the battle, consisting of many fragments of arms and armour.
After the tragedy of Earl Lancaster’s revolt had been concluded by the wholesale executions of the barons and knights implicated in that misguided movement, the Scots, commanded by Randolph, Earl of Moray, invaded the Western marches, and ravaged the country in their customary barbarous style, slaying all who attempted resistance, and driving before them all the flocks and herds that their swift and well-organised cavalry could collect. What they could not carry away they burnt, returning to Scotland without having received a check in the field. Where they had passed, the summer sun gleamed brightly on ruined cots and devastated fields, and the English peasantry, inured to toil and suffering, gazed despairingly upon the ruin of the fruit of the soil, fostered by their hard labour, and by the sun and rain of the departed months.
While the Scots were acting Edward of Cærnarvonwas preparing to take the field. Referring to the English monarch’s victory at Boroughbridge, Sir Walter Scott makes the following reflections:—“This gleam of success on his arms, which had been sorely tarnished, seems to have filled Edward, who was of a sanguine and buoyant temperament, with dreams of conquest over all his enemies. As a king never stands more securely than on the ruins of a discovered and suppressed conspiracy, he wrote to the pope to give himself no further solicitude to procure a truce or peace with the Scots, since he had determined to bring them to reason by force.”
Edward spared no pains to ensure the success of the expedition into Scotland, and Parliament authorised military levies in the country to the extent of one man from every English hamlet and village, and a proportionate number from the towns and cities. Subsidies of money were largely granted, and enabled Edward to obtain supplies of arms and provisions from over seas, besides reinforcing his army with soldiers from Aquitaine.
The Scottish monarch timed his movements, and organised his plans to check the English advance, with his customary foresight and energy;and although the cruel slaughter of so many of his nearest relatives and dearest friends might well have steeled his heart against the English, we are bound to admit that his repeated devastations of the Northumbrian provinces were of incalculable service in protecting Scotland from hostile attacks, although they might and did excite the English to cross the border in expeditions organised for the purpose of revenge.
Bruce never wanted for an army to invade England—an army that repaid its toils by the plunder of the enemy, and this is clearly illustrated by the campaign that ended with the battle of Byland Abbey; while Edward was spending months in raising an army, taxing the people, and making forced levies, drawing supplies of men and munitions from his continental provinces, Bruce had but to raise his standard, when a numerous army followed him, to win the reguerdon of their toil with sword and spear from the fertile English provinces.
King Robert dared not risk the liberties of Scotland by meeting the powerful hosts of England, with their deadly archers, in the open field, and his plan of defence was therefore to devastate the English borders with fire and sword, to thefarthest practicable limit, and to drive all the flocks and herds on the Scottish border far inland, wasting the country as far as the Firth of Forth.
As soon as Moray had performed his raid on the West marches, he was instructed to join his forces with those of Douglas, and cross the borders in a more easterly direction, while King Robert penetrated into Lancashire through the Western marches. The expedition commenced on the 1st of July, and was concluded on the 24th, when the Scotch army re-entered Scotland in triumph, with numerous waggons heavily laden with the plunder of the English. The vale of Furness had been the scene of their triumphant march, and they left it utterly desolated; barns, stacks and ricks, and fields of ripening grain had been given to the flames, or trampled under foot.
The unhappy peasantry, abandoning their rude cots, sought such refuge as the woods and wilds afforded, or haply took shelter in the nearest walled town. Men-at-arms and burghers took spear and bow in hand, made fast their gates, and kept careful watch lest the enemy should burst upon them with fire and sword some dreadful night. The wasted country gleamed with the light of burning villages, and many arude border-fortress was taken by assault before King Edward headed his warriors and marched northward with his mail-clad barons and stout yeomen.
The wary Scots waited not for the approach of the splendid army that marched behind the banners of the unfortunate Edward of Cærnarvon; although the English warriors were animated by an intense desire to avenge their wrongs, and not a monarch in Christendom but might have quailed at the prospect of joining battle with them, yet all their high courage and warlike accomplishments failed to serve them in their contest with the Bruce.
Pressing onward, rank after rank, squadron after squadron, with the glitter of thousands of lances, pikes, and bills, and with hundreds of banners floating on the breeze, the warriors of King Edward found neither foes to fight nor plunder to repay their toil, but “a land of desolation, which famine seemed to guard.” The transport of stores for so large an army was attended with extreme toil and difficulty, for the wasted soil would not even afford forage for the English horses. The English captains, hoping that by some chance the enemy might be brought to anengagement, resolutely maintained their advance, and the patient soldiers held on their way, in spite of increasing difficulties and dangers. It was the month of August, and the fatigue of the heavily armed troops must have been excessive. At length the toil-worn army reached the capital, but without any amelioration of their condition, or the prospect of an engagement. The sole spoil between England and Edinburgh was one lame bull. Well might Earl Warenne declare, “By my faith, I never saw dearer beef.” A fleet with supplies was expected in the firth, but it was detained by adverse winds, and after vainly waiting for three days, during which the troops began to experience the pangs of hunger, Edward reluctantly commanded the retreat to commence. They knew that Bruce had massed his army at Culross, and was keeping them under observation, but it was impossible to get within sight of the Scottish army, or to force an engagement. In their retreat the suffering and enraged soldiery burst into the convents of Dryburgh and Melrose, from which all but a few aged and infirm monks had retired: these unfortunates they put to the sword, defiled the sanctuaries, and carried off the consecrated vessels.
Bruce was now following hard and fast on the track of the retreating army, alert to seize every advantage, and anxious to secure the safety of his kingdom by inflicting a crushing blow upon his enemy. The English soldiery were harassed by being kept continually on the alert, and by the scarcity of provisions, but their greatest disaster awaited them on their native soil. Travel-wasted and famine-stricken they entered England, and were liberally supplied with food from the principal magazines in the north. Partaking with the impatient avidity of starving men, they sickened in great numbers, and in a few days 16,000 were carried off by inflammation of the bowels; and of the sick who recovered, few were ever again fit for service in the field.
To avert further disasters, and renew the strength and spirit of the survivors, the King formed a camp at Byland Abbey, some fourteen miles from York; and there the sorely-tried and weary soldiers found a temporary rest, and again enjoyed sufficient supplies of wholesome food.
The position was extremely strong, and under ordinary circumstances might perhaps have been considered unassailable when held by English archers and men-at-arms. It was a country ofrocks and woods, where deep ravines cleft the rocks, and formed huge cliffs, easy of defence. The soldiers were judiciously posted on the elevated ground surrounding the abbey, a steep ridge very difficult to scale, the pass to which was narrow and easily defended by veteran soldiers. The exact ground that was held cannot now be ascertained; it was certainly an elevated ridge, and very probably that now known as the Old Stead Bank, at one end of which is a piece of land called “Scot’s corner.” If this is the scene of the conflict, it took place about a mile and a half to the north-west of the abbey. Doubtless the royal troops were still demoralised by the mortifying results of the campaign, disheartened by their losses, and weakened and dejected by their sufferings.
King Robert’s troops were largely mounted on small and active ponies, which enabled them to follow fast upon the tracks of the English. Crossing the Tweed, he attempted to carry Norham Castle, but failed, and directed his march towards Byland Abbey, for he had intelligence that the English army had there formed their camp. By a forced march he appeared in front of the English, to their great surprise. No doubtBruce inferred that the English had lost all heart, for Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt were then unfought, and the world knew little of what the indomitable British spirit could endure, when great and esteemed captains animated the warriors to the conflict. Edward II. was neither great nor fortunate in arms, and was dining in the abbey, attended by his principal officers, when the Scots appeared and commenced the attack.
It was the 14th day of October, and the Scots commenced the conflict by a desperate attempt to carry the pass that was the key to the English position. Earls Pembroke and Richmond were there, however, directing the defence, and, although taken by surprise, the English soldiers made good their position with great courage. The pikemen held the crest of the rock in solid formation, ready to charge should the Scots force the pass, and bear them down again: the archers swept the front of the position with showers of arrows, and huge masses of rock were hurled upon the advancing enemy. The terrible Scottish infantry swept on with their long spears and heavy bills and claymores, and a hot encounter ensued. The Scots were so roughly handled, and the position was so strong, that Brucedespaired of winning it by storming the pass. To Douglas was appointed the arduous duty of continuing the conflict, Randolph, with four squires, fighting under his command, as volunteers. The English advanced post that defended the ascent of the cliff was commanded by Sir Thomas Ughtred and Sir Ralph Cobham—two gallant English knights who acquitted themselves nobly. There was great bloodshed, and hard fighting for some time. Bruce, who fully realised the position, headed a chosen band of Highlanders, active and daring men, and resolved to attempt to take the English in the rear, for closely engaged with the furious attacks of Douglas, and probably believing the natural defence sufficient for their protection, the English had neglected to post their troops in such a position as would secure them in case of a rear attack being made. Bruce seems to have realised the necessity of his attack being too sudden and secret to admit of defensive measures being taken, and, making a circuit, his Highlanders quickly and noiselessly scaled the high rocks in flank and rear of the English army. What followed may be easily imagined. The charge of the Highlanders was resistless, and being unexpected, a dreadful scene of slaughterand panic ensued. Vainly the English sought to close in, and meet the foe that burst upon rear and flank: this diversion naturally distracted the attention of the troops who supported the attacks of Douglas and Randolph, and those hardy warriors forcing the pass won the heights, where a terrible conflict was going on, the English troops breaking away, and taking to flight whenever the opportunity offered. Good men were there, although the panic-stricken fled, and many fell on that corpse-encumbered and blood-stained ridge, fighting at close quarters, and dying in their tracks. The bravest were cut down, and those that could escape the toils took to hurried flight. The battle was soon over; not so the pursuit. Great was the slaughter that ensued, but the actual loss of life is not chronicled.
So unexpected and complete was the victory of the Scots, that Edward was utterly incapable of making an attempt to rally his troops, or effect any orderly retreat. Mounting a swift horse, he directed his flight to York with all conceivable speed, leaving behind him his plate, money, and treasure, and even the privy seal. Walter Stewart followed hard after him with 500 horse, and had it not been for the swiftness of the royal steed,in all probability England would have undergone the humiliation of having her monarch borne a prisoner from her own soil by the invaders. As it was, the Scottish warrior could ill brook the loss of the intended prize, and he lingered before the walls of York with his slender force of men-at-arms until the shades of evening began to close over the scene; but so dejected and dispirited were the royal troops that they tamely submitted to the affront, although in sufficient numbers to have swept away the stout riders of Stewart. The Despensers succeeded in effecting their escape from the scene of confusion and bloodshed, and the day after the battle accompanied the King to Bridlington. With them went the Earl of Kent, John de Cromwell, and John de Ross.
Many Englishmen had taken refuge in the Abbey of Rivaulx when the struggle became too obviously hopeless; and among the knights and nobles who there surrendered their swords to the Scots were the Earl of Richmond, and Sir Henry de Sully. The prisoners were treated with the greatest courtesy, being simply regarded as chivalrous warriors doing their devoir in the field; but the Earl of Richmond had expressed himself in most disrespectful terms against theBruce, and to show his opinion of such ungentle behaviour King Robert ordered the earl to be closely confined.
On the 22nd of October the Scottish army returned to their own country, laden with spoil, including £400 exacted for the ransom of Beverley: they left behind them a ravaged and ruined country.
Andrew de Harcla for some reason or other had failed to join King Edward with his levies, but, halting near Boroughbridge, had wasted the country. This was a suspicious circumstance, and was openly commented upon, with the implication that he had entered into a league with the Scots, and would not act against them. It was in the last days of the year that these grave charges were brought before the royal notice, when the earl’s arrest was immediately ordered.
Surrounded by his retainers, and occupying the strong fortress of Carlisle, the earl might have successfully resisted the King’s arms until an opportunity of effecting his escape into Scotland offered; and Lord Lucy, who put the royal orders into execution, resorted to strategy rather than force.
Attended by Sir Hugh de Moriceby, Sir Richardde Denton, Sir Hugh de Lowther, four squires, and a small party of soldiers, Lord Lucy entered Carlisle Castle, with as little ostentation as possible, his soldiers dispersing, to re-assemble in small parties near the gates. Lord Lucy and his knights then sought the presence of de Harcla, and demanded his instant surrender, with the option of defending himself against their attack. The Earl declined to defend himself against the four warriors, but as he was being carried off a cry of treason was raised, and the keeper of the inner ward, making a movement to close the gate, was immediately slain by Sir Richard de Denton. At the same moment Lord Lucy’s soldiers seized the gates, and the Earl’s doom was virtually sealed. He was tried before the chief justiciary, Jeffrey de Scroop, and was sentenced to degradation and death; being found guilty of having entered into a treasonable undertaking with King Robert, to whom he guaranteed the crown of Scotland in return for services to be rendered in England—no doubt embracing the destruction of the royal favourites, the Despensers.
It is difficult to believe that Harcla would enter into so dubious an undertaking, so soon after the failure of the powerful Earl of Lancaster. Ifhe had acted as the agent of the Barons, we may believe that some particulars of the confederation would have been elicited during his trial. The statement that he summoned the principal inhabitants of Cumberland to meet him at Carlisle, informed them that he had entered into a treaty with the King of Scotland, and succeeded in obtaining their support, is scarcely to be credited. The Earl is generally regarded as the scapegoat who bore the sins of Byland Battle to the block. Degraded from his nobility, despoiled of the insignia of his knightly merit, the unfortunate man was conducted to the scaffold at Carlisle on the 2nd of March, 1322, and there executed.
Edward was induced by this final disaster to give more serious attention to negotiations for peace. Henry de Sully, the French knight, used his influence to bring the two monarchs to an understanding, and a preliminary truce was agreed to at Thorpe, and finally a truce for thirteen years was ratified by Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, and Edward the II. of England, at Berwick, on the 7th of June, 1323; a merciful peace after such long and bloody strife, and for which the name of Henry de Sully deserves to be held in honourable remembrance.
King Edward directed his first essay in arms against the Scots, in requital of their sanguinary invasions of the North.
The flower of his army was supposed to consist of 2,000 men-at-arms under Lord John of Hainault, and the distinction thus bestowed upon foreign troops aroused the honest wrath of the English. King Edward was accompanied by his mother, Queen Isabella, and while the court was engaged in festivities in the monastery of the Friars Minors, at York, on Trinity Sunday, a dreadful tumult arose in the suburbs—the Hainaulters and the Lincolnshire archers, being quartered near each other, engaged in a dreadful conflict. A great part of the army was drawn into the quarrel; houses were fired, and lighted the scene of murder with a weird and fitful light.
All authority was defied, and exhaustion alone arrested the conflict, which was renewed later on, when the Hainaulters combined, and beat up the quarters of the bowmen of Lincoln and Northampton, slaughtering three hundred of them before the tumult was quelled.
After this the English foot entered into a confederation to cut off the Hainaulters, and the young King had great difficulty in restoring peace and order in his army.
The campaign was extremely unfortunate. Douglas surprised the camp one night, cut down the royal tent, raised his war-cry in the midst of the startled army, and, after nearly capturing the King, effected his escape. The Hainaulters received £14,000 for their assistance.
The Hainaulters were again at York in the following January, on the occasion of the marriage festivities of King Edward and Queen Philippa.
The foreigners distinguished themselves by firing the suburbs of the city, and by insulting the wives, daughters, and female servants of the citizens, who challenged them to mortal combat. The foreigners lost 527 men, slain by the sword or the waters of the Ouse, and slaughtered 242 Englishmen.
Several Parliaments were held at York in Edward’s reign, and when David Bruce invaded Northumbria in 1346, Queen Philippa raised her standard in the city. The Scots kept York under observation for some time, and attacked the suburbs.
The impending battle was fought near Durham on the 17th of October. After a vain attempt to cut off the English archers, the Scots closed in a hand-to-hand conflict, and fought under a deadly hail of arrows. The English steadily won ground, and the Scots began to break before repeated repulses and attacks. The King fought like a lion; his banner disappeared; the Earl of March and the Great Steward retired their divisions, believing the King was slain. He still fought on; eighty loyal gentlemen supporting him. He was surrounded, wounded in the leg, two spears were entangled in his harness, his sword was dashed out of his hand, and he was called upon to surrender. Maddened by mortification and pain, he struck out with his gauntleted fist. John Copeland lost two teeth by the King’s hand, but was gratified by receiving his surrender.
After Edward’s days of warfare and pride came to an end, Richard II. reigned in his stead.Some little ferment occurred in Beverley and Scarborough, but Wat Tyler’s death prevented the movement from spreading.
In 1385 Richard quartered his army at Beverley, during an expedition to Scotland. A Bohemian knight, Sir Meles, was insulted by two of Sir John Holland’s squires, and protected by two archers, retainers of Lord Ralph Stafford. A heated dispute was settled by the death of one of the squires, who was shot by an arrow. The guilty archer appealed to Lord Ralph Stafford for protection, and Lord Ralph at once sought Sir John Holland, who was also out in quest of Sir Meles, vowing to avenge the death of his favourite squire. Knight and lord met in a narrow lane, and, it being dark, did not recognise each other until the challenge passed, when Holland drew his sword, exclaimed, “Stafford, I was inquiring for you; thy servants have murdered my squire, whom I loved so much;” then he smote the young lord, and laid him dead at his feet.
Holland took sanctuary at Beverley, and King Richard confiscated his possessions, and declared that he should be executed if he ventured out of bounds.
Holland was the King’s half-brother by their mother Joan, the widow of the Black Prince, and she besought pardon for the guilty knight, and so bitterly bewailed his peril, that, after three days of continuous weeping, she expired. Holland was then pardoned. He was afterwards raised to the rank of Earl of Huntingdon, and being seized by the vassals of the late Duke of Gloucester, whom he had held in deadly hatred, he was delivered to the headsman’s axe.
For six months,A.D.1392, the Courts of King’s Bench and Chancery were held at York, Richard being at feud with the citizens of London. He bestowed the title of Lord Mayor upon the mayors of York; presented the city with the first mayor’s mace; and created the first Duke of York in the person of Edward Plantagenet, the fifth son of Edward III. and Queen Philippa.
In Richard’s reign the battle of Otterburn was fought. Earl Douglas won Sir Henry Percy’s lance before the barriers of Newcastle, and vowed that it should float from the loftiest tower of Dalkeith Castle. Percy swore that it should not be carried out of Northumberland, and Douglas promised to plant it before histent, that Percy might have an opportunity of regaining it
On the following night Percy, with 6,000 horse and 8,000 foot, furiously attacked the Scots, who were encamped at Otterburn. Douglas, by a skilful movement, took the English in flank, and a hot encounter ensued, which was interrupted as a dark cloud swept before the moon. It passed, and the battle was resumed, as the scene was flooded with light. Douglas smote his way through the press, wielding his axe in both hands. Three spears smote him, and man and horse went down. He was found dying, defended by his chaplain, William Lundie, who bestrode him, curtail-axe in hand. Douglas thanked God that few of his ancestors had died in bed or chamber. He reminded his friends of the old prophecy that a dead Douglas should win a field; and commanded them to raise his fallen banner and his war-cry, but to tell none that he lay dying there. His orders were followed, and the English were defeated.
The De la Poles, merchants of Hull, rose to power during the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. Edward received princely assistance from the brothers during his French wars, andin 1327 bestowed the office of Chief Butler upon Richard. William he created a Knight-Banneret. Sir Michael was appointed Admiral of the King’s fleet in the North, and was raised to the peerage as Earl of Suffolk. In 1389 he died at Paris, a broken-hearted exile. His son and successor followed Henry V. to France, and died, of a malignant disease, before the walls of Harfleur. Michael, his eldest son, took up his honours, but perished on the field of Agincourt, a few weeks later. William, the fourth earl, famous as a statesman and warrior, was foully slain in the roads of Dover, his head being struck off against the side of the long-boat of the shipNicholas. His son, created Duke of Suffolk in 1462, married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Duke of York. Their eldest son, John, Earl of Lincoln, was declared heir to the crown by Richard III. He fell at the battle of Stoke, June 16th, 1487. The fifth Earl of Suffolk was brought to the block in 1513; and the exile, Richard, fought beneath the banner of King Francis, and was slain amid the rout at Pavia in 1525, when King Francis was taken prisoner, after a desperate defence.
In “The Story of the De la Poles,” J. Travis-Cook,F.H.R.S., furnishes the student with a veryinteresting account of this talented but unfortunate family.
Edward Baliol’s expedition against Scotland, fruitful of so much suffering and useless bloodshed, sailed from Ravenser in 1332. The crown that he won was as suddenly lost as acquired.
In 1387 the Barons of England deprived King Richard of the reins of government, and impeached his friends, the Archbishop of York, the Duke of Ireland, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Robert Tresilian, and Sir Nicholas Brember. Brember and Tresilian were publicly executed, the others secured their safety by flight.
Years passed, and Richard recovered his authority, when he punished the lords appellant, sparing only his cousin Hereford and the Duke of Norfolk. Some conversation appears to have passed between these nobles, and Hereford accused Norfolk of having expressed his suspicion that Richard would yet revenge himself upon them for their past offence, and especially for the affair of “Radcot Bridge,” when the Duke of Ireland’s forces were dispersed.
Norfolk denied the charge, and the Kingpermitted the quarrel to be decided by wager of battle. The 29th of April, 1398, was appointed for the trial; the place, Coventry. The noblemen had put spurs to their horses, when Richard, under the advice of his council, stopped the combat, and banished the offenders—as guilty of treason. Norfolk’s sentence was for life; Hereford’s for ten years.
The Londoners were incensed at losing their favourite, Hereford, and when his father, the aged John of Gaunt, died on the Christmas following his son’s banishment, and Richard seized his estates, the general indignation was extreme; for the King had granted legal instruments to both the exiles, securing to them any inheritance which might fall to them.
In face of the gathering storm Richard sailed for Ireland. On the 4th July, 1399, three small ships entered the Humber, and Hereford, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Fitz-Alan, son of the late Earl of Arundel, a few servitors, and fifteen men-at-arms, landed at Ravenser Spurn.
Shut out of Hull, he was met at Doncaster by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, who espoused his cause, affecting to believe hisassertion that he had returned to claim the estates of his father.
King Richard threw himself into Conway Castle, and Northumberland induced him to leave his refuge, to make terms with Hereford. Drawn into an ambush, Richard was delivered into his cousin’s hands. Northumberland had sworn on the sacramental elements to keep faith with the King, and Richard thus reproached him, on the moment of his seizure, “May the God on whom you laid your hand reward you and your accomplices at the last day.”
On the 1st of October, the day following his coronation, Henry IV. signed a licence for Matthew Danthorpe, a hermit, who had welcomed him at Ravenser Spurn, granting him permission to erect a hermitage and chapel on that desolate place.
Richard was imprisoned, and expired in a dungeon of Pontefract Castle, but whether by stroke of Sir Piers Exton’s axe, or broken down by famine, matters notnow.
Northumberland was honoured by the dignity of Constable of England, and at the coronation bore a naked sword on the King’s right hand. He was further guerdoned by a grant of the Isle of Man.
On the 7th of May, 1402, the Percies defeated Earl Douglas at the battle of Homildon, inflicting a heavy loss upon the Scots, and capturing Douglas; Murdoch, son of the Duke of Albany, and other captains to the total sum of eighty.
King Henry forbade the ransoming of the prisoners, an interference which aroused the bitter wrath of the Percies. As though in mockery of their pride, he bestowed upon them the Scottish estates of the Douglas, and ordered them to abstain from ransoming Sir Edward Mortimer, Hotspur’s brother-in-law, who had fallen into the hands of Owen Glendower, the Welsh patriot.
These impositions of the royal commands resulted in the revolt of the Percies. The Scotch prisoners were released, and assisted the Percies in the field. The captive Mortimer married Glendower’s daughter, and drew that chieftain into the conspiracy. The lineal heir to the throne was Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. Him Northumberland proposed to raise to the throne, virtually partitioning the kingdom between the Percies, Mortimers, and Glendower.
The revolt came to the issue of battle at Shrewsbury, on the 21st July, 1403, when Percy and Douglas penetrated the centre of the royalarmy, and Hotspur, casting up the ventaille of his helmet, was shot in the brain by an arrow, and fell in the press. The victorious advance was turned into a rout. Of Prince Henry, it is written: “The prince that daie holpe his father like a lustie young gentleman.”
Northumberland was marching to join his sons, but retired into Warkworth Castle on receiving the news of their defeat. The King, either from fear or policy, condoned his part in the revolt.
When the Archbishop of York, Richard Scrope, took up arms in 1405, the Earl was implicated in his revolt. Sir John Falconberg had raised the banner of revolt in Cleveland, but Prince John and the Earl of Westmoreland had defeated the rebels. The Archbishop’s army was so strong, for it had been augmented by Lord Bardolph and Thomas, Lord Mowbray, that the royal captains resorted to treaty, and induced the Archbishop to disband his army. No sooner was this done than the leaders of the revolt were arrested.
The Archbishop of York, Lord Mowbray, Sir John Lamplugh, Sir Robert Plumpton, and several other unfortunates, were put upon their trial, and condemned to death. On the 8th June theArchbishop of York was executed at his palace of Bishopthorpe, and his head, with that of Mowbray, was piked and exposed on York walls.
The city of York was heavily fined, and the King proceeded to Durham, where he executed Lords Hastings and Fauconbridge, and Sir John Griffith.
Northumberland, “with three hundred horse, got him to Berwike,” but on the King’s advance passed into Scotland, accompanied by Lord Bardolph.
After brief exile, the end came. “The earle of Northumberland, and the lord Bardolfe, after they had been in Wales, in France, and Flanders to purchase aid against King Henrie, were returned backe into Scotland, and had remained there now for the space of a whole yeare: and as their evill fortune would, while the King held a councill of the nobilitie at London, the saide earle of Northumberland and lord Bardolfe, in a dismall houre, with a great power of Scots returned into England, recovering diverse of the earle’s castels and seigneories, for the people in great numbers resorted unto them. Hereupon encouraged with hope of good successe, they entered into Yorkshire, and there began to distroie the countrie.”
The Sheriff of Yorkshire, Sir Thomas Rokeby, is stated to have lured the old warrior to his doom. Sir Nicholas Tempest reinforced him at Knaresborough, and the little army crossed the Wharfe at Wetherby. They had achieved a succession of trifling successes, but now Sir Thomas Rokeby interposed his forces, cut off their retreat, and compelled them to give battle, on the 28th February, 1408, on Bramham Moor, near Hazlewood.
They were brave men who thus stood opposed. Northumberland’s troops were incited by their dangerous position, by the hope of recovering their lost possessions, and by their hatred of the King. On the other hand, the royalists were anxious to gain the honours and rewards which princes bestow.
The Sheriff was not slack to close, but advanced his standard of St. George, and sounded the charge, as Northumberland bore down upon him with his lances, doing battle once more beneath his banner, that displayed the proud emblazonments of the house of Percy.
The onset was fierce and bloody. Lances shivered to splinters; men went down in their blood, wounded and dying; riderless horses burstfrom the press, and wildly galloped over the moor. Lances were cast aside, as knights and men-at-arms fell-to with sword, and mace, and axe, testing mail, smashing shield and casque, and finding and bestowing wounds and death despite of guarding weapons and tempered plate-mail.
The archers were fiercely at work, pouring their long shafts upon the rear ranks; the footmen face to face with the wild play of deadly bill and thrust of pike. Morions were cleft, corsets pierced, and men fell thick and fast. The battle was hotly maintained, but for a short time, the insurgents being sorely over-matched. Northumberland fell—never to rise again until rough hands stripped off his mail, and held him for the butcher’s work of headsman’s axe and knife. There ended Lord Bardolph’s many troubles, as he fell, a sorely wounded and dying man, into the Sheriff’s hands.
The leaders fallen, no further object for contention remained to the rebels, and the defeat was complete and irretrievable. The tragedy of the battlefield had to be concluded by the rush of the pursuers, eager to maim and slay; and by the useless rally of defeated men, turning fiercely at bay, to claim blood for blood and life for life; and, alas! by the seizure of flying men, doomedto rope and axe in reguerdon of their last act of vassalage to the devoted house of Northumberland.
The Earl’s head, “full of silver horie hairs, being put upon a stake, was openly carried through London, and set upon the bridge of the same citie: in like manner was the lord Bardolfe’s. The bishop of Bangor was taken and pardoned by the King, for that when he was apprehended, he had no armour on his backe. The King, to purge the North parts of all rebellion, and to take order for the punishment of those that were accused to have succoured and assisted the Earl of Northumberland, went to Yorke, where, when many were condemned, and diverse put to great fines, and the countrie brought to quietnesse, he caused the abbot of Hailes to be hanged, who had been in armour against him with the foresaid earle.”
So, after his treacheries, his aspiring ambitions, the once puissant Earl of Northumberland was brought as low as Richard of Bordeaux when he lay upon his bier at St. Paul’s, his set and rigid face, bared from eyebrows to chin, for the inspection of the Londoners, and, in its surrounding swathing of grave-clothes, in its dreadful emaciation,eloquent of the unrecorded tragedy of secret murder.
A grant of the manor of Spofforth, a former possession of the slain Earl, rewarded the loyalty of Sir Thomas Rokeby.
In the reign of Henry V., an attempt was again made to restore the lineal heir to the throne, an augury of the War of the Roses commenced in his son’s reign. The Earl of Marche, the object of the conspiracy, himself betrayed it to the King. Henry, whose assassination had been planned, took immediate revenge upon the principal offenders, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, Lord Scroop of Masham, and Sir Thomas Grey. They were executed at Southampton, on the 13th of August, 1415, at the moment when the royal fleet was sailing from the harbour to add the terrors of invasion to unhappy France, then suffering from internecine strife.
There is an old tradition that on the day of Agincourt the shrine of St. John of Beverley exuded blood, and when King Henry was in Yorkshire he naturally paid his devotions at the shrine. He was accompanied by his Queen; and it was at this time that he received the sad news of the death of his brother Clarence at Beaujé.The Duke was dashing over the narrow bridge when the charging Scots burst upon him; Sir John Carmichael shivered his lance upon the Duke’s corset, Sir John Swinton smote him in the face, and, as he dropped from the saddle, the Earl of Buchan, with one blow of a mace, or “steel hammer,” dashed out his brains.