"Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools (Being native burghers of this desert city) Should, in their own confines, with _forked heads_ Have their round haunches gored."--_Act_ ii. _Sc._ 1. And the fatal effects of the forked head are familiar to us all in the case of the "----poor sequester'd stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt," coming to languish away its life "On the extremest verge of the swift brook." The feudal levy of the Ban and Arrière-ban was of course much influenced by the pressure of the occasion requiring their armament. In 1205 King John, in a Council held at Winchester, called upon every tenth knight in the realm to accompany him into Poitou, at the expense of the other nine; and if, during his absence, the country should be invaded, every man capable of bearing arms was to join in its defence, under pain of forfeiting any lands he might hold; or, if not a landowner, of becoming, with all his posterity, a _slave_ for ever, and paying a yearly poll-tax of four-pence. Each knight was to receive two shillings per day[304]. This expedition did not, however, leave our shores. When Philip of France was preparing to attack King John in 1213, the English monarch summoned all his "liberos homines et servientes, vel quicunque sint," to aid him under pain of culvertage[305]. In 1264, when the Earl of Leicester mustered his forces on Barham Downs to resist the threatened invasion of Queen Eleanor, the military tenants were ordered, under pain of felony, to bring into the field not only the force specified in their tenures, but all the horsemen and infantry in their power: every township was compelled to send eight, six, or four footmen well armed with lances, bows, swords, cross-bows, and axes, who should serve forty days at the expense of the township; and the cities and burghs received orders to furnish as many horsemen and footmen as the Sheriff should appoint[306]. The Pay assigned to troops who, having contributed the stipulated service for their holdings or assessments, were required to render further assistance to the king in his wars, we discover in the Roll of Expenses of King Edward I. at Ruddlan Castle in Wales, in 1281-2. From this curious document, which is printed in full in the sixteenth volume of the Archæologia, we find:-- _The Pay of_ _Per Diem._ _In modern money._ A knight 12 Pence 15 shillings An esquire 12 Pence 15 shillings An archer 2 Pence 2s. 6d. A cross-bowman 2 Pence 2s. 6d. A captain-of-twenty } 4 Pence 5s. 0d. (bowmen) } A constable (of 100 } 6 Pence 7s. 6d. bowmen) }