[36] _Boulevard_ is the technical name for a kind of earthwork used in the early days of cannon. It was a sort of terrace, protected by a parapet, on which cannon could be planted as an outer defence to a fortress, and might be of any shape. The technical name for the small forts which the English gradually erected round Orleans is _bastide_. [37] The formation of a fortified post by means of the camp-waggons was a fundamental part of the tactics of John Zisca, the long successful leader of the Bohemian insurrection a few years earlier. The _lager_ which is a feature now well known of African warfare, is the same thing in principle. [38] This is of course not the first instance of a siege approximating to the modern type. The siege of Harfleur already mentioned was in fact more like a modern siege than that of Orleans. [39] Sir Edward Creasy goes so far as to place the relief of Orleans among the fifteen _Decisive Battles of the World_. [40] The Beauforts had been duly legitimated by Parliament, but Henry IV., in confirming this to his half-brothers, had inserted words in his charter which barred their succession to the throne. The strict legality of the latter act can hardly be maintained: but it is plain that no one dreamed of preferring the Beauforts to the house of York. [41] In Chapter II. I abstained from giving the numbers at Hastings, because there seem to me to be no adequate materials for forming a trustworthy estimate: but it is scarcely possible that the armies which fought at Hastings can have been within many thousands of the total given by chroniclers for Towton. [42] It is possible that the numbers are exaggerated, but there is no reason for thinking so except the smallness of the battle-field; and if so the exaggeration was on both sides alike, for it is certain that the Lancastrian numbers preponderated. The Yorkist force is given at 49,000 by the authorities who put the Lancastrians at 60,000, both totals being given before any fighting had taken place. What losses had been incurred at Ferrybridge we are not told, and we can only guess at the strength of the Yorkist rearguard: but the numbers with which the battle began cannot have been very far from seven to four. [43] Sir John Ramsay, in his generally valuable work, _Lancaster and_ _York_, places Warwick's line along the high-road, where there is every reason to believe that there was no hedge at all in the fifteenth century, for the amazing reason that "from that position he could take the king's troops in detail as they came out of the narrow street of Barnet," which ended in the open heath half-a-mile off. It is true that he adds, "but Edward always laughed at Warwick's strategy," by which presumably he means tactics. Since all that Edward knew of Warwick's tactics was that he had inspired, or at least shared in directing, the bold and skilful tactics of Towton, he must have been very easily amused.