By England's Aid; Or, the Freeing of the Netherlands, 1585-1604Henty, G. A. (George Alfred)
History
By England's Aid; Or, the Freeing of the Netherlands, 1585-1604
Henty, G. A. (George Alfred)
Historical fiction; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648 -- Fiction
As soon as the charge was repulsed, Henry set his troops in motion, and
the battalia charged down upon the disordered cavalry of the League.
The lancers and cuirassiers were borne down by the impetuosity of the
charge, and Marshal Biron, rallying his troops, followed the king's
white plume into the heart of the battle. Egmont brought up the cavalry
of Flanders to the scene, and was charging at their head when he fell
dead with a musket-ball through the heart. Brunswick went down in the
fight, and the shattered German and Walloon horse were completely
overthrown and cut to pieces by the furious charges of the Huguenot
cavalry.
At one time the victorious onset was checked by the disappearance of
the king's snow-white plumes, and a report ran through the army that
the king was killed. They wavered irresolutely. The enemy, regaining
courage from the cessation of their attacks, were again advancing, when
the king reappeared bareheaded and covered with dust and blood, but
entirely unhurt. He addressed a few cheerful words to his soldiers, and
again led a charge. It was irresistible; the enemy broke and fled in
the wildest confusion hotly pursued by the royalist cavalry, while the
infantry of the League, who had so far taken no part whatever in the
battle, were seized with a panic, threw away their arms, and sought
refuge in the woods in their rear.
Thus the battle was decided only by the cavalry, the infantry taking no
part in the fight on either side. Eight hundred of the Leaguers either
fell on the battle-field or were drowned in crossing the river in their
rear. The loss of the royalists was but one-fourth that number. Had the
king pushed forward upon Paris immediately after the battle, the city
would probably have surrendered without a blow; and the Huguenot
leaders urged this course upon him. Biron and the other Catholics,
however, argued that it was better to undertake a regular siege, and
the king yielded to this advice, although the bolder course would have
been far more in accordance with his own disposition.
He was probably influenced by a variety of motives. In the first place
his Swiss mercenaries were in a mutinous condition, and refused to
advance a single foot unless they received their arrears of pay, and
this Henry, whose chests were entirely empty, had no means of
providing. In the second place he was at the time secretly in
negotiation with the pope for his conversion, and may have feared to
give so heavy a blow to the Catholic cause as would have been effected
by the capture of Paris following closely after the victory of Ivry. At
any rate he determined upon a regular siege. Moving forward he seized
the towns of Lagny on the Marne, and Corbeil on the Seine, thus
entirely cutting off the food supply of Paris.
Lionel Vickars had borne his part in the charges of the Huguenot
cavalry, but as the company to which he belonged was in the rear of the
battalia, he had no personal encounters with the enemy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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