Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9): Henrie IVHolinshed, Raphael
History
Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9): Henrie IV
Holinshed, Raphael
Great Britain -- History -- Henry IV, 1399-1413; Middle Ages
affections of crueltie; that it should rather haue mooued the beholders
to commiseration and mercie: yet did the women of Wales cut off their
priuities, and put one part thereof into the mouthes of euerie dead man,
in such sort that the cullions hoong downe to their chins; and not so
contented, they did cut off their noses and thrust them into their
tailes as they laie on the ground mangled and defaced. This was a verie
ignominious déed, and a woorsse not committed among the barbarous: which
though it make the reader to read it, and the hearer to heare it,
ashamed: yet bicause it was a thing doone in open sight, and left
testified in historie; I see little reason whie it should not be
imparted in our mother toong to the knowledge of our owne countrimen, as
well as vnto strangers in a language vnknowne. And thus much by waie of
notifieng the inhumanitie and detestable demeanour of those Welshwomen,
after the conflict betwéene the English and the Welsh, whereof
desultorie mention is made before pag. 520, where Edmund Mortimer earle
of March was taken prisoner.
Valeran earle of S. Paule, by the assent of the French king, assembled
fiue hundred men of armes, fiue hundred Genowaies with crossebowes,
[Sidenote: The castell of Marke besieged about the middest of Maie as
_Iac. Meir._ saith. Sir Philip Hall.] and a thousand Flemings on foot,
with the which he laid siege to the castell of Marke, thrée leagues from
Calis, vpon the fiftéenth daie of Iulie. Capteine of the castell as then
for the king of England was one sir Philip Hall, hauing with him foure
score archers, and four and twentie other soldiers, which defended the
place so manfullie, that the earle retired into the towne, and there
lodged, fortifieng it for feare of rescue that might come from Calis.
The next daie he gaue an other assault to the castell, and tooke the
vtter court, wherin was found a great number of horsses, kine, and other
cattell. The next daie there issued foorth of Calis two hundred men of
armes, two hundred archers, and three hundred footmen, with ten or
twelue wagons laden with vittels and artillerie, conducted by sir
Richard Aston knight, lieutenant of the English pale for the earle of
Summerset, capteine generall of those marches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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