XLVI. A SEA-FIGHT 218 XLVII. THE SIEGE OF MOUNT SORREL 221 XLVIII. LINCOLN 225 XLIX. COLLINGHAM’S RAVENS 229 L. THE BATTLE 233 LI. DE MOREVILLE IN BATTLE HARNESS 237 LII. DEFIANT TILL DEATH 242 LIII. AFTER THE BATTLE 245 LIV. AN AWKWARD PREDICAMENT 247 LV. SUNSHINE AND CLOUDS 252 LVI. THE WRESTLING-MATCH 255 LVII A MEDIÆVAL RESTAURANT 259 LVIII. WRESTLING FOR THE RAM 263 LIX. A STARTLING SPECTACLE 267 LX. A DEMAGOGUE AND HIS DESPERADOES 271 LXI. AN OFFERING TO THE WINDS 276 RUNNYMEDE AND LINCOLN FAIR A STORY OF THE GREAT CHARTER CHAPTER I A SQUIRE AND A CITIZEN It was the eve of Christmas in the year 1214, when John was King of England; and, albeit England was on the verge of a sanguinary civil war, which was to shake the kingdom to its centre, and cause infinite suffering to families and individuals, London--then a little city, containing some forty thousand inhabitants, and surrounded by an old Roman wall, said to have been built by the Emperor Constantine--wore quite a holiday aspect, when, as the shades of evening were closing over the banks of the Thames, a stripling of eighteen, or thereabouts, walked up one of the long, narrow streets--some of which, indeed, were so narrow that the inmates, when they ascended to the house-tops, could converse and even shake hands with their opposite neighbours--and knocked loudly at the gate of a high house. It had the appearance of being the abode either of some great noble in attendance on the court, or one of those mediæval merchants who called themselves “barons,” and boasted of such wealth as few of the feudal nobles could call their own. In fact, it was the residence of the Fitzarnulphs, the proudest, richest, and most influential of the citizens of London.