Here, however, finding it impossible to avoid an engagement, on account, as we may suppose, of the obstruction to his retreat presented by the king’s movement above mentioned, he made his stand in the rear of a field of peas nearly ripe; behind which he stationed his army, and hoped thereby to deter the king from advancing over a tract which must necessarily impede his operations. “He then addressed his little army in a short harangue, of which Walsingham has preserved the heads. ‘We must desist,’ said he, ‘from any further attempt to retreat, and turn our arms on those that come against us. Ye see the royal banner, nor is there time to seek a passage even though we wished it. Stand, therefore, with steadfast hearts: for this day shall either promote us all, if we conquer; or deliver us from an usurper, if we fall: and it is better to die in battle for the common wealth, than after battle by the sentence of our foe:” and with this, to support the courage of his men by proving his design to fight to the outrance, he dispatched two of his esquires, Knayton and Salvayn, with that strange defiance, in which he loads the king with the most horrid crimes. * * * * “No one has informed us how the king received this furious manifesto. He had something else to engage his attention. He proceeded to marshal his forces, dividing them into two columns, or wedges. Of one of these he took the command himself, and entrusted the other to his son. The front rank of his own column was led on by his nephew the young earl of Stafford, a soldier of conspicuous valour, on whom he had that morning conferred the high office of constable of England, recently enjoyed by the earl of Northumberland. Previous to the final onset, the king, in compliance with the customs of chivalry, bestowed the honour of knighthood on certain of his most distinguished esquires. Hotspur, perceiving that an engagement was unavoidable, called for his favourite sword. His attendants informed him that it was left behind at Berwick, of which village it does not appear that he had till then learned the name. At these words he turned pale, and said, ‘I perceive that my plough is drawing to its last furrow, for a wizard told me in Northumberland that I should perish at Berwick: which I vainly interpreted of that town in the North.’ His courage did not, however, yield to the impressions of superstition; he rallied his spirits, and arranged his troops with his usual ability: assigning their respective stations to his uncle Worcester, the Scottish earl of Douglas, his recent captive at Halidown, sir Richard Venables, baron of Kinderton, Hugh Brow, Hugh Vernon, and others. His troops appear to have been chiefly stationed on the north side of the spot now occupied by the church in a field