The House of Walderne: A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' WarsCrake, A. D. (Augustine David)
ReligionChristian
The House of Walderne: A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars
Crake, A. D. (Augustine David)
Historical fiction
Then the earl might have made the mistake which Prince Edward made on
the opposite side, and followed the flying foe; but he was far too
wise. He saw on his left the centre under the Earl of Gloucester,
fighting valiantly on equal terms with the royal centre under King
Henry. He fell upon its flank with all the force of his victorious
array: one deadly struggle and the royal lines bent, curved, broke,
then fled in disorder, the old king galloping furiously towards the
priory, fleeing in great fear for dear life.
Yet more ludicrous was the fate of his brother Richard, King of the
Romans, who, while Henry reached the priory wounded, had taken refuge
in the windmill, where he was being baited, almost in joke, by the
victorious foes, amidst cries of:
“Come out you bad miller!”
“You to turn a wretched mill master!”
“You who defied us all so proudly!”
“You, the ever Augustus!”
At length the poor badgered king, seeing that they were preparing to
set the mill on fire and smoke him out, surrendered to a follower of
the Earl of Gloucester, Sir John Bix, and came out all covered with
flour, while men sang:
The King of the Romans gathered a host,
And made him a castle of a mill post.
Meanwhile the camp on the hill, with the banner and the aforesaid
litter, had aroused the attention of Prince Edward, just returning from
harrying the Londoners.
“Up the hill, my men,” he said. “There is the very devil himself in
that litter.”
The camp was stoutly defended, but after a while the defenders were
forced to fly by superior force. Then the prince’s men rushed upon the
litter, Drogo of Walderne foremost. They thought they had got the great
earl.
“Come out, Simon, thou devil, thou worst of traitors,” they cried.
Within were only the four shrinking, timid burgesses, and Drogo and his
band dragged them out, shrieking in vain that they were for the king,
and cut them to pieces, poor unfortunates. But they did not find Earl
Simon, and only slew their own friends; and when the confusion was over
they looked down upon the battlefield, where one glance showed them
that the main battle was lost, and the barons in possession of the
field.
In vain Edward besought his men, now much reduced in numbers, to make
another charge. They saw the enemy waiting with levelled lances to
receive them, and felt that the position they were asked to assail was
impregnable.
Edward was a most affectionate son, and was very anxious to learn the
fate of his royal father, so he determined to force his way to the
priory at all hazards, and made a circuit of the town so as to reach
the sacred pile from the unassailed quarter. Night was now approaching,
and the prince’s party had to fight their way at every step with the
victorious horsemen of the barons. Edward’s giant strength and long
sweeping sword made him a way over heaps of corpses strewn before him,
but others were less fortunate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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