The Bravest of the Brave — or, with Peterborough in Spain by G. A. Henty (beach read book txt) 📖

the Portuguese service arrived from Galway and Das Minas, again urging him to move by the route which they had suggested.

Charles again hesitated, the Count of Cifuentes (who was with him) gave his advice in favor of the Saragossa route, and the king decided on that line.

On the 26th of July the earl summoned a council of war, including the Governor of Valencia, two Spanish generals, and his own officers. They agreed unanimously that Peterborough should march his army to Madrid or join the army in Portugal, as circumstances might require. Just before they started letters came in from the king desiring that Peterborough should send the forces under his command either to relieve the Duke of Savoy or to capture the Balearic Isles.

The earl declined to follow this ungrateful suggestion, which was manifestly intended by Charles and his advisers, English, Portuguese, and German, to send away from his kingdom the man who had won it for him. Being fortunately independent of orders, Peterborough marched for Castile, as he and the council of war had previously determined.

Charles was not long in regretting that he had not followed Lord Peterborough's advice. Instead of the triumphant procession from Saragossa to Madrid, which he had been promised, he was met with the most determined opposition.

Every town and village in the center and south of Spain rose against him; Salamanca and Toledo declared for Philip, and Andalusia raised eighteen thousand men. The troops of Las Torres from Valencia, and those who had retreated under Tesse to Roussillon, had joined Berwick at Xadraque, and Philip had placed himself at the head of this formidable army. Charles was obliged to send in the utmost haste to ask the Earl of Peterborough to extricate him from the position in which he had placed himself by neglecting his advice.

The earl instantly complied with the request, and marching with all speed overtook the king on the 4th of August at Pastrina, and thence on the following day escorted him in safety to the army of Portugal at Guadalaxara.

The total strength of the united allied army was eighteen thousand men—a force inferior, indeed, to that with which Berwick confronted them; and that portion brought by Lord Galway and the Portuguese General Das Minas was not to be relied upon, having fallen into a state of great indiscipline owing to the tedious delays, the frequent retreats, and the long inactivity to which it had been subjected by the incompetence of its leaders. That this was so was evident by the fact that the day after the king's arrival the French made a partial attack, and many of the allied battalions at once fell into complete confusion. But this was not the greatest drawback to the efficiency of the allied army; they were paralyzed by the dissensions of their commanders—Galway, Das Minas, and the Dutch Count de Noyelles. Each and all declined to acknowledge Peterborough as commander in chief. The earl then offered to waive his own rights entirely and to fight as a simple volunteer, and that Das Minas, Lord Galway, and the Dutch general should each command their own forces, receiving their orders from the king.

This offer was, however, refused by the three generals. The partisans of the various leaders shared their animosity. The English troops of Peterborough claiming, and justly, that Catalonia and Valencia had been gained and won by him, and that to him alone the king owed his crown, were furious that those who had shown naught but incapacity from the commencement of the campaign should now refuse to recognize his authority. While the disputes continued Berwick had nearly succeeded in surprising Galway, and a disastrous defeat had only been prevented by the gallant defense made by Lord Tyrawley of an outpost which he commanded, and which he held for two hours against all the efforts of the French, and so gave time for the army to make a hasty retreat.

The army was, moreover, straitened by want of provisions; Lord Galway and his colleagues had made no arrangements whatever for its supply. Day and night the German favorites of the king, who had ruined their master's cause by dissuading him from following the advice of Lord Peterborough, now labored with the king still further to destroy his confidence in Peterborough; and finding himself treated coldly by the ungrateful monarch, who owed everything to him, opposed at every turn by the other generals, and seeing that his presence was worse than useless, Peterborough announced his intention of obeying the orders from Queen Anne, dated the 12th of June, and repeated on the 17th, to proceed to the assistance of the Duke of Savoy.

On the same evening a council of war was held. The king formally laid Peterborough's announcement before the generals, who, delighted to get rid of their rival, unanimously recommended that he should depart.

On the 11th of August, full of mortification and disgust at the treatment that he had experienced and the base ingratitude of the king, Peterborough rode from the camp at Guadalaxara. As if to humiliate him as far as possible, he was given only an escort of eighty dragoons, although there were serious difficulties to be encountered on the road to Valencia. His two favorite aides de camp, Stilwell and Graham, were the only officers who accompanied him. It is satisfactory to know that from the moment of the earl's departure misfortune and disaster fell upon the fortunes of King Charles, and that the crown which he had received from the English earl was wrested from his unworthy grasp. Peterborough had gone but a short distance when he heard that all his baggage, consisting of eight wagon loads and of the value of eight thousand pounds sterling, had fallen into the hands of the enemy. When he left Valencia to extricate the king from his difficulties he had ordered it to be sent after him to Guadalaxara. When it arrived at Cuenca, General Wyndham, who commanded there, forwarded it with a small escort; but it was attacked while passing through the town of Huete by a party of the Duke of Berwick's troopers.

The earl was furious at the news. Not only were all his personal effects, jewels, and uniforms lost, but his spare horses, carriages, and mules. Upon making inquiry he found that the troopers of Berwick had been aided by the inhabitants of Huete, who had given information to the troopers and shared in the plunder. His first impulse was to burn the town to the ground, and as when he arrived there he was joined by Wyndham's force, he had ample power to do so.

He immediately summoned the magistrates and clergy to meet him, and told them in decided terms that they must find his baggage and the rogues that had stolen it. After making a search in the town they were able to find but a small portion of it. They then offered to pay him ten thousand pistoles for his loss, or any other sum which he might choose to name; but the earl, with that singular generosity which formed so marked a part of his character, declined the offer, and said:

“I see you are honest gentlemen; for my part I will sit content with my loss if you will bring all the corn of the district to the army.”

The townspeople were delighted at this clemency, as corn was much more easy to procure than money, and it was accordingly sent to Lord Galway's camp, where it sufficed to supply the whole army for six weeks.

This was an act of almost unparalleled magnanimity and generosity to the generals whose jealousy and machinations had driven him from the army; but the earl was so satisfied at thus heaping coals of fire