An Island Story by H. E. Marshall (ebook pc reader .TXT) đź“–
- Author: H. E. Marshall
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But, as he came near to Randolph, he saw that the English were giving way. “Halt,” he called to his men. “Randolph has no need of our help. We will not take the honor from him.” And without striking a blow, he and his men turned and rode back to the King.
Soon the English horsemen were seen flying from the field, and Randolph, joyful and victorious, returned to his place. He had recovered the rose which had fallen from his crown.
Meanwhile the rest of the English army was steadily advancing. King Robert the Bruce, mounted upon a little brown pony and wearing a gold crown upon his helmet rode up and down in front of his army, watching everything, commanding and encouraging. His armor was light, and for a weapon he carried only a battle-ax.
Seeing King Robert so lightly armed, an English knight, called Sir Henry de Bohun, thought he would earn a great name for himself and win the battle at one blow. So setting spurs to his horse he rushed upon the King at full speed.
As the full-armed knight came thundering along on his great war-horse, King Robert, sitting firmly on his little pony, waited calmly. When Bohun reached him, when the sharp point of the spear almost touched his armor, Bruce suddenly made his pony spring to one side. The knight flashed past him. Quick as lightning Bruce turned, rose in his stirrups, and lifting his battle-ax high in the air, brought it crashing down upon the helmet of Bohun. Head and helmet were split, and without a groan Bohun fell dead to the ground, while his riderless horse galloped wildly away.
Cheer upon cheer rose from the Scottish ranks and the nobles crowded round their King, glad yet vexed with him. “My lord, my lord, is it well thus to risk your life?” they said. “Had you been killed, our cause were lost.”
But the King paid no heed to them. “I have broken my good ax,” was all he said, “I have broken my good ax.”
BRUCE LIFTED HIS BATTLE-AXE HIGH IN THE AIR, THEN BROUGHT IT CRASHING DOWN UPON THE HELMET OF BOHUN
EDWARD II. OF CAERNARVON—THE STORY OF THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN
AFTER the death of Bohun there was no more fighting that day. The sun soon set, and during the short summer night the two armies lay opposite each other, silently waiting for the dawn.
When day broke, the whole plain was astir. Trumpets sounded, drums beat, and as the English army advanced, they seemed to roll onward like mighty waves. “No hand but God’s can save us from so great a host,” said the Scots. And, as a holy abbot with bare feet and head passed along the lines to bless them, they knelt in prayer.
“See,” cried King Edward, “they kneel! they ask for mercy!”
“True,” replied the knight to whom he spoke, “they ask for mercy, but from Heaven, not from us. These men will conquer, or die on the field.”
The fight began and long and fiercely it raged. The Scottish horse scattered the English archers, and the English horse fell into the pits which Bruce had caused to be dug. The English army was already in confusion when suddenly, over the brow of a neighboring hill, there appeared what seemed to them another Scottish army.
Then the English fled. Blind with fear they rode, hardly knowing where. Many were drowned while trying to cross the river Forth, others fell over the rocky banks of the Bannock till the stream was choked with the dead.
The new army which had so frightened the English was no army at all, but only the servants and camp-followers whom Bruce had separated from the soldiers and sent to wait behind the hill. They had grown tired of watching and doing nothing, so they tied cloths on the poles for banners, armed themselves with sticks, and came to join the fight. They came just at the right time, for the English, already beginning to feel that the battle was lost, fled before this new host.
Edward, although he was no coward, fled too. He went first to Stirling, but the Governor would not let him stay there. “Have you forgotten, my lord,” he said, “that to-morrow I must yield up the castle to the King of Scots? If you remain here you will become his prisoner.”
So Edward rode south, attended only by a few knights. One brave man rode with the King until he thought he was safe, then drawing rein, “Farewell, my liege,” he said, “I am not wont to flee,” and turning he rode back, and fell fighting with his face to the enemy.
The King fled on, and he had need to flee fast. For, when it became known that he had left the field, he was hotly pursued as far as Dunbar, which was still in the hands of the English. From there he went in a little fishing-boat to Berwick and so reached England and safety.
“So eagerly he was pursued,
They got to him so near,
He was on point of being ta’en,
But got into Dunbar.
“To Berwick in a fishing boat
They scull?d him away,
While to be kept from wrath of Scots
He earnestly did pray.”
Upon the field many of England’s noblest men lay dead, many were wounded, many taken prisoner. So much spoil fell into the hands of the Scots, and so much money was paid to them as ransom for their prisoners, that it was said that Scotland became rich in one day. Scotland became not only rich but free in one day, for if the battle of Bannockburn did not quite end the war, it showed what Scotsmen loving their country could do, and in the dark days which were still to come they never again despaired.
The battle of Bannockburn is the greatest battle ever fought on Scottish ground. It is great not because so many noble men fell upon the field; but because at one blow it made the Scots free.
Beaten and angry Edward returned to England, and the rest of his life was dark and miserable. He ruled so badly that at last the nobles put him from the throne, and crowned his little son, who was also called Edward.
Edward II., King no longer, was sent as a prisoner from castle to castle. No one loved or cared for him, and each new gaoler treated the poor, fallen King worse than the last, till one night terrible shrieks rang through the castle in which he was imprisoned. In the morning Edward II. was found dead. He had been murdered.
EDWARD III. OF WINDSOR—THE STORY OF THE BATTLE OF SLUYS
WHEN Edward III. was made king in 1327 A.D., he was only fourteen. He was too young to rule, and the power was really in the hands of his mother, Queen Isabella, and of a man called Roger Mortimer, Earl of March. Both the Queen and the Earl were wicked, so it was a sad time for England. There was fighting with Scotland, fighting with France, sorrow and misery at home.
When Edward was eighteen he resolved that he would no longer be king in name only. He took the Earl of March prisoner, tried him for the wicked things he had done, and condemned him to death.
Queen Isabella he shut up in a castle, and would not allow her to rule the kingdom any more. But he gave her money to spend, and he went to visit her once every year.
King Edward then really began to reign. He made peace with France, and, I am sorry to say, war again with Scotland. But after fighting there for some time he left Scotland, and began to fight again with France.
The war which now began is called the “Hundred Years’ War,” because it lasted, with times of peace between, for a hundred years. It began because Edward said that he had a right to be King of France as well as King of England. He said this was so because his mother, Queen Isabella, was the sister of King Charles IV. of France, who had died, leaving no son to succeed him. But the French had a law by which women were not allowed to wear the crown, so Edward had really no right to it. He could not receive from his mother what had never been hers. King Philip VI., who now had the crown, would, of course, not give it up, so a fierce and bitter war began.
The first great fight was at sea. Edward sailed from England with a fleet of about three hundred ships. As he came near to Sluys, a town in Flanders, he saw such a number of masts that it seemed as if a forest had come sailing out to sea.
“What ships are these?” said King Edward to the captain of his vessel.
“They are the ships of the King of France,” replied the captain. “They have oftentime plundered your coasts. They lately burned the town of Southampton and took your good ship the Christopher.”
“Ah, I have long wished to meet them,” replied the King. “Now, please God and St. George, we will fight them; for in truth they have done me so much mischief, I will be revenged upon them if possible.”
Edward’s wife, Queen Philippa, was at Ghent, and Edward had many ladies on board who were going to join her there. So he arranged his vessels with great care, for he knew that the French had far more men and ships than he had. He put the ladies in the safest place, and guarded them carefully with a large body of archers and soldiers.
As the sun and wind were both against Edward, he lowered his sails and moved round so that the sun should be behind him. The French seeing this thought that he was afraid, and that he was running away. They had been waiting for the English in strong battle array. All their ships were fastened together with heavy chains so as to make it impossible for the English ships to break through their lines. Seeing the English flee, as they thought, the French unfastened the chains and made ready to pursue.
As the royal standard floated from the masthead the French knew that the King of England was with his fleet, and they hoped to take him prisoner. They filled the Christopher, the ship which they had taken from the English, with trumpeters and drummers and, to the sound of music and shouting, sent it to attack the English.
But the English won their own ship back again, and amid great cheering manned it with Englishmen once more.
The battle was fierce and terrible. The English were often in great danger, for the French were much the stronger, but when the battle was over there were very few Frenchmen left, and most of their ships were sunk or destroyed.
It was such a dreadful defeat that no one dared tell the King of France about it.
At last his court fool told him.
In those days great people always had some one near to amuse them by making jokes, and by laughing at everything. He was called a fool, although sometimes he was very wise and witty. But because he was called a fool he was allowed to say what he liked, and no one was angry with him.
“The English are great cowards,” said the French king’s fool to him one day.
“Why so?” asked the King.
“Because they have not the courage to jump into the sea and be drowned, like the French at Sluys,” replied the fool.
In this way King Philip was told of the loss of all his ships, and
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