THE SIEGE OF MOUNT SORREL
Seven miles to the north of Leicester, built on a steep and rugged hill,
overlooking the river Soar, with a fair town and priory at its feet, the
castle of Mount Sorrel, in the spring of 1217, frowned with feudal
pride, and seemed to bid defiance to all comers. It was not, however, so
impregnable as it looked, but had more than once changed hands during
the terrible and sanguinary conflict then raging in England. However,
the custody of Mount Sorrel was claimed as part of his inheritance by
Sayer de Quency, Earl of Winchester, one of the twenty-five conservators
of the Great Charter, and held by his deputy, Henry de Braybroke, in the
interest of Prince Louis and the Anglo-Norman barons.
Mount Sorrel, however, was deemed a very important stronghold; and the
Earl of Pembroke was anxious to gain possession of it for the king, with
the object, as would appear from the result, of levelling it with the
ground on which it stood. No sooner, therefore, did the protector’s
truce with Louis expire, than Pembroke mustered an army, and, carrying
the boy-king with him, marched to Mount Sorrel and laid siege to the
castle, with such an appearance of determination to make himself master
of the stronghold, that Henry de Braybroke, in great alarm, sent
messengers to De Quency, declaring that, unless reinforced, he could not
long hold out against such overwhelming odds.
On hearing that Mount Sorrel was invested by Pembroke, the Earl of
Winchester went to Louis, and entreated him to send an army to relieve
the fortress without delay; and the prince, who deemed it politic at the
time to remain in the capital, summoned the Count de Perche, and
entrusted him with the command of six hundred knights and twenty
thousand men in mail--a force composed of Flemings, French, and
Anglo-Normans--a large proportion being cavalry. Robert Fitzwalter, the
Earls of Winchester and Hereford, William de Roos, William Beauchamp,
William Moubray, with many other barons, accompanied the Count of Perche
on his northward expedition, and the citizens of London manifested what
zeal still existed among them for the invaders by furnishing funds to
pay the cost of equipping so many warriors. It was thought that the
Count de Perche and the Anglo-Norman barons were certain to strike a
shattering blow at the royal cause, and Louis, on parting with the
leaders of the enterprise, believed that he was simply sending them
forth to put his enemies under their feet.
Moving from London on the 30th of April, the French and Anglo-Normans
signalised their march northward by every kind of outrage. Never had the
youths and maidens of Middlesex and Hertfordshire known a May Day
associated with such painful memories. The foreign invaders and their
Anglo-Norman allies, indeed, celebrated the festival in a way which
raised a general shout of horror, but seemed to revel in the crimes of
which they were guilty. They slew men, outraged women, plundered houses,
and wantonly destroyed churches and abbeys as they went, pursued
everywhere by the maledictions of the English, who vowed vengeance, and
prepared the means of executing it, as if admonished by instinct that
the day was not very distant.
The Count de Perche, however, pursued his march in triumph, paying no
attention whatever to the curses and threats of the insulted and the
injured, no matter how flagrant the insult or how deep the injury, and
only eager to come up with the royalists. Pembroke, however, was well
informed of all that was taking place, and acted with his wonted
prudence. Knowing the impossibility of contending with so superior a
force as that headed by the Count de Perche, the protector raised the
siege, marched to Nottingham, and summoned the king’s adherents in all
quarters to come to his support; and then removing from Nottingham to
Newark-on-Trent, he calmly awaited the arrival of his friends and
intelligence of his foes.
Meanwhile the Count de Perche made his way to Leicestershire, and on
reaching Mount Sorrel found that Pembroke had raised the siege and gone
northward. Perche and Fitzwalter, however, did not follow the foe. In
fact, they resolved, without delay, to march to Lincoln, where there was
still work to be done for their Lord Louis. Accordingly they marched
through the vale of Belvoir, and, continuing to perpetrate every
enormity as they advanced, at length reached the city which had been so
long and so bravely defended by the royalists.
But in the interim Pembroke was not idle. In fact, the old
warrior-statesman was every day proving himself, by his sagacity and
energy, worthy of the position he occupied. His efforts were even more
successful than he could have anticipated, and to the royal standard at
Newark gathered chiefs of great name and high reputation. Thither came
Ralph, Earl of Chester, William, Earl Ferrars, William, Earl of
Salisbury, William, Earl of Arundel, and William, Earl of Albemarle;
thither also, from the castles which they held for the king, came
William de Cantelupe, Robert de Vipont, Brian de Lisle, Geoffrey de
Lucy, and Thomas Bassett; thither, with his mercenaries, came Falco, who
had almost become popular by fighting very earnestly against mercenaries
ten times less scrupulous than his own; and thither came Philip de
Albini and John Marshal, whose crossbowmen had done such good service on
the English coast. Four hundred knights, many yeomen on horseback, and a
considerable body of foot, formed the army which Pembroke headed to save
England from the foreigner; and though it was much inferior, especially
in cavalry, to that under the Count de Perche, the old protector did not
despair of dealing with his foes in a manner satisfactory to the king
and country.
It was Friday, the 19th of May, the sixth day of Whitsuntide, when
Pembroke, having made all his arrangements, prepared to leave Newark and
put everything to the test. Before marching, however, the warriors of
England took the sacrament, and received from the papal legate white
crosses, to mark them as men engaged in a holy war. At the same time the
legate excommunicated Prince Louis and his principal partisans by name;
and, having addressed the king’s adherents in encouraging language, he
sent them on their way rejoicing in the hope of a glorious victory or a
brave death.
On the evening of Friday, Pembroke, too prudent to fatigue his army with
long marches when about to encounter so formidable an enemy, halted at
Stowe, a village with a park and a Norman church, and there the
royalists passed the night. Next morning the protector entrusted the
king to the care of the legate, with whom the royal boy was to remain
while warriors did battle for that crown which he was destined to find
so thorny, and which, after causing him half a century of trouble, would
have been torn from his hoary head, had not his mighty son, breaking
chains and defying difficulties, prostrated Simon de Montfort and the
baronial oligarchy on the field of Evesham. Pembroke was not gifted with
the genius which fifty years later guided Edward on the way to victory,
nor animated, as was the greatest of the Plantagenets, by the ambition
of creating a free and prosperous nation out of hostile races, and
enrolling his name in the annals of fame as one of the greatest leaders
in war and rulers in peace; but the good earl was guided by an
instinctive sagacity which made him equal to the work he was called on
to do, and albeit he coveted no reward save the ennobling consciousness
of having done his duty, he was not the less anxious to perform that
duty faithfully and well.
And in a cautious spirit, but with a fearless heart, Pembroke marshalled
his army skilfully in seven battalions, and set his face towards Lincoln
to make the great venture, Philip de Albini and John Marshal, with the
crossbowmen, leading the van and keeping about a mile in advance, and
the baggage waggons, well guarded, bringing up the rear. Bucklers
glittered and banners waved in all directions, for each knight had on
the occasion two standards, one of which was borne before him, and the
other carried by the soldiers in charge of the baggage, and thus the
army of England had the appearance of being a much more numerous host
than it in reality was, as on that Saturday morning, in the merry month
of May, Pembroke left Stowe, and, in admirable order, took his way to
Lincoln.