THE BATTLE
While Pembroke was approaching Lincoln with his army, marching in the
admirable order already described, with banners waving in the sunshine,
a messenger, instructed by Dame Nichola de Camville, having left the
castle by the postern door, took his way northward, and escaping the
observation of the Count de Perche and his riders, who, having gone
forth to reconnoitre, were then returning to the city, came to the
protector, and doffing his cap with much deference, bent low to the
great warrior-statesman.
“All hail, my lord earl!” said he, gaily. “My lady greets thee by me,
and bids me say that never was young lover more welcome to lady’s bower
than is thy coming to her in this hour of peril; likewise, if such be
your good pleasure, you can enter the castle by the postern gate, which
has been opened on tidings of your approach, and thence make your way
into the city. But be that as you will, lord earl.”
Pembroke acknowledged in courteous phrase the greeting of Nichola de
Camville, and mused for a moment over the message. However, he declined
the invitation to enter by the postern, deeming a bolder course the more
expedient. But he nevertheless resolved to profit by the postern, and
instructed Falco to enter with his whole division and the crossbowmen,
with the object of distracting the enemy, and, if possible, making a
sortie and forcing open one of the gates. Without delay the necessary
arrangements were made, and while the protector led his forces to the
north gate, and caused his trumpets to sound an onset, Falco, with
practised skill and characteristic promptitude, threw his mercenaries
and the crossbowmen--mostly English yeomen--into the castle by means of
the postern, and conveying them to the roofs and ramparts with a
rapidity that seemed magical, gave the signal to shoot.
The order was obeyed to some purpose. Instantly a murderous discharge of
bolts from the crossbows answered the signal and did terrible execution
both among the cavalry and infantry of the French count and
Anglo-Norman barons, and caused such a yell of agony from the wounded as
intimated unmistakably to the protector that the foreign warrior was
doing his work with zeal and determination.
In fact, the effect was terrific. Horses and their riders rolled on the
ground, and while yet men were struggling to rise, and chargers were
kicking, mad with the pain from their wounds, and all was confusion,
Falco boldly threw open the castle gate, pushed into the city, and
throwing himself into the midst of the enemy, endeavoured to clear a
space around the north gate, at which Pembroke’s trumpets were sounding
and his men thundering for admittance.
But Falco found that here he had terrible obstacles to encounter.
Recovering from their surprise, the French and Anglo-Normans came
rushing to the spot like eagles to the carnage, and answered Falco’s
Poictevin war-cry of “St. George for the puissant duke!” with loud
shouts of “Montjoie, St. Denis!” “God aid us and our Lord Louis!” A
hand-to-hand conflict then took place, and Falco and his band were
surrounded by a host of foes, and while this was going on a charge of
Norman cavalry rendered their predicament quite the reverse of enviable.
In vain they struggled and battled valiantly against the numerous
assailants who swarmed to the spot. It was of no avail. Numbers
embarrassed their movements and impeded their action. Reginald, surnamed
Crocus, a brave knight of Falco’s, was killed by his leader’s side;
Falco himself was carried away by the crowd of foes and made prisoner;
and for a brief period it seemed that the mercenaries and crossbowmen
were doomed either to yield or to perish to a man.
But, meanwhile, this scuffle had been so exciting that the French had
thought less than they ought in prudence to have done of the formidable
host outside the walls, and the knights and barons appointed to guard
the north gate had been allured from their post. The consequence was
fatal to their leader and their cause. Making a great effort as the din
of the conflict within the walls reached his ears, Pembroke succeeded in
forcing the gate, and no sooner was it opened than his infantry rushed
in, carrying all before them, and shouting, “Down with the foreigners!
Down with the outlandish men!” and Falco’s division, availing themselves
of the confusion caused by the entrance of the English, charged once
and again upon the enemy with such right good will that they rescued
their leader, and enabled him to renew the combat which he had so
bravely begun.
And now the Count de Perche had reason to discover and to repent the
error of which he had been guilty when he rejected the advice of Robert
Fitzwalter, and refused to march out of Lincoln and give his enemies
battle in the open country. Engaged in a desperate struggle in narrow
streets where cavalry could not charge, the French from the beginning
had so decidedly the worst of the encounter that they fought almost
without hope of victory. Horses and riders alike suffered in the
conflict, and while the chargers were “mown down like pigs” by the
crossbowmen, the French knights, dismounted and at the mercy of their
assailants, surrendered almost in a mass. Nor did the Anglo-Norman
barons display any of that high spirit with which, in later civil wars,
such nobles as Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, faced the danger that
they had provoked and defied. On the contrary, they gave up their swords
almost to a man, and resigned themselves sheepishly to their fate.
Robert Fitzwalter yielded himself prisoner, so did the Earl of
Winchester, so did the Earl of Hereford, and William de Roos, and
William Beauchamp, and William Moubray, and Gilbert de Gant, who must
have felt crestfallen indeed as he thought of the earldom which had been
given to him by a man not entitled to grant it, and for a victory that
was never to be won. All these magnates, who had talked so boastfully a
year earlier, when they brought Prince Louis into England and did homage
to him at Westminster, now stood with mortification in their faces, and
perhaps remorse at their hearts, baffled, conquered, and captive, after
having failed in their criminal endeavour to reduce the country, for
whose laws and liberties they had professed such respect, under the rule
of a French prince, who, they well knew, could only rule as a conqueror.
But the love of life, or the fear of death, which prompted Fitzwalter,
and De Quency, and Bohun to surrender rather than fall bravely was not
so contagious as to reach the heart of the Count de Perche. Never even
for a moment did he show the white feather, or any abatement of the
defiant courage that had characterised his career in England. Not,
indeed, that there remained even a chance of redeeming the fortunes of
the day. Roland and Oliver, and all the Paladins of Charlemagne, could
they have come out of their graves, would have struggled in vain to
rally the broken ranks of the army that had, a few hours earlier, been
so confident, and which was now flying in terror through the south gate.
On all sides the count was deserted. His Anglo-Norman allies were
yielding before his eyes, his French comrades were endeavouring to save
themselves by flight, forgetting in their haste that in order to do so
they must pass through the country whose inhabitants they had recently
exasperated by their outrages, and who were panting for an opportunity
of avenging the wrongs that had been done to them and to theirs.
Still, so daunted were the French with the more immediate dangers that
beset them, that they no sooner saw how the day was going than they
bethought them of escaping, and began to move towards the south gate of
Lincoln, with the idea of making for London, the Marshal of France and
the Castellan of Arras heading the flight.
It was no easy matter, however, for the French to get out of the city
which they had entered as conquerors, for the flail of the south gate
had been placed transversely across, and greatly impeded their egress,
especially that of the cavalry. In fact, when they rode up to escape,
they were fain to dismount to open the gate; and when they passed out it
immediately closed, and the flail again fell across it, so that the
process of dismounting had to be gone through by every party of fugitive
horsemen, and almost by every individual horseman. It was well for them
that the English were that day in no sanguinary mood, for had there been
any strong inclination in Pembroke’s ranks to deal summarily with the
foe, few, if any, of the vanquished would have left Lincoln alive.
As it was, their position was not enviable. All over the country through
which they had to pass on their way to London the yeomen and peasantry
were abroad, armed with swords and bludgeons, and did terrible execution
among the fugitives, both horse and foot, smiting them hip and thigh,
and giving them no quarter. Nevertheless, two hundred knights reached
the capital, and carried intelligence to the citizens that all was lost,
that the grand army, which had on the last day of April marched out of
their gates with such high hopes of triumph, was utterly destroyed, and
that Pembroke was in a fair way of putting all King Henry’s enemies,
whether barons or citizens, under King Henry’s feet.
Moreover, the news was speedily carried by the French fugitives to
Dover, where Louis was making his third attempt to take the castle,
which held out so bravely under Hubert de Burgh.
“By St. Denis!” said the prince with a sneer, “it is all owing to your
flight that your comrades have been taken captive. Had you acted the
part of brave men you might have saved all.”