while his young leader, then scarce sixteen, led his hardy troops, a
miniature army of scarce three thousand men, up and down the eastern
marches of Wales, scouring the country from Conway Castle to Harlech Hold,
and from the Irish Sea to Snowden and to Shrewsbury gates. The battles
fought were little more than forays and skirmishes,--the retaliations of
fire and sword, now in English fields and now on Welsh borders; but it was
a good "school of the soldier," in which Lionel learned the art of war,
and Harry of Monmouth bore himself right gallantly.
But greater troubles were brewing, and braver deeds in store. On a fair
July morning in the year 1403, Lionel, who now served the prince as squire
of the body, entering his pavilion hastily, said, in much excitement:
"My Lord, my Lord, the Earl of Worcester has gone!"
"Gone?" echoed the prince. "What dost thou mean? Gone? When--where--how?"
"None know, my Lord," Lionel replied. "This morning his pavilion was found
deserted, and with him are fled Sir Herbert Tressell, and the squires and
archers of my lord of Worcester's train."
Now, the Earl of Worcester was the "tutor," or guardian, of the prince, a
trusted noble of the House of Percy, and appointed by the king to have the
oversight or guidance of young Harry; and his sudden flight from camp
greatly surprised the prince.
"My lord Prince," said Sir Walter Blount, entering as hastily as had
Lionel, "here is a courier from the worshipful Constable of Chester, with
secret tidings that the Percies are in arms against my lord the king."
"The Percies up, and my lord of Worcester fled?" exclaimed the prince.
"This bodes no good for us. Quick, get thee to horse, Lionel. Speed like
the wind to Shrewsbury. Get thee fair escort from my lord of Warwick, and
then on to the king at Burton." And in less than ten minutes Lionel was
a-horse, bearing the prince's billet that told the doleful news of the new
rebellion, spurring fast to Shrewsbury and the King.
Before three days had passed the whole great plot was known, and men shook
their heads in dismay and doubt at the tidings that the great houses of
Percy and of Mortimer, rebelling against the king for both real and
fancied grievances, had made a solemn league with the Welsh rebel, Owen
Glendower, to dethrone King Henry, whom the Percies themselves had helped
to the throne. A fast-growing army, led by the brave Sir Henry
Percy,--whom men called Hotspur, from his mighty valor and his impetuous
temper,--and by the Earl of Douglas, most valiant of the Scottish knights,
was even now marching upon Shrewsbury to raise the standard of revolt.
"Hotspur a rebel? Worcester a traitor?" exclaimed the king in amazement,
as he read Lionel's tidings. "Whom may we trust if these be false?"
But Henry the Fourth of England was not one to delay in action, nor to
"cry over spilled milk." His first surprise over, he sent a fleet courier
to London announcing the rebellion to his council, but bravely assuring
them for their consolation that he was "powerful enough to conquer all his
enemies." Then he gave orders to break the camp at Burton and march on
Shrewsbury direct; and, early next morning, Lionel was spurring back to
his boy general, Prince Harry, with orders from the king to meet him at
once with all his following at Bridgenorth Castle.
So, down from the east marches of Wales to Bridgenorth towers came Prince
Harry speedily, with his little army of trusty knights and squires,
stalwart archers and men-at-arms,--hardy fighters all, trained to service
in the forays of the rude Welsh wars, in which, too, their gallant young
commander had himself learned coolness, caution, strategy, and unshrinking
valor--the chief attributes of successful leadership.
Where Bridgenorth town stands upon the sloping banks of Severn, "like to
old Jerusalem for pleasant situation," as the pilgrim travellers reported,
there rallied in those bright summer days of 1403 a hastily summoned army
for the "putting down of the rebel Percies." With waving banners and with
gleaming lances, with the clank of heavy armor and ponderous engines of
war, with the royal standard borne by Sir Walter Blount and his squires,
out through the "one mighty gate" of Bridgenorth Castle passed the
princely leaders, marshalling their army of fourteen thousand men across
the broad plain of Salop toward the towers and battlements of the
beleaguered town of Shrewsbury.
The king himself led the right wing, and young Harry of Monmouth, Prince
of Wales, the left. So rapidly did the royal captains move, that the
impetuous Hotspur, camped under the walls of the stout old castle, only
knew of their near approach when, on the morning of July 20th, he saw upon
the crest of a neighboring hill the waving banners of King Henry's host.
The gates of Shrewsbury opened to the king, and across the walls of the
ancient town royalist and rebel faced each other, armed for bloody fight.
Lionel's young heart beat high as he watched the warlike preparations,
and, glancing across to where near Haughmond Abbey floated the rebel
standard, he found himself humming one of the rough old war tunes he had
learned in Wales:
"Oh, we hope to do thee a gleeful thing
With a rope, a ladder, and eke a ring;
On a gallows high shalt thou swing full free--
And thus shall the ending of traitors be."
"Nay, nay, Lionel, be not so sure of that," said the prince, as he, too,
caught up the spirited air. "Who faces Hotspur and Douglas, as must we,
will be wise not to talk rope and gallows till he sees the end of the
affair. But come to the base-court. I'll play thee a rare game of--hark,
though," he said, as a loud trumpet-peal sounded beyond the walls, "there
goeth the rebel defiance at the north gate. Come, attend me to the king's
quarters, Lionel." And hastening across the inner court of the castle, the
two lads entered the great guard-room just as the warders ushered into the
king's presence the knights who, in accordance with the laws of battle,
bore to the king the defiance of his enemies.
"Henry of Hereford and Lancaster!" said the herald, flinging a steel
gauntlet on the floor with a ringing clash, "there lieth my lord of
Percy's gage! thus doth he defy thee to battle!"
The Prince Harry, with the flush of excitement on his fair young face,
sprang from his father's side and picked up the gage of battle. "This
shall be my duty," he said, and then the herald read before the king the
paper containing the manifesto, or "defiance," of the Percies.
[Illustration: PRINCE HENRY PICKS UP THE GAGE OF THE PERCIES'
DEFIANCE.--"THIS SHALL BE MY DUTY," HE SAID.]
In spirited articles the missive accused the king of many wrongs and
oppressions, each article closing with the sentence: "Wherefore, thou art
forsworn and false," while the following hot and ringing words concluded
the curious paper: "For the which cause, we defy thee, thy fautores,[U]
and complices, as common traytoures and destroyers of the realme and the
invadours, oppressors, and confounders of the verie true and right heires
to the crown of England, which thynge we intende with our handes to
prove this daie, Almighty God helping us."
The king took the paper from the herald's hand and simply said:
"Withdraw, sir herald, and assure your lord that we will reply to him with
the sword, and prove in battle his quarrel to be false and traitorous and
feigned."
And then the herald withdrew, courteously escorted; but it is said that
King Henry, saddened at the thought of the valiant English blood that must
be shed, sent, soon after, gentle words and offers of pardon to the
Percies if they would return to their allegiance--all of which the Earl of
Worcester, envious of the king, misreported to his generous but hot-headed
nephew, Sir Harry Percy. So wrong a message did the false earl give, that
both Hotspur and the Douglas flamed with rage, and without waiting for
Owen Glendower's forces and the expected reenforcements from the north,
gave orders for instant battle, thus hastening the conflict before they
were really ready. "The more haste, the less speed" is a strong old adage,
boys, that holds good both in peace and war, and bitterly was it repented
of on that "sad and sorry field of Shrewsbury."
So, out through the north gate of Shrewsbury, on a Friday afternoon, swept
the army of the king, fourteen thousand strong, and, back from the abbey
foregate and the Severn's banks, dropped the Percies' host, thirteen
thousand banded English, Scotch, and Welsh. In a space of open, rolling
country known as Hately Field--fit name for a place of battle between
former friends,--three miles from Shrewsbury town, the rival armies
pitched their tents, drew their battle lines, and waited for the dawn.
It is the morning of Saturday, the twenty-second of July, 1403. Both camps
are astir, and in the gray light that precedes the dawn the preparation
for battle is made. The sun lights up the alder-covered hills, the trumpet
sounds to arms, the standards sway, the burnished armor gleams and rings
as knights and squires fall into their appointed places; the cloth-yard
shafts are fitted to the archer's bows, and then, up from a sloping field,
sweet with the odor of the pea-blossoms that cover it, there comes in loud
defiance the well-known war-cry of the Percies: "_Esperance, esperance!_
Percy, ho, a Percy!" and Hotspur with his Northumbrian archers sweeps to
the attack amidst a terrible flight of arrows and of spears.
"Play up, sir trumpeter!" shouted Harry of Monmouth, rising in his
stirrups. "Play up your answering blast. Shake out our standard free. Now,
forward all! Death to traitors! St. George--St. George for England!"
"St. George for England!" came the answering echo from King Henry's line;
"_Esperance_, Percy!" sounded again from the rebel ranks, and "in a place
called Bullfield," both armies closed in conflict.
"So furiously, the armies joined," runs the old chronicle: "the arrows
fell as fall the leaves on the ground after a frosty night at the
approach of winter. There was no room for the arrows to reach the ground;
every one struck a mortal man." The first attack was against the king's
own ranks. Hotspur, with his Northumbrian arrows, and Douglas, with his
Scottish spears, pressed hotly upon them, while Worcester's Cheshire
archers from a slope near by sent their whizzing messengers straight into
the king's lines. Though answering valiantly, the terrible assault was too
severe for the king's men. They wavered, staggered, swayed, and broke--a
ringing cheer went up from the enemy, when, just at the critical moment,
with an "indignant onset," Harry of Monmouth dashed to his father's aid.
His resistless rush changed the tide of battle, and the king's line was
saved.
A sorry record is the story of that fearful fight. For three long hours
the battle raged from Haughmond Abbey on to Berwick Bridge, and ere the
noon of that bloody day, twelve thousand valiant Englishmen fell on the
fatal field. "So faute thei, to gret harm of this nacion," says one queer
old chronicle; and another says: "It was more to be noted vengeable, for
there the father was slain of the son and the son of the father." The
great historian Hume tells us that "We shall scarcely find any battle in
those ages where the shock was more terrible and more constant."
The fire of passion and of fight spread even to the youngest page and
squire, and as Lionel pressed close after the "gilded helmet and the
three-plumed crest" of his brilliant young prince, his face flamed with
the excitement of the battle-hour. Again and again he saw the king
unhorsed and fighting desperately for his crown and life; again and again
he saw the fiery Hotspur and Douglas, the Scot, charge furiously on the
king they had sworn to kill. Backward and forward the tide of battle
rolls; now royalist, now rebel seems the victor. Hark! What shout is that?
"The king, the king is down!"
And where Hotspur and the Douglas fight around the hillock now known as
the "King's Croft," Lionel misses the golden crest, he misses the royal
banner of England!
"Sir Walter Blount is killed! the standard is lost!" is now the sorry cry.
But now the prince and his hardy Welsh fighters charge to the rescue, and
Lionel gave a cry of terror as he saw a whizzing arrow tear into the face
of his beloved prince. Young Harry reeled with his hurt, and Lionel with
other gentlemen of the guard caught him in their arms. There was confusion
and dismay.
"The prince is hurt!" cried Lionel, and almost as an echo rose those other
shouts:
"The king is slain!"
"Long live the Percy!"
"Back to the rear, my lord!" pleaded Lionel, as he wiped the blood from
the fair young face of the prince.
"Back, back, my lord Prince. Back to my tent," urged the Earl of
Westmoreland, and "Back, back, while there is yet safety," said the other
knights, as the tide of battle surged toward the bleeding prince.
"Stand off!" cried young Harry, springing to his feet. "Stand off; my
lords! Far be from me such disgrace as that, like a poltroon, I should
stain my arms by flight. If the prince flies, who will wait to end the
battle?"
And just then another shout arose--a joyous, ringing cry:
"Ho, the king lives! the standard is safe! St. George for England!" And
the brave young Harry, turning to his guard, said:
"What, my lords? to be carried back before the victory? 'T would be to me
a perpetual death! Lead me, I implore you, to the very face of the foe. I
may not say to my friends: 'Go ye on first to the fight!' Be it mine to
say: 'Follow me, my friends!'"
Then, as the royal standard waved once more aloft, he burst with his
followers into the thick of the fight, his unyielding valor giving new
strength to all.
And now the end is near. An archer's arrow, with unerring aim, pierces the
valiant Hotspur, and he falls dead upon the field.
"Harry Percy is dead! Victory, victory! St. George and victory!" rings the
cry from thousands of the loyal troops, and, like a whirlwind, a panic of
fear seizes the rebel ranks. Douglas is a prisoner; the Earl of Worcester
surrenders; the rout is general.
"Then fled thei that myte fle," says the chronicle, or, as Hall, another
of the old chroniclers records: "The Scots fled, the Welshmen ran, the
traitors were overcome; then neither woods hindered nor hills stopped the
fearful hearts of them that were vanquished."
So ended the "sad and sorry field of Shrewsbury," a fitting prelude to
that bloody era of strife known as the Wars of the Roses, which,
commencing in the sad reign of the son of this boy general, Harry of
Monmouth, was to stain England with the blood of Englishmen through fifty
years.
And now the dust and roar of battle die away, and we find ourselves amidst
the Christmas-tide revels in royal Windsor, where, in one of the lordly
apartments, our friend Lionel, like a right courtly young squire, is
paying duteous attention to his liege lady, the fair Princess Philippa. As
we draw near the pair, we catch the words of the princess, now a mature
and stately young damsel of twelve, as she says to Lionel, who, gorgeous
in a suit of motley velvet, listens respectfully:
"And let me tell thee, Master Lionel, that, from all I can make of good
Master Lucke's tedious Latin letters, King Erik is a right noble prince,
and a husband meet and fit for a Princess of England."
"Oh, ho! sits the wind in that quarter?" a gay voice exclaims, and Prince
Harry comes to his sister's side. "Well, here be I in a pretty mess. Was I
not prepared to deny in council, before all the lords, this petition of
King Erik for our Princess,--ay, and to back it up with my stout bowmen
from the marches? Beshrew me, Sis, but since when didst thou shift to so
fair a taste for--what was it? frozen turnips and salted beef? And--how is
the queen-mother's appetite?"
But with a dignified little shrug, the princess disdains her brother's
banter, and the merry prince goes on to say:
"Well, I must use my ready bows and lances somewhere, and if not to right
the wrongs of the fair Philippa against this frosty and crusty--pardon me,
your Highness, this _right noble_ King Erik of Denmark,--then against that
other 'most dread and sovereign lord, Owen, Prince of Wales,' as he doth
style himself. To-morrow will this betrothal be signed; and then, Lionel,
hey for the southern marches and the hills and heaths of Wales!"
* * * * *
So, amidst siege and skirmish and fierce assault the winter passed away,
and grew to spring again; and so well and vigilantly did this boy leader
defend the borders of his principality against the forays of Glendower's
troops, that we find the gentry of the county of Hereford petitioning the
king to publicly thank "our dear and honored Lord and Prince, your son,"
for his "defence and governance of this your county of Hereford." And, out
of all the vigilance and worry, the dash and danger of this exciting life,
Harry of Monmouth was learning those lessons of patience, fortitude,
coolness, self-denial, and valor that enabled him, when barely
twenty-eight, to win the mighty fight at Agincourt, and to gain the proud
title of Henry the Victorious. For war, despite its horrors and terrors,
has ever been a great and absorbing game, in which he who is most skilful,
most cautious, and most fearless, makes the winning moves.
"Tidings, tidings, my lord Prince!" came the message from one hard-riding
courserman, as his foam-flecked steed dashed through the great gate of the
castle of Hereford. "My lord of Warwick hath met your Welsh rebels near
the Red Castle by Llyn Du, and hath routed them with much loss." But a few
days later, came another horseman with the words: "Tidings, tidings, my
lord Prince! Sir William Newport hath been set upon at Craig y Dorth by
your rebels of Wales, 'with myty hand,' and so sore was his strait that he
hath fled into Monmouth town, while many gallant gentlemen and archers lie
dead of their hurt, by the great stones of Treleg."
"Sir William routed?" exclaimed the prince, "'t is ours, then, to succor
him. Lionel, summon Lord Talbot." That sturdy old fighter was soon at
hand. "Fare we to Monmouth straight, my lord," said the prince. "Here is
sorry news, but we will right the day."
Very speedily the little army of the prince was on the move along the
lovely valley of the Wye; and, on the tenth of March, 1405, they were
lodged within the red walls of that same great castle of Monmouth, "in the
which," says the old chronicle, "it pleased God to give life to the noble
King Henry V., who of the same is called Harry of Monmouth."
"Tidings, tidings, my lord Prince," came the report of the scouts; "the
false traitor, Glendower, with your rebels of Glamorgan and Usk, of
Netherwent and Overwent, have lodged themselves, to the number of eight
thousand, in your town of Grosmont, scarce six miles away."
Eight thousand strong! and Prince Harry had with him barely five thousand
men. But with the morning sun the order "Banners advance!" was given, and
the fearless young general of seventeen drew his little army along the
banks of the winding Monnow to the smoking ruins of the plundered town of
Grosmont.
But the difference in numbers did seem a serious obstacle to success.
"Is it wise, my lord Prince," cautioned Lord Talbot, "to pit ourselves
bodily against so strong a power? They be eight thousand strong and count
us nearly two to one."
"Very true, my lord," said the intrepid prince, "but victory lieth not in
a multitude of people, but in the power of God. Let us help to prove it
here, and by the aid of Heaven and our good right arms, may we this day
win the unequal fight!"
"Amen!" said Lord Talbot; "none welcome the day and duty more than I."
Out from the castle on its lofty rock and forth from the smoking ruins of
the town swarmed the men of Wales confident of easy victory. The armies of
the rival princes of Wales stood face to face. Then the trumpets sounded;
the red cross of St. George and the odd-looking banner of the Trinity
fluttered above the English ranks; stout Lord Talbot rode before the lines
and tossing his truncheon in air shouted: "Now--strike!" There is a sudden
rush, and as the battle-cries "St. George and England!" "St. David for
Wales!" rise in air the opposing armies join in deadly fight. Short, but
stubborn and bloody was the conflict. Victory rested with the little army
of Prince Harry, and before the sun went down Glendower and his routed
forces were in full retreat, leaving a thousand sturdy Welshmen dead upon
the field.
Following up his victory with quick and determined action, the boy general
hurried at the heels of Glendower's broken ranks, and on Sunday, the
fifteenth of March, 1405, faced them again under the old towers of the
castle of Usk. Swift and sudden fell his attack. The Welsh ranks broke
before the fury of his onset, and, with over fifteen hundred lost in
killed or prisoners, with his brother Tudor slain and his son Gruffyd a
captive in the hands of the English, Owen Glendower fled with the remnant
of his defeated army into the grim fastnesses of the Black Hills of
Brecon.
It was a sad day for Wales, for it broke the power and sway of their
remarkable and patriotic leader, Glendower, and made them, erelong,
vassals of the English crown. But the bells of London rang loud and
merrily when, three days after the fight, a rapid courserman spurred
through the city gates, bearing to the council a copy of the modest
letter in which the young general announced his victory to his "most
redoubted and most sovereign lord and father," the king.
Lionel, close in attendance on his much-loved leader, followed him through
all the troubles and triumphs of the Welsh wars; followed him when, a few
months after, before the gates of Worcester, the French allies of the
Welsh rebels were driven from the kingdom; and followed him, "well and
bravely appareled," when, in May, 1406, the king, with a brilliant company
of lords and ladies, gathered at the port of Lynn to bid farewell to the
young Princess Philippa, as she sailed with the Danish ambassadors, "in
great state," over the sea, "to be joyned in wedlok" to King Erik of
Denmark.
* * * * *
And here we must leave our gallant young prince. A boy no longer, his
story is now that of a wise and vigorous young manhood, which, in prince
and king, bore out the promise of his boyish days. Dying at
thirty-five--still a young man--he closed a career that stands on record
as a notable one in the annals of the world.
But when you come to read in Shakespeare's matchless verse the plays of
"King Henry IV." and "King Henry V.," do not, in your delight over his
splendid word-pictures, permit yourself to place too strong a belief in
his portrait of young "Prince Hal," and his scrapes and follies and wild
carousals with fat old Falstaff and his boon companions. For the facts of
history now prove the great poet mistaken; and "Prince Hal," though full
of life and spirit, fond of pleasure and mischief, and, sometimes, of
rough and thoughtless fun, stands on record as a valiant, high-minded,
clear-hearted, and conscientious lad. "And when we reflect," says one of
his biographers, "to what a high station he had been called whilst yet a
boy; with what important commissions he had been intrusted; how much
fortune seems to have done to spoil him by pride and vain-glory from his
earliest youth, this page of our national records seems to set him high
among the princes of the world; not so much as an undaunted warrior and
triumphant hero, as the conqueror of himself, the example of a chastened,
modest spirit, of filial reverence, and of a single mind bent on his
duty."