THE BATTLE.
Raw, cold, and dismal dawned the morning of the fourteenth of April.
The heavy mist still covered both armies, but their hum and stir was
already heard through the gloaming,--the neighing of steeds, and the
clangour of mail. Occasionally a movement of either force made dim
forms, seeming gigantic through the vapour, indistinctly visible to
the antagonistic army; and there was something ghastly and unearthlike
in these ominous shapes, suddenly seen, and suddenly vanishing, amidst
the sullen atmosphere. By this time, Warwick had discovered the
mistake of his gunners; for, to the right of the earl, the silence of
the Yorkists was still unbroken, while abruptly, from the thick gloom
to the left, broke the hoarse mutter and low growl of the awakening
war. Not a moment was lost by the earl in repairing the error of the
night: his artillery wheeled rapidly from the right wing, and, sudden
as a storm of lightning, the fire from the cannon flashed through the
dun and heavy vapour, and, not far from the very spot where Hastings
was marshalling the wing intrusted to his command, made a deep chasm
in the serried ranks. Death had begun his feast!
At that moment, however, from the centre of the Yorkist army, arose,
scarcely drowned by the explosion, that deep-toned shout of
enthusiasm, which he who has once heard it, coming, as it were, from
the one heart of an armed multitude, will ever recall as the most
kindling and glorious sound which ever quickened the pulse and
thrilled the blood,--for along that part of the army now rode King
Edward. His mail was polished as a mirror, but otherwise unadorned,
resembling that which now invests his effigies at the Tower, [The suit
of armour, however, which the visitor to the Royal Armoury is expected
to believe King Edward could have worn, is infinitely too small for
such credulity. Edward's height was six feet two inches.] and the
housings of his steed were spangled with silver suns, for the silver
sun was the cognizance on all his banners. His head was bare, and
through the hazy atmosphere the gold of his rich locks seemed
literally to shine. Followed by his body squire, with his helm and
lance, and the lords in his immediate staff, his truncheon in his
hand, he passed slowly along the steady line, till, halting where he
deemed his voice could be farthest heard, he reined in, and lifting
his hand, the shout of the soldiery was hushed; though still, while he
spoke, from Warwick's archers came the arrowy shower, and still the
gloom was pierced and the hush interrupted by the flash and the roar
of the bombards.
"Englishmen and friends," said the martial chief, "to bold deeds go
but few words. Before you is the foe! From Ravenspur to London I
have marched, treason flying from my sword, loyalty gathering to my
standard. With but two thousand men, on the fourteenth of March, I
entered England; on the fourteenth of April, fifty thousand is my
muster roll. Who shall say, then, that I am not king, when one month
mans a monarch's army from his subjects' love? And well know ye, now,
that my cause is yours and England's! Those against us are men who
would rule in despite of law,--barons whom I gorged with favours, and
who would reduce this fair realm of King, Lords, and Commons to be the
appanage and property of one man's measureless ambition,--the park,
forsooth, the homestead to Lord Warwick's private house! Ye gentlemen
and knights of England, let them and their rabble prosper, and your
properties will be despoiled, your lives insecure, all law struck
dead. What differs Richard of Warwick from Jack Cade, save that if
his name is nobler, so is his treason greater? Commoners and soldiers
of England, freemen, however humble, what do these rebel lords (who
would rule in the name of Lancaster) desire? To reduce you to
villeins and to bondsmen, as your forefathers were to them. Ye owe
freedom from the barons to the just laws of my sires, your kings.
Gentlemen and knights, commoners and soldiers, Edward IV. upon his
throne will not profit by a victory more than you. This is no war of
dainty chivalry,--it is a war of true men against false. No quarter!
Spare not either knight or hilding. Warwick, forsooth, will not smite
the Commons. Truly not,--the rabble are his friends! I say to you--"
and Edward, pausing in the excitement and sanguinary fury of his tiger
nature,--the soldiers, heated like himself to the thirst of blood, saw
his eyes sparkle, and his teeth gnash, as he added in a deeper and
lower, but not less audible voice, "I say to you, SLAY ALL! [Hall.]
What heel spares the viper's brood?"
"We will! we will!" was the horrid answer, which came hissing and
muttered forth from morion and cap of steel.
"Hark! to their bombards!" resumed Edward. "The enemy would fight
from afar, for they excel us in their archers and gunners. Upon them,
then, hand to hand, and man to man! Advance banners, sound trumpets!
Sir Oliver, my bassinet! Soldiers, if my standard falls, look for the
plume upon your king's helmet! Charge!"
Then, with a shout wilder and louder than before, on through the hail
of the arrows, on through the glare of the bombards, rather with a
rush than in a march, advanced Edward's centre against the array of
Somerset; but from a part of the encampment where the circumvallation
seemed strongest, a small body of men moved not with the general body.
To the left of the churchyard of Hadley, at this day, the visitor may
notice a low wall; on the other side of that wall is a garden, then
but a rude eminence on Gladsmoor Heath. On that spot a troop in
complete armour, upon destriers pawing impatiently, surrounded a man
upon a sorry palfrey, and in a gown of blue,--the colour of royalty
and of servitude; that man was Henry the Sixth. In the same space
stood Friar Bungey, his foot on the Eureka, muttering incantations,
that the mists he had foretold, [Lest the reader should suppose that
the importance of Friar Bungey upon this bloody day has been
exaggerated by the narrator, we must cite the testimony of sober
Allerman Fabyan: "Of the mists and other impediments which fell upon
the lords' party, by reason of the incantations wrought by Friar
Bungey, as the fame went, me list not to write."] and which had
protected the Yorkists from the midnight guns, might yet last, to the
confusion of the foe. And near him, under a gaunt, leafless tree, a
rope round his neck, was Adam Warner, Sibyl still faithful to his
side, nor shuddering at the arrows and the guns, her whole fear
concentrated upon the sole life for which her own was prized. Upon
this eminence, then, these lookers-on stood aloof. And the meek ears
of Henry heard through the fog the inexplicable, sullen, jarring
clash,--steel had met steel.
"Holy Father!" exclaimed the kingly saint, "and this is the Easter
Sabbath, Thy most solemn day of peace!"
"Be silent," thundered the friar; "thou disturbest my spells.
Barabbarara, Santhinoa, Foggibus increscebo, confusio inimicis,
Garabbora, vapor et mistes!"
We must now rapidly survey the dispositions of the army under Warwick.
In the right wing, the command was entrusted to the Earl of Oxford and
the Marquis of Montagu. The former, who led the cavalry of that
division, was stationed in the van; the latter, according to his usual
habit--surrounded by a strong body-guard of knights and a prodigious
number of squires as aides-de-camp--remained at the rear, and directed
thence by his orders the general movement. In this wing the greater
number were Lancastrian, jealous of Warwick, and only consenting to
the generalship of Montagu because shared by their favourite hero,
Oxford. In the mid-space lay the chief strength of the bowmen, with a
goodly number of pikes and bills, under the Duke of Somerset; and this
division also was principally Lancastrian, and shared the jealousy of
Oxford's soldiery. The left wing, composed for the most part of
Warwick's yeomanry and retainers, was commanded by the Duke of Exeter,
conjointly with the earl himself. Both armies kept a considerable
body in reserve, and Warwick, besides this resource, had selected from
his own retainers a band of picked archers, whom he had skilfully
placed in the outskirts of a wood that then stretched from Wrotham
Park to the column that now commemorates the battle of Barnet, on the
high northern road. He had guarded these last-mentioned archers
(where exposed in front to Edward's horsemen) by strong tall
barricades, leaving only such an opening as would allow one horseman
at a time to pass, and defending by a formidable line of pikes this
narrow opening left for communication, and to admit to a place of
refuge in case of need. These dispositions made, and ere yet Edward
had advanced on Somerset, the earl rode to the front of the wing under
his special command, and, agreeably to the custom of the time,
observed by his royal foe, harangued the troops. Here were placed
those who loved him as a father, and venerated him as something
superior to mortal man; here the retainers who had grown up with him
from his childhood, who had followed him to his first fields of war,
who had lived under the shelter of his many castles, and fed, in that
rude equality of a more primeval age which he loved still to maintain,
at his lavish board. And now Lord Warwick's coal-black steed halted,
motionless in the van. His squire behind bore his helmet,
overshadowed by the eagle of Monthermer, the outstretched wings of
which spread wide into sable plumes; and as the earl's noble face
turned full and calm upon the bristling lines, there arose not the
vulgar uproar that greeted the aspect of the young Edward. By one of
those strange sympathies which pass through multitudes, and seize them
with a common feeling, the whole body of those adoring vassals became
suddenly aware of the change which a year had made in the face of
their chief and father. They saw the gray flakes in his Jove-like
curls, the furrows in that lofty brow, the hollows in that bronzed and
manly visage, which had seemed to their rude admiration to wear the
stamp of the twofold Divinity,--Beneficence and Valour. A thrill of
tenderness and awe shot through the veins of every one, tears of
devotion rushed into many a hardy eye. No! there was not the ruthless
captain addressing his hireling butchers; it was the chief and father
rallying gratitude and love and reverence to the crisis of his stormy
fate.
"My friends, my followers, and my children," said the earl, "the field
we have entered is one from which there is no retreat; here must your
leader conquer or here die. It is not a parchment pedigree, it is not
a name derived from the ashes of dead men, that make the only charter
of a king. We Englishmen were but slaves, if, in giving crown and
sceptre to a mortal like ourselves, we asked not in return the kingly
virtues. Beset of old by evil counsellors, the reign of Henry VI. was
obscured, and the weal of the realm endangered. Mine own wrongs
seemed to me great, but the disasters of my country not less. I
deemed that in the race of York, England would know a wiser and
happier rule. What was, in this, mine error, ye partly know. A
prince dissolved in luxurious vices, a nobility degraded by minions
and blood-suckers, a people plundered by purveyors, and a land
disturbed by brawl and riot. But ye know not all: God makes man's
hearth man's altar: our hearths were polluted, our wives and daughters
were viewed as harlots, and lechery ruled the realm. A king's word
should be fast as the pillars of the world. What man ever trusted
Edward and was not deceived? Even now the unknightly liar stands in
arms with the weight of perjury on his soul. In his father's town of
York, ye know that he took, three short weeks since, solemn oath of
fealty to King Henry. And now King Henry is his captive, and King
Henry's holy crown upon his traitor's head. 'Traitors' calls he Us?
What name, then, rank enough for him? Edward gave the promise of a
brave man, and I served him. He proved a base, a false, a licentious,
and a cruel king, and I forsook him; may all free hearts in all free
lands so serve kings when they become tyrants! Ye fight against a
cruel and atrocious usurper, whose bold hand cannot sanctify a black
heart; ye fight not only for King Henry, the meek and the godly,--ye
fight not for him alone, but for his young and princely son, the
grandchild of Henry of Agincourt, who, old men tell me, has that
hero's face, and who, I know, has that hero's frank and royal and
noble soul; ye fight for the freedom of your land, for the honour of
your women, for what is better than any king's cause,--for justice and
mercy, for truth and manhood's virtues against corruption in the laws,
slaughter by the scaffold, falsehood in a ruler's lips, and shameless
harlotry in the councils of ruthless power. The order I have ever
given in war I give now; we war against the leaders of evil, not
against the hapless tools; we war against our oppressors, not against
our misguided brethren. Strike down every plumed crest, but when the
strife is over, spare every common man! Hark! while I speak, I hear
the march of your foe! Up standards!--blow trumpets! And now, as I
brace my bassinet, may God grant us all a glorious victory, or a
glorious grave! On, my merry men! show these London loons the stout
hearts of Warwickshire and Yorkshire. On, my merry men! A Warwick! A
Warwick!"
As he ended, he swung lightly over his head the terrible battle-axe
which had smitten down, as the grass before the reaper, the chivalry
of many a field; and ere the last blast of the trumpets died, the
troops of Warwick and of Gloucester met, and mingled hand to hand.
Although the earl had, on discovering the position of the enemy, moved
some of his artillery from his right wing, yet there still lay the
great number and strength of his force. And there, therefore,
Montagu, rolling troop on troop to the aid of Oxford, pressed so
overpoweringly upon the soldiers under Hastings, that the battle very
soon wore a most unfavourable aspect for the Yorkists. It seemed,
indeed, that the success which had always hitherto attended the
military movements of Montagu was destined for a crowning triumph.
Stationed, as we have said, in the rear, with his light-armed squires,
upon fleet steeds, around him, he moved the springs of the battle with
the calm sagacity which at that moment no chief in either army
possessed. Hastings was thoroughly outflanked, and though his men
fought with great valour, they could not resist the weight of superior
numbers.
In the midst of the carnage in the centre, Edward reined in his steed
as he heard the cry of victory in the gale.
"By Heaven!" he exclaimed, "our men at the left are cravens! they fly!
they fly!--Ride to Lord Hastings, Sir Humphrey Bourchier, bid him
defile hither what men are left him; and now, ere our fellows are well
aware what hath chanced yonder, charge we, knights and gentlemen, on,
on!--break Somerset's line; on, on, to the heart of the rebel earl!"
Then, visor closed, lance in rest, Edward and his cavalry dashed
through the archers and billmen of Somerset; clad in complete mail,
impervious to the weapons of the infantry, they slaughtered as they
rode, and their way was marked by corpses and streams of blood.
Fiercest and fellest of all was Edward himself; when his lance
shivered, and he drew his knotty mace from its sling by his saddlebow,
woe to all who attempted to stop his path. Vain alike steel helmet or
leathern cap, jerkin or coat of mail. In vain Somerset threw himself
into the melee. The instant Edward and his cavalry had made a path
through the lines for his foot-soldiery, the fortunes of the day were
half retrieved. It was no rapid passage, pierced and reclosed, that
he desired to effect,--it was the wedge in the oak of war. There,
rooted in the very midst of Somerset's troops, doubling on each side,
passing on but to return again, where helm could be crashed and man
overthrown, the mighty strength of Edward widened the breach more and
more, till faster and faster poured in his bands, and the centre of
Warwick's army seemed to reel and whirl round the broadening gap
through its ranks, as the waves round some chasm in a maelstrom.
But in the interval, the hard-pressed troops commanded by Hastings
were scattered and dispersed; driven from the field, they fled in
numbers through the town of Barnet; many halted not till they reached
London, where they spread the news of the earl's victory and Edward's
ruin. [Sharon Turner.]
Through the mist, Friar Bungey discerned the fugitive Yorkists under
Hastings, and heard their cries of despair; through the mist, Sibyll
saw, close beneath the intrenchments which protected the space on
which they stood, an armed horseman with the well-known crest of
Hastings on his helmet, and, with lifted visor, calling his men to the
return, in the loud voice of rage and scorn. And then she herself
sprang forwards, and forgetting his past cruelty in his present
danger, cried his name,--weak cry, lost in the roar of war! But the
friar, now fearing he had taken the wrong side, began to turn from his
spells, to address the most abject apologies to Adam, to assure him
that he would have been slaughtered at the Tower but for the friar's
interruption; and that the rope round his neck was but an
insignificant ceremony due to the prejudices of the soldiers. "Alas,
Great Man," he concluded, "I see still that thou art mightier than I
am; thy charms, though silent, are more potent than mine, though my
lungs crack beneath them! Confusio Inimicis Taralorolu, I mean no
harm to the earl. Garrabora, mistes et nubes!--Lord, what will become
of me!"
Meanwhile, Hastings--with a small body of horse, who being composed of
knights and squires, specially singled out for the sword, fought with
the pride of disdainful gentlemen, and the fury of desperate soldiers
--finding it impossible to lure back the fugitives, hewed their own way
through Oxford's ranks to the centre, where they brought fresh aid to
the terrible arm of Edward.