THE BATTLE.
The mist still continued so thick that Montagu was unable to discern
the general prospects of the field; but, calm and resolute in his
post, amidst the arrows which whirled round him, and often struck,
blunted, against his Milan mail, the marquis received the reports of
his aides-de-camp (may that modern word be pardoned?) as one after one
they emerged through the fog to his side.
"Well," he said, as one of these messengers now spurred to the spot,
"we have beaten off Hastings and his hirelings; but I see not 'the
Silver Star' of Lord Oxford's banner." [The Silver Star of the De
Veres had its origin in a tradition that one of their ancestors, when
fighting in the Holy Land, saw a falling star descend upon his shield.
Fatal to men nobler even than the De Veres was that silver falling
star.]
"Lord Oxford, my lord, has followed the enemy he routed to the
farthest verge of the heath."
"Saints help us! Is Oxford thus headstrong? He will ruin all if he
be decoyed from the field! Ride back, sir! Yet hold!"--as another of
the aides-de-camp appeared. "What news from Lord Warwick's wing?"
"Sore beset, bold marquis. Gloucester's line seems countless; it
already outflanks the earl. The duke himself seems inspired by hell!
Twice has his slight arm braved even the earl's battle-axe, which
spared the boy but smote to the dust his comrades!"
"Well, and what of the centre, sir?" as a third form now arrived.
"There rages Edward in person. He hath pierced into the midst. But
Somerset still holds on gallantly!" Montagu turned to the first aide-
de-camp.
"Ride, sir! Quick! This to Oxford--No pursuit! Bid him haste, with
all his men, to the left wing, and smite Gloucester in the rear.
Ride, ride, for life and victory! If he come but in time the day is
ours!" [Fabyan.]
The aide-de-camp darted off, and the mist swallowed up horse and
horseman.
"Sound trumpets to the return!" said the marquis. Then, after a
moment's musing, "Though Oxford hath drawn off our main force of
cavalry, we have still some stout lances left; and Warwick must be
strengthened. On to the earl! Laissez aller! A Montagu! a Montagu!"
And lance in rest, the marquis and the knights immediately around him,
and hitherto not personally engaged, descended the hillock at a
hand-gallop, and were met by a troop outnumbering their own, and
commanded by the Lords D'Eyncourt and Say.
At this time Warwick was indeed in the same danger that had routed the
troops of Hastings; for, by a similar position, the strength of the
hostile numbers being arrayed with Gloucester, the duke's troops had
almost entirely surrounded him [Sharon Turner]; and Gloucester himself
wondrously approved the trust that had consigned to his stripling arm
the flower of the Yorkist army. Through the mists the blood-red
manteline he wore over his mail, the grinning teeth of the boar's head
which crested his helmet, flashed and gleamed wherever his presence
was most needed to encourage the flagging or spur on the fierce. And
there seemed to both armies something ghastly and preternatural in the
savage strength of this small slight figure thus startlingly
caparisoned, and which was heard evermore uttering its sharp war-cry,
"Gloucester to the onslaught! Down with the rebels, down!"
Nor did this daring personage disdain, in the midst of his fury, to
increase the effect of valour by the art of a brain that never ceased
to scheme on the follies of mankind. "See, see!" he cried, as he shot
meteor-like from rank to rank, "see, these are no natural vapours!
Yonder the mighty friar, who delayed the sails of Margaret, chants his
spells to the Powers that ride the gale. Fear not the bombards,--
their enchanted balls swerve from the brave! The dark legions of Air
fight for us! For the hour is come when the fiend shall rend his
prey!" And fiendlike seemed the form thus screeching forth its
predictions from under the grim head-gear; and then darting and
disappearing amidst the sea of pikes, cleaving its path of blood!
But still the untiring might of Warwick defied the press of numbers
that swept round him tide upon tide. Through the mist, his black
armour, black plume, black steed, gloomed forth like one thundercloud
in the midst of a dismal heaven. The noble charger bore along that
mighty rider, animating, guiding all, with as much ease and lightness
as the racer bears its puny weight; the steed itself was scarce less
terrible to encounter than the sweep of the rider's axe. Protected
from arrow and lance by a coat of steel, the long chaffron, or pike,
which projected from its barbed frontal dropped with gore as it
scoured along. No line of men, however serried, could resist the
charge of that horse and horseman. And vain even Gloucester's
dauntless presence and thrilling battle-cry, when the stout earl was
seen looming through the vapour, and his cheerful shout was heard, "My
merry men, fight on!"
For a third time, Gloucester, spurring forth from his recoiling and
shrinking followers, bending low over his saddle-bow, covered by his
shield, and with the tenth lance (his favourite weapon, because the
one in which skill best supplied strength) he had borne that day,
launched himself upon the vast bulk of his tremendous foe. With that
dogged energy, that rapid calculation, which made the basis of his
character, and which ever clove through all obstacles at the one that,
if destroyed, destroyed the rest,--in that, his first great battle, as
in his last at Bosworth, he singled out the leader, and rushed upon
the giant as the mastiff on the horns and dewlap of the bull.
Warwick, in the broad space which his arm had made around him in the
carnage, reined in as he saw the foe and recognized the grisly
cognizance and scarlet mantle of his godson. And even in that moment,
with all his heated blood and his remembered wrong and his imminent
peril, his generous and lion heart felt a glow of admiration at the
valour of the boy he had trained to arms,--of the son of the beloved
York. "His father little thought," muttered the earl, "that that arm
should win glory against his old friend's life!" And as the half-
uttered word died on his lips, the well-poised lance of Gloucester
struck full upon his bassinet, and, despite the earl's horsemanship
and his strength, made him reel in his saddle, while the prince shot
by, and suddenly wheeling round, cast away the shivered lance, and
assailed him sword in hand.
"Back, Richard! boy, back!" said the earl, in a voice that sounded
hollow through his helmet; "it is not against thee that my wrongs call
for blood,--pass on!"
"Not so, Lord Warwick," answered Richard, in a sobered and almost
solemn voice, dropping for the moment the point of his sword, and
raising his visor, that he might be the better heard,--"on the field
of battle all memories sweet in peace must die! Saint Paul be my
judge, that even in this hour I love you well; but I love renown and
glory more. On the edge of my sword sit power and royalty, and what
high souls prize most,--ambition; these would nerve me against my own
brother's breast, were that breast my barrier to an illustrious
future. Thou hast given thy daughter to another! I smite the father
to regain my bride. Lay on, and spare not!--for he who hates thee
most would prove not so fell a foe as the man who sees his fortunes
made or marred, his love crushed or yet crowned, as this day's battle
closes in triumph or defeat. REBEL, DEFEND THYSELF!"
No time was left for further speech; for as Richard's sword descended,
two of Gloucester's followers, Parr and Milwater by name, dashed from
the halting lines at the distance, and bore down to their young
prince's aid. At the same moment, Sir Marmaduke Nevile and the Lord
Fitzhugh spurred from the opposite line; and thus encouraged, the band
on either side came boldly forward, and the melee grew fierce and
general. But still Richard's sword singled out the earl, and still
the earl, parrying his blows, dealt his own upon meaner heads.
Crushed by one sweep of the axe fell Milwater to the earth; down, as
again it swung on high, fell Sir Humphrey Bourchier, who had just
arrived to Gloucester with messages from Edward, never uttered in the
world below. Before Marmaduke's lance fell Sir Thomas Parr; and these
three corpses making a barrier between Gloucester and the earl, the
duke turned fiercely upon Marmaduke, while the earl, wheeling round,
charged into the midst of the hostile line, which scattered to the
right and left.
"On! my merry men, on!" rang once more through the heavy air. "They
give way, the London tailors,--on!" and on dashed, with their joyous
cry, the merry men of Yorkshire and Warwick, the warrior yeomen!
Separated thus from his great foe, Gloucester, after unhorsing
Marmaduke, galloped off to sustain that part of his following which
began to waver and retreat before the rush of Warwick and his
chivalry.
This, in truth, was the regiment recruited from the loyalty of London;
and little accustomed, we trow, were the worthy heroes of Cockaigne to
the discipline of arms, nor trained to that stubborn resistance which
makes, under skilful leaders, the English peasants the most enduring
soldiery that the world has known since the day when the Roman
sentinel perished amidst the falling columns and lava floods [at
Pompeii], rather than, though society itself dissolved, forsake his
post unbidden. "Saint Thomas defend us!" muttered a worthy tailor,
who in the flush of his valour, when safe in the Chepe, had consented
to bear the rank of lieutenant; "it is not reasonable to expect men of
pith and substance to be crushed into jellies and carved into
subtleties by horse-hoofs and pole-axes. Right about face! Fly!"--
and throwing down his sword and shield, the lieutenant fairly took to
his heels as he saw the charging column, headed by the raven steed of
Warwick, come giant-like through the fog. The terror of one man is
contagious, and the Londoners actually turned their backs, when
Nicholas Alwyn cried, in his shrill voice and northern accent, "Out on
you! What will the girls say of us in East-gate and the Chepe?
Hurrah for the bold hearts of London! Round me, stout 'prentices! let
the boys shame the men! This shaft for Cockaigne!" And as the troop
turned irresolute, and Alwyn's arrow left his bow, they saw a horseman
by the side of Warwick reel in his saddle and fall at once to the
earth; and so great evidently was the rank of the fallen man that even
Warwick reined in, and the charge halted midway in its career. It was
no less a person than the Duke of Exeter whom Alwyn's shaft had
disabled for the field. This incident, coupled with the hearty
address of the stout goldsmith, served to reanimate the flaggers, and
Gloucester, by a circuitous route, reaching their line a moment after,
they dressed their ranks, and a flight of arrows followed their loud
"Hurrah for London Town!"
But the charge of Warwick had only halted, and (while the wounded
Exeter was borne back by his squires to the rear) it dashed into the
midst of the Londoners, threw their whole line into confusion, and
drove them, despite all the efforts of Gloucester, far back along the
plain. This well-timed exploit served to extricate the earl from the
main danger of his position; and, hastening to improve his advantage,
he sent forthwith to command the reserved forces under Lord St. John,
the Knight of Lytton, Sir John Coniers, Dymoke, and Robert Hilyard, to
bear down to his aid.
At this time Edward had succeeded, after a most stubborn fight, in
effecting a terrible breach through Somerset's wing; and the fog
continued still so dense and mirk, that his foe itself--for Somerset
had prudently drawn back to re-form his disordered squadron--seemed
vanished from the field. Halting now, as through the dim atmosphere
came from different quarters the many battle-cries of that feudal-day,
by which alone he could well estimate the strength or weakness of
those in the distance, his calmer genius as a general cooled, for a
time, his individual ferocity of knight and soldier. He took his
helmet from his brow to listen with greater certainty; and the lords
and riders round him were well content to take breath and pause from
the weary slaughter.
The cry of "Gloucester to the onslaught!" was heard no more. Feebler
and feebler, scatteringly as it were, and here and there, the note had
changed into "Gloucester to the rescue!"
Farther off rose, mingled and blent together, the opposing shouts, "A
Montagu! a Montagu! Strike for D'Eyncourt and King Edward!"--"A Say!
A Say!"
"Ha!" said Edward, thoughtfully, "bold Gloucester fails, Montagu is
bearing on to Warwick's aid, Say and D'Eyncourt stop his path. Our
doom looks dark! Ride, Hastings,--ride; retrieve thy laurels, and
bring up the reserve under Clarence. But hark ye, leave not his
side,--he may desert again! Ho! ho! Again, 'Gloucester to the
rescue!' Ah, how lustily sounds the cry of 'Warwick!' By the flaming
sword of Saint Michael, we will slacken that haughty shout, or be
evermore dumb ourself, ere the day be an hour nearer to the eternal
judgment!"
Deliberately Edward rebraced his helm, and settled himself in his
saddle, and with his knights riding close each to each, that they
might not lose themselves in the darkness, regained his infantry, and
led them on to the quarter where the war now raged fiercest, round the
black steed of Warwick and the blood-red manteline of the fiery
Richard.