Kings of Albion

by Julian Rathbone

  a hideous grimace. Then she stuck out her tongue as broad and fiat as she could make it and waggled it furiously. I flinched, she laughed, and all was back to normal.

  'So,' I say to him, when he has kicked away the bloody remains, 'your big brother is king. Would you like to be king?'

  He looks at me, all eyes, and plays with the ring on his little finger. 'Of course. When Eddie dies I shall be king.'

  'Even if George is still alive?'

  'I… doubt he will be.'

  'You will be king even if Eddie has children by whomever becomes his queen?' He shrugs.

  'I will be king,' he says.

  A cloud is over the sun now and suddenly the air is chill. I stand. 'What is your name?' I ask. 'Richard,' he says.

  I feel his power in my diaphragm, little boy though he still is. I look at the bloody remains of the rabbit. 'An omen,' I say, and ruffle his hair, thinking, the Inglysshe will surely put Owen's grandson on the throne once they've had enough of this monster.

  'Don't do that!' he commands. Then he repeats: 'Yes. I will be king.'

  Chapter Fifty

  Dear Cousin

  Owing to circumstances beyond our control, we were taken back to the north of Ingerlond, to a small place called Towton where we witnessed…

  'Hang on a minute, why does he say that? Why does he say "Owing to circumstances beyond our control"?'

  'He could not admit he was in pursuit of his beloved crossbows.'

  'Why not?'

  'We've been into this. The Emperor has a Buddhist monk whom he consults on all spiritual matters. As a result he does not approve of Harihara's hobby. He expects his relations to follow his example…'

  … where we witnessed the horror of a full battle between large armies. In order that we may learn as much as we can from this experience it is my intent to record here a full account of this terrible affair.

  Both hosts were huge. The Queen's army numbered perhaps fifty thousand and was led by the Duke of Suffolk, though many great magnates and lords had also brought their powers. Men had been recruited from right across the north of England. King Edward's force was smaller, perhaps forty thousand men. In all, this equals about one in fifty of the entire population. Both sides had cavalry in large numbers, men-at-arms and archers. King Edward's also had a small contingent of crossbowmen, some of whose weapons were of the highest order. And both sides fielded cannon and men with handguns called ribaudkins.

  The Queen's army was based in York, the largest city in the north of the country, where she remained with her evil son and mad husband. King Edward advanced up the road from London. Some twenty-four miles or so south of York the London road has to cross a small but militarily important river called the Aire at a settlement called Ferrybridge. The bridge was destroyed by a large force led by Lord Clifford, whose father had been killed by Edward's father, and who had himself killed Edward's brother after the battle of Wakefield.

  The Yorkists attempted to build a floating bridge but were attacked by the Queen's men. There was fierce fighting and Edward showed his generalship to good effect. Remember, he was only eighteen, the age of Alexander when he won his first victories. He poured reinforcements into the battle for the bridge when a less determined commander might have given up, and sent a flanking wing to the west to the next crossing upriver at a place called Castleford. Faced with this threat Clifford withdraw into a marsh. The fighting here was fierce. Exhausted, Clifford briefly removed the lower part of his helmet for greater ease and comfort and was struck by an arrow. He died later in great agony, which pleased King Edward.

  This all happened on the twenty-eighth day of March in terrible snowstorms and bitter cold.

  The Queen's advance guard now fell back and met up with the main army, which had reached Tadcaster, some ten miles south-west of York. A mile or so south of Tadcaster they took up a defensive position. Near the village of Towton the Tadcaster-Ferrybridge road winds along higher ground but keeps a more or less constant north-south direction. To the west of it the land drops in a horseshoe declivity to a meadow, several hundred paces wide, and on the west side to the winding river known as Cock Beck. The banks of the beck ('beck' means narrow river) are wooded, quite deeply in places. The more southerly of these woods fills an ox-bow of the river and is called Castle Hill Wood; the more northerly, where the valley narrows and its sides become steeper, Renshaw Wood.

  These woods played an important part in the battle. Somerset hid several thousand men in Castle Hill Wood from which they emerged to attack the Yorkist left flank and rear at a crucial time, nearly winning the battle for the Queen. Renshaw Wood, and the ravine it filled, initially protected his left and rear, but eventually became a trap where thousands were slaughtered.

  Dear cousin, do not imagine there is anything grand in the landscape I have described. The hills are low, at most a hundred feet above the plain, and, except down to Renshaw Wood, not steep; they are turfed, support sheep; there are no outcrops of rock; the trees are small, rarely more than forty feet high and mostly as little as fifteen or twenty but with thickets of thorny brambles on their edges.

  Edward could possibly have joined battle on that late afternoon, but five thousand of his men, under the ailing Duke of Norfolk, were a day's march away and he decided to wait through the night.

  This brought us to the day the Christians call Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem five days before he was crucified. This year it fell on the twenty-ninth of March. Usually, I am told, one can expect reasonably clement weather by this time of year, a week past the equinox, with small yellow trumpet-shaped flowers blooming in fields and hedgerows, and some trees beginning to green up. There was little sign of that this year, and although the grass was green and lush, it was bitterly cold with a severe snowstorm blowing in from the south-east through most of the day.

  The armies were positioned just within lethal arrow-shot of each other, that is, about two hundred and fifty paces. Shortly after daylight was established, but with driving snow and poor visibility, Lord Fauconberg on King Edward's left, facing north, ordered his archers forward and commanded them to let loose one flight of arrows. I have already described to you the power and deadliness of these missiles. At a distance curved, well-visored helmets and breastplates will turn them, but chain-mail or unvisored helmets are no protection. At close quarters they will pierce steel plate. On this occasion, this one flight of perhaps five thousand arrows caused the Queen's archers great distress, and they loosed off salvo after salvo in return, shooting at will, until their quivers were almost empty.

  However, because of the driving snow, their arrows fell short by forty yards and because they were blinded by the snow they could not see that this was so. Lord Fauconberg now ordered his archers forward and at ever closer quarters they loosed off their arrows into the Queen's army, replenishing their stock from the arrows of their enemies, which strewed the grass. Lord Northumberland, commanding for the Queen in that area, now ordered his men-at-arms to attack rather than remain at the mercy of this hail of arrows. Fauconberg's archers fell back through the ranks of the men-at-arms, and hand-to-hand fighting was now joined.

  In spite of the initial success of Lord Fauconberg's archers the Queen's army, by sheer weight of numbers, began to get the better of what was essentially an even battle. It was extremely savage. Both sides had sworn to kill all nobles and gentlemen they might take – this had already become common practice. But Edward had also issued an order that no commoners who surrendered or fell wounded should be spared either. There was a sense that these wars had gone on long enough and should be ended on that day.

  Men fought until they fell wounded. Or merely fell. This was the common fate of every loser in what was basically a series of single or almost single combats, one against one, two against one, two against two: the combinations constantly-shifted and gave the impression that at the point of contact a large body of men fought a large body of men. But essentially they were
single combats. This gave the advantage to the side that could field die most men who were fit, had good anus and armour, who believed in the profit they would gain by winning, who had the requisite skills to a high degree. Now these wars had been going on for some years and themselves followed a hundred years of fighting against the French. Both armies therefore had a large nucleus of professional, trained combatants who, over a series of engagements, had put together the arms they used most effectively and the armour that fitted them.

  They were encased in armour from head to foot, from rounded, visored helmets to steel-plated boots. Many did not carry shields for a shield is cumbersome, leaves one side unprotected, and occupies a hand that might otherwise join its brother to wield a sword five feet long and a foot wide.it the quills, or a double-headed axe, or a mace with spikes or chain and ball, or a pike with blade, point and hook.

  There were men on horseback too, but the horses tired easily under such a weight of armour, over rough ground, and were vulnerable to archers. The commander of a company of men-at-arms, whom he had probably recruited himself, remained mounted so he and his standard could be seen, and he might have mounted men around him. squires and relations who would not only protect him but serve as messengers to and from the overall commander of that part of the field. For the rest, the cavalry rarely charged in formation: stalwart Infantry, if holding ground protected by stakes or firmly held pikes, could always turn them. However, the cavalry came into its own in the pursuit of a beaten enemy, to charge in surprise the flank of a body of men-at-arms already pressed from the front, and so forth.

  We should bear all this in mind when we consider how to cope with the Bahmani cavalry. Well-trained and -armed infantry may be a better solution than attempting to counter horsemen with horsemen.

  Back to the melee. Few men-at-arms were killed outright in hand-to-hand fighting – the armour saw to that – but any man-at-arms who was beaten to the ground by the force and weight of blows on his armour, or slipping in the snow and blood, was in mortal danger. His fate now depended on the success or failure of his companions. If they were winning, moving forward pace by pace, they might pass over him and the ranks behind would bring him succour, quite often simply a matter of getting him to his feet and pushing him back into the light. If, however, his side was slipping back he would soon find himself amongst his enemies, whose first instinct would be to continue to batter him with their heaviest blows, denting his armour and crushing his body inside it. A few yards on, men would risk the time taken to loosen his armour in his groin or armpit and stab him with a dagger, or thrust one through his slitted visor. Once dead he was stripped of his armour and anything of value he might have on his person, either there and then or when the battle was over, and thrown into a gravepit along with hundreds, thousands of others.

  You will understand from this process that all men-at-arms going into a battle knew they faced one of two fates depending on whether their side or the other gave ground first. To give ground was to invite defeat and death. Fear of losing was a motive as great or greater for fighting with the utmost savagery as a desire to win. Once a sense grew within a body of men that ground was being lost and that therefore a fall meant almost certain death, the desire to turn and run ahead of one's fellows, became overwhelming. But before that happened you fought like a mad devil to forestall it.

  However, two other factors delayed this catastrophic moment. First, reputation. To be known as one of the first to flee was a terrible dishonour, leading to possible-punishment, and certain ostracism for a lifetime, a loss of livelihood in the army and even out of it, the scorn of men and women alike for ever. And there was not much point in fleeing unless one was the first to do so…

  The second reason for not running lay in the nature of these cases of armour. Once inside them, and especially once-inside the visored helmet, one became an automaton, a thing without conscience, pity or restraint, a machine fighting machines whose faces one could not see. Once the battle madness had taken hold, one did not stop but went on, kill, kill, kill until either one was killed or there were none left in front to fight.

  This is very different of course from the way our Dravidians behave on a battlefield. In scant armour and with physiques better adapted to running than wielding huge and heavy weapons, with families who depend on them to till the rich land behind them, they find it too easy to retreat.

  So, this is the sort of fighting that was taking place along the seam of blood between the two armies, terror, triumph and above all desperation, sewing them together.

  Two separate movements of the Queen's troops now had an accidental but profound effect on the outcome…

  Eddie. He was in the centre and as he saw the Queen's army marching in a huge solid phalanx towards him he must have felt a moment of doubt, of fear. Until the old Duke of Norfolk came up, his was the smaller army. The Queen's army had won the last two major engagements at Wakefield and St Alban's, and at Northampton the numbers had been two to one in favour of the Yorkists. Anyway, young man as he was, he pushed up his visor so it looked like a giant beak over his head, and hacked along the line in the rapidly shrinking gap between the armies. Fine snow was swirling about him, beginning to settle on the grass.

  'My lords,' he shouted, above the jangle of his armour and the thud of Genet's hooves, 'you're here because you want me to be your king. You're here because for sixty years Albion has been ruled by cruel usurpers. I am the heir. I am the Plantagenet. Fight for me today to lift this curse from the soil of Albion, and if you do not believe my cause is right then for God's sake go…'

  It had an effect. The front ranks, mostly filled with nobles, gave a cheer and pressed forward. At that moment Genet stumbled a little, perhaps hit in the buttock by a Lancastrian arrow, Eddie heaved on the reins, got him upright but still thrashing about, turning and twisting. He drew his sword, slipped to the ground and handed the reins to the ostler who followed him.

  'Come on lads,' he shouted, 'today your king fights on the ground beside you, and I will live or die with you. May I rot in hell if you see me rehorsed to flee the field. When I ride again it will be through the gates of York…' And he gave his sword a sort of flourish and, pulling down his visor, turned to face the Queen's army, that was now only fifty paces away and all bellowing 'Henry, King Henry!'

  'Where were you in all this?' I asked.

  'On the Yorkist right, hanging a little back but half-way up the slope towards the road that ran along the hill, we had the cannon just above and ahead of us. It was a good place to see what was happening…"

  'Ah, the cannon. What happened with them?'

  'Usual story. Filthy weather, driving snow, the buggers didn't work. But they had some effect.'

  'How was that then?'

  'The Queen's left were coming in across the slope which was difficult anyway, and all the time they were looking up the hill into the muzzles of the guns. They could see how they were lined up, how another fifty, forty, twenty, ten yards would bring them into their line of fire. They hung back. Who wouldn't. It was the beginning, the seed of the end for the Queen's army.'

  'How so?'

  'Hang on a bit and I'll tell you.' He cleared his throat. 'Fucking, excuse my Inglysshe, fucking monsoon always leaves me full of phlegm…

  'For the next three hours or more,' he went on, 'it was just simply the foulest sort of fighting I've ever seen…'

  'I'm sorry, but could you explain why you were there?' I asked.

  ‘I told you. We were there to get back the Prince's crossbows.' 'But why in that part of the field?'

  'Because that's where the crossbows had ended up. They were still in their cases… the troop with them had got lost and arrived up the road from Ferrybridge just before the battle started. The Prince spotted their arrival and took us all over to them. He offered the Genoese Sergeant in charge a handful of rubies, almost the last we had, if he'd keep them in their cases. Can I go on now?'

  'Of course.' Ali returned to the papers
in front of him.

  Soon inside every armour casing along that seam there was blood, crushed bones, urine, faeces, fear and intolerable pain. For all the din of clashing metal, the shouts and war-cries of those behind, the only audible sounds within all those shells of metal will often have been the howls of pain of those who wore them, until it would be almost a relief to go down. Imagine the darkness inside, the slit to peer through, or a sieve of tiny holes, the confusion of shapes outside, the weight, the shock as an axe or mace thudded into you, even the cold. It was close to freezing, the temperature when water turns to ice and metal burns almost as badly as when it is hot. And then the panic when your knees begin to go, or the sudden stab of fear when a blow sends you flat on your back as helpless as an upturned beetle.

  We saw some pretty foul things you know. Two men hauling at the leg armour of a fallen knight and it comes away taking the leg with it, they up-end the boot of metal and tip out blood and shit. The helmet off another reveals he's drowned in his own vomit. Remember, on both sides no prisoners, no ransoms, so any extra you get from owning a body is what you can find on it, a ring or two mashed in with the finger bones, a holy medal on a gold chain crushed between steel and ribs.

  Between the fallen bodies in their twisted cages of scrap metal the black soil, glistening with tiny crystals of snow, was churned up with blood so one's boots stuck and squelched in it. Bit by bit, very slowly, perhaps at the rate of a yard every quarter of an hour, it became clear the Yorkists were losing ground. You see, they did have fewer men on the ground, and as the front men of both hues fell, the Queen's were replaced more quickly, and there was a greater press of men behind, pushing them on. But all the time the Yorkists knew that if only they held on five thousand more would be joining them along the road that ran along the ridge to their right, at least before nightfall, if not earlier. Maybe the Queen's generals knew this too, because just when all seemed in the balance they launched an attack led by the Duke of Somerset, he who had held the castle of Guisnes in the Calais Pale when we