The Last of the Barons — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  CHAPTER VI. THE BATTLE.

  It was now scarcely eight in the morning, though the battle had enduredthree hours; and, as yet, victory so inclined to the earl that noughtbut some dire mischance could turn the scale. Montagu had cut his way toWarwick; Somerset had re-established his array. The fresh vigourbrought by the earl's reserve had well-nigh completed his advantageover Gloucester's wing. The new infantry under Hilyard, the unexhaustedriders under Sir John Coniers and his knightly compeers, were dealingfearful havoc, as they cleared the plain; and Gloucester, fighting inchby inch, no longer outnumbering but outnumbered, was driven nearer andnearer towards the town, when suddenly a pale, sickly, and ghostlike rayof sunshine, rather resembling the watery gleam of a waning moon thanthe radiance of the Lord of Light, broke through the mists, and showedto the earl's eager troops the banner and badges of a new array hurryingto the spot. "Behold," cried the young Lord Fitzhugh, "the standard andthe badge of the Usurper,--a silver sun! Edward himself is deliveredinto our hands! Upon them, bill and pike, lance and brand, shaft andbolt! Upon them, and crown the day!"

  The same fatal error was shared by Hilyard, as he caught sight of theadvancing troop, with their silvery cognizance. He gave the word, andevery arrow left its string. At the same moment, as both horse and footassailed the fancied foe, the momentary beam vanished from the heaven,the two forces mingled in the sullen mists, when, after a briefconflict, a sudden and horrible cry of "Treason! Treason!" resoundedfrom either band. The shining star of Oxford, returning from thepursuit, had been mistaken for Edward's cognizance of the sun.[Cont. Croyl., 555; Fabyan, Habington, Hume, S. Turner.] Friend wasslaughtering friend, and when the error was detected, each believed theother had deserted to the foe. In vain, here Montagu and Warwick, andthere Oxford and his captains, sought to dispel the confusion, and unitethose whose blood had been fired against each other. While yet indoubt, confusion, and dismay, rushed full into the centre Edward of Yorkhimself, with his knights and riders; and his tossing banners, scarcelyeven yet distinguished from Oxford's starry ensigns, added to thegeneral incertitude and panic. Loud in the midst rose Edward's trumpetvoice, while through the midst, like one crest of foam upon a roaringsea, danced his plume of snow. Hark! again, again--near and nearer--thetramp of steeds, the clash of steel, the whiz and hiss of arrows, theshout of "Hastings to the onslaught!" Fresh, and panting for glory andfor blood, came on King Edward's large reserve; from all the scatteredparts of the field spurred the Yorkist knights, where the uproar, somuch mightier than before, told them that the crisis of the war wascome. Thither, as vultures to the carcass, they flocked and wheeled;thither D'Eyncourt and Lovell, and Cromwell's bloody sword, andSay's knotted mace; and thither, again rallying his late half-beatenmyrmidons, the grim Gloucester, his helmet bruised and dinted, but theboar's teeth still gnashing wrath and horror from the grisly crest. Butdirest and most hateful of all in the eyes of the yet undaunted earl,thither, plainly visible, riding scarcely a yard before him, with thecognizance of Clare wrought on his gay mantle, and in all the pomp andbravery of a holiday suit, came the perjured Clarence. Conflict now itcould scarce be called: as well might the Dane have rolled back the seafrom his footstool, as Warwick and his disordered troop (often and aye,dazzled here by Oxford's star, there by Edward's sun, dealing randomblows against each other) have resisted the general whirl and torrentof the surrounding foe. To add to the rout, Somerset and the on-guardof his wing had been marching towards the earl at the very time that thecry of "treason" had struck their ears, and Edward's charge was made;these men, nearly all Lancastrians, and ever doubting Montagu, if notWarwick, with the example of Clarence and the Archbishop of York freshbefore them, lost heart at once,--Somerset himself headed the flight ofhis force.

  "All is lost!" said Montagu, as side by side with Warwick the brothersfronted the foe, and for one moment stayed the rush.

  "Not yet," returned the earl; "a band of my northern archers still guardyon wood; I know them,--they will fight to the last gasp! Thither, then,with what men we may. You so marshal our soldiers, and I will make goodthe retreat. Where is Sir Marmaduke Nevile?"

  "Here!"

  "Horsed again, young cousin! I give thee a perilous commission. Take thepath down the hill; the mists thicken in the hollows, and may hide thee.Overtake Somerset; he hath fled westward, and tell him, from me, ifhe can yet rally but one troop of horse--but one--and charge Edwardsuddenly in the rear, he will yet redeem all. If he refuse, the ruin ofhis king and the slaughter of the brave men he deserts be on his head!Swift, a tout bride, Marmaduke. Yet one word," added the earl, ina whisper,--"if you fail with Somerset, come not back, make to theSanctuary. You are too young to die, cousin! Away! keep to the hollowsof the chase."

  As the knight vanished, Warwick turned to his comrades "Bold nephewFitzhugh, and ye brave riders round me,--so we are fifty knights! Hastethou, Montagu, to the wood! the wood!"

  So noble in that hero age was the Individual MAN, even amidst themultitudes massed by war, that history vies with romance in showing howfar a single sword could redress the scale of war. While Montagu,with rapid dexterity, and a voice yet promising victory, drew back theremnant of the lines, and in serried order retreated to the outskirtsof the wood, Warwick and his band of knights protected the movementfrom the countless horsemen who darted forth from Edward's swarmingand momently thickening ranks. Now dividing and charging singly, nowrejoining, and breast to breast, they served to divert and perplex andharass the eager enemy. And never in all his wars, in all the formermight of his indomitable arm, had Warwick so excelled the martialchivalry of his age, as in that eventful and crowning hour. Thricealmost alone he penetrated into the very centre of Edward's body-guard,literally felling to the earth all before him. Then perished by hisbattle-axe Lord Cromwell and the redoubted Lord of Say; then, no longersparing even the old affection, Gloucester was hurled to the ground. Thelast time he penetrated even to Edward himself, smiting down the king'sstandard-bearer, unhorsing Hastings, who threw himself on his path;and Edward, setting his teeth in stern joy as he saw him, rose in hisstirrups, and for a moment the mace of the king, the axe of the earl,met as thunder encounters thunder; but then a hundred knights rushedinto the rescue, and robbed the baffled avenger of his prey. Thuscharging and retreating, driving back with each charge farther andfarther the mighty multitude hounding on to the lion's death, thisgreat chief and his devoted knights, though terribly reduced in number,succeeded at last in covering Montagu's skilful retreat; and when theygained the outskirts of the wood, and dashed through the narrow openingbetween the barricades, the Yorkshire archers approved their lord'strust, and, shouting, as to a marriage feast, hailed his coming.

  But few, alas! of his fellow-horsemen had survived that marvellousenterprise of valour and despair. Of the fifty knights who had sharedits perils, eleven only gained the wood; and, though in this numberthe most eminent (save Sir John Coniers, either slain or fled) mightbe found, their horses, more exposed than themselves, were for the mostpart wounded and unfit for further service. At this time the sun again,and suddenly as before, broke forth,--not now with a feeble glimmer, buta broad and almost a cheerful beam, which sufficed to give a fuller viewthan the day had yet afforded of the state and prospects of the field.

  To the right and to the left, what remained of the cavalry of Warwickwere seen flying fast,--gone the lances of Oxford, the bills ofSomerset. Exeter, pierced by the shaft of Alwyn, was lying cold andinsensible, remote from the contest, and deserted even by his squires.

  In front of the archers and such men as Montagu had saved from thesword, halted the immense and murmuring multitude of Edward, theirthousand banners glittering in the sudden sun; for, as Edward beheldthe last wrecks of his foe, stationed near the covert, his desire ofconsummating victory and revenge made him cautious, and, fearing anambush, he had abruptly halted.

  When the scanty followers of the earl thus beheld the immense forcearrayed for their destruction, and saw the extent of their danger, andtheir loss,--here the hand
ful, there the multitude,--a simultaneousexclamation of terror and dismay broke from their ranks.

  "Children!" cried Warwick, "droop not! Henry at Agincourt had worse oddsthan we!"

  But the murmur among the archers, the lealest part of the earl'sretainers, continued, till there stepped forth their captain, a gray oldman, but still sinewy and unbent, the iron relic of a hundred battles.

  "Back to your men, Mark Forester!" said the earl, sternly.

  The old man obeyed not. He came on to Warwick, and fell on his kneesbeside his stirrup.

  "Fly, my lord! escape is possible for you and your riders. Fly throughthe wood, we will screen your path with our bodies. Your children,father of your followers, your children of Middleham, ask no better fatethan to die for you! Is it not so?" and the old man, rising, turned tothose in hearing. They answered by a general acclamation.

  "Mark Forester speaks well," said Montagu. "On you depends the last hopeof Lancaster. We may yet join Oxford and Somerset! This way through thewood,--come!" and he laid his hand on the earl's rein.

  "Knights and sirs," said the earl, dismounting, and partially raisinghis visor as he turned to the horsemen, "let those who will, fly withLord Montagu! Let those who, in a just cause, never despair of victory,nor, even at the worst, fear to face their Maker, fresh from theglorious death of heroes, dismount with me!" Every knight sprang fromhis steed, Montagu the first. "Comrades!" continued the earl, thenaddressing the retainers, "when the children fight for a father'shonour, the father flies not from the peril into which he has drawn thechildren. What to me were life, stained by the blood of mine own belovedretainers, basely deserted by their chief? Edward has proclaimed that hewill spare none. Fool! he gives us, then, the superhuman mightinessof despair! To your bows!--one shaft--if it pierce the joints ofthe tyrant's mail--one shaft may scatter yon army to the winds! SirMarmaduke has gone to rally noble Somerset and his riders; if we makegood our defence one little hour, the foe may be yet smitten in therear, and the day retrieved! Courage and heart then!" Here the earllifted his visor to the farthest bar, and showed his cheerful face--"Isthis the face of a man who thinks all hope is gone?"

  In this interval, the sudden sunshine revealed to King Henry, wherehe stood, the dispersion of his friends. To the rear of the palisades,which protected the spot where he was placed, already grouped "thelookers-on and no fighters," as the chronicler [Fabyan] words it, who,as the guns slackened, ventured forth to learn the news, and who now,filling the churchyard of Hadley, strove hard to catch a peep of Henrythe saint, or of Bungey the sorcerer. Mingled with these gleamed therobes of the tymbesteres, pressing nearer and nearer to the barriers,as wolves, in the instinct of blood, come nearer and nearer round thecircling watch-fire of some northern travellers. At this time the friar,turning to one of the guards who stood near him, said, "The mists areneeded no more now; King Edward hath got the day, eh?"

  "Certes, great master," quoth the guard, "nothing now lacks to theking's triumph except the death of the earl."

  "Infamous nigromancer, hear that!" cried Bungey to Adam. "What nowavail thy bombards and thy talisman! Hark yet--tell me the secret of thelast,--of the damnable engine under my feet, and I may spare thy life."

  Adam shrugged his shoulders in impatient disdain. "Unless I gave thee myscience, my secret were profitless to thee. Villain and numskull, do thyworst."

  The friar made a sign to a soldier who stood behind Adam, and thesoldier silently drew the end of the rope which girded the scholar'sneck round a bough of the leafless tree. "Hold!" whispered the friar,"not till I give the word. The earl may recover himself yet," headded to himself; and therewith he began once more to vociferate hisincantations. Meanwhile the eyes of Sibyll had turned for a moment fromher father; for the burst of sunshine, lighting up the valley below, hadsuddenly given to her eyes, in the distance, the gable-ends of theold farmhouse, with the wintry orchard,--no longer, alas! smiling withstarry blossoms. Far remote from the battlefield was that abode ofpeace,--that once happy home, where she had watched the coming of thefalse one!

  Loftier and holier were the thoughts of the fated king. He had turnedhis face from the field, and his eyes were fixed upon the tower of thechurch behind. And while he so gazed, the knoll from the belfry begansolemnly to chime. It was now near the hour of the Sabbath prayers, andamidst horror and carnage, still the holy custom was not suspended.

  "Hark!" said the king, mournfully, "that chime summons many a soul toGod!"

  While thus the scene on the eminence of Hadley, Edward, surrounded byHastings, Gloucester, and his principal captains, took advantage of theunexpected sunshine to scan the foe and its position, with the eye ofhis intuitive genius for all that can slaughter man. "This day," hesaid, "brings no victory, assures no crown, if Warwick escape alive.To you, Lovell and Ratcliffe, I intrust two hundred knights,--your solecare the head of the rebel earl!"

  "And Montagu?" said Ratcliffe.

  "Montagu? Nay, poor Montagu, I loved him as well once as my own mother'sson; and Montagu," he muttered to himself, "I never wronged, andtherefore him I can forgive. Spare the marquis.--I mislike that wood;they must have more force within than that handful on the skirtsbetrays. Come hither, D'Eyncourt."

  And a few minutes afterwards, Warwick and his men saw two partiesof horse leave the main body, one for the right hand, one the left,followed by long detachments of pikes, which they protected; and thenthe central array marched slowly and steadily on towards the scanty foe.The design was obvious,--to surround on all sides the enemy, driven toits last desperate bay. But Montagu and his brother had not been idle inthe breathing-pause; they had planted the greater portion of the archersskilfully among the trees. They had placed their pikemen on the verge ofthe barricades made by sharp stakes and fallen timber, and where theirrampart was unguarded by the pass which had been left free for thehorsemen, Hilyard and his stoutest fellows took their post, filling thegap with breasts of iron.

  And now, as with horns and clarions, with a sea of plumes and spears andpennons, the multitudinous deathsmen came on, Warwick, towering in thefront, not one feather on his eagle crest despoiled or shorn, stood,dismounted, his visor still raised, by his renowned steed. Some of themen had by Warwick's order removed the mail from the destrier's breast;and the noble animal, relieved from the weight, seemed as unexhaustedas its rider; save where the champed foam had bespecked its glossy hide,not a hair was turned; and the on-guard of the Yorkists heard its fierysnort as they moved slowly on. This figure of horse and horsemanstood prominently forth amidst the little band. And Lovell, riding byRatcliffe's side, whispered, "Beshrew me, I would rather King Edward hadasked for mine own head than that gallant earl's!"

  "Tush, youth," said the inexorable Ratcliffe, "I care not of what stepsthe ladder of mine ambition may be made!"

  While they were thus speaking, Warwick, turning to Montagu and hisknights, said,--

  "Our sole hope is in the courage of our men. And, as at Towton, whenI gave the throne to yon false man, I slew, with my own hand, my nobleMalech, to show that on that spot I would win or die, and by thatsacrifice so fired the soldiers, that we turned the day, so now--oh,gentlemen, in another hour ye would jeer me, for my hand fails: thishand that the poor beast hath so often fed from! Saladin, last of thyrace, serve me now in death as in life. Not for my sake, oh nobleststeed that ever bore a knight,--not for mine this offering!"

  He kissed the destrier on his frontal, and Saladin, as if consciousof the coming blow, bent his proud crest humbly, and licked his lord'ssteel-clad hand. So associated together had been horse and horseman,that had it been a human sacrifice, the bystanders could not have beenmore moved. And when, covering the charger's eyes with one hand, theearl's dagger descended, bright and rapid, a groan went through theranks. But the effect was unspeakable! The men knew at once that tothem, and them alone, their lord intrusted his fortunes and his life;they were nerved to more than mortal daring. No escape for Warwick--why,then, in Warwick's person they lived and died! Upon foe as upon frie
nd,the sacrifice produced all that could tend to strengthen the last refugeof despair. Even Edward, where he rode in the van, beheld and knew themeaning of the deed. Victorious Towton rushed back upon his memory witha thrill of strange terror and remorse.

  "He will die as he has lived," said Gloucester, with admiration. "If Ilive for such a field, God grant me such a death!"

  As the words left the duke's lips, and Warwick, one foot on his dumbfriend's corpse, gave the mandate, a murderous discharge from thearchers in the covert rattled against the line of the Yorkists, and thefoe, still advancing, stepped over a hundred corpses to the conflict.Despite the vast preponderance of numbers, the skill of Warwick'sarchers, the strength of his position, the obstacle to the cavalry madeby the barricades, rendered the attack perilous in the extreme.

  But the orders of Edward were prompt and vigorous. He cared not for thewaste of life, and as one rank fell, another rushed on. High beforethe barricades stood Montagu, Warwick, and the rest of that indomitablechivalry, the flower of the ancient Norman heroism. As idly beat thewaves upon a rock as the ranks of Edward upon that serried front ofsteel. The sun still shone in heaven, and still Edward's conquest wasunassured. Nay, if Marmaduke could yet bring back the troops of Somersetupon the rear of the foe, Montagu and the earl felt that the victorymight be for them. And often the earl paused, to hearken for the cry of"Somerset" on the gale, and often Montagu raised his visor to look forthe banners and the spears of the Lancastrian duke. And ever, as theearl listened and Montagu scanned the field, larger and larger seemed tospread the armament of Edward. The regiment which boasted the stubbornenergy of Alwyn was now in movement, and, encouraged by the youngSaxon's hardihood, the Londoners marched on, unawed by the massacreof their predecessors. But Alwyn, avoiding the quarter defended by theknights, defiled a little towards the left, where his quick eye, inuredto the northern fogs, had detected the weakness of the barricade in thespot where Hilyard was stationed; and this pass Alwyn (discarding thebow) resolved to attempt at the point of the pike, the weapon answeringto our modern bayonet. The first rush which he headed was so impetuousas to effect an entry. The weight of the numbers behind urged on theforemost, and Hilyard had not sufficient space for the sweep of thetwo-handed sword which had done good work that day. While here theconflict became fierce and doubtful, the right wing led by D'Eyncourthad pierced the wood, and, surprised to discover no ambush, fell uponthe archers in the rear. The scene was now inexpressibly terrific; criesand groans, and the ineffable roar and yell of human passion, resoundeddemonlike through the shade of the leafless trees. And at this moment,the provident and rapid generalship of Edward had moved up one of hisheavy bombards. Warwick and Montagu and most of the knights were calledfrom the barricades to aid the archers thus assailed behind; but aninstant before that defence was shattered into air by the explosionof the bombard. In another minute horse and foot rushed through theopening. And amidst all the din was heard the voice of Edward, "Strike,and spare not; we win the day!" "We win the day! victory! victory!"repeated the troops behind. Rank caught the sound from rank, and filefrom file; it reached the captive Henry, and he paused in prayer; itreached the ruthless friar, and he gave the sign to the hireling at hisshoulder; it reached the priest as he entered, unmoved, the churchof Hadley. And the bell, changing its note into a quicker and sweeterchime, invited the living to prepare for death, and the soul to riseabove the cruelty and the falsehood, and the pleasure and the pomp,and the wisdom and the glory of the world! And suddenly, as thechime ceased, there was heard, from the eminence hard by, a shriek ofagony,--a female shriek,--drowned by the roar of a bombard in the fieldbelow.

  On pressed the Yorkists through the pass forced by Alwyn. "Yield thee,stout fellow," said the bold trader to Hilyard, whose dogged energy,resembling his own, moved his admiration, and in whom, by the accent inwhich Robin called his men, he recognized a north-countryman; "yield,and I will see that thou goest safe in life and limb. Look round, ye arebeaten."

  "Fool!" answered Hilyard, setting his teeth, "the People are neverbeaten!" And as the words left his lips, the shot from the rechargedbombard shattered him piecemeal.

  "On for London and the crown!" cried Alwyn,--"the citizens are thePeople!"

  At this time, through the general crowd of the Yorkists, Ratcliffe andLovell, at the head of their appointed knights, galloped forward toaccomplish their crowning mission.

  Behind the column which still commemorates "the great battle" of thatday, stretches now a trilateral patch of pasture-land, which faces asmall house. At that time this space was rough forest-ground, andwhere now, in the hedge, rise two small trees, types of the diminutiveoffspring of our niggard and ignoble civilization, rose then two hugeoaks, coeval with the warriors of the Norman Conquest. They grew closetogether; yet, though their roots interlaced, though their branchesmingled, one had not taken nourishment from the other. They stood, equalin height and grandeur, the twin giants of the wood. Before thesetrees, whose ample trunks protected them from the falchions in the rear,Warwick and Montagu took their last post. In front rose, literally,mounds of the slain, whether of foe or friend; for round the twobrothers to the last had gathered the brunt of war, and they towerednow, almost solitary in valour's sublime despair, amidst the wrecks ofbattle and against the irresistible march of fate. As side by side theyhad gained this spot, and the vulgar assailants drew back, leaving thebodies of the dead their last defence from death, they turned theirvisors to each other, as for one latest farewell on earth.

  "Forgive me, Richard," said Montagu,--"forgive me thy death; had I notso blindly believed in Clarence's fatal order, the savage Edward hadnever passed alive through the pass of Pontefract."

  "Blame not thyself," replied Warwick. "We are but the instruments ofa wiser Will. God assoil thee, brother mine. We leave this world totyranny and vice. Christ receive our souls!"

  For a moment their hands clasped, and then all was grim silence.

  Wide and far, behind and before, in the gleam of the sun, stretchedthe victorious armament, and that breathing-pause sufficed to show thegrandeur of their resistance,--the grandest of all spectacles, even inits hopeless extremity,--the defiance of brave hearts to the brute forceof the many. Where they stood they were visible to thousands, but not aman stirred against them. The memory of Warwick's past achievements, theconsciousness of his feats that day, all the splendour of his fortunesand his name, made the mean fear to strike, and the brave ashamed tomurder! The gallant D'Eyncourt sprang from his steed, and advanced tothe spot. His followers did the same.

  "Yield, my lords, yield! Ye have done all that men could do!"

  "Yield, Montagu," whispered Warwick. "Edward can harm not thee. Life hassweets; so they say, at least."

  "Not with power and glory gone.--We yield not, Sir Knight," answered themarquis, in a calm tone.

  "Then die, and make room for the new men whom ye so have scorned!"exclaimed a fierce voice; and Ratcliffe, who had neared the spot,dismounted and hallooed on his bloodhounds.

  Seven points might the shadow have traversed on the dial, and, beforeWarwick's axe and Montagu's sword, seven souls had gone to judgment. Inthat brief crisis, amidst the general torpor and stupefaction and awe ofthe bystanders, round one little spot centred still a war.

  But numbers rushed on numbers, as the fury of conflict urged on thelukewarm. Montagu was beaten to his knee, Warwick covered him with hisbody; a hundred axes resounded on the earl's stooping casque, a hundredblades gleamed round the joints of his harness. A simultaneous cry washeard; over the mounds of the slain, through the press into the shadowof the oaks, dashed Gloucester's charger. The conflict had ceased, theexecutioners stood mute in a half-circle. Side by side, axe and swordstill griped in their iron hands, lay Montagu and Warwick.

  The young duke, his visor raised, contemplated the fallen foes insilence. Then dismounting, he unbraced with his own hand the earl'shelmet. Revived for a moment by the air, the hero's eyes unclosed, hislips moved, he raised, with a feeble effort, the gory bat
tle-axe,and the armed crowd recoiled in terror. But the earl's soul, dimlyconscious, and about to part, had escaped from that scene of strife, itslater thoughts of wrath and vengeance, to more gentle memories, to suchmemories as fade the last from true and manly hearts!

  "Wife! child!" murmured the earl, indistinctly. "Anne! Anne! Dear ones,God comfort ye!" And with these words the breath went, the head fellheavily on its mother earth, the face set, calm and undistorted, as theface of a soldier should be, when a brave death has been worthy of abrave life.

  "So," muttered the dark and musing Gloucester, unconscious of thethrong, "so perishes the Race of Iron. Low lies the last baron who couldcontrol the throne and command the people. The Age of Force expires withknighthood and deeds of arms. And over this dead great man I see the NewCycle dawn. Happy, henceforth, he who can plot and scheme, and fawn andsmile!" Waking with a start from his revery, the splendid dissimulatorsaid, as in sad reproof, "Ye have been over hasty, knights andgentlemen. The House of York is mighty enough to have spared such noblefoes. Sound trumpets! Fall in file! Way, there,--way! King Edward comes.Long live the king!"