these being far too few in numbers to make any impression, were speedily beaten off, and their brave leader had a narrow escape, as his horse was shot under him. At nine in the morning the Scots commenced a general attack, by order of the king. The High Steward led the vanguard, the advance of which was sorely impeded by walls and hedges, from behind which they were galled by the English archers, whose arrows flew thick as hail; while the men-at-arms and bill-men, pouring through the gaps made in the ranks by those field enclosures, charged the Scots in a confused but desperate manner. Nevertheless, the latter came on with such impetuous fury that, by sheer dint of sword and battle-axe, they hurled the first English column back in confusion against that of Lord Piercy. At this crisis the renegade Baliol is said to have rushed into the thickest of the mêlée with a body of horse, the weight of which threw the Scots into confusion, and gave the first column of the English time to reform. Here the Earl of Moray fell, and the Knight of Liddesdale was taken prisoner; while the High Steward was compelled to retreat and reorganise his troops, who were entangled among hedges and ditches, where they had little room to act. Baliol was too wary to follow in that direction, but flung himself, with all who would obey him, on the flank of that division which was led by the King of Scotland, around whom all the tide of battle rolled. In spite of every disadvantage, the conflict was maintained for three hours; and amid the most furious charges from the English men-at-arms, and the slaughter made by the unerring shafts of their archers, the king, surrounded by his nobles and knights, fought valiantly. The Scots had now completely given way, yet the son of the great Bruce repeatedly brought masses of them back by his exhortations and example; but by twelve o'clock the royal banner was beaten down, and on seeing it fall, the whole division of the Great Steward and of the Earl of March, despairing alike of being able either to rescue the king or retrieve the fortune of the field, quitted it and retreated en masse, a circumstance which it is said that David ever remembered and never forgave; yet that the Steward did not retire without severe loss is evident from the great number of barons and gentlemen of the name of Stewart who fell on that day. When only eighty Scottish gentlemen remained about him, at last the king was taken. Proud, fiery, active, and strong, in the prime of life, and not yet in his fortieth year, David, "though he had two spears hanging in his body, his leg almost incurably wounded, and his sword beaten out of his hand, disdaining captivity, provoked the English by opprobrious language to kill him; and when Sir John Copeland, of Northumberland, advised him to yield, he struck the knight on the face with his gauntlet so fiercely that he knocked out two of his teeth. But, however, Copeland conveyed him out of the field a prisoner. Upon his refusing to deliver him up to the queen, who stayed at Newcastle during the battle, the king sent for him to Calais, where he excused his refusal so handsomely that he sent him back with a reward of five hundred pounds a year in land, where he himself should choose it, near his own dwelling, and made him a knightbanneret." The armour which David wore on that day is said to be still preserved at Raby Castle. As usual in detailing these Scottish and English battles, the loss of the latter is not mentioned, though one writer states that only four knights and five esquires fell, and that Lord Hastings was mortally wounded; but we may safely conclude that in such a battle, and one so bitterly contested, many Englishmen must have fallen, and not a few of high rank among them. Of the Scots the slaughter was undoubtedly great, for there fell the Earls of Moray (Randolph, last of his line), Maurice of Strathearn, Hay of Errol (the High Constable), Charteris (the High Chancellor), Peebles (the Lord Chamberlain), more than thirty other nobles, and about 15,000 soldiers, as recorded by Fordun and Knighton. With the king were taken prisoners the Earls of Fife, Menteith, Sutherland, and Wigton, and fifty other barons and knights. In addition to the wounds enumerated, David had also received two from arrows. Knighton mentions one in the head, and Fordun speaks of another as being so deep that the barb could not be extracted, till it came forth when he was praying at the shrine of St. Modan, in Fifeshire. Escorted by 20,000 men, the King of Scotland was conveyed in triumph to London, where he was shown to the citizens on a tall black horse; and in the procession which conveyed him through the streets, the civic authorities and all the guilds or companies of the city took part, clothed in their appropriate costumes. Until he could ransom himself, the royal captive and his companions in misfortune were secured in the Tower, where, by a mean and ungenerous parsimony, unworthy of his position, Edward III. compelled them to maintain themselves. He did worse; for on the miserable plea that the Earl of Menteith was a traitor to Baliol, he had him executed with all the shocking barbarities then sanctioned by the English law of treason. Winchelsea.] A FIGHT WITH THE SPANIARDS. Tradition asserts that many jewels and banners found on the field, together with the famous Black Cross or Rood of Scotland, which was in the hands of St. Margaret when she died in the castle of Edinburgh, were offered to the shrine of St. Cuthbert at Durham, where thanks were offered up for the victory. "No man could ever know of what wood or metal the cross was made-it was of pure and massive gold on the pedestal, which was garnished all about with rich and large diamonds, precious rubies, turquoises, and emeralds, and placed on a pillar near St. Cuthbert, in the south aisle of the cathedral” (“Scotia Redivivia"). David's ransom was finally fixed at 90,000 merks sterling, to be paid at the rate of 10,000 merks annually for nine years; and during those years there was to be a truce between the two kingdoms. Such was the battle of Durham, or Neville's Cross, as it is frequently called, from a beautiful stone cross erected by Lord Neville on the field, to commemorate the English victory. There were seven steps round the pedestal, which measured four feet nine inches square. The Neville arms, a saltire, &c., were carved thereon, also the effigies of "our Saviour Christ crucified, the picture of the Blessed Virgin on one side, and of St. John the Evangelist on the other." It remained till the year 1589, when, according to a writer quoted by Ridpath, in his "Border History," "the same was broken down and defaced by some lewd and wicked persons." Had Edward Baliol fallen in battle at Durham, the bravery of such an end might have atoned for the political errors of his past life. His claims to royalty he forfeited by treason to Scotland. He spent the remainder of his days in obscurity, and died childless, in 1368. WINCHELSEA. Some fighting on the seas followed shortly after the English victories at Cressy and Durham, and this time with a different nation, with whom, in fact, England had been for some time at peace, but with whom she was destined in years to come to have many a bitter struggle for the dominion of the sea. It would seem that in 1349 the Spaniards conceived it necessary to exact from England revenge for certain piracies alleged to have been perpetrated by her warlike skippers on the high seas. They sent a squadron up the Garonne, where they found several English vessels, a little leaky, but all deeply 57 laden with wine. Though the King of England was then at peace with the princes of Castile and Arragon, the Spaniards boarded the vessels, murdered the crews, made capture of everything, and then bore away. Edward III. was not a monarch who would submit tamely to an outrage such as this. Fitting out a fleet of fifty sail, he put the Black Prince on board with a body of troops, and embarking himself, sailed from Sandwich in quest of these corsairs, who were now forming portion of a richlyladen Spanish fleet of merchantmen on their homeward way from Flanders. On the 29th of August, 1349, he came up with them, in sight of Winchelsea, off the coast of Sussex, and then Lancaster, Salisbury, Warwick, Arundel, Gloucester, and all the great lords who were with him, prepared for battle; and it is alleged that in this sea-fight cannon were first used on board ship by the English, but there is not any very precise or reliable information on the point. The Spanish fleet numbered forty-four great vessels, described as carracks. King Edward bore resolutely down upon them, grappled with chains and hooks, and engaged. "The Spaniards, defending themselves with obstinate bravery, and preferring death to bondage, rejected with disdain the quarter that was offered them." The king defeated them, took twenty of their vessels, and sunk others with all on board ; but a few set all sail and escaped in the dark. The prizes were laden with woollen cloths and valuable stuffs, the produce of the looms of the industrious Flemings; and to commemorate this battle, Edward had a gold coin struck, whereon he is represented in the middle of a single-masted ship, with his sword, crown, and shield--the latter charged with the arms of France and England quarterly; the arms of pretence being in the first and fourth cantons of the shield. This battle off Winchelsea is chiefly remarkable for the alleged adoption of cannon at sea, and, moreover, the mariner's compass was now in use. All the weapons used on land were then used at sea; and in addition to these was the falcastrum, a sort of bill or guisarma, described as a scythe attached firmly to a very long spear. The shape was afterwards preserved, in the double-bladed weapon formed of one piece of iron, and called the guis arma, down to the close of the fifteenth century. Then and for long after the balls shot from cannon were of hewn stone. Sometimes the Scots used gun-stanes, or large pebbles lapped in sheet, lead. CHAPTER X. POICTIERS, 1356. PHILIP of France was dead, and John I., his son, hasty marches to intercept him while occupied before the castle of Remorantin; and the 19th of September saw them engage among the vineyards of Maupertois, near Poictiers, which is the chief HELMET AT PARHAM PARK, SUSSEX (1350). city in the department of Vienne. The army of the prince was now reduced to little more than 14,000 men. It was on the evening of the 17th that the English vanguard fell suddenly on the French rear, and then the prince became aware for the first time that he was outnumbered by 46,000 men, that they swarmed over all the neighbourhood, and that his retreat was cut off. "God help us!" he exclaimed; "we must consider only how we can best fight them." He instantly chose an admirable position, on elevated ground, having his flanks protected by vineyard walls and trenches, and to which there was but one approach, a long deep lane between hedgerows, so narrow that only four horsemen could ride through it abreast. In rear of these Advancing from Calais at the head of 60,000 | hedges he placed strong bodies of archers, to gall the enemy as they advanced. Over-night he placed in ambush 300 men-at-arms and 300 archers, at a post from whence they were to make a sudden and unforeseen attack upon the French flank. These men were under Piers, the Captal de Buche, K.G. The English van was commanded by the Earl of Warwick; the rear, or reserve, by the Earls of Salisbury and Suffolk; the main body by the Black Prince himself; while the Lords Sir John de Chandos, K.G., and Audeley, K.G., with other brave and experienced soldiers, were at the head of different corps of the army. men, the campaign was opened in 1355; and in seven weeks he had laid in ashes five hundred cities, towns, and villages, chiefly in the fertile province of Bordeaux, accompanied by the most shocking barbarities. The harvest was trodden under foot, the people and the cattle were slaughtered together, and all that the army could not consume was wantonly destroyed. The second year's campaign was signalised by the battle of Poictiers. The adventurous prince had pierced too far into the heart of France, and King John, justly provoked by so wanton an invasion, collected an army, also of 60,000 combatants, and made Before a blow was struck, or an arrow shot, the Papal Legate, the Cardinal Tallyrand de Perigord, anxious to prevent the effusion of human blood, offered his services as mediator. He induced the Prince of Wales to promise that he would repair the damages done by his troops; that for seven years he would not bear arms against King John: but the latter scornfully rejected these offers, and, confident in the overwhelming strength of his forces, he would be satisfied with nothing but the surrender of the prince and his whole army at discretion, and, according to Froissard, having four of the leading English nobles "at his mercy." "I will rather die sword in hand," replied the gallant prince," than be guilty of deeds so contrary to honour and the glory of the English name!" Then, says Walsingham, he made a short speech to his troops, telling them "that victory depended not upon numbers, but on bravery; that, for his own part, he was resolved to conquer or die, and would not expose his country to the disgrace of paying his ransom." This was on Sunday, the 18th, and the day was spent in making fresh trenches, and barricades of wagons, stones, and earth. With earliest dawn on the morning of the 19th, the English trumpets were heard pealing all over Maupertois, calling every man to his feet; and the archers began to bend their bows. Once more the cardinal failed to move the proud resolutions of the King of France. "Then," said the prince, "let him come on; and God defend the right!" And, doubtless, in that hour of danger, every English heart was animated by the recent memories of Cressy, where they fought with an equal disparity of numbers, and resolved to emulate the courage of those who were the victors there. 59 English infantry, the archers suddenly opened their deadly volleys from behind the hedgerows. In a few minutes one marshal was shot down, the other was taken prisoner, and the lane become choked with dead or wounded men and horses-the dying rolling over each other in heaps-while, as De Mezeray has it, "the Englishmen's bearded arrows made the horses mad," and in masses they recoiled in terror upon the advancing Germans. This circumstance so alarmed the second column, under the dauphin, that it began to waver in its advance, and many men were seen quietly retreating to the rear. This did not escape the eagle eye of the Black Prince, who at that most critical moment, brought into action the 600 horse and archers whom he had placed in ambush under the Captal de Buche. The archers shot their volley, and the horse fell on with sword and mace, throwing into confusion by their unexpected attack, the whole left flank of the dauphin's line. A sudden alarm seized the Lords Landas, Bodenai, and St. Venant, to whose care that young prince and two of his brothers had been committed. Anxious for the safety of their charge, they carried them out of the field, most unwisely with a formidable escort of 800 lances, which set an example of flight that was followed almost instantly by the whole division; for since Cressy the French had cherished a wholesome dread of "the green jackets and white bows" of the English archers. The leading division, under the Duke of Orleans, became seized with a similar panic; and imagining at this early stage of the battle that all was lost, thought no longer of fighting, but began a retreat that speedily became a flight; while the exulting English men-at-arms began to shout, "St. George for Guienne!" John marshalled his host in three divisions, each Then said Sir John de Chandos, one of the most of 20,000 men. The first was commanded by the able and brilliant warriors of the age, and who had Duke of Orleans; with him were a body of Ger- never quitted young Edward's side, "Sire, ride forman cavalry, and a great band of Scots, who, says ward; the day is yours! Let us assail the King Lord Hailes, enjoying a momentary tranquillity of France, for with him lies all the strength of at home, crowded to the French standard under the enterprise. Well I know his valour will not Lord William Douglas, who was received with dis- permit him to flee; therefore, please God and tinguished honours. The second division was led St. George, he shall remain with us!" Seeing, by the dauphin; the third by the king himself, also that the auspicious moment had arrived, the who had by his side Philip, his fourth and favourite prince called to the standard-bearers, saying, son, then only fourteen years of age. So confident" Advance, banners, in the name of God and St. were the French of victory, that on this day all the knights wore their richest armour, their most valuable ornaments and orders. The battle began by a select body of French gendarmerie, led by two marshals; these rode furiously along the lane, but ere they could form in any order to charge or break the front of the George!" Led by the prince and Chandos, the English men-at-arms poured at full speed through the corpse-encumbered lane, and forming upon a piece of open moor, charged the French with terrible force. Their shock was alike fierce and irresistible. The Constable of France, with many squadrons of horse, vainly endeavoured to hold his ground, but was slain with the chief of his knights; the German horse, under the Counts of Sallebruche, Nydo, and Nostro, were next cut to pieces; and a terrible carnage was made of the Scots. Lord Douglas was wounded and escaped; but his half-brother, Sir Archibald, was taken prisoner, together with Sir William Baird, of Evandale. The division under the king, inspired by his fine example, fought bravely. He and his principal knights were now who, under axe, arrow, and lance, were falling fast in blood and death. A furious throng of mingled English and Gascons now pressed close upon him, with cries of "Surrender!" He was wounded and beaten to the ground; but again he rose, axe in hand, and continued the unequal combat with furious courage. Anxious to save him, many English gentlemen prayed (among others, Sir John Treffry, a knight of Cornwall) that he would yield; but, being unwilling to do so to any one of inferior on foot, while their assailants were mounted; yet, despite this disadvantage, they made a gallant resistance. Battle-axe in hand, King John fought foremost in the fray; the boy, Philip, by his side, calling to him ever and anon, "Father, guard yourself on the right-guard yourself on the left!" Around them were the great lords of what was then a noble nation and faithful to its kings, all resolute to die in their defence, though there was death in front and flight in the rear. The prince and Sir John Chandos kept their troops steadily in hand, and concentrated all their efforts on this confused multitude who fought around the king, and rank, the hapless monarch repeatedly asked, "Where is my cousin? Where is the Prince of Wales?" Then said a young knight of St. Omer, in French, "Sire, surrender; he is not here, but I shall lead you to him." Struck by the pure accent, the king asked, "Who are you?" "Sire," replied the other, "I am Denis of Morbeque, a knight of Artois; but I serve the King of England because I have lost my all in France." "To you I surrender," said John, and presented him with his right-hand gauntlet. As he led him and his son away, the English claimed him with violence from Morbeque; then the Gascons demanded |