Anonymous

“ But in entering on so stupendous a mission as the salvation of the nation, a humble village girl like Joan had entered on the field of martyrdom. From such a career there could be no retreat but through death. The same voices which she invariably avowed had called her to the enterprise, had pronounced her early doom. The enthusiasm of the multitude is short-lived; the envy and the hatred of the military chiefs, scarcely suppressed during the hour of triumph, were eternal in their nature. She had snatched the prestige of invincibility from the English, and raised the spirit of France. ”

“ The Duke of Alençon, who with the Duke of Bar headed this division, had made a vow to kill or take captive the King of England, or to perish in the attempt. He led on his troops with desperate valour, and a mortal struggle of two long hours took place. The English archers still wielded their massive axes in the front, and the French men-at-arms fought with undaunted bravery. Henry combated in the midst of his archers, who still plied their weapons with loud hurrahs, and, animated by battling under the eye of the king, seemed still as active and fresh as if they were just come into the strife. ”

“ Once my dear uncle, his father, on whom the Lord have mercy, would have put him to death for his treason and villainy. God of Paradise! I rode all night to save him, and his father delivered him to me to do with him as I pleased. How true is the saying that we have no greater enemy than the man whom we have preserved from the gallows! Another time he drew his sword on me, in the chamber of the queen, on whom God have mercy! He was also the accomplice of the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Arundel; he consented to my murder, to that of his father, and of all my council. ”

“ The last spur was now given to the spirit of Bruce. The words of Wallace to him were become so many sacred commands. Wallace had declared that he himself lived only to defend the liberties of his people; and he prayed that his life might terminate when he was reduced to wear the chains of the tyrant. He had been compelled to wear them by treason, and he had perished in his greatness. No indignities, no humiliations, could pluck from him the immortality of the martyr—the beautiful halo of a nation's homage. ”

“ Edric the Forester laid siege to Shrewsbury, and made head against Count Brian and Fitz-Osborn. In short, the whole nation rose, like a man suddenly awakened from a dream, and seemed resolved to atone for the abjectness of its previous submission by a vigorous and well-organised resistance to its oppressors.
William, however, appeared undismayed by the storm lowering on every side around him. Calling his army together, he marched rapidly towards the north, where the rebellion appeared the most formidable, knowing that a defeat there would strike terror into the rest of the insurgents. ”

“ It has been supposed that the preaching of Wycliffe had no little effect in rousing this storm in England, and there can be no doubt of it. The people, once made acquainted with the doctrines of human right, justice, and liberty abounding in the Bible, and pervading it as its very essence, could only regard the knowledge as a direct call from God to rise, rend the bondage of their cruel slavery, and assume the rank of men. This light, this wonderful knowledge, coming too suddenly upon them, made them, as it were, intoxicated, and overthrew all restraint and tranquillity of mind. ”

“ Here was a man steeped in the blood of his own family and of his own wife; a man who had oppressed and plundered his subjects till they hated him with a mortal hatred, and had joined in chasing him from the country; yet Edward—though a professed champion of chivalry, and as such bound to defend and redress the grievances of women—at once undertook to restore the murderer of his wife to his ensanguined throne, and to force him again on a people whom he had driven to desperation by his ferocious tyrannies. ”

“ All became confusion and disorder in the first division. The men-at-arms were so wedged together that they could not extricate themselves from the throng to advance or retreat. While the bravest strove to rush on the enemy, the timid endeavoured to fall back on the next division, and the most awful chaos arose.
Still the English archers poured in their arrows, dropping multitudes at each discharge; and when their arrows failed they seized their battle-axes, and, leaving their stakes, rushed on with fierce cries. ”

“ Amidst the glare of rich banquets and gorgeous spectacles, amidst the tinkling of harps whose strings were attuned to flattery, and the glances of bright eyes, which brought their tribute of admiration to the young prince of the Lion Heart, his ardent nature languished and longed for activity. There was a strong impulsive force within the men of those days, which rendered exertion the only pleasure—ease and rest a punishment not to be endured. Cut off for a time from the excitements of battle, Richard sought occupation in the field of theological controversy and the exercises of religion. ”

“ Without searching the records of his reign for isolated instances of virtue, we may believe that many noble qualities must have been possessed by the man who could attach his friends and attendants so warmly to himself, and excite in the breasts of his people—ground down as they were by his exactions—such strong sentiments of loyalty and admiration. The great fault in his character is his complete indifference to England and the welfare of his subjects. ”

“ But the efforts made by John to destroy their independence proved altogether fruitless. Their strength now, as in former years, lay in their mountain fastnesses; the spirit of freedom has her seat among mountains in every age and country. Within a year after the king's return to England, the Welsh were again up in arms. As soon as the news was brought to John he hanged the unhappy youths who were in his hands as hostages, and he was preparing for another descent upon Wales, when he learnt that a conspiracy was forming against him among the English barons. ”

“ The only pity which he showed was to the bishop who gave up the place, and to a knot of brave knights whom he found standing with their backs to a wall, engaged in mortal combat with his brothers the Dukes of Lancaster and Cambridge, and Pembroke, his brother-in-law. After watching their gallant defence some time in high admiration, he consented to accept their submission, and dismissed them with praises. This extraordinary man could still feel delight in the spectacle of a brave feat of arms, though his soul was become utterly callous to every sentiment of pity for his fellow men in general. ”

“ The queen instantly complained, with all her quick sense of indignity, to the king; and Edward thought that now he had a splendid opportunity of vengeance on his haughty barons. He for once assumed courage, and displayed a spirit which, if it had been permanent and uniform, would have made him and kept him master of his throne and prerogatives. He assembled an army, fell on Badlesmere, took him prisoner, and inflicted severe chastisement on his followers. The insult to the queen had excited the indignation of the people against the barons, and completely justified the proceedings of the king. ”

“ There is nothing in the miracles of bravery done at Leuctra, Marathon, or Thermopylæ which can surpass those performed at Creçy, Poitiers, and on other occasions; but there the splendour of the parallel ends. The Greek battle-fields are sanctified by the imperishable renown of patriotism; those of England, at that period, are distinguished only by empty ambition and unwarrantable aggression. The Greeks fought and conquered for the very existence of their country and their liberties; the English, to crush those of an independent people. ”

“ Isabella could not fail to be already aware of her husband's character, and she is said to have trusted to her influence to overturn the king's favour for Gaveston, and to be able to rule him and the kingdom herself. Edward, though wedded to the loveliest woman of the age, and surrounded by every species of festivity and rejoicing, evinced, on his part, no other desire than to get back as speedily as possible to his beloved Gaveston, to whom, in his absence, he had left the management of the kingdom—a fresh indignity to his own royal kinsmen. ”

“ The cession of Maine and Anjou had excited the deepest indignation; but when month after month had brought only news of the invasion of Normandy and the loss of town after town, the whole population appeared stung to madness. Suffolk was denounced as the queen's minion, as a man who was so besotted by the charms of a foreign woman as to sacrifice for his pleasure our fairest inheritance. On his head they heaped, not only his fair share of those transactions, but the full odium of the release of the Duke of Orleans, contrary to the injunction of the sagacious Henry V. ”

“ But the countess, inspiriting everybody by her words and example, made a stout defence. She herself put on armour, and rode through the streets on a noble charger, exhorting the citizens to show themselves valiant. She was at every post of danger, at the gates or on the walls, where the enemy's arrows fell thickest. The very women, fired by her bravery, cut short their gowns, that they might be the more active, and, tearing up the pavement of the streets, carried the stones to the walls, or prepared pots of quicklime and other missiles to discharge on the besiegers. ”

“ We are now arrived at a crisis in our history which marks at once the valour and the unscrupulous ambition of the English kings. There is no period of our annals in which the bravery of our countrymen assumed a more marvellous character, or in which it was displayed in a more unjust cause. Whenever we would boast of the military ascendency of the nation, we are sure to pronounce the words Creçy and Poitiers, but we are quite as certainly silent as to the political merits of the contest in which those names became celebrated. ”

“ The story of the bower of Rosamond, and of the poisoned bowl forced upon her by the jealousy of Eleanor, cannot be traced to any contemporary source, and must be rejected as devoid of truth.
Whatever may be the view we take of the character of Henry as a man, there can be no doubt that, as a king, he deserves a high place in English history. In the stormy times of the Middle Ages, better were the wrongs inflicted by an ambitious monarch, than the national corruption and decay which attended the reign of a weak one. ”

“ Sir John was at dinner when the messenger arrived, describing in earnest words the imminent danger of the earl and his followers. Sir John had not yet forgiven the young nobleman. He went on with his dinner, saying, "If it be as you say, nothing can save him." But anon, lifting up his head, he said to his knights and esquires around him, "Hear me, sirs! the Earl of Pembroke is a noble person, and of high lineage, son-in-law to our natural lord, the King of England. Foul shame were it to see him lost, if we can save him. ”

“ Their followers were the flower of the English and Scottish armies. Here were not the renowned English archers on one, but on both sides; and these supported by such a body of gentlemen and the substantial yeomanry of the country as had rarely been assembled in so moderately-sized a host. On the one side, the king and his son fought for crown, life, and reputation. If they were conquered, there was nothing for them short of loss of the crown, of existence, and of reputation; for they must go down to posterity as usurpers who had deluged their country with blood for their criminal ambition. ”

“ When Edward marched homeward to spend in London the Christmas of 1336, he left Scotland to all appearance perfectly prostrate, and flattered himself that it was completely subdued. Never was it further from such a condition. Only one spirit animated the Scottish nation—that of eternal resistance to the monarch who had inflicted on it such calamities, and set a slave on its throne. The Scots sought and obtained assistance from France. ”

“ This was the last expiring effort of the Welsh in that glorious struggle which they had maintained for ten years under their illustrious countryman, Owen ap Griffith Vaughan, better known as the unconquerable Owen Glendower. We say unconquerable, for though Wales—a small country, engaged in an unequal contest with a far greater and wealthier nation, and with two of the most renowned generals of the age, Henry of Lancaster and his son—was compelled to yield, it is very clear, from abundant historic facts, that Owen himself never retired from the struggle, never was subdued. ”

“ But Henry was too sagacious a politician to renounce the advantages which the folly and crimes of his enemies opened up to him. He was willing to make overtures of peace, and he did so to both parties, but it was still on his fixed terms of the sovereignty of France. He repeated his clear persuasion that his work was the work of an avenging Providence. "Do you not perceive," he said to Orsini, "that it is God who has led me hither by the hand? France has no sovereign. There is nothing here but confusion; there is no law, no order. No one thinks of resisting me. ”

“ The country people, ground by a long course of exaction, oppression, and insult, treated more as beasts than men by their feudal lords, now seized the moment when the Government were beset with difficulties and enemies to take a blind, sweeping, and tremendous vengeance. The nobility and the petty gentry holding fiefs under them had all been accustomed to plunder, tread on, and abuse the peasantry as a race of inferior creatures. The feudal system had run to seed in unbridled licence, and in every species of infuriating wrong. ”

“ But if Cœur-de-Lion was not free from the crimes belonging to his [251] age and kingly position, he surpassed his contemporaries as much in nobility of character, as in bodily strength and valour. His courage was of the highest order; for it combined not only the dash and gallantry common to men whose physical organisation is perfect, and who are incited by the love of military fame, but also that calmer, but not less admirable, quality of fortitude, which sustains the heart of the prisoner in chains, or of the soldier in time of famine and disease. ”

“ How frequently do we read, in the history of the world, of a nation urged by an irresistible, though unknown, impulse, to pursue the path of conquest, not for their own advantage, but for the ultimate benefit of the people whom they subject! Such was the result of the Roman invasion of Britain, which proved neither profitable nor advantageous to the conquerors. ”

“ The Earl of March, the true heir to the throne, was not only living, but still a young man, and had been brought up much in Henry's society. So far, however, from entertaining any jealous fear of him, like his father, he at once received him with the utmost courtesy and kindness, gave him the most unlimited freedom, and full enjoyment of all his honours and estates. He displayed the same generous disposition in reversing the attainder of the Percies, and in recalling the young Lord Percy from Scotland to the full restoration of all his titles and demesnes. ”

“ With each passing year flies a prejudice; with each [270] passing year some gigantic wrong lifts up its head, and claims and meets redress. Now, at least, the way is open to us, and cannot be mistaken; the light of Heaven shines full upon it, the obstacles grow fewer and weaker every day, the efforts to oppose them grow stronger, and the final triumph is secure. The value and importance of Magna Charta is not to be estimated by its immediate application to ourselves. Those positive laws and institutions of later times, which secure our rights and liberties, all have their root in this charter. ”