Читать книгу The Minority of Henry the Third - Kate Norgate - Страница 5

1217

Thus by the beginning of February, 1217, Louis’s mastery of eastern England was completed, seemingly without a struggle. At first glance, the action of Henry’s representatives seems unaccountable; there is, however, reason to think that it was really part of a scheme for bringing the desultory war to a crisis. Their aim seems to have been first to induce Louis to scatter his forces, and then to lure him back to the coast, hoping that there they might either cut off his retreat, or compel him to return to his own country.[91] For the accomplishment of this design it would be necessary to concentrate their own forces; and this could only be done by withdrawing the garrisons from such of the royal castles as were least worth retaining at the moment. These were the castles of East Anglia and Essex. Unlike the fortresses of the west, which it was of paramount importance to maintain in a state of efficiency as a protection against encroachments of the King’s enemies from the Welsh border, these eastern castles were practically isolated outposts in a district of which the greater part was under the enemy’s control. Surrounded as they were by the territories of powerful barons who supported Louis, they were not available as bases for concerted action; and the stores, arms, horses, and men in them could be made far more useful elsewhere.[92] To the enemy, on the other hand, the bait would be a tempting one; and the possible consequences of taking it might well have escaped the penetration of a more wary general than was Louis of France at this stage of his career. The possession of these castles placed the whole of eastern England under his uninterrupted sway, and removed all serious obstacles, except one, to his communications with his allies in the north. That one obstacle was the castle of Lincoln, which under the command of a woman had hitherto resisted every assailant. Louis appears to have made a circuit of his new possessions—no doubt placing a garrison in each of them—and then proceeded to Lincoln, hoping that his personal presence and the isolation in which she was now placed might tempt or frighten Dame Nicolaa into a betrayal of her trust. In this hope he was disappointed. The city received him, as it had already received his adherents; but the castle “held out,” for the Dame “kept it very loyally.” Louis could only return to London and thence send the castellan of Arras to take up his quarters in Lincoln city, that he might “hold the country with the help of the Northerners.”[93]

Louis was now anxious to get back to France. According to one account, his father was again urgently calling him home;[94] according to another, he was alarmed by letters from his agents at Rome, telling him that unless he left England the Pope intended to confirm on Maundy Thursday the excommunication which had been pronounced on him by Gualo.[95] When he announced to his English friends in London his intention of leaving the country they were highly displeased, and he had to take a solemn oath that he would return before the expiration of the truce.[96] None of the successive truces made during this winter seem to have been very scrupulously kept by either party. On the morrow of the surrender of Berkhamsted {1216 21 Dec.} Louis had marched upon S. Alban’s and demanded homage of the abbot, and on its refusal had only been restrained from burning both abbey and town by the intervention of Saer de Quincy, whereby the abbot was persuaded to give him eighty marks for a respite till Candlemas.[97] A month later {1217 22 Jan.}, at the very time when the King’s Council were endeavouring to arrange a conference of commissioners from both sides for the redress of infractions of the first and second truces and for securing the observance of the truce then existing,[98] Falkes de Bréauté sacked the same unlucky town and wrung from the abbot another heavy fine.[99] Louis’s visit to Lincoln was not an overt act of hostility such as these, but it was distinctly a violation of the spirit of the conditions on which the last truce had been made; and the Royalists may perhaps have considered themselves thereby released from their own obligation to abide by those conditions. However this may be, Louis, seemingly on the point of setting out from London for the coast, received information that the castle of Rye had been “taken by subtlety” by the English.[100]

As early as 17th December, 1216, “the brave men of Ireland who are with their ships on the coasts of Normandy” had been bidden, and encouraged by the promise of liberal reward, to come in force to Winchelsea, ready and prepared to go forth in the King’s service on S. Hilary’s day, or as soon after as possible.[101] They seem to have obeyed the summons, and to have been joined by an English fleet, gathered no doubt from the loyal Cinque Ports, and commanded by the governor of the Channel Islands, Philip d’Aubigné.[102] {Jan.} A detachment of Royalists, protected by, if not actually landed from, these ships, had “by the wise counsel of the Marshal” now surprised and occupied Rye.[103] Louis at once set out for the coast; he went, however, not direct to Rye, but to Winchelsea—still, it seems, intending to sail for France. At his approach the burghers of Winchelsea broke up all the mills in their town, and then took to their boats and went to join Philip d’Aubigné and his fleet off Rye. Louis had no sooner entered Winchelsea than he found himself caught in a trap whence there was no way of escape—shut in between the new garrison of Rye, the ships, and the Weald, where “Willikin” de Casinghem was still in command of a dauntless and reckless band of loyalists who broke down every bridge and blocked every passage in the rear of the French, and cut off the head of every straggler who came within their reach.[104]

Louis and his men were soon on the verge of starvation; there was plenty of corn in the town, but no means of grinding it save the slow process of rubbing it between their hands; they could get neither flesh nor fish; their “best food” consisted of some “large nuts” which they found in the town. For a while they struggled on, making occasional truces with the ships’ men, probably for the purpose of being able to fish without molestation and thus procure a little food; but the sailors paid little or no regard to these truces, and even came ashore to shoot at the enemies.[105] At last Louis sent some messengers who contrived to slip through the Weald to London for succour. Some of his knights there set out to rescue their lord; but they dared not attempt to pass through the Weald, so they went by the high road through Canterbury to Romney, and thence—as it was impossible for them to proceed from Romney to Winchelsea without passing Rye—despatched a message to the governor of the county of Boulogne asking him to send them all the ships he could get. He sent, it is said, over two hundred vessels—probably only small boats—all of which save one came into port at Dover, and were speedily occupied by the French knights who hastened thither from Romney; but a succession of storms kept them waiting a fortnight before they could sail. Meanwhile Louis and his men had possessed themselves of several large ships which were lying in the harbour of Winchelsea; and one of the vessels sent from Boulogne had, “by the hardihood of the mariners,” contrived to evade the English fleet and reach the same place, “where it was very welcome.” In all likelihood the captain of the ship which achieved this exploit was a man who for many years past had been known on both sides of the Channel as the most daring of seamen and the most ruthless of pirates, Eustace “the Monk”; for it was Eustace who now proposed to build, on one of the large ships, a “castle” wherewith to attack the English. This “castle” was “so big that everyone stared at it with wonder, for it overpassed the sides of the ship in every direction.” A stone-caster was next set up on another ship, to hurl stones at the English fleet; Louis had already set up on the shore for the same purpose two similar machines, whose missiles went almost across the channel which separates Winchelsea from Rye; and these did the English ships considerable damage. But one evening the English brought up some of their vessels close to the town, stole away the galley which bore the “castle,” and hewed it in pieces before the very eyes of the French. Louis laid the blame of this mishap on the Viscount of Melun, who apparently was responsible for the watch that night; Melun bluntly declared the men were so hungry that not four knights could be found to undertake the watch; Louis retorted that he would take it himself. Then Eustace de Neville interposed, saying he would find forty knights to watch with him as long as Louis pleased. That night he did it, with forty of his friends, “very honourably”; and next morning the relieving squadron from Dover came in sight. The English ships threatened to intercept it; but the first English vessel which came to close quarters by some accident struck one of its own consorts and sank it with all its crew, and amid the confusion resulting from this catastrophe the French ships made their way safely into the harbour of Winchelsea.[106]

With these ships Louis, whose force is said to have now consisted of more than three thousand men, proceeded to Rye, which the English garrison, seeing they could not defend it, evacuated.[107] By this time the Marshal[108] and the other members of the Council were on their way up from the west of England to a general muster of the Royalist forces at Dorking. Thence, on 28th February, a letter was despatched in the King’s name to the townsfolk of Rye, bidding them take courage, give no hostages to Louis, and make no terms with him, for they would speedily receive “greater succour than they could believe possible.” The Bishop of Winchester, the Marshal, the Earls of Chester, Ferrers, and Aumale, nearly all the barons of the western March (Walter de Lacy, Hugh and Roger de Mortimer, Walter and Roger de Clifford, William de Beauchamp, John of Monmouth, “and others”), and several other well-known leaders (William de Harcourt, Engelard de Cigogné, William de Cantelupe, Falkes de Bréauté, Robert de Vipont, Richard FitzRoy), with a multitude of knights, men-at-arms, and crossbowmen, and some loyal Welshmen, were setting out for Rye at once, and the King himself was about to follow with the Legate and a crowd of clergy and “crusaders.”[109] But before this letter was written Louis had made his escape. After appointing his nephew Enguerrand de Coucy as his representative in England, with orders to go to London “and not stir thence upon any account,” and leaving a French garrison in Rye,[110] he had slipped away to Dover, and thence sailed on 27th or 28th February to France.[111]

The Legate meanwhile had turned the war into a crusade. He had set the example, which the prelates followed, of assuming in token of the sacredness of the young King’s cause the white cross which marked the English warriors in Holy Land; all loyal subjects were exhorted to do the like; and those who had already taken the cross with the intention of joining the host now on its way to Egypt were encouraged to exchange their intended pilgrimage for the struggle with the excommunicate enemies at home.[112] Nobles and common folk alike responded to this appeal, “preferring to have a king from their own land rather than a foreign one.”[113] All through the winter the tide had been turning surely though slowly. As early as the end of November, 1216, William of Aubigny, the lord of Belvoir, who in the preceding year had defended Rochester castle for the rebel party with a stubborn bravery worthy of a better cause, and on its capture had been sent by John to prison at Corfe, bought his release by a fine of six thousand marks and homage to the new King; he was at once intrusted with the castle of Sleaford, “and he kept it right valiantly.”[114] Two recruits of yet greater importance joined the Royalist forces a few days after Louis left England: the younger William Marshal—eldest son of the regent—and the king’s uncle, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury. These two, “who loved each other like brothers,”[115] seem to have been already contemplating a return to their natural allegiance in the second week of December, 1216;[116] but their scruples or their fears kept them in the hostile camp for three months longer. Then, in the first days of March, the elder Marshal “met them by the way” somewhere between Shoreham and Knepp.[117] The meeting was evidently pre-arranged.[118] All three spent the night together at Knepp; and when the two younger men parted from the elder one next morning, it was to lead their followers to Winchester and besiege it for the King.[119] The old Marshal followed them with another body of troops, and laid siege to Farnham in the first week of March.[120] By 12th March it was taken;[121] and so, too, about the same time, was the city of Winchester and “the lesser castle” there—that is, the Bishop’s castle, known as Wolvesey.[122] The “tower,” or royal castle,[123] however, held out against the united forces of the two friends and the regent, who on leaving Farnham came to their assistance. At last it was decided that he should continue the siege,[124] while his son and Longsword led their forces to Southampton or Odiham,[125] and another party under Philip d’Aubigné was sent to besiege Porchester.[126] On the last day of March the younger Marshal laid siege to Marlborough; and “after great difficulty” he took it.[127] Southampton and Odiham had now been regained;[128] Chichester was won before 16th April, and Porchester before 27th April.[129] Meanwhile Falkes de Bréauté had made a raid on the Isle of Ely and recovered possession of it for the King.[130] The royal forces were swelling fast; “converts”—as the rebels who returned to allegiance are called in the official records—came crowding in;[131] and after Easter the Marshal, while still blockading the “tower” of Winchester, felt himself strong enough to despatch the Earls of Chester, Aumale, and Ferrers, with Robert de Vipont, Brian de Lisle, William de Cantelupe, and Falkes, and a number of knights and men-at-arms drawn from the garrisons of the evacuated royal castles, to form the siege of the rebel Earl of Winchester’s great fortress of Mountsorel in Leicestershire.[132]

Tidings of these things reached Louis in France; “and when he heard them,” says a contemporary, “he was not at all glad.” About Easter time he had betaken himself to Calais, but with only a very small following; if he had gone to France with the hope of gathering forces there, he must have been disappointed. He had, however, procured a new machine called a trebuchet, “about which there was much talk, for at that time few of them had been seen in France.” With this machine, and a handful of knights—only one hundred and forty—he at last set sail[133] for England once more on Saturday, 22nd April.[134] As the French ships drew near to Dover on the morning of S. George’s day {Sunday, 23 April}, their occupants saw the huts which had been built to shelter the besiegers of the castle still standing, empty but intact. At that very moment, however, King John’s son Oliver and Willikin of the Weald came down upon the huts and set them on fire, after slaughtering some of the few men who had been left to guard them. To attempt a landing at Dover in the face of an enemy whose numbers and position it was impossible to distinguish amid the smoke thus raised, and who could so easily pour down a murderous fire of arrows and other missiles from the cliffs, would have been to court destruction. Louis therefore altered his course and made for Sandwich. There he succeeded in landing,[135] though not without opposition from some of the local ships.[136] Next day he rode to Dover and took up his quarters in the priory. There he heard dismal reports of the losses suffered by his adherents in other parts of England; so he hurriedly arranged with the constable of the castle for a further prolongation of the local truce,[137] and returned to Sandwich. Having now been joined by the Count of Nevers with a few followers, he dismissed the inferior portion of his own forces to the ships, which he sent back to France,[138] but, as the sequel showed, with instructions to return.[139] Then, after firing the town of Sandwich in vengeance for the hostility of its mariners,[140] he moved on to Canterbury; next day (Tuesday, 25th April) he set out for Winchester. At Malling he was met by Saer de Quincy, Simon de Langton, and some others of his English partisans. On the morrow (Wednesday, 26th) he “made a long day’s march, for he went from Malling to Guildford”; his baggage could not get beyond Reigate. On this day he was joined by Enguerrand de Coucy and the greater part of the garrison which he had left in London. Next day (Thursday, 27th) he reached Farnham, but only to find it prepared for defence against him, and to learn that Winchester castle was lost to him,[141] its castellans having surrendered it before they knew of his return to England.[142]

No sooner did the Marshal hear that Louis was back than he gave orders for the immediate razing of all the castles which had been retaken, except Farnham.[143] It was Farnham that Louis now turned to attack. The outer bailey was speedily captured by assault; but the keep, as a foreign chronicler quaintly says, “heeded it not.”[144] Next day (Friday, 28th April) Earl Saer of Winchester came to Louis asking for help to relieve Mountsorel.[145] Its garrison of ten knights and some men at arms under Henry de Braybroke had held out manfully for nearly a month, but had now found it needful to ask their lord, Saer, for succour.[146] After some consultation Louis, “being unable to get rid of him otherwise,”[147] sent him to London with orders that some of the leaders there should supply him with troops and accompany him to Mountsorel for the twofold purpose of relieving that fortress and “subduing the whole province” to Louis himself. Under the joint command of Saer, the count of Perche, Robert Fitz Walter, and some other barons, a large body of knights and men-at-arms, some English, some French, and “all coveting their neighbour’s goods,” as an indignant chronicler says, set out accordingly from London on Monday, 1st May.[148]

From S. Alban’s, where they halted for the night, the French mercenaries went about plundering churches, desecrating cemeteries, and putting “all sorts of people” to torture and ransom; at the abbey they got nothing but food and drink, Louis having apparently given it to be understood that he was “satisfied” with the larger sum which he had recently extorted from the abbot, and that they must exact nothing more. A marvellous experience which befell some of the sacrilegious spoilers at Redburn[149] probably sobered them somewhat, for they passed through Dunstable “without doing much harm.”[150] When, a few days later, they reached Mountsorel, they found that, so far as that castle was concerned, their work was done. The leaders of the besieging force had had timely warning from their scouts, and had withdrawn to Nottingham.[151]

Louis meanwhile had on Saturday, 29th April, marched from Farnham to Winchester, his rearguard chased by a party of Royalists from Windsor, who, however, failed to overtake it. The Marshal, after demolishing the castle as much as haste permitted, had evacuated the city, and the few Royalists left in it fled at the approach of the French. Louis stayed there five days, to put in train the restoration of the castle. On 4th May—Ascension Day—he left the completion of this work and the custody of the city to the Count of Nevers, and set out once more for London.[152] There he heard that the garrison of Dover had broken their truce, and chased and slain some of his men who had arrived at Dover after he left it. He stayed in London two nights and then went on to Dover, and on the Friday before Whit-Sunday, 12th May, set up his trebuchet before the castle, while his men built themselves huts all around in preparation for a renewal of the siege. Next day (Whitsun Eve) forty of his ships reappeared, seeking to enter the harbour; but a contrary wind drove them back to Calais, all except five, which made their way in together. On Monday, 15th, the other thirty-five came again from Calais. At the same time there hove in sight some eighty or more ships “great and small,” among them twenty “great ships armed and prepared for battle,” coming from Romney under Philip d’Aubigné and Nicolas Haringot. The small French transports, not daring to risk a meeting with these big vessels, fled towards Calais; twenty-seven of them however had advanced so far that they could not withdraw in time to avoid an encounter; eight of these were captured, the sailors and men-at-arms whom they carried were slain at once, and the knights imprisoned in the holds of the ships, “where they were uncomfortable enough.” The victorious English ships then anchored before the castle, thus effectually cutting off its besiegers from all chance of reinforcement by sea. Louis vented his rage by sending some of his men by land to burn Hythe and Romney; the “Wealdsmen” attacked them, but seemingly without success.[153]

While Louis was in London, the host which had gone to relieve Mountsorel moved eastward to Lincoln, at the urgent request of Hugh of Arras, who went in person to beg that they would all join him and his “Northern” friends at the siege of Lincoln Castle. He was, he said, almost on the point of taking it, and its capture would be a great advantage to the cause of Louis. After some debate the leaders consented, and the whole force marched to Lincoln and quartered itself in and around the city.[154] Tidings of this movement reached the Marshal on the Friday before Whit-Sunday {12 May}—the day on which Louis set up his trebuchet at Dover—when the council and the loyal barons were gathered round the King at Northampton for the approaching festival.[155] Hereupon, says his biographer, “God, Who supports, maintains, and counsels all loyal men, put into their hearts a marvellous counsel, of which came much good and much honour to them. List, then, the sum of the counsel with which God inspired the man chosen and renowned and trusted above them all. ‘Hearken,’ spoke William the Marshal, ‘loyal knights and all ye who are in fealty to the king! For God’s sake hearken to me, for what I have to say deserves a hearing. This day we bear the burden of arms to defend our fame, and for ourselves and our dear ones, our wives and children, and to keep our land in safety, and to win great honour, and for the peace of Holy Church, which these men have wronged and ill-used, and to gain remission and pardon of all our sins. Take heed then that there be no backsliders amongst us.’”[156] After this solemn exordium he put the situation clearly before his audience. Part of the enemies were sieging Lincoln Castle, but only a part; Louis was elsewhere, and “those who accompanied him had got themselves foolishly into a tangle.”[157] Here, then, was an opportunity not to be lightly thrown away. “For God’s sake, let us stake everything upon it! Remember that if we gain the victory, we shall increase our honour, and preserve for ourselves and our posterity the freedom which these men seek to take from us. We will keep it. God wills us to defend it! Therefore every man must bestir himself to the utmost of his power, for the thing cannot be done else. There must be no gaps in our armed ranks; our advance upon the foe must be no mere threat; but we must fall upon them swiftly. God of His mercy has granted us the hour for vengeance upon those who are come hither to do us ill; let no man draw back!” The whole assembly “took heart and hope, strength and hardihood” from his words, and became eager to go forward at all costs.[158] So, with the unanimous consent of Gualo and the other members of the royal council, the Marshal called upon all loyal castellans and knights to muster at Newark on Whit-Monday, 15th May.[159] They came gladly, to the number of four hundred knights, near two hundred and fifty cross-bowmen, and so many sergeants and horsemen as might well make up for the small number of knights.[160] The leaders of the host were the two William Marshals, Bishop Peter of Winchester (who was “learned in the art of war”), the Earls of Chester, Ferrers, and Aumale, William d’Aubigny, John Marshal, William de Cantelupe with his son of the same name, Falkes de Bréauté, Thomas Basset, Robert de Vipont, Brian de Lisle, Geoffrey de Lucy, Philip d’Aubigné, “and others.”[161]

Next day arose a new peril, which recalls one of the incidents that preceded another battle at Lincoln, seventy-six years before. “The Normans who were in the host” went to the younger William Marshal and addressed him thus: “Fair sir, you were born in Normandy; you ought to know that it is the right of the Normans to strike the first blow in every battle. Take heed that we lose not our right.” Earl Ranulf of Chester, however—like his father in 1141—claimed the same privilege for himself, and bluntly declared that unless he were placed in the van, he would not go with the host, and they should have no help from him. The Earl Marshal and the other leaders were obliged to pacify him by granting his demand, on the understanding that the right of the Normans should not be thereby prejudiced for the future.[162] Three days were spent at Newark {Tues., 16 May}, as a breathing-time for men and horses and an opportunity for religious exercises to prepare the men for their task. On the third morning {Fri., 19 May}, after Mass, the Legate and clergy again excommunicated Louis by name, with all his accomplices and abettors, especially those who were sieging Lincoln castle, “together with the city of Lincoln and all its contents.” The Legate then gave plenary absolution to all who, having made a truthful confession, were about to take part in the expedition.[163] This done, the whole host flew to horse and arms.[164]

The Legate set out for Nottingham,[165] taking with him the young King. For the fighting men, the direct route would have been the Foss Way, which ran in an almost straight line from Newark to Lincoln. But it ran to the southernmost gate of the city, below the hill; and their aim was to reach the western side of the castle on the hill-top without passing through the city, which was in the hands of the enemy. They therefore fetched a compass to the northward as far as Torksey;[166] and there, or at Stow[167] hard by, they spent the night. On Saturday morning (May 20th), after Mass, they drew up in full array for their final march upon Lincoln.[168] Once more the Marshal bade them fight, “for honour or Paradise,” against the enemies of God and the Church. “God has given them into our hands; up and at them! The hour is come!” “And all who heard him bore themselves joyfully, as if they were going to a tournament.”[169] Chester led the van; the Marshal and his sons commanded the next division; Earl William of Salisbury the third, and Bishop Peter of Winchester the fourth, which consisted of cross-bowmen.[170] Another body of cross-bowmen—perhaps commanded by Falkes—seems to have formed an advanced guard which marched a mile in front of the rest of the host.[171]

The boundaries of medieval Lincoln were determined by those of the Roman city on the site of which it was built. They formed, roughly speaking, a parallelogram whose length from north to south was considerably greater than its width, and whose northern half stood on the summit of a steep and rocky hill whence the southern half sloped down almost to the bank of the river Witham; the whole was divided longitudinally by the Roman road known as Ermine Street. The city “above hill” represented the original Roman camp; to this the part “below hill” had been added in the later days of the Roman occupation. The wall wherewith, in the thirteenth century and for many centuries after, the whole was encompassed, followed in the main the outlines of the Roman enclosure thus enlarged. The castle, founded by William the Conqueror and partly reconstructed in the twelfth century, occupied the south-western angle of the first Roman city: it was thus enclosed on the north, east, and south within the later city, from which it was separated by a wide and deep ditch. This ditch was continued along its outer or western side; and on this side the walls of castle and city formed one continuous line, the wall being carried across the ditch at the north-western and south-western extremities of the castle enclosure. Immediately north of the ditch at the former of these two points of junction between the city wall and the castle wall, stood the West Gate of the city; whether there was also a gate at the southern junction point is not known. The castle had two main entrances; one on the east, towards the city; the other on the west side, towards the open country. The keep was on the south side. Beyond the western wall and ditch the plateau formed by the hill-top extended some little distance; and it was here that King Stephen had entrenched himself when he besieged the castle in 1141, leaving the bishop and citizens to watch the other three sides. The partisans of Louis seem not to have been sufficiently sure of the citizens to venture on following Stephen’s example; for they had evidently made no attempt to occupy the site of his encampment, but had set up all their machines and concentrated all their forces within the city, directing all their attacks upon the castle from thence, and taking no steps to prevent its garrison from communicating through the western sally-port with their friends outside.

The main road from Torksey and Stow to Lincoln now enters the city south of the castle; but there is a branch road connecting it at Burton with an old Roman way which runs from Kirton-in-Lindsey and enters Lincoln by the West Gate; and this appears to have been the way taken by the Royalists. At some distance from the gate they halted, and the Marshal sent forward his nephew John to open communications with the garrison.[172] On his way John met Dame Nicolaa’s lieutenant constable, Geoffrey de Serland, whom she had despatched from the castle secretly to tell the leaders of the relieving host how matters stood within, and that a “little door,” or “postern at the back”—that is, the small door of the western sally-port, by which no doubt Geoffrey himself had gone out—was already open to receive them.[173] With this welcome message John Marshal hastened back; he was seen and chased by some Frenchmen, but escaped unharmed.[174] Two of the English barons who were in the city, Robert Fitz-Walter and Saer de Quincy the Earl of Winchester, rode out to reconnoitre as soon as the Royalists’ approach was known. On their return they said: “These warriors come on in good order, but we are far more in number than they; let us go out to meet them at the ascent of the hill, and then we can catch them all like larks in a cage.” The Count of Perche, however, who was in command of the French troops, was too cautious to act upon a report so vague and went out himself with another of the French leaders, to count the enemies, as he said, “according to the custom of France.” He was, however, deceived in his reckoning; for each of the Royalist chieftains had two banners, one of which led his contingent in the fighting host while the other was with his baggage, so that the baggage, forming a separate group in the rear, looked like another army and was mistaken for such by the two Frenchmen, who went back doubting what was best to do. They finally decided to shut the city gates and thus, as they hoped, hold the city till they should have won the castle[175]; thinking that the English, with men and horses wearied from a long march, would not attempt to penetrate within the walls. When this movement came to the knowledge of the Marshal, he made it an argument for instant attack. “See, they retire behind their walls! The victory is ours already, when these men, ever foremost in tourney, hide themselves at our approach. Let us do the right, for God wills it!”[176]

It was easy to introduce troops into the castle by the western sally-port; but it would not be so easy to pass the whole relieving force through the castle into the city. Bishop Peter of Winchester, who according to the Marshal’s biographer “was the master in counselling our people that day,”[177] seems to have resolved on trying to ascertain for himself where a direct entrance into the city could be effected. He led his men up to the castle wall, bade them await him there, and with a single attendant entered the fortress. He found it greatly damaged by the long siege, and in such constant peril from the French mangonels and stone-casters, still actively at work, that its occupants begged him to withdraw from the great court into the shelter of the keep. Thence, after complimenting and encouraging the “good dame,”[178] he stole out, evidently by the small south door,[179] on a yet more hazardous reconnoitring expedition into the city, “wishing to see how it stood.”[180] Looking about him, he caught sight of a gate “which joined the walls of the city with those of the castle,” and which was “blocked with stone and cement.” This was apparently the West Gate of the city.[181] The reason for which it had been blocked, whether this was done by the French or (as is more probable) under orders from Nicolaa[182] at an earlier period of the war, is not difficult to guess. Lincoln had more gates than could easily be guarded all at once;[183] if one of them was rendered impassable, there was one less to watch and defend. The sequel implies that the “stone and cement” were not so put together as to form a wall of solid masonry; probably the door on the inner side of the gateway had been closed and the obstruction piled up, rather than built up, on the outer side; if so, it might be cleared away without its removal being noticed inside the city until the door was forced open.[184] In all likelihood Peter’s discovery of this possible entrance had really been made as he passed the outer side of the gate on his way to the castle, and the purpose of his daring venture was to learn whether its inner side was penetrable and unguarded. He found that it was so, and having made his way back safely to his friends, gave orders for the gate to be cleared out. His comrades of the host came to meet him joyously, “every man in the ranks singing as if the victory were already won”; Peter merrily told them that when they had gained possession of the city he should claim the bishop’s house for his own residence, as a reward for having prepared them a safe way of entry.[185]

Possibly, however, the lay leaders may have been unwilling to stake the safety of their enterprise solely on the judgement of their episcopal counsellor; for it seems that while Falkes de Bréauté, with his own followers and all the cross-bowmen, was sent into the castle, the main body of the host went round to the north gate—the Roman “Porta Nova,” “New Port,” now reduced to a single great arch with a smaller one at its side, but in the Marshal’s day probably still almost complete in the pristine strength of its solid Roman masonry, forming an arched passage flanked by two smaller passages, some twenty feet long,[186] and closed with heavy doors which the Royalists set to work to batter in.[187] The French party were plying their engines vigorously on the castle when suddenly they saw its walls and towers bristling with cross-bowmen; and “as in the twinkling of an eye” a shower of quarrels, aimed with deadly effect at the destriers of the besiegers, reduced many knights and barons of high rank among them to the condition of foot soldiers. The sight of their discomfiture tempted Falkes to make a dash from the eastern gate of the castle into their midst, with some of his personal followers; he was, however, quickly surrounded and captured, but was gallantly rescued by his men.[188] Bishop Peter meanwhile was protesting to the Marshal against the folly—as he deemed it—of trying to force an entrance elsewhere than at the “safe” place where, as he said, there was an opening in the wall ready for use, yet hidden from and unguarded by the enemy. “By my head! those men are wrong; they have not found the right way to get in. I will lead you to it; come with me.” “By God’s sword! hither, my helmet!” was the Marshal’s reply.[189] Peter however now held him back and proposed that before risking a general assault two men from each “battle” or division of the host should be sent to look around for ambushes.[190] This was done; but the Marshal was too impatient to await the result. He at once “put himself forward on his way,” calling his own men to the onset: “Forward! Now shall ye see your enemies vanquished in a few hours; shame to him who longer delays!” Again Peter tried to check him, begging him to wait till the whole host could be reunited and the attack made in full force. The aged warrior would not listen; “swifter than a merlin he struck spurs into his horse, so that all who were with him gathered hardihood as they beheld him.” A “valet” called after him that he was, after all, going without his helmet; “Stop here while I fetch it,” said the Marshal to his son. In a moment he was back again, “and when he had thus covered his head, he was goodly to look upon beyond all the rest—light in movement as a bird, hawk or eaglet.” “Hungry lion never rushed on its prey so hotly as the Marshal on his foes”; at the first onset he dashed three spears’ length into their midst, cutting his way through them and scattering them on all sides, while Bishop Peter followed shouting “God help the Marshal!”[191]

By this time the stubborn attack on the north gate had succeeded, and all the Royalist forces thus poured in at once upon the besiegers of the castle,[192] who, although numerically stronger, were unable to withstand their onset,[193] aided as it was by the murderous fire which Falkes’s cross-bowmen, from their vantage-ground on the castle wall, poured down upon the horses of the French knights, the animals falling “like stuck pigs” while the riders were captured without possibility of rescue.[194] The French force is said to have consisted of six hundred and eleven knights and full a thousand footmen; it is not quite clear whether this reckoning includes their English allies.[195] Yet, small as were the numbers engaged on both sides, the fight lasted from between seven and eight o’clock in the morning till nearly three in the afternoon.[196] It was protracted partly by the stubborn persistence of the two parties, who both alike felt that the destiny of England was involved in its result, and partly by the impossibility, in the steep and narrow streets of a city such as Lincoln, of bringing it to a decisive issue in one general encounter. It thus became a battle of the old-world epic type, full of separate incidents and individual encounters; and this peculiar character, together with the extraordinarily small amount of actual bloodshed and loss of life that took place in it, probably suggested the name afterwards given to by the victors—“the Tournament,” or as the word is commonly but in this case perhaps less accurately rendered, “Fair of Lincoln.”[197]

The first recorded incident was one of good omen for the Royalists. Some of them found the enemy’s chief engineer[198] working a stone-caster which hurled stones against one of the towers of the castle. Mistaking the new-comers for knights of his own party, he, all the more eagerly, placed a stone in his machine, but as he was giving the signal for its discharge they came up behind him and struck off his head.[199] The Marshal and the Earl of Salisbury “turned to the right, leaving a minster on their left,”[200] and came upon a cluster of enemies, one of whom, Robert of Ropsley, levelled his spear “to joust,” and struck that of Longsword with such force that it shivered into fragments; but the Marshal gave him such a blow between the shoulders that he fell to the ground “and crawled away to hide himself.” The fight swept onward almost to the brow of the hill on which the city was set, till on a level space near the great minster,[201] the French made a resolute stand under the direction of the Count of Perche.[202] He was only a youth, of scarce two and twenty years,[203] “handsome, tall, and noble-looking.”[204] He stood at bay as bravely as King Stephen had stood in somewhat like circumstances in the earlier battle of Lincoln; and for a while he and his men succeeded in checking the progress of the Royalists. By degrees, however, the French lost ground and began to fall back down the hill. Perche, with a few of his personal followers, alone kept his post, and was at last surrounded by almost the whole force of the English. They called upon him to surrender, but he refused with an oath, saying he would never yield to one of a race “who had been traitors to their king.”[205] Reginald Croc, a knight of Falkes’s household,[206] then levelled a spear at him and struck him in the eye. The Marshal, coming up at that moment, seized the bridle of the count’s horse, “and it seemed right, as the count was the chief man on the French side.” Perche dropped the bridle, took his sword in both hands, and struck with it on the Marshal’s helmet three blows in quick succession, “so mighty that they dinted it visibly,” and then suddenly fell from his horse. The Marshal thought he had fainted, “and feared that he himself should be blamed therefor.” “Dismount and take off his helmet,” said one of Perche’s men, William of Montigny, “for it hurts him; but I doubt he will stand up no more.” Croc’s spear had in fact pierced through the eye to the brain, and when the helmet was removed the friends and foes who crowded round saw that the gallant youth was dead.[207]

Perche’s comrades at once rushed down the hill[208] and rejoined the bulk of the French troops, to whom his heroism and the concentration of the English around his person had given a breathing-space of which they had made good use. They and their English allies had rallied in the lower town, and now came, in close array, up the hill, hoping to regain possession of its summit. Meanwhile the young Marshal had rejoined his father. “Are you hurt?” asked the Earl. “No, Sir.” “Forward then! This day we will conquer, or chase them from the field.” Attacked on their right flank by Chester and his “good folk” before they reached the hill-top, confronted when they did reach it by the Marshals, and shut in between the minster and the castle, the French, after another stubborn fight, were again driven down the slope; and this time they were chased right out of the city and through its southern gate, or Stone-Bow,[209] to Wigford Bridge.[210] There they made a last gallant stand, fighting with such desperate fury that “if God had spoken by thunder, He would not have been heard.” Their pursuers were no less daring and impetuous: William Bloet, the young Marshal’s standard-bearer, charged into the crowd on the bridge with such vehemence that he and his horse went sheer over into the river, only, however, to struggle out again with equal quickness and gallantry. Gradually the cry of “King’s men! King’s men!”[211] rose higher above the din. Saer de Quincy and his son Robert were taken; so was Robert FitzWalter; so were several other rebel barons;[212] at last the rest turned and fled across the suburb of Wigford by “the street which goes straight to the hospital”[213]—in other words, the whole length of the present High Street—till they reached the outer or furthermost gate of Lincoln.[214] This gate, known as the Great or Western Bar-Gate, protected the bridge by which the main road from Lincoln to the south crossed the great drain called the Sincil Dyke. Here the fugitives were checked by a double obstacle. The bar of the gate was so constructed that the gate closed of itself after every individual who passed in or out. Just as the foremost of them reached it, a cow tried to enter, and, the gate falling upon her, stuck fast, so that egress was altogether impossible till the animal was slain; and even then, as there was apparently no means of fixing the gate open, each man as he came up had to dismount and open it for himself.[215] The unhappy fugitives might, it seems, have been captured or even slain almost to a man, had their pursuers so willed it; but many of them were English, and the ties of blood restrained their kinsmen in the royalist host from carrying the pursuit to extremity.[216] Notwithstanding this forbearance, however, a large number of prisoners were captured.[217] Among these were nearly all the English barons who had sided with Louis;[218] no less than seven were taken by John Marshal, and several by Bishop Peter and his men;[219] forty-six in all are named by contemporary historians;[220] and the prisoners of knightly rank numbered three hundred,[221] besides many others of lesser degree. Those who escaped “stopped neither by night nor by day, in town or house, for they thought that on every hill-side and in every dale the bushes were all full of Marshals.”[222] Only three of the “great men” among the French—Simon of Poissy, Hugh the castellan of Arras, and Eustace de Merlinghem the constable of Boulogne—reached London with some two hundred knights. The foot-soldiers were nearly all slain by the country folk who came out “with swords and staves” to intercept their flight.[223] In the actual battle only five men had been slain; on one side the Count of Perche, two of his knights,[224] and a man-at-arms whom no one recognized; on the other, Perche’s slayer, Reginald Croc.[225]

Unhappily, the English sullied their victory by sacking Lincoln. Not content with seizing the baggage and valuable goods of the French nobles and the rebel barons, which they found piled up in waggons in some of the streets, they “despoiled the whole city, even to the uttermost farthing”; and on the strength of Gualo’s exhortation to treat the canons of the cathedral chapter as excommunicate (owing to their having been throughout the war in opposition to the King), they plundered every church, breaking open chests and presses and carrying off plate, jewels, vestments, and money; the precentor of the cathedral lost eleven thousand marks. Many women fled from the city with their children and household goods, and sought to escape in boats, but through their overcrowding and ignorance of rowing all the little vessels capsized, the occupants were drowned, and the goods became the prize of anyone who fished them up from the bottom of the river.[226] All these things were done after the Marshal had left the city. As soon as the fight was over he and the other leaders held a council to consider what they should do next. Some were for marching on London, some for trying to dislodge Louis from Dover. As they could not agree, the Marshal with his usual practical good sense bade them all go home and place their respective prisoners in safety, and meet him again, with the Legate, on a day which he named, at Chertsey,[227] or, according to another account, at Oxford.[228] He then, without stopping even to eat, hurried with his tidings of victory to the King and the Legate at Nottingham. Thither, next morning {Trinity Sunday, 21 May}, came news of another gain to the royal cause; the garrison of Mountsorel, whose constable, Henry de Braybroke, had gone with Saer de Quincy to Lincoln, had fled and left the castle deserted.[229] The Earl of Salisbury appears to have been sent to secure it for the King; two days later {23 May} an order was issued to him from Lincoln, in the King’s name, to deliver it to Earl Ranulf of Chester,[230] who forthwith razed it to the ground.[231]