CHAPTER XIII. WINNING HIS SPURS.
"Tomorrow, good comrades in arms, we will show yon laggard King of whatstuff English chivalry is made!" cried the young Prince of Wales, as herose to his feet and held a bumper of wine high above his head. "We haveour spurs to win, and tomorrow shall be our chance. Here is to thevictory of the English arms! May the mighty St. George fight upon ourside, and bring us with glory and honour through the day!"
Every guest at the Prince's table had leaped to his feet. Swords wereunsheathed and waved in wild enthusiasm, and a shout went up that waslike one of triumph, as with one voice the guests around the Prince'stable drained their cups to the victory of the English cause, shoutingwith one voice, as if formulating a battle cry:
"St. George and the Prince! St. George and the Prince!"
In the English camp that night there were elation and revelry; not thewild carousing that too often in those days preceded a battle and leftthe soldiers unfit for duty, but a cheerful partaking of good andsufficient food before the night's rest and ease which the King hadresolved upon for his whole army, in preparation for the battle thatcould scarce be delayed longer than the morrow.
It was early on Thursday morning, the twenty-fourth day of August, thatthe ford of the Blanche Tache had been crossed. Thursday and Friday hadbeen spent by the English in skirmishing about in search of provisions,of which great abundance had been found, and in deciding upon thedisposition of their troops in a favourable position for meeting theadvance of the French.
The King had selected some wooded and rising ground in the vicinity ofthe then obscure little village of Crecy. Then having made all hisarrangements with skill and foresight, and having ordered that his menshould be provided with ample cheer, and should rest quietly during thenight, he himself gave a grand banquet to the leaders of his army; andthe young Prince of Wales followed his father's example by inviting tohis own quarters some score of bold and congenial spirits amongst theyouthful gentlemen who followed his father's banner, to pass the timewith them in joyous feasting, and to lay plans for the glory of thecoming day.
It is difficult in these modern days to realize how young were someamongst those who took part in the great battles of the past. The BlackPrince, as he was afterwards called from the sombre hue of the armour hewore, was not yet fifteen when the Battle of Crecy was fought; and whenthe King had summoned his bold subjects to follow him to the war, he hadcalled upon all knights and gentlemen between the ages of sixteen andtwenty to join themselves to him for this campaign in France. Lads whowould now be reckoned as mere schoolboys were then doughty warriorswinning their spurs in battle; and some of the most brilliant charges ofthose chivalrous days were led and carried through mainly by striplingsscarce twenty years old. Inured from infancy to hardy sports, andtrained to arms to the exclusion almost of all other training, thesebold sons of England certainly proved equal to the demands made uponthem. True, they were often skilfully generalled by older men, but theyoung ones held their own in prowess in the field; and child as thePrince of Wales would now be considered, the right flank of the army wasto be led by him upon the morrow; and though the Earls of Warwick andHereford and other trusty veterans were with him, his was the command,and to him were they to look.
No wonder then that the comrades who had marched with him through theselast hazardous days, and who had been with and about him for many months-- some of them for years -- should rally round him now with the keenestenthusiasm. The De Brocas brothers were there -- Oliver and Bernard(John had not left England to follow the fortunes of the war) -- as wellas Gaston and his brother, whose return had been warmly welcomed by thePrince. He had heard about the rescue of the woodman's son, and had beengreatly interested and taken by Raymond and his story. Student though hemight be by nature, Raymond was as eager as any for the fight that wasto come. He had caught the spirit of the warlike King's camp, and hisblood was on fire to strike a blow at the foe who had so long harassedand thwarted them.
And it was not all rioting and feasting in the camp that night. Thesoldiers supped well and settled to rest; but the King, when his guestshad departed, went to his oratory and spent the night upon his knees,his prayer being less for himself than for his gallant boy; less forvictory than that England's honour might be upheld, and that whateverwas the issue of the day, this might be preserved stainless in the sightof God and man.
Then very early in the morning, whilst almost all the camp slept, theKing was joined by his son, the Prince being followed by Raymond, whohad also kept vigil upon his knees that night, and they, with some halfscore of devout spirits, heard mass and received the Sacrament; whilst alittle later on the monks and priests were busy hearing the confessionsof the greater part of the soldiers, who after receiving the priestlyabsolution went into battle with a loftier courage than before.
When this had been done and still the French army appeared not, the Kinggave orders that the men should be served with something to eat anddrink, after which they might sit down at their ease to wait till theiradversaries appeared.
Meantime the French were having anything but a comfortable time of it.They had remained inactive in Abbeville for the whole of Friday as wellas the preceding Thursday, after they had retreated thither from theford where the English had given them the slip; and on Saturday theywere marched off none too well fed, to meet their English foes.
Philip was so confident that his immense superiority in numbers wascertain to give him the victory, that he thought little of the comfortof his men, the consequence being that they grew jaded and weary withthe long hot march taken in an ill-fed state; and his own marshals atlast very earnestly entreated their lord to call a halt for rest andrefreshment before the troops engaged in battle, or else the men wouldfight at a terrible disadvantage.
Philip consented to this, and a halt was called, which was obeyed by theranks in front; but those behind, eager to fall upon the English, andconfident of easy victory, declined to wait, and went steadily forward,shouting "Kill! kill!" as they went, till all the alleys became filledup and choked. The press from behind urged forward the men in front, andthe army moved on perforce once again, though now no longer in order,but in a confused and unmanageable mass.
Just as they came in sight of the English line of battle a heavy tempestof thunder and rain came upon them. The clouds seemed to dischargethemselves upon the French host, and those birds of evil omen, theravens, flew screaming overhead, throwing many men into paroxysms ofterror who would never have blenched before the drawn blade of an armed foe.
Worse than this, the rain wet and slackened the strings of the Genoesecrossbowmen, who marched in the foremost rank; and hungry and weary asthey were, this last misfortune seemed to put the finishing touch totheir discomfiture. Hireling soldiers, whose hearts are not in thecause, have been the curse of many a battlefield; and though theseGenoese advanced with a great shouting against the foe, as though hopingto affright them by their noise, they did little enough except shout,till their cries were changed to those of agony and terror as theirineffectual shower of bolts was answered by a perfect hail of shaftsfrom the English archers' dreaded longbows, whilst the sun shining fullinto their dazzled eyes rendered ineffectual any farther attempt ontheir part to shoot straight at the foe. The hired archers turned andfled, and throwing into confusion the horsemen behind who were eager tocharge and break the ranks of the English archers, the luckless men weremown down ruthlessly by their infuriated allies, whose wrath was burningagainst them now that they had proved not only useless but a serioushindrance.
This was by no means a promising beginning for the French; but still,with their overwhelming superiority of numbers, they had plenty ofconfidence left; and the English, though greatly encouraged by thebreaking and havoc in the ranks of the foe, were by no means recklesslyconfident that the day was theirs.
Presumably the English King, who with the reserves was posted upon thehighest ground at some distance behind the two wings, had the best viewof the battle. The left wing
, commanded by the Earls of Northampton andArundel, occupied the stronger position, being protected on their leftby the little river Maye. The young Prince was in the position of thegreatest danger; and as he and his companions stood in their ranks,watching the onset of the battle with parted lips, and breath that cameand went with excitement, they began to see that upon them and their menthe brunt of the day would fall.
It had been the King's command that the battle should be fought on footby the English, probably owing to the wooded and uncertain nature of theground, else his far-famed cavalry would hardly have been dismounted.The Prince then stood still in his place, gazing with kindling eyes atthe confusion in the ranks of the foe, till the glint of a blood-redbanner in their ranks caught his eye, and he cried aloud to his men,
"The oriflamme! the oriflamme, good comrades! See ye that, and know yewhat it means when the King of France unfurls it? It is a signal that nolives will be spared, no quarter granted to the foe. If we go not on tovictory, we march every man to his death!"
A shout that was like a cheer was the response of the gallant littleband who stood shoulder to shoulder with the Prince, and the word beingpassed from mouth to mouth was received everywhere with like courageousenthusiasm, so that the cheer went ringing down from line to line, andhearts beat high and hand grasped sword ever harder and faster as thetide of battle rolled onward, until the word was given and the trumpetssounded the advance.
"Keep by my side and the Prince's, Raymond," breathed Gaston, as slowlyand steadily they pressed down the hill towards the spot where theFrench horse under the Count of Alencon were charging splendidly intothe ranks of the archers and splitting the harrow into which they hadbeen formed by Edward's order into two divisions. The Count of Flanderslikewise, knowing that the King's son was in this half of the battle,called on his men to follow him, and with a fine company of Germans andSavoyards made for the spot where the young Prince was gallantlyfighting, and cheering on his men to stand firm for the honour of England.
Shoulder to shoulder, fearless and dauntless, stood the little band ofgallant knights and gentlemen who formed the bodyguard of the Prince.Again and again had the horsemen charged them; but the soldiers threwthemselves beneath the horses of the foe and stabbed them through thebody, so that hundreds of gallant French knights were overthrown andslain ere they well knew what had befallen them. But in the press andthe heat of battle it was hard to say how the tide would turn. Thecommanders of the left wing of the English, the Earls of Northampton andArundel, were forcing their way inch by inch to reach the Prince's sideand divert from his immediate neighbourhood the whole stress of theopposing force now concentred there. They could see that the Prince wasstill unharmed, fighting with the gallantry of his soldier race. But theodds for the moment were heavily against him; and they despatched amessenger to the King, who remained with the reserves, begging him to goto the assistance of the Prince. Ere the messenger returned, they hadfought their own way into the melee, and had joined issue with thegallant youth, who, fearless and full of spirit, was encouraging his menalike by the boldness of his demeanour and by his shouts ofencouragement and praise, though his breath was coming thick and fast,and the drops of exhaustion stood upon his brow.
"Fear not, sweet Prince," cried Arundel, raising his voice so that allwho were near could hear: "we have sent word to your Royal Sire of thestress of the battle round you, and he will soon be here himself withthe help that shall enable us to rout this rebel host;" and he turnedhis eyes somewhat anxiously towards the height where the King and hiscompany still remained motionless.
But a messenger was spurring back through the open ground which laybetween the reserves and the right wing where such hot work was goingon. He made straight for the spot where the Prince was fighting, andboth the Earls turned eagerly towards him.
"What said the King?" they asked quickly. "When will he be with us?"
"He asked," replied the messenger, "whether the Prince were killed orwounded; and when I told him nay, but in a hard passage of arms whereinhe needed his Sire's help, the King folded his arms and turned away,saying, 'Let the boy win his spurs; for I will that the glory of thisday be his, and not mine.'"
As those words were spoken it seemed as if new life were infused intothe young Prince himself and all those who surrounded him. A ringingcheer rose from all their throats. They formed once again under theiryoung leader, and charged the enemy with a fury that nothing was able toresist. The horsemen were forced hack the way they had come. The Countswho had led them boldly and well were unhorsed and slain. Dismay andterror fell upon the breaking ranks of the French, and they turned andfled; whilst the excited and triumphant young Prince pursued them withshouts of exultation and triumph, till he found himself with his fewmost faithful followers in the midst of the flying but hostile rankssome little distance away from the English army.
"Sweet Prince, beware! have a care how you adventure your life thus inthe enemy's ranks," whispered Raymond in his ear, he alone keeping acool head in the midst of so much that was exciting. "See, here comesome score of horsemen who know thee and would fain cut off thy retreat.Let us here make a stand and receive the charge, else shall we all beoverthrown together."
This cautious counsel came only just in time. Young Edward looked roundto see that his reckless bravery had placed him for the moment inimminent peril; but he had all the courage of his race, and his heartquailed not for an instant. Giving the word to his comrades to form acompact square, he placed himself where the onset was like to be thefiercest; nor was there time for his companions to interfere to placehim in a position of greater safety.
With a great shout of rage and triumph the band of horsemen, who hadrecognized the person of the Prince, now rushed upon him, resolvedeither to carry him off a prisoner or leave him lying dead upon thefield, so that the English might have little joy in their victory. Sofierce was the attack that the Prince was borne to the ground; and theBattle of Crecy might have been a dark instead of a bright page inEngland's history, but for the gallantry of a little band of Welshmenheaded by Richard de Beaumont, the bearer of the banner portraying thegreat red dragon of Merlin, which had floated all day over the boldWelsh contingent.
Flinging this banner over the prostrate form of the Prince, the bravesoldier called on his men to charge the horses and cut them down. Thisthey did in the way before mentioned -- throwing themselves underneathand stabbing them through the heart. So their riders, finding even thislast effort futile, joined in the headlong flight of their compatriots;and the Prince's faithful attendants crowded round him to raise him upagain, greatly rejoicing to find that though breathless and confused bythe shock of his fall, he was none the worse for his overthrow, and wasquickly able to thank the brave Welshmen who had so opportunely come tothe rescue of him and his comrades.
"Now, we will back to the ranks and find my father," said the Prince,when he had spoken his courteous thanks and looked round about to see ifhis comrades had suffered more than himself.
One or two had received slight wounds, and Raymond was leaning uponGaston's shoulder looking white and shaken; but he quickly recovered,and declared himself only bruised and breathless, and still holding fastto Gaston's arm, followed the Prince up the hill amongst the heaps ofdying and dead.
Gaston was flushed with his exertions, and in his heart was room fornothing but pride and joy in the glorious victory just achieved. Butwhilst Raymond looked around him as he slowly moved, suffering morebodily pain than he wished his brother to know, his heart felt bruisedand crushed like his body, and a sudden sense of the vanity of humanlife and ambition came suddenly upon him, so much so that he scarce knewwhether he was in the flesh or in the spirit as he moved slowly andquietly onwards.
Everywhere he saw before him the bodies of men who but a few short hoursago had been full of strong vitality, instinct with the same passions ofhatred and loyalty as had animated their own ranks that day. How strangeit seemed to look into those dead faces now, and wonder what those freedspirits t
hought of those same passions that had been raging within thembut a few short hours before! Did it seem to them, as it almost seemedto him, that in all the world around there was nothing of moment enoughto arouse such tumult of passion and strife; that only the thingseternal the things that pass not away were worthy to be greatly soughtafter and longed for?
But his reverie was quickly interrupted by an exclamation from Gaston.
"See, Brother, the King! the King He is coming to meet his son, and hisnobles with him!"
It was a sight not soon to be forgotten, that meeting between thewarlike Edward and his bold young son, after the splendid triumph justachieved by the gallant boy. The King embraced the Prince with tears ofjoyful pride in his eyes, whilst the nobles standing round the Kingshouted aloud at the sight, and the soldiers made the welkin ring withtheir lusty English cheers.
Young Edward had received knighthood at his father's hand upon landingon the shores of France, though truly it was this day's fighting whichhad won him his spurs. But as the King was resolved to mark the occasionby some rewards to those who had stood by his gallant boy in the thickof the press, he quickly picked out from the cluster of noble youths whostood behind their young leader some six of gentle blood and knownbravery, and thereupon dubbed them knights upon the bloody battlefield.Amongst those thus singled out for such honourable notice were the twosons of the King's Master of the Horse, Oliver and Bernard de Brocas,the latter of whom was destined to be the Prince's chosen and trustedcomrade through many another warlike campaign.
Gladly and proudly did the royal boy stand by and see the reward ofvalour thus bestowed upon his chosen comrades of the day; but he seemedscarce satisfied by all that was done. His eye wandered quickly over thelittle knot grouped upon the knoll around the King, and then his glancetravelling yet farther to the remoter outskirts, he suddenly detachedhimself from the centre group, and ran quickly down the hillside till hereached the spot where the twin brothers were standing watching thescene with vivid interest, Raymond still leaning rather heavily upon hisbrother's arm.
"Nay now, why tarry ye here?" eagerly questioned the Prince. "Sure yewere amongst the most steadfast and fearless in the fight today.
"Good Raymond, but for thy quick eye and timely word of warning, we hadbeen fallen upon and scattered unawares, and perhaps had been cut topieces, ere we knew that we were vanquished rather than victors. Myfather is even now bestowing upon my gallant comrades the reward theirgood swords have won for them. Come, and let me present you twain tohim; for sure in all the gallant band that fought by my side none weremore worthy of knighthood than you. Come, and that quickly!"
A quick flush crossed Gaston's cheek as the guerdon so dear to the heartof the soldier was thus thrust upon him; but a whisper in his ear heldhim back.
"Gaston, we have no name; we cannot receive knighthood without revealingall. Has the time yet come to speak? Of that thou shalt be the judge. Iwill follow thy wishes in this as in all else."
For a moment Gaston stood debating with himself. Then the counsel ofprudence prevailed over that of youthful ambition. How were he and hisbrother worthily to support the offered rank? Even did they make knowntheir true parentage, that would not put money in their purses; and tobe poor dependents upon the bounty of relatives who had rejected theirmother and driven forth their father to seek his fortune as he could,was as repugnant to Gaston's pride now as it had been two years before.
"Sweet Prince," he answered, after this brief pause for thought, "wehave but done our duty today, and knighthood is far too great a rewardfor our poor merits. Sure it has been honour and glory enough to fightby your side, and win this gallant day. We are but poor youths, withouthome or friends. How could we receive a reward which we could notworthily wear? A penniless knight without servant or esquire would cutbut a sorry figure. Nay then, sweet Prince, let it be enough for us thisday to have won these gracious words at your lips. It may be when fairfortune has smiled upon us, and we are no longer poor and nameless, thatwe will come to you to crave the boon you have graciously offered thisday. We will remain for the nonce in our present state, but will everlook forward to the day when some other glorious victory may be won, andwhen we may come to our Prince for that reward which today we may notreceive at his hands."
"So be it," answered the Prince, his face, which had clouded over withregret a few moments earlier, lighting up again at these latter words."Be assured I will not forget you, nor the services ye have done me thisday. I too in days to come shall have knighthood to bestow upon thosewho have earned the right to wear it. Fear not that Edward ever willforget. Whenever the day comes that shall bring you thus to me for thereward so nobly earned today, that reward shall be yours. The King's sonhas promised it."
In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince Page 13