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Historical Tales [calibre 5.4.1]
- Автор: Morris Charles
- Год: 1893
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «Historical Tales [calibre 5.4.1]». Краткое содержание книги:
Historical Tales - Greek
Historical Tales - Roman
Historical Tales - English
Historical Tales - French
Historical Tales - German
Historical Tales - American I
Historical Tales - American II
Historical Tales - Spanish
Historical Tales - Spanish American
Historical Tales - Scandinavian
Historical Tales - Japanese
Historical Tales - Russian
On went the banner; on came the array of fighting knights; into the French host they pressed deeper and deeper, King John their goal. The field was strewn with dead and dying; panic was spreading in widening circles through the French army; the repulsed horsemen were in full flight and thou sands of those behind them broke and followed. King John fought with knightly courage, his son Philip, a boy of sixteen, by his side, aiding him by his cries of warning. But nothing could with stand the English onset. Some of his defenders fell, others fled; he would have fallen himself but for the help of a French knight, in the English service.
"Sir, yield you," he called to the king, pressing between him and his assailants.
"To whom shall I yield?" asked the king.
Where is my cousin, the prince of Wales?"
"He is not here, sir. Yield, and I will bring you to him."
"And who are you?"
"I am Denis of Morbecque, a knight of Artois. I serve the English king, for I am banished from France, and all I had has been forfeited."
"Then I yield me to you," said the king, handing him his right gauntlet.
Meanwhile the rout of the French had become complete. On all sides they were in flight; on all sides the English were in pursuit. The prince had fought until he was overcome with fatigue.
"I see no more banners or pennons of the French," said Sir John Chandos, who had kept beside him the day through.
"You are sore chafed. Set your banner high in this bush, and let us rest."
The prince's pavilion was set up, and drink brought him. As he quaffed it, he asked if any one had tidings of the French king.
"He is dead or taken," was the answer. "He has not left the field."
Two knights were thereupon sent to look for him, and had not got far before they saw a troop of men-at-arms wearily approaching. In their midst was Sing John, afoot and in peril, for they had taken him from Sir Denis, and were quarrelling as to who owned him.
"Strive not about my taking," said the king. "Lead me to the prince. I am rich enough to make you all rich."
The brawling went on, however, until the lords who had been sent to seek him came near.
"What means all this, good sirs?" they asked. "Why do you quarrel?"
"We have the French king prisoner," was the answer; "and there are more than ten knights and squires who claim to have taken him and his son."
The envoys at this bade them halt and cease their clamor, on pain of their heads, and taking the king and his son from their midst they brought him to the tent of the prince of Wales, where the exalted captives were received with all courtesy.
The battle, begun at dawn, was ended by noon. In that time was slain "all the flower of France; and there was taken, with the king and the Lord. Philip his son, seventeen earls, besides barons, knights, and squires."
The men returning from the pursuit brought in twice as many prisoners as their own army numbered in all. So great was the host of captives that many of them were ransomed on the spot, and set free on their word of honor to return to Bordeaux with their ransom before Christmas.
The prince and his comrades had breakfasted that morning in dread; they supped that night in triumph. The supper party, as described by Froissart, is a true picture of the days of chivalry,—in war all cruelty, in peace all courtesy; ruthless in the field, gentle and ceremonious at the feast. Thus the picturesque old chronicler limns it,—
"The prince made the king and his son, the Lord James of Bourbon, the Lord John d'Artois, the earl of Tancarville, the Lord d'Estampes, the Earl Dammartyn, the earl of Greville, and the earl of Pertney, to sit all at one board, and other lords, knights, and squires at other tables; and always the prince served before the king as humbly as he could, and would not sit at the king's board, for any desire that the king could make; but he said he was not sufficient to sit at the table with so great a prince as the king was; but then he said to the king, ‘Sir, for God's sake, make none evil nor heavy cheer, though God did not this day consent to follow your will; for, sir, surely the king my father shall bear you as much honor and amity as he may do, and shall accord with you so reasonably, and ye shall ever be friends together after; and, sir, methinks you ought to rejoice, though the journey be not as you would have had it; for this day ye have won the high renown of prowess, and have passed this day in valiantness all other of your party. Sir, I say not this to mock you; for all that be on our party, that saw every man's deeds, are plainly accorded by true sentence to give you the prize and chaplet."
So ended that great day at Poitiers. It ended miserably enough for France, the routed soldiery themselves becoming bandits to ravage her, and the people being robbed for ransom till the whole realm was given over to misery and woe.
It ended famously for England, another proud chaplet of victory being added to the crown of glory of Edward III. and his valiant son, the great day at Crecy being matched with as great a day at Poitiers. Agincourt was still to come, the three being the most notable instances in history of the triumph of a handful of men well led over a great but feebly-handled host. The age of knighthood and chivalry reached its culmination on these three memorable days. It ended at Agincourt, "villanous gunpowder" sounding its requiem on that great field. Cannon, indeed, had been used by Edward III. in his wars; but not until after this date did firearms banish the spear and bow from the "tented field."
Wat Tyler and the Men of Kent
In that year of woe and dread, 1348, the Black Death fell upon England. Never before had so frightful a calamity been known; never since has it been equaled. Men died by millions. All Europe had been swept by the plague, as by a besom of destruction, and now England became its prey. The population of the island at that period was not great,—some three or four millions in all. When the plague had passed more than half of these were in their graves, and in many places there were hardly enough living to bury the dead.
We call it a calamity. It is not so sure that it was. Life in England at that day, for the masses of the people, was not so precious a boon that death had need to be sorely deplored. A handful of lords and a host of laborers, the latter just above the state of slavery, constituted the population. Many of the serfs had been set free, but the new liberty of the people was not a state of unadulterated happiness. War had drained the land. The luxury of the nobles added to the drain. The patricians caroused. The plebeians suffered. The Black Death came. After it had passed, labor, for the first time in English history, was master of the situation.
Laborers had grown scarce. Many men refused to work. The first general strike for higher wages began. In the country, fields were left untilled and harvests rotted on the ground. "The sheep and cattle strayed through the fields and corn, and there were none left who could drive them." In the towns, craftsmen refused to work at the old rate of wages. Higher wages were paid, but the scarcity of food made higher prices, and men were little better off. Many laborers, indeed, declined to work at all, becoming tramps,—what were known as "sturdy beggars,"—or haunting the forests as bandits.
The king and parliament sought to put an end to this state of affairs by law. An ordinance was passed whose effect would have made slaves of the people. Every man under sixty, not a land owner or already at work (says this famous act), must work for the employer who demands his labor, and for the rate of wages that prevailed two years before the plague. The man who refused should be thrown into prison. This law failed to work, and sterner measures were passed. The laborer was once more made a serf, bound to the soil, his wage-rate fixed by parliament. Law after law followed, branding with a hot iron on the forehead being finally ordered as a restraint to runaway laborers. It was the first great effort made by the class in power to put down an industrial revolt.