Henry of Monmouth Volume I Part 8

Each of them, also, shall be content with that portion of the kingdom aforesaid limited as below, without further exaction or superiority; yea, each of them in such portion a.s.signed to him shall enjoy equal liberty. Also, between the same Lords it is unanimously covenanted and agreed that the said Owyn and his heirs shall have the whole of Cambria or Wales, by the borders, limits, and boundaries underwritten divided from Leogoed which is commonly called England; namely, from the Severn sea, as the river Severn leads from the sea, going down to the north gate of the city of Worcester; and from that gate straight to the ash-trees, commonly called in the Cambrian or Welsh language Ouuene Margion, which grow on the high way from Bridgenorth to Kynvar; thence by (p. 152) the high way direct, which is usually called the old or ancient way to the head or source of the river Trent; thence to the head or source of the river Meuse; thence as that river leads to the sea, going down within the borders, limits, and boundaries above written.

And the aforesaid Earl of Northumberland shall have for himself and his heirs the counties below written, namely, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, York, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, Leicester, Northampton, Warwick, and Norfolk. And the Lord Edmund shall have all the rest of the whole of England entirely to him and his heirs. Also, should any battle, riot, or discord fall out between two of the said Lords, (may it never be!) then the third of the said Lords, calling to himself good and faithful counsel, shall duly rectify such discord, riot, and battle; whose approval or sentence the discordant parties shall be held bound to obey. They shall also be faithful to defend the kingdom against all men; saving the oak on the part of the said Owyn given to the most ill.u.s.trious Prince Charles, by the grace of G.o.d King of the French, in the league and covenant between them made. And that the same be, all and singular, well and faithfully observed, the said Lords, Owyn, the Earl, and Edmund, by the holy body of the Lord which they now stedfastly look upon, and by the holy Gospels of G.o.d by them now bodily touched, have sworn to observe the premises all and singular to their utmost, inviolably; and have caused their seals to be mutually affixed thereto."

The above learned Editor of this instrument (to whose labours in rescuing from oblivion so many original doc.u.ments relative to these times we are repeatedly induced to acknowledge our obligations,) seems to have fallen into some serious mistakes here. Either influenced by the fascinating reminiscences of Shakspeare's representations, or (p. 153) following Hall with too implicit a confidence, he has altogether overlooked the date a.s.signed in the ma.n.u.script itself to the execution of this part.i.tion deed, and the persons between whom the agreement is there said to have been made. So far from countenancing the a.s.sumption that "the indenture was finally agreed upon towards the middle of the year next after the date of Edmund Mortimer's letter announcing his junction with Owyn (December 14th, 1402)," the ma.n.u.script expressly states that the covenant was made on the 28th of February,[151] in the fourth year of Henry IV; and that the contracting parties were Henry Earl of Northumberland, Sir Edmund Mortimer, and Owyn Glyndowr. Hall, on whom there exists strong reason for believing that Shakspeare rested as his authority, a.s.serts that the contracting parties were Glyndowr, the LORD PERCY (by which t.i.tle he throughout designates Hotspur), and the EARL OF MARCH. Hall's expressions would lead us to infer that the circ.u.mstance was not generally recognised or known (p. 154) by the chroniclers before his time, but was recorded by one only of those with whose writings he was acquainted. "A certain writer," he says, "writeth that this Earl of March, the Lord Percy, and Owyn Glyndowr were unwisely made believe by a Welsh prophesier that King Henry was the Moldwarp cursed of G.o.d's own mouth, and that they were the Dragon, the Lion, and the Wolf which should divide the realm between them, by the deviation, not divination, of that mawmet Merlin."

Hall then proceeds to tell us that the tripart.i.te indenture was sealed by the deputies of the three parties in the Archdeacon's house; and that, by the treaty, Wales was given to Owyn, all England from Severn and Trent southward and eastward, was a.s.signed to the Earl of March, and the remnant to Lord Percy.

[Footnote 151: This date cannot have been earlier than February 1404, nor later than 1405. If we interpret the words of the MS. to mean the regnal year of Henry IV, the date will be the first of those two years; if it was the February subsequent to the election of Pope Innocent, October 1404, immediately after noticing which the MS. records this treaty, it will be the latter. The copy of this ma.n.u.script agrees in all points with the Sloane, except that it refers it to the 18th instead of the 28th of February.]

The strange confusion made either by Hall, or "the certain writer"

from whom he draws his story, of Owyn's prisoner and son-in-law, Edmund Mortimer, with the Earl of March his nephew, then a minor in the King's safe custody, throws doubtless great suspicion on his narrative; nevertheless, such as it is, (allowing for that mistake,) his account seems far more probable than the statement given in the Sloane ma.n.u.script,--the only authority, it is presumed, now known to have reported the alleged words of the treaty. It is much more likely, that the project of dividing South Britain among the houses of Glyndowr, Mortimer, and Percy, should have been entertained before the (p. 155) battle of Shrewsbury, when the Earl of Worcester's malicious love of mischief might have suggested it, and Hotspur's headstrong impetuosity might have caught at the scheme, and their troops, not yet dispirited by defeat, might have been sanguine of success, than after that struggle, when the old Earl of Northumberland[152] was the only representative of the house of Percy who could have signed it. The cause of Owyn, Mortimer, and Northumberland had so sunk into its wane after Hotspur's death, that they could then scarcely have contemplated as a thing feasible the division of the fair realm of England and Wales among themselves.

Of the authority of the ma.n.u.script from which the indenture is extracted, the Author (for reasons stated in the Appendix) is (p. 156) compelled to form a very low estimate. And if such a deed ever was signed, it is far less improbable that the ma.n.u.script (full, as it confessedly is elsewhere, of errors) should have inserted it incorrectly in point of chronological order, than that the contracting parties should have postponed their contemplated arrangement to a period when success must have appeared almost beyond hope. Independently, however, of the suspicion cast on the doc.u.ment by the date a.s.signed to it in the ma.n.u.script, it seems to carry with it internal evidence against itself. The contract was made by Edmund Mortimer, the Earl of Northumberland, and Owyn, and among them the land was to be divided; but, so far from the report of such an intended distribution being corroborated by any other authority, there is much evidence to render it incredible. Edmund Mortimer's own genuine letter, for example, announcing his adhesion to Owyn, which preceded this agreement, makes no allusion to the Percies, or even to himself, as portionists. "The cause," he says, "which he espoused would guarantee to Owyn his rights in Wales, and, in case Richard were dead, would place the Earl of March on the throne." It is, indeed, scarcely conceivable that the n.o.bles, the gentry, and the people at large would have suffered their land to be cut up into portions, destroying the integrity of the kingdom, and exposing it with increased facilities to foreign (p. 157) invasion, and interminable intestine warfare; whilst neither of the three who were to share the spoil had any pretensions of t.i.tle to the crown. It is scarcely less inconceivable that three men, such as Mortimer, Glyndowr, and Northumberland, could have seriously devised so desperate a scheme.

[Footnote 152: Nevertheless, it should be remembered that many ancient accounts mention the Earl of Northumberland's visit to Glyndowr subsequently to his return from the flight into Scotland, and that the French auxiliaries invaded England under Glyndowr's standard long after the battle of Shrewsbury. It was on the last day of February 1408, that Rokeby, Sheriff of Yorkshire, compelled Northumberland and Lord Bardolf to engage with him in the field of Bramham Moor, when the Earl fell in battle, and Lord Bardolf died of his wounds. The Earl's head, covered with the snows of age, was exposed on London Bridge. The people lamented his fate when they recalled to mind his former magnificence and glory. Many (says Walsingham) applied to him the lines of Lucan:

Sed nos nec sanguis, nec tantum vulnera nostri Afficere senis, quantum gestata per urbem Ora ducis, quae transfixo deformia pilo Vidimus.]

On the whole, the Author is disposed to express his suspicion that the entire story of the tripart.i.te league is the creature only of invention, originating in some inexplicable mistake, or fabricated for the purpose of exciting feelings of contempt or hostility against the rebels.

In examining the various accounts of the battle of Shrewsbury with a view of putting together ascertained facts in right order, and distinguishing between certainty,--strong probability,--mere surmise,--improbabilities,--and utter mistakes, we shall find it far more easy to point out the errors of others, than to adopt one general view which shall not in its turn be open to objections. Still, in any important course of events, it seems to be a dereliction of duty in an author to shrink from offering the most probable outline of facts which the careful comparison of different statements, and a patient weighing of opposite authorities, suggest. Before, however, we enter upon that task, it will be necessary to clear the way by examining some other questions of doubt and difficulty.

To Mr. Hume's inaccuracies, arising from the want of patient (p. 158) labour in searching for truth at the fountain-head, we have been led to refer above. His readiness to rest satisfied with whatever first offered itself, provided it suited his present purpose, without either scrutinizing its internal evidence, or verifying it by reference to earlier and better authority, is forced upon our notice in his account of the battle of Shrewsbury. Just one half of the entire s.p.a.ce which he spares to record the whole affair, he devotes to a minute detail of the manifesto which Hotspur is said to have sent to the King on the night before the battle, in the name of his father, his uncle, and himself. This doc.u.ment, at least in the terms quoted by Mr. Hume, is proved as well by its own internal self-contradictions, as by historical facts, to be a forgery of a much later date.

The first charge which the manifesto is made to bring against Henry is, that, after his landing at Ravenspurg, he swore on the Gospel that he only sought his own rightful inheritance, that he would never disturb Richard in his possession of the throne, and that never would he aim at being King. And yet another item charges him with having sworn on the same day, and at the same place, and on the same Gospel, an oath (the very terms of which imply that he was to be King) that he never would exact tenths or fifteenths without consent of the three estates, except in cases of extreme emergence. Again, "It complained of his cruel policy (says Mr. Hume, without adding a single remark,) in allowing the young Earl of March, whom he ought to regard as (p. 159) his sovereign, to remain a captive in the hands of his enemies, and in even refusing to all his friends permission to treat of his ransom;"

whilst it is beyond all question that the person whom this pretended manifesto confounds with the Earl of March, "taken in pitched battle,"

was Sir Edmund Mortimer. The Earl of March was himself then a boy, and was in close custody in Henry's castle of Windsor. The manifesto, as Hume quotes it, is evidently full of historical blunders; its author had followed those historians who had confounded Edmund Mortimer with the Earl of March; and yet Mr. Hume adopts it on the authority of Hall, and gives it so prominent a place in his work.

But even as the manifesto is found in its original form in Hardyng, (though the blunders copied by Hume from Hall[153] do not appear there in all their extravagance and absurdity,) something attaches to it exceedingly suspicious as to its character and circ.u.mstances.

Independently of the internal evidence of the doc.u.ment itself, which will repay a careful scrutiny, the very fact of Hardyng having withheld even the most distant allusion to such a manifesto in the copy of his work which he presented to Henry VI, the grandson of (p. 160) the King whose character the manifesto was designed to blast, at a time so much nearer the event, when the reality or the falsehood of his statement might have been more easily ascertained, contrasts very strikingly with the forced and unnatural manner in which, many years after, he abruptly thrusts the manifesto in Latin prose into the midst of his English poem. He then[154] desired to please Edward IV, to whom any adverse reflection on Bolinbroke would be acceptable.

[Footnote 153: Hall says, "Because no chronicle save one makes mention what was the cause and occasion of this b.l.o.o.d.y battle, in the which on both parts were more than forty thousand men a.s.sembled, I word for word, according to my copy, do here rehea.r.s.e." He then gives the heads of the manifesto, from which Hume has drawn his account.]

[Footnote 154: The fact is, that Hardyng's character is a.s.sailable, especially on the point of forging doc.u.ments. "Several writers have considered Hardyng a most dexterous and notable forger, who manufactured the deed for which he sought reward."[154-a] The first ma.n.u.script, the Lansdown, containing no allusion to this said manifesto, comes down to 1436. The Harleian copy, which contains it, comes down to the flight of Henry VI.

for Scotland. In the Lansdown copy not one word is said about the oath sworn on Bolinbroke's landing, nor about the manifesto.]

[Footnote 154-a: See Sir H. Ellis's Introduction to his edition of Hardyng.]

The doc.u.ment, however, itself savours strongly of forgery. In the first place, it purports to be signed and sealed by Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, (though the Earl at that time was in Northumberland,) Henry Percy, his first-born son, and Thomas Earl of Worcester, styling themselves Procurators and Protectors of the kingdom. Should this apparent contradiction be thought to be reconciled with the truth by what Hardyng mentions, that the doc.u.ment was made by good advice (p. 161) of the Archbishop of York, and divers other holy men and lords; it must be answered that it could not have been drawn up for the purpose of being used whenever an opportunity might offer, for, in the name of the three, it challenges the King, and declares that they will prove the allegations "_on this day_," "_on this instant day_," twice repeated.

Evidently the writer of the doc.u.ment had his mind upon the fatal day of Shrewsbury.

Again, one of their princ.i.p.al charges seems to have emanated from a person totally ignorant of some facts which must have been known to the Percies, and which are established by doc.u.ments still in our hands. The words of the clause to which we refer run thus: "We aver and intend to prove, that whereas Edmund Mortimer, brother of the Earl of March, was taken by Owyn Glyndowr in mortal battle, in the open field, and has UP TO THIS TIME[155] _been cruelly kept in prison_ and bands of iron, in your cause, you have publicly declared him to have been guilefully taken, [ex dolo,--willingly, as Hall quotes it, to yield himself prisoner to the said Owyn,] and you would not suffer him to be ransomed, neither by his own means nor by us his relatives and friends. We have, therefore, negociated with Owyn, as well for his ransom from our own proper goods, as also for peace between you and Owyn. Wherefore have you regarded us as traitors, and moreover (p. 162) have craftily and secretly planned and imagined our death and utter destruction."

[Footnote 155: Adhuc.]

This clause of the manifesto declares the King to have publicly proclaimed that Edmund Mortimer, who was taken in pitched battle, had fraudulently given himself up to Owyn. The King's own letter to the council[156] is totally irreconcileable with his making such a declaration. He announces to them the news which he had just received of Mortimer's capture, as a calamity which had made him resolve to proceed in person against the rebels. "Tidings have reached us from Wales, that the rebels have taken our very dear and much beloved Edmund Mortimer." Again, the clause avers that the King had suffered the same person, Edmund Mortimer, to be kept cruelly in prison and iron chains _up to that time_, and would not suffer him to be ransomed. In contradiction to this charge, we are a.s.sured by the early chroniclers[157] that Owyn treated Mortimer with all the humanity and respect in his power; and that because he possessed not the means of paying a ransom, he had, as early as St. Andrew's day, (30th of November 1402, less than six months after his capture, and nearly eight months before the alleged delivery of the manifesto,) been married to the daughter of Owyn with great solemnity; and, "thus (p. 163) turning wholly to the Welsh people, he pledged himself thereafter to fight for them to the utmost of his power against the English."

[Footnote 156: Acts of Council, vol. i. p. 185.]

[Footnote 157: Monk of Evesham and Sloane, 1776.--In the pa.s.sage relating to Mortimer's marriage in Walsingham's history, the word "obiit"

is evidently an interpolation by mistake. It does not occur in the corresponding pa.s.sage in his Ypodig. Neust.]

Another expression in this clause, incompatible with the truth, but quite consistent with the mistakes which from very early times prevailed as to the circ.u.mstances preceding the battle of Shrewsbury, charges the King with having p.r.o.nounced the three Percies to be traitors, and with having secretly planned and imagined their ruin and death; and this is said to have been signed and sealed by Northumberland, then remaining in the north. Whereas the truth, established beyond controversy, though little known, is, that, up to the very day when the King announced to the council Hotspur's rebellion,--barely four days before the battle,--he had entertained no idea of their disloyalty. Even in his last preceding despatch he informed the council that he was on his way "to afford aid and comfort to his very dear and faithful cousins, the Earl of Northumberland and his son Henry, and to join them in their expedition against the Scots."[158]

[Footnote 158: Acts of Council, vol. i. p. 207.]

These considerations, among others, throw so many and such weighty suspicions on the manifesto, that it can scarcely be regarded as deserving of credit. Nor must the Author here disguise his conviction, that the whole is a forgery, guiltily made for the purpose of blackening the memory of Henry IV, and of casting odium on the (p. 164) dynasty of the house of Lancaster.

Another important mistake into which tradition seems to have betrayed some very pains-taking persons is that which charges Owyn Glyndowr with a breach of faith, and a selfish conduct, on the occasion of the battle of Shrewsbury, utterly unworthy of any man of the slightest pretensions to integrity and honour. He is said by Leland to have promised Percy to be present at that struggle: he is reported by Pennant to have remained, as if spell-bound, with twelve thousand men at Oswestry. The History of Shrewsbury tells us of the still existing remains of an oak at Shelton, into the top-most branches of which he climbed to see the turn of the battle, resolving to proceed or retire as that should be; having come with his forces to that spot time enough to join the conflict. The question involving Owyn Glyndowr's good faith and valour, or zeal and activity, is one of much interest, and deserves to be patiently investigated; whilst an attentive examination of authentic doc.u.ments, and a careful comparison of dates, are essential to the establishment of the truth. The result of the inquiry may be new, and yet not on that account the less to be relied upon.

That Owyn gladly promised to co-operate with the Percies, there is every reason to regard as time; that he undertook to be with them at Shrewsbury on that day of battle cannot, it should seem, be true.

Probably he never heard of any expectation of such an engagement, (p. 165) and the first news which reached him relating to it may have been tidings of Percy's death, and the discomfiture of his troops. The Welsh historians unsparingly charge him with having deceived his northern friends on that day: and some a.s.sert that he remained at Oswestry, only seventeen miles off; others that he came to the very banks of the Severn, and tarried there in safety, consulting only his own interest, whilst a vigorous effort on his part might have turned the victory that day against the King. This is, perhaps, within the verge of possibility; but is in the highest degree improbable. That the reports have originated in an entire ignorance of Owyn's probable position at the time, and of the sudden, unforeseen, and unexpected character of the struggle to which Bolinbroke's instantaneous decision forced the Percies, will evidently appear, if, instead of relying on vague tradition, we follow in search of the reality where facts only, or fair inferences from ascertained facts, may conduct us.

It appears, then, to be satisfactorily demonstrable by original doc.u.ments, interpreted independently of preconceived theory, that, four days only before King Henry's proclamation against the Percies was issued at Burton upon Trent, Owyn Glyndowr was in the extreme divisions of Caermarthenshire, most actively and anxiously engaged in reducing the English castles which still held out against him, and by no means free from formidable antagonists in the field, being (p. 166) fully occupied at that juncture, and likely to be detained there for some time. It must be also remembered that the King published his proclamation as soon as ever he had himself heard of Hotspur's movements from the north, and that even his knowledge of the hostile intentions of the Percies preceded the very battle itself only by the brief s.p.a.ce of five days. This circ.u.mstance has never (it is presumed) been noticed by any of our historians; and the examination of the whole question involves so new and important a view of the affairs of the Princ.i.p.ality at that period, and bears so immediately on the charge made against the great rebel chieftain for dastardly cowardice or gross breach of faith, that it seems to claim in these volumes a fuller and more minute investigation than might otherwise have been desirable or generally interesting. The doc.u.ments furnishing the facts on which we ground our opinion, are chiefly original letters preserved in the British Museum, and made accessible to the general reader by having been published by Sir Henry Ellis.[159] That excellent Editor, however, has unquestionably referred them to an earlier date than can be truly a.s.signed to them.[160] Independently of the material fact which they are intended to establish, they carry with them much intrinsic interest of their own; and although the detail of the (p. 167) evidence in the body of the work might seem to impede unnecessarily the progress of the narrative, the dissertation in its detached form is recommended to the reader's careful perusal. Should he close his examination of those doc.u.ments under the same impression which the Author confesses they have made on himself, he will acquiesce in the conclusion above stated, and consider this position as admitting no reasonable doubt,--That, a few days only before the fatal battle of Shrewsbury, Owyn Glyndowr was in the very extremity of South Wales, engaged in attempts to reduce the enemy's garrisons, and crush his power in those quarters; with a prospect also before him of much similar employment in a service of great danger to himself. And when we recollect that probably Henry Percy as little expected the King to meet him at Shrewsbury, as the King a week before had thought to find him or his father in any other part of the kingdom than in Northumberland, whither he was himself on his march to join them; when we recollect the nature and extent of the country which lies between Pembrokeshire and Salop; and reflect also on the undisciplined state of Owyn's "eight thousand and eight score spears, such as they were;"

instead of being surprised at his absence from Shrewsbury on the 21st of July, and charging him with having deserted his friends and sworn allies on that sad field, we are driven to believe that his presence there would have savoured more of the marvellous than many of his (p. 168) most celebrated achievements. The simple truth breaks the spell of the poet's picture, and forces us to unveil its fallacy, though it has been p.r.o.nounced by the historian of Shrewsbury to "form one of the brightest ornaments of the pages of Marmion." To whatever cause we ascribe the decline of Owyn's power, we cannot trace its origin to a judicial visitation as the consequence of his failure in that hour of need. The poet's imagination, creative of poetical justice, wrought upon the tale as it was told; but that tale was not built on truth.

The lines, however, deserve to have been the vehicle of a less ill-founded tradition.

[Footnote 159: Original Letters, Second Series.]

[Footnote 160: Those doc.u.ments, with the Author's remarks and reasonings upon them, will be found in the Appendix.]

"E'en from the day when chained by fate, By wizard's dream or potent spell, Lingering from sad Salopia's field, Reft of his aid, the Percy fell;-- E'en from that day misfortune still, As if for violated faith, Pursued him with unwearied step, Vindictive still for Hotspur's death."[161]

[Footnote 161: Quoted by Scott in his Notes on Marmion from a poem by the Rev. G. Warrington, called "The Spirit's Blasted Tree."]

Those who feel an interest in tracing the localities of this battle with a greater minuteness of detail in its circ.u.mstances than is requisite for the purpose of these Memoirs, will do well to consult the "Historian of Shrewsbury." The following is offered as the probable outline of the circ.u.mstances of the engagement, together (p. 169) with those which preceded and followed it.

The Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur were engaged in collecting and organizing troops in the north, for the professed purpose of invading Scotland as soon as the King should join them with his forces. Taking from these troops "eight score horse," Hotspur[162]

marched southward from Berwick at their head, and came through (p. 170) Lancashire and Cheshire, spreading his rebellious principles on every side, and adding to his army, especially from among the gentry. He proclaimed everywhere that their favourite Richard, though deposed by the tyranny of Bolinbroke, was still alive; and many gathered round his standard, resolved to avenge the wrongs of their liege lord. The King, with a considerable force, the amount of which is not precisely known, was on his march towards the north, with the intention of joining the forces raised by the Percies, and of advancing with them into Scotland, and, "that expedition well ended," of returning to quell the rebels in Wales. He was at Burton on Trent when news was brought to him of Hotspur's proceedings, which decided him[163]

instantly to grapple with this unlooked-for rebellion. Hotspur was believed to be on his road to join Glyndowr, and the King resolved to intercept him.

[Footnote 162: Hardyng represents the variance between Henry IV. and the Percies to have originated in three causes:--in their own refusal to give up certain prisoners of rank who had been taken at the battle of Homildon; in the King's refusal to let Sir Edmund Mortimer pay a ransom; and in the displeasure which the King had felt in consequence of an interview between Hotspur and Glyndowr, which had excited his suspicions. A commission was issued on the 14th March 1403, at the instance of the Earl of Westmoreland, to inquire about the prisoners taken at Homildon or "Humbledon."--Rym. Foe The Pell Rolls acquaint us with the great importance attached by Henry and the nation to this victory, by recording the pension a.s.signed to the first bringer of the welcome news: "To Nicholas Merbury 40_l._ yearly for other good services, as also because the same Nicholas was the first person who reported for a certainty to the said lord the King the good, agreeable, and acceptable news of the success of the late expedition at Homeldon, near Wollor, in Northumberland, by Henry, late Earl of Northumberland. Four earls, many barons and bannerets, with a great mult.i.tude of knights and esquires, as well Scotch as French, were taken; and also a great mult.i.tude slain, and drowned in the river Tweed." This act of grat.i.tude was somewhat late, if the entry in the Roll records the first payment. It is dated Nov. 3, 1405. At the date of this payment Percy is called the _late_ Earl, because he had forfeited his t.i.tle.]

[Footnote 163: Walsingham records that the Earl of Dunbar, urging Henry to strike an immediate blow, quoted Lucan. He probably uttered the sentiment,--the quotation being supplied by the chronicler:

"Tolle moras; nocuit semper differre paratis, Dum trepidant nullo firmatae robore partes."]

So far from inferring, as some authors have done, from the smallness of the numbers on either side, that the country considered it more a personal quarrel between two great families than as a national concern, we might rather feel surprise at the magnitude of the body of men (p. 171) which met in the field of Shrewsbury.[164] It must be remembered that the King did not "go down" from the seat of government with 14,000 men; but that the army with which he hastened to crush the rising rebellion consisted only of the troops at the head of whom he was marching towards the north, of the body then under the Prince of Wales on the borders, and of those who could be gathered together on the exigence of the moment by the royal proclamation. It must be borne also in mind that (according to all probability) barely four days elapsed between the first intimation which reached the King's ears of the rebellion of the Percies, and the desperate conflict which crushed them. As we have already seen, the King, only on the 10th of July, (scarcely eleven days before that decisive struggle,) believed himself to be on his road northward to join "his beloved and loyal"

Northumberland and Hotspur against the Scots.

[Footnote 164: Mr. Pennant, in his interesting account of Owyn Glyndowr's life, (though he appears to have been very diligent in collecting traditionary materials for the work,) represents King Henry to have "made an expeditious march to Burton on Trent, on his way _against the northern rebels_," _the Percies_; when, on hearing of Hotspur having come southward, he turned to meet him.]

The Prince of Wales, who, as we infer, first apprised the King of this rising peril, was on the Welsh borders, near Shrewsbury; and he formed a junction with his father,--but where, and on what day, is not known.

Very probably the first intimation that Henry of Monmouth himself (p. 172) had of the hostile designs of the Percies, was the sudden departure of the Earl of Worcester, his guardian, who unexpectedly left the Prince's retinue, and, taking his own dependents with him, joined Hotspur.

At all events, delay would have added every hour to the imminent peril of the royal cause, and probably Hotspur's impetuosity seconded the King's manifest policy of hastening an immediate engagement; and thus the "sorry battle of Shrewsbury" was fought by the united forces of the King and the Prince on the one side, and the forces of Hotspur and his uncle the Earl of Worcester on the other, una.s.sisted by Glyndowr.

That the opposed parties engaged in "Heyteley Field,"[165] near that town, is placed beyond question. With regard to their relative position immediately before the battle, there is no inconsiderable doubt. Some say that the King's army reached the town and took possession of the castle on the Friday, only three hours before Hotspur arrived: others, following Walsingham, represent Hotspur as having arrived first, (p. 173) and being in the very act of a.s.saulting the town, when the sudden, unexpected appearance of the royal banner advancing made him desist from that attempt, and face the King's forces. Be this as it may, on Sat.u.r.day the 21st of July, the two hostile armies were drawn up in array against each other in Hateley Field, ready to rush to the struggle on which the fate of England was destined much to depend. Whether any manifesto were sent from Hotspur, or not, it is certain that the King made an effort to prevent the desperate conflict, and the unnecessary shedding of so much Christian blood. He despatched the Abbot of Shrewsbury and the Clerk of the Privy Seal to Hotspur's lines, with offers of pardon even then, would they return to their allegiance.