The King of the Romans was at this time full of resentment at the recent plunder of his private property, the loss of which naturally touched his parsimonious feelings; and, being extremely proud of his dignity, the disrespect they had presumed to show him excited his indignation. He had discouraged the King therefore from listening to any compromise, as he might otherwise have done'; and, in concert with Prince Edward and the other leaders, he now added another letter of haughty and uncourteous import to the refusal : "Richard, by the grace of God, King of the Romans, always august, and Edward, the first-born son of the illustrious King of England, and all the other barons and knights who firmly adhere to the said King of England, with sincere faith and force, to Simon de Montfort, Gilbert de Clare, and to all and each of the other accomplices in their treason; "We have understood, by the letters you have sent to our Lord the illustrious King of England, that we are defied by you, although indeed this verbal defiance had been proved before by hostilities against us, by the burning of our goods, and the ravage of our possessions. "We therefore let you know that you are all defied as public enemies by each and all of us your enemies, and that henceforth, whenever occasion offers, we will, with all our might, labour to damage your persons and property; and as to that which you falsely charge us with, that the advice we give the King is neither faithful nor good, you in no wise speak the truth; and if you Lord Simon de Montfort, or you Gilbert de Clare, are willing to assert the same in the court of our Lord the King, we are ready to procure you a safeconduct to come to the said court, and to declare the truth of our innocence, and the lying of each of you as perfidious traitors, by some one our equal in nobility and birth. We and the King's letter being evidently an answer to it, the proper date must be May 13. 1 W. Rish. De Bell. Lew. M are all content with the seals of the said lords, the King of the Romans, and the Lord Edward. Dated at Lewes, 13th day of May, in the 48th year of King Henry, son of John." This war of words was an apt prelude to the fiercer conflict approaching. The confidence of the royal party in their superior strength', now led the King "by rash advice," to look only to the stern diplomacy of arms, rather than to the struggle of subtlety in a chamber. "The mutual contract of support and fidelity, which was the essential principle of feudal tenure," was thus avowedly annulled and renounced by both parties. In the history of Fitz-Warren, before referred to, a similar renunciation of homage is thus detailed: 'My Lord King, you are my liege Lord, and to you I have been bound by fealty, while I have been in your service, and while I held lands of you, and you ought to have maintained my right, and yet now you fail me in right and in common law, and never was there a good King who denied law in his court to his frank tenants; wherefore I renounce my homage to you." The bonds of social union being thus abruptly broken, the great questions of civil government now in dispute, all important as they were, were abandoned to the chance decision of force-a wayward arbiter between right and wrong; often indeed resorted to at once in such cases, without even the attempt, as in this instance, to find other means better adapted to the dignity of human reason. 1 With the King were "60,000 pugnatorum et ad bella discretorum. Barones cum civibus Londinensibus 40,000 pugnatorum, non tam ad pugnam discretorum."-Chr. Wigorn. 2 "Rex minus sano fretus consilio." -T. Wyke. 3 Hallam, Mid. Ages. 4 Hist. de Foulques FitzWarin. "Pur quoi je vus renk vos hommages." In a similar manner the Abbot of Arbroath brought to K. Edward in 1297 at Berwick the formal renunciation of homage of the Scots who had sworn fealty, including Balliol's. CHAPTER IX. THE MARCH UPON LEWES. "An if we live, we live to tread on kings, If die, brave death, when princes die with us! 1st Part HEN. IV. Act 5, Scene 2. THE prelates returned to the camp of the barons at Fletching with the answer to their pacific mission, and on the same evening (Tuesday, May 13,) proclaimed at once to the expecting warriors that there remained no hope of peace to the church, or liberty to the state, unless won by the sword. "The Barons ne couthe other red, tho hii hurde this, Bote bidde Godes grace, and bataile abide iwis1."-ROB. GLOUC. While nothing could be more impressive than the conduct of these bishops, a noble solemnity of purpose, combined with a vigour of action fitted to the emergency, was displayed by Simon de Montfort and his soldiers. A royalist chronicler2, while calling the war monstrous and detestable, bears testimony to the barons "as having among them all but one faith, one will in all things, one love towards God and their neighbour; and so unanimous in brotherly affection, 1 "The barons certainly could resolve on nothing else, when they heard this, but pray for the grace of God, and abide the battle." His literis Barones graviter animo vul- that they feared neither to offend the King, nor even to die for the sake of justice, rather than violate their oaths." For the battle now acknowledged to be inevitable, the Earl of Leicester passed the whole night in anxious preparations, but did not omit amidst all his cares that prayer and attendance on religious services, which was remarked as his constant custom. He exhorted all his followers to repent and confess their sins, and the Bishop of Worcester' did not shrink from bestowing his episcopal absolution on the kneeling soldiers, or from promising admission into heaven to all who might now die fighting manfully for justice. One account, indeed, goes so far as to describe the bishop as now "putting off the peaceful priest, and putting on the warlike soldier, carrying a sword by his side instead of the crosier, and a helmet on his head instead of a mitre;" but these are probably figurative expressions to denote his zeal and courage in the cause. Cantilupe was not neglectful of the duties of a churchman, as then understood; he completed and endowed, in 1265, a chapel for four priests in his cathedral, and though his tomb lies there neglected near the screen of the choir, it is interesting to think that his mantle was caught and transmitted by some of the boldest defenders of civil and religious liberty; Latimer, Hooper, and Hough were worthy to follow him in the see. After this solemn scene, they all put a white cross upon their dress, in token of the religious sanction stamped upon their efforts, and in order to recognize each other in the combat. A white cross had been always adopted in a like spirit by the English crusaders, in distinction from the red cross of the French; but there was, unhappily, a stronger necessity for such outward marks of party in the battle of 1 Mat. Westm, erroneously ascribes this to the Bishop of Chichester. "Notable episcopal divinity to encourage rebels to fight against their king."-Prynne, Vol. 11. 1022. 2 Chr. Mailr. According to the chronicle of Lanercost, both the fronts and backs of the barons were marked by crosses. Lewes, where on each side the same banners and ensigns were to be raised by hostile members of the same familiesa sad but ever-recurring calamity in civil war1. 2 Although de Montfort has been reproached by a modern historian as a religious hypocrite, there is no proof whatever of such a charge, nor was it ever made in his life-time; and there must have been much sincerity and consciousness of right to have admitted such a consecration of the war. Even had the great leader been justly liable to the accusation, his single example could not have so infected at once the bishop and the many thousand soldiers with the same vice, as to induce them thus to kneel in blasphemous mockery at so awful a moment of peril and enterprise. Although the distance from Lewes did not admit of "each battle seeing the other's umbered face," yet, to this night-scene of solemn energy while "armourers were accomplishing the knights," and the soldiers were "inly ruminating the morning's danger," a striking contrast might be drawn in the unguardedness of the royalist camp, where more provision had been made for dissolute riot than for watching the enemy. We learn, on the authority of an eye-witness3, that the song, the dance, and the wine-cup 1 Henry III. had adopted the same white cross at the great battle of Lincoln, in 1217, the legate Gualo wishing to stamp the war with a religious feeling.-Chr. Mailr. Hume. Lingard says, "It was the peculiar talent of this leader to persuade his followers that the cause in which they fought was the cause of Heaven." 3 "Protestante mihi uno nobili qui ibi fuerat." "Pars vero adversa negligentius agens noctem illam coreis et cantilenis occupans, potationibus et scortacionibus insistebat, adeo ut canobio solemni S. Pancratii Martyris non parcerent, quin coram altaribus sacris obscoena cum meretricibus cubilia fecerunt." Again in the flight after the battle, "tam viri quidem fugientes quam miserrimæ meretrices "Qui carnis luxuria fœda sorduerunt, Roger le Bigot, the marshal, was with the barons, and his absence may have contributed to the disordered licence in the Royal camp. Some of his duties are described in Rubro Libro de Scaccario Regis, f. 30. "Doit apaisier les noises, et visiter tous ceulæ qui couchent font en la salle et per la verge douze leughes dehors d'environ, des choses qui appendent à la verge et la couronne. |