Historic Boys: Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times

A sorry record is the story of that fearful fight. For three long hours the battle raged from Haughmond Abbey on to Berwick Bridge, and ere the noon of that bloody day, twelve thousand valiant Englishmen fell on the fatal field. "So faute thei, to gret harm of this nacion," says one queer old chronicle; and another says: "It was more to be noted vengeable, for there the father was slain of the son and the son of the father." The great historian Hume tells us that "We shall scarcely find any battle in those ages where the shock was more terrible and more constant."

The fire of passion and of fight spread even to the youngest page and squire, and as Lionel pressed close after the "gilded helmet and the three-plumed crest" of his brilliant young prince, his face flamed with the excitement of the battle-hour. Again and again he saw the king unhorsed and fighting desperately for his crown and life; again and again he saw the fiery Hotspur and Douglas, the Scot, charge furiously on the king they had sworn to kill. Backward and forward the tide of battle rolls; now royalist, now rebel seems the victor. Hark! What shout is that?

"The king, the king is down!"

And where Hotspur and the Douglas fight around the hillock now known as the "King's Croft," Lionel misses the golden crest, he misses the royal banner of England!

"Sir Walter Blount is killed! the standard is lost!" is now the sorry cry.

But now the prince and his hardy Welsh fighters charge to the rescue, and Lionel gave a cry of terror as he saw a whizzing arrow tear into the face of his beloved prince. Young Harry reeled with his hurt, and Lionel with other gentlemen of the guard caught him in their arms. There was confusion and dismay.

"The prince is hurt!" cried Lionel, and almost as an echo rose those other shouts:

"The king is slain!"

"Long live the Percy!"

"Back to the rear, my lord!" pleaded Lionel, as he wiped the blood from the fair young face of the prince.

"Back, back, my lord Prince. Back to my tent," urged the Earl of Westmoreland, and "Back, back, while there is yet safety," said the other knights, as the tide of battle surged toward the bleeding prince.

"Stand off!" cried young Harry, springing to his feet. "Stand off; my lords! Far be from me such disgrace as that, like a poltroon, I should stain my arms by flight. If the prince flies, who will wait to end the battle?"

And just then another shout arose – a joyous, ringing cry:

"Ho, the king lives! the standard is safe! St. George for England!" And the brave young Harry, turning to his guard, said:

"What, my lords? to be carried back before the victory? 'T would be to me a perpetual death! Lead me, I implore you, to the very face of the foe. I may not say to my friends: 'Go ye on first to the fight!' Be it mine to say: 'Follow me, my friends!'"

Then, as the royal standard waved once more aloft, he burst with his followers into the thick of the fight, his unyielding valor giving new strength to all.

And now the end is near. An archer's arrow, with unerring aim, pierces the valiant Hotspur, and he falls dead upon the field.

"Harry Percy is dead! Victory, victory! St. George and victory!" rings the cry from thousands of the loyal troops, and, like a whirlwind, a panic of fear seizes the rebel ranks. Douglas is a prisoner; the Earl of Worcester surrenders; the rout is general.

"Then fled thei that myte fle," says the chronicle, or, as Hall, another of the old chroniclers records: "The Scots fled, the Welshmen ran, the traitors were overcome; then neither woods hindered nor hills stopped the fearful hearts of them that were vanquished."

So ended the "sad and sorry field of Shrewsbury," a fitting prelude to that bloody era of strife known as the Wars of the Roses, which, commencing in the sad reign of the son of this boy general, Harry of Monmouth, was to stain England with the blood of Englishmen through fifty years.

And now the dust and roar of battle die away, and we find ourselves amidst the Christmas-tide revels in royal Windsor, where, in one of the lordly apartments, our friend Lionel, like a right courtly young squire, is paying duteous attention to his liege lady, the fair Princess Philippa. As we draw near the pair, we catch the words of the princess, now a mature and stately young damsel of twelve, as she says to Lionel, who, gorgeous in a suit of motley velvet, listens respectfully:

"And let me tell thee, Master Lionel, that, from all I can make of good Master Lucke's tedious Latin letters, King Erik is a right noble prince, and a husband meet and fit for a Princess of England."

"Oh, ho! sits the wind in that quarter?" a gay voice exclaims, and Prince Harry comes to his sister's side. "Well, here be I in a pretty mess. Was I not prepared to deny in council, before all the lords, this petition of King Erik for our Princess, – ay, and to back it up with my stout bowmen from the marches? Beshrew me, Sis, but since when didst thou shift to so fair a taste for – what was it? frozen turnips and salted beef? And – how is the queen-mother's appetite?"

But with a dignified little shrug, the princess disdains her brother's banter, and the merry prince goes on to say:

"Well, I must use my ready bows and lances somewhere, and if not to right the wrongs of the fair Philippa against this frosty and crusty – pardon me, your Highness, this right noble King Erik of Denmark, – then against that other 'most dread and sovereign lord, Owen, Prince of Wales,' as he doth style himself. To-morrow will this betrothal be signed; and then, Lionel, hey for the southern marches and the hills and heaths of Wales!"

So, amidst siege and skirmish and fierce assault the winter passed away, and grew to spring again; and so well and vigilantly did this boy leader defend the borders of his principality against the forays of Glendower's troops, that we find the gentry of the county of Hereford petitioning the king to publicly thank "our dear and honored Lord and Prince, your son," for his "defence and governance of this your county of Hereford." And, out of all the vigilance and worry, the dash and danger of this exciting life, Harry of Monmouth was learning those lessons of patience, fortitude, coolness, self-denial, and valor that enabled him, when barely twenty-eight, to win the mighty fight at Agincourt, and to gain the proud title of Henry the Victorious. For war, despite its horrors and terrors, has ever been a great and absorbing game, in which he who is most skilful, most cautious, and most fearless, makes the winning moves.

"Tidings, tidings, my lord Prince!" came the message from one hard-riding courserman, as his foam-flecked steed dashed through the great gate of the castle of Hereford. "My lord of Warwick hath met your Welsh rebels near the Red Castle by Llyn Du, and hath routed them with much loss." But a few days later, came another horseman with the words: "Tidings, tidings, my lord Prince! Sir William Newport hath been set upon at Craig y Dorth by your rebels of Wales, 'with myty hand,' and so sore was his strait that he hath fled into Monmouth town, while many gallant gentlemen and archers lie dead of their hurt, by the great stones of Treleg."

"Sir William routed?" exclaimed the prince, "'t is ours, then, to succor him. Lionel, summon Lord Talbot." That sturdy old fighter was soon at hand. "Fare we to Monmouth straight, my lord," said the prince. Here is sorry news, but we will right the day."

Very speedily the little army of the prince was on the move along the lovely valley of the Wye; and, on the tenth of March, 1405, they were lodged within the red walls of that same great castle of Monmouth, "in the which," says the old chronicle, "it pleased God to give life to the noble King Henry V., who of the same is called Harry of Monmouth."

"Tidings, tidings, my lord Prince," came the report of the scouts; "the false traitor, Glendower, with your rebels of Glamorgan and Usk, of Netherwent and Overwent, have lodged themselves, to the number of eight thousand, in your town of Grosmont, scarce six miles away."

Eight thousand strong! and Prince Harry had with him barely five thousand men. But with the morning sun the order "Banners advance!" was given, and the fearless young general of seventeen drew his little army along the banks of the winding Monnow to the smoking ruins of the plundered town of Grosmont.

But the difference in numbers did seem a serious obstacle to success.

"Is it wise, my lord Prince," cautioned Lord Talbot, "to pit ourselves bodily against so strong a power? They be eight thousand strong and count us nearly two to one."

"Very true, my lord," said the intrepid prince, "but victory lieth not in a multitude of people, but in the power of God. Let us help to prove it here, and by the aid of Heaven and our good right arms, may we this day win the unequal fight!"

"Amen!" said Lord Talbot; "none welcome the day and duty more than I."

Out from the castle on its lofty rock and forth from the smoking ruins of the town swarmed the men of Wales confident of easy victory. The armies of the rival princes of Wales stood face to face. Then the trumpets sounded; the red cross of St. George and the odd-looking banner of the Trinity fluttered above the English ranks; stout Lord Talbot rode before the lines and tossing his truncheon in air shouted: "Now – strike!" There is a sudden rush, and as the battle-cries "St. George and England!" "St. David for Wales!" rise in air the opposing armies join in deadly fight. Short, but stubborn and bloody was the conflict. Victory rested with the little army of Prince Harry, and before the sun went down Glendower and his routed forces were in full retreat, leaving a thousand sturdy Welshmen dead upon the field.

Following up his victory with quick and determined action, the boy general hurried at the heels of Glendower's broken ranks, and on Sunday, the fifteenth of March, 1405, faced them again under the old towers of the castle of Usk. Swift and sudden fell his attack. The Welsh ranks broke before the fury of his onset, and, with over fifteen hundred lost in killed or prisoners, with his brother Tudor slain and his son Gruffyd a captive in the hands of the English, Owen Glendower fled with the remnant of his defeated army into the grim fastnesses of the Black Hills of Brecon.

It was a sad day for Wales, for it broke the power and sway of their remarkable and patriotic leader, Glendower, and made them, erelong, vassals of the English crown. But the bells of London rang loud and merrily when, three days after the fight, a rapid courserman spurred through the city gates, bearing to the council a copy of the modest letter in which the young general announced his victory to his "most redoubted and most sovereign lord and father," the king.

Lionel, close in attendance on his much-loved leader, followed him through all the troubles and triumphs of the Welsh wars; followed him when, a few months after, before the gates of Worcester, the French allies of the Welsh rebels were driven from the kingdom; and followed him, "well and bravely appareled," when, in May, 1406, the king, with a brilliant company of lords and ladies, gathered at the port of Lynn to bid farewell to the young Princess Philippa, as she sailed with the Danish ambassadors, "in great state," over the sea, "to be joyned in wedlok" to King Erik of Denmark.

And here we must leave our gallant young prince. A boy no longer, his story is now that of a wise and vigorous young manhood, which, in prince and king, bore out the promise of his boyish days. Dying at thirty-five – still a young man – he closed a career that stands on record as a notable one in the annals of the world.

But when you come to read in Shakespeare's matchless verse the plays of "King Henry IV." and "King Henry V.," do not, in your delight over his splendid word-pictures, permit yourself to place too strong a belief in his portrait of young "Prince Hal," and his scrapes and follies and wild carousals with fat old Falstaff and his boon companions. For the facts of history now prove the great poet mistaken; and "Prince Hal," though full of life and spirit, fond of pleasure and mischief, and, sometimes, of rough and thoughtless fun, stands on record as a valiant, high-minded, clear-hearted, and conscientious lad. "And when we reflect," says one of his biographers, "to what a high station he had been called whilst yet a boy; with what important commissions he had been intrusted; how much fortune seems to have done to spoil him by pride and vain-glory from his earliest youth, this page of our national records seems to set him high among the princes of the world; not so much as an undaunted warrior and triumphant hero, as the conqueror of himself, the example of a chastened, modest spirit, of filial reverence, and of a single mind bent on his duty."

The conqueror of himself! It was this that gave him grace to say, when crowned King of England in Westminster: "The first act of my reign shall be to pardon all who have offended me; and I pray God that if He foresees I am like to be any other than a just and good king, He may be pleased to take me from the world rather than seat me on a throne to live a public calamity to my country." It was this that gave him his magnificent courage at Agincourt, where, with barely six thousand Englishmen, he faced and utterly routed a French host of nearly sixty thousand men; it was this that, in the midst of the gorgeous pageant which welcomed him at London as the hero of Agincourt, made him refuse to allow his battle-bruised helmet and his dinted armor to be displayed as trophies of his valor. It was this that kept him brave, modest, and high-minded through all the glories and successes of his short but eventful life, that made him the idol of the people and one of the most brilliant figures in the crowded pages of English history.

It is not given to us, boys and girls, to be royal in name, but we may be royal in nature, even as was Harry of Monmouth, the brilliant young English prince, and, knowing now something of his character, we can understand the loving loyalty of a devoted people that marks this entry of his death as it stands in the "Acts of Privy Council," the official record of the public doings of his realm:

"Departed this life at the Castle of Bois de Vincennes, near Paris, on the last day of August, in the year 1422, and the tenth of his reign, the most Christian Champion of the Church, the Bright Beam of Wisdom, the Mirror of Justice, the Unconquered King, the Flower and Pride of all Chivalry – Henry the Fifth, King of England, Heir and Regent of France, and Lord of Ireland."

VIII

GIOVANNI OF FLORENCE, THE BOY CARDINAL

(Afterward Pope Leo the Tenth.)[a. d. 1490.]

It was one of the wild carnival days of 1490. From the great Gate of San Gallo to the quaint old Bridge of the Goldsmiths, the fair city of Florence blazed with light and rang with shout and song. A struggling mass of spectators surged about the noble palace of the Medici, as out through its open gate-way and up the broad street known as the Via Larga streamed the great carnival pageant of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the head of the house of Medici.

"Room for the noble Abbot of Passignano! room for my Lord Cardinal!" shouted a fresh young voice from the head of the grand staircase that led from the loggia of the palace to the great entrance-hall below.

"So; say'st thou thus, Giulio?" another boyish voice exclaimed. "Then will I, too, play the herald for thee. Room," he cried, "for the worthy Prior of Capua! room for the noble Knight of St. John!" And down the broad staircase, thronged with gallant costumes, brilliant banners, and gleaming lances, the two merry boys elbowed their way.

Boys? you ask. Yes, boys – both of them, for all their priestly and high-sounding titles. In those far-off days, as we shall see, honors were distributed not so much for merit as from policy; and when royalty married royalty at ten and twelve to serve the ends of state, there was nothing so very wonderful in a noble prior of eleven or a lord cardinal of thirteen.

"Well, well, my modest young Florentines," said Lorenzo de Medici, in his harsh but not unkindly voice, as he met the boys in the grand and splendidly decorated entrance-hall; "if ye do but make your ways in life with such determination as that, all offices needs must yield to you. A truce to tattle, though, my fair Giulio. Modesty best becomes the young; Giovanni's cardinalate, remember, has not yet been proclaimed, and 't is wisest to hold our tongues till we may wag them truthfully. But, come," he added in a livelier tone, "to horse, to horse! the Triumph waits for none, – noble abbot and worshipful knight though they be – like to your shining selves. To-night be ye boys only. Ho, for fun and frolic; down with care and trouble! Sing it out, sing it out, my boys, well and lustily:

"Dance and carol every oneOf our band so bright and gay;See your sweethearts how they runThrough the jousts for you to-day."

And with this glee from one of his own gay carnival songs, Lorenzo the Magnificent sprang to the back of his noble Barbary horse, Morello, and spurred forward to mingle in the glories of the pageant.

It was a wondrous display – this carnival pageant, or "Triumph," of the Medici. Great golden cars, richly decorated, and drawn by curious beasts; horses dressed in the skins of lions and tigers and elephants; shaggy buffaloes and timorous giraffes from the Medicean villa at Careggi; fantastic monsters made up of mingled men and boys and horses, with other surprising figures as riders; dragons and dwarfs, giants and genii; beautiful young girls and boys dressed in antique costumes to represent goddesses and divinities of the old mythologies; and a chubby little gilded boy, seated on a great globe and representing the Golden Age – the age of every thing beautiful in art and life; – these and many other attractions made up the glittering display which, accompanied by Lorenzo the Magnificent and his retinue of over five hundred persons, "mounted, masked, and bravely apparelled," and gleaming in the light of four hundred flaring torches, traversed the streets of Florence, "singing in many voices all sorts of canzones, madrigals, and popular songs."

"By the stone nose of the marzoccho,22 but this is more joyous than the droning tasks we left behind us at Pisa; is it not, my Giovanni?" gayly exclaimed the younger of the two boys as, glittering in a suit of crimson velvet and cloth of gold, he rode in advance of one of the great triumphal cars. "My faith," he continued, "what would grim-eyed old Fra Bartolommeo say could he see thee, his choicest pupil in pontifical law, masking in a violet velvet suit and a gold-brocaded vest?"

"I fear me, Giulio," replied his cousin Giovanni, a pleasant-looking, brown-faced lad of nearly fourteen, "I fear me the good Fra would pull a long and chiding face at both our brave displays. You know how he can look when he takes us to task? And tall? Why, he seems always to grow as high as Giotto's tower there."

"Say, rather, like to the leaning tower in his own Pisa! for he seems as tall, and threatens to come down full as sure and heavily upon us poor unfortunates! Ah, yes, I know how he looks, Giovanni; he tries it upon me full often!" and Giulio's laugh of recollection was tempered with feeling memories.

Here an older boy, a brisk young fellow of sixteen, in a shining suit of silver and crimson brocade, rode toward them.

"Messer Giovanni," he said, "what say'st thou to dropping out of the triumph here by the Vecchio Palace? Then may we go back by the Via Pinti and see the capannucci."

Now, the capannucci was one of the peculiar carnival institutions of the Florentine boys of old, as dear to their hearts as are the fifth of November and its 'Guy' to the young Londoner of to-day. A great tree would be dragged into the centre of some broad street or square by a crowd of ready youngsters. There it would be set upright and propped or steadied by great faggots and pieces of wood. This base would then be fired, and as the blaze flamed from the faggots or crept up the tall tree-trunk, all the yelling boys danced in the flaring light. Then, when the capannucci fell with a great crash, the terrible young Florentine urchins never omitted to wage, over the charred trunk and the glowing embers, a furious rough-and-tumble fight.

Giovanni and Giulio, for all their high-sounding titles, welcomed exciting variety as readily as do any other active and wide-awake boys, and they assented gleefully to the young Buonarotti's suggestion.

"Quick, to the Via Pinti!" they cried, and yielding up their horses to the silver-liveried grooms who attended them, they turned from the pageant, and with their black visors, or half masks, partly drawn, they pushed their way through the crowds that surged under the great bell tower of the Palazzo Vecchio and thronged the gayly decorated street called the Via Pinti.

With a ready handful of danarini and soldi, small Florentine coins of that day, they easily satisfied the demands of the brown-skinned little street arabs who had laid great pieces of wood, called the stili, across the street, and would let none pass until they had yielded to their shrill demand of "Tribute, tribute! a soldi for tribute at the stili of San Marco!"

With laugh and shout and carnival jest, the three boys were struggling through the crowd toward the rising flame of a distant capannucci, when suddenly, with a swish and a thud, there came plump against the face of the young Giovanni one of the thin sugar eggs which, filled with red wine, was one of the favorite carnival missiles. Like a flow of blood the red liquid streamed down the broad, brown cheek of the lad, and streaked his violet tunic. He looked around dismayed.

"Ha, bestia!" he cried, as his quick eye detected the successful marksman in a group of laughing young fellows a few rods away. "'T was thou, wast it? Revenge, revenge, my comrades!" and the three lads sent a well-directed volley of return shots that made their assailants duck and dodge for safety. Then followed a frequent carnival scene. The shots and counter-shots drew many lookers-on, and soon the watchers changed to actors. The crowd quickly separated into two parties, the air seemed full of the flying missiles, and, in the glare of the great torches that, held by iron rings, flamed from the corner of a noble palace, the carnival fight raged fast and furiously. In the hottest of the strife a cheer arose as the nimble Giulio, snatching a brilliant crimson scarf from the shoulders of a laughing flower-girl, captured, next, a long pikestaff from a masker of the opposite side. Tying the crimson scarf to the long pike-handle, he charged the enemy, crying, "Ho, forward all!" His supporters followed him with a resistless rush; another volley of carnival ammunition filled the air, and a shout of victory went up as their opponents broke before their charge and the excited crowd went surging up the street. Again a stand was made, again the missiles flew, and now, the candy bon-bons failing, the reckless combatants kept up the fight with street refuse, – dust and dirt, and even dangerous stones.

It was in one of those hand-to-hand encounters that a tall and supple young fellow dashed from the opposing ranks and grappled with Giulio for the possession of the crimson standard. To and fro the boys swayed and tugged. In sheer defence the less sturdy Giulio struck out at his opponent's face, and down dropped the guarded disguise of the small black visor.

"Ho, an Albizzi!" Giulio exclaimed, as he recognized his antagonist. Then, as the long pikestaff was wrested from his grasp, he raised the well-known cry of his house, "Palle, Palle! Medici to the rescue."23

"Ha, Medici – is it?" the young Albizzi cried, and, as Giovanni de Medici pressed to the aid of his cousin, Francesco Albizzi clutched at Giovanni's mask in turn and tore it from his face.

"Hollo!" shouted the scornful Albizzi. "We have uncovered the game! Look, boys, 't is Messer Giovanni himself! Hail to My Lord Cardinal! Hail to the young magnifico!" and, doffing his purple bonnet, as if in reverence to Giovanni, he struck the lad with it full on his broad, brown cheek.

His followers applauded his deed with a shout, but it was a weak and spiritless one, for it was scarcely safe to make fun of the Medici then in Florence, and cowards, you know, always take the stronger side.