CHAPTER XIII.
For several minutes after the two armies were thus ranged opposite each other, both stood without motion, gazing on the adverse host. The front line was composed almost entirely of cavalry, which formed in those days the great strength of an army, and uniformly decided the event of a battle; but between the long battalions of the knights and men-at-arms were ranged close bodies of cross-bowmen and archers, who waited but a signal to commence the engagement with their missiles.
Standing thus face to face, with but a narrow space between them, the two hosts seemed as if contemplating the glittering array of the field, which, if we may believe the "branch of royal lineages," offered on either part as splendid a pageant as ever a royal court exhibited on fête or tournament. "There," it says in its naif jargon, "you might see many a pleasant coat of arms, and many a neat and gentle device, tissued of gold and various shining colours, blue, vermilion, yellow, and green. There were to be seen serried shields, and neighing horses, and ringing arms, pennons and banners, and helms and glittering crests."
To the left of the imperial army appeared Ferrand, Count of Flanders, with an immense host of hardy Flemings, together with the Count de Boulogne and several other of the minor confederates; while, opposed to him, was the young Duke of Champagne, the Duke of Burgundy, and the men of the commune of Soissons. To the right of the imperial army was a small body of English, with the Duke of Brabant and his forces in face of the Comte de Dreux, the Bishop of Beauvais, and a body of the troops of the clergy; while in the centre of each host, and conspicuous to both, were Otho, Emperor of Germany, and Philip Augustus of France, commanding in person the chosen knights of either monarchy.
In the midst of the dark square of lances that surrounded the emperor was to be seen a splendid car, from the centre of which rose a tall pole, bearing on the top the imperial standard, a golden eagle hovering above a dragon; while, beside Philip Augustus, was borne the royal banner of France,[[29]] consisting of an azure field embroidered with fleurs de lis of gold. On either hand of the king were ranged the knights selected to attend his person, whom we find named as William des Barres, Barthelmy de Roye, Peter de Malvoisin, Gerard Scropha, Steven of Longchamp, William of Mortemar, John of Rouvrai, William de Garlande, and Henry, Count de Bar, all men distinguished in arms, and chosen for their high and chivalrous qualities.
A dead silence pervaded the field. Each host, as we have said, gazed upon the other, still and motionless, waiting in awful expectation the first movement which should begin the horrid scene of carnage about to follow. It wanted but a word--a sign--the levelling of a lance--the sounding of a trumpet, to cast the whole dark mass of bloodthirsty insects there assembled into strife and mutual destruction: but yet there was a pause; as if each monarch felt the dreadful responsibility which that signal would bring upon his head, and hesitated to give it. Some reflections of the kind certainly passed through the mind of Philip Augustus; for, turning to William de Mortemar, he said, "We must begin the fight--I seek not their blood, but God gives us a right to defend ourselves. They have leagued to crush me, and the carnage of this day be upon their head. Where is the oriflamme?" he continued, looking round for the consecrated banner of St. Denis.
"It has not yet repassed the river, sire," replied Gerard Scropha. "I heard the tramp of the communes still coming over the bridge, and filling up the ranks behind. The oriflamme was the first banner that passed, and therefore of course will be the last that returns.
"We must not wait for it then," said the king. "Henry de Bar, speed to Guerin, who is on the right, with the Count de St. Paul; bid them begin the battle by throwing in a few men-at-arms to shake that heavy line of the Flemings. Then let the knights charge."
The young count bowed low, and set spurs to his horse; but his very passage along the line was a signal for the confederates to commence the fight. A flight of arrows and quarrels instantly darkened the sky, and fell thick as hail amongst the ranks of the French; the trumpets sounded, the lances were levelled, and two of the king's chaplains, who were placed at a little distance behind him, began to sing the hundred and forty-third Psalm, while the tears rolled plentifully from their eyes, from the effects of mingled fear, agitation, and devotion.
In the meanwhile, an hundred and fifty sergeants of arms charged the whole force of the Count of Flanders, according to the order of the king. His intention was completely fulfilled.[[30]] Dropping the points of their lances, the French men-at-arms cast themselves into the midst of the Flemish knights, who, indignant at being attacked by men who had not received the honours of chivalry, fell upon them furiously, with little regard to their own good order.
In an instant, the horses of the French men-at-arms were all slain; but being men of the commune of Soissons, trained to fight on foot as well as on horseback, they prolonged the fight hand to hand with the enemy's knights, and completely succeeded in throwing the centre of the imperial left wing into disarray. At that moment, the battalion of knights, under the Count de St. Paul, charged in support of the men-at-arms, and with their long lances levelled in line swept all before them, cleaving through the host of Flemings, and scattering them abroad upon the plain, as a thunderbolt strikes a pine, and rends it into atoms.
The strife, thus begun upon the right wing of the royal army, soon communicated itself to the centre; where, on a small mound sat Philip Augustus, viewing with a calm observing eye the progress of the battle, though gradually the dust and steam of the fight, and the confused groups of the combatants, falling every moment into greater disorder, would have confounded a less keen and experienced glance than his.
Though the left was now also engaged, the monarch's eye principally rested upon the right wing of his forces, where the Count of St. Paul, the Dukes of Burgundy and Champagne, were still struggling hard with the Flemings, whose second and third line, having come up, had turned the fortune of the day, and were driving back the French towards the river.
"By the Lord of Heaven! Burgundy is down!" cried Philip. "Ho, Michael, gallop to Sir Guy de Coucy; tell him to charge with the men of Tankerville, to support the good Duke of Burgundy! Away!"
The sergeant to whom he spoke galloped off like lightning to the spot where De Coucy was placed as a reserve.
"By Heaven! the duke is down, and his banner too!" continued the king, turning to Guerin, who now had joined him. "De Coucy moves not yet. St. Denis to boot! they will turn our flank. Is the knight a coward or mad?--Away, Guerin! Bid him charge for his honour."
But the king saw not what De Coucy saw, that a fresh corps of the confederates was debouching from the road behind the imperial army. If he attacked the Flemings before this body had advanced, he not only left his own rear unguarded, but the flank of the whole army totally exposed. He paused, therefore notwithstanding the critical situation of the Duke of Burgundy, till such time as this fresh body had, in the hurry and confusion of their arrival, advanced between him and the Flemings.
Then, however, the fifteen hundred lances he commanded were levelled in an instant: the trumpets sounded, the chargers sprang forward, and, hurled like an avalanche against the flank of this newly arrived corps, the squadron of De Coucy drove them in pell-mell upon the Flemings, forced the Flemings themselves back upon the troops of the emperor, and left a clear space for the soldiers of Burgundy and Champagne, to rally round their chiefs.
"Brave De Coucy!" cried the king, who had marked the manœuvre. "Good knight! Stout lance! All goes down before him. Burgundy is up. His banner waves again. Ride, Walter the young, and compliment the duke for me. Who are these coming down? I cannot see for the dust."
"They are the burgesses of Compiègne and Abbeville, and the oriflamme, sire," replied Guillaume des Barres. "They want a taste of the fight, and are forcing themselves in between us and those Saxon serfs, who are advancing straight towards us."
As he spoke the men of the communes, eager to signalise themselves in the service of a king who had done so much for them, marched boldly into the very front of the battle, and mingled hand to hand with an immense body of German infantry that were approaching rapidly towards the king.
The French communes, however, were inferior to the burly Saxons, both in number and in strength; and were, after an obstinate fight, driven back to the very foot of the mound on which Philip was placed. The knights and men-at-arms who surrounded him, seeing the battle so near the monarch's person, charged through the ranks of the burgesses, and, mingling with the Saxon infantry, cut them down in all directions with their long heavy swords. The German cavalry again spurred forward to support their own communes; and the fight became general around the immediate person of the monarch, who remained on the summit of the hillock, with no one but the Count de Montigny, bearing his standard, and Sir Stephen of Longchamp, who had refrained from following the rest into the melée.
"For God's sake! sire, retire a little!" said the knight: "if you are hurt, all is lost."
"Not a step, for a thousand empires!" replied the king, drawing down his visor and unsheathing his sword, as he beheld three or four German knights spurring towards him at full career, followed by a large troop of footmen, contending with the burghers of Compiègne. "We must do our devoir as a knight as well as a king, Sir Stephen."
"Mine then as a knight!" cried Stephen of Longchamp, laying his lance in rest; and on he galloped at the foremost of the German knights, whom he hurled dead from his horse, pierced from side to side with the iron of the spear.
The German that followed, however, without, spending a blow on the French knight's casque, plunged his sword in his horse's chest, at a spot where the iron barding was wanting. Rider and horse went down at once; and the German, springing to the ground, drew a long knife from his side, and knelt upon his prostrate adversary's chest.
"Denis Mountjoy!" cried the king, galloping on to the aid of his faithful follower. "Denis Mountjoy! au secours!"; But before he could arrive, the German knight had plunged his knife through the bars of the fallen man's helmet, and Stephen Longchamp was no more. The monarch avenged him, however, if he could not save; and, as the Saxon's head was bent down, accomplishing his bloody purpose, he struck him so fierce a blow on the back of his neck, with the full sway of a vigorous and practised arm, that the hood of his mail shirt yielded at once to the blow, and the edge of the weapon drove on through the backbone.
At that moment, however, the king found himself surrounded on every side by the German foot, who hemmed him in with their short pikes. The only knight who was near him was the Count de Montigny, bearing the royal banner; and nothing was to be seen around but the fierce faces of the Saxon pikemen looking out from under their steel caps, drawing their circle closer and closer round him, and fixing their eager eyes upon the crown that he wore on the crest of his helmet--or else the forms of some German knights at a short distance, whirling about like armed phantoms, through the clouds of dust that enveloped the whole scene.
Still Philip fought with desperate valour, plunging his horse into the ranks of the pikemen, and dealing sweeping blows around with his sword, which four or five times succeeded in clearing the space immediately before him.
Well and nobly too did the Count de Montigny do his devoir, holding with one hand the royal banner, which he raised and depressed continually, to give notice to all eyes of the monarch's danger, and striking with the other on every side round Philip's person, which he thus protected for many minutes from the near approach of his enemies.
It was in vain, however, that the king and his banner-bearer displayed such feats of chivalrous valour. Closer and closer the German burgesses hemmed them in. Many of the Saxon knights became attracted by the sight of the royal banner, and were urging their horses through the melée towards the spot where the conflict was raging so fiercely, when one of the serfs crept close to the king's charger. Philip felt his horse reeling underneath him; and, in a moment, the animal fell to the ground, bearing its rider down along with it.
A hundred of the long, three-edged knives, with which many of the Saxons fought that day, were instantly at the King's throat, and at the bars of his helmet. One thought of Agnes--one brief prayer to Heaven, was all that seemed allowed to Philip Augustus; but that moment, the shout of "Auvergne! Auvergne!" rang upon his ear and yielded hope.
With his head bent down to his saddle-bow, receiving a thousand blows as he came, his horse all in foam and blood, his armour hacked, dented, and broken, Thibalt d'Auvergne clove the hostile press with the fierce rapidity of a falcon in its stoop. He checked his horse but by the royal banner; he sprang to the ground; dashed, weltering to the earth, the boors who were kneeling on the prostrate body of the king, and, striding over it, whirled his immense mace round his head, at every blow sending the soul of some Saxon on the cold pilgrimage of death. The burgesses reeled back; but at the same time the knights who had been advancing, hurled themselves upon the Count d'Auvergne, and heaped blow upon blow on his head.
The safety of the whole host--the life and death, or captivity of the king--the destiny of all Europe--perhaps of all the world, depended at that moment on the arm of a madman. But that arm bore it all nobly up; and, though his armour was actually hewn from his flesh, and he himself bleeding from an hundred wounds, he wavered not a step; but, still striding over the body of the king, as he lay unable to rise, from the weight of his horse resting on his thigh, maintained his ground till, knight after knight arriving on both sides, the combat became more equal.
Still the fight around the royal banner was doubtful, when the battle-cry of De Coucy was heard approaching. "A Coucy! A Coucy! St. Michael! St. Michael!" rang over the plain; and the long lances of Tankerville, which had twice completely traversed and retraversed the enemy's line,[[31]] were seen sweeping on, in unbroken masses, like a thunder-cloud advancing over the heaven. The regular order they had still preserved, as well as their admirable training, and confidence in their leader, gave them vast superiority. The German pikemen were trampled under their tread. The knights were forced back at the point of the spear; the communes of Compiègne and Abbeville rallied behind them, and, in a short time, the field around the royal banner was once more clear of all enemies.
The first thing was to free the king from the weight of his horse, which had been stabbed in the neck, and was now quite dead. The monarch rose; but, before he remounted, though there were a thousand horses held ready for him, and a thousand voices pressing him to mount, he exclaimed, "Where is the Count d'Auvergne? I owe him life.--Stand back, Guillaume des Barres! your foot is on his chest. That is he in the black armour!"
It was indeed the unhappy Count d'Auvergne, who had borne up under a multitude of wounds, till the life of the king was in safety. He had then fallen in the melée, striking still, and lay upon a heap of dead that his hand had made. By the king's order, his casque was instantly unlaced; and Philip himself, kneeling beside him, raised his head upon his knee, and gazed in the ashy face to see if the flame of life's frail lamp was extinct indeed in the breast of him who had saved him from the tomb.
D'Auvergne opened his eyes, and looked faintly in the face of the monarch. His lips moved, but no sound issued from them.
"If thou diest, Auvergne," said Philip, in the fulness of his gratitude, "I have lost my best subject."
The count made another effort to speak. The king stooped over him, and inclined his ear. "Tell her," said the broken accents of the dying man,--"tell her--that for her love--I died--to save your life."
"I will," said Philip Augustus!--"on my faith, I will! and I know her not, or she will weep your fall."
There was something like a faint smile played round the dying knight's lip; his eyes fixed upon the king, and the spirit that lighted them passed away for ever!
"Farewell, Auvergne!" said the king. "Des Barres, see his body removed and honoured. And now, good knights," cried he, springing on horseback, "how fares the fight? My eyes have been absent too long. But, by my faith! you have worked well while I was down. The enemy's left is flying, or my sight deceives me."
"'Tis true, my lord;--'tis true!" replied Guillaume des Barres; "and Ferrand of Flanders himself is taken by the Duke of Burgundy."
"Thank God for that!" cried Philip, and he turned his eyes quickly to the centre. "They seem in strange confusion there. Where is the imperial standard? Where is Otho himself?"
"Otho has to do with Peter of Malvoisin and Gerard the Sow," replied William des Barres, laughing, "and finds them unpleasant neighbours doubtless. But do you know, sire, that a pike head is sticking in your cuirass?"
"Mind not that!" cried the king; "Let us charge! Otho's ranks are broken; his men dispersed; one gallant charge, and the day is ours. Down with your lances, De Coucy! Men of Soissons, follow the king! knights, remember your own renown! Burghers, fight for your firesides! Denis Mountjoy! Upon them! Charge!"
It was the critical moment. Otho might have rallied; and his forces were still more than double those of the king; while the Count de Boulogne and the English, though the Earl of Salisbury had been dashed from his horse by the mace of the bellicose Bishop of Beauvais, were still maintaining the fight to the left. The well-timed and well-executed charge of the king, however, accompanied, as he was, by the choice chivalry of his realm, who had gathered about him to his rescue, decided the fate of the day. The Germans fled in confusion. Otho himself narrowly escaped being taken; and though a part of the right wing of the confederates retreated in somewhat better array, yet the defeat even there was complete, and the Earl of Salisbury and the Count de Boulogne were both made prisoners.
For nearly six hours the combat lasted; and, when at last the flight was complete, the number of prisoners was so great, that Philip dared not allow his troops to pursue the fugitives for any length of way, lest he should be mastered at last by those he had just conquered.
At five o'clock the trumpets sounded to the standard to recall the pursuers; and thus ended the famous battle of Bovines--a strife and a victory scarcely paralleled in history.