“You who defied us all so proudly!”
“You, the ever Augustus!”
At length the poor badgered king, seeing that they were preparing to set the mill on fire and smoke him out, surrendered to a follower of the Earl of Gloucester, Sir John Bix, and came out all covered with flour, while men sang:
The King of the Romans gathered a host,
And made him a castle of a mill post.
Meanwhile the camp on the hill, with the banner and the aforesaid litter, had aroused the attention of Prince Edward, just returning from harrying the Londoners.
“Up the hill, my men,” he said. “There is the very devil himself in that litter.”
The camp was stoutly defended, but after a while the defenders were forced to fly by superior force. Then the prince’s men rushed upon the litter, Drogo of Walderne foremost. They thought they had got the great earl.
“Come out, Simon, thou devil, thou worst of traitors,” they cried.
Within were only the four shrinking, timid burgesses, and Drogo and his band dragged them out, shrieking in vain that they were for the king, and cut them to pieces, poor unfortunates. But they did not find Earl Simon, and only slew their own friends; and when the confusion was over they looked down upon the battlefield, where one glance showed them that the main battle was lost, and the barons in possession of the field.
In vain Edward besought his men, now much reduced in numbers, to make another charge. They saw the enemy waiting with levelled lances to receive them, and felt that the position they were asked to assail was impregnable.