[193] This description will bring to the reader’s recollection the skill of our own ancestors in the use of this destructive weapon, which mainly contributed to many of their most celebrated victories. The following extract relates to the battle of Crecy. “Ther were of the genowayes(a) crosbowes about a fiftene thousand, but they were so wery of goying a fote that day, a six leages, armed with their crosbowes, that they sayde to their constables, we be nat well ordred to fyght this day, for we be nat in the case to do any grete dede of arms, we have more nede of rest:—these wordes came to the erle of Alencon, who sayd, a man is well at ease to be charged with such a sort of raskalles, to be faynt, and fayle nowe at most nede.... When the genowayes were assembled toguyder, and beganne to approche, they made a grete leape, and crye, to abasshe thenglysshemen, but they stode styll, and styredde nat for all that: than the genowayes agayne the second tyme made another leape, and a fell crye, and stepped forward a lyttell, and thenglysshemen remeued nat one fote: thirdly agayne they leapt, and cryed, and went forth tyll they came within shotte; than they shotte feersly with their crosbowes; than thenglysshe archers stept forth one pase, and lette fly their arowes so holly and so thycke, that it seemed snow: when the genowayes felte the arowes persynge through heedes, armes, and brestes, many of them cast downe their crosbowes, and dyde cut their strings, and retourned dyscomfited. When the French kynge sawe them flye away, he sayd, slee these raskalles, for they shall let and trouble us without reason: than ye shulde have seen the men at armes dasshe in amonge them, and kylled a grete nombre of them: and ever styll the englysshemen shot whereas they saw thickest preace; the sharp arowes ranne into the men of armes, and into their horses, and many fell, horse and men, amonge the genowayes: and whan they were downe, they coulde nat relyve again, the preace was so thicke that one overthrewe another.”—Froissart, chap. 130. So at the battle of Homildoun, Percy wished to charge the Scots, who were drawn up upon a hill, but the Earl of March retained him, and bid him open their ranks by archery. “Then the English archers marching against the Scots, stitched them together with arrows, and made them bristle like a hedgehog, as it were with thorns and prickles; the hands and arms of the Scots they nailed to their own lances, so that with that sharp shower of arrows some they overthrew, others they wounded, and very many they slew. Upon which the valiant Sir John Swinton exclaimed, as with the voice of a herald, ‘My noble fellow–soldiers, what has bewitched you, that you give not way to your wonted gallantry: that you rush not to the mellay, hand to hand, nor pluck up heart like men, to attack those who would slaughter you with arrows, like hinds in a park. Let such as will go down with me, and in God’s name we will break into the enemy and so either come off with life, or else fall knightly with honour.’”—(Fordun, Scotichr. lib. xv. cap. 14.) One manuscript adds, “I have never heard nor read that the English in fair field beat an equal number of Scots by charge of lance, but very often by the thunder–shower (fulminatione) of their arrows. Let the latter therefore beware of waiting the flight of archery, but hasten to close combat, even as Sir John Swinton then did.” This is the story which Sir Walter Scott has worked up into his poem of Halidon Hill.
(a) Genoese.
[194] In European warfare, overthrown knights were often unable to rise from the incumbrance of their ponderous defences, and not very unfrequently suffocated by dust, heat, and want of air.
[195] Examples of a similar high sense of honour might be multiplied from the history of chivalry. Once during his crusade Richard Cœur–de–Lion saw a party of Templars surrounded and overmatched by Saracens, and being unarmed, sent some of his barons to support the Christians until he himself should be ready for combat. “Meanwhile an overpowering force of the enemy came up, and when he arrived at the field, the danger appeared so imminent, that he was entreated not to hazard his own person in the unequal contest. The king replied, his colour changing with his boiling blood, ‘Sith I have sent dear comrades to battle with a promise of following to assist them, if, as I have engaged, I do not defend them with all my strength, but being absent, and wanting, which Heaven forbid, they should meet death, I will never again usurp the name of king.’ So with no more words, rushing into the midst of the Turks like a thunderbolt, he pierced through, and cut them down and dispersed them, and then with many prisoners and his friends delivered, he returned to the camp.”—(Broad Stone of Honour, book iv. p. 174.)—So also the Marquis de Villena, a distinguished warrior of the court of Ferdinand of Arragon, being asked by Queen Isabella why he had exposed his own life to save a trusty servant nearly overpowered by odds, replied, “Should I not peril one life to serve him, who would have adventured three, had he possessed them, for me?”
[196] So Xenophon says, in the Anabasis, that the Persians never encamped less than 60 stadia (6 or 7 miles) from the Greeks. “The Persian army is a bad thing by night. For their horses are tethered, and shackled also for the most part, that they may not run away if they get loose: and if there be any disturbance, the Persian has to saddle and bridle his horse, and mount him loaded with his armour, which is all difficult by night, especially in any tumult. For these reasons they encamped away from the Grecians.”
[197] North’s Plutarch; Life of Crassus. This statement of numbers, though large, is not incredible, since the army originally consisted of seven legions, besides 4000 horse and as many light–armed infantry; and few appear to have effected their escape.
[198] Nominally about 1l. 13s.; but calculations of this sort convey little instruction, unless the relative value of the precious metals, then and now, were known.
[199] North’s Plutarch; Life of Antony.
[200] A city founded by the Parthians as the capital of their empire, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, nearly opposite to Seleucia, which was built shortly after the death of Alexander by Seleucus Nicator, and intended as the capital of the East. The history of Julian’s campaign is full of interest, and will repay the perusal. It has, however, no particular connexion with the subject of this chapter, which has already reached length sufficient to preclude the introduction of extraneous matter, and we therefore are compelled to take up the narrative of Julian’s proceedings only at the point where his misfortunes commenced.
[201] At the siege of Nisibis, in the invasion of Mesopotamia above mentioned, the elephants being brought up to the attack of a breach, became unmanageable from pain and terror, and did much damage to the assaulting force.