Queen Philippa.
The victory of the English over the Scots at Neville Cross is mainly attributable to the spirited demeanour of Philippa, wife of Edward the third. At her father’s court in Hainault, she had witnessed war in its splendid image, the tournament; and now, in a perilous moment, when the king her husband was far away, and the fate of England was in her hands, she showed that she was not unworthy of her race or her alliance. She rode among the battles or divisions of her host, exhorting them to perform their devoir, to defend the honour of her lord the king of England, and in the name of God she implored every man to bear a good heart and courage, promising them that she would reward them better than if her lord the king were personally in the field. She then quitted the ranks, recommending her soldiers to the protection of God, and of St. George, that special defender of the realm of England. This exhortation of the queen nerved the hearts of the English yeomen, and they shot their arrows so fiercely and so wholly together, that the Scottish battle-axe failed of its wonted might.[262]
The countess of March.
For the heroism of women, the page of Scottish history furnishes a remarkable instance. In the beginning of the year 1338, William de Montague, Earl of Salisbury, by command of the Earl of Arundel, the leader of the army of Edward III., laid siege to the castle of Dunbar, the chief post which the Scots possessed on the eastern coast of their country. The castle stood upon a reef of rocks which were almost girdled by the sea, and such parts of it as could be attacked were fortified with great skill. The Earl of March, its lord, was absent when Salisbury commenced the siege, but the defence lacked not his presence. His wife was there, and while to the vulgar spirits of the time, she was known, from the unwonted darkness of her eyes and hair, as Black Agnes, the chivalric sons of Scotland joyfully beheld a leader in the person of the high-spirited daughter of the illustrious Thomas Ranulph, Earl of Moray. The Countess of March performed all the duties of a skilful and vigilant commander. She animated her little band by her exhortations and munificence; she roused the brave into heroism, and shamed the timid into courage by the firmness of her bearing. When the warlike engines of the besiegers hurled stones against the battlements, she, as in scorn, ordered one of her female attendants to wipe off the dust with a handkerchief, and when the Earl of Salisbury commanded the enormous machine called the sow, to be advanced to the foot of the walls, she scoffingly cried out, ‘Beware, Montague, thy sow is about to farrow,’ and instantly by her command a huge fragment of rock was discharged from the battlements, and it dashed the engine to pieces. Many of the men who were about it were killed, and those who crawled from the ruin on their hands and knees were deridingly called by the Scots, Montague’s pigs. Foiled in his attempts, he endeavoured to gain the castle by treachery: he bribed the person who had the care of the gates to leave them open; but the man, faithful to his duty as well as to his pecuniary interest, disclosed the whole transaction to the Countess. Salisbury himself headed the party who were to enter; finding the gates open, he was advancing, when John Copeland, one of his attendants, hastily passing before him, the portcullis was let down, and Copeland, mistaken for his lord, remained a prisoner. The Countess, who from a high tower was observing the event, cried out to Salisbury with her wonted humour, ‘Farewell, Montague; I intended that you should have supped with us, and assisted in defending this fortress against the English.’
The English turned the siege into a blockade, but still without success. The gallantry of the Countess was supported by some favourable circumstances, and finally, in June, the Earl of Salisbury consented to a cessation of hostilities, and he abandoned the place.[263]
Tale of Jane of Mountfort.
But the most interesting of all the heroines of chivalry was Jane Countess of Mountfort, who, as Froissart says, had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion. She was a worthy descendant of those German women whom Tacitus describes as mixing with the warriors, administering refreshment, and exhorting them to valour. About the year 1341, the right to the duchy of Bretagne was disputed between the Earl of Mountfort and Charles of Blois. The question turned on certain points of inheritance which the earl dreaded the court of Paris would decide in favor of his rival, who was a relation of the French king. He, therefore, sought another alliance, and repairing to England, he performed homage for the duchy to Edward III.[264] His next steps were directed to Paris, but his journeys were not so secretly taken as he expected; for on presenting himself before King Philip he was charged with having acknowleged the sovereignty of the English monarch. The earl pretended that his journey to England had only related to his private affairs, but the king did not credit his story, and in distrust of his purposes he ordered him to remain in Paris. Mountfort, equally suspicious of his sovereign’s honor, effected his escape from the city in the guise of a merchant. He went to Brittany, and took his station in the castle of Nantes. The decision of the court at Paris was adverse to his claims; and the successful candidate, Charles of Blois, levied an army, and pursued his former rival, who was taken in his retreat, conveyed to Paris, and lodged in the Louvre.
To those who did not know the noble spirit of his countess the cause of the Mountfort family seemed hopeless. She was at Rennes when he was taken prisoner, and although she had great sorrow in her heart, yet she valiantly recomforted her friends and soldiers, and showing them her little son John, she said, ‘Sirs, be not too sore abashed of the earl my lord, whom you have lost, (he was but a man): behold my little child, who shall be by the grace of God his restorer, and he shall advance you all, and I have riches enough: you shall not lack; and I trust that I shall prosper in such wise that you shall be all recomforted.’[265] All her friends and soldiers vowed to die in her service; and she then went to her other fortresses and towns, replenishing them with warlike stores and provisions, and exhibiting her little son to the people, in order to rouse the allegiance of the friends of her family. She stationed herself in Hennebon, a town seated near the shores of Brittany.[266]
In the following summer Charles of Blois was aided by the whole puissance of France in his attempt to make himself complete master of Brittany; but so able were the dispositions of the countess, that, instead of sweeping over the whole country as they expected, they were detained before Rennes, and it was not till after much labour that they won it. The countess, in the mean while, had sent one of her knights, Sir Amery of Clysson, into England, desiring royal succour, on condition that the Earl of Mountfort’s son and heir should marry a daughter of the king, who was to be adorned with the highly splendid title, the Duchess of Brittany. Edward III., always anxious to strengthen his power in France, accepted the alliance, and ordered one of his noblest knights of prowess, Sir Walter Manny, to join the valiant countess with three thousand archers. Charles of Blois, after the capture of Rennes, was counselled to lay siege to Hennebon; but before he reached that town Jane de Mountfort was apprised of his purpose, and she commanded the watch-bell to be sounded, and every man to be armed, and standing at his post. When Sir Charles and the Frenchmen came near the town, they pitched their tents; but many of their gay and valorous spirits went skirmishing to the barriers. Some of the cavaliers of Hennebon did not suffer them to brandish their swords in the air; and it was only the shades of night that separated those preluders of battle. The next day the Frenchmen spent in council, and it was resolved that a general assault should be made on the barriers. Accordingly, on the third morning they fiercely pressed to the outward works of the town, and continued the assault till noon, when they retired with diminished forces. The lords of France rallied their soldiers, and urged the assault anew; but they that were within defended themselves right valiantly. The countess herself, clad in mail, and mounted on a goodly courser, rode from street to street, exhorting her people to defend their posts; and if in the din of battle her woman’s voice was sometimes drowned, nothing could mar her cheering smiles, which lighted the flame of noble chevisance in every gallant breast. She caused damsels and other women to cut short their kirtels, and carry stones and pots full of lime to the walls, to be cast upon the enemy. She then mounted a tower, and espied that the Frenchman’s camp was deserted. Her resolution was immediately taken: she drew around her three hundred of her best knights, and, grasping a targe and spear, and mounting again her good steed, she quitted the town by a gate which the enemy had overlooked. At the head of her gallant troop she made a short circuit, and then dashed into the Frenchmen’s lodgings. When the assailants, reverting their eyes, saw their tents on fire, and heard cries of terror from a few boys and varlets in the camp, they quickly returned to their lodgings to stop the conflagration. The countess and her noble band could not cope with so vast a force, and her retreat to the city being cut off, she took the road to the castle of Brest, where she was received with great joy. For five days the good soldiers of Hennebon wist not of the fate of their right valiant lady; but on the sixth morning they saw her golden banners glittering in the rising sun, and a hill in the distance crowned by a noble troop of five hundred lances, which her beauty and her just cause had drawn to her side at Brest. With the gay curvetting pace of gallant cavaliers progressing to a tournament, they gallantly held on their way to the town, smiling defiance to the martial front of the French, and entered Hennebon amidst the flourishes of their own trumpets, and the exulting cries of the people.
But the siege was advanced by the French with such courage, and their engines so dreadfully injured the walls, that the soldiers of Hennebon were in time discomfited. All except the countess were anxious to yield the town upon honourable terms; but she hoped for succour from Edward; and while her knights and men-at-arms sullenly guarded the walls which fronted the enemy, a solitary warder paced the ramparts that looked towards England. One day the members of her council were on the point of compelling her to submit, when, casting her eyes on the sea, whereon she had so often gazed in vain, she saw a dark mass rising out of the horizon. Her smile of fearful joy, before she discovered that it was the English fleet, excited the attention of her friends. They all rushed to the window, but her sight was the most piercing, for her heart was the most deeply anxious, and she was the first to exclaim, “I see the succours of England coming!” The joyful news quickly spread, the walls of Hennebon were crowded with the townsfolk, and the English fleet entered the harbour. When the soldiers landed, she went to them with great reverence, and feasted them right hospitably. She lodged the knights and others in the castle and in the town, where she dressed up halls and chambers for them; and the next day she made them a great feast at dinner. The exploits of Sir Walter Manny and his archers will be more appropriately related in another place. The siege of Hennebon was raised, and it is not unworthy of notice as a trait of manners, that on one occasion of valiancy on the part of the English, the countess descended from the castle with a glad cheer, and went and kissed Sir Walter Manny and his companions, one after another, two or three times, like a valiant lady.[267]