Habits and men, with remnants of record touching the makers of both

by Dr. Doran

When it is thus said of those worthy gentlemen, of course the expression is based upon the principles, and measured by the standard, of these our own later and degenerate days. Hawkwood and his truculent friends thought they had a vested right to remain in undisturbed possession of every castle, their ownership of which was founded on their having murdered the last proprietor at his own hearth. We have foolish ideas on such matters; and we must only judge of these perfect gentlemen,—so at least historians tell us,—not by the criterion of that Christianity which they professed, but by the customs which they observed. As Mr. Justice Erle remarked the other day, we shall soon have thieves pleading the custom of Hounslow Heath.

Hawkwood was one of the most terrible of those men who either made war on their own account, or let out their swords and sinews in the service of any party who promised to pay them, and guaranteed the plunder. He became awfully renowned under the not very menacing title of “John of the Needle.” But his needle was four feet long; and if to “sew up” a person means to slay him, the phrase probably had its origin from the times and the actions of this most ruthless of tailors. He swept, with his English followers, the south of France; where the sound of his bugle and the flutter of his pennon always heralded devastation or death. England and France were at peace at that time, and the King of France complained to his brother of England. The gracious Edward, who thought as little of lying as the Czar Nicholas, gave his “parole de gentilhomme” that he was highly disgusted; but privately he signalled the freebooter with a “Well done, Hawkwood!”

“John of the Needle” did not fail to prick his way according to his fancy and profit after this hint. He was captain of the most famous and most successful “horde” that ever sang, “Stand and deliver!” Not that he acted in rough highwayman fashion,—not he! Meek tailor as he had been, he had become too much of a gentleman and soldier for that. He robbed and murdered only in accordance with the rules of chivalry; and he would have hung a common thief who had dared to hint that he was a brother by profession.

His black-mail produced him tons of “red gold,” and his forays now extended to the banks of the Po. There was something of the spirit of Merry Sherwood in him, for he had a sort of jolly delight in attacking the palace and stripping the person of a bishop. This kind of gentle amusement however was not at all to the taste of the Bishop of bishops at Rome; and the appeal made by the Vatican to the King of England had better success than that which had been made by the King of France.

Hawkwood submitted both to his own sovereign and to the Church. From the latter he purchased peace,—making large gifts, which were thought nothing the worse of that they were the product of robbery. John thereupon took to regular service: he first entered that of the Pisans, in 1364, and those roystering individuals soon furnished him with as much fighting as he could reasonably have stomach for: when they were not inclined to fight, he hired out his sword and person to powers willing to fight against them. Sometimes a single baron, having a quarrel with another baron, and wishing to get possession of his goods, engaged Hawkwood to transact the little business for him. He of the needle went at it with a will; and when he had secured the castle and property of the fallen noble, he generally defied the other to take them from him, with a “Come, if you dare!”

This system was never objected to: an arrangement à l’amiable was entered into, and Hawkwood was accounted as honest a man as before. In twenty-three years’ service in Italy he thus fought on any and every side. It was only when he got satiated with variety that he settled down to constancy, and swore stable allegiance to the Florentines. One incident of the style of warfare, and his skill in carrying it on, will suffice to show of what metal our Essex needle was fashioned.

One of the most creditable pieces of work ever accomplished by Sir John, was in the course of the war which Florence carried on against Milan in 1391. No one of the Condottiere captains hired to lead mercenaries to battle ever achieved such glory as our old Essex tailor on this occasion, and Florence deemed the cause safe that was entrusted to his management. In the present case, Milan was to be assailed on two opposite sides. The noble Count d’Armagnac attacked it from the west, and got thoroughly beaten ere Hawkwood had sufficiently advanced to make his onslaught by the east. The latter with his army was about five leagues from the city when he heard that his colleague had been routed: he became thoughtful, but not dismayed.

The country in which he found himself was like one of the pattern-books once so well-known to him. It was all patches of land, and between those patches intersections of streams. Indeed, the country had nothing of the regularity of a tailor’s pattern-book, for the patches were of various shapes, and the intersecting streams running in all directions: the country between the Alps and the Po has ever been a doubtful and spongy sort of land whereon to struggle for the award of victory.

Hawkwood was retreating, but the Adige, the Mincio, and the Oglio were yet to be crossed when the Governor of Milan, Giacopo del Verme, came upon him with his conquering legions. He sat mute and observant: the hazard was extreme. He could not cross the rivers without first beating a vastly superior enemy: to attempt it after a defeat would have been utter destruction. He therefore did nothing but bide his time; and when the enemy had become weary of looking on at him, and had learned to despise him, he suddenly fell upon them with a power against which there was so little preparation that, having thrashed his foe into a condition that made immediate pursuit impossible, he struck his tents and crossed the Oglio, under no worse fire than the sarcasms of his sore and helpless antagonists.