A sorry record is the story of that fearful fight. For three long hours the battle raged from Haughmond Abbey on to Berwick Bridge, and ere the noon of that bloody day, twelve thousand valiant Englishmen fell on the fatal field. "So faute thei, to gret harm of this nacion," says one queer old chronicle; and another says: "It was more to be noted vengeable, for there the father was slain of the son and the son of the father." The great historian Hume tells us that "We shall scarcely find any battle in those ages where the shock was more terrible and more constant."
The fire of passion and of fight spread even to the youngest page and squire, and as Lionel pressed close after the "gilded helmet and the three-plumed crest" of his brilliant young prince, his face flamed with the excitement of the battle-hour. Again and again he saw the king unhorsed and fighting desperately for his crown and life; again and again he saw the fiery Hotspur and Douglas, the Scot, charge furiously on the king they had sworn to kill. Backward and forward the tide of battle rolls; now royalist, now rebel seems the victor. Hark! What shout is that?
"The king, the king is down!"
And where Hotspur and the Douglas fight around the hillock now known as the "King's Croft," Lionel misses the golden crest, he misses the royal banner of England!
"Sir Walter Blount is killed! the standard is lost!" is now the sorry cry.
But now the prince and his hardy Welsh fighters charge to the rescue, and Lionel gave a cry of terror as he saw a whizzing arrow tear into the face of his beloved prince. Young Harry reeled with his hurt, and Lionel with other gentlemen of the guard caught him in their arms. There was confusion and dismay.
"The prince is hurt!" cried Lionel, and almost as an echo rose those other shouts:
"The king is slain!"
"Long live the Percy!"
"Back to the rear, my lord!" pleaded Lionel, as he wiped the blood from the fair young face of the prince.