"Back, back, my lord Prince. Back to my tent," urged the Earl of Westmoreland, and "Back, back, while there is yet safety," said the other knights, as the tide of battle surged toward the bleeding prince.
"Stand off!" cried young Harry, springing to his feet. "Stand off; my lords! Far be from me such disgrace as that, like a poltroon, I should stain my arms by flight. If the prince flies, who will wait to end the battle?"
And just then another shout arose—a joyous, ringing cry:
"Ho, the king lives! the standard is safe! St. George for England!" And the brave young Harry, turning to his guard, said:
"What, my lords? to be carried back before the victory? 'T would be to me a perpetual death! Lead me, I implore you, to the very face of the foe. I may not say to my friends: 'Go ye on first to the fight!' Be it mine to say: 'Follow me, my friends!'"
Then, as the royal standard waved once more aloft, he burst with his followers into the thick of the fight, his unyielding valor giving new strength to all.
And now the end is near. An archer's arrow, with unerring aim, pierces the valiant Hotspur, and he falls dead upon the field.
"Harry Percy is dead! Victory, victory! St. George and victory!" rings the cry from thousands of the loyal troops, and, like a whirlwind, a panic of fear seizes the rebel ranks. Douglas is a prisoner; the Earl of Worcester surrenders; the rout is general.
"Then fled thei that myte fle," says the chronicle, or, as Hall, another of the old chroniclers records: "The Scots fled, the Welshmen ran, the traitors were overcome; then neither woods hindered nor hills stopped the fearful hearts of them that were vanquished."
So ended the "sad and sorry field of Shrewsbury," a fitting prelude to that bloody era of strife known as the Wars of the Roses, which, commencing in the sad reign of the son of this boy general, Harry of Monmouth, was to stain England with the blood of Englishmen through fifty years.