The next day a decree was passed, pardoning March for all crimes and offences. The only offence which he had ever committed against the House of Lancaster was his own existence; and for that he could scarcely be held responsible, either in law or equity. But can we say as much for the offence against God and man which he committed on that sixth of August, when he suffered himself to be dragged to the judge’s bench, on which he sat with others to condemn the husband of that sister Anne who had been his all but mother?
We shall see no more of Edmund Mortimer. He ended life as he began it—as much like a vegetable as a human being could well make himself. Few Mortimers attained old age, nor did he. He died in his thirty-fourth year, issueless and unwept; and Richard Duke of York, the son of Anne Mortimer and Richard of Conisborough, succeeded to the White Rose’s “heritage of woe.”
A week after the execution, the King sailed for Harfleur.
The campaign was short, for those days of long campaigns; but pestilence raged among the troops, and cut off some of the finest men. The Earl of Suffolk died before they left Harfleur, and ere they reached Picardy, the Earl of Arundel. But the King pressed onward, till on the night of the 24th of October, he encamped, ready to give battle, near the little village of Azincour, to be thenceforward for ever famous, under its English name of Agincourt.
The army was in a very sober mood. The night was spent quietly, by the more careless in sleep, by the more thoughtful in prayer. The Duke of York was among the former; the King among the latter. Henry is said to have wrestled earnestly with God that no sins of his might be remembered against him, to lead to the discomfiture of his army. There was need for the entreaty. Perchance, had he slept that night, some such ghostly visions, born of his own conscience, might have disturbed his sleep, as those which troubled one of his successors on the eve of Bosworth Field.
When morning came, and the King was at breakfast with his brother Prince Humphrey, the Duke of York presented himself with a request that he might be permitted to lead the vanguard.
Humphrey, who was of a sarcastic turn of mind, amused himself by a few jokes on the obesity of the royal applicant; but the request was granted, and York rode off well pleased.
“Stand thou at my stirrup, Calverley,” said York to his squire. “I cast no doubt thou wilt win this day thy spurs; and for me, I look to come off covered with glory.”
“How many yards of glory shall it take to cover his Grace?” whispered one of the irreverent varlets behind them.
“Howsoe’er, little matter,” pursued the Duke. “I can scantly go higher than I am: wherefore howso I leave the field, little reck I.”