PREPARING THE FEAST
THE FEAST
"Sirs," said the King, "I am well agreed thereto; withdraw you home into your houses and into such villages as ye came from and leave behind you of every village two or three and I shall cause writings to be made and seal them with my seal, the which they shall have with them, containing everything that ye demand." They said, "It is well said, we desire no better," and so they returned to their own homes.
The King could not keep his promise to the peasants, for the lords were stronger than he, yet not long after this time we find the peasants more free and labouring for hire.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE WAR WITH FRANCE (continued)
When Henry V was crowned King, he desired much to revive the glories of Crécy and so he summoned his nobles to war. Then he built a great fleet to carry them to France, cutting down the oak trees in the Forest of Epping for that purpose.
He was much loved by all his soldiers, "for in wrestling, leaping and running, no man could compare with him. In casting of great iron bars and heavy stones, he excelled all men, never shrinking at cold, nor slothful for heat; and when he most laboured, his head commonly uncovered; no more weariness of light armour than a light coat, very valiantly abiding at need both hunger and thirst, so manful of mind as never to seem to quinch at a wound or to smart at the pain."