The Knights of England, France, and Scotland

by Henry William Herbert

It was with a face, therefore, inflamed by the fiercest ire, a flashing eye, and a knitted brow, that Raoul de Canillac unsheathed his sword, and spurred his horse into a gallop, calling upon his men with a vehement and angry oath to follow him, for there were of a surety villeyns in the wood slaughtering the deer.

The ladies of the party checked their horses on the instant in affright, while the men rushed forward in confusion, drawing their weapons, and casting loose the hounds and hawks which they had led or carried, in order to wield their arms with more advantage; and between the shouts of the feudal retainers, the deep baying of the released bloodhounds, and the wild screams of the hawks, all that calm and peaceful solitude was transformed on the instant into a scene of the wildest turmoil and confusion. At this moment, just as the lord of Roche d’or spurred his horse up the slight eminence toward the little church, a man of great height and powerful frame stepped slowly forward from among the oaks, clad in a full suit of knightly armor, of plain, unornamented black steel, with no device or bearing on his shield, and no crest on his casque, which was overshadowed by an immense plume of black ostrich-feathers. He had a two-handed sword slung across his shoulders, and carried a ponderous battle-axe in his right hand.

Startled by this unexpected apparition, Raoul de Canillac checked his horse suddenly, exclaiming: “Treason! fy! treason! Ride, ladies, for your lives!—ride! ride!”

But this warning came too late: for, simultaneously with the appearance of the leader, above five hundred crossbow-men and lancers poured out from the wood on either flank, with their weapons ready; and a body of fifty or sixty mounted men-atarms drew out from behind a spur of the hills at the entrance of the gorge, and effectually cut off their retreat. Entirely surrounded, escape was impossible, and resistance hopeless, so great was the numerical superiority of the enemy, and so perfectly were they armed and accoutred for offence and defence, while the retainers of the lords had no defensive arms whatever, nor any weapons except their swords and hunting-staves, and a few bows and arbalasts.

The leader of the Jacquerie—for it needed not a second glance to inform Raoul de Canillac into whose hands he had fallen—waved his axe on high as a signal, and instantly a single crossbow was discharged; and the bolt, striking the horse of the seigneur full in the centre of the chest, he went down on the instant: and before he could recover his feet, the marquis was seized by a dozen stout hands, and bound securely hand and foot with stout hempen cords.

On perceiving this, the elder nobleman, Canillac the madman, with the desperate and reckless fury for which he was so conspicuous, dashed forward, sword in hand, with his paternal war-cry, followed by a dozen or two of the armed servitors, as if to rescue his kinsman. Perhaps he perceived the hopelessness of their condition, and preferred selling his life dearly to surrendering only to be slaughtered in cold blood: and if such was his notion, he was not all unwise.

Again the battle-axe was waved, and this time a close and well-aimed volley followed, the bolts taking effect fatally on the bodies of the old lord and several of his followers, three of whom with their chief were slain outright, while several others staggered back more or less severely wounded.

With this, all resistance ended, the men throwing down their arms, and crying for quarter, which—as they were all, with the exception of two pages and an esquire, men of low birth—was granted, and they were discharged without further condition. To those of gentle origin, however, no such clemency was extended. The pages and esquire were stripped of their costly garb, and immediately hanged up by the necks from the oak-trees, together with the young knight affianced to Mademoiselle Roche d’or, in spite of the entreaties and supplications of his beautiful betrothed.

The ladies were then compelled to dismount, and their arms being bound behind their backs, were tied with ropes to the tails of their captors’ horses; and, together with Raoul de Canillac, whose feet were now released from their fetters, were dragged in painful and disgraceful procession back to the gates of the feudal fortalice from which they had so lately issued free and happy!

On the first summons of the leader of the Jacques—seeing their lord and the ladies captive, weak in numbers, dispirited, and without a leader—the garrison immediately surrendered: the portcullis was drawn up, the pontlevis lowered, and, with their wretched prisoners, the fierce marauders entered the walls, which, by their massive strength, might otherwise have long defied them.