NOTE III
FALKES DE BRÉAUTÉ AT LINCOLN
The story of Falkes’s entrance into the castle and his sally thence into the town rests on the authority of Roger of Wendover (vol. iv. p. 22). In the Hist. G. le Mar. the only mention of Falkes in the whole account of the day is in the following lines: “E quant les gens Fauques oïrent Itels moz.” [i.e., Bishop Peter’s report to the host about the gate] “molt s’en esjoïrent; Trestot avant dedenz entrerent, Mes leidement les reuserent Cil dedenz, qu’il n’i furent gueres; Tost lor changierent lor afeires” (ll. 16535–40). Professor Tout (p. 251) says the poet’s “story supposes that Falkes did not enter the castle, but penetrated directly into the town. This is clear from the fact that when beaten they” (?) “were driven out into the open country. There the bishop encountered somewhat later the fugitive soldiers and roughly maltreated them for their cowardice.” For this statement he cites as his authority ll. 16573–6: “E quant les servanz encontrerent Qui leidement parti s’en erent Molt les leidirent cil qui vindrent Quand dedenz la presse les tindrent.” This passage is separated from the one which I have quoted above by thirty-three lines; and these thirty-three lines are entirely occupied with the discourse between the bishop and the Marshal, and the mission of the scouts, summarized in my [p. 39]. There is nothing to connect ll. 16573–6 with either Falkes or Peter. Cil qui vindrent cannot refer to the bishop individually. There is nothing to identify the “servanz qui leidement parti s’en erent” with Falkes’s men; nothing to suggest that Peter was one of “those who came” (whence and whither we know not) and “met them” [i.e., the “servanz”] and “greatly abused them when they had them fast in the crowd”; and nothing to indicate that this meeting, described by the poet as having taken place dans la presse, occurred as Mr. Tout says it did, in “the open country”; nothing to connect these four lines with anybody or anything previously mentioned in the poem.
In connexion with this point it will be well to consider an apparent difficulty in ll. 16541–5: “Li avesques al Mar. dist: ‘Par mon chief! cist ont mal fait, Car c’est la verite provee Qu’il n’ont pas unquore trovee La dreite entree’” etc. (see above, [p. 39]). In the poem as we now have it this passage immediately follows the one about Falkes; cist in l. 16542, therefore, would seem to refer to Falkes and his men. As, however, any thing that happened to Falkes and his men must have happened inside either the castle or the city, it could not become known to those who were still outside the western wall so speedily as this interpretation would imply; and I venture to think we may find a probable explanation of the difficulty, without supposing the poet to have been either so confused about the topography, or so careless, as to overlook this obvious fact. The obscurity and seeming incompleteness of the passage relating to Falkes, and the abruptness of the transition in ll. 16540–41, strongly suggest a lacuna in the MS. at this point. If there be one, it is probable that the missing lines contained some further account of Falkes’s mishap; it is possible that they may have also contained an account of some other transaction, the actors in which were the subjects of Peter’s comment recorded in ll. 16541–5; and it is further possible that that transaction may have been the attack on the North Gate recorded by Roger of Wendover.
NOTE IV
THE END OF THE BATTLE OF LINCOLN
Of the closing scene of the battle of Lincoln there are two accounts; one by the Biographer of the Marshal, the other by Roger of Wendover.
(1) The Biographer, after describing the fight on the bridge, the accident which there befell William Bloet, and the capture of the two De Quincys and others, continues thus:—
Tote la rue contreval
Qui s’en veit dreit a l’hospital.
Molt lor sembla la veie forte