"Look to yourselves," he shouted. "We are attacked in the rear. The camp is taken!"
CHAPTER XXV
THE MASSACRE
The alarming news that an attack was being made on the rear quickly spread, and from all parts of the field knights, men-at-arms and archers came running towards the Royal Standard as fast as their wearied bodies and cumbersome armour would permit.
Yet, even in the face of this new danger the mercenary instinct of the common soldiers was paramount. They had fought and won; rich and noble prisoners, worth princely ransoms, were theirs, and even the threatened attack failed to make the archers and men-at-arms abandon their hard-earned prizes. Thus the King found himself surrounded by a medley of Englishmen, intermingled with a crowd of French knights and gentlemen who in the confusion of the impending attack would undoubtedly be a source of danger to their captors.
Henry was quick to act. As a general and a soldier he resolved upon stern measures.
"My Lord Camoys," he exclaimed, "take a thousand lances and at all costs hold the enemy in check until the men-at-arms and archers can be formed up. Pass the word also that every man is to put his prisoner to death."
Unhesitatingly Lord Camoys rode to execute his terrible orders, but to the King's anger and surprise, sullen murmurs of protest and defiance rose on all sides. Though realizing the gravity of the situation, the English—knights and common soldiers alike—were loth to take such extreme measures. In some cases feelings of humanity prompted them to resist their liege-lord's orders, but, generally speaking, it was the reluctance to put a high-born prisoner to death that incited them to refusal. According to the practice of the times the indiscriminate slaughter of the common soldiers—men who could not afford to pay ransom—was regarded as the custom of war, but the murder of every prisoner who was willing to pay a large sum to his captor was in every sense abhorrent.
"By the Blessed Trinity," thundered the King, "what is this I see? Open rebellion? Sirs, ye will pay dearly for this anon."
And turning to one Thomas Almer, squire to Sir John Cornwall, afterwards Baron Fanhope, he ordered him to take three hundred archers and execute the helpless prisoners.