[24] The only authority for this is the rhymed chronicle of the Chandos herald, but, as Köhler observes, the proceeding was so natural, and, I may add, the invention of such a story so improbable, that it is difficult not to accept it.

[25] The sword is gone, but the scabbard remains.

[26] See for the whole scene Dean Stanley's Memorials of Canterbury.

[27] Sir Arthur Wellesley occupied the Spanish position on his march to Roliça (Conversations of the Duke of Wellington, p. 3).

[28] These had been recognised by a statute of 5 Henry IV., the enactment relied on later by Charles I.

[29] More correctly Azincourt.

[30] Monstrelet.

[31] See Philippe de Commines, bk. i. chap. iii. "[At the battle of Montlhéry, 1464] the most honourable persons fought on foot among the archers ... which order they learned of the English, who are the best shot in the world."

[32] The reader will observe how early cavalry fell into the fault which caused the loss of Naseby.

[33] "The same difficulty of a Lenten campaign cropped up at the siege of Orleans a century later. It was surmounted by the general's insisting that the papal legate, who was in the camp, should grant a dispensation, which he very unwillingly did; whereupon every man in the army 'pria Dieu fort pour M. le legat'" (Brantôme, ed. Elzev. vol. i. p. 225).