"Moreover, gracious Lord, please it your Majesty Royal of your great goodness and righteousness to incline your will to hear and feel the righteous party of us your subjects and liegemen; first, praying and beseeching to our Lord Jesus of his high and mighty power to give unto you virtue and prudence, and that through the mediation of the glorious martyr Saint Alban to give you very knowledge to know the intent of our assembling at this time; for God that is in Heaven knoweth that our intent is rightful and true. And therefore we pray unto Almighty Lord Jesus, these words—Domine sis clipeus defensionis nostræ. Wherefore, gracious Lord, please it your high Majesty to deliver such as we will accuse, and they to have like as they have deserved and done, and ye to be honoured and worshipped as most rightful King, our governor. For and we shall now at this time be promised, as afore this time is not unknown, of promises broken which full faith fully hath been promised, and there upon great oaths made, we will not now cease for none such promise, surety, nor other, till we have them which have deserved death, or else we to die therefore."
And to that answered the King our sovereign Lord and said: "I, King Henry, charge and command that no manner of person, of what degree, or state, or condition that ever he be, abide not, but void the field, and not be so hardy to make any resistance against me in mine own realm; for I shall know what traitor dare be so bold to raise a people in mine own land, wherefore I am in great distress and heaviness. And by the faith that I owe to Saint Edward, and to the Crown of England, I shall destroy them every mother's son, and they be hanged, and drawn, and quartered, that they may be taken afterward, of them to have example to all such traitors to beware to make any such rising of people within my land, and so traitorously to abide their King and governor. And for a conclusion, rather than they shall have any Lord here with me at this time, I shall this day, for their sake, and in this quarrel myself live or die."
Which answer come to the Duke of York, the which Duke, by the advice of the Lords of his Council, said unto them these words: "The King our sovereign Lord will not be reformed at our beseeching nor prayer, nor will not understand the intent that we be come hither and assembled for and gathered at this time; but only his full purpose, and there none other way but that he will with all his power pursue us, and if taken, to give us a shameful death, losing our livelihood and goods, and our heirs shamed for ever. And therefore, since it will be none otherwise but that we shall utterly die, better it is for us to die in the field than cowardly to be put to a great rebuke and a shameful death; moreover, considering in what peril England stands in at this hour, therefore every man help to help power for the right thereof, to redress the mischief that now reigneth, and to quit us like men in this quarrel; praying to that Lord that is King of Glory, that reigneth in the Kingdom celestial, to keep us and save us this day in our right, and through the help of His holy grace we may be made strong to withstand the great, abominable and cruel malice of them that purpose fully to destroy us with shameful death. We therefore, Lord, pray to Thee to be our comfort and Defender, saying the word aforesaid, Domine sis clipeus defensionis nostræ."
And when this was said, the said Duke of York, and the said Earl of Salisbury, and the Earl of Warwick, between eleven and twelve of the clock at noon, they broke into the town in three divers places and several places of the aforesaid street. The King being then in the place of Edmond Westby hundredor of the said town of Saint Albans, commandeth to slay all manner men of lords, knights, and squires and yeomen that might be taken of the foresaid Duke of York. This done, the foresaid Lord Clifford kept strongly the barriers that the said Duke of York might not in any wise, with all the power that he had, enter nor break into the town. The Earl of Warwick, knowing thereof, took and gathered his men together, and furiously brake in by the garden sides between the sign of the Key and the sign of the Chequer in Holwell street; and anon as they were within the town, suddenly they blew up trumpets, and set a cry with a shout and a great voice, "A Warwick! A Warwick! A Warwick!" and unto that time the Duke of York might never have entry into the town; and they with strong hand kept it, and mightily fought together, and anon, forthwith after the breaking in, they set on them manfully. And of them that were slain and buried in Saint Albans, forty-eight. And at this same time were hurt Lords of name—the King, our sovereign Lord, in the neck with an arrow; the Duke of Buckingham, with an arrow in the visage; the Lord of Stafford in the hand, with an arrow; the lord of Dorset, sore hurt that he might not go, but he was carried home in a cart; and Wenlock, knight, in like wise in a cart sore hurt; and other divers knights and squires sore hurt. The Earl of Wiltshire, Thorpe, and many others fled, and left their harness behind them cowardly, and the substance of the King's party were despoiled of horse and harness. This done, the said Lords, that is to wit, the Duke of York, the Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Warwick, come to the King, our Sovereign Lord, and on their knees besought him of grace and forgiveness of that they had done in his presence, and besought him of his Highness to take them as his true liegemen, saying that they never intended hurt to his own person, and therefore the King our sovereign Lord took them to grace, and so desired them to cease their people, and that there should no more harm be done; and they obeyed his commandment, and let made a cry in the King's name that all manner of people should cease and not so hardy to strike any stroke more after the proclamation of the cry; and so ceased the said battle, Deo gratias.
AN UNRULY NOBLE (1455).
Source.—Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. v., p. 285.
... There be great and grievous riots done in the West Country at the city of Exeter by the earl of Devonshire, accompanied with many riotous persons, as it is said, with eight hundred horsemen and four thousand footmen, and there have robbed the church (cathedral) of Exeter, and taken the canons of the same church and put them to ransom, and also have taken the gentlemen in that country, and done and committed many other great and heinous inconveniences; that in abridging of such riots ... a Protector and Defensor must be had ... and that he, in abridging of such riots and offences, should ride and labour into that country, for but if the said riots and inconveniences were resisted, it should be the cause of the loss of that land, and if that land were lost, it might be the cause of the subversion of all this land.
THE LITIGIOUSNESS OF THE AGE (circa 1455).
Source.—Gascoigne's Loci e Libro Veritatum, edited by Rogers, pp. 108, 109. (Oxford: 1881).