Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/452

 324 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. journry himself towards Suffolk and Norfolk for ! there where the Lord Lovel had so lately disband the confirming of those parts. And being come to St. Edmond s-Bury, he understood that Tho mas, Marquis Dorset, who had been one of the pledges in France, was hasting towards him, to purge himself of some accusations which had been made against him. But the king, though he kept an ear for him, yet was the time so doubtful, that he sent the Earl of Oxford to meet him, and forth with to carry him to the Tower ; with a fair mes sage, nevertheless, that he should bear that dis grace with patience, for that the king meant not his hurt, but only to preserve him from doing hurt, either to the king s service, or to himself: and that the king should always be able, when he had clear ed himself, to make him reparation. From St. Edmond s-Bury he went to Norwich, where he kept his Christmas : and from thence he went, in a manner of pilgrimage, to Walsingham, where he visited our lady s church, famous for mi racles, and made his prayers and vows for help and deliverance : and from thence he returned by Cambridge to London. Not long after the rebels, with their king, under the leading of the Earl of Lincoln, the Earl of Kildare, the Lord Lovel, and Colonel Swart, landed at Fouldrey, in Lanca shire ; whither there repaired to them Sir Thomas Broughton, with some small company of English. The king, by that time, knowing now the storm would not divide, but fall in one place, had levied forcesin good number; and in person, taking with him his two designed generals, the Duke of Bed ford, and the Earl of Oxford, was come on his way towards them as far as Coventry, whence he sent forth a troop of light horsemen for discovery, and to intercept some stragglers of the enemies, by whom he might the better understand the particu lars of their progress and purposes, which was accordingly done; though the king otherwise was not without intelligence from espials in the camp. The rebels took their way toward York, with out spoiling the country, or any act of hostility, the better to put themselves into favour of the peo ple and to personate their king; who, no doubt, out of a princely feeling, was sparing and compas sionate towards his subjects : but their snow-ball did not gather as it went, for the people came not in to them ; neither did any rise or declare them selves in other parts of the kingdom for them : which was caused partly by the good taste that the king had given his people of his government, j oined with the reputation of his felicity ; and partly for that it was an odious thing the people of Eng land to have a king brought in to them upon the shoulders of Irish and Dutch, of which their army was in substance compounded. Neither was it a thing done with any great judgment on the party of tho rebels, for them to take their way towards York : considering that howsoever those parts had and where the king s presence had a little before qualified discontents. The Earl of Lin coln, deceived of his hopes of the country s con course unto him, in which case he would have temporised, and seeing the business past retract, resolved to make on where the king was, and to give him battle ; and thereupon marched towards Newark, thinking to have surprised the town. But the king was somewhat before this time come to Nottingham, where he called a council of war, at which was consulted whether it were best to protract time, or speedily to set upon the rebels. In which council the king himself, whose contin ual vigilancy did suck in sometimes suspicions which few else knew, inclined to the accelerating a battle, but this was presently put out of doubt by the great aids that came in to him in the instant of this consultation, partly upon missives and partly voluntaries, from many parts of the kingdom. The principal persons that came then to the king s aid were, the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Lord Strange, of the nobility ; and of knights and gentlemen, to the number of at least threescore and ten persons, with their companies ; making in the whole, at the least, six thousand fighting men, besides the forces that were with the king before. Whereupon the king, finding his army so bravely reinforced, and a great alacrity in all his men to fight, was confirmed in his former re solution, and marched speedily, so as he put him self between the enemies camp and Newark, be ing loath their army should get the commodity of that town. The earl, nothing dismayed, came for wards that day unto a little village called Stoke, and there encamped that night, upon the brow or hanging of a hill. The king the next day present ed him battle upon the plain, the fields there be ing open and champain.. The earl courageously came down and joined battle with him. Concern ing which battle the relations that are left unto us are so naked and negligent, though it be an ac tion of so recent memory, as they rather declare the success of the day than the manner of the fight. They say that the king divided his army into three battails ; whereof the vanguard only, well strengthened with wings, came to fight: that the fight was fierce and obstinate, and lasted three hours, before the victory inclined either way ; save that judgment might be made by that the king s vanguard of itself maintained fight against the whole power of the enemies, (the other two battails remaining out of action,) what the success was like to be in the end : that Martin Swart with his Germans performed bravely, and so did those few English that were on that side: neither did the Irish fail courage or fierceness ; but being almost naked men, only armed with darts and skeins, it was rather an execution than jnaerly oeen a nursery of their friends, yet it was i a fight upon them ; insomuch as the furious slaugh