Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/53

Rh stopped his march. The two armies faced one another for some hours, neither side offering battle; the rest of the day was spent in light skirmishes begun by the French, and repeated for some days following with various success, but the remainder of the year passed without any considerable action.

1119. At length the violence of the two princes brought it to a battle: for Lewis, to give a reputation to his arms, advanced toward the frontiers of Normandy, and after a short siege took Gué Nicaise ; there the king met him, and the fight began, which continued with great obstinacy on both sides for nine hours. The French army was divided into two bodies, and the English into three; by which means, that part where the king fought in person, being attacked by a superiour number, began to give way; and William Crispin, a Norman baron, singling out the king of England (whose subject he had been, but banished for treason) struck him twice in the head with so much violence, that the blood gushed out of his mouth. The king, inflamed with rage and indignation, dealt such furious blows, that he struck down several of his enemies, and Crispin among the rest, who was taken prisoner at his horse's feet. The soldiers, encouraged by the valour of their prince, rallied, and fell on with fresh vigour; and the victory seemed doubtful, when William the son of king Henry, to whom his father had entrusted the third body of his army, which had not yet engaged, fell on with this fresh reserve upon the enemy, who was already very much harrassed with the toil of the day: this quickly cided