Ch. 15 - Henry the Third

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED, OF WINCHESTER

IF any of the English Barons remembered the murdered Arthur's
sister, Eleanor the fair maid of Brittany, shut up in her convent
at Bristol, none among them spoke of her now, or maintained her
right to the Crown. The dead Usurper's eldest boy, HENRY by name,
was taken by the Earl of Pembroke, the Marshal of England, to the
city of Gloucester, and there crowned in great haste when he was
only ten years old. As the Crown itself had been lost with the
King's treasure in the raging water, and as there was no time to
make another, they put a circle of plain gold upon his head
instead. 'We have been the enemies of this child's father,' said
Lord Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few Lords who were
present, 'and he merited our ill-will; but the child himself is
innocent, and his youth demands our friendship and protection.'
Those Lords felt tenderly towards the little boy, remembering their
own young children; and they bowed their heads, and said, 'Long
live King Henry the Third!'

Next, a great council met at Bristol, revised Magna Charta, and
made Lord Pembroke Regent or Protector of England, as the King was
too young to reign alone. The next thing to be done, was to get
rid of Prince Louis of France, and to win over those English Barons
who were still ranged under his banner. He was strong in many
parts of England, and in London itself; and he held, among other
places, a certain Castle called the Castle of Mount Sorel, in
Leicestershire. To this fortress, after some skirmishing and
truce-making, Lord Pembroke laid siege. Louis despatched an army
of six hundred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it.
Lord Pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force, retired
with all his men. The army of the French Prince, which had marched
there with fire and plunder, marched away with fire and plunder,
and came, in a boastful swaggering manner, to Lincoln. The town
submitted; but the Castle in the town, held by a brave widow lady,
named NICHOLA DE CAMVILLE (whose property it was), made such a
sturdy resistance, that the French Count in command of the army of
the French Prince found it necessary to besiege this Castle. While
he was thus engaged, word was brought to him that Lord Pembroke,
with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty men with cross-
bows, and a stout force both of horse and foot, was marching
towards him. 'What care I?' said the French Count. 'The
Englishman is not so mad as to attack me and my great army in a
walled town!' But the Englishman did it for all that, and did it -
not so madly but so wisely, that he decoyed the great army into the
narrow, ill-paved lanes and byways of Lincoln, where its horse-