their overwhelming strength seems to have persuaded the leaders that their cause, so far from being lost, was won already, and that there was no need of violence.
On the 25th Lancaster Herald came across to desire, in Norfolk's name, that four of them would hold an interview with him, under a safe-conduct, in Doncaster, and explain their objects. Aske replied by a counteroffer, that eight or twelve principal persons on both sides should hold a conference on Doncaster Bridge.
Both proposals were rejected; the Duke said that he should remain in his lines, and receive their attack whenever they dared to make it.[1] There was a pause. Aske called a council of war; and 'the lords' or perhaps Lord Darcy knowing that in rebellions half measures are suicide, voted for an immediate onset. Aske himself was of a different opinion. Norfolk did not wholly refuse negotiation; one other attempt might at least be made to avoid bloodshed. 'The Duke,' said Aske, in his account of his conduct, ' neither of those days had above six or eight thousand men, while we were nigh thirty thousand at the least; but we considered that if battle had been given, if the Duke had obtained the victory, all the knights, esquires, and all others of those
- ↑ The chroniclers tell a story of a miraculous fall of rain, which raised the river the day before the battle was to have been fought, and which was believed by both sides to have been an interference of Providence. Cardinal Pole also mentions the same fact of the rain, and is bitter at the superstitions of his friends; and yet, in the multitude of depositions which exist, made by persons present, and containing the most minute particulars of what took place, there is no hint of anything of the kind. The waters had been high for several days, and the cause of the unbloody termination of the crisis was more creditable to the rebel leaders.
