Page:The Queens of England.djvu/112

94 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. most disgus.ting and fearful menaces against the terrified queen, to whom they applied the grossest term of reproach and hatred, pelting the queen with filth, while others hurled down huge stones on the barge to destroy it. Seeing that her destruction would be inevitable is she persisted in proceeding, Eleanor was only saved by returning to the Tower, half-dead with terror. This violent attack on the queen induced Henry to remove her and her children to France, where he left them under the protection of the queen, her sister, and returned to face the troubles that menaced not only his throne, but his life, at home. Prince Edward had been, during this crisis, at Windsor, brooding, with fierce anger, over the insult offered to his mother, which he impatiently longed to avenge. Nor was an opportunity long denied him ; from the decision of the King of France, to whom the English barons had referred their complaints against Henry, not proving satisfactory to them, an open warfare was the result, and in the battle fought at Northampton, the victory was on the royal side, and the eldest son of the Earl of Leicester, with several of the most powerful of the barons, were made prisoners. The success attending the royal arms drew from the barons an offer of thirty thousand marks, if the king would grant a peace ; but, on this occasion, Henry evinced more spirit than he had hitherto shown. He refused the offer, and the battle of Lewes was the result — a battle which would have decided the civil war in the total discomfiture of the army of the barons, had not the fiery impetuosity of Prince Edward led him to throw away the brilliant advantage he had gained. He, at the head of his cavalry, chased the retreating foes, animating his soldiers by the cry of Queen Eleanor's name, which he madly shouted, and at Croydon, when he came up with them, the lives of a vast number were sacrificed in revenge for the insult offered to his mother. While this imprudent pursuit was taking place, the absence of so considerable a portion of his best troops left Henry and the King of the Romans exposed ; and the consequences were, that both were taken prisoners, and Edward, on his return to the battlefield, too late discov- ered the result of his own reckless conduct, and was compelled to yield himself a prisoner to Leicester, who sent him, with his father and uncle, to Wallingford, while the rest of the king's troops proceeded to Bristol Castle, of which they took possession. The queen instructed Sir Warren de Basingbourne,