de Montfort's Crown by Griff Hosker & Thrillers

Author:Griff Hosker & Thrillers [Hosker, Griff & Thrillers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sword Books Ltd
Published: 2023-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Henry Samuel

Montfort’s Revenge

The weather changed at the end of February. It had been a hard winter. Snow had lain for quite a while but the weather, inexplicably, grew warmer in the last week of February and the snow melted. Puddles formed on fields and my farmers had to spend time digging channels to allow it to run off to the becks and the fishpond. That was another advantage of the fishpond. It had been put in the lowest part of the land, the part that normally flooded. My grange was the one that suffered the least of all the farms in the manor.

When men were not working in their fields they practised. The ones who lived close to my grange would try to come for an hour or so each day. Lewes had shown the survivors the need to be the best that they could be. The younger warriors had heeded their advice. Bill and spearmen practised their skills using staffs. It resulted in bruises rather than cuts. The archers listened to the advice of my four senior archers. If we had more archers then they would have been vintenars but, as it was, they commanded less than twenty. We had a good stock of arrows but not enough bodkin tips. Ned favoured the fitting of an arrowhead just before a battle when an archer knew his target. There was little point in wasting bodkins on men without mail. We had wasted arrows when we had been ambushed. The weaponsmith had made darts and we had shown the women how to use them. The only time the women would be risked would be if we were about to be overrun. Women knew their fate if their men died and the manor fell.

I regularly visited Stockton with Roger and Samuel. It did my new squire good to mix with the other squires. When war came and we took the crown from de Montfort’s head they would fight alongside one another. I was kept informed about the news that filtered from the south. It confirmed the dissension in the rebellious ranks but the king and his son were still captives and most of the king’s allies were in exile. We heard that Gilbert de Clare and Henry de Montfort were planning an Easter tournament. We would not go, of course, but it told us that Simon de Montfort would not have all of his followers at his disposal. I had hoped that the arrival of Roger would bring my cousin Isabelle from her depression. It did not and she fled to her room when he entered.

It was while I visited that a ship arrived at the quay. She was a Gascon ship.

We all descended to the river gate to greet our visitors. I recognised the lord, it was William de Valence. An incredibly rich knight, he had married Joan de Munchensy one of William Marshal’s granddaughters. He had fought at Lewes and been exiled. I wondered what was the purpose of his visit.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.