Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
The crossbowmen, under one of John's free-companions, were a mile in advance, and entered the castle by a postern, while the French, taking the baggage for a second army, retreated into the town; but there the garrison made a sally, and a battle was fought in the streets, which ended in the total discomfiture of the French.
He offered high wages to all crossbowmen, archers, knights, and squires who would follow him to Leeds, and summoned the levies of horse and foot from the towns and shires of the south-east. His trust in the loyalty of his subjects met with an unexpectedly favourable response. In a few days a large army gathered round the king under the walls of Leeds.
Shortly after the breaking up of parliament, Gloucester fled to the march, and a little later William of Valence and Earl Warenne landed in Pembrokeshire with a small force of men-at-arms and crossbowmen. There was no longer any hope of carrying out the Provisions of Worcester, and once more Montfort was forced to proceed to the west to put down rebellion.
Covered by the fire of the French crossbowmen, the Spaniards and Germans came on to the assault, carrying ladders, with which they strove to climb the walls, but the defenders plied them so vigorously with quarrels from their cross-bows and flights of arrows that they frequently desisted before reaching the walls. When they pushed on, and strove to ascend, their luck was no better.
The commissioner of police, the officer of the Chatelet, the archers, crossbowmen, and arquebusiers of the city had repaired to the palace to form the escort; but when they presented themselves at the prison to take Berquin, he told them that he had appealed to the king, and that he would not go with them. The escort and the crowd retired disappointed.
His bolt struck the stork just where its wing meets the body, and the bird whirled aloft in a last convulsive flutter before falling wounded and flapping to the earth. A roar of applause burst from the crossbowmen; but at the instant that the bolt struck its mark old Johnston, who had stood listlessly with arrow on string, bent his bow and sped a shaft through the body of the falcon.
Long were the faces of the Englishmen and broad the laugh of the crossbowmen as the heavy mantlet was carried towards them, for there in the centre was the thick Brabant bolt driven deeply into the wood, while there was neither sign nor trace of the cloth-yard shaft.
The crossbowmen among the mercenaries kept up a fire upon the walls to hinder the defenders from interfering with the operations, while the archers above shot steadily, and killed many of those who ventured within range of their bows. After ten days' labor a portion of the moat some twenty yards in length was filled with bags of earth, and all was ready for the assault.
Miners undermined the walls, while over-against the stronghold two lofty structures of wood were raised, from which the crossbowmen, who manned them, were able to command the whole of the interior. At last the castle was captured in four successive assaults.
Then was the jailer dismissed, and in his place was put the second son of the torturer, who threw the Moorish woman into a dungeon, and inhumanly put upon her hands and feet chains weighing fifty pounds, besides a wooden waistband; and the jail were watched by the crossbowmen of the town and the people of the archbishop.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking