Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
I couldn't help thinking of Barbaroux and his bloody pikemen swarming in the gardens, and fancied the Swiss in the windows yonder; where they were to be slaughtered when the King had turned his back. What a great man that Carlyle is! I have read the battle in his History so often, that I knew it before I had seen it. Our windows look out on the obelisk where the guillotine stood.
It shall be the first line in battle, a position which I know you will not be averse to. 'Gad, they'll have to powder their heads, said Sir Gervas, with decision. 'You shall have the entire ordering of them, Saxon answered. 'Let the first company take six paces to the front so! Now let the pikemen stand out. Eighty-seven, a serviceable company!
The loss had been as severe among many other patriot companies, as well as in the Spanish ranks, and again the pikemen of Spain and Italy faltered before the iron visages and cordial blows of the Hollanders. This work had lasted a good hour and a half, when at last, on the fifth assault, a wild and mysterious apparition renewed the enthusiasm of the Spaniards.
And in truth the opening picture was effective. Sixteen black-robed, long-bearded Netherland envoys stalking away, discomfited and indignant upon one side; Catharine de' Medici on the other, regarding them with a sneer, painfully contorted into a pathetic smile; Henry the King, robed in a sack of penitence, trembling and hesitating, leaning on the arm of Epergnon, but quailing even under the protection of that mighty swordsman; Mucio, careering, truncheon in hand, in full panoply, upon his war-horse, waving forward a mingled mass of German lanzknechts, Swiss musketeers, and Lorraine pikemen; the redoubtable Don Bernardino de Mendoza, in front, frowning and ferocious, with his drawn sword in his hand; Elizabeth of England, in the back ground, with the white-bearded Burghley and the monastic Walsingham, all surveying the scene with eyes of deepest meaning; and, somewhat aside, but in full view, silent, calm, and imperturbably good-humoured, the bold Bearnese, standing with a mischievous but prophetic smile glittering through his blue eyes and curly beard thus grouped were the personages of the drama in the introductory scenes.
So Lord Buckhurst was to go forth to expostulate at the Hague, while transports were loading in Cadiz and Lisbon, reiters levying in Germany, pikemen and musketeers in Spain and Italy, for a purpose concerning which Walsingham and Barneveld had for a long time felt little doubt.
Verilie the queene hath ever shown herself forward and most willing that her faithfull subjects should be readie and skilfull in war as in peace. Thus in the fourteenth yeare of her reign, by order of her council, the citizens of London, assembling in their several halles, the masters chose out the most likelie and active persons of their companies to be pikemen and shot.
Certainly, with Alexander of Parma on his way to London, at the head of his Italian pikemen, his Spanish musketeers, his famous veteran legion "that nursing mother of great soldiers" it was indeed more than time that every man should know what he should do, that an army of Englishmen should be-assembled, and that every man should know his weapon.
A few pikes feebly levelled met them; but they shot the pikemen, drew swords, and helter-skelter leaped into the shattered and scattering mass. Right and left they hacked and hewed; I could hear the snapping of scythes beneath them, and see the flash of their sweeping swords. How it must end was plain enough, even to one like myself, who had never beheld such a battle before.
Here, quietly and swiftly, they were marshalled into order, the cavalry, pikemen, and musketeers, lining all sides of the place, and a chosen band among whom stood Sir William Stanley, on foot, and an officer of high rank on horseback occupying the central space immediately in front of the town-house.
Thus spake Friar Martin, shivering in his bonds, what time the crowd rocked and swayed, sobbing aloud and groaning; whereat Sir Gui's pikemen made lusty play with their spear-shafts. Then spake Beltane, whispering, to Roger, who, sweating with impatience, groaned and stared and gnawed upon his fingers: "Away, Roger!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking