"I doubt it not, mine host," answered Tressilian; and while his auditor
remained in anxious expectation, he meditated for an instant how he
should commence his narrative. "My tale," he at length said, "to be
quite intelligible, must begin at some distance back. You have heard of
the battle of Stoke, my good host, and perhaps of old Sir Roger Robsart,
who, in that battle, valiantly took part with Henry VII., the Queen's
grandfather, and routed the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Geraldin and his wild
Irish, and the Flemings whom the Duchess of Burgundy had sent over, in
the quarrel of Lambert Simnel?"
"I remember both one and the other," said Giles Gosling; "it is sung
of a dozen times a week on my ale-bench below. Sir Roger Robsart of
Devon--oh, ay, 'tis him of whom minstrels sing to this hour,-'He was the flower of Stoke's red field,
When Martin Swart on ground lay slain;
In raging rout he never reel'd,
But like a rock did firm remain.' [This verse, or something similar, occurs in a long ballad, or
poem, on Flodden Field, reprinted by the late Henry Weber.] "Ay, and then there was Martin Swart I have heard my grandfather talk of,
and of the jolly Almains whom he commanded, with their slashed doublets
and quaint hose, all frounced with ribands above the nether-stocks.
Here's a song goes of Martin Swart, too, an I had but memory for it:-'Martin Swart and his men,
Saddle them, saddle them,
Martin Swart and his men;
Saddle them well.'"
[This verse of an old song actually occurs in an old play where
the singer boasts, "Courteously I can both counter and knack
Of Martin Swart and all his merry men."] "True, good mine host--the day was long talked of; but if you sing so
loud, you will awake more listeners than I care to commit my confidence
unto."
"I crave pardon, my worshipful guest," said mine host, "I was oblivious.
When an old song comes across us merry old knights of the spigot, it
runs away with our discretion."
"Well, mine host, my grandfather, like some other Cornishmen, kept a
warm affection to the House of York, and espoused the quarrel of this
Simnel, assuming the title of Earl of Warwick, as the county afterwards,
in great numbers, countenanced the cause of Perkin Warbeck, calling
himself the Duke of York. My grandsire joined Simnel's standard, and was
taken fighting desperately at Stoke, where most of the leaders of that
unhappy army were slain in their harness. The good knight to whom he
rendered himself, Sir Roger Robsart, protected him from the immediate
vengeance of the king, and dismissed him without ransom. But he was
unable to guard him from other penalties of his rashness, being the
heavy fines by which he was impoverished, according to Henry's mode of
weakening his enemies. The good knight did what he might to mitigate the
distresses of my ancestor; and their friendship became so strict, that
my father was bred up as the sworn brother and intimate of the present
Sir Hugh Robsart, the only son of Sir Roger, and the heir of his honest,
and generous, and hospitable temper, though not equal to him in martial
achievements."