MEN OF IRON
by Ernie Howard Pyle
INTRODUCTION
The year 1400 opened with more than usual peacefulness in
England. Only a few months before, Richard II--weak, wicked, and
treacherous --had been dethroned, and Henry IV declared King in
his stead. But it was only a seeming peacefulness, lasting but
for a little while; for though King Henry proved himself a just
and a merciful man--as justice and mercy went with the men of
iron of those days--and though he did not care to shed blood
needlessly, there were many noble families who had been benefited
by King Richard during his reign, and who had lost somewhat of
their power and prestige from the coming in of the new King.
Among these were a number of great lords--the Dukes of Albemarle,
Surrey, and Exeter, the Marquis of Dorset, the Earl of
Gloucester, and others--who had been degraded to their former
titles and estates, from which King Richard had lifted them.
These and others brewed a secret plot to take King Henry's life,
which plot might have succeeded had not one of their own number
betrayed them.
Their plan had been to fall upon the King and his adherents, and
to massacre them during a great tournament, to be held at Oxford.
But Henry did not appear at the lists; whereupon, knowing that he
had been lodging at Windsor with only a few attendants, the
conspirators marched thither against him. In the mean time the
King had been warned of the plot, so that, instead of finding him
in the royal castle, they discovered through their scouts that he
had hurried to London, whence he was even then marching against
them at the head of a considerable army. So nothing was left them
but flight. Some betook themselves one way, some another; some
sought sanctuary here, some there; but one and another, they were
all of them caught and killed.
The Earl of Kent--one time Duke of Surrey-- and the Earl of
Salisbury were beheaded in the market-place at Cirencester; Lord
Le Despencer --once the Earl of Gloucester--and Lord Lumley met
the same fate at Bristol; the Earl of Huntingdon was taken in the
Essex fens, carried to the castle of the Duke of Gloucester, whom
he had betrayed to his death in King Richard's time, and was
there killed by the castle people. Those few who found friends
faithful and bold enough to afford them shelter, dragged those
friends down in their own ruin.
Just such a case was that of the father of the boy hero of this
story, the blind Lord Gilbert Reginald Falworth, Baron of
Falworth and Easterbridge, who, though having no part in the
plot, suffered through it ruin, utter and complete.
He had been a faithful counsellor and adviser to King Richard,
and perhaps it was this, as much and more than his roundabout
connection with the plot, that brought upon him the punishment he
suffered.
