The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1902-05-08


confidence? Even the money to pay
the barest expenses of the necessary
machinery was beyond the resources of
the kings exchequer. Perhaps it
might have been found if the govern
ment could have abandoned all claim
npon France. This had to be done ul-
timately, and England survived it, and
now. But at the time it would have
been denounced by nine tenths of the
mobiles as cowardly, and as meaning the
extinction of England. They would
not give up the playground where they
had been accustomed fo- years to enjoy
the exciting sport of war.
"These freaks of the kings will get
Pole to Burley as they left the hall.
''Such commissions are impossible. The
council will never consent to them.
Burley knew this as we'll as De la
Pole, and had his owD views in humor-
ing the king as far as he had done; but
he was wary man, and kept his own
counsel. He was too discreet even to
assent to dispraise of the powerful
"For brid of the air shall carry the
voice."
The kings delight in pitched COM
bat was worthy of the son of the Black
Prince and the grandson of Edward
III. 1t was eminently a generous in
stinct in him. the mere love of excite
ment thoroughly qualified by chivalrous
| l. rotL ~
viving child, and the sole hope of a fac
ton, he had been INDUCED and PAM
pered in his caprices, but he had none
of the Neronic excess of cruelty and I'M
qualified delight in bloodshed. A few
years later. when he had grown to
manhood, he proposed characteristic
plan for settling long standing feud
with France. To stay the effusion OF
Christian blood and the horrors of pro-
tracted war, he proposed that the issue
should be decided once for all by single
combat between himself and the king
of France or single pitched battle be-
tween two equal sides, composed of the
two kings and their uncles, or armies
of such size as might be agreed upon.
We have often heard such method of
settling international quarrels proposed
in bitter Jest; here it was proposed in
earnest by chivalrous king, but over
ruled as a fantastic extravaganza, which
perhaps it was.
Burley agreed with ready tact to the
combat between the knight and the
clerk. He thought he saw through it a
way as good as any of the difficulty in
which the circumstances had placed his
craftsmanship.
His first care was to put the combat
on judicial footing. The ordeal by
combat was, as is doubtless known to
every reader, recognized legal institu-
tion for centuries after the date of our
story-a regular method of deciding be-
tween accuser and accused.
Ralph had not brought formal ac-
cusation before the king against the
knight, but it was an accusation that
could easily be put in form. In the
first year of Richard III statute had
been revived forbidding subjects to
maintain in their households brigands,
robbers, oppressors of the people, raw
ishers of women, and such like lawless
ruflians. Ralph had virtually accused
Sir Richard Rainham of the crime thus
forbidden, and of being himself such a
one as the legislature was trying to root
out. Rainham had given the lie to his
accuser. 1t was perfectly in order that
should be decided by personal combat
The place chosen for the combat was
at some little distance from Castle He'd
ingham, near the village now known as
clearinghouse At Gestingthorpe was
the regular jousting ground where the
young retainers o the Oxford family
exercised themselves in arms, and
where the country folks gathered on fes-
tival days for their sports. Tourna-
ments were as familiar ,pectacles in the
Fourteenth century as races are now.
The royal party rode out in state
The king, already fancier of high bred
horses, rode on white Arab, which his
uncle of Lancaster had lately imported
for him from Spain. But though he
was pleased with his new acquisition
and INDUCED the vain steed in snowy
exhibition of his graoes, and was eager
in his anticipation of the comLtt, he
had already been schooled to wear a
certain air of royal gravity in public,
and rode silently beside his mother,
restraining a strong inclination to dis
cuss with his favorite Oxford the
chances of the battle.
What the king would fain have done,
the irresponsible vulgar did freely.
The sympathy of the crowd was with
Ralph, and il was all the stronger that