Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 171 pages of information about Chronicles (1 of 6).

Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 171 pages of information about Chronicles (1 of 6).

“The legion that presumed to incounter with vs is slaine and beaten downe.  The residue keepe them close within their holds, or else seeke waies how to flee out of the countrie:  they shall not be once able so much as to abide the noise and clamor of so manie thousands as we are heere assembled, much lesse the force of our great puissance and dreadfull hands.  If ye therefore (said she) would wey and consider with your selues your huge numbers of men of warre, and the causes why ye haue mooued this warre, ye would surelie determine either in this battell to die with honour, or else to vanquish the enimie by plaine force, for so (quoth she) I being a woman am fullie resolued, as for you men ye maie (if ye list) liue and be brought into bondage.”

“Neither did Suetonius ceasse to exhort his people:  for though he trusted in their manhood, yet as he had diuided his armie into three battels, so did he make vnto ech of them a seuerall oration, willing them not to feare the shrill and vaine menacing threats of the Britains, sith there was among them more women than men, they hauing no skill in warrelike discipline, and heereto being naked without furniture of armour, would foorthwith giue place when they should feele the sharpe points of the Romans weapons, and the force of them by whom they had so often beene put to flight.  In manie legions (saith he) the number is small of them that win the battell.  Their glorie therefore should be the more, for that they being a small number should win the fame due to the whole armie, if they would (thronging togither) bestow their weapons freelie, and with their swoords and targets preasse forward vpon their enimies, continuing the slaughter without regard to the spoile, they might assure themselues when the victorie was once atchiued to haue all at their pleasures.”

Such forwardnesse in the souldiers followed vpon this exhortation of the couragious generall, that euerie one prepared himselfe so readilie to doo his dutie, and that with such a shew of skill and experience, that Suetonius hauing conceiued an assured hope of good lucke to follow, caused the trumpets to sound to the battell.  The onset was giuen in the straits, greatlie to the aduantage of the Romans, being but a handfull in comparison to their enimies.  The fight in the beginning was verie sharpe and cruell, but in the end the Britains being a let one to another (by reason of the narrownesse of the place) were not able to susteine the violent force of the Romans their enimies, so that they were constreind to giue backe, and so being disordered were put to flight, and vtterlie discomfited.

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Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.