Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays

[125]

A charge with Prince Rupert.

Thousands were there, in darker fame that dwell,
Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn;
And though to me unknown, they sure fought well,
Whom Rupert led, and who were British-born.

Dryden.

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I. The March. June 17, 1643.

Last night the Canary wine flashed in the red Venice glasses on the oaken tables of the hall; loud voices shouted and laughed till the clustered hawk-bells jingled from the rafters, while the coupled stag-hounds fawned unnoticed, and the watchful falcon whistled to himself unheard. In the carved chairs lounged groups of revellers, dressed in scarlet, dressed in purple, dressed in white and gold, gay with satins and ribbons, gorgeous with glittering chains and jewelled swords: stern, manly faces, that had been singed with powder in the Palatinate; brutal, swarthy faces, knowing all that sack and sin could teach them; beautiful, boyish faces, fresh from ancestral homes and high-born mothers; grave, sad faces, sad for undoubted tyranny, grave before the greater wrong of disloyalty. Some were in council, some were in strife, many were in liquor; the parson was there with useless gravity, the jester with superfluous folly; and in the outer hall men more plebeian drained the brown October from pewter cans, which were beaten flat, next