



Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger





MEN OF IRON

by 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.



CHAPTER 1

Myles Falworth was but eight years of age at that time, and it was only
afterwards, and when he grew old enough to know more of the ins and outs
of the matter, that he could remember by bits and pieces the things that
afterwards happened; how one evening a knight came clattering into the
court-yard upon a horse, red-nostrilled and smeared with the sweat and
foam of a desperate ride--Sir John Dale, a dear friend of the blind
Lord.

Even though so young, Myles knew that something very serious had
happened to make Sir John so pale and haggard, and he dimly remembered
leaning against the knight's iron-covered knees, looking up into his
gloomy face, and asking him if he was sick to look so strange. Thereupon
those who had been too troubled before to notice him, bethought
themselves of him, and sent him to bed, rebellious at having to go so
early.

He remembered how the next morning, looking out of a window high up
under the eaves, he saw a great troop of horsemen come riding into the
courtyard beneath, where a powdering of snow had whitened everything,
and of how the leader, a knight clad in black armor, dismounted and
entered the great hall door-way below, followed by several of the band.

He remembered how some of the castle women were standing in a frightened
group upon the landing of the stairs, talking together in low voices
about a matter he did not understand, excepting that the armed men who
