Men of Iron | Page 3

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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.
CHAPTER I
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