Bishop Henry Despencer 1341-1406

Thomas Walsingham [~1422]. The bishop Bishop Henry Despencer [aged 40], with the knights, then hurried swiftly towards Norfolk, namely to North Walsham, the place where the commons had decided to await the royal answer and the return of their companions. As he passed through the country, the bishop’s number was continually increased, because many of the knightly order, and many gentlemen from the country who had been hiding for fear of the commons, seeing that the bishop had put on a soldier’s equipment, had taken up a metal helmet and a hard coat of mail which arrows could not pierce, and had also seized a material, double-edged sword, joined themselves to his side.

The bishop, therefore, when he [Bishop Henry Despencer] had come to the aforesaid place [on 25th June 1381], accompanied by a suitable force, found the peasants, in the manner of warriors, to have surrounded the place where they had gathered with ditches. Over the ditch they had fixed boards, windows, and doors, together with stakes, for their defence. Behind them he saw their baggage and carts placed, as though they were thinking not at all of flight. Without delay, the warlike bishop, about to fight in open battle, moved by the audacity of the scoundrels, ordered his trumpeters and heralds to sound. Then he himself, taking a lance in his right hand, urged on his horse with sharp spurs, and was carried against them with such courage and such boldness that, at a very swift charge, he reached the ditch before his men, faster than his own arrows. Nor was there any need for bow-bearing archers, since the matter was now being fought hand to hand at close quarters. The warlike prelate, therefore, like a boar gnashing its teeth, sparing neither himself nor his enemies, directed his attack wherever he saw the danger to be greatest. Piercing one man through, throwing down another, wounding another, he did not cease to inflict severe harm, until the whole crowd which had followed him, having reached the ditch, was ready to fight. Therefore the bishop’s men fought fiercely, and the commons no less so, until, as usually happens, the weaker conscience terrified the unjust side and withdrew their spirit from boldness and from the will to die. Nothing is more wretched than to wage wars with a seared conscience, for fear and confusion are always accustomed to be brought upon it, and victory never to come from it. Therefore the fearful common people fled; and because no other way remained except beyond their carts and baggage, which, as we have said, they had placed behind them, they strove to make their way through the woods. But the prelate, everywhere carrying out the office of a watchful commander, crushed these attempts. He hindered those who were thinking of flight by cutting them down, and cut them down by hindering them, until, after the chief stirrers of the crowd had been captured, together with their king, John Litster, and as many of the commons as he wished had been killed, and as many as he wished had been preserved alive, he gained complete victory.

Episcopus cum militibus properat festinanter versus Northfolchiam, ad North Walsham videlicet, locum in quo communes expectasse decreverant responsum regium et reditum sociorum. In pertranseundo ergo patriam, semper numerus episcopalis augebatur, quia de ordine militari et plures e patria generosi, qui delitescebant timore communium, videntes Episcopum militem induisse, et galeam assumpsisse metallicam, et loricam duram, quam non possent penetrare sagittæ, necnon gladium materialem ancipitem arripuisse, ejus lateri se junxerunt.

Episcopus itaque, cum pervenisset ad locum præfatum, stipatus turba decenti, reperit rusticos, more bellatorum, fossata cireumeinxisse locum in quem convenerant, et super fossam tabulas, fenestras, et ostia, cum palis, in defensionem sui fixisse. A tergo autem conspicit eorum cariagium et carectas locatas, tanquam de fuga minime cogitarent. Nec mora, Episcopus Martius, aperto Marte pugnaturus, commotus super audacia nebulonum, jubet tubicinibus et clarigatoribus suis canere ; et ipse, arrepta dextra manu lancea, urget cornipedem acutis calcaribus, et tanta animositate, tanta audacia, efferatur in cos, ut cursu velocissimo fossam præoccuparet, citatior sagittis suis; nec erat opus arcitenentibus sagittariis, cum res jam manu ad manum comminus ageretur. Antistes ergo belliger, velut aper frendens dentibus, sibi nec hostibus suis parcens, ubi !majus conspicit esse periculum, dirigit tentum suum, et, hunc perforando, illum dejiciendo, alium vulnerando, non cessat lædere vehementer, donec omnis turba quæ eum secuta fuerat, nacta fossa, ad confligendum parata foret : idcirco pugnatum est acriter ab episcopalibus, nec secus a communibus, donec, ut assolet, infirmior ‘conscientia partem terreret injustam, et animum ab audacia et voluntate subtraheret moriendi. Nihil est infelicius quam bella gerere cauteriata conscientia, qua timor et confusio semper solent ingeri, nunquam victoria provenire. Fugiunt idcirco meticulosi plebani, et quia nulla alia restabat via ultra carectas suas et cariagia, quæ retulimus eos à tergo suo locasse, per saltus iter facere elaborant. Sed Præsul, imperatoris circumspecti ubique gerens officium, hos conatus elidit, et fugere meditantes cædendo impedit, impediendo cædit; donec captis majoribus turbæ concitatoribus, et ipso eorum rege, Johanne Littestere, [et quot volebat occisis e communibus], et quot volebat ad vitam reservatis, plena victoria potiretur.