l-axe, rode merrily forward. His whole little
troop, compact, as an arrow-head, flew with an irresistible shock against
the opposing columns, pierced clean through them, and scattered them in
all directions. At the very first charge one hundred English horsemen
drove the Spanish and Albanian cavalry back upon the musketeers and
pikemen. Wheeling with rapidity, they retired before a volley of
musket-shot, by which many horses and a few riders were killed; and then
formed again to renew the attack. Sir Philip Sidney, an coming to the
field, having met Sir William Pelham, the veteran lord marshal, lightly
armed, had with chivalrous extravagance thrown off his own cuishes, and
now rode to the battle with no armour but his cuirass. At the second
charge his horse was shot under him, but, mounting another, he was seen
everywhere, in the thick of the fight, behaving himself with a gallantry
which extorted admiration even from the enemy.

For the battle was a series of personal encounters in which high officers
were doing the work of private, soldiers. Lord North, who had been lying
"bed-rid" with a musket-shot in the leg, had got himself put on
horseback, and with "one boot on and one boot off," bore himself, "most
lustily" through the whole affair. "I desire that her Majesty may know;"
he said, "that I live but to, serve her. A better barony than I have
could not hire the Lord North to live, on meaner terms." Sir William
Russell laid about him with his curtel-axe to such purpose that the
Spaniards pronounced him a devil and not a man. "Wherever," said an
eye-witness, "he saw five or six of the enemy together; thither would he,
and with his hard knocks soon separated their friendship." Lord
Willoughby encountered George Crescia, general of the famed Albanian
cavalry, unhorsed him at the first shock, and rolled him into the ditch.
"I yield me thy prisoner," called out the Epirote in French, "for thou
art a 'preux chevalier;'" while Willoughby, trusting to his captive's
word, galloped onward, and with him the rest of the little troop, till
they seemed swallowed up by the superior numbers of the enemy. His horse
was shot under him, his basses were torn from his legs, and he was nearly
taken a prisoner, but fought his way back with incredible strength and
good fortune. Sir William Stanley's horse had seven bullets in him, but
bore his rider unhurt to the end of the battle. Leicester declared Sir
William and "old Reads" to be "worth