ime
enough for gratefulness."

XXI

BUCKINGHAM'S REVENGE

Three weeks from that day Richard Plantagenet, with his army, lay at
Salisbury; the rebellion of Buckingham wholly quelled and the leaders
fugitives with a price upon their heads.

The conspirators had perfected well their plans and at the same hour
threw off the mask. On the morning of the eighteenth, Sir Thomas St.
Leger--the King's own brother-in-law--the Marquis of Dorset, and the
two Courtneys, proclaimed Henry Tudor in Exeter; Sir John Cheney raised
the standard of revolt in Wiltshire; Sir William Norris and Sir William
Stoner in Berkshire, and Sir John Browne, of Bletchworth, and Sir John
Fogge in Kent. Buckingham with all his force marched from Brecknock
and set out, by way of Weobley and through the forest of Dean, to
Gloucester, there to cross the Severn. That it was his purpose to
throw himself in Richard's path, and risk a battle without waiting for
a juncture with his confederates, is altogether likely. Stafford was
ever rash and foolish; and never more so, indeed, than in this present
enterprise.

But whatever his intention may have been, it was thwarted by the
visitation of a power more potent than all the hosts of the King.
Nature, herself, frowned upon him and his schemes and swept them all to
ruin in the rush of angry waters. The rain that began the day Sir
Aymer De Lacy made his forced ride from Sheffield to Lincoln had
continued with but indifferent diminution for the whole of the
following week. As a result, the greatest flood the West of England
ever knew poured down through the Severn and its tributaries,
destroying fords and bridges, overwhelming hamlets and villages, and
drowning scores upon scores of the inhabitants. In the face of this
hostile manifestation of Providence, which washed out ardor and bred
disaffection and something of superstitious terror, as it held them
fast behind the impassable river, Buckingham's followers began to
waver; then to drop away; and finally, when it became known that his
very castle of Brecknock had been seized by Sir Thomas Vaughan, and
that almost before he was out of sight of its towers, they forsook him
forthwith, as rats a sinking ship.

All these matters came to the King by messengers from time to time; for
he had paid no heed to Buckingham, but had hurried Southward, gathering
his forces as he went. His strategy was to throw himself between
Stafford and his confederates; cut