e that the importance of Friar
Bungey upon this bloody day has been exaggerated by the narrator, we
must cite the testimony of sober Allerman Fabyan: "Of the mists and
other impediments which fell upon the lords' party, by reason of the
incantations wrought by Friar Bungey, as the fame went, me list not to
write."] and which had protected the Yorkists from the midnight guns,
might yet last, to the confusion of the foe. And near him, under a
gaunt, leafless tree, a rope round his neck, was Adam Warner, Sibyl
still faithful to his side, nor shuddering at the arrows and the guns,
her whole fear concentrated upon the sole life for which her own was
prized. Upon this eminence, then, these lookers-on stood aloof. And
the meek ears of Henry heard through the fog the inexplicable, sullen,
jarring clash,--steel had met steel.

"Holy Father!" exclaimed the kingly saint, "and this is the Easter
Sabbath, Thy most solemn day of peace!"

"Be silent," thundered the friar; "thou disturbest my spells.
Barabbarara, Santhinoa, Foggibus increscebo, confusio inimicis,
Garabbora, vapor et mistes!"

We must now rapidly survey the dispositions of the army under Warwick.
In the right wing, the command was entrusted to the Earl of Oxford
and the Marquis of Montagu. The former, who led the cavalry of that
division, was stationed in the van; the latter, according to his usual
habit--surrounded by a strong body-guard of knights and a prodigious
number of squires as aides-de-camp--remained at the rear, and directed
thence by his orders the general movement. In this wing the greater
number were Lancastrian, jealous of Warwick, and only consenting to the
generalship of Montagu because shared by their favourite hero, Oxford.
In the mid-space lay the chief strength of the bowmen, with a goodly
number of pikes and bills, under the Duke of Somerset; and this division
also was principally Lancastrian, and shared the jealousy of Oxford's
soldiery. The left wing, composed for the most part of Warwick's
yeomanry and retainers, was commanded by the Duke of Exeter, conjointly
with the earl himself. Both armies kept a considerable body in reserve,
and Warwick, besides this resource, had selected from his own retainers
a band of picked archers, whom he had skilfully placed in the outskirts
of a wood that then stretched from Wrotham Park to the column that now
commemorates the battle of Barnet, on the high northern road. He had
guarded these last-mentioned arch