Hotspur

The arrows flew like a storm of hail,

Half the King’s army fell,

For every arrow had found its mark

And the prince was hit as well,

So Hotspur rallied his men to take

The Standard from the crown,

But when he opened his visor

One of their arrows cut him down.

 

How are the mighty fallen,

How the prince had sat and wept,

To see the body of Hotspur

On the date that his fate had kept,

He’d helped King Henry onto the throne

But Henry played him false,

And now the Lord of the Marches lay

For some god-forsaken cause.

 

They buried him down at Whitchurch

With full honours as his due,

But he was larger than life, and so

The muttering rumours grew,

King Henry had him disinterred

To prove that he was dead,

And ran a spear through his body

With two millstones at his head.

 

The wrath of a reigning monarch

Owes no debt to loyal deeds,

The times that the Percy’s fought his wars

Had kept his borders free,

They’d routed the Scottish armies

And they’d kept the peace in Wales,

But once they had tried to thwart him

He rewarded them with nails.

 

They quartered Sir Harry Hotspur

Sent his head on up to York,

The rest of him went to Bristol, London

Chester, so they’d talk,

The rebels saw that their champion

Was well and truly dead,

For looking over his former lands

At York, had stared his head.

 

Some folk are living and dying, with

No line to say they’ve been,

Whether a peasant or nobleman,

A King or a handsome Queen,

But some go on in the history books

For a thousand years or more,

With a heart like Harry Hotspur’s

Beating upon our shore.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Tate Morgan]

The wrath of a reigning monarch

Owes no debt to loyal deeds,

Now there is the truth if ever i read it. Amazing the horrors of the christian kings and queens. Bloody mary and her sister Elisabeth through all of them run this almost inssaciable need to bleed the country dry. The romance o9f the english throne may make good fodder for the story books But it was a grusome thing to be a monarch in the days of old.

[David Scott]

The histories of men prove that evil will never prevail when the brave are willing to die and nourish the seeds of their children's freedoms.
Well researched and well penned.

[quinfinn]

to the fallen heroes of man who are larger than life and hard pressed for their legends to die. quartered and scattered to the fourwinds to kill the myth of immortality! an excellent write , an epic write, wonderful.....