It was Friday, the 19th of May, the sixth day of Whitsuntide, when Pembroke, having made all his arrangements, prepared to leave Newark and put everything to the test. Before marching, however, the warriors of England took the sacrament, and received from the papal legate white crosses, to mark them as men engaged in a holy war. At the same time the legate excommunicated Prince Louis and his principal partisans by name; and, having addressed the king’s adherents in encouraging language, he sent them on their way rejoicing in the hope of a glorious victory or a brave death.
On the evening of Friday, Pembroke, too prudent to fatigue his army with long marches when about to encounter so formidable an enemy, halted at Stowe, a village with a park and a Norman church, and there the royalists passed the night. Next morning the protector entrusted the king to the care of the legate, with whom the royal boy was to remain while warriors did battle for that crown which he was destined to find so thorny, and which, after causing him half a century of trouble, would have been torn from his hoary head, had not his mighty son, breaking chains and defying difficulties, prostrated Simon de Montfort and the baronial oligarchy on the field of Evesham. Pembroke was not gifted with the genius which fifty years later guided Edward on the way to victory, nor animated, as was the greatest of the Plantagenets, by the ambition of creating a free and prosperous nation out of hostile races, and enrolling his name in the annals of fame as one of the greatest leaders in war and rulers in peace; but the good earl was guided by an instinctive sagacity which made him equal to the work he was called on to do, and albeit he coveted no reward save the ennobling consciousness of having done his duty, he was not the less anxious to perform that duty faithfully and well.
And in a cautious spirit, but with a fearless heart, Pembroke marshalled his army skilfully in seven battalions, and set his face towards Lincoln to make the great venture, Philip de Albini and John Marshal, with the crossbowmen, leading the van and keeping about a mile in advance, and the baggage waggons, well guarded, bringing up the rear. Bucklers glittered and banners waved in all directions, for each knight had on the occasion two standards, one of which was borne before him, and the other carried by the soldiers in charge of the baggage, and thus the army of England had the appearance of being a much more numerous host than it in reality was, as on that Saturday morning, in the merry month of May, Pembroke left Stowe, and, in admirable order, took his way to Lincoln.