mode of
attack and defence then reckoned among martial tactics was carried out
on both sides.

In addition, however, to the wonted privations and hardships of a
protracted siege, the English host was visited by a violent (p. 146)
disease, which spread rapidly through every grade of the army,
unsparingly thinning its ranks and carrying off its officers, and
threatening annihilation to the whole body. Whilst this calamity was
raging at its height, and making dreadful havoc among the soldiery, an
incident is recorded to have taken place, to which the mind gladly
turns from the din and turmoil of the siege, and the devastations of
that fatal scourge; and though the scene is itself the chamber of
death, we cannot but feel a melancholy satisfaction in contemplating
it for a while. An ecclesiastic, who was present in the camp, and in
attendance on his royal master, records the anecdote in the most
casual manner,[117] without a word of admiration or remark to call our
attention to it, as though he were relating a circumstance of no
unusual occurrence, and such merely as those who knew his master might
hear of without surprise; whilst few pages of history bear to any
monarch more beautiful and affecting evidence of habitual kindness of
heart, pure sympathy with a suffering fellow-creature, and devoted
fulfilment of the dearest offices of friendship. Whilst Richard
Courtenay, Bishop of Norwich, one of the victims of the dysentery, was
lingering in the agonies of death, we find Henry in the midst of his
besieging army, at the height of a very severe struggle, war and
disease raging on every side,--not in a council of his officers, (p. 147)
planning the operations of to-morrow,--nor on his couch, giving his
body and mind repose from the fatigues and excitement of his opening
campaign,--but we see him on his knees at the death-bed of a dying
minister of religion, joining in the offices of the church so long as
the waning spirit could partake of its consolations; and then not
commissioning others, however faithful representatives they might have
been, to act in his stead, but by his own hands soothing the
sufferings of the dying prelate, and striving to make the struggle of
his latter moments less bitter. Had Henry visited the tent of the good
Bishop when he first knew of his malady, and charged any of his
numerous retinue to pay especial attention to his wants and comforts,
it would have been regarded, at such an hour of p