Chapter 62
What are the Duke of Lorraine and Albert doing?
They were engaged in two other battles, each taking place in a different location.
In London, Queen Elizabeth stayed up all night, holding meetings in the Great Hall of Westminster with her Secretary of State, Cecil, desperately urging nobles to contribute in the face of national threats. She also mobilized the people of London to produce battlefield supplies, which were then transported to the front lines without delay.
However, this front line was not in Hastings, but in the cities of Tonbridge and Bromley.
Because the Duke of Lorraine and the captain of the Scottish Guard were besieging the two places respectively.
If Tonbridge and Bromley both fall, then London's defenses will be in grave danger.
Before the war began, although she appeared confident of victory even to her closest ministers, as if the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, was in her grasp, Queen Elizabeth was actually still wary of her destined nemesis.
Elizabeth I could not sleep a wink unless she saw the head of the Queen of Scots placed on a tray and brought to her.
It's a very mysterious sixth sense that can't be explained by any reason.
But Elizabeth felt that if she couldn't kill Mary Stuart quickly this time, she would be the one to lose her life.
After all, this is an enemy that can quickly raise an army of tens of thousands even if it loses its territory and goes into exile.
After supporting the Earl of Maurice to the Scottish throne, Elizabeth I thought she had knocked this enemy into the mud, making it impossible for him to recover, let alone pose a threat to her.
But Mary Stuart somehow acquired a fortune and recruited a large number of Italian mercenaries, who then stormed into England!
Queen Elizabeth I would never forget the moment she felt dizzy when she heard the news that morning.
With this mindset, she quickly dispatched her most elite main force to Hastings, intending to end the life of the Queen of Scots.
She even disregarded the prevailing aristocratic rules of the time and the decorum between fellow kings, ordering her soldiers to kill anyone they saw upon seeing the Queen of Scots before leaving the army.
But Elizabeth still didn't expect that, with the army exhausted, fighting far from home, and lacking food, and with Scotland at a complete disadvantage, the Queen of Scotland would still dare to divide her forces into three!
Wasn't she afraid of actually dying in Hastings? Did she have no regard for her own life at all?
Compared to being beheaded on the battlefield, wouldn't living in the French court be a way out?
Elizabeth I did not understand the desperate determination of her enemy.
Just as the Queen's meeting was in progress, the doors of Westminster Palace were suddenly flung open, and a guard rushed in to report the battle situation to the Queen.
"Your Majesty, Tonbridge and Bromley have been surrounded and defeated by the army led by the Duke of Lorraine, while the two thousand Swiss mercenaries led by the Italian Albert are advancing rapidly towards London!"
After a moment of silence, the Great Hall of Westminster erupted into a rapid explosion and boiling, like water poured into a frying pan.
The hundreds of councilors and nobles, already anxious about the start of a two-front war, now started arguing amongst themselves.
These nobles, adorned with wigs and dressed in magnificent attire, could no longer maintain their haughty demeanor. Some blamed the generals for the unfavorable outcome of the war, blaming Sir Howard for leading his army to Hastings, which left London undefended. Others suggested immediately sending envoys to the Queen of Scots to sue for peace, filling the hall with a cacophony of voices.
Finally, it was Secretary of State Cecil, who couldn't stand it any longer, who loudly stopped the scene.
"Quiet! Quiet!"
"This is in front of the Queen! What kind of behavior is this, making such a racket! Don't lose your proper manners and refinement!"
"Gentlemen, please quiet down!"
After silence returned to Westminster Palace, Cecil adjusted his glasses, clearing his eyes which had become blurry from overwork in the past few days, before looking up to ask Her Majesty the Queen's opinion.
Cecil thought that perhaps his eyes were really blurry, and he seemed to see Queen Elizabeth, who was as gorgeously dressed and fair-skinned as ever, full of royal majesty, and for a moment as panicked as the other nobles present.
When Cecil regained his composure and looked over again, he saw that Queen Elizabeth had regained the composure befitting a queen.
“Tombridge and Bromley are soldiers made up of peasants, so it’s normal that they were defeated by the Duke of Lorraine’s private army. London’s walls are high and thick, equipped with cannons, and protected by the private armies of various nobles…” Sitting on the throne in the hall, Elizabeth said, “…Even if the defense of those two cities fails, we still have the advantage in London.”
Queen Elizabeth's words calmed the anxieties of some nobles, temporarily suppressing their impulse to pledge allegiance to the Queen of Scotland.
"Cecil, has there been any news from Spain?" Queen Elizabeth asked again.
“Your Majesty, Philip II’s condition remains the same: that you and I enter into a marriage covenant before God…” Cecil said with difficulty, having long understood how stubborn Queen Elizabeth was.
Unexpectedly, this time, he heard the Queen above him say without hesitation, "Promise him, I need the help of the Spanish army."
...
“I have never won a war as easily as this one,” Duke Lorraine muttered to himself after the first battle ended.
The soldiers defending Tonbridge were all peasant soldiers who had hardly ever touched a sword in their lives, only a hoe. Suddenly asking them to take up weapons and fight to the death was practically sending them to their deaths. Some peasants were so frightened that they hid and begged for mercy as soon as they faced the enemy on the battlefield.
In the Duke of Lorraine's view, using the private armies carefully trained by the great nobles to deal with peasant soldiers was almost an insult.
With almost no effort, the Duke of Lorraine defeated the peasant soldiers at Tonbridge and then drove them into the mountains like cattle, completely demoralizing them.
Under Queen Elizabeth's influence, many of these farmers had converted to Protestantism. In order to uphold the honor of Catholicism, the Duke of Lorraine originally wanted to massacre a group of these Protestants in order to strengthen the Catholic Church's influence, but after thinking about it, he abandoned the plan.
Before he left, his niece came to talk to him about this matter.
On the issue of Protestantism, unlike his unyielding principles, this niece, who was always somewhat soft-hearted on matters concerning the people, was quite tolerant, to the point that the Duke of Lorraine doubted whether she still maintained her devout faith in the Lord.
"...Let's forgive these Protestants this once. The battle is more important. I need to hurry to Bromley to support that Italian," Duke Lorraine said helplessly to his personal guards.
The war at Bromley ended as easily as it did at Tonbridge; the beginning and the end were practically identical.
The Swiss mercenaries who had been surrounding the area without launching an attack were not in a hurry to seize the credit. Instead, they waited for the Duke of Lorraine to finish his previous battle before coming to help them clear a wide road to London, allowing them to maintain perfect combat readiness on their way to London!
After the siege ended, Albert almost impatiently urged the Duke of Lorraine to leave immediately and return to support Hastings according to the previously agreed plan, helping the Queen of Scots to get out of the siege!
“Your Grace, please depart immediately. Once the Queen of Scots dies at the hands of the British army, all our brilliant plans will be useless, and this battle will become meaningless!” Albert said, emphasizing his words.
The blond youth tried to remain calm and composed, but his tone still betrayed a hint of barely suppressed anxiety.
Although he was not in Hastings, he could imagine how fierce the battle must have been there.
Apart from the Swiss mercenaries, the rest of the Italian mercenaries were not trustworthy at all. On the battlefield, swords and spears were indiscriminate, and they were cruel to both the king and the peasants.
Albert couldn't imagine what would have happened if the Queen of Scots hadn't managed to hold out and had instead died at the hands of some English soldier!
The Duke of Lorraine snapped out of his daze, seemingly realizing something. The French nobleman looked the humble Italian up and down and let out a contemptuous laugh.
"Don't be delusional about things that don't belong to you..." The Duke of Lorraine raised the handle of his riding crop and rudely pointed at the handsome face of the blond youth, his finger almost touching his cheek, and said arrogantly, "...You must remember that everything you have is a gift from the Queen of Scots. Apart from that, you are just a penniless vagrant. The noble Queen is not someone you can covet."
Albert watched the French nobleman leave, and finally couldn't help but mutter a complaint.
"...I might be dying, and I still have to endure these vicious words. Damn bloodline-obsessed nobles."
After complaining, he pulled a rough wooden cross from around his neck and gently kissed it.
After conquering the two cities, the Duke of Lorraine once again marched south to support the Queen of Scotland, leaving only the blond youth and his Swiss mercenaries to besiege London.
—Yes, attack London.
This is the most important battle.
It will also be the most brutal battle ever fought.
...
Unlike the decisive battle at Hastings, which was fought amidst a torrential downpour, the day Albert led his army to attack London was filled with scorching sunlight.
From night to day, and from day to night, he led an army of only two thousand men, but fearless in the face of death, launching suicidal attacks on London's high and thick walls time and time again!
This was the most difficult and painful war Albert had ever fought, far surpassing even the raids he had launched against British soldiers a few years earlier in Ireland with his ragged rebels, hiding in the woods, enduring mosquito bites and poor food.
The deafening roar of cannons from the London city walls and the rain of arrows from longbowmen filled the air, while a steady stream of people from within London tightened their belts and supported the army.
In contrast, the only advantage of Swiss mercenaries was their willingness to fight to the death without retreating.
For a full day and two nights, the entire London city wall seemed to have become a meat grinder.
Whether on or below the city walls, the corpses of British and Swiss mercenaries were constantly being thrown down, attracting mosquitoes due to the scorching weather, making the scene even more unsightly than the garbage along the sewers.
Even the ravens on the lawn inside the Tower of London stopped lingering and excitedly rushed to the huge dining hall outside the city to enjoy this rare feast with their kin from afar.
Everyone who looks up can see a large number of dark birds gathering in the azure sky, their fluttering black feathers like the scythe of death falling from the sky.
At the height of the battle, unbeknownst to Albert, the departure of these ravens reminded many citizens and nobles in London of an ancient prophecy.
—If one day the ravens fly away from the Tower of London, the British Empire will perish.
Now that the ravens have indeed flown away from the Tower of London, does this foreshadow the end of the Tudor dynasty and its replacement by the Stuart dynasty?
People whispered among themselves, from nobles to commoners.
Queen Elizabeth, who was also trapped in London, was furious about the rumors and even executed two nobles who dared to spread them, leaving their bodies to dry in the middle of the street. But even this did not stop the panic from spreading in the court.
A brief silence fell over the palace.
The nobles, fearing Queen Elizabeth's wrath, simply stopped making the prophecy in public and instead kept mentioning it in private.
Under the immense pressure of war, the nobles in Whitehall Palace couldn't help but contemplate the future—not Queen Elizabeth's future, but their own.
It's important to understand that the troops fighting desperately against the Swiss mercenaries on the city walls are not Queen Elizabeth's own army, but their own private army, which they have painstakingly trained!
Albert had no idea what was happening in London.
All he knew was that the Queen of Scots had once mentioned in a private conversation that in the era of cold weapons, if one-tenth of an ordinary army died, the entire army would collapse and flee, a collective action that no wise commander could stop.
He didn't need to kill all six thousand noble private soldiers currently defending London; he just needed to fight a little harder, and a little harder still...
It wasn't until the British army finally collapsed on its own that Queen Elizabeth, with no other choice, retreated to Portsmouth with a portion of the nobles and soldiers who had been loyal to her.
London—the Tudor capital—finally opened its gates to the Swiss mercenaries.
...
When the Queen of Scots entered London and Whitehall Palace, surrounded by her army, the Crown of St. Edward and the Golden Scepter had already been placed on her throne.
Wrapped in velvet and inlaid with gemstones, its shimmering gold is luxurious, expensive, and unbearably heavy, attracting countless people to flock to it regardless of the cost.
This includes her.
Albert walked over, picked up the crown with both hands, and placed it on the head of the Queen of Scots, then knelt down on one knee.
"Your Majesty," the blond youth said, bowing his head.
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