200 Chaucer and Henry, Earl of Derby 



Skirgiello lay and awaited them, without knowing that they were 

 so near. So the Marshal came to a ford, and took Skirgiello by 

 surprise. . . . Many of his people were cut off at the ford, and 

 three dukes and eleven boyars were made prisoners, and sent home 

 to Prussia. There were also taken two hundred saddled horses. 

 All this happened on St. Augustine's day [Aug. 28]. From here 

 the Marshal set out, when the ships had arrived and made ready, 

 for Vilna. And they made two bridges over the Nerya, and besieged 

 the house with three divisions : the Livonians, with one army ; Vitovt, 

 with the Samogitians and Lithuanians, of whom many had resorted 

 to him, as the second; and the Marshal, with those from Prussia, 

 as the third. On September 4 they arrived at Vilna, and set tipT 

 their bombards, catapults, and mangonels, and stormed the upper 

 house^ vigorously, so that they gained possession of it. From this 

 house over two thousand persons were captured and slain, and the 

 fire was so great that they perished there all together, for inside 

 were many goods, and the people from all about had fled thither, 

 and piteous it was how they all burned. The other houses^ were 

 well manned, with artillery and bombards, and they defended them- 

 selves so valiantly that those without lay there five weeks, lacking 

 two days, and yet could not gain the other houses. In the besieging 

 host there was plenty of fodder, and no lack of meat and flour, 

 which the Lithuanians and Samogitians brought in; one could ride 

 away from the army for six miles round, and take what was needed 

 without hindrance. . . . Finally, the powder was all shot away 

 and other things used up, so that it was necessary to withdraw. The 

 Lord of Lancaster from England was there, having a large number 

 of good archers' who acquitted themselves right well, and he right 



^The wooden, oldest, or crooked house (Caro 3. 99). 



*Two in number. These were walled or built with stone {D. A., p. 

 xxx). The Annals of Thorn have {D. A., p. cvii) : 'Ceperunt primum 

 castrum Vilne non muratum, et interfecerunt multos, sed murata castra 

 non obtinuerunf (5*. R. P. 3. 164 ff.). 



' Sienkiewicz says (Knights of the Cross 2. 260) : 'There are no better 

 archers on earth than the English unless those of the Mazovian wilder- 

 ness ; but the Mazovians have not such good bows as the English. An 

 English arrow will go through the best armor a hundred yards distant. 

 I saw them at Vilno. And not a man of them missed, and there were 

 some who could hit a falcon while flying.' Elsewhere (2. 23) he speaks 

 of 'the unerring English archers who pierced a pigeon tied to a pole 

 a hundred yards distant, and whose arrows went through breastplates 

 as easily as through woollen stuff.' We are reminded that Chaucer's 

 Knight is attended by a yeoman who is also an archer (Prol. 104-8; 

 also a forester, like Chaucer himself after 1390; cf. pp. 188-9); the 

 fact that no other servant attends the Knight throws the latter's choice 

 into prominence. The yeoman of the Friar's Tale is his fellow: like 



