The Project Gutenberg eBook, With Marlborough to Malplaquet, by Herbert Strang and Richard Stead

Title: With Marlborough to Malplaquet

Author: Herbert Strang and Richard Stead

Release Date: October 20, 2004 [eBook #13817]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH MARLBOROUGH TO MALPLAQUET***

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Tom Martin,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

A mounted officer came galloping up.
[See CHAPTER X.]

Herbert Strang's Historical Series

With Marlborough to Malplaquet

NOW READY IN THIS SERIES.

With the Black Prince: a Story of the Reign of Edward III. By HERBERT STRANG and RICHARD STEAD.

A Mariner of England: a Story of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. By the same authors.

With Marlborough to Malplaquet: a Story of the Reign of Queen Anne. By the same authors.

With Marlborough to Malplaquet

A Story of the Reign of Queen Anne

by

Herbert Strang

and

Richard Stead
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

With Four Illustrations in Colour and a Map

NOTE

The object of this series is to encourage a taste for history among boys and girls up to thirteen or fourteen years of age. An attempt has been made to bring home to the young reader the principal events and movements of the periods covered by the several volumes.

If in these little stories historical fact treads somewhat closely upon the heels of fiction, the authors would plead the excellence of their intentions and the limitations of their space.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I: A BOUT AT SINGLESTICK

CHAPTER II: THE ATTACK ON THE COLLIERY

CHAPTER III: THE FIRE AT BINFIELD TOWERS

CHAPTER IV: THE RESCUE

CHAPTER V: GEORGE RECONNOITRES

CHAPTER VI: THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR

CHAPTER VII: BLENHEIM

CHAPTER VIII: COMRADES IN ARMS

CHAPTER IX: ANNUS MIRABILIS

CHAPTER X: "OUR OWN MEN, SIR!"

CHAPTER XI: THE HARDEST FIGHT OF THEM ALL

CHAPTER XII: CONCLUSION

HISTORICAL SUMMARY: REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PRINCIPAL EVENTS

PRESS OPINIONS

ILLUSTRATIONS

A MOUNTED OFFICER CAME GALLOPING UP

"NOW!" CAME THE ORDER

GEORGE FOUND HIMSELF ENGAGED IN A HAND TO HAND ENCOUNTER

THE RESCUE OF MARLBOROUGH

MAP OF WESTERN EUROPE IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ANNE

CHAPTER I

"Get thee down, laddie, I tell thee."

This injunction, given for the third time, and in a broad north-country dialect, came from the guard of the York and Newcastle coach, a strange new thing in England. A wonderful vehicle the York and Newcastle coach, covering the eighty-six long miles between the two towns in the space of two-and-thirty hours, and as yet an object of delight, and almost of awe, to the rustics of the villages and small towns on that portion of the Great North Road.

It was the darkening of a stinging day in the latter part of December, in the year 1701—it wanted but forty-eight hours to Christmas Eve—when the coach pulled up at the principal inn of the then quiet little country town of Darlington, a place which roused itself from its general sleepiness only on market and fair days, or now, since the mail-coach had begun to run, on the arrival or departure of the marvellous conveyance, whose rattle over the cobble-stones drew every inhabitant of the main street to the door.

No reply coming from the boy on the roof, the guard went on, "Eh, but the lad must be frozen stark," and swinging himself up to the top of the coach, he seized the dilatory passenger by the arm, saying, "Now, my hearty, come your ways down; we