menaced the town, another crossed the river and threatened the castle. The earl's position was now untenable, and he was obliged to fly to his apparently impregnable fortress. Tutbury is only about five miles from Burton, so that Lancaster soon reached his home, though scarcely had he got across the drawbridge before the royal forces were at the gate. It was soon discovered that to attempt defence was impossible, and to come out on the Staffordshire side quite impracticable; while the river Dove, at that time greatly flooded and scarcely fordable, and over which there was no bridge, appeared to cut him completely off from Derbyshire, through which he might have passed to his castle of Pontefract, in Yorkshire. Thus hemmed in, nothing was left but surrender or hazardous flight across the Dove.
The latter alternative was adopted; and after leaving his baggage and military chest in charge of his treasurer Leicester, with directions to convey them in safety, and as quickly as possible, to Pontefract, he and his followers made the attempt, and, in spite of the high floods, succeeded in gaining the opposite bank in safety.
Such, however, was not the fortune of Leicester's charge—the military chest, which contained all the money the earl had been amassing to pay his retainers and discharge the current expenses of the disastrous war he had undertaken. This servant, following his master at night, did all he could to convey the treasure safely from the castle, but in the confusion of getting down the steep hill and across the swollen river in the dark, with a fugitive panic-stricken guard and terrified waggoners, the chest
