Herbert, Henry William: Wager of Battle. v1. 18 Nov 2014
 

Frank Forester, was an English novelist, poet, historian, illustrator, journalist and writer on sport. Starr writes that "as a classical scholar he had few equals in the United States . . . his knowledge of English history and literature was extensive; he was a pen-and-ink artist of marked ability; as a sportsman he was unsurpassed; his pupils idolized him."

Excerpt
In the latter part of the twelfth century—when, in the reign of Henry II., fourth successor of the Conqueror, and grandson of the first prince of that name, known as Beauclerc, the condition of the vanquished Saxons had begun in some sort to amend, though no fusion of the races had as yet commenced, and tranquillity was partially restored to England—the greater part of the northern counties, from the Trent to the mouths of Tyne and Solway, was little better than an unbroken chase or forest, with the exception of the fiefs of a few great barons, or the territories of a few cities and free borough towns; and thence, northward to the Scottish frontier, all was a rude and pathless desert of morasses, moors, and mountains, untrodden save by the foot of the persecuted Saxon outlaw.