title: The Flight of the Earls: A Popular History
author:  Liam Swords 
description: Liam Swords has been a curate, a teacher, a broadcaster, a publisher, a TV producer, and has written or edited six books of homilies over the last ten years for The Columba Press. As an historian, his work has been widely acclaimed and includes In Their Own Words and A Hidden Church.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Future King
  
  The queen raised her sword and gave the signal to attack. Hundreds of warriors
  dashed past her with pikes and halberds. Another salute with her sword brought
  on the archers who shot over the heads of their own troops at the advancing
  army.
  
  Then the foot soldiers raced past her, their swords swinging to their blood-
  curdling cries. The two armies clashed head on. When Prince Wallace Draper
  opened his gates, his men poured forth to join the bloody battle. When
  Gwyndalin saw him engaged, without conscious thought for her own safety she
  raced her stallion down the long hill to support him.
  
  Suddenly the sky filled with long arrows. One felled her forward charge as her
  mount staggered beneath her. A long arrow had pierced the stallion’s neck. It
  crumpled, throwing her headlong into the battle. She jerked at her trapped leg
  under the dying stallion. Heroically it struggled to jump back into the
  battle. The queen leaped free and striking blow after blow wit