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Title: The Invasions of England
Author: Home, Gordon, Foord, Edward
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Invasions of England" ***
THE INVASIONS OF ENGLAND
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE
THE REARGUARD OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
BY EDWARD FOORD
CONTAINING 32 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
PHOTOGRAPHS AND 7 SKETCH-MAPS
Price 7s. 6d. net
WHAT TO SEE IN ENGLAND
A GUIDE TO THE PLACES OF HISTORIC
INTEREST, NATURAL BEAUTY, OR LITERARY
ASSOCIATION
BY GORDON HOME
NEW EDITION, CONTAINING 166 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM DRAWINGS by THE AUTHOR
AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, ALSO A MAP
Price 3s. 6d. net
PUBLISHED BY
A. AND C. BLACK, LTD., 4, 5 AND 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON. W.
AGENTS
AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE
CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.
ST. MARTIN’S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO
INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.
MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY
300 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA
[Illustration:
_A. Rischgitz._
ADMIRAL MICHIEL ADRIAANSZOON DE RUIJTER.
The guns of whose fleet were heard at Whitehall in 1667. The greatest
of Dutch naval commanders.]
THE INVASIONS
OF ENGLAND
BY EDWARD FOORD
AND GORDON HOME
A. AND C. BLACK, LIMITED
SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. : 1915
_Published, 1913, as_ ‘ENGLAND INVADED’
_Reissued, 1915, as_ ‘THE INVASIONS OF ENGLAND’
PREFACE TO REISSUE
It has quite recently been stated in an American journal that Herr
Dernburg--the German official apologist to the United States--speaking
of the shelling of Hartlepool and Yorkshire watering-places, was
convinced that it would ‘bring home to the English people a keen
realization of the fact that every serious attempt to invade England
in the past has been successful.’ Had Herr Dernburg read any connected
narrative of the invasions of England we are of opinion that he would
never have made this statement, for it is obvious that since the Norman
conquest no successful invasion has taken place without the active
sympathy and assistance of a great section of the population.
Both before and during the present war the Germans have shown
themselves so incapable of reading correctly the habits of thought of
the British, of Americans, of Indians, of South Africans, that one is
scarcely surprised to find them ignorant of the history of the British
peoples also.
Let Herr Dernburg study the history of the Cinque Ports, or of any
of the seafaring towns of South Devon and Cornwall, and he will find
that sporadic raids and bombardments were frequent enough in mediæval,
Tudor, and even later times; but for any invasion that did not meet in
some degree with the approval of the country he will search in vain
after he has passed the landmark of 1066. Even the Norman conquest was
achieved through the lack of that real national cohesion which could
not come to pass within such a brief period as the interval between the
last Danish invasion and the death of Edward the Confessor.
Great Britain and Ireland in 1915 show a united front to the invader,
and the inevitable fate of any force that has the temerity to set
hostile feet on British soil will be the same as that of General Tate
and his 1,400 men in the year 1797.
There is such a widespread lack of exact knowledge on the subject of
the invasions of England that this new edition, at a popular price, of
a volume concerned with the whole of them, from Cæsar to Napoleon, may
help to clear a good many minds of misconceptions.
E. F.
G. H.
PREFACE
Since the year 1794, when England seethed with excitement through fear
of a French Republican invasion, no book has been produced dealing with
the invasions of England. The historical and archæological work of the
century that has passed has shed so much light on dark and shadowy
periods of English history that the materials available for a new work
on the subject have become increasingly extensive, and the authors have
endeavoured to take full advantage of all this new material. They have,
either together or separately, visited all the important, and many of
the minor, battle sites and campaign areas mentioned in the text, and,
as a result of close study, they have in certain instances arrived at
conclusions at variance with those generally accepted.
By careful topographical work, aided by every shred of historical
evidence available, the authors venture to hope that they may have
thrown a little new light upon the great campaign in which the Roman
general Paulinus crushed the British struggle for independence
under Boudicca. They have also devoted much time and thought to the
elucidation of the problem of the identity of the heroes of the
Romano-British contests with the oncoming Teutons, and to the areas of
their chief military operations. After much consideration and study of
the available authorities, they have arrived at the conclusion, which
they have not hesitated to express, that Arthur, or Artorius, is a
well-established historical figure. One of the authors has, through
his family’s territorial connection with the Eastern Border, had
exceptional opportunities for becoming familiar with the topography of
the wild and intricate region in which both are inclined to place the
fields of at least four, and perhaps six, of Arthur’s twelve famous
victories.
The field of Senlac has been examined by the authors in the company of
Sir Augustus Webster, Bart., the present owner of Battle Abbey, himself
a practical soldier. The result of their investigations has been to
convince them that the line of the Norman advance lay considerably to
the east of where it is generally placed, and that the great bulk of
Harold’s army was massed about the site of the abbey itself. His right
wing, being almost unassailable owing to the protection given to it by
the marshy ground in its front, was probably very weakly held. Relying
on the contemporary evidence of the Bayeux tapestry, and considering
the circumstances of Harold’s march, the authors are inclined to
discount any effective entrenchments or palisading.
In regard to the strategy and tactics of Flodden, a close study of
contemporary documents and authorities tends to emphasize certain
features which are often overlooked or ignored. First, the Scottish
army evidently changed its position twice to counteract Surrey’s
puzzling flanking movement. Second, it can have had no proper service
of scouts, and was too cumbrous to manœuvre readily, circumstances
which left it at the mercy of its numerically inferior antagonist.
Third, it was never able to form a complete line of battle owing to the
slowness of the right wing in coming into action. Fourth, so far as
appears from the letters of the English leaders, there was no slackness
on the part of the Scottish Lord Chamberlain who commanded the left
wing.
Much has been written on the relative strengths of the English and
Spanish fleets in 1588. The authors’ opinions may be summarized as
follows: (1) The Spaniards had an undoubted superiority in tonnage,
but in strength of ships actually built for war the English had the
advantage. (2) The English ships, being manned by a majority of
sailors, were infinitely better handled; and the galleons of the Royal
Navy were faster sailers than those of the Spanish. (3) There is no
real reason to think that the Spaniards were outmatched in number and
power of guns, but the English gunnery, though bad, was better and
more rapid than that of their antagonists. (4) The Spanish tactics,
as compared with that of the English, was antiquated, being based on
the formation of line abreast and a close order, which hampered the
manœuvring of individual ships and impeded the use of broadsides.
The exigencies of space have compelled the authors to pass briefly
over the later period of attempted invasions, and to concentrate
attention upon those attempts which actually succeeded so far as to
effect a landing upon English soil. An exception has, however, been
made in regard to Napoleon’s project of 1804-5, which has been briefly
discussed. It was the last attempt of an ancient enemy, France having
been actively organizing invasions of England in 1744 and again in
1759. The latter project was ably planned by Choiseul and Belleisle,
and was at least as feasible as Napoleon’s far more celebrated design;
but it shared its fate of hopeless failure owing to Britain’s supremacy
on the sea.
To Mr. Julian Corbett the authors are indebted for his kindness
in reading the proofs of the chapters on the Armada period. The
observations on Napoleon’s project of invasion are based entirely upon
the works of Mr. Corbett and Colonel Desbrière.
In writing on a subject of such permanently vital interest to the
British nation as the question of invasion, it may be thought desirable
that the authors should express the conclusions to which they have been
led in the course of their researches. They, however, prefer to merely
direct the attention of their readers to the fact that no successful
invasion of England has taken place since 1066 without the active
sympathy and assistance of a considerable section of the population.
Prior to that date Britain and England were not in any real sense of
the word single united communities.
The salient fact is that so long as England remained strong at sea, and
her strength was intelligently and vigorously directed, she was able
to beat off every serious attempt against her. It is unnecessary to
insist here on the universally accepted axiom that British national and
imperial existence rests on the maintenance of a supreme navy.
The maps have all been drawn by the authors for the express purpose of
illustrating their deductions, and among the objects illustrated are
several which have never before, it is believed, been depicted in any
published work.
EDWARD FOORD.
GORDON HOME.
_September, 1913._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CÆSAR’S INVASIONS 1
II. THE CLAUDIAN INVASION AND THE ROMAN CONQUEST 30
III. THE ROMAN PROVINCE AND THE EARLIER TEUTONIC INVASIONS 58
IV. THE ENGLISH CONQUEST 85
V. THE VIKING RAVAGES 114
VI. ALFRED AND THE SAVING OF WESSEX 132
VII. THE CONQUEST OF THE DANELAW 152
VIII. LATER VIKING RAIDS AND THE DANISH CONQUEST 162
IX. THE INVASIONS OF 1066 177
X. CONTINENTAL INVASIONS 209
XI. SCOTTISH INVASIONS 223
XII. LATER SCOTTISH INVASIONS 249
XIII. THE SPANISH ARMADA 275
XIV. THE AFTERMATH OF THE ARMADA 312
XV. DE RUIJTER AND WILLIAM OF ORANGE 318
XVI. THE ‘FIFTEEN’ AND THE ‘FORTY-FIVE’ 332
XVII. FRENCH RAIDS, 1690-1797 344
XVIII. THE NAPOLEONIC DESIGN, 1804 351
APPENDIX A.--THE SITE OF THE BATTLE OF ACLEA 357
APPENDIX B.--THE ENGLISH AND SPANISH FLEETS IN 1588 357
INDEX 363
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PRINTED SEPARATELY FROM THE TEXT
ADMIRAL MICHIEL ADRIAANSZOON DE RUIJTER _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
GAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR 17
CLAUDIUS I. 32
JOHN DUDLEY, VISCOUNT LISLE 213
A GREAT-SHIP OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. 220
THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY 261
KING JAMES IV. OF SCOTLAND 268
ADMIRAL PERO MENENDEZ DE AVILES 289
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 304
LORD HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM 309
SIR JOHN HAWKINS 316
JAMES, DUKE OF MONMOUTH 321
WILLIAM OF ORANGE 336
PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART 341
GENERAL LAZARE HOCHE 346
A HIGHLAND OUTPOST 348
PRINTED IN THE TEXT
PAGE
TYPES OF ROMAN SOLDIERS 10
A BRITON 15
A ROMAN TRIREME OFF DOVER 19
THE ROMAN WALL BETWEEN AESICA AND BORCOVICUS 55
ANGLO-SAXON WEAPONS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 95
A VIKING WARRIOR 115
THE OSEBERG DRAGON SHIP 118
SCANDINAVIAN WEAPONS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 121
IRON HAFTED BATTLE-AXE FOUND AT WINCHESTER 123
PLANKS TAKEN FROM A NINTH-CENTURY WAR VESSEL SUNK IN THE
HAMBLE RIVER 133
AN ANGLO-SAXON WEARING A HELMET OF LEATHER STRENGTHENED
WITH METAL BANDS 135
NORSE SHIP FOUND AT GOKSTAD 151
HORSES BEING LANDED FROM TRANSPORTS 189
WILLIAM’S FLAGSHIP, THE ‘MORA’ 189
THE ATTACK ON THE ENGLISH SHIELD-WALL AT HASTINGS 201
A VERY EARLY CAST-IRON BREECH-LOADING GUN 215
WROUGHT-IRON GUN FROM THE ‘MARIE ROSE’ 219
A BRASS CANNON ROYAL OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. 220
THE VIEW NORTH-WEST FROM FLODDEN FIELD 253
WEAPONS NOW PRESERVED IN BAMBOROUGH CASTLE 256
AN ENGLISH BILLMAN 262
A SCOTTISH PIKEMAN 265
BROWN BILL AND A BILL OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. 267
AN ELIZABETHAN MIDDLE-RATE GALLEON OR BATTLESHIP 281
IRON CANNON OF THE ARMADA PERIOD 290
BRASS DODECAGONAL SAKER OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 296
A DUTCH TWO-DECKED BATTLESHIP 325
A HIGHLAND CLANSMAN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 335
MARTELLO TOWERS ON THE SUSSEX COAST 362
MAPS AND PLANS
PAGE
CÆSAR’S TWO EXPEDITIONS TO BRITAIN IN 55 AND 54 B.C. 27
THE CAMPAIGN OF A.D. 60 AGAINST BOUDICCA 49
THE PASS THROUGH THE LAMMERMUIRS 101
BRITAIN FROM ABOUT 500-570 103
BRITAIN ABOUT 613 111
ENGLISH AND NORTHMEN AT THE DEATH OF ALFRED 149
THE FINAL STRUGGLE BETWEEN EADMUND II. AND CNUT 175
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1066 185
PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS 195
PLAN OF THE FLODDEN MANŒUVRE 259
PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN 264
ORDER OF SAILING OF THE SPANISH ARMADA 297
THE DUTCH IN THE MEDWAY 322, 323
ENGLAND INVADED
CHAPTER I
CÆSAR’S INVASIONS
In the year 57 B.C. Gaius Julius Cæsar, Roman politician, statesman,
and legislator, and already, though he had only girt on the sword at
forty-three years of age, a famous soldier, was campaigning in northern
Gaul. The year before, a mere carpet warrior, as his enemies would
have men believe, he had come up the Rhone with six legions of sturdy
swarthy Italian yeomen, and summarily put an end to the great Helvetic
migration, a migration perhaps little less dangerous than that of the
Cimbri and ‘Teutones,’ which his kinsman Marius had annihilated at Aquæ
Sextiæ and Vercellæ. Then, grimly resolute, with reluctant officers,
with the scented young nobles who had followed him for a little
plunder and mild excitement foreboding disaster, with even the stout
legionaries--all save the men of the immortal Xth--hanging back and
half afraid, he had turned on the Germans who were overrunning Gaul,
and hurled them in rout and ruin across the Rhine. And--significant
fact!--he wintered not in the sunny Roman Province--that Provence
which still proclaims to the world from a hundred sites that Imperial
Rome swayed her sceptre there for twenty generations--not in the
Italian Gallia along the Po, but there, where he was, in the very
homeland of the Celts, which five hundred years before had sent forth
the hordes that had wasted Italy and burned Rome. The Gauls, disunited,
faction-ridden, fickle, and suspicious of each other, but proud, brave,
and patriotic, began to take alarm.
Whether Cæsar had intended from the first to subjugate Gaul, or whether
his horizon became enlarged as his successes multiplied, are questions
that cannot be discussed here. But he certainly seems to have shown
his hand in 58 B.C. ‘Celtic’ and ‘Aquitanian’ Gaul remained passive,
but in the north, where the ‘Belgæ’ had had little to do with Roman
envoys and traders, much less with Roman generals and legions, a
confederacy was quickly formed to oppose Cæsar. It was headed nominally
by Galba, King of the Suessiones, whose predecessor, Divitiacus, had
ruled an ephemeral dominion extending over a large region of northern
Gaul and parts of Britain. So writes Cæsar in the second book, ‘De
Bello Gallico’; and thus, in a single terse sentence of his perfect,
unadorned Latin, Britannia is swept by a roving searchlight of
historical allusion.
Early next year Cæsar came up from Central Gaul, now with a formidable
force of eight legions, with cavalry from Gaul and elsewhere, with
Numidian light troops, with archers from the East and slingers from
the Baleares, with engineers and siege artillery, to deal with the
Belgians. The great ill-cemented confederacy was shattered with slight
difficulty, but the fighting Nervii and other tribes, which would not
be daunted by a single defeat, proved foes worthy of Cæsar’s steel,
and were only subdued after a desperate battle. In 57 B.C. all the
coast tribes from the Loire to the Rhine united against Cæsar, and this
time there is distinct reference to regular intercourse between Gaul
and Britain. This confederacy was crushed, after hard and harassing
fighting, by a great naval victory off the southern coast of Brittany.
It had been supported by British troops, and perhaps by British ships.
At any rate, it must have been plain to the great proconsul that
Britain was a factor that could not be ignored in dealing with the
Gallic problem.
On Cæsar’s staff at this time was a Gallic noble named Commius, whom
he had made king of the Atrebates in Belgium. The most important fact
about him for our present purpose is that he had connections with
Britain. The Belgæ had indeed far overflowed the limits of their Gallic
territory; it is possible that the entire south-east of Britain from
the Wash to the Somersetshire Avon, and thence to Southampton Water,
was occupied by Belgic or Belgicized tribes. In a region roughly
corresponding to Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Somerset, there was a
confederacy which preserved the racial appellation of Belgæ. In Berks
and Surrey dwelt the Atrebates, evidently cognate with the Atrebates
of Belgica; while the name of the great and warlike Catuvellauni of the
south-east Midlands clearly points to a connection with the Catalauni
of the Marne. It is at least possible that the other tribes of the
south-east--the Cantii of Kent, the Regni of Sussex, the wealthy
Trinobantes of Essex and Suffolk, and even the Iceni of Norfolk--were
of Belgic origin.
So much Cæsar may easily have learned from Commius, or from hostages
and prisoners. That there was a close ethnic affinity between the
tribes on either side of the Channel a man of his intellectual powers
would not be slow to infer. Whether he was fully acquainted with the
economic condition of the island is another matter. Pytheas he may
have, Polybius he must have, read, but possibly the scepticism of the
Achæan may have prejudiced him against the Massiliot.
But be this as it may, when Cæsar began to collect intelligence
concerning Britain from Gallic merchants, he was presented with
information largely untrustworthy, and some of which its furnishers
must have known to be false. The statement that some of the British
tribes practised polyandry may or may not be true--the traders had
no obvious motive for deceiving Cæsar on such a point; but they may
themselves have depended upon hearsay evidence. But otherwise they
appear to have done their best to misinform the proconsul, with the
obvious intention of inducing him to abandon any idea of an invasion.
Their motive was clearly trade-jealousy. The whole British trade,
which appears to have been considerable, was in their hands; they
feared--naturally enough--Italian competition. Then, too, they may have
been influenced by political motives. Britain was, as things went,
an admirable place of refuge for Gallic organizers of revolt and for
defeated leaders.
So, as far as one can see, Cæsar’s Gallic informants told him as
little as possible. On the one hand, they seem to have done their best
to overrate the savage ferocity of the people; on the other, they
depreciated the wealth of the island. As they could hardly assert that
systematic cultivation of cereals was unknown in the island, they
explained that this was the case only in the south-east; elsewhere
the people lived on milk and flesh, and, having no knowledge of
weaving, dressed in skins. It is difficult to know how far Cæsar was
deceived. To some extent he certainly was, for he repeats the false
statements which were made to him. It may perhaps seem curious that he
did not verify them while in Britain, but, of course, he had military
business in plenty to occupy him. His statement about the iron bar
currency is the strangest of all, since it is certain that gold coins,
struck in imitation of Philip of Macedonia’s gold staters, had been
in circulation for not less than a century. It is just possible that
he means that iron bars took the place of a copper coinage. It seems
incredible that he can have marched for more than a hundred miles into
Britain without meeting with some of the gold pieces of which so many
survive, even if he had not seen them in Gaul. In that part of Britain
with which he was personally acquainted he notes that the population
was dense, and dwellings, or groups of dwellings, thickly dotted over
the country-side. But it is clear that in many respects his information
was very imperfect.
Upon Cæsar’s credibility as an historian volumes have been written.
To the impartial observer the absolute frankness with which he admits
the commission of deeds which shock, or are supposed to shock, the not
over-sensitive consciences of twentieth-century Europeans, is evidence
in his favour. In curt unadorned phrases, without a trace of emotion,
he tells of the enslaving of human beings by scores of thousands, or
of the pursuit by cavalry of crowds of women and children. The fact,
of course, is that such occurrences were common in war as it was waged
in those days. Cæsar herein was neither better nor worse than hundreds
of Roman or Greek generals. He was better than many, for he never
massacred his own captive countrymen. It cannot be said that he was
worse than Skobelev, who at the taking of Geok-Tepe in 1880 sent his
cavalry in pursuit of a flying horde that was largely composed of women
and children, just as Cæsar did at the destruction of the Usipetes
and Teucteri in 55 B.C. All this is simply to lead up to the point
that, while Cæsar may, as is suggested by a good many critics, have
had unworthy motives for his expedition--such as greed of slaves and
plunder, or a desire to dazzle the Roman populace--he gives a perfectly
sound, statesmanlike reason for his action. He says that he had found
that there were usually British contingents in the ranks of the hostile
Gauls, and that he thought it advisable to cow the islanders. That
some of his officers expected, like professional soldiers of every
age, to enrich themselves is certain; it is at least probable that
Cæsar hoped that the expedition might prove a paying investment. But
that he regarded it only as a plundering raid there is no reason to
think. Neither is there any solid evidence to show that his position
as a Roman party-leader ever affected his military operations. That
when he left Rome to take up his command he had a general idea of using
his army to attain supreme power is possible, even probable. But once
in Gaul the natural genius of the man as soldier and statesman was
devoted to consolidating his country’s position there. His action as
regards Ariovistus shows that self-interest was already subordinated
to statesmanship which must benefit Rome, and could only serve his own
ends incidentally.
In 55 B.C. Cæsar was very active in Belgic Gaul. He had swept the
Teutonic hordes which had invaded Gaul in the winter back into Germania
with frightful slaughter, not without treachery on his part; he had
bridged the Rhine, and displayed the Eagles in a long raid on its
eastern bank. This had occupied him until late in the summer. Then, as
he says, it occurred to him that the short remainder of the campaigning
season might be utilized for an expedition to Britain for the purpose
of collecting useful information--in short, for what in modern military
parlance would be termed a reconnaissance in force. It does not appear
that he had anything further in mind. Later on he tells us that he
had no intention of making a long stay, and he took only a few days’
provisions. Moreover, the time was too short for collecting anything
like the number of ships required for the transportation of several
legions.
Nevertheless, the concentration of the Roman Army of Gallia on the
coast opposite Dover was an event which could not but alarm the
Britons, and, while Cæsar was completing his arrangements, some of
their tribes sent over envoys. Presumably, the idea was that by making
a nominal submission the invasion might be averted. Cæsar, however,
quietly observed that he would visit them at home in a few days, and
sent them back with, as his personal emissary, Commius the Atrebatian.
Commius had instructions to use his influence to bring about a general
submission, but his British companions made him prisoner immediately
upon landing. Cæsar meanwhile was collecting Gallic merchant-ships for
the transit, and had sent a trusted officer, Gaius Volusenus, with a
galley, to reconnoitre for landing-places. The haste and incompleteness
of his preparations were so far of slight account, since, though the
Britons were determined on resistance, there was no time to form a
confederacy. Caswallon (Cassivellaunus), king of the Catuvellauni, the
most powerful chieftain of Britain, was endeavouring to coerce the
Trinobantes; the attack would be met by the local tribal levies only.
Having gone so far, it may be advisable to say a few words on the
subject of the invading army and the forces which were likely to oppose
it. The Roman Army of Gaul, though it had perhaps hardly reached the
pitch of excellence which it attained at the outbreak of the Civil War,
was, nevertheless, in 55 B.C., one of the finest that the world has
ever seen. There were eight legions of Italian troops, and of these
the two newest had seen three years’ hard service. Two had served four
campaigns, and the remaining four were the pith of the army. Their
numbers were VII., VIII., IX., and X. All of them had served four years
under Cæsar, had learnt to idolize him and to follow him with perfect
confidence, and all were composed of war-hardened veterans of many
years’ experience--men to whom the hardships of war were but matter
for jests, and a battle a mere incident of everyday life. Knowing them
as we do, thanks to the man whom they served so well, we may fairly
doubt whether any soldiers of any age ever surpassed them. The Xth
has come down through the ages associated with, perhaps, the noblest
eulogy ever paid by any leader to his soldiers. A great Roman army,
not yet knowing itself or its leader, was trembling at the thought of
meeting the dreaded warriors of Germany. Its fears came to Cæsar, and
Cæsar made his immortal reply: ‘So be it! Since none else will follow,
I will go forward with the Xth Legion alone. It will not forsake me!’
And the legion sent to thank its leader for the honour of being allowed
to die with him. Never again did Cæsar’s soldiers hang back, but the
Xth always remained ‘Cæsars Own.’ But Cæsar was not Napoleon; he never
nursed or favoured it as Napoleon did the Old Guard. When it forgot its
discipline, Cæsar punished it like any other corps; it shared equally
in all the trials of the Army of Gallia. At its head Cæsar took his
stand on the field of Pharsalus, and to this day, when an exalted
standard of devotion is sought, it is enough to cite that of Cæsar’s
Xth Legion.
[Illustration: TYPES OF ROMAN SOLDIERS.
On the left an officer, in the centre a standard bearer, and on
the right a legionary soldier carrying his two _pila_.]
The Xth was undoubtedly the finest of the legions, but the three other
old corps were not greatly inferior; and the younger divisions were
steadily improving, proud of themselves and of their leader.
The legion of Cæsar’s day was a division of six thousand infantry
at full strength, exclusive of officers. It was divided into
ten battalions (_cohortes_), and each cohort into six companies
(_centuriæ_), each of one hundred men, under a centurion (_centurio_)
generally, so far as is known, promoted from the ranks. Into the
complicated question of the ranking and promotion of these officers,
there is no need to enter here; it is sufficient to say that the senior
centurions were entitled to sit in councils of war, and that the
senior of all (_primi pili centurio_ or _primipilus_) often appears as
playing a very distinguished part. Attached to each legion were six
officers called tribunes, frequently young gentlemen learning the art
of war. Often, as might be expected, they were rather a nuisance than
otherwise; but there were exceptions, notably C. Volusenus, who has
just been mentioned. Probably the trouble was to induce them to take
their military position seriously. Cæsar’s higher executive officers
were his ten lieutenant-generals (_legati_), of whom we frequently
meet several in command of one, two, or more legions. The best was
Titus Labienus, strangely enough the only one who sided against his
general in the Civil War. He was a greedy, cruel, and unprincipled
man, but beyond doubt a great general; Cæsar repeatedly gives him
unstinted praise. Of the others, probably the most promising was
the young P. Licinius Crassus, who was to perish on his father’s
ill-starred expedition against the Parthians; but several were men of
real distinction. Among them may be mentioned M. Antonius, afterwards
the rival of Augustus; Decimus Junius Brutus, the hero of the naval
victory over the Veneti; C. Fabius Maximus; Q. Tullius Cicero, brother
of the more famous Marcus, but himself a soldier of great merit; and
C. Trebonius. Cæsar’s chief administrative officer was his _quæstor_
(quartermaster-general), M. Licinius Crassus.
The legionary soldier’s equipment was perhaps unsurpassed in those ages
for lightness and completeness. His clothes consisted of a sleeveless
woollen shirt, drawers reaching to just below the knee, and over them
a tunic. On his feet he wore half-boots with light uppers, and heavy
soles studded with nails. His defensive arms consisted of a corselet
of long overlapping strips of steel, a helmet with a low crest, and a
semi-cylindrical shield some 4 feet long, made of wood covered with
ox-hide, with a rim and central boss of iron, combining the minimum
of weight with the maximum of protection. For purposes of offence the
soldier bore two of the famous _pila_, and a short, sharp-pointed,
double-edged sword. The _pilum_ was a long, heavy javelin, which could
also be used as a pike. It consisted of a thick wooden shaft some 4
feet long, with a slender iron rod, terminating in a small lancehead,
projecting for about 3 feet more. It appears to have had a range,
when in practised hands, of some 50 yards. Rank after rank delivered
volleys of these heavy missiles, and when the well-drilled swordsmen
charged, they usually found the enemy severely shaken. Against mounted
troops bearing the bow the legion, intended for close fighting, was, of
course, at a great disadvantage, but for many centuries it was the lord
of Mediterranean battlefields.
The defects of the legion had not escaped the notice of Roman military
organizers, and it was already accompanied by auxiliary cohorts of
light troops. In Cæsar’s army they were not very numerous as compared
with the legionaries--perhaps about as one to six. Northern Africa
supplied excellent skirmishers--its light cavalry was world-renowned,
but Cæsar does not appear to have had any of it in Gaul. Crete supplied
him with archers, and Balearic slingers served with him as with
Hannibal. Later the proportion of auxiliaries is found steadily on the
increase. Under the Empire there were at least as many auxiliaries
as legionaries. Cæsar, however, depended mainly on his legions. For
cavalry he relied chiefly on friendly Gallic tribes, though it is
probable that he had a small body of Italian or Italian-Gallic horse.
From 52 B.C. onward he had a brigade of German cavalry in his pay.
The engineering department of the Roman army has never been equalled.
There was a corps of engineers, but entrenching was part of the private
soldier’s training. No body of troops ever halted for the night without
surrounding themselves with a rampart and ditch. The result of constant
experience of spade-work was that Roman troops frequently accomplished
feats of engineering that seem almost miraculous. The work that in
modern armies falls upon the engineers was in that of Rome chiefly
done by the infantry privates. Cæsar in his campaigns made good use
of the siege artillery of the period, and his march was generally
accompanied by a train of _balistæ_ (gigantic crossbows), _catapultæ_,
and _scorpiones_.
Every legion had a baggage train, of course, and probably every
privates’ mess had at least one slave for menial service; but the
legionary bore a great part of his baggage himself, and it is a marvel
how he contrived to march--as we know he did--anything from fifteen to
twenty-five miles a day under his burdens. Besides arms, armour, and
cloak, he carried grain or flour to last for a fortnight, a spade, a
saw, a basket, several pales wherewith to crown the camp rampart, as
well as his share of the mess service and other matters.
The standard of the legion was now always the famous Eagle, which had
been introduced or generally established by Marius. The Eagle-bearer
(_Aquilifer_) was always a soldier chosen for good conduct and
gallantry. He wore the skin of a wild beast over his helmet as the sign
of his honourable position. With one of these gallant men we shall soon
make acquaintance.
[Illustration: A BRITON.
His weapons and shield drawn from originals in the British Museum.]
Against this magnificent military machine the Britons had little but
a mass of disorderly and ill-armed levies, formidable in numbers,
individual courage and physical strength, but without cohesion. Most
of them fought on foot, and few can have possessed body-armour; they
were protected only by helmet and shield, perhaps not always the
former. They were armed with badly-tempered iron swords and spears, and
in battle made free use of missiles of all kinds--chiefly, it would
seem, darts and stones. Of cavalry there were few; the British horses
were too small for riding. The bulk of the wealthier warriors fought
from timber cars. This chariotry was evidently a formidable force, and
gave the Romans serious trouble. The small active horses took the cars
along at a great rate, and the picked warriors who manned them--strong,
active, and brave, as well as skilled with their weapons--were capable
of being extremely dangerous. The cars certainly were not armed with
scythes on their axles; their effectiveness lay chiefly in their
mobility and the skill with which they were manœuvred, to which Cæsar
bears emphatic testimony. In the nobles who went into battle on them
the pomp and circumstance of British war was seen at its best. With
their brightly-dyed garments, their tall helmets surmounted by bronze
ornaments or waving plumes, their body-armour and shields bright with
enamel and gilding, and displaying all the wonderful intricacies of
Celtic spiral metal-work, their beautifully wrought scabbards and
sword-hilts, their golden bracelets and collars, the British chiefs
must have been splendid figures.
[Illustration: GAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR.
First Roman Emperor. Born, 102 B.C.; assassinated 44 B.C. The first
Roman General to invade Britain.]
Volusenus returned after a cruise of five days. He had not ventured
to land, but brought information of value as to landing-places. Some
ninety-eight vessels were now collected in the country of the Morini,
most of them probably at the modern Boulogne, and on eighty of them
Cæsar embarked his two best legions, the VIIth and the Xth, with no
doubt, some light troops--perhaps ten thousand men in all. On board the
other eighteen, which lay in a neighbouring harbour, were to go about
five hundred cavalry. The order reached them late, and there was
further delay in carrying it out.
Meanwhile, probably on the evening of August 25, the main body of
the transports, escorted by some warships, set sail, and early next
morning was off Dover. The war-galleys were in front, the heavy
transports slowly coming up from the rear. Volusenus had, no doubt,
pointed out Dover Harbour as the most usual place for landing, but
the Britons were in force to oppose the disembarkation. The beach was
lined with chariots, the slopes of Castle Hill and the Western Heights
were swarming with foot-levies; and in a place where, as Cæsar says,
darts could be rained upon the beach from the cliffs a landing would
be extremely dangerous. From Volusenus he knew that only six or seven
miles northward there was the open shelving beach of Deal. At noon the
whole fleet had assembled, and Cæsar gave the order to weigh and move
northward.
The Britons at once followed suit. Horse, foot, and chariots faced to
their left, climbed over Castle Hill, and streamed down its farther
slope. The infantry were soon left behind; the charioteers and
horsemen, however, outpaced the heavily-laden Roman ships, and galloped
down to the shore in time to oppose the landing. The ships, heavy-draft
Gallic merchantmen, grounded some way out, and the troops, smitten
by showers of missiles, and seeing the gallant show on the beach,
hesitated to jump with arms and armour into several feet of water.
Cæsar ordered the war-galleys, manned by the archers and slingers, to
row forward and engage the Britons. This was done, but the only effect
was to make them withdraw a little way; they still stood threatening to
charge. A lead was necessary, and it was given by the standard-bearer
of the Xth, who sprang into the surges and led the way, bearing the
Eagle of Rome against the enemy. ‘Forward, comrades!’ he shouted,
‘unless you would betray the Eagle! I will do my duty to Rome and
Cæsar!’ With a cheer every man on his ship followed. All down the line
men sprang recklessly overboard, and singly and in groups began to wade
up the shingly beach; and all along the shore, in gallant response, the
Britons drove their chariots forward to the attack. There was a furious
struggle among the breakers, and for some time the men of Kent held
the strand; but when the steady Roman veterans began to close up into
regular bodies, with boats full of archers covering their flanks, the
Britons gave way. The Romans completed their landing, and laid out and
fortified a camp.
Next day the Britons sent envoys to Cæsar. They brought with them
Commius, whom they now released, and offered submission. Cæsar was, no
doubt, highly pleased. He exacted hostages. Some were brought during
the next two days; others were to follow.
[Illustration: A ROMAN TRIREME OFF DOVER.
Reconstructed from Roman wall-paintings and sculptures of the first and
second centuries of the Christian era.]
On the morning of the 30th, however, a north-easter came roaring down
Dover Strait. Cæsar’s cavalry transports, on their way at last, were
swept back and scattered into various harbours; the main fleet was
seriously damaged. Twelve vessels were destroyed; many others so
shattered as to need extensive repairs. The troops, knowing that they
had only a few days’ food in hand, were depressed, as Cæsar himself
admits. If we needed any proof that nothing but a reconnaissance had
been intended we have it here; it is evident that the force had not
even the usual fortnight’s grain.
Cæsar set the men to work on the necessary repairs, but the Britons
were encouraged by the disaster to renew hostilities. Their chariotry
and horsemen caught the VIIth Legion while it was foraging, and would
have undoubtedly defeated it had not Cæsar come up just in time with
two cohorts of the Xth. Several days of heavy rain followed, but the
spirits of the Kentishmen were high. On the first fine day they moved
up against the camp, and when Cæsar’s legions formed line outside they
attacked them furiously. They were of course driven back, and fled in
disorder, and Commius, with thirty mounted retainers and officers, was
able to pursue and cut up some of the stragglers.
The weather was now fine; Cæsar had no intention of being again
stormbound. He could now be sure of a quiet embarkation; but while
he was making his preparations, Kentish envoys again appeared. He
ordered them to send twice as many hostages as before, but this time
to Gaul, as he was returning that night. The passage was effected
without trouble; but once they saw their enemies clear of their
coast, the men of Kent troubled no more about hostages. Two clans
alone sent their quota. Probably the Britons argued that Cæsar’s
departure was a confession of defeat, and as a number of modern
writers have endeavoured to maintain the same, we cannot blame them.
Victories have been claimed in modern times on no better grounds than
that a reconnaissance has been driven in. In sober military terms the
situation was simply this: Cæsar had made a reconnaissance in force in
Britain. Owing to various accidents and mistakes, he had been obliged
to make a longer stay than he had intended. He had obtained some
knowledge of the kind of resistance that he was likely to experience,
and his troops had held their own in such fighting as had taken place.
Cæsar, on returning to the Continent, went on as usual to the
‘Province’ and Cisalpina, but left his legions on the coast, with
orders to build as many ships as possible specially designed for
disembarkation work, and also fitted with oars. He quietly tells us
that during the winter the troops built no less than six hundred, as
well as twenty-eight war-galleys! The magnitude of the task and the
speed with which it was accomplished are alike amazing, but the history
of the Army of Gaul is full of such feats.
The place of concentration for the fleet was ‘Portus Itius,’ about
thirty (Roman) miles from Britain. The latest and best authority
on Cæsar appears to think that this must be the modern Wissant,
four miles east of Cape Gris Nez. In all some 800 warships and
transports were assembled there by the beginning of July, 54 B.C. The
expeditionary force consisted of five legions, 2,000 cavalry, chiefly
Gauls, and some thousands of light troops--perhaps 30,000 men in all.
Cæsar took with him to Britain several Gallic chiefs as a measure of
precaution. Labienus was left in charge of Portus Itius with three
legions, some auxiliaries, and 2,000 cavalry.
Meanwhile, in Britain, Caswallon of the Catuvellauni was striving hard
to form a defensive confederacy. But the Trinobantes hung back, and
_moribus majorum_ Caswallon tried to coerce them. He slew their king,
but the only result was that the dead chief’s son, Mandubracius, fled
to Cæsar for protection, thus furnishing him with a very pretty _casus
belli_. Caswallon was left to face the Romans with the Trinobantes
still hostile--almost at his door.
Cæsar landed near Sandwich, this time unmolested. The vast size of his
fleet precluded all idea on the part of the Kentishmen of opposing the
landing. Caswallon was collecting his levies, and was still far behind.
Cæsar landed his force, fortified a strong camp, in which he stored his
reserve supplies, and told off ten cohorts (_i.e._, probably two from
each legion), and 300 cavalry as its garrison, under an officer named
Quintus Atrius.
During the day information was brought in that the Kentish levies
were entrenched in a defensive position about twelve (Roman) miles
inland. Cæsar, anxious to strike a heavy blow at the local resistance,
marched off to attack them before dawn next day. The British position
was probably on the Stour, near Thanington, where there are traces of
ancient entrenchments.
In any case, whether the men of Kent were at the Little Stour, as
has been thought, or the Great Stour by Canterbury, their position
was stormed without difficulty. From Cæsar’s description it appears
that their chariotry and cavalry were thrown forward, and harassed
the Roman columns as they moved towards the main position. They were,
however, pushed back or aside, and the VIIth Legion, forming the dense
shield-covered column of attack, which the Romans aptly termed the
tortoise (_testudo_), carried the entrenchments with slight loss. The
defenders fell back into the woods. There was no pursuit.
Next day, just as Cæsar was feeling his way forward with cavalry, a
message of disaster came from Atrius. In the night there had been a
heavy gale, and great damage had been inflicted on the fleet. Cæsar’s
fighting eagerness, and consequent neglect to profit by last years
lesson, nearly led to a grave disaster. As it was, he was obliged
to move back to the coast and keep the whole army hard at work for
ten days hauling the fleet up the beach beyond high-water mark, and
protecting it with embankments. Forty vessels were so shattered as
to be incapable of repair. Many of the rest were seriously damaged.
Labienus was ordered to send across a detachment of artificers chosen
from his legions to assist in repairing them. Cæsar’s trust in his good
fortune had carried him too far.
The result was that Caswallon was able to reach the front with his
Midland levies, and rally the Kentishmen. Cæsar, on his part, sent
the exile Mandubracius to the Trinobantes to raise trouble in his
adversary’s rear; and, having as far as possible put his ships in
safety and seen repairs well under way, again took the road inland. His
objective, as he clearly indicates, was the nearest point of passage on
the Lower Thames. Once across the river, he would be in the territory
of the Catuvellauni, and able to communicate with the Trinobantes.
He was to have no easy task. Caswallon was a foeman worthy of Cæsar’s
steel. He seems to have fully realized that the British foot-levies
were useless against the legions except at a great advantage. He
declined to defend the line of the Stour, but as soon as it was
across the stream, the Roman column found itself engaged in a running
fight, in which the heavily armed and burdened legionaries were at a
disadvantage. The next day Caswallon set upon the Romans as they were
laying out their camp, drove in the outposts, killing the tribune in
command, burst through the intervals of the supporting cohorts, and
drew off with little loss, after causing great confusion. This half
success, however, led to a severe defeat. Probably the king could not
restrain his eager and undisciplined foot-levies. On the morrow Cæsar
sent out all his cavalry and three legions under Trebonius to forage.
The force was attacked by the British mounted arms, but the foot-levies
got out of hand and charged the legions while they were still in close
order. They were repulsed with much bloodshed, of course, and the Roman
cavalry, closely supported by infantry, was able to cut them up badly
before they could regain the woods.
Caswallon, unshaken, fell back on his guerrilla tactics. His chariotry
and cavalry were intact. Cæsar says that they were about four thousand,
a moderate estimate which shows it to be near the truth. With them he
faced his great antagonist, while the southern levies took refuge in
the Weald, and those of the Catuvellauni went back to entrench the
fords of the Thames. From the neighbourhood of Canterbury to that of
London the Romans advanced slowly, probably along the line of the
later Watling Street, while Caswallon moved parallel to them in the
woods, hung about the line of march, and harassed it incessantly. The
Gallic horsemen never dared to move far from the infantry columns.
Caswallon was ever watchful. But it was not guerrilla warfare, however
skilful and gallant, that could stay the march of Cæsar’s legions. The
advance was slow and difficult, but still it continued steadily until
the Thames was reached. Caswallon retreated across it, and the Romans
followed.
Where the British leader was stationed it is hard to say. The course
of the Thames, meandering among marshes, must have varied much from
what it is to-day, and, having no embankments, it was probably much
shallower. Cæsar may have crossed near Brentford or Halliford; there
are said to be the remains of a stockade in the bed of the river
opposite the former place. At any rate, Cæsar gives the impression that
the ford was well known. Its northern end was guarded by entrenchments,
and the passage itself was obstructed by stakes. The position was a
formidable one, yet it was carried with unexpected ease. The Roman
cavalry led the way into the Thames, the infantry followed, with the
water at their necks, passed the stakes--how we do not know--carried
the stockade, and drove the Britons off towards the north.
[Illustration: CÆSAR’S TWO EXPEDITIONS TO BRITAIN IN 55 AND 54 B.C.
The probable line of advance on Verulam is indicated by the broken
line.]
Cæsar, having passed the Thames, halted for a time to receive hostages
and supplies from the neighbouring Trinobantes. Caswallon fell back on
his tribal stronghold (almost certainly Verulam), and sent orders to
the four sub-kings of Kent to attack Cæsar’s base-camp, and so draw
him back from the Thames. It was the last fine stroke of Caswallon’s
admirable strategy, but fate was against him. Atrius marched boldly out
to attack the men of Kent, defeated and scattered them with great loss,
capturing a prominent chief named Lugotorix. Cæsar, having rested his
men in the Trinobantian territory near London, advanced upon Verulam.
He describes it as a great earthwork among woods and marshes. It was
captured by a simultaneous attack on two fronts. The British loss was
heavy, and included thousands of captives, besides vast quantities of
supplies. Verulam had evidently been the place of refuge of a great
part of the tribe.
Caswallon had done his best and had failed. Through Commius, who was
with the Romans, he made overtures, and Cæsar was not unready to
accept them. Reports were coming in from Labienus of alarming unrest
among the Gauls, which was soon to blaze out into a great national
uprising. It was clearly time to go. Cæsar was justified in supposing
that he had done enough to convince the Britons that interference in
Gallic affairs would, for the future, be dangerous. His terms of peace
were, therefore, moderate enough. Caswallon was to keep the peace
with Mandubracius, pay a yearly tribute to Rome, and, of course, give
hostages for the observance of the conditions. They were accepted,
and, with his hostages and captives, Cæsar returned to the coast. Two
trips were necessary owing to the large number of prisoners to be
transported. Apart from them (and being only fit for rough field and
house work, they would hardly fetch a high price) there appears to have
been little spoil of value, much to the disappointment of many greedy
officers. Cicero quaintly voices this discontent in his letters. We
hear, however, that Cæsar dedicated to Venus a cuirass ornamented with
British pearls, so that possibly some were lucky.
All this probably weighed little with Cæsar beside the fact that
he was not likely to have Britain on his rear during the Gallic
disturbances. If Caswallon, a man, as far as we can see, of remarkable
ability for war, had been able to intervene in the great struggle with
Vercingetorix two years later, the consequences might have been very
serious. As it was, we hear no more of British aid given to the Gauls,
and Cæsar was content. Whether the tribute was paid we do not know;
possibly it was so long as Cæsar was in Gaul. When the civil war broke
out, it probably lapsed; but the general political results of the
expedition appear from Cæsar’s point of view to have been satisfactory.
CHAPTER II
THE CLAUDIAN INVASION AND THE ROMAN CONQUEST
Of the history of Britain during the century succeeding the Cæsarian
expeditions we have some fairly satisfactory glimpses. The terror of
Cæsar was sufficient, on the one hand, to prevent the British chiefs
from interfering in Gallic affairs. It also appears to have deterred
Caswallon from again attacking the philo-Roman Trinobantes, for
numismatic evidence shows that they were independent at a much later
epoch. But it does seem certain that it helped forward British unity,
since we find a tendency to form groups or ‘empires’ that certainly
included more than one tribe. One of these was founded by Commius the
Atrebatian. He had taken sides with his countrymen against Cæsar in
the last great Gallic uprising, and, after some remarkable adventures,
had escaped to his kinsmen in Britain. By then he appears to have been
acknowledged as king; at any rate, coins have been found bearing his
name in what is known to have been the territory of the Atrebates. He
and his sons extended their rule over the Cantii, the Regni of Sussex,
and over some at least of the small clans known as Belgæ.
Meanwhile, north of the Thames, the Catuvellauni was recovering
from the effects of Cæsar’s invasion. It is at least possible that
the discovery of rich gold-mines had something to do with their
undoubtedly rapid rise in power. At any rate, Tasciovan, very probably
the successor of Caswallon, coined most extensively in gold, silver,
and bronze, and his widely-diffused coins show strong traces of Roman
influence. His capital was certainly Verulam (St. Albans), since
on most of his coins the Latinized name of the place figures. The
Cantii and Trinobantes, however, still appear to have been the most
civilized peoples of Britain. Tasciovan perhaps initiated a policy of
aggression upon the Commian kingdom, and his son, Cunobelin, extended
his sway over the entire south-east and south. The Iceni (Norfolk) and
the Damnonii (Somerset, Devon, Cornwall) appear to have kept their
independence, but may have paid tribute; and the Silures of South Wales
were probably in Cunobelin’s sphere of influence. His capital seems to
have been not his father’s Verulam, but the Trinobantian Camulodunum
(Colchester).
The result of Cunobelin’s supremacy was that tribal wars ceased, and
civilization and industry made great strides. Probably Cunobelin took
care to pay polite attentions to Augustus and Tiberius--Strabo says as
much--and though the former Emperor sheltered fugitive Commian and
Trinobantian princes, there was no intervention in British affairs.
Trade flourished. Strabo says that Britain exported gold, silver, and
iron, as well as pelts, slaves, hounds, corn, and cattle. The last two
items seem dubious, yet the sceptical Strabo is hardly likely to have
noted them without good reason. Roman traders and travellers passed
freely to and fro, and the southern regions became well known. It is at
this period more than at any other that we must look for the rise of
a commercial settlement at London. One of Cunobelin’s sons, Adminius,
rebelled against him in A.D. 39, and fled to the Emperor Caligula. The
latter’s military demonstration near Gessoriacum (Boulogne) has been
noted (and probably misunderstood) by Suetonius. In A.D. 41 Caligula
was assassinated, and succeeded by Claudius I., and in the same year
Cunobelin died.
There is reason to believe that the flight of Adminius was only one
of the family troubles that vexed the last years of the old ‘Rex
Brittonum.’ His death was followed by intestine war; but after a short
struggle, two sons, Togodubn and Caradoc (Caratacus), gained the
ascendancy, and ruled jointly over their fathers realm. They doubtless
had much to do in reconquering rebellious vassals, and, to add to their
difficulties, one of their dispossessed brothers (or half-brothers)
fled to Claudius. Togodubn and Caradoc thereupon very unwisely demanded
his surrender. The result was the Roman Conquest.
[Illustration:
_Anderson._
CLAUDIUS I. (10 B.C.-A.D. 54).
The fifth of the Twelve Cæsars. He is best remembered as the Emperor
who initiated the conquest of Britain. He was capable, learned, kindly,
and well-meaning, but unfortunately weak and self-indulgent.]
Claudius I. was perhaps tempted into the invasion by his dislike of
the cruel rites of Druidism, which, now that Gaul was Roman, had its
main stronghold in British Mona. But Roman capitalists had for years
been acquiring interests in the island; when the occupation was an
accomplished fact, they settled down to bleed it in true usurers’
fashion, with disastrous results. It is probable that the formation
of something like a British Empire close to Gaul, where the old times
were not forgotten, and where a great revolt did actually break out a
generation later, seemed an alarming phenomenon. Doubtless also there
were plenty of ambitious soldiers and politicians anxious to prove
to the sensible and kindly, but weak, old Emperor that the honour
of Rome could not brook the undiplomatically blunt requests of the
British kings. Probably all these influences were brought to bear upon
Claudius, and induced him to undertake a conquest which in the end
contributed materially to the weakening of Roman power.
For the invasion Claudius concentrated four legions, with auxiliaries
and cavalry, in Gaul. This meant 24,000 legionaries, supposing
the cohorts to be at full strength, with, as is probable, as many
auxiliaries. Taking the cavalry into consideration, and making a
deduction of 20 per cent. for absentees, we can hardly reckon the force
at less than 40,000 effectives; it may have been even stronger. The
commander was Aulus Plautius, a veteran who had grown grey in war, and
who, to judge from his record, was singularly fitted for his post.
Claudius himself was on the way from Rome to join his army with the
Prætorian Guard.
For all practical purposes the Roman army was still the army of Marius
and Cæsar, but the proportion of auxiliaries and cavalry was much
greater. Of the legions three came from the Army of the Rhine: II.,
‘Augusta’; XIV., ‘Gemina Martia’; and XX., ‘Valeria Victrix.’ From the
Army of Pannonia, or the Upper Danube, came Legio IX., ‘Hispana.’ The
XIVth was to win the proud title of ‘Conqueror of Britain’ during its
stay of twenty-five years. ‘Valeria Victrix’ remained for more than
three centuries, and the IInd did not leave until 407.
The legions had now become so fixed in their frontier cantonments that
to move them bodily to other regions was a delicate business. The new
Army of Britain grumbled, and seemed about to mutiny. Its temper was
not improved by the fact that the Imperial commissioner appointed to
inquire into their grievances was the Emperor's treasurer, Narcissus, a
Greek civilian! One can almost hear the Roman ‘Tommies’ asking, with
much profanity, why their dignity should be thus insulted, and they
expressed their contempt for the unmentionable civilian by a riotous
demonstration. The old General, however, whom they respected, soon
recalled them to their duty. The affair had important results, for the
British kings were induced by the news to believe that the expedition
would not sail, and so were unprepared when it suddenly appeared in
Kent.
The landing-place this time was probably Rutupiæ (Richborough, near
Sandwich), which for some centuries to come was to be the usual
starting-point for the Continent. The men of Kent were too unprepared
to attempt to oppose the landing, but they harassed the flanks of the
army as it marched for the Thames along the old, old track that Cæsar
had traversed a century before. This time the British guerrilla tactics
had slight effect; there was ample cavalry to feel ahead, and ample
light infantry to guard the flanks. We hear no more of the stunning and
disordering surges of chariotry among the Roman battalions--indeed,
there is some reason to believe that, with the introduction and
breeding of larger horses fit for riding, it was already in a state of
decline.
Meanwhile Togodubn and Caradoc had crossed the Thames, and were
prepared to oppose the Roman advance at the Medway, probably near
Rochester. The position was a strong one, with the broad river and
expanses of mud flat and marsh in its front. Plautius, however, forced
the passage by a wide turning movement up the river under his able
legatus, T. Flavius Vespasianus, while a large body of Batavian and
North Gallic auxiliaries, accustomed to amphibious operations, with
the greatest daring swam the river on the right. The Britons were thus
forced to abandon the river-bank, but they fell back on the high ground
towards Cobham and Shorne and stood firm. Next day a great battle
was fought. The Britons made a fine resistance, and nearly captured
the legatus Hosidius Geta; but were at last defeated, and retreated
to the Thames. One could wish that we had some better authority than
Dion Cassius, who wrote more than a hundred and fifty years later, and
is so confused and rhetorical that we read him with deep distrust. We
long for even the unmilitary and epigrammatic Tacitus, but his books
relating to the early years of Claudius are lost.
Dion says, in brief, that the Britons crossed the Thames near where it
enters the sea. They did so easily ‘because they knew the firm ground
... and the easy passages, ... but the Romans following them came to
grief at this spot.’ We can hardly imagine the Thames as fordable
anywhere below London, and the probable meaning of the passage is
that the Britons traversed the marshes by well-known tracks, and then
crossed the river in boats or on rafts.
Now comes the most curious part; and, if Dion could be relied upon,
we have an invaluable reference to the earliest London Bridge. The
Celts, he says, again swam the river, and other troops forced a bridge
a little way upstream. We can hardly imagine a bridge existing below
London, and if it stood anywhere, it would certainly be at the one
place clearly marked out by Nature for the passage across the river of
the road from the south-east to Verulam. London was such a remarkable
road centre in Roman times that we cannot easily believe that it was
not so long before, and the construction of a pile bridge was certainly
not beyond the resources of a powerful ruler like Cunobelin, who
had, without any doubt, skilled foreigners at his disposal, besides
abundance of unskilled labour. Moreover, it explains satisfactorily the
importance of London, which Tacitus describes as a great trading centre
only eighteen years later.
Whatever his authorities, Dion’s account of the operations, studied
with the aid of the map, is logical and clear. The Britons are driven
back from the Medway, and retreat to the estuary of the Thames across
dangerous marshes--that is, we can hardly doubt that Vespasian’s
turning movement cut their line of retreat on London, and they were
forced to fall back northward by Higham into Cliffe Marshes. The Roman
pursuit was checked by the difficulties of the ground, but Plautius
was between the Britons and London. He therefore marched for the
bridge. The Britons, hurrying from Tilbury Marshes, reached London too
late to destroy the bridge or occupy it with more than a fraction of
their forces, if indeed at all. The bold action of the Batavians, who
accomplished a more difficult feat than the swimming of the Medway,
coupled with the seizure of the bridge, forced the Britons to abandon
the defence of the Thames.
Togodubn had been slain in the course of the campaign, but Caradoc
was alive and undismayed. He retreated towards Camulodunum, not upon
his ancestral capital of Verulam. Clearly, Camulodunum was of greater
importance. Meanwhile Claudius had landed with the Imperial Guards and
was coming up. Dion says that the fighting had been so fierce that the
reinforcements which he brought were very necessary. This may be a
flight of rhetoric, but it is evident that the resistance was stubborn.
Having effected a junction with his general, Claudius advanced on
Camulodunum. Caradoc stood to fight somewhere on the road--perhaps at
the Blackwater--and was defeated finally and utterly. Camulodunum was
taken, the empire broke up or submitted, and the king, with his family
and a remnant of his army, fled away across Britain into the country
of the Silures (South Wales). Claudius himself only waited to enter
Camulodunum and to declare it the capital of the Roman Province of
Britannia, and then returned to Gaul.
The heart of the Catuvellaunian dominion was now occupied with
little difficulty. The Iceni and Regni sent in their submission; but
Caradoc with the Silures was preparing for a last desperate stand
for freedom, if not for empire; and the Belgæ and Durotriges made a
gallant resistance to Vespasian, who marched against them with Legio
II. Thirteen fierce engagements were necessary before the conquest was
complete, and Vespasian on one occasion owed his life to his son Titus,
the future destroyer of Jerusalem. But his work was very thoroughly
done, and within six years Roman rule was firmly established as far
as the Exe. The wild Damnonii beyond that river were left now and
afterwards very much to themselves. No doubt they made submission, but
the great western road never went beyond Isca Damnoniorum (Exeter). The
tin trade of Cornwall seems to have languished during the Early and
Middle Empire; but when in the third century the mines once more began
to disgorge their treasures, the ingots were carried to the sea on the
backs of pack-animals. Until the eighteenth century pack-trains with
correspondingly narrow tracks were the rule in Devon and Cornwall. The
famous bridge of Bideford was scarcely more than wide enough to admit
of the passage of a loaded horse.
By A.D. 47, when Plautius went home to enjoy a well-merited triumph,
the whole south and east of the island appeared to be passing with
little apparent effort into the form of a Roman province. The frontier
probably followed for the most part the lines of the Lower Severn,
Avon, and Welland, but in the centre it bulged outwards around Ratæ
(Leicester). Here it would have been well for Rome to have halted.
The territory already occupied was fairly settled, capable of great
development, and the frontier was easily defensible. But a forward
policy invariably brings trouble in its train. In the North Midlands
the Coritani and Cornavii were restless, and behind them the great
Brigantian tribe, which held the whole breadth of the North from Humber
to Tyne, was ever raiding. Still greater was the danger in Wales,
where the Silures of the south and the Ordovices of the north were the
fiercest warriors of Britain, where was the Druids’ sacred home of
Mona, and where King Caradoc, the last warrior of Caswallon’s famous
line, had taken refuge.
Publius Ostorius Scapula, the new governor, had perhaps no alternative
to the ‘forward’ policy; at any rate, he committed himself to it.
He conquered the weak Coritani and Cornavii with slight difficulty,
stationed Legio IX. at Lindum (Lincoln) to keep guard over them,
and established a colony of time-expired veterans as a garrison for
Camulodunum. Then he turned upon Caradoc. Legio II. moved forward from
Glevum (Gloucester) to Isca Silurum (Caerleon), while Scapula with the
XIVth and XXth established himself with his base at Viroconium, the
camp, afterwards the town, beside Wrekin, whose ruins have been laid
bare in our own days. The men of Cambria were thrown on the defensive
by the great force directed against them. Caradoc manœuvred among the
mountains, harassed the Roman line of march, cut off detachments, but
was at last brought to bay in A.D. 50. All that could be suggested to
counterbalance the superiority of the Romans in everything but mere
numbers he did. He posted his army behind a roaring mountain torrent,
with both flanks protected by craggy heights, and his centre covered by
‘sangars’ of piled stones. The wild warriors of Wales swore by their
gods to conquer or die. Caradoc rode up and down the line, bade them
save themselves and those they loved from slavery and death, told them
(with justifiable stretching of truth) how his ancestors had repulsed
the mightiest of the Cæsars, and besought them to do their duty to the
last. They did not fail him, but fortune was against them. The battle
was furiously contested, but the entrenchments were stormed at last;
and after bravely rallying in the face of the legions and renewing the
fray, the Britons finally broke and fled. Caradoc’s wife and daughter
were taken captive in the camp, and the king, fleeing for aid to the
Brigantes, was surrendered to the Romans by the Queen Cartimandua. The
story of how he and his family were dragged in chains through Rome
to make a holiday for its cosmopolitan populace, and released by the
kindly Emperor, is well known. One could wish that the old ruler, whose
character has suffered so much at the hands of detractors, had spared
a brave man and two helpless women the cruel humiliation of public
exposure as well. But probably no Roman was capable of such generosity.
Aurelian treated Zenobia as Claudius treated Caradoc, and from the
bas-reliefs on the column of Arcadius we see that the Christian Romans
of the fourth century were capable of dragging female captives,
pinioned like criminals, in triumphal procession.
Undismayed by the fate of their King, the Silures fought on
desperately. Again and again they gained considerable guerrilla
successes. Foraging detachments were attacked; two cohorts destroyed;
a strong brigade of legionaries surrounded, severely defeated, and only
saved from destruction by the arrival of reinforcements. Scapula died
of vexation and fatigue, and the Silures just afterwards attacked and
defeated a whole legion. Scapula’s successor, Didius, was threatened
by the Brigantes, who were growing angry at the ignominious part to
which Cartimandua’s policy condemned them, and the Cambrians, despite
constant warfare, remained unsubdued.
In A.D. 59 C. Suetonius Paulinus, one of the best soldiers of the
Empire, took command in Britain, and at once initiated a vigorous
offensive. He determined to turn the flank of Wales, as it were, and
strike a staggering blow by uprooting the Druid stronghold in Mona.
Didius appears to have fortified Deva (Chester), and now Paulinus
enlarged it, moving the XIVth and XXth Legions there from Viroconium,
and making it his base for the advance. In A.D. 60 he arrived on Menai
Strait with flat-bottomed boats for the transport of his infantry. The
Ordovician warriors were massed on the shore of Mona to oppose the
landing; frantic women, clothed in black and bearing blazing torches,
with wild eyes and tossing hair, like the Furies, as the superstitious
soldiers muttered, rushed about exhorting the men and screaming curses
at the hated Romans. Behind the Druids were engaged in their dreadful
rites, and the shrieks of the perishing victims rang over the Strait.
For a while there was something like incipient panic among the Romans,
but the fierce adjurations of their officers steadied them, and when
they had effected a landing, burning with rage at their hesitation,
there was small hope for the Britons. The fighting men were cut down
in thousands, women and children involved in the hideous massacre.
The Druids were slaughtered at their rites, or tossed upon their own
flaming pyres. The sanctuaries were destroyed, the sacred groves cut
down, and Paulinus might hope that he had dealt a decisive blow, when
jaded messengers dashed into camp with the stunning tidings that all
Roman Britain was in a flame of revolt.
The rebellion had been long brewing, and for it the Roman civil and
military administration, above all the Roman capitalists, were to
blame. To create farms for retired veterans the military chiefs had
recklessly evicted native landowners. The military settlers insulted
and oppressed their British neighbours. The discipline of the legions,
relaxed by years of guerrilla warfare, was probably bad, and it would
seem that Paulinus, a soldier before all, was not the man to trouble
himself about the rights of civilians, especially if they were also
barbarians. The Imperial procurator (_i.e._, practically financial
agent), Decianus Catus, was calling for the repayment of various loans
advanced by Claudius to chiefs; presumably Nero needed money for his
expensive pleasures. The British chiefs were careless and ostentatious,
and, now that they could not enrich themselves by plunder in war, were
apt to borrow heavily--of course, from Roman capitalists. Many of them
were hopelessly embarrassed, unable to pay the iniquitous interest,
much less the principal; and the greedy usurers were only too ready to
drag them further into the toils. Nero’s famous minister, the Stoic
Seneca, was one of the worst offenders. Usury was a chief source of
his vast income. Now, as if to add fuel to the smouldering fire, he
suddenly called in his British loans, 40,000,000 sesterces (£360,000).
_Cherchez la femme!_ say the French when trouble threatens. No doubt
the saying is not without truth, but a study of history, and especially
of Roman history, leads rather to the conclusion that the greed of the
speculator has been responsible for a great deal of the world’s misery.
Just at this juncture died Prasutagus, King of the Iceni. He made the
Emperor heir to his kingdom, and joint inheritor of his vast personal
wealth, evidently in the hope that his widow Boudicca and her two
daughters would thereby be assured of protection. Paulinus and Catus
must share the blame for what followed. The country of the Iceni was
treated like conquered territory. Military violence went hand in hand
with civil spoliation. The widowed queen was actually whipped by the
scoundrels who dishonoured the Roman name; her orphaned daughters were
foully outraged. One can only hope that the vile deeds were committed
by one or two especially degraded creatures; but neither their
associates who looked on, nor those who sent them, can escape blame.
It was the last straw. The Iceni rose as one man at the call of
their outraged Queen. Tall and stately of presence, with bright eyes
and thick, flowing, red-gold hair, was the sorely wronged widow of
Prasutagus, and as, splendid in the barbaric magnificence of a British
queen, she harangued her liegemen, told of violence and lashes, and
insults unmentionable, pointed to the shame-bowed forms of her violated
children, the rage of the Iceni rose to fever heat. Out from the bounds
of their country poured the wild barbaric host, and ill fared it with
the Roman who strayed across its path. News of the rising came all too
late. Quintus Petilius Cerealis at Lindum called in all that he could
of the IXth Legion and marched southward, but the Iceni had a long
start. On they rushed across Suffolk towards doomed Camulodunum, the
Trinobantes rallying to them with fierce unanimity. ‘Colonia Victrix’
had no walls; only the temple of Divus Claudius and some neighbouring
buildings formed a sort of citadel. Catus sent what soldiers he
could--only two hundred--to help the colonists in the defence; but
time was lacking wherein to raise entrenchments, and little had been
done when the Britons were at hand, and swept through the city in a
whirlwind of vengeance and destruction. Some of the defenders held out
for two days in the temple, then it, too, was taken. There were hideous
scenes. The outrage-maddened princesses were little likely to restrain
their furious tribesmen. The innocent perished with the guilty,
without distinction of age or sex; women were stripped, scourged,
horribly mutilated, and left to die a lingering death of agony impaled
on stakes. Such was the harvest of the seed sown by military oppression
and capital-owning greed.
Now followed a great but obscure campaign. Tacitus is a little less
vague than usual, but gives not a hint as to chronology. The main point
is that London was already the most important place in the island. This
is clearly indicated, but everything else is exceedingly difficult to
follow. So far as can be ascertained, the sequence of events was this:
Boudicca, having destroyed Camulodunum, faced round to meet Cerealis,
who was approaching from Lindum. His force was attacked by the raging
horde of Britons and practically annihilated. Some 3,000 legionaries
and many auxiliaries perished; only the remains of the cavalry, with
Cerealis, cut their way out and escaped.
Paulinus meanwhile was hastening to the scene of operations. He left,
perforce, a strong garrison in Deva, and marched for London with the
XIVth Legion, some picked cohorts of the XXth, some auxiliaries, and
cavalry. He sent off orders to the IInd and IXth Legions to join him.
A glance at the map of Roman Britain will show that London was the
natural place of concentration.
We may assume that Cerealis’s action in marching from Lindum had,
at any rate, drawn the Britons away from the vital point. Paulinus
reached London before Boudicca. Then the blow fell. No troops were
there. The IXth Legion, we know, had been destroyed. Pœnius Postumus,
the temporary commander of the IInd, paralyzed by the responsibility,
perhaps thought fit to transmit the order to his absent superior,
and at any rate stood fast on the Lower Severn. London was not
fortified--it must have been crowded with fugitives--and Paulinus’s
entire strength, according to Tacitus, was but 10,000 men. There
is really no reason to believe, as has been suggested, that he had
outpaced his army and had only his escort with him. The position is
quite clear. He had ordered a concentration at London, and it had
failed. Instead of 20,000 men or more, he had only 10,000 wherewith
to defend an open town crowded with refugees. He decided that London
must be abandoned. Of its population, swollen, probably, by much of
that of Verulam, those who had most to fear--_i.e._, the Continental
residents--followed the march. Some, doubtless, escaped on shipboard,
but many, probably those of British birth, remained.
Conjecture has been busy with the direction of Paulinus’s march.
The old view was that he moved on Camulodunum; the more modern one,
followed by most recent writers, is that he retreated on Deva to rally
its garrison. Neither, however, commends itself to the authors. Let us
study the position.
Paulinus at London had 10,000 combatants in hand but was burdened with
a mass of non-combatants at least equal in number. At and about Deva
were perhaps half a legion and auxiliaries--say, 5,000 men. At Lindum,
practically blockaded, were the remains of the IXth. About Isca Silurum
and on the Lower Severn was the IInd Legion with its auxiliaries. At
Viroconium and other places in the west, and in some of the Kentish
towns (_i.e._, Rutupiæ), there were certainly garrisons. The British
host was somewhere north-east of London.
The question of supplies must be considered. It was probably near
harvest-time, as the Welsh campaign and the subsequent operations would
have consumed most of the summer. The richest districts of Britain were
Essex, Kent, and the Lower Severn Valley; but Essex was in the hands of
the Britons, and Paulinus could draw no supplies from it.
Wherever Paulinus went he had to feed his army and its hapless incubus
of refugees. The London-Deva road traversed the thinly-peopled and
thickly-wooded Midlands; the way to Colchester was barred by the
Britons.
[Illustration: THE CAMPAIGN OF A.D. 60 AGAINST BOUDICCA. THE POSITION
AT THE TIME OF PAULINUS’S ARRIVAL IN LONDON.
The chief roads (mainly British trackways) are shown with broken
lines. Each infantry block roughly indicates 5,000 men. The
whole country north of the Thames was hostile to the Romans,
perhaps much of that to the south also. The Roman troops at
Lindum (Lincoln) were only the defeated remnant of the IXth
Legion. It should be noted that of the settled and corn-growing
districts, one was occupied by the Britons, and there remained
open for Paulinus’s army, and the crowd of refugees which
accompanied it, the choice between Kent or the Lower Severn
Valley. The IInd Legion at Isca Silurum (Caerleon) had orders
to march on Londinium, and Paulinus would expect it to be well
on its way. The heavy black line stretching south-west from
London indicates the probable direction of the Roman retreat.]
The object of Paulinus was to complete his frustrated combination.
At Deva, two hundred miles away, were perhaps 5,000 men; at Lindum,
a hundred and thirty miles to the north-east, perhaps an equal
force, dispirited by defeat. If he took the road to Deva, or that to
Lindum, he would have the Britons upon him. Is it conceivable that
this able general, with supply difficulties aggravated by his mass of
non-combatants, would deliberately plunge into the midst of the enemy,
in order to join one of his two smaller detachments, when in the Lower
Severn Valley lay a whole legion and its auxiliaries. If his orders
were being obeyed, it should be already on the march; but if it had not
yet concentrated, its nearest detachments were only a hundred miles
away. A study of the map will show that, if London were abandoned,
Corinium (Cirencester) would be the natural point of concentration
for Paulinus’s army, the IInd Legion, and the garrisons of Deva and
Viroconium. The troops round Lindum and the garrisons in Kent must, for
the moment, be left to themselves. We are justified in thinking that
Paulinus would move in the direction of his largest outlying corps--the
IInd Legion. Considerations of supply would also take him westward.
Food might be found in Kent, but not reinforcements. The conclusion is
that, for every reason, the direction of the retreat would be westward.
Paulinus no doubt crossed the Thames, presumably by the bridge at
London, which would, of course, afterwards be destroyed, and retreated
towards Calleva (Silchester).
It is probable that Verulam was taken and sacked by the Britons after
Paulinus had passed through it. Tacitus only says that it fell at about
the same time as London. The British host then moved on to London,
which shared the fate of Camulodunum and Verulam. The massacre here was
probably the worst, for it would, naturally, apart from its commercial
importance, be full of fugitives.
From the ruins of London the Britons moved on after Paulinus, who was
marching slowly, troubled, so Dion says, with want of supplies, and
encumbered with the refugees from London. Another massacre would have
taken place but for the fact that before the pursuers could get at the
victims they must reckon with the ten thousand desperate veterans who
formed the rearguard. But the danger grew greater. The Roman army was
too small to adequately guard the unhappy throng of fugitives that
impeded its march; the IInd Legion did not come, and Paulinus turned
to bay. He chose a strong position in a defile, with woods behind and
on both flanks. His legionaries were deployed across the entrance; the
light troops apparently along the front and in the woods; the cavalry
behind. This narrow valley may reasonably be looked for among the hills
between the south-west of London and Silchester, and as the most open,
and therefore safest, route would have probably been by Banstead,
Epsom Downs, Headley, Ranmore, and Guildford, the scene of Boudicca’s
defeat may be somewhere along that line. The retreating Romans would,
in this case, have quite likely debouched into the gorge of the Mole by
the valley that runs into it from Headley. Continuing their westward
march, the way up to the top of the downs would be almost facing them
as they crossed the shallow river where Burford Bridge now stands. It
is conceivable that the idea of turning to bay at this point would
occur to Paulinus as his force marched up the dry and rapidly narrowing
valley, whose sides are sufficiently steep to concentrate the attack on
one front.
The generalship of the British chiefs appears to have been
contemptible. They staked everything on a wild frontal attack. Worse
still, their movements were encumbered by hordes of followers and a
vast train of waggons, which was parked confusedly in the rear. For the
last time Boudicca drove along the line and bade her warriors strike
a crushing blow. Paulinus, on his side, addressed his men in brief
soldierly words, which Dion amplifies into an harangue covering pages.
The Britons, as they came on, were smitten by storms of missiles from
the light troops, which made havoc in their dense masses, but the
headlong charge, nevertheless, seems to have driven in the skirmishers
and reached the legionaries. But they were received with volley on
volley of pila; rush after rush recoiled from the steady line; and
then, when the fury of their charge began to slacken, Paulinus ordered
the advance. The legionaries pressed forward shoulder to shoulder,
like a wall of iron; the auxiliaries charged manfully on the wings of
their heavily-armed comrades. As the line left the defile the cavalry
swept round the flanks and fell upon the Britons, and though bodies
and individuals doubtless fought bravely to the end, panic seized the
host as a whole, and it fled wildly to the rear. The fatal waggon
park dammed back the flying horde, and the Romans closed upon it and
slaughtered their fill. The massacres of the Britons were avenged by
the butchery, it is said, of 80,000 men, women, and children. Like
many of the semi-barbarous peoples of the past, and the Abyssinians
of to-day, their armies were encumbered by a numerous following of
women-folk. Boudicca poisoned herself in her despair.
With the victory of Paulinus the last united opposition to Rome ceased.
The reconquest of the south gave much trouble, and Paulinus himself was
soon recalled, rightly enough, for his harshness and lack of political
wisdom were clearly not less than his warlike skill. Civilian governors
set to work to heal, so far as possible, the wounds of Britain, and
for eight years the new policy of conciliation and reorganization was
steadily carried out. After 71 the conquest of the Brigantes in the
North was taken seriously in hand by Petilius Cerealis, now governor
of the province. The brave Silures of South Wales submitted in 78,
and the northern tribes were by 80 sufficiently cowed to enable
that brilliant but overrated figure, Gnæus Julius Agricola, the
father-in-law of Tacitus, to make his famous invasions of Caledonia.
But in 86 they again broke out into revolt, and for thirty years gave
continual trouble. About 119 they set upon Legio IX., the ever luckless
‘Hispana’--where is unfortunately not known--and annihilated it; never
more does it appear in the Imperial muster-rolls. The subjection of the
North seemed as far distant as ever.
So in 120 the Emperor Hadrian himself arrived in Britain to study
the problem, bringing with him, to replace the lost troops, Legio
VI. (‘Victrix’), whose headquarters were to be at Eboracum (York)
for nearly three hundred years. He decided to draw a connected line
of defence across the island from Tynemouth to Solway, which might
serve at once as a bulwark against the North, and a base of operations
against the Brigantes. The idea had been Agricola’s, thus showing that
some at least of his relative’s overstrained eulogy is not misplaced.
The line of forts which he had established was now reinstated, new ones
built, and all connected by a solid rampart of turf, fronted by a deep
ditch. While this was being carried out, and Hadrian was busy in the
south, the field army, assisted by detachments from the Army of the
Rhine, set to work to tame the Brigantes, and for a time succeeded.
[Illustration: THE ROMAN WALL FROM THE MILE CASTLE BETWEEN AESICA AND
BORCOVICUS.]
Hadrian’s policy, as is known, was to withdraw behind definite and
easily defensible frontiers, and concentrate the energies of the
government upon internal development rather than aggression. The
trouble in Britain was that a true frontier was hard to find. Hadrian’s
chosen line corresponded roughly with the Brigantian border, but it
cut athwart the British tribes. To move on to the Forth was merely to
add a large tract of very wild and sparsely peopled territory to the
province, with the restless Brigantes still unsubdued far in the rear.
As the conditions then were, Hadrian’s policy was sound; but it may be
said, in short, that the original error of occupying the island was not
to be redeemed by anything short of its complete conquest, and for this
task, enormously difficult and entirely unremunerative, the Roman
Empire, on the verge of decline in population and resources, had not
the means.
Hadrian’s Wall is now crowned, except at one point, by the
reconstruction in stone by Severus I. ninety years later; hence it was
often supposed that the first wall was a stone structure. This idea may
now be regarded as thoroughly disproved; the later wall stands upon
and hides the foundations of the former, but near Birdoswald Severus’s
engineers diverged a little from Hadrian’s line, and the earlier
emperor’s construction may still be seen. The turf wall, replaced
by stone, ran for seventy-three miles from Gabrosentum (Bowness)
to Segedunum (Wallsend). In front of it, where it did not crown
precipitous cliffs, was a ditch about 36 feet broad, and perhaps 30
feet deep. At each milestone there was a redoubt (_castellum_), and at
more or less regular intervals along the whole line were fifteen large
forts. Roughly parallel to the wall ran a military road, and a little
way south of it a wide but shallow ditch between mounds, commonly
called the ‘Vallum,’ the reason for which is a puzzle. It is best here
to adopt Professor Oman’s very reasonable theory that it was the civil
boundary of the province.
The wall and its forts were constructed by detachments from the
legions, but it was garrisoned by the auxiliary cohorts, while the
heavy infantry lay in reserve at the old military centres. Twenty-one
infantry cohorts and six _alæ_ of cavalry made up the original
garrison, and some of them kept their stations for centuries. Nearly
three hundred years later there were at least eleven, and probably
more, of these regiments still on the wall. Behind, the legions
occupied their camps for generation after generation, as if nothing
could disturb them. For two hundred and eighty-two years after
Hadrian’s visit, Legio VI. lay at York. The XXth ‘Valeria Victrix’ made
its home at Deva (Chester) for more than three centuries; while Secunda
Augusta, which had landed with Plautius in 43, did not leave Britain
until 407, after a sojourn of three hundred and sixty-four years!
CHAPTER III
THE ROMAN PROVINCE AND THE EARLIER TEUTONIC INVASIONS
After Hadrian, in what Florus jokingly termed the great Emperor’s
‘walking about Britain,’ had reorganized the island, and established
the famous military frontier, Britain settled down to a more or less
eventful existence as a Roman province. The unfortunate results of the
enterprise, into which Claudius had perhaps been led partly against
his will, soon began to be apparent, even if to all thinking men they
were not plain as early as the reign of Hadrian. The military boundary
chosen by Trajan’s successor corresponded roughly with the northern
border of the Brigantes, but it was not the frontier of Britain, which
extended from Clyde to Forth. Therefore, in 140-141, the governor,
Lollius Urbicus, the lieutenant of Antoninus Pius, moved the frontier
forward to this line, and covered it by another rampart, strengthened
by ten forts, only a few miles apart. It was the old, old story--a
forward policy can never halt.
The Roman terminus stood between Forth and Clyde for a few years
only. The wild Caledonians--‘Picts,’ as perhaps the Roman troops were
already calling them--saw their independence threatened now as formerly
by Agricola. About 155 the irrepressible Brigantes again broke out
into rebellion. They were only subdued after a fierce struggle, during
which the garrison of the northernmost wall must have been largely
recalled. The result was the gradual abandonment of the recently
occupied territory. The Caledonians raided through the ill-occupied
wall, inflicted at least one severe defeat on a Roman force, and, as
excavations appear to show, stormed some of the forts. By about 190
the frontier was again at Hadrian’s Wall, with advanced stations at
Habitancum (Risingham) and Bremenium (High Rochester), respectively
twelve and twenty miles from Corstopitum (Corbridge), just south of the
Wall, Castra Exploratorum (Netherby), and one or two other places. So,
after every effort, the ‘British Enterprise’ ended in an unsatisfactory
compromise. The Roman frontier was neither ethnic nor natural, and the
wretched Britons between Roman and Pict were literally between hammer
and anvil. In 196-197 the governor, Decimus Clodius Albinus, took
almost the entire army to Gaul to contest the Empire with Severus I.
He was defeated and slain at Lugdunum (Lyons), and the troops returned
to Britain; but they must have suffered very heavily, besides being
thoroughly discontented with the Emperor, who had slain their own
commander. This weakness and disorganization gave the wild Caledonians
too good an opportunity to be missed. They appear to have occupied the
territory north of the Wall, and even to have crossed the fortified
line itself.
So in 208 Severus himself arrived with powerful reinforcements. In 209
he advanced, and for two years pushed slowly and doggedly forward.
His solution of the problem was the heroic one of subduing the whole
island. The losses of the army in the two campaigns were relatively
enormous--fifty thousand men, it is said. The stern old Emperor was
generally ill; he suffered fearfully from gout, but he never faltered.
On over the desolation of wild Caledonia, slowly, painfully, but with
a grim determination more terrible than the fiercest onslaught, with
Severus in his litter at its head, the devoted army wrought its way,
and at last drew near to the ‘extreme end of the Isle of Britain.’[A]
Severus had won his last victory, for the barbarians were cowed by
the steady advance. They sued for peace, and the grim old conqueror
returned to Eboracum to die. His worthless son Caracalla retroceded
the conquered territory to the Picts, receiving in exchange a more
or less nominal homage; but there is every reason to believe that
the barbarians were daunted, and gave little trouble for many years.
Severus left behind him, as a perpetual monument to his greatness, the
gigantic reconstruction in stone of Hadrian’s Wall, whereof the remains
survive to this day.
[A] Herodian.
After his departure, Britain entered upon a period of prosperity
hitherto unknown. It was saved by its insular position from taking more
than a passive part in the wild chaos of civil and foreign war that
overwhelmed the Roman Empire in the third century, and is described by
a contemporary writer as being in a very flourishing condition. The
Picts were held completely in check by the fortified lines of the Wall.
Perhaps, also, they were involved in warfare among themselves. At any
rate, not until the end of the century did Britain again know the fear
of foreign invasion. This time it was not from the North, but from
oversea. The little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, had arisen in
Germany, which was to grow until it overshadowed all the heavens, and
ended by forming a new nation on what had been Celtic soil.
For long generations Germania had been seething with disorder, for
reasons which cannot here be considered. Tribe was pressing on tribe;
the whole mass of wild barbarism was being forced against the Rhine
and the Danube, behind which lay the Roman Empire, sorely weakened
by invasions, plague, famine, economic decay, and misgovernment. The
North-German tribes--Franks, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Frisians--finding
raids over the Rhine difficult, dangerous, and more and more
unremunerative, began to take to the sea. Their craft as yet--perhaps
to the end--were small open vessels, incapable of rough sea-work, and
obliged to hug the shore as far as possible. The raiding flotillas
ran down what are now the coasts of Denmark, North-West Germany, and
Holland, and turned to right or left on Britain or Gaul, according
to information or inclination. Others, more daring, or encouraged
by spells of fine weather, ran across from Frisia to the coasts of
Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, and landed for hasty raids on those rich
agricultural districts. These appear at first to have been met merely
by detachments of troops; the Roman naval force in the Channel was
small. But when the famous organizer and statesman, Diocletian, took
up the task of saving the Empire in 284, he abandoned timid defensive
strategy. His colleague, Maximianus, to whom he entrusted the West,
organized a great fleet in the Channel, and placed in command a
distinguished naval officer, Marcus Aurelius Carausius, with the title
of ‘Count of the Saxon Shore.’ He cleared the sea of the pirates, but,
presently accused of misappropriation of booty, set up in Britain
as independent ruler. He even endeavoured to conquer Gaul, but only
succeeded in permanently holding Gessoriacum (Boulogne). His naval
power, however, rendered his position invulnerable, and Diocletian
and Maximianus stooped to acknowledge him as their colleague. He was
assassinated in 293, but his murderer and successor, Allectus, held the
province for three years longer. He was not the equal of Carausius,
and allowed Constantius Chlorus, Cæsar of the West, to build ships
unmolested in Gaul until he was able to cross the Channel and overthrow
Allectus (296).
Constantius and his more famous son, Constantine the Great, resided
for long periods in Britain, and, partly to this circumstance, partly
to the renewed peace brought about by the protection of the fleet of
the Saxon Shore, the province enjoyed another lease of prosperity.
Indeed, there is some reason to believe that the period 296-350 was
the most prosperous that Roman Britain ever knew. Building was going
on vigorously. When Constantius II. rebuilt Augustodunum in Gaul he
levied artisans for the work in Britain, a circumstance which points to
a condition of great prosperity. The western mines were being actively
worked; Damnonia (Devon and Cornwall) was evidently being drawn much
more closely into the Roman sphere of civilization. Something of the
same kind seems to have been taking place north of the Wall, though
here the Imperial influence was of a much fainter character.
Something must be said of the towns. They were not numerous or
specially important. It must be remembered that Britain as a province
was comparatively poor and unsettled as compared with Spain or
Asia Minor. Its relative prosperity at this period was thrown into
relief by the fact that Gaul had long been suffering from barbarian
invasions; it is not improbable that there had been immigration from
the Continent. To return to the towns: Camulodunum seems never to have
recovered from its destruction by Boudicca. When it was rebuilt, its
walls enclosed an area less than that of several other places. Glevum,
and probably Lindum, were _colonia_; Verulam had been a _municipium_
since the commencement of the Roman epoch. Eboracum was undoubtedly
the principal place north of the Trent; Corinium, Viroconium, Calleva,
Isca Silurum, and other places, had considerable local importance. Aquæ
Sulis was much frequented as a health resort; but the most important
city of the province from the time of Carausius onwards was undoubtedly
London, which about 340 received the title of Augusta, with, in all
probability, exceptional privileges. Its name was far too ancient
to be ousted by a mere honorary appellation, but Londinium Augusta
was certainly the largest and most important, if not the finest, of
Romano-British towns. Its walls enclosed an area of some 380 acres. The
average of population per acre in modern London is about sixty, but
in Berlin it is one hundred. Sanitation was ill-understood in those
days, and in a commercial centre like London the crowding was probably
often dense. The normal population may have been about 50,000. The
area of Verulam was about 203 acres; its population, perhaps, 20,000.
Such importance as it still retained may have been largely due to the
fact that it was a pleasant place of resort from busy and overcrowded
London. Viroconium, with an area of 170 acres, and Calleva with 102,
can hardly be credited with more than 10,000 and 5,000 inhabitants
respectively. Population does not flock into places of no special
commercial importance. Glevum, Lindum, Eboracum, and Corinium were all,
perhaps, as large as Verulamium. Many of the ports on the south coast
must have attained considerable size. But Britain, unlike Gaul, was not
a province of great cities. Apart from resorts of merchants, such as
London, the real centres of social life seem to have been the numerous
villas.
Nor, apart from prosperity at certain periods, can Britain ever have
been a paying province. The number of troops permanently maintained
there must have approached 40,000; while Severus was in the island
there were probably 100,000; in 400 the Notitia shows over 50,000.
Besides the expense of the army, there was that of the vast and
ever-increasing bureaucracy, and of the maintenance of roads and
military works.
When the chief towns were walled we do not know. There is some reason
to think that the fortification of London was begun by Severus I., but
it is probable that most of the wall dates from a later period. The
opinion of the authors, based upon careful examination of the quality
of the work, is that it was constructed in great haste. The wall of
Verulam is especially strong and massive, but whether it is so early as
it is claimed to be is somewhat doubtful. Inscriptions are plentiful
on the Wall of Severus, but not on those of the towns; and since the
practice of commemorative inscriptions tended to die out in the fourth
century, we are, perhaps, justified in supposing that the fortification
of the towns was undertaken comparatively late. Everything is doubtful
at present. We only know that the ‘departure of the Eagles’ left most
of the British towns walled. Since at Silchester the wall crosses the
ends of streets diagonally, the inference is that it was built at a
late date to enclose only the closely inhabited area.
About 343 the Picts, hitherto more or less quiescent, again took to
the war-path. Apparently the defences of the North had been somewhat
neglected; the Wall of Severus was pierced, Corstopitum burned. The
Emperor Constans came in haste from Gaul in the winter to face the
danger, drove back the raiders, and appears to have received some
sort of homage from them, for Julius Firmicus speaks of the Emperor
as having ‘extended the Empire.’ His coercion was at any rate severe
enough to impose peace for seventeen years. But in 360 troubles again
broke out. The Picts renewed their raids, and for the first time we
hear of a new enemy to Britain--the Scots. They were destined to
give their name to the northern part of Britain in the far future,
but for the present they were probably neither more nor less than
adventurers from Ireland. The name may signify a ‘broken’ or landless
man, though the Scots as a whole appear to have had their home in
north-east Ireland. Perhaps they were a confederation of broken clans
and war-bands. They crossed to Caledonia, and established a settlement
in the modern Argyll. At the same time some of the Picts had effected a
small settlement in Ireland and in Galloway. The two peoples were thus
in close communication, and a united attack from them was what might
have been expected.
About 360, then, Picts and Scots began to direct raids upon the
north and west of Roman Britain. After a while they were joined by
the Attacotti, who seem to have been a confederation of the Britons
beyond the Roman Wall--_i.e._, between Tyne and Forth. For a time
these raids produced only slight effect, and in 360 Britain was
exporting quantities of grain to Gaul for the relief of suffering
provincials there. But by 364 the invaders were growing more daring.
There is reason to think that other Irish tribes were assisting them,
and now the ‘Saxons’--that is Angles, Frisians, Jutes, as well as
Saxons--appear once more on the scene. Ammianus Marcellinus says that
they were ‘in conspiracy’--that is, were acting in unison--and this
is very probable. In 367 they made a combined attack and broke up the
defence by two almost simultaneous victories. The Roman Army of the
North was defeated; its commander, Fullofaudes, was slain, and the
force broken up and dispersed; while Nectarides, Count of the Saxon
Shore, was defeated and slain by the Saxons. The results were very
serious. Probably here and there detachments of troops held out behind
the walls of the larger towns and fortresses; but the invaders seem to
have overrun a great part of the country north of the Thames. Ammianus
says that they dispersed over the country in small marauding bands.
The Emperor Valentinian I. sent to cope with this most dangerous
irruption a gallant Spanish officer, Theodosius, entrusting to him
large reinforcements of Teutonic mercenaries and two regiments of the
Imperial Guard. Theodosius’s first care was to clear the Midlands, a
task involving much rapid marching and hard fighting, but successfully
carried out. He wisely did not threaten disbanded troops with military
punishment, and thus was able to rally the Army of Britain on the corps
which accompanied him, and to completely reorganize it. In 369 he
cleared the north, and, so Claudian tells us, pursued the enemy oversea
to their refuges--presumably the Irish coast and the Hebrides. Whatever
exaggeration may be behind the poet’s eulogy, there is no doubt that
Theodosius gained great and, for the time, decisive successes. Although
the theory of a new ‘province of Valentia’ between the Walls of Hadrian
and Antoninus is due to a misunderstanding of the words of Ammianus,
there is some reason to think that Theodosius did in a sense advance
the border. He abolished the ‘Arcani,’ a sort of frontier intelligence
corps composed of border Britons, and this may imply supersession of
them by advanced detachments of regulars. Secondly, we find Attacotti
soon after serving in considerable numbers in the Roman army, a
circumstance which seems to imply complete defeat, if not political
subjection. Thirdly, while Ammianus says that Theodosius restored
all the frontier forts, excavation appears to indicate that the line
of the Wall with its mile-castles was not repaired. The evidence is
not quite conclusive, for the remains of the last occupation lying
nearest to the surface would be the first to perish. The frontier was
guarded in force till forty years later. This has been contested by
Mommsen, who suggested that the roll of the Army of Britain in the
Notitia Dignitatum was copied from an earlier list in order to hide
the chasm caused by the destruction of corps in the Picto-Scottish
wars. Professor Oman has satisfactorily rebutted this theory. He points
out that, though there is a remarkable survival of old regiments, yet
intermingled with them are many with unquestionable fourth-century
titles such as ‘The Thundering Moors,’ ‘The Senior Lions,’ and ‘The
Bears of Valentinian.’ Claudian distinctly states that to meet Alaric,
Stilicho withdrew troops from the North of Britain. Coins of Maximus
(383-388) have been found on the Wall, proving an occupation until
almost the end of the fourth century; and lacking, as there is,
information of any great disaster, it cannot be asserted that the Roman
hold on Britain was not effective until the last. The case of the
Attacotti is suggestive, and there is evidence (some of it certainly
late) that the British tribes between the walls were practically
adjuncts of the province and co-operating in its defence.
The arrangements of Theodosius sufficed to ensure the safety of the
province for some fourteen years. That much damage had been inflicted
is certain, and perhaps Britain never entirely recovered from the
effects of the invasions of 364-368. It has been suggested that Deva,
Viroconium, and other towns in the west, had been destroyed by the
Scots; but this seems very doubtful. A fact to be noted is that there
was already a considerable Teutonic element in the island in the shape
of many _numeri_ formed out of prisoners taken in the chronic wars on
the Rhine. In 371 the Emperor Valentinian sent over to Britain a whole
Alemannic sub-tribe.
In 383 the Army of Britain revolted against Gratianus, the successor
of Valentinian I., and proclaimed as Emperor an able Spanish general,
Magnus Clemens Maximus, who held high command in the island, but had
been passed over by Gratian’s ministers for promotion. The Picts and
Scots seized the opportunity to renew their raids, but were repelled
by Maximus, who then, however, crossed to Gaul to expel Gratian.
The troops joined him, Gratian was murdered by one of his officers,
and Maximus became supreme over Gaul and Spain. Gratian’s brother,
Valentinian II., retained Italy for a while, but in 387 Maximus
expelled him. He hoped, perhaps, to repeat the deeds of Constantine
I., who had conquered the whole empire from the West, but fate decreed
otherwise. In 388 Theodosius I., Emperor of the East, son of Count
Theodosius, came up against him, and he was defeated at Aquileia,
captured, and executed.
Gildas says that, to defend himself against Theodosius, Maximus
stripped Britain of her warriors, and so paved the way for the ruin
that was to come. This, however, is very doubtful, and Gildas cannot be
relied upon except for his own times. But Claudian may be believed when
he says that Britain suffered from Pictish and Scottish raids, though
he no doubt paints his picture in the darkest colours. The ‘Historia
Brittonum’ says that about 385-390 the Scots were in possession of
North Wales, but that they were driven out by an army led by Cunedda
and his eight sons from the land of the Otadini--_i.e._, the Lothians
(Manau Gododin). If this statement--and it is very precise--may be
taken as historical fact, it can only mean that the Otadini now formed
part of the province, and that an auxiliary force led by one of their
chiefs was employed to clear North Wales of the Scots. Cunedda was
clearly a Romanized Briton; his father Æternus and his grandfather
Paternus bear just the quaint names that were common among Romans
in the fourth century. It is possible that Cunedda’s campaign was
initiated by Maximus. ‘Maxim Gwledig’ (= Maximus Imperator) bulks
largely in British legend, and it is permissible to suppose that there
was some solid reason for the respect paid to his memory. The theory
that Wales, and possibly Damnonia, were defended by their own local
levies accounts satisfactorily for the fact that in the Notitia we find
no regular troops stationed in those regions. It also explains the
early formation of monarchical states among them, which is a feature
of the next century. Finally, if a large part of the warriors of the
Otadini went to Wales, we might expect to find the defence of the north
weakened, and, if Claudian may be trusted, this is what did happen.
When Theodosius the Great died in 395 the Roman Empire was already
sorely pressed, but for more than ten years ruin was staved off by the
great Vandal Stilicho, guardian of the weak young Emperor Honorius, and
Commander-in-Chief in the West. Amongst other things, he reorganized
the defences of Britain. The General in the North was called the ‘Duke
of the Britains’ (_Dux Britanniarum_). From Brancaster, in Norfolk,
to Southampton Water extended the district of the Count of the Saxon
Shore (_Comes Littoris Saxonici_). Both were under the supreme command
of the Count of the Britains (_Comes Britanniarum_), who controlled a
reserve force which could be used at need to strengthen either north or
east. The VIth Legion was still at York; the IInd was now at Rutupiæ;
and there were besides thirty-seven auxiliary regiments of infantry
and sixteen of cavalry--nearly 60,000 men in all. There were also two
naval squadrons--one stationed on the ‘Saxon Shore,’ the other off the
Lancashire coast.
One most important fact must be kept steadily in mind: the Army of
Britain, though it contained some foreign corps and a large number of
soldiers of foreign extraction, was in the main British in composition
and feeling. For centuries the troops of each Roman province had been
very largely recruited locally, either by conscripts or the children
of the soldiers themselves, often trained to camp-life and war from
their youth up. A so-called Moorish cohort would perhaps not contain
a single Moor, and so on throughout the army. A regiment stationed in
Britain kept its name, but was made up with British recruits.
In 402 King Alaric and the Visigoths set out to invade Italy, and
Stilicho was forced to weaken the Army of Britain for the defence of
Ravenna and Rome. Among the troops withdrawn was the VIth Legion--its
long residence at York at last at an end--and none of them ever came
back; for though Stilicho hurled invasion after invasion out of Italy,
on January 1, 406, a horde of Teutons poured over the frozen Rhine and
began to waste Gaul. Like an army whose line has been pierced, the
provinces found the Germans interposed between them, and Britain was
cut off from Italy.
Thereupon the Army of Britain appears to have decided that Honorius and
Stilicho were useless as defenders of the Empire, and resolved to save
it themselves--by mutinying! They selected a certain Marcus as emperor,
and almost immediately murdered him. A second, named Gratianus, had
the same fate; but the third, Constantine, was made of sterner stuff,
and wore the purple for over three years--perhaps because he was wise
enough to leave Britain. He decided to imitate the example of ‘Maxim
Gwledig,’ and crossed to Gaul in 407. This is the event so often, and
wrongly, called the ‘departure of the legions.’
Constantine had been chosen Emperor in order to carry out the task with
which Stilicho had failed to successfully grapple. Is it to be supposed
that he would have dared to leave Britain defenceless, even had he so
desired? The idea is absurd. He no doubt took to Gaul a considerable
force, which must have been mainly British, and his chief general,
Gerontius (Geraint), was a Briton. But to suppose that, as Gildas
wails, the province was left defenceless, and that the inhabitants were
so effeminate and cowardly as to be incapable of bearing arms, cannot
be allowed. It is certain that the Britons were among the best fighting
peoples of the Empire, and when Constantine crossed to Gaul in 407 he
undoubtedly left his base properly garrisoned. It is not even certain
that the IInd Legion left Britain.
Constantine laid hands on a great part of Gaul and Spain--so far
as they were not held by barbarians--and marched down to the Rhone
to oust Honorius, who had just murdered his guardian and principal
stay, the great Stilicho. Gerontius, however, revolted from him, and
in 411 he was besieged in Arelate (Arles), captured, and executed.
Meanwhile, what of Britain? In 409 came the first mutterings of the
coming storm. The Saxons and their allies made raids both on Britain
and Gaul. Thereupon the provincials disowned Constantine, who was
clearly no more of a success than Stilicho, expelled his officials,
elected others of their own choosing, raised new levies of troops, and
repulsed the raiders. This is vouched for by the chronicler Zosimus.
The ministers of Honorius, beset by many troubles, had already sent
word to the British communities that they must defend themselves, and
the provincials probably regarded their action as one of adherence to
the legitimate Emperor as against usurpers of the type of Constantine.
Certainly there was no conscious withdrawal from the Empire.
The course of events can only be dimly conjectured. In the east the
Romanized cities probably took the lead. In the west and north matters
went differently. These regions were less civilized, and the political
unit was the tribe and not the city. In North Wales Cunedda was
practically king, and small monarchial states soon sprang up elsewhere.
In the north, about 450, St. Patrick tells us of a military state
(Strathclyde), ruled by a chief whom he calls Coroticus, who possessed
both a paid army and a fleet, and had not only beaten off the Scots,
but had made retaliating raids on Ireland. Both Cunedda and Coroticus
are called Gwledig (overlord) in the Welsh genealogies, and Cunedda at
least appears to have held the post of _Dux Britanniarum_ (General of
the Northern Frontier). Apparently after his death a new state named
Reged arose on the Wall; it was founded by Coel--the ‘Old King Cole’ of
an irreverent nursery rhyme. Speaking roughly, we may say that in South
Wales and Damnonia tribal kingdoms, in North Wales and the north-west
military states, were the rule; while the cities apparently kept up
Roman traditions, and by means of their walls maintained independence.
It will be seen that in many ways the outlook was bad for Britain.
The interests of the military chiefs of the tribal dynasts and of the
Romanized cities were certain to diverge, and hostilities between them
were almost inevitable. Probably even the cities did not always find
co-operation easy. It is possible that there were already numbers of
Teutons in the country; there may have been Teutonic settlements on
the coast of Lothian as early as 400. The fleet of the Saxon Shore had
apparently disappeared, presumably during the troubled period 407-411.
Finally, the country lacked the unifying bond of a common religion.
It is practically certain that though the Christian Church in Britain
was a vigorous organization, its adherents were in a minority. The
church at Calleva is so small as to make it certain that the Christian
population was only some hundreds in number, the total of inhabitants
being, perhaps, 5,000. The fragments of a local god were found by the
explorers around its pedestal--_i.e._, the statue was standing there
when disaster overtook the place. When St. Germanus visited Britain
in 429 he baptized thousands of converts. Probably in Britain, as
elsewhere in the failing Empire, the adhesion of the upper classes to
Christianity was nominal or non-existent, as it was to be for some
generations; and the majority among the masses was frankly pagan.
Thus divided, distracted, with a defensive system disorganized by
repeated withdrawals or shifting of troops, and with little prospect of
co-operation between its cities and tribal cantons, Britain had to face
attacks from three sides. On the north were the restless Picts, on the
west the Scots, on the east the Teutons.
To construct anything like a connected narrative out of the few
authorities who shed light on this period is almost, if not quite,
impossible. The whole epoch has been called the ‘lost period,’ but
it would not be by any means unfair to describe it as neglected. The
authorities are scanty, obscure, and hopelessly confused; but it is
possible, by careful study, to construct a not improbable skeleton of
facts.
From 409 to 429 we have no clear indication of the course of events in
Britain. It seems, however, to have been somewhat as follows:
Internally the process of reorganization with city states, tribal
principalities, and military monarchies went on, probably with much
jarring and intestine strife, of which there are indications in Gildas,
and the queer mosaic of fairy tales, legends, genealogies, and scraps
of lost chronicles called the ‘Historia Brittonum.’ The most remarkable
fact is that the Picts and Teutons were in communication, and acted at
times in conjunction. Various statements in the Life of St. Germanus,
and in the ‘Historia Brittonum’ lead one to infer that the earliest
settlements of the English in Britain were neither in the south nor
the east, but on the Firth of Forth. According to the Northumbrian
genealogies in the ‘Historia Brittonum,’ Soemil, the predecessor of
Aella of Deira, in the fifth generation, was the first to separate
Deira from Bernicia. This must mean that he founded a Teutonic
principality in the north-east. Bernicia is, apparently, a corruption
of Brigantia (Bryneich, or Berneich, in the ‘Historia’).
If, as early as 420 (Soemil can hardly be placed much later), the
Angles were able to effect permanent settlements in north-east Britain,
they were probably raiding there years before. That their raids, more
or less in conjunction with the Picts, penetrated a considerable
distance south is also probable, though the establishment of the
kingdoms of Strathclyde and Reged in this quarter tended to check them.
It was probably during the intestine struggles, which resulted in the
founding of these states, that the English effected their lodgments.
The men of Strathclyde and Reged soon began a series of fierce attacks
upon them, and for a century and a half they were confined to narrow,
and perhaps disconnected, slips of coast; but once established, they
were never really dislodged. The Britons, who had the Picts and Scots
also on their hands, and were further distracted by dynastic broils,
never made the united attack which might have driven the English, to
use Napoleon’s famous phrase, ‘into the sea.’
In the west the Britons were probably more occupied with the Scots
and Irish than with Picts, though it is highly probable that German
pirate squadrons occasionally harassed the south-west. In Lancashire
and western Yorkshire was the kingdom of Theyrnllwg, and to the east
another called Elmet, whose capital was Loidis (Leeds). Both these
states may have represented sub-tribes of the Brigantes. In the western
Midlands was the kingdom of Powys, and in the south-west Damnonia. In
Wales there were at least three states, probably corresponding to the
old tribal cantons of the Ordovices, Silures, and Demetæ. Gwynedd,
under the dynasty of Cunedda, appears to have been generally regarded
as the chief state, and the suzerainty of its kings was sometimes
effective. There are indications that Cunedda, at least, ruled both
Gwynedd and Theyrnllwg, but, as usual in Celtic dynasties, his
successors divided his heritage.
On the whole, it seems, as is natural, that while the British states
were in course of formation, the Picts and Scots were able to raid the
province with comparative success for some years. About 425 Dathi,
Ard-righ (suzerain king) of Ireland, is said, in the Irish annals, to
have been slain oversea; and this may have occurred on a raid against
the Britons. In 429 Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, who had formerly
been ‘Dux’ of Aremorica, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, came to Britain
to combat the Pelagian heresy which had sprung up in the island. It
is curious that a Church which had so far failed to Christianize the
province could produce a heresiarch like Pelagius; but the phenomenon
is not by any means unparalleled.
Germanus was one of those fine men about whom all that was best of
society rallied in those terrible days. One biography of him, written
by a Gallic priest, survives; another, probably composed in Britain, is
lost, but was known to one of the compilers of the ‘Historia Brittonum.’
Germanus and Lupus met their Pelagian opponents in synod at Verulam. We
are told that they worshipped at the tomb of St. Alban; and as this lay
outside the walls, it may be considered as certain that the south-east
had not been visited by raiders. The sanctity of the spot explains
the choice of it as the meeting-place. We might rather have expected
London, but it is noteworthy that St. Paul’s is said to have been built
on the site, not of a former church, but of a temple of Apollo; and
it is possible that London, a great resort of merchants, was rather a
stronghold of eclecticism, if not paganism, than of Christianity.
The Gallic bishops had other and more mundane work to do before they
departed. Some part of the island, probably the north-east, was being
wasted by a joint invasion of Picts and ‘Saxons.’ There must have been
men in the British levies opposing them who had heard of Germanus as a
soldier--officers and men of the old Imperial cohorts--and a message
was sent begging the Gallic bishops to join the camp. The point upon
which the biographer dwells is naturally the conversion and baptism on
the eve of battle of thousands of the pagan peasant soldiers, but we
may suspect that the old warrior Germanus was busily engaged as well
in drilling and organizing his motley troops. His generalship appears
to have been very good; he drew the enemy into a battle on his own
chosen ground. The British army was stationed in a valley, the centre
in battle array at its head, the wings carefully concealed, thrown
forward along both sides. To inspirit the new levies, Germanus gave as
the word for the day ‘Alleluia.’
The ‘Saxons’ and Picts, presumably in the dense column formation common
to barbarians, pushed boldly up the valley against the British centre,
but when they came to close quarters Germanus let loose the ambushed
wings. With wild shouts of ‘Alleluia! Alleluia!’ the Britons poured
down to the attack, and a complete rout ensued, the barbarians breaking
up and throwing away their arms in panic-stricken flight. A river lay
athwart their line of retreat, and the passage of this proved as fatal
as the battle. The result appears to have been to secure the north for
a time at least. When next we get a glimpse of these regions we find
a strong British state taking the offensive against the Picts, and
gaining territory from them; this may very well have been due to the
victory of Germanus. The battlefield cannot be identified, but it is
as well to warn visitors to Maes Garmon, near Mold, that this site is
an extremely unlikely one. Picts are not likely to have raided in this
direction, and the English did not appear there for at least a century
and a half.
It is to be inferred from the ‘Vita S. Germani’ that in the south-east
at least Britain was still under Roman civil government. We hear
nothing of kings or even chiefs. Roman official titles are mentioned,
and we are told that the magnates were richly attired. It is impossible
to make anything of the strange statement in the ‘Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle’ that in 418 the Romans in Britain burned their treasures and
fled to Gaul. The Chronicle is far too late to be of any authority for
this period. Its chronology cannot in any case be depended upon; but it
is just possible that there really was during this period a migration
of some sort, perhaps of non-British officials and their families. It
must not be forgotten that Britain not only extended northward to the
Forth, but also, perhaps, already had a colony in Gaul--the modern
Brittany. The ‘Historia Brittonum’ makes the quite credible statement
(though some of the details look rather absurd) that this settlement
was initiated by Magnus Maximus, but, at any rate, we know from
Sidonius Apollinaris that in 469 it was a very large one. Possibly, the
statement above may refer to some incident connected with Brittany.
Finally, it is very necessary even to-day to warn readers against the
foolish idea that ‘Romans’ and Britons were at this date distinct
peoples. A Roman meant during the Imperial period anyone under the
Roman Government possessing civil rights--that is, almost all the free
population. A Roman might be by birth a Briton, a Gaul, an Italian, a
Greek, an Illyrian, a Jew; and a Briton or a Greek was neither more nor
less a Roman than an Italian. The average Roman legion rarely contained
Italians, much less inhabitants of the city of Rome; but, nevertheless,
the soldiers were Roman. So with the civil administration: a Roman
Ministry might contain members of every race under the Roman rule.
Once, again, we must repeat that men were Roman by virtue of their
political status, and not by reason of their national origin. The
Britons were Romans--Romano-Hellenic, that is, in manner and customs,
Latin in speech. The Roman government never definitely abandoned
Britain. In the troubles of the fifth century the province was left,
like many other regions, under local autonomy until such time as the
central government could again exercise control, and for various
reasons this never occurred. The country almost insensibly drifted
apart from the labouring Roman world, but a hundred years later its
people still called themselves ‘Cives,’ and were proud that they were
Romans.
After the events of 429, it appears that the course of history somewhat
changed. The ‘Alleluia’ victory apparently checked serious foreign
invasions, but there is no reason to doubt that, as the ‘Historia’
says, Britain was in alarm. The Roman world was in wild disorder, which
must have affected Britain; but when, in 447, Germanus once more came
to combat Pelagianism, we do not hear of foreign war. Yet a Gallic
chronicle says that Britain was conquered by the Saxons in 441, and
Gildas states that in 446 some British provincials sent a miserable
letter, called ‘The groans of the Britons,’ to the great general
Aëtius, who then upheld the Roman name in Gaul. The latter statement
we can neither accept nor deny. Possibly it is only one of Gildas’s
rhetorical flights; possibly, if the incident occurred, it referred
only to a single community. The Gallic chronicler may have been
misinformed, or his chronology may be wrong. In any case, his statement
must be rejected. Perhaps there was a raid in 441, the consequences of
which were exaggerated by those who were responsible for the report
made of it in Gaul. It seems impossible that, if the English conquest
had already begun in 447, we should hear nothing of it in connection
with the second visit of Germanus.
The only conclusion to which it is possible to come is that after the
‘Alleluia’ victory Britain, though more or less harassed by sporadic
raids, was for some years comparatively free from barbarian attacks.
CHAPTER IV
THE ENGLISH CONQUEST
Although the English invasion of Britain is by far the most important
of all those which have affected the island, it is impossible to focus
any very clearly defined picture of the happenings during the long
period of nearly two centuries that followed the so-called departure
of the Romans. The picture is blurred, but certain strong outlines
are conspicuous, and in this chapter an attempt has been made to
concentrate attention on these salient features.
The incident which led to the English invaders obtaining a secure
foothold in south-east Britain was probably connected with internal
troubles rather than foreign invasions. The Celtic chieftains of the
south-west were less occupied than their northern contemporaries in
repelling foreign invaders. They must have cast longing eyes upon the
wealthy Romanized cities, and cherished hopes of bringing them, or some
of them, under their sway. Vortigern, one of these rulers, probably
prince of the Silures, seems to have partially succeeded in doing so,
and about A.D. 450 appears as supreme over the south as far as Dover
Straits. Whether his suzerainty extended north of the Thames must be
considered very doubtful.
The ‘Historia Brittonum’ describes the situation as follows:
‘After the above-said war, the assassination of their rulers, and the
victory of Maximus, who slew Gratian, _and the termination of the Roman
power in Britain, they were in alarm forty years_. Vortigern then
reigned in Britain, and in his time the people had cause of dread,
not only from the inroads of the Picts and Scots, _but also from the
Romans, and their apprehensions of Ambrosius_.’
The passage is a very confused one, and what appear to be the
significant sentences are italicized. The opening statement is a kind
of summing-up of the confused sections which precede it. It has been
seriously misunderstood by several authors, but its meaning is fairly
obvious. The chronology of the ‘Historia’ is its most hopeless feature,
but here it presents no great difficulty. Forty years after the end of
the Roman power, Vortigern reigned in Britain. As we have seen, direct
Roman rule ended in 410-411. We therefore arrive at the year 450-451.
Bede says that Hengist entered Britain in the reign of Marcianus and
Valentinian III.--_i.e._, after 450; but he is out in his reckoning,
and so makes the date A.D. 449. Gildas makes it after 446. Probably it
was after 447, for in that year St. Germanus again came to Britain, and
no foreign troubles are mentioned. On the other hand, the ‘Historia’
says that Vortigern died while St. Germanus was in the island--_i.e._,
in 447. This would place the invasion of Kent in 445 or 446, and if it
really did occur then, it agrees somewhat better with the famous letter
to Aëtius recorded by Gildas. But we dare not trust Gildas for anything
before 470, and the ‘Life of St. Germanus’ used by the compilers of
the ‘Historia’ was evidently a very fanciful work. On the whole the
chronology of the English invasions is very uncertain. The one definite
indication is that Vortigern’s reception of Hengist took place forty
years after the end of Roman power in Britain.
Vortigern was also in fear of Ambrosius. This is a most interesting
statement. The Ambrosius here mentioned may very well have been the
father of the greater figure soon to be noticed. The name is a Latin
one, and Ambrosius was almost certainly the leader of the Romanized
inhabitants as distinct from the Kymry of the West. His family seems
to have been a notable one, for we can hardly doubt that they are
the forbears of the Ambrosius Aurelianus celebrated by Gildas. Where
Ambrosius had his stronghold is not known; quite possibly he was in
league with London, Verulam, and other Roman towns, and was perhaps the
chief of their forces.
Finally, Vortigern was afraid of the Romans. This is probably exactly
the state of affairs if he reigned from about 440 to 450; for the great
general Aëtius was very active in Gaul during this period, and may
have sent assistance to the Romanizing party in Britain. Quite possibly
in the letters mentioned by Gildas the ‘barbarians’ were the Kymry, and
the second visit of St. Germanus may have been as much political as
religious.
However this may be--and everything during this period is largely
conjecture--there is no reason to doubt that Vortigern, whose
suzerainty was evidently a most uneasy one, did, as the ‘Historia’
says, employ German mercenaries under Hengist and Hors, or Horsa. Very
likely he had other bands in his pay, but the fame of this one has
outshone that of the rest.
Hengist is practically beyond doubt an authentic historical figure. He
is probably to be identified with the Hengist in the famous poem of
Beowulf, who made a truce with the Frisian slayers of his lord Hnæf.
The custom was for the followers to die with their lord or avenge him.
The fact that Hengist did neither would be quite enough to cause his
disgrace, and the ‘Historia Brittonum’ distinctly says that he was an
exile. It also appears to bear out the ‘Historia’s’ character of him as
a cunning and low-minded, if able, man.
The followers of Hengist only manned three ships, and possibly they
were in a distressed condition when Vortigern took them under his
protection. As the small band can hardly have been of much account by
itself, we must suppose either that the king employed Hengist to raise
a mercenary force, or that when the breach between employers and
employed occurred, the latter were joined by swarms of adventurers.
The ‘Historia’ says that, owing to Hengist’s persuasions, Vortigern
employed in all fifty-nine ships’ crews. The romantic feature of the
affair, according to the ‘Historia,’ is that Vortigern fell violently
in love with Hengist’s daughter, who accompanied him, and married her.
It was not quite an honour for the Jutish maiden Hrothwyn (Rowena),
if indeed that was her name, for Vortigern’s amours were numerous and
indiscriminate. She merely became one of his harem. But if the incident
be true, it is another application of the French proverb, _Cherchez la
femme!_ The marriage was certainly the beginning of woes for Britain.
Vortigern apparently defeated and slew Ambrosius with the help of his
German mercenaries, but then his troubles began. The Isle of Ruim
(Thanet) had been assigned as the land-recompense of the mercenaries,
but they declared that it was too small. Bede says that it supported
six hundred families in his day, and as fifty-nine ships’ crews would
mean hardly less than fifteen hundred warriors, the latter were, from
their own point of view, perfectly right. In any case, they were
accustomed to living by their swords, and presumably believed that
Vortigern, allied to them by marriage, would give way to pressure
exercised by the old and still practised methods of slaughter and
pillage.
At any rate, in 455, if we may trust the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’
the bands of Hengist broke out of Thanet and began to move westward,
ravaging as they went. Probably at first they did not attack the
walled towns; they may merely have intended an armed protest. Where
Vortigern was or what he did we cannot say; his sons Vortimer and
Categirn led the opposition to the invaders. A battle was fought
at a place not specified, and Hengist was driven back into Thanet.
Presumably reinforced from the Continent, he again emerged from his
fastness, and encountered Vortimer in two battles, both claimed as
British victories, but clearly indecisive. One was on the Durgwentid
River (perhaps either the Stour or Darenth), the other at Rit-hergabail
or Episford, generally supposed to be Aylesford on the Medway. Horsa
and Categirn were both slain. It was apparently an English reverse, for
the fourth battle was fought by a Roman monument on the shore of the
Channel. The invaders were defeated and driven on board their ships;
but Vortimer, unfortunately for the Britons, died soon afterwards,
perhaps of wounds received in the battle. The story goes that he
desired his followers to bury him at the spot where Hengist had
landed--presumably therefore at Ebbsfleet--so that in death he might
keep watch over the country that he had for the moment saved. He was
not obeyed. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who may perhaps have had some written
authority for his statement, says that he was buried at London.
Vortigern now reappears on the scene, and opens negotiations with the
invaders. The ‘Historia’ says that Hengist arranged a conference and
banquet of six hundred unarmed notables, three hundred from each side.
He, however, ordered his own followers to hide knives in their shoes,
and when the feast was in full progress every Jute drew his dagger upon
his helpless British comrade. Vortigern alone was spared, and, probably
in fear of his life, concluded peace on very disadvantageous terms.
There is no reason to discredit the story, except the quite inadequate
one that the ancestors of Englishmen could not be guilty of such
treachery.
This catastrophe appears to have ended Vortigern’s sovereignty in the
south, and he fled to his own Welsh realm. There is a wild legend that
Germanus called down fire from heaven upon him, but Germanus had died
in Gaul some years before. The motive of the legend is obvious: no
fate was too terrible for the hated dynast who had betrayed Britain,
and the temptation to bring in Germanus must have been irresistible.
Vortigern’s genealogy appears to have been well known, and his
descendants were ruling in south-east Wales ten generations later.
Hengist does not ever appear to have lost Thanet, and in the disorder
after Vortigern’s death he was again able to invade Kent. In 457 he
won a victory at Crayford, and the Britons retreated to the walls of
London; yet in 465, and again in 473, the invaders are apparently still
fighting in Kent. As the Jutish kingdom never extended far beyond the
bounds of the modern county, there is every reason to believe that the
conquest of Kent was a very slow and difficult process.
Meanwhile, however, the successes of Hengist attracted the notice of
his kinsfolk in Germany, and expeditions, not for purposes of plunder,
but for permanent conquest, were being formed. The supposition must be
put aside that England was founded as a number of separate states by
independent bands of invaders. That the Britons made a stern resistance
is beyond doubt, and to have been successful the invaders must have
been acting in large and more or less organized bodies. Moreover, the
invasions were national ones. Kent, indeed, possibly Sussex, may have
been independent creations by chiefs of bodies of mixed mercenaries,
but the whole English people (Angel-cynn) sooner or later took part in
the settlement. It was a great national migration, and undoubtedly one
of the most remarkable in history. The emigrants could not march by
land, like the Goths and Franks, in great masses, which could bear down
resistance by sheer weight of numbers and courage. They had to transfer
themselves over hundreds of miles of sea in more or less frail open
craft, at the mercy of every gale; yet in the course of a century the
name of Angle had vanished from the Continent, and become peculiar to
Britain. Possibly a remnant of the people remained behind; to this day
a district of Schleswig bears the name of Angeln.
Bede says that the invaders came from three nations of Germany, the
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. This appears to be so far true in that
these three peoples took part in the migration; but while practically
the entire English nation came, they were accompanied by only a few
Saxons and a portion of the Jutes. It is very probable, also, that
fragments of nearly all the Teutonic tribes on the Continent were in
the invading hosts. The kingdom of Kent is said to have been Jutish;
certainly its social structure differed remarkably from that of the
other English states, but Hengist himself seems to have been an Angle.
Bede says that the Kentish Code was written in the _English_ language.
The confused grammatical structure of the present English tongue
certainly points to a mingling of races, and on the whole we may infer
that the invasion was conducted not only by the Angles, but by many
kindred tribes, and that these latter in course of time gradually came
to regard themselves as English also. Early mediæval writers use the
terms ‘Angle’ and ‘Saxon’ indiscriminately.
The invaders were no mere barbarians. Their deeds were often barbarous
enough, no doubt; but it must be said that the picture drawn by Bede of
kings like Aethelberht and Eadwine and their followers shows them in a
very favourable light. Perhaps Bede idealizes; possibly in the course
of a century the invaders had softened somewhat; but as that century
had been passed for the most part in warfare, the latter conclusion is
unlikely. At any rate, the English brought with them a highly organized
social system, and judging merely from recorded facts, they were, as a
nation, possessed of many of the elements of civilization.
[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON WEAPONS AND OTHER OBJECTS IN THE BRITISH
MUSEUM.
1 and 2. Shield-boss and knife from Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Long
Wittenham, Berks. 3. Shield-boss, about 7 inches in height,
from grave at Twickenham. 4. Iron sword found in the Thames,
about 3 feet long; the wooden handle is a rough copy of one
found in Cumberland. 5. Spear-head, about 28 inches long, found
in Thames, London. 6, 7, and 9. Spear or lance heads. 8. Brace
of shield showing hand-grip in centre, about 16 inches long,
from Droxford, Hants. 10. An iron lamp or cup, about 12 inches
high, from a grave at Broomfield, Essex. 11. Anglo-Saxon bronze
bowl from a grave at Sarre, Thanet.]
Neither were the invaders a mere disorderly throng of ill-armed and
unarmoured marauders. The evidence of archæology is all to the effect
that they were acquainted with, and used, defensive armour. Probably
only the upper classes wore it, but as elaborate and costly coats of
mail have been found in graves in Schleswig and Denmark dating from
this period, this deduction cannot be made without qualification.
Mail and weapons, which latter have been found in thousands, would
hardly be buried, and therefore lost, unless they could be easily
replaced. The chiefs undoubtedly rode to battle; the deposits are full
of horse-trappings. On the whole, we may imagine the armies which
conquered Britain as being more or less like those of the Homeric
Greeks. The nucleus consisted of the king and his retinue, with a
larger or smaller following of nobles and their retainers equipped with
mailshirt, helmet, and shield, and armed with sword and spear. Though
they rode to war, they probably, with few exceptions, fought on foot.
Whether their peasantry were regarded as fighting men is doubtful.
Professor Chadwick thinks that they were not. In that case the conquest
of England was effected by armies consisting of chiefs with larger or
smaller bands of well-armed followers combined into armies under kings
or generals. Perhaps only when they had gained a firm foothold in the
country did the English bring over their peasant retainers and serfs
to till the land, while the fighting men protected them or carried out
further conquests. The frequent gaps in the war-bands may have been
filled up partly by levies from the peasantry, partly by adventurers
from all sides. Success must have brought many of the latter to the
English standards.
Having said so much, we will proceed to give, as far as is possible,
a sketch of the conquest; but the reader must be warned that it is
largely conjecture. The skeleton narrative which follows has been
constructed with care, after study and comparison of the earliest
authorities--Gildas, Nennius, and Bede, and the few other early
mediæval chroniclers who notice Britain--but probably there is hardly a
statement which is not open to criticism.
At first the invaders appear to have come rather as bands of raiders
than as conquering armies, but Gildas implies that some of them, at
least, dashed right across the island to the Irish Sea. His lurid
descriptions of the destruction of towns may be taken for what they
are worth; it is to be noted that he does not name one of them. He
appears to say that the shrine of St. Alban had been destroyed, but as
it almost certainly lay outside Verulam, it need not be assumed that
the town shared its fate. As a fact, judging from what occurred on the
Continent, walled towns were able to defy large hosts of barbarians.
No doubt the raids were destructive enough, and Gildas, despite his
exasperating style, probably does not overstate the misery in those
districts which were wasted by the marauders. But it is certainly rash
to deduce from his narrative that the whole of Eastern Britain up to
the central watershed, including all the important Roman towns, was
conquered and ruined within a few years after 450. The archæological
evidence is of the scantiest. The sites of the greater Roman towns are
almost all built upon. Calleva and Venta Silurum were small places and
of no special importance. The site of Verulam has scarcely been touched.
It is needless to say that all maps of Britain at this period are
purely conjectural. There is no real clue as to the lines of advance of
the invaders. The probability is that they made their way inland along
the rivers. After a time the bands are found coalescing into armies;
for this must be the meaning of Bede’s statement that Aella, whose
coming is placed by the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ in 477, was the first
‘Bretwalda.’ The chronology is, of course, worthless, but that Aella
really did command the English host for a time is highly probable. His
main sphere of action is said by the Chronicle to have been Sussex; but
probably, commanding as he did an army whose base was the sea, he had
other fields of operations. His chief exploit is said to have been the
storm of Anderida (Pevensey) in 491, according to the Chronicle, but
probably earlier. He, with his son Cissa, ‘beset Anderida, and slew all
that were therein, nor was there afterwards one Briton left.’
The Britons, according to Gildas, were for a while unable to make any
effective resistance to the attacks of their enemies, who were being
steadily reinforced from oversea; but after a weary time of ravage and
defeat, a Roman (Romanized Briton) named Ambrosius Aurelianus, perhaps
a son of the Ambrosius who had opposed Vortigern, took the lead. The
plan of accepting the suzerainty of Kymric dynasts for the sake of
peace and unity had led to disaster, and men were ready to rally to
one who stood for Roman traditions. Ambrosius succeeded in organizing
an effective resistance, and the result seems to have been that he was
acknowledged as king in the south at least. The ‘Historia Brittonum’
states that Vortigern’s son Pascentius was subject to him, and in the
Welsh traditions he appears as ‘Emrys Gwledig.’
Nevertheless, the success was only partial. It appears certain that
the Teutons were firmly established on the eastern coast as well as in
Kent and Sussex. Ambrosius fought against them incessantly with varying
fortune all through his reign, but if he confined them to the territory
which they had already won, and checked their raids inland, it was as
much as he could do. The invaders’ base was the sea, and they could
attack when and where they pleased; we do not hear, nor is it probable,
that Ambrosius succeeded in organizing a navy, and no other means could
have definitely checked the advance. On the other hand, Ambrosius
probably had to some extent the advantage which unity of command gives,
while his opponents’ operations would often be disunited and erratic.
In the midst of the struggle Ambrosius died.
His gallant efforts appear to have produced important results. Not
only was he able to pass on his power to his descendants, as Gildas
witnesses, but a more or less united resistance was kept up against
the invaders. In the place of Ambrosius the cities and kings appear
to have chosen as Commander-in-chief, or _Dux Bellorum_, a certain
Artorius, famed in legend as ‘King Arthur.’ He may or may not have been
the immediate successor of Aurelianus; perhaps here again Geoffrey of
Monmouth had some authority for interposing a third figure between the
two, though ‘Uther’ looks suspiciously like a variation of Arthur.
Artorius may have been a relation of Ambrosius.
At any rate, his leadership was signalized by a long succession of
victories. The ‘Historia Brittonum’ gives the rather suspicious round
number of twelve, but as it is obtained by there having been four
battles in the same locality, there is no obvious reason for doubting
it.
The first battle was at the mouth of the river Gleni; the second,
third, fourth, and fifth on the river Dubglas, in the region Linuis;
the sixth on the river Bassas; the seventh in Celidon Wood. The eighth
was at Gwinnion Castle, and in this fight it is especially noted that
Arthur’s standard was an image or picture of the Virgin. The ninth
battle was at the City-of-the-Legion, the tenth on the Ribruit or
Tribruit, and the eleventh on a mountain called Agned. The twelfth
was at Mount Badon, and in it Arthur is credited with the slaughter,
single-handed, of nine hundred and sixty Saxons!
Of these twelve engagements the field of the seventh is practically
certain. Coit Celidon must be the Caledonian Forest (on the upper
Forth). This fixes some of the battles at least as fought in the north;
and this is rendered more probable, because one recension of the
‘Historia’ says that the Virgin of Gwinnion was afterwards deposited at
Wedale, near Melrose. The Gleni may be the Glen in Northumberland. The
Dubglas must clearly have been a most important strategic point if four
battles were fought there.
[Illustration: THE PASS THROUGH THE LAMMERMUIRS.
The extraordinary network of fortifications indicates the vast
strategic importance in the past of this highway between
the Lothians and north-eastern England. The broken black
lines indicate localities now under cultivation, and where,
consequently, the fortifications are no longer obvious.]
If the first batch of battles occurred in the north, it is fair to
assume that they were fought against the Angles, and this practically
fixes them in the north-east. There is good reason for believing that
the Angles had very early established themselves in this quarter.
Now, it is worthy of note that there is to-day a streamlet called
the Dunglass at the entrance of Cockburnspath, the pass through the
eastern corner of the Lammermuirs, south-east of Dunbar, which played
an important part in the Great Civil War over eleven centuries later.
Cockburnspath is just the place at which one might expect battles
between rival forces moving from north to south and _vice versa_. The
hills around are still covered with the remains of fortifications,
many apparently of great antiquity. It may be that the course of the
war in this neighbourhood was as follows: The English moving south
from their settlements on the Firth of Forth were met and defeated by
Arthur, perhaps on the Glen, and retreated to Cockburnspath. After a
succession of engagements, they were driven thence, again defeated on
the Bassas (locality unknown), and finally pursued into the Caledonian
Forest.
The seat of war then appears to shift southward. Gwinnion may have been
fought to drive off some of the invaders who had got into the rear of
the Britons while the latter were fighting at the Forth. Urbs Legionis
is probably in this instance York. The Ribruit and Agned cannot be
identified; Mons Badonis or Badonicus is supposed to have been Bath,
but there is no reason for this identification; it probably arose out
of the similarity between Badon and the English appellation of Aquae
Sulis. Wadon Hill, near Avebury, and Badbury (? Baden-burh) Rings in
Dorset have both been identified with this mysterious site. It seems
from Gildas that it was a fortress. Probably it was besieged by the
invaders, and relieved by Arthur in a battle which stayed the English
advance for many years.
[Illustration: BRITAIN FROM ABOUT 500-570.
Showing the probable effects of the Romano-British rally under
Ambrosius Aurelianus and his successors. No towns are indicated
within the English areas, as it is probable that all had been
deserted or destroyed.]
The date of these events is doubtful. Gildas, in a sentence which is
the despair of all Latinists, seems to say that the battle of Mons
Badonicus was fought forty-four years and one month before he wrote his
book. We know that he wrote some years before the death of King Mælgwn
of Gwynedd (A.D. 547). This fixes the date of the battle at about 500.
The ‘Annales Cambriæ’ put it in 516, but the ‘Annales’ are as late as
the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.’ Mr. E. B. Nicholson has suggested that the
forty-four years are to be reckoned from the appearance of Ambrosius
to 516. It is quite possible that the great leader did commence his
campaigns about 472, but Gildas hardly gives us the impression of a man
capable of very accurate chronology. But if he were born on the day of
the battle, as he says, it would be a simple matter. On the whole, we
may reasonably say that the battle was fought about the year 500, and
its effect was to stay the advance of the English in the south for at
least forty-four years.
One would willingly hear more of the men whose efforts for a while
stayed the flowing English tide; but practically all that is known is
here set down. The ‘Annales Cambriæ’ state that twenty-one years after
Mons Badonicus Arthur and Medrant fell in a battle at Camlan. Arthur is
repeatedly mentioned in the bardic poems of Wales, but we cannot tell
to what extent these works may have been altered in later ages.
Whatever the fate of Arthur, and whatever the extent and nature of
his influence in Britain, his victories staved off ruin for half a
century, but no longer. The curse of Britain was that there were too
many dynasts for ever warring among themselves. The picture that Gildas
has painted may be highly coloured, but there is no reason to doubt
that when the danger appeared to be over, the old tribal quarrels
began again. Strathclyde and Reged were divided among the different
branches of the Houses of Coroticus and Coel. About 540 the energetic
but unscrupulous and dissolute Mælgwn, King of Gwynedd, succeeded in
getting rid of his related competitors. He may also have asserted a
primacy in the south and west, for Gildas calls him ‘Insularis Draco’
(Island Dragon), though it is true that this may simply refer to the
fact that the seat of the Cunedda dynasty was at Aberffraw in Mona.
Gildas overwhelms him with turgid invective and garbled quotations
from Scripture--in fact, his so-called history is, on the face of it,
nothing but a sermon directed at Mælgwn. He also denounces two other
Welsh dynasts--Vortipore of the Demetæ, and Cuneglass of Powys(?), and
two princes with Latin names--Constantinus of Damnonia and Aurelius
Caninus. The first name of the latter suggests that he may have been
one of those degenerate grandsons of Ambrosius Aurelianus of whom
Gildas speaks.
It is in the interval between Mons Badonicus and 577 that the Saxon
Chronicle places the conquest of Wessex. To discuss this matter in
detail would be to occupy far more space than is here available, but
it may be said, in short, that there is every reason to believe that
the Chronicle’s chronology is wrong; that it is highly improbable
that the West Saxons ever came up Southampton Water, the shores of
which were occupied by Jutes at an early date; finally, that Cerdic
is a very doubtful figure. The West Saxons were also, and commonly,
called Gewissæ, ‘the Confederates.’ Cerdic is a Celtic name; it is,
indeed, the same as Coroticus, or Caradoc, and this fact, coupled
with the curious name of the kingdom, suggests that Cerdic may have
been a Celtic prince, who founded a kingdom with the aid of English
mercenaries or allies, and became so identified with them that his
origin was forgotten. The latest opinion is that Wessex did not start
from Hampshire at all. Some of the battles mentioned--_i.e._, that with
Natan-leod--may be authentic, but they were the work of Jutes. Any
delimitation of the territory occupied by the invaders at the time must
necessarily be a very vague one; but it is probable that when Gildas
wrote they fell into three sections. South of the Thames--largely south
of the Weald--a long English-Jutish strip of territory stretched from
Southampton Water to Thanet, never reaching far inland except in Kent,
which was solidly occupied, and, perhaps, always the wealthiest of the
new States.
North of the Thames indications are even vaguer. Professor Oman is of
opinion that all the Romano-British cities in Eastern Britain perished
very early, mainly on the authority of Gildas, who appears to give ‘a
picture of a Celtic Britain which does not extend anywhere towards the
east coast.’
To attempt to make any definite geographical deductions from a writer
so vague as Gildas is rash; as a fact, we know that his five dynasts
are only some of several, and the territory of one of them who bears
the most suggestive name of all is not specified. Aurelius Caninus
may just as well have been king of London and Verulam as of Glevum,
Corinium, and Aquæ Sulis. Opinion is steadily trending in the
direction of a belief in the continuous existence of London through the
‘lost’ centuries. This is too great a question to discuss here, but on
practical military grounds it may be pointed out that London, strongly
fortified, apparently populous, and situated astride of a great river,
was eminently fitted to be the curb of a barbarian invasion. There is
also to be considered the curious fact that the country round London
was called Middlesex, as if it at one time formed a sort of buffer
between East and West Saxons. The name certainly seems to show that
London and its territory became English late.
The English north of the Thames possibly lay north and east of a line
drawn from Leicester to the mouth of the Thames. If so, their abode
corresponded roughly to the later ‘Danelaw.’ They probably formed, like
the Vikings, a confused mingling of petty kingdoms, earldoms, and the
camps of war bands. What was going on north of the Humber is not known,
but certainly the Bernician Angles in Lothian were fighting hard with
the British kingdoms of Strathclyde and Reged. Not until 547 did they
take Bamborough. The beginnings of Deira were probably still later;
it is not at all certain that the English had as yet any footing in
Yorkshire. Had a second Ambrosius Aurelianus or Artorius arisen to
coerce the warring British states into unity, the English settlements
might have been conquered, as were those of the Danes by Alfred and
Eadward I.
This was not to be. About 540 the Anglian settlements were fast
increasing in strength. The whole ‘Angel-cynn,’ in fact, were streaming
over to Britain every year as fast as their ships could take them.
Probably they were forced on by the disorder in Europe, and the
pressure caused by the migrating Slavs and the raiding Avars with their
kindred tribes. At any rate, about 550 we find the English once more on
the move, and this time the Britons had no Ambrosius or Arthur to save
them.
About 547 King Ida of Bernicia took Dinguardi, soon to be Bebban-burh,
and began to push southward in the teeth of a desperate resistance from
the Britons of Reged under King Dutigern. The struggle was celebrated
in the songs of the great bards, Talhærn, Aneurin, Taliesin, and
Llywarch. Ida left twelve sons, several of whom reigned after him.
The most celebrated was the fierce raider Theudric--‘Flamddwyn,’ the
‘Burner,’ as the Britons called him. After much fighting, he was
completely defeated by Urien of Reged, and forced to take refuge on
Lindisfarne. But Urien was murdered by his own jealous kinsfolk in the
hour of victory, and Theudric, reinforced by new Anglian war bands, was
able to take the offensive again. The murder of Urien seems to have
broken the British power. His son Owen was slain by the ‘Burner,’ and
Theudric ranged up and down the country, wasting it mercilessly, and
finally establishing English Bernicia so strongly that it was never
again in peril (_circa_ A.D. 570).
Meanwhile, in the south, too, about 571, the English had begun a fresh
advance under Ceawlin, the first authentic king of the Gewissæ or
West Saxons. He probably commanded a large confederate army collected
from all the English states between Humber and Thames. A great battle
was fought at Bedford. The English were completely victorious, and
conquered the whole of the south-east Midlands as far as the Thames.
The towns captured are given their English names by the ‘Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle,’ which is only to be expected; by the ninth century their
Roman appellations had vanished. The effect of the victory would
naturally be to leave London isolated. Possibly it maintained its
independence for some time, but by 596 it was certainly included in
Essex or Kent. Perhaps it had been in alliance with Kent for some time,
for Ceawlin had hostilities with the young King Aethelberht, and the
possession of London may have been the _casus belli_.
The battle of Bedford firmly established the kingdom of the Gewissæ,
and Ceawlin probably extended his sway southward to the Weald and the
New Forest. Perhaps it was now that Calleva was finally abandoned. The
confines of the Britons were narrowed, and the last seats of the old
Roman civilization (if it had not by now entirely disappeared) were
about to fall into the hands of the English.
In 577 Ceawlin went westward, perhaps from Calleva, with the whole host
of the Gewissæ. At Deorham, probably Derham, north of Bath, he met a
confederate British army under three kings--Conmail, Farinmail, and
Condidan. The last name may perhaps be read (Aurelius) Candidianus.
The English victory was complete; the three kings were slain; Glevum,
Corinium, and Aquæ Sulis, together with the whole valley of the lower
Severn, fell into the hands of the conquerors.
Ceawlin’s later fortune was not equal to that of his earlier days. He
was defeated in an attempt to penetrate Wales, and his motley host
then revolted and deposed him. The Gewissan state became subject
to Aethelberht of Kent, who now succeeded to Ceawlin’s position of
‘Bretwalda.’ Nevertheless, Ceawlin had done his work; the battle of
Deorham was the most decisive struggle in the war which won Britain for
the English.
North of the Humber, after the death of Aethelric, the last of Ida’s
sons, Aethelfrith, the son of Aethelric, became king of Bernicia about
593. He made himself supreme also over Deira, and in 603 gained a most
complete and decisive victory over a confederation of Strathclydian
and Regedian Britons, Scots, and Irish from Ulster, under Aedan, King
of the Scots of Dalriada. The result was the destruction of Reged,
which survived only in a few scattered fragments, and the consolidation
of English power in the north. Then, in 613, the Northumbrian king
advanced upon Deva; a glance at the map will show his admirable
strategy. Bede’s half-sorrowful praise of him (he was a heathen) was
evidently well deserved.
[Illustration: BRITAIN ABOUT 613.
Showing the effects of the victorious campaigns of Ceawlin and
Aethelfrith. The line of the Anglo-British frontier was
extremely vague, and the indications are therefore only
approximate.]
Before Deva there gathered for battle Cadwan, King of Gwynedd, the
most powerful of the Kymric princes; Brochmail, King of Theyrnllwg;
and Selim, perhaps Prince of Powys. Near Deva lay the great monastery
of Bangor Iscoed, with its 2,100 monks; and, after spending three days
in prayer and fasting, 1,200 of the latter accompanied the Britons
to the field. They stood apart, and a detachment of warriors under
Brochmail guarded them. Aethelfrith watched the gestures and movements
of the strange company, and the sound of their chants and prayers
floated across to him. ‘They bear not arms,’ he said to his chiefs,
‘but our enemies they be, for their imprecations assail us. Slay them
first.’ The grim order was obeyed. Brochmail and his followers were
put to flight; the monks were butchered ruthlessly, and then, having
disposed of supernatural enmity, the English turned to fight their
secular adversaries. The battle was long and desperately contested, and
Bede says that Aethelfrith’s army suffered severely; but it ended in
another great English victory. Two British kings were slain; Cadwan and
Brochmail fled with only a remnant of their army.
Aethelfrith did not live to complete the conquest of the north; he
died in civil strife four years later. But the battles of Deorham and
Deva ensured the complete conquest of Britain. The British states were
hopelessly parted from one another, and could never again combine for
resistance, even had they the will to do so. They were, in 620, as
their foes had been in 520, cut into disconnected masses. Worse still,
they occupied wild and barren territories, and the dynastic conditions
did not make for internal peace. Nor did they ever again produce a
really great leader. After Deorham and Deva there was never any real
hope of recovering the lost ground, and to Ceawlin and Aethelfrith this
result was almost entirely due.
Inadequate and nebulous as this narrative of the events of a period
of such vital importance to the English nation may appear, yet out of
it there stand forth certain clearly-defined epochs and figures. The
invaders at first only plundered, until an apparently chance incident
opened the way to permanent settlement. For a time the tide of conquest
and occupation was checked by the series of brilliant victories gained
by Ambrosius and Arthur, but the civil broils of the Britons prevented
any permanent success over the continually multiplying enemy; and with
the advent of two really great leaders on the side of the invaders, the
older inhabitants found themselves hopelessly penned up in the barren
regions of the west. Thenceforth Britain was Britain no longer, but
Angle-land--England.
CHAPTER V
THE VIKING RAVAGES
From 596, the year of the coming of St. Augustine, to 793, England
was practically untroubled by foreign invasion, except in so far as
the raids of the still independent Kymry come under that heading. The
period was by no means peaceful; the three great kingdoms--Northumbria,
Mercia, and Wessex--were frequently at strife, and once or twice the
Welsh interfered with effect in their wars. Wessex was nearly always
torn with intestine war. After 758 the condition of Northumbria was one
of chronic anarchy.
In 793 Mercia, under the great Offa, the friend of Charles the Great,
was the suzerain state of England, supreme over all the English and
Welsh kingdoms south of the Humber. Northumbria was ruled by Æthelred,
son of Æthelwald (known as ‘Moll’), a savage tyrant who, however,
appears to have been capable of keeping order, if only by force, in
his anarchic realm. He was in alliance with Offa, whose daughter
Ælflaed he married, and also with Charles the Great; and his position
seemed fairly secure when, in 793, a squadron of pirate-ships sacked
Lindisfarne. Next year the descent was repeated, and Bede’s monastery
at Jarrow was sacked. The pirate squadron was, however, shattered by a
storm, and its leader taken and put to death.
[Illustration: A VIKING WARRIOR.
The details are taken from objects in the British Museum.]
The raiders were Scandinavians--‘Vikings,’[B] as they have come to be
called, from the fact that their settlements, though scattered all over
the Baltic region, lay thickest in the ‘viks’ (fjords), and especially
along the shores of the great ‘Vik,’ the Skager-Rak and Christiania
Fjord. All these communities were ready, on slight pretext, to take to
warfare and plunder, and leaders were never wanting. Politics, economic
conditions, and mere half-savage love of adventure, all played their
part in driving them seaward; and once the Vikings had tasted plunder,
desire of more soon led them far afield.
[B] The ‘i’ in Viking is short.
The Scandinavians were as yet heathens, and were to continue so
for long centuries. They were not altogether barbarians, despite
the savagery which appears so terribly in their deeds. Their social
condition was well developed, and they were not without a tincture
of civilized culture and art. In metal-work their achievements were
notable.
They had long been renowned as boat-builders. Tacitus especially notes
their proficiency in that science. It does not appear, however, that
they took any part in the Teutonic attacks on the Roman Empire, but in
515 a Danish chief named Hygelac raided the coast of Frankland. He was
defeated and slain by Theudebert I.
It was, perhaps, the conquest of the Saxons by Charles the Great which
alarmed the Danes into attacking Christendom. Before 793 scarcely
anything is heard of hostility from them. But Denmark, bordering on
Saxony, naturally became the refuge of the Saxon chiefs, and was
gradually drawn into the conflict. About 800 King Godfrid took up a
position of open hostility to the new “Roman” Emperor of the West. In
808 Charles apparently meditated an invasion of Denmark, and in 810
a Danish fleet of two hundred sail ravaged Frisia. Two years later
Godfrid prepared to invade the Frankish Empire, but was assassinated.
His successor sued for terms, and Charles the Great died in peace.
Nevertheless, the impulse had been given, and from 793 onward Viking
ravages began to afflict Europe. For many years they were confined
mainly to Ireland, which was wasted almost from sea to sea, the
result being, of course, that its brilliant art and literature were
steadily destroyed. The wasters of Ireland appear to have been chiefly
Norwegians; Denmark was involved in civil war. Frankland, no doubt,
appeared too powerful to annoy with impunity. England also seemed
strong. The raids of 793-794 were directed on anarchic Northumbria.
However, in 834 the Danish civil wars were at an end. The Danish king
was the savage Horik, ‘Fel Christianitatis’--the Gall of Christianity.
In Frankland the kindly but weak Emperor Ludwig ‘the Pious’ was
engaged in civil war with his sons. In England the Mercian supremacy
had come to an end, and had been succeeded by that of Ecgberht of
Wessex. The opportunity appeared to have come, and the Danes, backed by
adventurers from all Scandinavia, began a series of terrible ravages in
Western Europe. First, as with the English attacks on Britain, there
were isolated plundering descents; then larger and better organized
expeditions; finally, great hosts migrating for purposes of settlement.
Such terms as ‘great’ must here be taken in a relative sense.
Scandinavia is to-day the most thinly-peopled region of Europe; a
thousand years ago its population was far scantier.
The Viking ships were long open boats, raised at bow and stern, steered
by a paddle fastened to the starboard quarter. They had one mast with a
square sail, but were normally propelled by oars. In size they varied.
At first they were certainly small, and though excellent in the fjords,
were of little use for rough sea work. Doubtless the Scandinavian
builders soon discovered this, and began to develop their craft, until
they turned out Olaf Tryggvason’s _Long Serpent_, the wonder of the
North. But the average number of men to each ship can hardly have
exceeded sixty, and it is doubtful whether the Vikings in England ever
collected more than 10,000 men in one field.
[Illustration: THE OSEBERG DRAGON SHIP.
(_From the Museum at Christiania._)]
The hosts were heterogeneous, unstable, and ill-disciplined, liable to
disown an unlucky or unpopular chief at a moment’s notice.
The Vikings, however, began with at least three advantages. It is
doubtful if the early English were ever, except from necessity, a
maritime people. In any case, it is clear that in the ninth century
they had almost entirely forgotten the nautical qualities of their
ancestors, and that no English state possessed warships. The Franks
appear to have allowed such squadrons as Charles the Great had
constructed to check the Danes to decay.
Secondly, neither in England nor Frankland was there as yet any real
sense of national union. The various English states were jealous and
disunited. Wessex was slow to aid Mercia, and Northumbria, apart from
its anarchic condition, disliked both. Concerted action was almost
an impossibility. Even more so was this the case in Frankland. The
Vikings, on landing, could generally rely upon having to meet only the
local levies.
Thirdly, the invaders had for a long time at least an immense tactical
superiority. They were for the most part trained fighting men,
physically powerful, brave, ferocious, thoroughly inured to war and
bloodshed, well equipped with arms offensive and defensive. The only
troops on the English side equal to them were the ‘thegns’ and the
royal bodyguard, and the Vikings could easily rout superior numbers of
the ill-trained and ill-equipped country folk.
In 834 the Danes landed at the mouth of the Rhine and sacked Utrecht
and Dorstadt. A detachment of this fleet ran across to Sheppey and
made a hasty raid. In 836 they again wasted the delta of the Rhine,
and thirty-five ships sailed down the English Channel to Charmouth, in
Dorset. King Ecgberht came hastily against them, probably with only
his personal following, and fought a bloody action. The Danes held
their own, but apparently immediately re-embarked; at any rate, no more
is heard of them. But a repulse inflicted on the Bretwalda of England
by only the crews of thirty-five ships was an ominous event.
Two years later a Viking fleet touched in Cornwall. This last remnant
of Damnonia had lately been subjugated by Ecgberht, and at once joined
the invaders against him. The united forces, however, had scarcely
time to unite on Hengestesdune (Hingston Down), west of the Tamar,
when Ecgberht was upon them. They were entirely defeated. Cornwall was
reconquered, and the old king returned home in triumph, to die in the
following year.
He was succeeded by his son Aethelwulf, a curious counterpart of
his contemporary the Frankish Emperor, Ludwig the Pious--brave and
just, but weak and over-conscientious, and cursed, like Ludwig, with
undutiful sons and turbulent vassals. His troubles were soon upon him.
In 840 a Viking fleet appeared on the south coast, and its land force
fought an indecisive action with Wulfheard, Ealdorman of Hampshire,
near Southampton. The raiders next landed on Portland, defeated and
slew Aethelhelm, Ealdorman of Dorset, and sailed away with much booty.
[Illustration: SCANDINAVIAN WEAPONS AND OTHER OBJECTS IN THE BRITISH
MUSEUM.
1 and 2. Swords--the usual length is about 3 feet. 3, 4, and
5. Axe-heads from Norway. 6. A stirrup with inlaid spiral
ornament, found in the Thames at Battersea. 7. Restored silver
cup from Trewhiddle, St. Austell, Cornwall, about 6 inches
high. 8 and 11. Spear or lance heads from Norway. 9. Axe-head
from the Thames at Stanton Harcourt, about 7 inches wide. 10.
Brooch from Goldsborough, Yorks.]
Next year another squadron came into the Wash, defeated and slew
Herebert, Ealdorman of Lindsey, wasted his territory, and then
ravaged the coasts of East Anglia and Kent.
In 842 a great Viking fleet sailed into the Channel, and, apparently
separating into detachments, attacked Quentovic in Picardy, London, and
Rochester. These places seem to have ransomed themselves. In the next
year a force landed once more at Charmouth, and repulsed Aethelwulf as
they had repulsed his father, though, as they left Wessex alone for
four years, it is to be assumed that they had lost heavily. In 844 a
squadron touched probably in the Humber, and killed Redwulf, King of
unhappy Northumbria.
So far as the Vikings had any settled strategic plan, it was to seek
the point of least resistance. If they were beaten off in Frankland,
they turned on England, and _vice versa_. For two years after 844 they
were busy in France, and not until 846 are they found again landing
in England, this time at the mouth of the Parret, where they were
completely defeated by an English force, of which the most conspicuous
leader was Ealhstane, the warrior bishop of Sherborne. It is possible
that this band was composed of Norwegians from Ireland, for the main
body of the Vikings was ravaging in France.
But in 851 the stress of the attack fell upon England. First a band
landed in Devon, but was set upon by Ealdorman Ceorl and completely
defeated. A second force attacked Sandwich, and was also defeated
with heavy loss, including that of nine ships. But in the summer the
main Viking fleet--three hundred and fifty ships under a chief named
Rorik--came up the Thames. North Kent was wasted, and Canterbury taken
and sacked. The victorious Danes then pressed up the river to London.
Beorhtwulf, King of Mercia, was posted before the city, but he was
defeated, and London stormed and sacked. Presumably its Roman walls
were ruinous. The Vikings, flushed with success, pushed on to attack
Wessex. Aethelwulf had failed to succour Beorhtwulf at London, but
had now assembled the army of Wessex, and was advancing against the
invaders. At Aclea (probably Oakley, near Basingstoke; see Appendix
A) Northmen and Englishmen for the first time encountered in a great
battle, and the Vikings were totally defeated. The greater part of
their army was destroyed, the survivors fled to their ships. The fame
of the victory went all over Western Europe, and its effect in England
was to strengthen the suzerainty of Wessex.
[Illustration: IRON-HAFTED BATTLE-AXE FOUND AT WINCHESTER.
Now in Westgate Museum, Winchester.]
In 853 a Viking force entrenched itself in Thanet and defeated an
attempt of the Kentishmen to dislodge them, but then abandoned the
isle and sailed to fields where plunder was more easily gained than
among the obstinate Englishmen. But in 854 they were again in England,
and wintered in Sheppey; and Aethelwulf chose the next year to go
on pilgrimage to Rome! His son Aethelbald seized the opportunity
to practically oust his father--not without some justification in
Aethelwulf’s ill-timed religious enthusiasm. When the king came back
he was content to acknowledge his son as king in Wessex, keeping only
Kent, Sussex, and Essex for himself. The result of this dissension was,
of course, a serious weakening of the suzerain power of Wessex.
Aethelwulf died in 858. His successor, the rebellious Aethelbald,
reigned only two and a half years, and was then succeeded by his
brother Aethelbert, who held the sceptre for six years. There were
sporadic Viking raids at intervals after 855, but it was not until
860 that the danger again became serious. In that year a large Viking
fleet, under a chief named Vœlund, was bribed to depart from France by
the wretched Charles the Bald, and forthwith turned its dragon prows
towards England. It sailed up Southampton Water, and its crews landed
and marched upon Winchester. Its walls were ruinous, and it was taken
and sacked; but immediately afterwards the Vikings were attacked by
the men of Berkshire and Hampshire, under the Ealdormen Aethelwulf and
Osric, and totally routed. This success of a hurried assemblage of
country-folk shows that the military efficiency of the Wessex peasants
was not to be despised.
For some five years the Northmen left England alone, but in 865 a
great horde descended on Kent. An attempt was made to buy them off, and
an armistice was declared, but they broke the truce and ravaged eastern
Kent before assistance could be brought from Wessex. They then settled
down for the winter in Thanet. Next spring King Aethelbert died, and
was succeeded by his brother Aethelred I.
The success of 865 had apparently determined the whole Viking swarm
in France to come over to England. Whether their leaders had any
definite design of settlement it is impossible to ascertain, but
the deliberation of their movements shows that they were carefully
calculated. The people of Wessex had shown themselves to be warlike
and patriotic, and its kings by no means despicable opponents. So the
‘Great Army’ poured into East Anglia, where they desisted from plunder
after receiving a heavy subsidy, but wintered in the unhappy country
and swept up its horses, so as to be able to move swiftly.
Very early in 867 the ‘Great Army’ swarmed out of East Anglia and
passed through Eastern Mercia into Northumbria, which was torn between
two claimants to the throne--Osbeorht and Ælla. The Northmen poured
over the Humber and captured and sacked York, despite the fact that
it was fortified--perhaps the walls of the Roman _castra_ had been
patched up. Ælla and Osbeorht thereupon, with surprising patriotism,
came to terms and advanced together to recover York. The Northmen
were driven back and forced to shut themselves up in the city, and
the Northumbrians, impetuously pursuing, became involved in furious
street-fighting and met with hideous disaster. Both kings were slain;
the flower of the army perished in the streets and during the Viking
pursuit; only a remnant escaped.
This annihilating defeat resulted in the destruction of Northumbria.
For some years Deira remained in a miserable condition, in the power
of the Northmen but not regularly ruled by them. North of the Tyne,
for about ten years, some obscure princes called themselves kings at
Bamborough.
Emboldened by this success, the greatest that any Viking host had
hitherto gained, the ‘Great Army’ next year, under Ingvar and Hubba,
sons of Ragnar Lodbrog, invaded Mercia from Deira and pushed up
the Trent. King Aethelred of Wessex marched to the relief of his
nominal vassal, Burhred of Mercia, and the two kings confronted the
Danes before they had penetrated beyond Nottingham. It was the first
positive sign of that hearty co-operation between the states in which
lay the only hope of salvation; but on this occasion it was not very
successful. The Northmen held out stoutly in Nottingham, and finally
in the autumn a truce was concluded by which they agreed to leave
Mercia in the spring if they were permitted to winter there without
molestation. Whether they received a subsidy is unknown; it is at least
possible.
During 869 the ‘Army’ streamed back to York, and it was now, perhaps,
that they began to think of settling. But their restless and predatory
instincts could not die down quickly, and in 870 the bulk of the
host set forth again, ‘rode over Mercia into East Anglia, and made
their winter quarters at Thetford.’ The great monasteries of the
Fens, Peterborough, Ely, Crowland, and Bardney, went up in flames,
and Eadmund of East Anglia, taken prisoner after a vain attempt at
resistance, was murdered in cold blood. Though there is no authority
earlier than Abbo (_circa_ 980), the story is probably true, for
shortly afterwards one finds his memory honoured, and churches raised
to him by the very men who had murdered him, which could hardly have
happened unless they had been deeply impressed by his heroic end. All
East Anglia and Essex were soon in Danish hands, and the ‘Great Army’
prepared to advance against Wessex.
Ingvar and Hubba now pass from the scene, though Hubba reappears for
a brief space some years later. The army that marched upon Wessex was
led by Halfdene, another son of Ragnar, a second king named Baegsceg,
and several jarls--a division of command which could hardly make for
efficiency.
The defence of Wessex was in capable hands. The gallant King Aethelred
was admirably assisted by his brother Alfred,[C] soon to be the
greatest of English kings. Everything possible appears to have been
done to facilitate mobilization, for the Wessex men were in the
field with the least delay. Better still, there was no standing on
the defensive; the royal brothers appear determined from the first to
attack their foes and drive them out of the country.
[C] The name Alfred has become so much a part of English
history that the time-honoured orthography is retained.
The Danish army advanced from Thetford to the Thames, contemptuously
ignoring Mercia, and entrenched itself at Reading in the triangle
formed by the junction of the Kennet with the Thames. The kings appear
to have established this camp while the jarls began to ravage. But they
were quickly to learn that they could not play the game with impunity.
Three days after their arrival two of the jarls were attacked by the
Berkshire _fyrd_, under Ealdorman Aethelwulf, at Englefield Green,
in Windsor Forest, and defeated; one of them was slain. Four days
afterwards the King and Alfred arrived at Reading unexpectedly with the
army of Wessex. The Northmen were off their guard, and were driven back
within the palisades. But when the English attempted to storm the camp
they were heavily repulsed, with the loss of the brave Aethelwulf, and
obliged to retreat westward.
The Viking host pursued. The retreat and pursuit went on for four days,
until Aethelred and Alfred had called in reinforcements sufficient to
enable them to fight again. Somewhere on Aesc-Dune (Ashdown)--_i.e._,
the Berkshire Downs, a great battle was fought. It is impossible to
locate the field; all that can be said is that it must have been a long
distance west of Reading. The plan of the battle itself is quite clear,
but the movements which preceded it are by no means so. It would
appear that the army of Wessex, coming from the south or south-east,
was halting before breasting the slopes of Aescdune when the Vikings
suddenly crowned the heights. They were in two masses, one led by the
kings, the other by the jarls. The English were also in two divisions,
commanded respectively by Aethelred and Alfred. Alfred was already at
the front, and he apparently made up his mind that it was far better
to meet than to await a downhill charge. He gave the word for the
whole army to advance, and informed his brother, who was hearing Mass
in the rear. Aethelred, perhaps because he knew that matters were
quite safe in his brother’s hands, and because at the price of a few
minutes’ absence from the field he was quite ready to enhearten his
superstitious followers by a little pious posing, declined to come
until service was over. The story is probably true. Asser distinctly
says that he had excellent authority for it, very likely that of Alfred
himself.
The English uphill charge had the best effect. The Vikings were brought
to a stand, and the fight raged furiously on the slopes of Aescdune,
the focus of the fray being a stunted thorn, the only tree on the
hillside. Alfred’s tactical insight had its reward, and the day went
steadily in favour of the English. King Baegsceg and five jarls were
slain, and the Northmen broke and fled headlong. They were pursued all
night and into the next day, and Asser says that ‘many thousands’ of
them were slain.
It is sad to record that this splendid victory had no results.
Halfdene and the surviving jarls succeeded in reaching Reading, and
only a few days later they were joined by large reinforcements from
the Continent. Thus recruited, Halfdene again took the offensive, and
fourteen days after Aescdune was able to fight Aethelred at Basing,
this time with success. Still no decisive victory had been gained,
and two months later the armies are found confronting one another at
Marden, near Hungerford. Evidently the Northmen were still confined
to the neighbourhood of Reading. The army of Wessex was formed in two
divisions as at Aescdune, and for a great part of the day had the
advantage, but in the end the Northmen were victorious. Aethelred
himself was perhaps mortally wounded; certainly he died a few days
after. His death would have been an irreparable loss but that his great
brother was at hand to take up his sword.
The Northmen were now advancing into the heart of Wessex, and so heavy
had been the losses in the campaign that it was a task of exceeding
difficulty to reorganize the army. About a month after Marden Alfred
took up a position at Wilton with the small force which he had been
able to collect. Says Asser: ‘The Saxons had been worn out by eight
battles in one year against the pagans, of whom they had slain one
king, nine dukes, and innumerable troops of soldiers.’ Alfred and his
little army made a gallant resistance, and for long beat back the
assaults of their enemies; but the favourite Viking stratagem of a
feigned retreat and a counter-attack turned the day against them.
Defeated, and with the Northmen in the heart of his ancestral kingdom,
Alfred was forced to sue for terms. The invaders also had suffered
very severely, and were ready to depart for a time to some other more
promising field of plunder. Asser and the Chronicle merely say that
Alfred made peace with the pagans. We must assume that they were bought
off with a subsidy. The respite could not be a long one--the Northmen
of the ninth and tenth centuries were the most perjured of mankind--but
Alfred might be trusted to turn the interval in the fighting to the
best advantage.
The position of England at the end of 871 could scarcely have been
worse. The results of the lack of national unity were terribly
apparent. Northumbria and East Anglia had practically disappeared from
the roll of English kingdoms; Mercia was tottering. Only Wessex had
succeeded in retaining its independence, and was still ready to fight
fiercely for liberty. The situation was similar to what it had been
four centuries before, when the first assaults of the English, after
occupying the east, were checked by Ambrosius and Artorius. But while
the British leaders left no successors worthy of them, it was otherwise
with Ecgberht and Aethelwulf. The youngest son of the latter was to be
the greatest and noblest of English kings, and to pass on his sceptre
to successors worthy of his name.
CHAPTER VI
ALFRED AND THE SAVING OF WESSEX
The stubborn resistance of Aethelred and Alfred had for the moment
saved Wessex; but its immediate effect was to throw the whole force
of the Northmen upon the rest of England. The host with which Alfred
had been contending withdrew to London, and there it stayed through
the winter. A most remarkable fact is that while there Halfdene minted
coins, bearing his own name indeed, but distinctively Roman in type. In
873 the unhappy Burhred of Mercia subsidized the invaders to depart,
but, as usual, they only shifted their quarters. This time they settled
down at Torksey, in Lindsey. A second tribute induced them to move
again, but with grim humour they now went forward into the very heart
of Mercia and encamped at Repton, near Nottingham. This finally broke
the spirit of Burhred, who, in despair, fled to Rome, where he died not
long afterwards as a monk. The Danish host thereupon set up a puppet
king of their own, in the person of Coelwulf, whom the Chronicle calls
an ‘unwise king’s thegn,’ and Asser ‘a certain foolish minister.’ With
them he concluded a miserable arrangement, to the effect that when they
called upon him he was to resign to them such of his lands as they
needed to settle upon. So in utter ignominy the kingdom which had once
been the greatest of the English states dragged out its few remaining
years.
[Illustration: End View.
PLANKS TAKEN FROM A NINTH-CENTURY WAR VESSEL SUNK IN THE HAMBLE
RIVER, PERHAPS BY ALFRED THE GREAT.
End and side views of portion of a ship, 130 feet in length,
excavated near Warsash on the River Hamble. The planks were
caulked with moss, now almost fossilized.
(_Now in West Gate Museum, Winchester._)]
The ‘Great Army’ now separated. One division under Halfdene went
northward to complete the conquest of Northumbria. He wintered on the
Tyne (875-876), and harried Bernicia, Strathclyde, and the lands beyond
the Forth, now beginning to be known as Scotland, from the nationality
of its reigning royal house. In 876 he took up his abode as king at
York. Deira was parcelled out among the chiefs and warriors, and the
Danish kingdom of York came into being. Bernicia was not annexed; it
paid tribute, but lasted on--in a miserable fashion indeed--under the
High-Reeves of Bamborough until better days arrived.
The rest of the Vikings--a vast force, says the Chronicle--under three
war-kings, Guthrum, Oskytel and Amund, wintered at Cambridge, where
they appear to have been joined by fresh bands from abroad. Indeed,
seeing that there is no record of Viking ravages either in France or
Ireland for some years after 873, it seems that there was something
like a grand concentration of all the Scandinavian pirate bands
against Wessex. Aethelweard distinctly states that they had planned
their attack in conjunction with the Viking hosts that were tormenting
Ireland.
For four years Alfred had been unmolested by the Vikings, and had,
beyond doubt, been working hard at the reorganization of his defences.
Probably his military reforms were on the line of those which he
effected later--recruiting the thegnhood, the military class, which
was bound to follow the King to war, improving the arrangements
for mobilizing the _land-fyrd_, and fortifying the chief towns and
strategic points. But he did more than this. With a farsightedness
which raises him above all early mediæval Western monarchs, save
Charles the Great, he saw that the only sure way to curb the Vikings
was to meet them at sea, and began to build a fleet. Under the date
875 the Chronicle says: ‘This summer went Ælfred the King out to sea
with an armed fleet, and fought with seven pirate ships. One he took,
and the others dispersed.’ That obscure sea-skirmish has a hallowed
interest, for it was the first victory of the world-conquering British
Navy.
But as yet Alfred’s great reforms were in their infancy; his plans were
only traced out, not yet executed. The flood was rising, and burst
over devoted Wessex before the barriers which were to stay it had been
raised.
[Illustration:
AN ANGLO-SAXON WEARING A HELMET OF LEATHER STRENGTHENED WITH METAL
BANDS.]
As soon as the season permitted, the ‘Great Army’ left Cambridge,
made a night march to the Thames, and crossing it unopposed, rushed
by forced marches across Wessex to Wareham, in Dorsetshire. It is to
be noted that Winchester was avoided; evidently it had been fortified
since the sack of 860. At Wareham the Danes were well placed for
attacks on Wessex, and for a junction with their allies from Ireland,
who came up immediately afterwards with a fleet of 120 ships. But
Alfred was as prompt as his foes, and scarcely had the Vikings effected
their junction when he blockaded Wareham with a large army. The result
was that the Danes could only effect some sporadic raids of Dorset by
sea. They finally extricated themselves by an act of treachery. They
opened negotiations, and Alfred was ready to buy them off. Every year
of immunity from pillage gained was to his advantage. The Viking chiefs
swore a peculiarly solemn oath to observe the fact on a sacred ring or
bracelet. Having thus thrown their enemies off their guard, the whole
mounted part of the host sallied out from their entrenchments, cut
their way through Alfred’s lines, and dashed through Dorset into Devon.
Alfred, leaving part of his force to continue the blockade, promptly
pursued, and finally besieged his treacherous foes in Exeter.
We hear nothing all this time of naval operations, but now Asser
appears to imply that an English squadron assisted in the blockade of
Exeter. The Danes at Wareham embarked early in 877 on the ships from
Ireland in order to join their comrades, but the fleet was caught in a
storm and cast ashore near Swanage. Scarce a ship escaped, and almost
all the crews were drowned or massacred. The army in Exeter was now
isolated, and late in the summer, having exhausted its provisions,
offered to treat. ‘They gave him as many and as great hostages as he
demanded, and swore solemn oaths to observe strictest friendship.’
They retired to Cirencester.
The wretched Coelwulf II. was now called upon to surrender his kingdom,
according to the ignominious treaty of 874, and the Northmen proceeded
to settle down. Ultimately they occupied the whole of Mercia, east of a
line extending roughly from Macclesfield to Oxford; but probably only a
beginning of the settlement was made in this year. A large portion of
the host remained at Cirencester under Guthrum, and it now, in defiance
of its solemn engagements, concerted a fresh attack on Alfred with the
Vikings of Ireland. A force of the latter, under Hubba, was in South
Wales, and communication was easy. The levies of Wessex had dispersed
after their long service. Alfred was keeping his New Year festivities
when the stunning tidings came that the treacherous horde had ‘stolen’
from Cirencester into Wessex, and was entrenching itself at Chippenham.
Defence was impossible. Raiding bands at once began to burn and waste
the heart out of the astounded peasantry; the foul treachery and
suddenness of the attack made its success complete. It seemed as if all
were lost. Many districts submitted; many people fled terror-stricken
to France.
Yet it was but for a moment. Amid the panic and confusion there were
brave men who kept their heads. The King, with his immediate following,
retreated to the Isle of Athelney, in the marshes of the Parret, and
there entrenched himself. His position was inaccessible, and he was
able to rally the levies of the neighbourhood, and to commence a series
of counter-attacks on the Danish raiding columns. Aethelnoth, Ealdorman
of Somerset, succeeded in collecting some more of his country levies,
and entrenched himself in the woods, while Ealdorman Odda gathered the
men of North Devon at Cynuit, perhaps, as tradition indicates, Kenwith,
or Henniborough (? Cynuit-burh), near Bideford. In the west, at least,
there was no thought of surrender. The King was able to send out
messengers to summon the _fyrd_, and though his position was critical,
there is no reason whatever to believe that he was ever a solitary
fugitive.
Still, it must not be forgotten that at this supreme moment the outlook
was very black. Did the Danes hear of Alfred’s intended mobilization,
they might destroy the shire contingents in detail as they moved up to
the rendezvous at ‘Ecgberht’s Stone,’ by Selwood Forest. As a matter of
fact, they appear to have been in a state of over-confident security.
There is not a sign to indicate that they attempted to interfere with
the concentration.
Meanwhile the first blow against the invaders had been struck. Hubba
had duly made his attack. After ravaging the coast of Devon, he had
sat down before Cynuit with twenty-three ships’ crews. The place was
strong by nature, though ill fortified with a rough palisade; and
Hubba did not care to assault it, but trusted to a blockade. Odda and
his following did not wait to be starved out. They made a desperate
sortie upon the Viking camp, and gained a complete victory, slaying
840 or 1,200 men, with Hubba himself, and capturing the most famous
of the Viking ‘Land-ravager’ standards, a raven banner that had been
embroidered by Ragnar’s three daughters for their three terrible
brothers.
The victors probably then marched to join the King, and in the seventh
week after Easter Alfred was able to move. The men of Somerset,
Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Dorset, had at last gathered at ‘Ecgberht’s
Stone,’ and now they were joined by the King amid a scene of wild
enthusiasm. Next day the united army marched to Iglea, near Warminster,
and on the following morning encountered the Danes, who, hearing of
the concentration, had advanced from Chippenham to Ethandune (probably
Edington). The English were formed in a _densa testudo_, which,
perhaps, means that Alfred concentrated a heavy column against part of
the enemy’s line. At any rate, his victory was complete; the Danish
army was thoroughly broken. Its remains took refuge in the camp at
Chippenham, where they were immediately blockaded, and, after fourteen
days of siege, forced by famine to surrender.
Alfred’s terms show how far he rose above his contemporaries. His
beaten foes were to give hostages, Guthrum and the principal chiefs
were to become Christians, and the army was to leave Wessex. That
the terms were faithfully observed may be fairly ascribed not to any
feeling of moral obligation on the part of the Northmen, but to the
fact that they had been thoroughly defeated, and to the influence of
the great King’s personality.
So Wessex was safe, for it was probable that the Vikings would be very
slow to attack the gallant state again. Though a fresh pirate horde
arrived at Fulham in 879 while Guthrum was moving to settle in East
Anglia, their predecessors would not join with them, and the new-comers
returned across the Channel and attacked Flanders. Guthrum himself took
his Christianity very seriously, and paid special honour to the name of
St. Eadmund; but his kingly power appears to have been somewhat vague,
and his followers were unruly. Alfred was left in peaceful possession
of his sorely-tried heritage, and set himself to that wonderful task of
reorganization and civilization, the execution of which is his noblest
title to fame.
The parts of England that still retained independence were Wessex,
Sussex, Kent, and Western Mercia, the latter under the rule of several
ealdormen, of whom the chief was a certain Aethelred, who is usually
given the quasi-royal title of ‘Lord.’ It is not quite certain,
however, whether he did homage to Alfred until some years later.
Alfred’s domestic reforms need not be more than mentioned here. His
military reorganization included the enlargement of the thegnhood by
admitting into it prosperous farmers and merchants, and organization
of the _fyrd_, so that a competent force could take the field without
allowing the land to fall out of cultivation--a most important
matter in days when army and people were one. Fortification was
systematically carried out, and garrisons were provided by a plan
which was consciously or unconsciously based on that of the Roman
military colonies. To each fortress were attached estates cultivated
by military settlers, but the latter were regularly stationed in the
burh, and probably had their residences there. They constituted the
famous _burh-ware_ (_lit._ fort-folk), which played a great part in the
defence of England during the next century. Above all, Alfred steadily
added to his fleet, though it was not until the end of his reign that
it was able to play an important part.
For some years after 878 Alfred remained in peace, energetically
pushing on his reforms, and drawing closer to Mercia and the distracted
Christian states of Wales, which were beginning to find that the
‘Saxon’ was better as a friend than the Viking. The Vikings were
ranging about Western Europe, inflicting upon it the direst misery that
it had experienced since the Roman eagles flew away, but only once in
fourteen years did they attack Alfred. In 885 a part of their main
horde sailed up the Medway and besieged Rochester. It was gallantly
defended by its _burh-ware_, and in the midst of the siege Alfred came
up with a strong force and routed the Vikings, driving them to their
ships and capturing their camp, horses, and baggage.
The effect of the raid, however, had been to unsettle some of the East
Anglian Danes, who had given the besiegers of Rochester assistance.
The English fleet made a retaliatory raid along the East Anglian
coast, and captured sixteen ships at the mouth of the Stour, but was
then defeated. It was clearly as yet too weak for its work.
Failing to obtain satisfaction from Guthrum or his jarls, Alfred next
year attacked the ‘Danelaw’ by land. After severe fighting, London was
retaken, and south-eastern Mercia overrun as far as the Lea and Great
Ouse. Alfred’s conquests were definitely confirmed to him next year by
a treaty with Guthrum. The Roman walls of London were repaired, and the
city occupied by a strong military colony.
The result of these successes was that not only the Mercians under
Ealdorman Aethelred, but also the princes of Wales, formally paid
homage to Alfred. He strengthened the tie with Mercia by giving
Aethelred his daughter Aethelflaed to wife. He also placed him in
charge of the reconquered districts, which had been mainly Mercian;
but evidently not for that reason, but as a personal possession.
The English were at last beginning to draw together. For six years
Alfred was able to pursue his life-work in peace. The East Anglian
Danes observed the treaty of 886; those of Northumbria also had a
Christianized chief, Guthred by name, who kept the peace with Alfred,
and when the Vikings again attacked him he was well prepared.
In 891 the Northmen were heavily defeated by Arnulf, King of the East
Franks, at Louvain. Thereupon they resolved to turn upon England. They
gathered from all quarters to Boulogne, and there remained for several
months collecting and building ships. They now, on their short voyages,
carried their horses with them, and had done so in the raid of 885. In
all they mustered 250 ships, and, perhaps, 10,000 men. A second fleet
of eighty ships under Hæsten, the most famous of the Scandinavian
sea-kings, assembled farther south. The connection between the two
hordes is not clear. Professor Oman suggests that while their action
may have been concerted, it is possible that the leaders of the larger
force held aloof from Hæsten owing to his selfishness and greed. The
evidence of the campaign that followed gives the impression that the
two forces acted in concert.
Alfred had also to fear that the settlers of the Danelaw would join the
invaders against him. Guthrum of East Anglia had died in 890, and the
friendly chief of Deira was associated with a certain Siegfred who was
hostile to Alfred. For the present the settlers gave hostages to Alfred
as a pledge that they would keep the peace, but they broke it without
scruple when occasion offered.
The ‘Great Army’ landed at Lympne, in Kent, late in the autumn of 892.
It was a bad base of operations, for it was practically shut off from
the inland by the Andredsweald; but the ports were now so well defended
that a landing-place was difficult to find. The Danes easily captured
an old earthwork at Appledore which the local peasantry tried to
defend, and, towing their ships up the harbour, entrenched themselves.
‘Soon after,’ says the Chronicle, ‘came Hæsten with eighty ships into
the mouth of the Thames, and wrought him there a work at Middeltun.’
Serious fighting did not begin until the spring of 893. Alfred
entrenched himself midway between the two Viking armies, and soon
reduced Hæsten to straits, perhaps by the aid of a fleet from London.
Hæsten offered to depart and, as a proof of sincerity, handed over his
two sons to be baptized. But with the usual Viking treachery, he merely
transferred himself to Bemfleet, in Essex. The East Anglian Danes
received him with open arms, and a great plan of operations was framed.
While Hæsten ‘contained’ the English on the Thames, the ‘Great Army’
was to penetrate across the Weald into Wessex, sending a detachment
with the fleet to Hæsten. Meanwhile forty Northumbrian Danish ships
were to enter the Bristol Channel, and 100 more, partly Northumbrian,
partly East Anglian, would sail down the east coast and attack Wessex
from the south.
The ‘Great Army’ passed safely through the Weald, and began to waste
eastern Wessex. Alfred himself seems to have been in the west; but the
English army, under his son Eadward, abandoned its central position in
Kent, and, hurrying through Surrey, overtook the Vikings at Farnham,
and defeated them with great loss. Their chief ‘king’ was wounded, and
they fled in disorder across the Thames into Herts, where they took
refuge on Thorney Isle, in the Colne. Eadward followed and blockaded
them; but then, hearing that his father was coming with fresh forces,
allowed his half-starved county levies to return home. Alfred was near
at hand when he heard that the Anglo-Danish fleets were attacking
Exeter and northern Devon. Thereupon he turned back, sending only
a detachment to Eadward. With these troops the prince resumed the
blockade, and was soon joined by Ealdorman Aethelred and the Mercians.
The Vikings then promised to depart, and gave hostages; but they only
dispersed into the Danelaw, and were soon in arms again.
Hæsten at Bemfleet had been joined by the main Viking fleet, and was
wasting Mercia with part of his force, the rest being left to guard the
camp. Aethelred and Eadward did not waste time in pursuing him; but
turned back to London, gathered up its _burh-ware_, and marched against
Bemfleet. ‘Then came the King’s men and defeated the enemy, broke down
the work, took all that was therein--money, women, and children--and
brought all to London.’ Hundreds of ships must have been taken, and
among the prisoners were Hæsten’s wife and his two sons. Hæsten,
returning from his raid, found only ruins at Bemfleet.
He must be credited at least with admirable pertinacity and courage. He
established himself at Shoebury, and rallied there the broken sections
of the Viking host. Reinforced by East Anglians, he again made a dash
westward, hurrying along the Thames Valley to the Lower Severn, and
then turning northward. At Buttington, on the Severn, he was overtaken
by the Mercians under Aethelred, supported by reinforcements brought up
from Wessex by Ealdormen Aethelhelm, and Aethelnoth, and other troops
from Wales. He was defeated and blockaded in his camp, only escaping to
Shoebury after heavy loss. His hope appears to have been to join the
Northumbrian fleet, but Alfred had relieved Exeter, and the discomfited
squadrons had gone.
However, Shoebury had become the rendezvous of adventurers from all
quarters, and Hæsten, late in the year, broke out once more. Marching
night and day, he suddenly appeared in the desolate ruins of Deva,
the ‘Chester’ where once Legio Valeria Victrix had made its home, and
entrenched himself behind its ramparts. The Mercians were too late to
overtake him, and could only waste the neighbourhood so as to straiten
him for food.
The events of the next year, 894, are rather obscure. Hæsten, forced
to evacuate Chester, wasted North Wales, and finally retreated to
Northumbria, and so back to East Anglia. Evidently hoping to be
safer so, the Danes established a new camp on Mersey Island, on the
Essex coast. Meanwhile the Northumbrian fleet was at last coming to
Hæsten’s aid. On its way from the west it attacked Chichester, but was
handsomely repulsed, with the loss of several ships. The main force,
however, reached Mersey safely, and late in the year the whole host
proceeded up the Thames and entrenched itself twenty miles up the Lea.
One hears nothing of Alfred or the main English army all the year.
It is possible that the King was trying to coerce the Northumbrians,
and there is a terribly confused and probably misdated entry in
Aethelweard’s Chronicle which seems to point to something of the kind.
The winter of 894-895 passed away with the Danes and the Londoners
watching each other on the Lea. So confident were the latter, that
early in 895 they, with ‘other folk,’ marched to attack the camp. They
were repulsed with loss, including that of four royal thegns. Still,
however, the Danes dared not advance on London, and the English were
able to cultivate the fields as usual. In the summer Alfred himself
with the main English army encamped close to the city, and under his
protection the harvest was safely gathered in. Forts were constructed
some distance below the Danish camp and the Lea blocked with stockades.
The enemy thereupon broke away northward, pursued by the English
mounted troops, while the Londoners, for the second time, triumphantly
towed a captured fleet into the Pool.
Meanwhile the retreating Danes had made a last dash into north-western
Mercia, and entrenched themselves at Quatbridge-on-Severn. There they
remained practically blockaded until the winter. The English army then,
unable to maintain itself longer, dispersed; but the Danes were half
starved and wholly dispirited, and in the spring of 896, when Alfred
began to assemble the host to make an end of them, they broke up and
scattered, some to the Danelaw: others who were penniless and desperate
hired or built ships and went back to France. Alfred’s victory was of
far more than local importance. The Vikings had tried their fortune
within a few years on both sides of the Channel, and both times had
been beaten. The dogged resistance of Alfred had fairly broken up their
main host, and it does not appear that so formidable a force was ever
again collected by them.
Alfred’s last years were comparatively peaceful. Small pirate
squadrons, however, continued to annoy the coast of Wessex, and to cope
with them he made great additions to his infant navy, employing in the
work members of seafaring Frisians to train his crews. The new ships,
however, appear to have been of his own designing--another instance
of his wonderful versatility. The chronicler definitely states that
they were built ‘as he [Alfred] himself thought they might be most
serviceable.’ They were twice as long as the old vessels, swifter,
steadier sea-boats, of higher free-board, and with sixty oars or more
in addition to their sails. In 897 nine of the new ships fought in
action with six Viking vessels in a Devonshire estuary, of which the
Chronicle gives what almost reads like the official account.
[Illustration: ENGLISH AND NORTHMEN AT THE DEATH OF ALFRED, A.D. 900.
The ‘Burhs’ of Alfred and Eadward I. are shown as squares with a dot in
the centre.]
Three of the Viking vessels were at anchor, the others beached higher
up the inlet. Two of the three anchored vessels were immediately
taken; the third escaped, but with only five sorely wounded men
surviving out of her crew. Meanwhile the tide was ebbing, and seems
to have compelled six of the English vessels to stand farther off the
shore, leaving the other three aground in the rapidly retreating waves.
The Danes on shore waded through shallow water and made desperate
attempts to board the stranded ships. Lucomon, a royal reeve (perhaps
the commodore of the squadron), was slain, and with him Æthelfrith, one
of the King’s herdsmen, three Frisian officers, and sixty-two seamen;
but they accounted for one hundred and twenty Danes, and the Viking
ships escaped only because the returning tide floated their light
craft before the heavier English vessels. Only one of the three Danish
vessels succeeded in reaching East Anglia, the other two went ashore
on the coast of Sussex, and their crews were captured and hanged at
Winchester, by order of the usually so merciful King.
The great King had now completed his gigantic task. He had welded
together the unconquered half of England so firmly that there was
no fear that the Vikings would overpower its united force. During
his reign of over twenty-eight years he was, to a very large extent,
occupied in resisting, and in organizing resistance to, the invaders.
The success that attended his operations was emphatically due to his
fine character, his capacity for organization, his steady concentration
on the work of uniting England against the common foe, and his
clear-sighted vision that saw the necessity of being able to attack by
sea as well as on land; and over and above all these qualities, his
power of inspiring men with something of his own exalted ideals. On
October 26, 900, he died; probably the greatest, beyond doubt the best
and noblest, monarch who has reigned over England.
[Illustration: NORSE SHIP FOUND AT GOKSTAD.
(_In the Museum at Christiania._)]
CHAPTER VII
THE CONQUEST OF THE DANELAW
Alfred’s death left Wessex and western Mercia still faced by a mass
of more or less hostile Danish settlers in the Danelaw and Deira, but
fairly well knit together by the consciousness of sufferings endured
and victories gained in conjunction, and with a growing sense of
national unity. At first it is doubtful whether Eadward I. intended to
subjugate the Danelaw; but he was quickly made aware that there was
hardly any alternative. His cousin Aethelwald, son of Aethelred I., who
had been passed over on account of his youth in favour of Alfred, and
conceived himself to have a better title to the throne than Eadward,
rose in revolt, and was supported by the Danish settlers.
Aethelwald succeeded in establishing himself as King of York, and
invaded Mercia with a Danish army. Eadward promptly retaliated by
invading East Anglia; this was precisely the plan laid down by
‘Byzantine’ tacticians for checking Saracen raids from Syria. It
succeeded admirably--the Danes hurried back from Mercia to save their
homes. By accident they came upon the Kentish troops isolated, and
after a furious engagement gained a Pyrrhic success. Nearly every man
of note on both sides fell, including, on the Danish side, both the
English claimant and Eric, King of East Anglia. There was, perhaps,
more indecisive fighting, but in 903 a treaty was made with Guthrum II.
of East Anglia on the basis of the _status quo ante_. For six years
thereafter there was peace throughout England, except in anarchic
Northumbria, which appears to have been a sort of dumping-ground for
everything that was restless and unsettled in north-western Europe.
In 910 the Danes, perhaps goaded into action by restless spirits
from the Continent, again raided Mercia. Eadward apparently decided
to repeat his strategy of 902, and collected a large army and a
fleet of 100 ships in Kent, but the distress of the Mercians forced
him to hasten to their aid. Having effected a junction with the
Mercian forces, he intercepted the Danes as they returned from the
Severn Valley, into which they had penetrated, and near Totanhael
(Tottenhall), in Staffordshire, inflicted on them a heavy defeat. Three
‘kings,’ two jarls, and seven höldrs, or great landowners, fell, and
the pillaging propensities of the settlers of the Danelaw received a
rude check.
Aethelred, the ‘Lord’ of Mercia, died in the same year; but his widow,
Aethelflæd, the sister of Eadward, took up his task with energy.
Aethelflæd is one of the most remarkable figures in English history.
She was not only an administrator, but a strategist and military
organizer--a combination almost without parallel in a woman. How deeply
her extraordinary qualities had impressed her contemporaries is shown
by the fact that upon her husband’s death she succeeded quietly to
the exercise of his power. It is tantalizing that more is not told of
Aethelflæd, but even in the dry and scanty notices of the ‘Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle’ she stands out as a great ruler, the worthy daughter of her
heroic father.
Aethelflæd’s capacity was soon to be displayed. The weakness of
Mercia as compared with Wessex during the Danish wars lay in its lack
of fortresses. It will have been noted that all Hæsten’s raids were
directed against it, obviously because there was little fear of being
obstructed, as in Wessex, by thickly placed _burhs_, and attacked by
the warlike and energetic _burh-ware_. Aethelred had evidently made
some steps to remedy the deficiency of fortified places, and in 907
he repaired and occupied Deva, thenceforward to be pre-eminently the
‘Chester’ of England. Probably, however, the comparative poverty of
Mercia retarded the systematic fortification of the towns, but now
Aethelflæd took up the scheme with energy. In the preceding year she
and her husband had built a _burh_ at Bromesberrow, between Hereford
and Tewkesbury, and in 911 she fortified Scargate (site doubtful) and
Bridgenorth. Meanwhile Eadward fortified Hertford, conquered southern
Essex, and fortified Maldon and Witham as advance posts against
Colchester. So discouraged were the Danes that they sued for peace, but
almost immediately broke it.
After Easter, in 912, the jarls of Northampton and Leicester raided
Mercia. They wasted the country about Hocneratun (? Hook Norton), but
were repulsed at Lygton (Leighton Buzzard). Aethelflæd guarded against
further attacks by fortifying Tamworth and Stafford.
The Danes of England now summoned to their help some of the Vikings on
the Continent, and a fleet under two jarls, Ohthere and Hroald, came
‘over hither south from the Lidwiccians’ (_i.e._, Brittany), and sailed
up the Bristol Channel. They, as usual, shunned Wessex, where the
watchful Eadward was guarding the coast with an army; but wasted South
Wales, and captured Cimelauc, Bishop of Llandaff, whom Eadward ransomed
for forty pounds of silver. They then pushed on to raid Mercia, but
were quickly attacked by the levies of Hereford and Gloucester, and
defeated, Jarl Hroald being slain. ‘And they drove them into a park,
and beset them there without until they gave them hostages that they
would depart from the realm of King Eadward.’ The fleet made two
ineffectual raids at Watchet and Porlock, both of which were repulsed
with slaughter; and after lying at Bradanrelice (Flat Holm) until its
crews were wasting away with famine, retreated first to the Welsh coast
and then to Ireland. The energetic King at once hastened eastward and
besieged Bedford, which surrendered after a month’s blockade; while the
Lady of Mercia kept watch on Northumbria, and fortified Eddisburh and
Warwick.
The not very effective intervention of the fleet of Ohthere and
Hroald was the last attack on Wessex by Vikings from the Continent.
Thenceforward Eadward and Aethelflæd were able to push forward the
conquest of the Danelaw with little interference. During the next three
years they steadily fortified, and practically shut up the Danelaw in
a line of _burhs_. In 916 they made a great combined advance. Guthrum
II., King of East Anglia, attempted to stem the attack by establishing
a base on English soil at Tempsford, at the junction of the Great
Ouse and the Ivel, while the jarls of Leicester and Northampton made
a raid on the neighbourhood of Aylesbury. The counter-attack was a
hopeless failure. Aethelflæd stormed Derby after a furious resistance,
while Guthrum in vain attacked Bedford and Wiggingamere, and had to
retreat on Tempsford, only to be assailed there by an English army of
_burh-ware_ from all the eastern fortresses. ‘They beset the burh and
fought against it until they broke into it, and slew the King and Earl
Toglos, and Earl Manna his son, and his brother, and all them that were
therein, and would defend themselves, and they took the others and all
that was therein.’ Eadward followed up the victory with energy. Though
it was ‘in harvest,’ every available man in Kent and Surrey crossed the
Thames, joined the men of Essex and the stormers of Tempsford, and
marched upon Colchester. ‘They took it, and slew all the garrison, and
seized all that was therein, except those men who fled away therefrom
over the wall.’
The last hope for the independence of the Danes of England lay in a
Viking fleet which had just appeared on the East Anglian coast. Its
crews landed, rallied the broken levies of their kinsmen, and, in
conjunction with them, besieged Maldon. Before they could complete
their cordon, a strong body of English troops, probably part of the
victors of Tempsford and Colchester, entered the _burh_, and the
combined force made a sortie, repulsed the besiegers, and, by a
vigorous pursuit, completely broke them. It was the beginning of the
end. No time was given for the broken foe to recover. Late as was the
season, Eadward kept the field; from every county the _land-fyrd_ and
_burh-ware_ marched in hot haste to reinforce or relieve the army in
Essex. Northampton, Huntingdon, and Cambridge surrendered, and with
them all East Anglia.
This was practically the end of the independence of the Danelaw.
Next year, 917, brother and sister made their last advance together,
and captured Leicester and Stamford, and on June 12 Aethelflæd died.
She had been her brother’s right hand, and so well had she performed
her part that little now remained to be done. By 919 Eadward had
consolidated his rule as far as the Humber, had occupied and secured
southern Lancashire, and had received homage from Regnald, the Danish
ruler of Deira; Ealdred, the English chief of Bernicia; Constantine
III., King of Scotland; and Donald, King of Strathclyde. Ealdred’s
submission was natural; the more shadowy allegiance of Constantine and
Donald was obviously prompted by fear of the Vikings, whose settlements
in Scotland included all the northern and western islands, and much
of the adjacent mainland. When Eadward ‘the Elder’ died in 824 his
supremacy over Britain was such as no monarch had yet enjoyed, and his
power passed undiminished to his son Aethelstan.
Aethelstan’s reign passed by largely in peace chequered by rebellions
which were quickly suppressed. Aethelstan rather prematurely annexed
Deira, deposing its Danish vassal king; but he was strong enough to
keep down the turbulent Danes of Northumbria. He had more difficulty
with Constantine of Scotland, who soon began to regret the engagement
into which he had entered with the English ‘Basileus’ of all Britain.
In 933 he threw off his allegiance; but Aethelstan proceeded northward
with an army and fleet, marched through eastern Scotland to Dunnottar,
and brought him to temporary submission. He was not cowed, however, and
proceeded to organize underhand a great confederacy, which had as its
object the destruction of the power of the overshadowing _Dispensator
regni totius Britanniæ_. His chief motive for this action was probably
that he was hindered in his designs of absorbing Strathclyde and
Northern Bernicia; but common fear of the now mighty English power
had more than anything to do with the formation of the heterogeneous
alliance, which included not only Scotland and Strathclyde, and
probably the Galloway Picts, no less than those of the North, but Anlaf
Guthfrithson, King of Dublin, Anlaf Quaran, claimant to the Danish
crown of York, and three more Viking sea-kings, with a great host of
warriors.
The allied host gathered at Brunanburh, or Brunanwerc, a place the
site of which is absolutely unknown. It must have been on the west
or north-west of England, and, since a great part of the allied host
consisted of Irish Vikings, probably on or near the coast. Professor
Hodgkin, with whom Professor Oman agrees, is inclined to place it
at Birrens, near Carlisle. But there is also a Bromborough near the
mouth of the Mersey, which might be the Brunanburh of the Chronicle.
Professor Oman’s objection is that it is too far from the base of the
Scots. On the other hand, it is as good a place of concentration for
the Irish Vikings as Birrens, and, if the Northumbrians had revolted,
as seems probable from the significant omission of any mention of them
in the ‘Song of Brunanburh,’ the Scots and Britons may have penetrated
so far south. In this case the Scots and Picts would have come through
Lothian, joined the Strathclydians and Galwegians somewhere on the
march, and, passing through Bernicia and Deira, gathered up the
Danes of York, and moved westward to join the Irish Vikings in the
Mersey. Still, it must be admitted that this implies a higher degree
of efficiency than can be supposed to have existed in the inchoate
Picto-Scottish horde. Also, Constantine seems to have escaped by
land, which would have been difficult had the battle been fought at
Bromborough-in-Wirral. There is not a single topographical indication
in the ‘Song’ to help the inquirer. Brunanburh may be Birrens and
may be Bromborough--the probabilities are, perhaps, in favour of
Birrens--but it is not certain that it is either.
However warily the cunning Constantine--‘the hoary warrior,’ ‘the old
deceiver’--had gone to work, Aethelstan had good intelligence of the
coming storm, and marched northward to meet the allies with all the
forces of Wessex and Mercia, accompanied by his brother Eadmund. The
battle that followed was the greatest that had been fought since the
English Conquest. Details we have none, except that the struggle lasted
from dawn to sunset, and that it ended in the destruction of the host
that had gathered to undo the work of Alfred and his children. If the
loss among the leaders be any criterion, the slaughter was fearful.
Constantine himself escaped, but his son fell, and with him lay dead
Eugenius, King of Strathclyde, three Viking sea-kings, seven jarls, and
numberless crowds of lesser folk.
The battle of Brunanburh set the seal on the great task that Alfred had
begun and that Eadward I. and Aethelstan had so well continued. So long
as the House of Ecgberht continued to bring forth strong rulers, the
English Empire held together. The Danelaw was sometimes troublesome;
the Northumbrians were always turbulent vassals; but Eadmund I. and his
successor, Eadred, coped successfully with all disturbances, and with
the fifteen years’ peaceful reign of Eadgar the ideal of English unity
appeared to have been nearly accomplished. Yet it was not to be. A long
minority, factious magnates, and a worthless king, were to accomplish
between them what the mighty sea-kings of the ninth century had failed
to achieve. The result of Brunanburh was to establish the ‘Empire of
the English,’ and to awe foreign enemies for forty years and no more.
Yet few battles of that age were so decisive, and it made a tremendous
impression in Europe. Henry the Fowler of Germany requested the hand of
the English king’s sister for his son Otto, soon to add fresh lustre
to the name of Roman Emperor of the West; and Aethelstan eventually
became the brother-in-law of nearly all the monarchs of Western Europe.
He also seems to have been in alliance with the famous Harald Harfaagr
of Norway, who was working hard at the Sisyphean task of reducing his
wild realm to some kind of peace and order. And yet it must regretfully
be owned that we know hardly anything of one of the greatest and most
successful of English kings--
‘Aethelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons.
_Tennyson’s adaptation of ‘The Song of Brunanburh.’_
CHAPTER VIII
LATER VIKING RAIDS AND THE DANISH CONQUEST
Men who had seen the famous triumphal procession on the Dee in 973,
when Eadgar the Peaceful, rowed by eight vassal princes, passed in his
boat by the venerable walls of the ‘Chester’ of Valeria Victrix, must
have groaned in spirit at the wretchedness that overwhelmed England in
the reign of his worthless son, Aethelred ‘the Redeless.’[D]
[D] Aethelred is popularly known as ‘the Unready,’ but the
Anglo-Saxon word _rede_ means ‘counsel’ or ‘advice,’ and a
better rendering of the king’s nickname is ‘ill-counselled’
or ‘wrong-headed.’
The story of how Aethelred’s evil mother, Aelfthryth, contrived
the murder of her stepson, Eadward II., ‘the Martyr,’ at Corfe is
well known. He himself was at the time only ten years of age. For
several years the kingdom was probably governed by his mother and her
supporters, but they were not strong enough to oust the officials
of Eadgar and Eadward II. The minority of the king left the rival
ealdormen and reeves ill-controlled, and there is some reason to think
that the monachizing religious policy of Eadgar and St. Dunstan was
greatly resented. At all events, there was much internal disorder;
it is even possible that a state of modified civil war prevailed.
Externally the country appeared great and powerful. Aethelred II. at
his accession was overlord of all Britain no less than his father.
England possessed a navy as strong in numbers as the largest Viking
fleet that had ever assailed the country. Yet when the crisis came
everything was in hopeless disorder. It was not the people, but the
ruling class that was in fault. The exasperation of the nation glows
fiercely through the bitter entries of the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’
whose compiler is thoroughly aware that sheer ineptitude, if not
absolute treachery, was the cause of the national disasters.
Of the wretched monarch at whose door the blame for the downfall of
the first ‘English Empire’ is usually laid little can be said that is
favourable. Aethelred II. is condemned for all time by the scathing
epithet bestowed upon him of ‘redeless.’ He was not altogether devoid
of courage and enterprise, but his instability and utter incapacity to
adopt and execute any sensible plan of action were his bane.
In 980, after more than forty years of immunity, the shores of England
were once more troubled by Vikings. Pirate squadrons raided Thanet, and
the country round Southampton and Chester. Next year another, or the
same force--apparently from Ireland--sacked St. Petrocstow (Padstow),
and wasted on both shores of the Bristol Channel; and in 982 three
pirate vessels touched at Portland for a hurried raid.
For five or six years thereafter nothing is heard of Vikings; but there
was certainly unrest among the English nobles, and when the raids began
again the country was utterly unprepared. Once again was repeated the
weary tale of the ninth century--raids, growing ever more murderous and
widespread, and met only by local resistance. But besides this there is
the foul record of combined action repeatedly frustrated by jealousy,
ineptitude, or treachery, and of frequent buying off after the invaders
had done as much mischief as possible. In 988 there was another petty
raid of Irish Vikings; and in the same year the great Archbishop
Dunstan died, taken away betimes from the wrath to come.
At this period the famous Olaf Tryggvason, debarred from his ancestral
Norway, which was held against him by Jarl Haakon, was roving about
the Northern Seas. He appeared in English waters in 991 with, perhaps,
fifty ships, sacked Ipswich, and, sailing down the coast, landed his
followers at Maldon. He was gallantly opposed by Brihtnoth, Ealdorman
of Essex; but, after a hard struggle, the day went against the English,
Brihtnoth himself being slain. It was a mere local defeat, like that of
Charmouth in 836; but the consequences were most disgraceful. ‘In this
same year,’ says the Chronicle, ‘it was decreed that tribute should be
given to the Danish men for the great terror they occasioned by the
seacoast; and that first [payment] was ten thousand pounds. The first
who advised this was Archbishop Sigeric.’
Next year an attempt was made to collect a great fleet at London in
order to ‘entrap the army from without.’ According to the Chronicle,
Ealdorman Aelfric, one of the admirals, deliberately betrayed the plan
of campaign to the enemy, and then deserted his fleet. Olaf escaped
with the loss of only one ship, and shortly afterwards was able to
fight an indecisive action with the squadrons of London and East
Anglia. The English flagship was taken; but, as far as we can see, the
Vikings had the worst of it, and withdrew northward. In 993, however,
they had recruited sufficiently to sack Bamborough, and then entered
the Humber. ‘They did much evil, both in Lindsey and Northumbria. There
was collected a great force; but when the armies were to engage, then
the leaders first commenced the flight--namely, Fræna and Godwin and
Frithgist.’ Two at least of the three bear Scandinavian names, and the
suspicion must be strong that they deliberately deserted their men.
In 994 Olaf was joined by Sweyn Haraldson, ‘Fork-beard,’ King of
Denmark. He had been expelled from his kingdom by the Swedes, and
compelled to take to the sea. He had been baptized as a Christian with
his father, but had apostatized, and had an apostate’s rancour against
his former religion. The two fleets counted ninety-four ships, and Olaf
and Sweyn determined to attack London. They were stoutly repulsed
with great loss, though Olaf is said to have succeeded in breaking the
bridge. The Vikings withdrew to the Channel, landed on the south coast,
and horsing themselves in the old fashion, rode over Kent, Sussex, and
Hampshire, committing ‘unspeakable evil.’ Again the shameful expedient
of 991 was repeated, and the host was bought off with a tribute of
16,000 pounds of silver. The Vikings wintered at Southampton, and Olaf,
who had been already converted to Christianity, visited Aethelred at
Andover, was ‘received at episcopal hands,’ and swore that he would
not again molest England. Next year he sailed to Norway, and recovered
it for himself. Sweyn also went back to attempt to regain Denmark.
Aethelred’s silver was probably useful to both. For two years England
was free from ravage.
But in 997 a new Viking fleet appeared, and wasted Devon, Cornwall,
and Wales. This time it was not a half-political enterprise of two
dispossessed princes, but a genuine plundering expedition of the old
type. Next year the Vikings pillaged in Dorset, Hampshire, and Sussex,
without resistance from the cowardly ealdorman Aelfric, the betrayer of
992. In 999 they extended their ravages into Kent. An army and fleet
were raised to fight them, but the generals put off a decision until
the force broke up.
In the supposed world-ending year 1000 the Vikings tried their fortune
in Normandy. One of their leaders, Pallig, husband of Sweyn’s sister
Gunhild, took service with Aethelred, and there is in the Chronicle
the surprising entry that the King took the offensive against the Irish
Vikings with a great fleet and army and devastated Man and Cumberland.
But in 1001 the ravages again began on the south coast. The Hampshire
levies were beaten by an advanced force, and the raiders were soon
joined by the fleet which had been attacking Normandy. Jarl Pallig also
deserted to his former comrades. Wiltshire and Dorset were ravaged,
and the local levies defeated at Penselwood. The Vikings marched,
devastating, along the coast to Southampton Water, and there the old
miserable story was repeated. The invaders were again bought off with
24,000 pounds of silver. The year was marked by the famous massacre on
St. Brice’s Day, of Danes settled in England. The fact is undoubted,
but the nature and extent of the slaughter are not known. It is to be
supposed that it affected only the mercenaries in Aethelred’s service
and the stragglers from the pirate fleets; but it is quite probable
that many innocent persons were involved in it. The result was, of
course, to add a natural exasperation to the thirst for plunder of the
Vikings.
Sweyn ‘Fork-beard’ had established himself in Denmark. He had also
defeated and slain Olaf Tryggvason at the famous battle of Svöld,
and now controlled Norway. In 1003 he appeared off the English coast
with a large fleet, captured Exeter, and swept through Devon into
Wiltshire. The cowardly ealdorman Aelfric once more deserted his
troops, and Sweyn sacked Wilton and Sarum, withdrawing to his fleet
unmolested, leaving in his wake a ghastly trail of smoking villages and
farmsteads, desecrated and ruined churches, the mutilated bodies of
the country-folk, and the immediate prospect of famine and pestilence.
He landed in the following year in East Anglia, and sacked Norwich and
Thetford, though gallantly opposed by the local _fyrd_ under Ealdorman
Ulfkytel, evidently an Anglo-Dane. ‘If the main force had been there,’
moans the Chronicle, ‘never had the enemy returned to their ships ...
they never met with worse hand-play than Ulfkytel brought them.’
Conquest does not appear to have been yet in Sweyn’s thoughts. In the
spring of 1004 he returned home; but the wretched country, though free
from foes, was stricken with famine during that year, and in 1006 Sweyn
was back again. He landed at Sandwich, and swept unopposed through
Wessex to Reading, defeated some local troops, and thence turned back
to the sea. Aethelred fled to Shropshire, and the Witan decided that
‘they must needs bribe the army with a tribute, though they were all
loth to do it.’ In the spring of 1007 36,000 pounds of silver were
paid, and the satiated Danes retired for two years.
The respite was utilized for an apparently determined attempt to
organize a great fleet. Every three hundred ‘hides’ of land was
assessed at a ship; each ten hides at a boat, and for every eight
hides a fully equipped soldier was to be furnished. In 1009 a vast
armament assembled at Sandwich, but to no purpose. Perhaps owing to
the treachery of Eadric Streona, Aethelred’s favourite, at any rate on
account of disgraceful dissension among the leaders, the huge force
broke up. The miserable story is told at length by the Chronicler, with
bitter denunciation of Eadric.
The Vikings were led this year by Thorkil ‘the Tall,’ of Jomsborg, a
famous Viking settlement on the Baltic coast of Germany. The beginning
of the end was seen when Kent and Canterbury ransomed themselves from
pillage. The Danes then raided Wessex as far as Oxford, and laid Essex
and Hertfordshire under contribution, but were stoutly repulsed in an
attack on London. They wintered in Kent, and, as usual, the wretched
King began to contemplate another payment of tribute. Meanwhile Thorkil
left his quarters in Kent and invaded East Anglia. Ipswich was sacked,
the county levies defeated, and the countryside wasted ruthlessly.
‘Redeless’ in everything, Aethelred did not open negotiations until
1011, by which time the raiders were completely out of hand. They
disregarded their nominal chief Thorkil, and ‘went everywhere in
troops, plundering and slaying our miserable people.’ They captured
Canterbury through the treachery of the Abbot Aelfmar, and carried
off Archbishop Aelfheah (Alphege), Godwin, Bishop of Rochester,
and a multitude of captives. Not until the spring of 1012 was the
huge ‘gafol,’ or ‘Danegeld’--48,000 pounds of silver--collected,
and a hideous tragedy marked the final payment. A horde of drunken
Danes dragged Archbishop Aelfheah, who had nobly refused to ransom
himself, before their ‘husting’[E] at Greenwich, and pelted him to
death with the bones of the beasts which they had devoured. It may
be questioned whether any deed more foul is recorded in history. And
yet the brutality of these semi-savage destroyers has too frequently
been held up to unstinted admiration. Thorkil himself was innocent of
the Archbishop’s blood, and next day he sent his body with honour to
London. Soon after, oddly enough--perhaps the deed had sickened him--he
entered Aethelred’s service.
[E] A Scandinavian word, meaning a general assembly of
householders; here used of an army, and to-day retained in
connection with political elections.
The humiliation had been in vain. Sweyn himself invaded England next
year, and now at last the patience of the people with their incapable
king was at an end. The whole north and east at once submitted to
Sweyn. He then began to waste Wessex, and Wessex, too, yielded. All
England was his almost without a blow, except London, which held its
own ‘in full fight against him, for therein was King Aethelred and
Thorkil with him.’ But the stout _burh-ware_ were exasperated by the
bad discipline of Thorkil’s mercenaries, and when they withdrew to
Greenwich, London, too, submitted. Aethelred fled to Normandy.
Sweyn himself lived only a few weeks, fortunately for England, for
he was little more than a savage pirate leader. His army, and the
English who were with it, elected as king his son Cnut, but the Witan
of Wessex and Mercia sent to Aethelred--so hard to quench was English
loyalty!--‘saying that no lord was dearer to them than their natural
lord, if he would govern them better than he did before.’ So at Lent
Aethelred came home ‘to his own people,’ and for once acted with
vigour. He promptly marched against Cnut, who was at Gainsborough,
caught him unprepared, and forced him to fly out to sea. He touched at
Sandwich, and in his rage and disappointment committed the worst of the
comparatively few crimes that stain his memory. He cut off the noses,
hands, and ears of his hostages, put them ashore, and sailed away to
Denmark.
For about a year England was free from invaders, but not from
faction-strife. Money was needed for Thorkil’s mercenary fleet--21,000
pounds of silver. Eadric Streona murdered his personal foes without
hindrance. Finally, the Kings gallant son, Eadmund, sick of the endless
disorder, took up a position of open hostility to his wretched father.
Aethelred was already sickening to death, and when Cnut appeared
again at Sandwich in the autumn the army raised to fight him broke up
owing to the treachery of Streona, who deserted to Cnut, with Jarl
Thorkil and his mercenaries. Wessex submitted to the Danes once more.
Aethelred was carried to faithful London; Eadmund retreated northward.
There he rallied the Anglo-Danish levies to punish Eadric, and early
next year attacked West Mercia; but Cnut marched northward through
the Danelaw upon York, and the Northumbrians, under Earl Uhtred,
hurried back to defend their homes. Uhtred found the situation so
hopeless that he submitted ‘for need,’ as the Chronicle pathetically
says. But his submission was merely the signal for his murder--by
the advice of Eadric, of course. Eadmund took refuge in London with
the remains of his army, and Cnut, leaving Jarl Eric Haakonson in
charge of Northumbria, prepared to follow him. Eadmund appears to have
reached the faithful city early in April, and on the 16th the wretched
Aethelred died.
The once mighty English Empire was now restricted to the walls of
London, but Eadmund II. made a splendid effort to recover it. Before
ending this most wearisome and gloomy chapter of this story of invasion
it is pleasant to chronicle one heroic attempt. Like Poland in the
eighteenth century, the kingdom of Alfred was at least to die with
honour.
Eadmund stayed only a few days in London. Its gallant inhabitants
could be trusted to do their duty to the last, and the landless king
sallied forth to rally adherents to his scanty following. Scarcely had
he left London when Cnut beleaguered it. Being unable to force the
bridge, he opened a passage for his ships round the fortifications of
Southwark, probably by largely utilizing the watercourses in the marsh.
The popular impression that Cnut had with him a corps of engineers
capable of carrying out such a formidable undertaking as that of
excavating a ship canal something near a mile in length is certainly
erroneous. It must be remembered that until quite modern times South
London was liable to be flooded at every high tide, and it is more
than probable that the only pioneering work imposed upon the Danish
warriors consisted in making short cuts from one reed-grown watercourse
to another, and in clearing a fairway. Cnut thus brought his lighter
vessels above the bridge and completed the blockade; but the citizens
held out stoutly, hoping for relief from Eadmund.
The King had reached Wessex safely, and the men of his dynasty’s
homeland soon began to rally to his banner. In June he was able to
take the field and defeat a Danish force at Penselwood. Cnut sent off
in haste an Anglo-Danish army under Thorkil and the traitor Eadric,
but Eadmund defeated them at Sherston, and marched for London. He
burst through Cnut’s lines into the city and broke up the siege. Cnut
collected his forces on the south bank of the Thames, but Eadmund,
two days later, slipped away up the river and forced a passage at
Brentford. The Danes, however, though beaten, were not routed, and
the English lost many men by drowning--apparently because they had
scattered to plunder. The Danes still threatened London, but Eadmund’s
victories were attracting to him large reinforcements, and he was soon
so strong that Cnut finally abandoned the siege and retreated to the
mouth of the Orwell. Having collected provisions by systematic ravage,
he transferred his base of operations to the Medway; but Eadmund, who
was north of London, promptly crossed the Thames at Brentford and met
him at Otford. For the fifth time he gained the day, and Cnut was
driven back into Sheppey.
[Illustration: THE FINAL STRUGGLE BETWEEN EADMUND II. AND CNUT ROUND
LONDON.]
At this moment the double traitor Eadric deserted Cnut, and made his
peace with the far too magnanimous Eadmund, apparently because he
brought with him his Magesaetan (Hereford and Shropshire) levies,
which had hitherto been aiding Cnut. The indefatigable Danish king,
however, did not give up the game. He once more transferred his army
into Essex, and when Eadmund advanced against him he stood to fight at
Assandune (Ashington). He may have counted upon Eadric’s treachery; it
seems impossible that the abominable desertion that followed had not
been concerted. In the heat of the battle the traitor left the line and
‘began the flight with the Magesaetas, and so betrayed his true lord
and all the people of England.’ The result was fearful disaster. The
whole English army was broken and destroyed; ‘all the nobility of the
English race was there undone.’ Eadmund, undaunted still, retreated to
Gloucestershire, and set to work to collect another army. But he must
have been almost in despair, and it was well for him that the Danes
were also wearied out and ready to come to terms. On the Isle of Alney,
near Deerhurst, the kings met and concluded a treaty, by which the
gallant English leader saved a part of his shattered realm, to be,
as he might hope, a base for the future recovery of the whole. He kept
Wessex, East Anglia, and West Mercia, while Cnut took Northumbria and
the old Mercian ‘Danelaw.’
The reconquest to which Eadmund must have looked forward was not to be.
On November 30 the brave King died at Oxford. Cnut at once put forward
his claim to be his successor, and was accepted by the Witan without
opposition. It must have been general exhaustion and despair, as well
as lack of leaders, that impelled the decision. Cnut proved an able and
successful ruler, and identified himself thoroughly with the nation
which had accepted him under compulsion.
The deduction to be made from the melancholy story of the Danish
Conquest is obviously that national unity was still lacking in England.
Neither was patriotism other than a local feeling. So far as can be
seen, the peasantry simply followed the magnates, and these latter,
with some honourable exceptions, were clearly, as a class, worthless. A
‘redeless’ king was betrayed by contemptible and treacherous advisers
and nobles, and the ill-compacted people, without national sentiment,
and with no means of expressing its opinion, was unable then to redeem
the blunders and cowardice of its nominal leaders.
Between 991 and 1018 the total payments made on account of
‘Danegeld’ amounted to 216,500 pounds of silver, probably
equivalent to £7,000,000 in modern value.
CHAPTER IX
THE INVASIONS OF 1066
The passing from the scene of the strangely unsubstantial and shadowy
figure of the sainted Eadward ‘the Confessor’ was the signal for the
bursting of the storm that was to overwhelm Anglo-Saxon England.
For the last thirteen years of his reign the country had been
practically governed by his great minister, Harold Godwineson, Earl of
Wessex. Harold’s character has suffered much at the hands of Norman
chroniclers; there is no real reason to think that he was morally worse
than most men of his age. His practical ability was of a high order,
and while administering the realm with success, he also gave proofs
that he possessed tact and moderation. At the same time, his general
success cannot hide the fact that England lacked political unity; it
was a group of great family earldoms, whose heads looked upon each
other with jealousy and distrust. Harold seems to have behaved with
remarkable forbearance and friendliness towards the rival house of
Leofric, and though he had more than one opportunity of aggrandizing
his family at their expense, the death of Eadward the Confessor found
Eadwine and Morkere, grandsons of Leofric, still ruling over his broad
lands.
Eadward the Confessor’s fondness for the Normans among whom he had
been brought up was natural enough, and it is quite possible that the
dominating personality of his cousin, William of Normandy, on the
occasion of his visit in 1051, so impressed him that he made some sort
of promise of leaving him his heir. At any rate when Harold, in 1064,
after his shipwreck in the Channel, became William’s unwilling guest,
the Duke had no scruple in exacting from him an oath of support. The
decorative adjuncts--‘holy’ relics, and so forth--which he contrived
in order to impress the superstitious bystanders, certainly had the
desired effect on contemporary public opinion. Harold left as a hostage
with William his hapless youngest brother Wulfnoth, destined to die in
captivity.
But when Eadward the Confessor died on January 5, 1066, he, according
to the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ left his realm to Harold. The ‘Vita
Eadwardi’ says much the same. It seems, also, that the Witan had
already chosen Harold, for he was crowned the next day in the new
Abbey Church of Westminster. It is a curious reflection that the great
church, which was consecrated as the old king lay dying, was, in a
sense, the funeral monument of early English times.
Harold was threatened with attack from three quarters--perhaps four.
It was certain that William of Normandy would attempt an invasion at
the first opportunity. Harald Hardrada of Norway, the last of the
great Viking monarchs, was known to be ready for any opportunity of
aggrandizement. Sweyn Estrithson of Denmark, cousin of Harthacnut,
might deem the moment favourable for advancing his claims. Finally,
Tosti, Harold’s worthless brother, was preparing to regain by force
his forfeited Northumbrian earldom. Internally, the Northern earls
were lukewarm in Harold’s cause. They were men of little mark, but
they controlled nearly half England, and their disaffection was a very
serious matter. Truly, says the Chronicle of Harold, ‘little quiet did
he enjoy while he wielded the kingdom.’
When the news of Harold’s coronation reached Normandy, William broke
out into one of those terrible bursts of savage rage to which he
was subject in times of stress. ‘To no man spake he, and none dared
speak to him,’ says a chronicler. After his fit of passion was over
he announced his intention of invading England. He called an assembly
of his barons at Lillebonne on the Seine, and set forth his ideas,
but they hung back; England seemed too strong. He then appealed to
their individual loyalty, promising to reward them with English lands
in proportion to the contingents that they furnished, and with this
inducement practically the entire baronage of Normandy agreed to join
in the enterprise. But the forces of Normandy alone were not strong
enough, and William used every means to induce neighbouring princes
and adventurers to join his standard. Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who
had a private grudge against England, and Alan Fergent, cousin of the
Duke of Brittany, were the most notable of these foreign allies; but
adventurers from all France came in numbers, and even, so Guy of Amiens
says, some of the Normans who were conquering Southern Italy from the
Eastern Empire. Many months were needed before the miscellaneous host
could be gathered, and hundreds of ships had to be built and launched
for the transport of the fighting men, followers, the provisions, and,
above all, the thousands of horses, without which the mailed knights
would lose three-quarters of their efficiency. Wace tells us that the
number of vessels that actually sailed was 696; other chroniclers
raise it to 3,000. In this conflict of evidence the figures given by
Wace have a strong appearance of veracity. Most of the vessels were
doubtless small.
The number of the army is stated at from 40,000 to 60,000 by mediæval
chroniclers. Some modern estimates put it as low as 12,000. There
are no solid grounds upon which to base a reasoned estimate. After
the Conquest there were about 4,300 knight’s fiefs in England. The
casualties among the invaders were enormous, but the gaps were filled
by fresh adventurers, and certainly not all the English landowners were
dispossessed. We are, perhaps, justified in assuming 4,000 cavalry,
about 4,000 archers, and possibly 7,000 mail-clad infantry--say 15,000
men in all.
William had the support of religion in his enterprise in so far as it
could be given by a papal bull. There had been, even under the pious
Confessor, irregularity in the filling up of the episcopal sees; in
particular, the position of Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a
scandal. This, and Harold’s perjury, induced the support of Alexander
II., and a consecrated banner was sent to William with the bull.
The gathering-place of the army of invasion was at the mouth of the
Dive. The Norman writers are eloquent upon the admirable order and
discipline that prevailed in the camp, and, beyond doubt, William did
keep his own subjects well in hand; but that the same was the case
with the motley throng of allies is hardly possible. Still, knowing
what manner of man William was, it is likely enough that his standard
of discipline was, for the time, a very creditable one. Moreover, when
the army came to fight it showed itself to be very different from the
usual disorderly mediæval horde--highly trained, flexible, precise in
manœuvre, and under excellent discipline. Its organization was clearly
Byzantine. The three East-Roman arms--archers, heavy infantry, and
mailed cavalry--were all there. An East-Roman army would have had
nearly as many cavalry as infantry, if it had used infantry at all to
back its masses of mail-clad horse-bowmen and lancers, but William’s
resources were unequal to putting many thousands of mounted men in
the field. As it is, it is evident that his army was by far the finest
force that had ever invaded England.
By about August 10 the concentration appears to have been almost
complete, but for a month no move could be made owing to persistently
contrary winds. The difficulties of supply must have become greater and
greater, and in September William moved to the Abbey of St. Walaric,
now St. Valery, in Caux. Still for a fortnight longer the favouring
wind did not come.
Meanwhile Tosti had long since sailed. His attack was made
apparently in conjunction with Harald Hardrada. He had in Flanders
collected enough miscellaneous adventurers to man sixty ships, but
his impatience--probably he could not keep his plundering bands
together--wrecked the design of co-operation with Hardrada. The
Norwegian king was collecting a great armament, and probably its
concentration took time. At any rate, he did not appear in English
waters until August.
Harold, meanwhile, was organizing for defence. His only standing force
consisted of the Hus-Carles, or royal household troops--4,000 men at
the utmost. They were, unquestionably, a magnificent body of men, fully
equal in quality to William’s knighthood, equipped like them with
helmet and mail-shirt, kite-shaped shield, and armed with the terrible
battle-axe, which England had adopted from Denmark. Unfortunately,
however, though they habitually used horses on the march, they had no
experience of, or training in, fighting on horseback--a fatal defect.
The _land fyrd_, on the other hand, was difficult to move. It is easy
to under-estimate its value; there must have been a large number of men
in it fully armed and equipped for war; but they were never properly
drilled and exercised together, and were mingled with half-armed
peasantry. Still, considering the large numbers of the men liable for
service, it must have been comparatively easy to collect a considerable
force of properly equipped troops, but it entirely lacked cavalry and
archers.
Mediæval feudal armies practically depended for supplies on plunder,
and were consequently always liable to dissolve. Here and there we find
men--great generals like William I. and Edward I.--who understood how
to organize a proper commissariat, but they were few and far between.
Apparently Harold II. was one of them, for there is no doubt that he
kept a large army together on the south coast for several months.
The defence of the north was, of course, entrusted to the earls Eadwine
and Morkere; no other course was possible. Nor, upon the whole, does it
seem that they failed to do their duty. Harold was in Northumbria early
in the year, and no doubt did his best to conciliate them. Otherwise he
seems to have been very active, and Florence of Worcester says that his
activity was highly beneficial, but significantly adds that his chief
efforts were for the defence of the country. In April Halley’s Comet
made one of its recurring appearances, and, needless to say, was looked
upon as the forerunner of coming evil.
Under the great West Saxon kings, as we have seen, England possessed
an effective navy, but it is very doubtful whether under Eadward the
Confessor any large force had been kept up. Harold’s defensive armada
must have consisted largely of levied merchant craft. It collected
off the Isle of Wight--obviously in Spithead--and there awaited the
coming of the invaders. The forces of the south were stationed ‘by the
sea’--presumably in divisions within easy reach of one another--and
the King himself with his guards formed a reserve which could be
transferred north or south at will.
The defects of this strategy are obvious enough. It was solely
defensive. No attempt was made to stop the sailing of the hostile
fleets; even Tosti’s puny armament was allowed to reach England
without molestation. The splendid marching and fighting feats of the
royal guards show that their efficiency was high. A commissariat
sufficient to supply a large force for several months had evidently
been organized; but all this proved useless owing to the bad initial
strategy of standing purely on the defensive.
[Illustration: THE CAMPAIGN OF 1066.
Showing the probable route of Harold’s dash to the north against Harald
Hardrada and Tosti, and his return to face William.]
In May Tosti appeared on the coast of Kent. Apparently Harold was
already on the south coast, for we are told that he at once moved
against him with a fleet and an army such as no King of England
had ever gathered. Tosti, who had made plundering descents on
the coast and had also endeavoured to increase his small force by
forced impressment, did not await the onslaught, but fled. His second
descent was made in the Humber. Earl Eadwine promptly set upon and
defeated him; his miscellaneous force broke up, and Tosti himself fled
northward to Scotland with only twelve ships. Here he seems to have
been sheltered by Malcolm Canmore; presumably the Scottish king dared
not eject him, when at any moment the formidable Harald Hardrada might
appear.
Harold and William lay watching each other across the Channel all
through the summer. When William’s host had at last gathered, the wind,
as we have seen, was contrary, and for nearly two months he could not
stir. This was fortunate for him; had he sailed in August, he would
have been attacked by Harold’s fleet, and his own flotilla, crowded
with troops and thousands of horses, would have fared badly. Even had
the Normans gained the day they would have hardly been able to land.
It was a trial of endurance. On September 8 the English fleet had
exhausted its stores, and was forced to return to London to reprovision
and refit. Still the land army remained in the south, but a week later
came the news that Harald Hardrada was in the Humber.
The consequences of Harold’s purely defensive strategy now stared him
in the face. The fleet was for the time entirely off the board, but to
concentrate against Hardrada was a vital necessity. Harold marched
northward without delay, and certainly strove to make up for strategic
errors by activity. From Portsmouth to York is over 250 miles, but the
distance was covered in ten days. Obviously Harold’s whole corps must
have been mounted; but even so it was a remarkable performance.
Hardrada, having picked up Tosti and the remains of his expedition,
proceeded southward along the coast of Northumbria, landing and
ravaging in the old Viking fashion. Scarborough was taken and sacked,
and the Norwegian fleet sailed up the Humber and landed its army, which
marched upon York. Eadwine and Morkere had united their forces, and
stood to fight at Fulford, two miles south of the Northumbrian capital,
where they were attacked by Hardrada on September 20, and completely
defeated. The remains of their army took refuge in York, and so cowed
were the Northumbrians that they offered 150 hostages as a pledge of
their submission. Hardrada probably thought himself secure; he withdrew
to the Derwent, seven miles east of York, and was encamped carelessly
on both its banks, about Stamford Bridge, when on September 25 Harold,
having passed through York, came upon him. No hint of his approach
seems to have preceded him. The speed and secrecy of the march are
alike remarkable.
The attack fell like a thunderbolt on the unprepared Norwegians.
Scattered, astounded, and without time to form order of battle, they
were massacred right and left, and driven towards the Derwent in a
confusion that can only have tended to grow greater. The bridge was
desperately defended, and under cover of the stand Hardrada’s personal
following seems to have been able to rally on the ‘Land-ravager’--the
raven standard of the Vikings. After a series of fierce attacks the
shield ring was broken, Hardrada and Tosti were slain, and Olaf, the
king’s son, surrendered, on promise of being allowed to depart with the
survivors. They are said to have been able to man only 24 ships of the
original 300. We may suspect exaggeration.
Harold returned in triumph to York, where he seems to have delayed for
a week or so; doubtless his troops, after their exertions, needed a
rest. The northern levies also must have required reorganization. In
the midst of toils and rejoicings came the terrible news that William
was in Sussex.
On September 27 the long-sought-for south wind blew at last, and the
huge unwieldy Norman fleet put out from St. Walaric. William’s flagship
was the _Mora_, a gallant vessel given to him by his wife Matilda. She
bore on her stern a gilded figure of a boy bearing a banner, as the
Bayeux tapestry clearly indicates.
[Illustration: HORSES BEING LANDED FROM TRANSPORTS.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM’S FLAGSHIP, THE ‘MORA.’
On the mast of the _Mora_ is shown the lantern which guided the fleet.
(_From the Bayeux Tapestry._)]
From St. Valery-en-Caux to Pevensey is less than sixty-five miles,
and the fact that the flotilla took, apparently, nearly two days to
cover it, gives some index to its encumbered condition. None the less,
it sailed in something like order, guided by a huge lantern at the
masthead of the _Mora_. On the 28th it reached Pevensey, and the
disembarkation was quietly effected. William himself stumbled and
fell on his face as he sprang ashore. A murmur of dismay rose from
the superstition-ridden barons behind, but he sprang to his feet and
showed them that as he fell he had clutched up the sand with both
hands. ‘See how I have taken possession of England!’ he cried, and his
followers hailed the omen of good as readily as they had trembled at
the accident. It was one of those incidents that mark the born leader
of men.
From Pevensey William moved to Hastings, which he occupied without
resistance. A palisaded fort is said to have been constructed; one
wonders why William did not encamp within the splendid Roman walls
of Pevensey. He then began to waste the coast districts in the
neighbourhood, partly perhaps in order to provoke his rival to an
engagement, but also, probably, in part for purposes of supply.
Wonderful as had been Harold’s march to York, his rush back to London
was yet more so. He covered the distance of over 190 miles in seven
days at the outside, perhaps in six, an average of 27 or 32 miles a
day! On October 7 he was in London. Eadwine and Morkere were still far
behind. They have been severely blamed for their slowness; but it is
only fair to point out that their levies had been sorely thinned at
Fulford and Stamford Bridge, and that the collection and organization
of reinforcements can have been no easy task. If the northern troops
started only a day behind Harold and marched at the very fair rate
of eighteen miles a day, they must have still been some distance from
London when he left it for the south. Probably Eadwine and Morkere
failed to realize the urgency of the crisis; but, on the other hand,
Harold’s precipitancy must have been disconcerting.
The King stayed only some four days in London. On the 11th he marched
again, presumably with the royal guards and the men of London and the
home counties. He again pressed forward with great speed; the rate of
marching was over eighteen miles a day. On the afternoon of the 13th
the head of the column was on Senlac Hill, eight miles from Hastings,
and there, no doubt, the King could question peasants and could
ascertain that William had concentrated his army.
That he had had hopes of repeating his feat at Stamford Bridge seems
almost certain. The authorities are practically unanimous in stating
or implying that his army would have been strongly reinforced had he
delayed a little, and that he did not do so is best explained by his
anxiety to execute another surprise attack on an unprepared enemy.
As this plan had obviously failed, it was to his interest to avoid
a battle; and the general opinion at the time evidently was that he
was unwise to risk one. The story that his brother Gyrth would have
dissuaded him from engaging, but that he declined to look on while
his people were pillaged by the Norman raiders, may be taken for what
it is worth, but it points to the prevalence of this opinion. The
most probable explanation is that the weary and ill-disciplined army
could not be withdrawn in the darkness from the ridge on which it was
bivouacking, and it was therefore necessary to remain there for the
night. William on his side was obliged to fight. His army subsisted by
pillage, and would starve if it were forced to remain long in a state
of close concentration. He had early notice of his rival’s advance,
and had his army in hand about Hastings. He was at Telham so early on
the morning of the 14th that to decline a battle was difficult, if not
impossible, for Harold. With disciplined troops a retreat would have
been practicable enough, but it was not so for the cumbrous English
host. Perhaps, too, Harold overrated the fighting power of his axemen.
In any case, it is clear that he stood to receive battle when retreat
was his wisest strategy.
Senlac Hill is an outlying spur of the South Downs, roughly parallel
to them, and connected with them by a short saddleback. The main ridge
is about 280 feet above the sea at its culminating point, and nearly
1,200 yards long. The road from London passes along the saddleback,
over the ridge towards its eastern end, and across a valley to Telham
Hill, about a mile distant. The slope of the ridge in front is fairly
gentle, but where the remains of the Abbey now stand it rises steeply
to a commanding knoll. The exact gradient is difficult to estimate,
for when the Abbey was built the slope was much altered by terracing,
which exists to-day. On both flanks--especially the left--and on the
rear, except where the road approaches, the slopes are steep. For over
half its length the front face of the ridge is covered by a brook and a
line of ponds. In 1066 in their place there was most probably a marsh,
almost impassable for cavalry. Even at the present day the ground
just below the ponds becomes extremely difficult for a horseman. The
western half of the position could probably only have been assailed
by the very dangerous process of filing horsemen round the end of the
marsh, and advancing them in front of it. This actually appears to have
been attempted by part of the Norman army; but it was only possible to
deliver direct attacks on a front of about 750 yards. In this narrow
space the deadliest fighting took place. Behind all was the forest of
the Andredsweald.
The strength of the English army can only be guessed at. According
to the earlier writers it was densely massed along the ridge, but it
is probable that the almost unassailable western end was not held in
force. On the other hand, the eastward portions were probably very
strongly held. There may have been in all about 15,000 men. About
half the troops were probably fully equipped men, and in their strong
position were capable of beating off an attack of any other army
in Western Europe, except the one that now faced them. As compared
with it the English, without archers or cavalry, were at a hopeless
disadvantage, but even as it was they came very near success.
The question of fortification has been often discussed. None of
the earlier writers mention any, nor are any shown on the Bayeux
tapestry, the workers of which would very probably have had William’s
own personal account to go upon. Wace appears to describe a sort of
wicker breastwork. So much is certain, that the English troops reached
the ground too late and too fatigued to be able to carry out much
entrenching work. The cries of ‘Út! Út!’ (Out! Out!), attributed to
the English, may perhaps indicate that they conceived themselves to
occupy an entrenched enclosure; but it may just as well refer to the
impatience of men pent up in the shield-ring under a storm of arrows.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.
The English are shown with black blocks, each representing
approximately 1,000 men. The Normans are shown with shaded blocks, each
indicating approximately 500 archers, 1,000 heavy infantry, or 500
cavalry.]
The Norman army advancing from Hastings reached Telham early in the
morning. An interesting detail is that the knights rode in their tunics
and did not don their armour until they reached the field. At the foot
of Telham the army deployed in three divisions, each of three lines
classified according to arms. The front line consisted of archers and
crossbow-men--there were some of these latter present; the second of
mail-clad infantry; the third of the cavalry. The right wing consisted
mainly of the French and Flemish mercenaries under Eustace of Boulogne
and the Norman baron Roger de Montgomerie. On the left were the Breton
Angevin and Aquitanian troops. William himself was in the centre
with his Normans. Ralph de Toesny, the hereditary standard-bearer of
Normandy, had begged to be allowed to ‘fight with both hands’ on that
day; and Walter Giffard de Longueville declined to bear the Pope’s
banner. He was old, he said, and would like to do a last good day’s
fighting. So the standard was borne at William’s side by Toustain de
Bec-en-Caux. William himself bore on this day not the lance, which
was still a light weapon often used for throwing, but a ponderous
iron mace, and with him rode his brothers Odo of Bayeux and Robert of
Mortain.
As the Normans marched down Telham, Senlac suddenly appeared to be
crowned with a dense line of axes and shields. The English seemed to
spring out of the wood, says Guy of Amiens. This may indicate that they
were taken by surprise, and hastily faced about to meet the unexpected
approach of the Normans. The royal guards were on the left centre, with
the Dragon of Wessex and the King’s Warrior banner planted where the
altar of Battle Abbey afterwards rose. With the guards almost certainly
were the Londoners, who were probably the best equipped troops of
the _fyrd_. They were under Esegar, the first ‘Staller’ (Marshal).
Everything seems to show that there was a solid mass of picked troops
in the centre. The King, with his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, was on
foot by his standards surrounded by his incomparable footguards.
The Norman host advanced across the valley and began to breast Senlac
Hill, the archers shooting furiously as soon as they came within range.
For a while it was attack without defence, and it is odd that William
does not appear to have seen that the bowmen could be left to prepare
the way. The English could only suffer, and already, perhaps, impatient
warriors were beginning to cry ‘Out! Out!’ yearning to exchange blows
with their exasperating enemies. The archers, emboldened by their
bloodless progress, pressed forward to close range, and then came the
English reply. The leading ranks of the Normans were overwhelmed with a
perfect hail of miscellaneous missiles--spears, javelins, casting-axes,
and stones, some of the latter tied to clubs and hurled like hammers.
The archers came to a stand, still plying their bows; and the heavy
infantry pushed up between their intervals and came to handgrips with
the English. Their charge broke vainly upon the shield-wall; not a gap
could the Norman foot-soldiers tear in it. Javelins, taper-axes, and
stone hammers crashed among them fast and furiously; the great axes
swayed and fell with terrible effect. Do what they would they could
make no progress.
Probably the Norman infantry were already falling back when William
let loose his cavalry. No doubt the chivalry of France and Normandy
expected to ride down the English infantry with ease. Out in front of
the long moving line of horsemen, bright in their ringed mail shirts,
rode the minstrel Taillefer, chanting verses from the ‘Song of Roland,’
playing with his sword as he pricked up the slope. He was the first of
the knighthood to penetrate the shield-wall--also the first to fall.
The long lines of horsemen crashed against the shields; the shock
must have been tremendous, but their fortune was no better than that
of their despised infantry. The English front may have been pressed
back, even pierced in places, but the gaps were at once restored; man
and horse went down beneath the tremendous strokes of the great axes,
while from the rearward ranks of the English host the same tempest
of darts, throwing-axes, and stone clubs crashed upon the mail and
helmets of the charging cavaliers. After a furious struggle the Bretons
and Angevins were repulsed and driven downhill. After them poured the
ill-disciplined levies of the English right. The retreating horsemen
blundered into the marsh, which they had avoided without difficulty
as they advanced, and, with the English pressing furiously on their
rear, were in wild disorder, when the victors were suddenly charged in
flank by part of the Norman centre, turned against them by the watchful
Duke. The results were terrible. The scattered warriors, many of them
half-armed peasants, were overridden and cut down by hundreds, and only
a remnant regained the position which they had so rashly left.
This, however, was only the beginning. William rallied the broken
left wing, and again and again the fierce horsemen charged the
immovable English line--in vain. Never had the knights seen or heard
of such foot-soldiers as these. One tremendous charge led by William
himself did burst through the shield-wall; and the brave Gyrth went
down beneath the Duke’s terrible mace. Leofwine, too, was slain;
but the charge was beaten off by a rally of the English axemen, and
hurled downhill, and the cry went up that the Duke was slain. William
flung himself among the panic-stricken knights: ‘I live! I live!’ he
thundered, tearing off his helmet. ‘By God’s aid I will conquer yet!’
Out of evil came good--for Normandy.
Nearly the whole Norman line was apparently in disorder, but William
rallied it again and brought it up to the charge, though it is evident
that the attacks must have grown less and less effective as time went
on, owing to the fatigue of the horses. At his wits’ end, William
tried the expedient of a feigned retreat; and the French on the right
recoiled, to all seeming broken and beaten, down the slope. This was
too much for the greatly enduring Englishmen, and a great part of their
left and centre came pouring down in pursuit. The retreating horsemen
turned upon them; William assailed them in flank with troops from his
centre. The carnage was great, and apparently the whole English left
wing was annihilated. But the pursuing horsemen appear to have met with
disaster in an unexpected trench or watercourse, and Bishop Odo of
Bayeux had to ride among and steady them.
Still, the battle was far from over. The best part of the English army,
including the royal household, was still ranged in dense masses on the
crown of the hill. But their line was sorely reduced by the disaster
of the wings, and the Norman cavalry could charge in front and flank.
Inspired by the hope of victory, the knights hurled themselves again to
the attack, but still in vain. The line of shields was an impregnable
barrier; charge after charge recoiled from the steadfast front and to
the fierce Norman war-cry of ‘_Dex aie!_’ (Dieu aide!) the English
shouts of ‘Holy Cross!’ still thundered in defiant answer.
[Illustration: THE ATTACK ON THE ENGLISH SHIELD-WALL AT HASTINGS.
Norman cavalry charging from both sides, and bowmen skirmishing,
indicating the archery attack.
(_From the Bayeux Tapestry._)]
The Norman cavalry was growing more and more wearied and ineffective;
the victory was far from decisive as long as the English centre still
fought on. Then at last William did what he should have attempted long
before, and brought his archers to the front. Any East-Roman tactician
would have told him that the cavalry should never have attacked until
the English masses had been thoroughly shattered by their fire, and the
fact shows how low the art of war had fallen in the West. Between the
cavalry attacks the bowmen poured in their volleys, shooting with a
high trajectory so that the arrows were not wasted on the shield-wall,
but made havoc in the heart of the dense mass. The device had terrible
success. The picked warriors of England fell fast before the pitiless
rain to which they could not reply. For the most part they could but
suffer. Once or twice it seems that small bodies tried to charge out;
now and again desperate warriors sprang forth to contend hand-to-hand
with the Norman knights, but they only hastened their end. The splendid
guards stood shoulder to shoulder in the mass, never wavering or
faltering, but the losses were all on one side. Behind the unbroken
shield-wall was an ever-increasing weltering confusion of dead and
dying upon which the arrows beat pitilessly; and the King, mortally
wounded in the eye, lay in agony beneath the standards. The position
was desperate; but so long as the banners waved and the King lived
there was no thought of yielding. But at last the fatal gaps could not
be closed fast enough, and the Normans burst through the shield-wall. A
band of knights hewed their way through the dissolving mass, cut down
the faithful few round Harold, tore down the Dragon and the Warrior,
and literally hacked the dying King to pieces at the foot of his
banners.
And now the end had come. The noble English infantry, who had defied
the Norman chivalry all day, and but for the archery would have beaten
them to their ships, began--all that remained of them--to withdraw
sullenly but hopelessly. Even yet they were not demoralized, and some
were still in good order. As the little remnant got away across the
saddleback into Andredsweald they saw the Normans plunging rashly in
pursuit down the steep rearward slopes of Senlac. Turning to bay, true
even in that hour of despair, to their noble warrior strain, they set
upon the overweening horsemen, cut their leading squadrons to pieces,
and drove them back on Senlac. Panic spread through the Norman army;
Eustace of Boulogne is said to have counselled retreat, and it was only
when William himself rallied his squadrons and brought them along the
ridge in a properly ordered pursuit that the English finally melted
away into the woods.
Looking at the battle after this length of time, it is clear that
William only gained the day by desperate exertions, and that more than
once success hung in the balance. Had the English army possessed a
proportion of archers the day would have been Harold’s. It has been
pointed out that not even a great fleet saved England from an attack
by an invader prepared to take the risk of destruction. But it should
be remembered that Harold’s flotilla was not a properly organized
force, and cannot be compared to a modern fleet able to keep the
sea for several months at a time. Even as it was, William was very
near destruction though, so far as we can see, he caught Harold at a
disadvantage. By calmly taking such risks as few men could contemplate
unshaken, William did land in England, but his success was due to a
very remarkable combination of circumstances which it would be well to
recapitulate.
1. The English fleet, owing to its urgent need to revictual, was absent
from the chief danger-point at the crucial moment, and at the rate
of sailing in those days the Thames, even with favourable winds, was
farther from Pevensey than Rosyth is to-day from Portsmouth.
2. The English army at the moment when the invasion was imminent was
called to the defence of the north.
3. The wind which had baffled William for some six weeks shifted in
his favour at the precise moment when the English fleet and army were
absent.
4. The extraordinary rapidity of Harold’s southward march after his
defeat of Hardrada left the disorganized Northumbrian and Mercian
levies far in the rear.
5. The English were probably surprised into giving battle when Harold
would have preferred to await support.
6. The English army was at a fatal tactical disadvantage owing to its
lack of archers.
William’s losses had been exceedingly heavy. The mediæval chroniclers
estimate that he lost 12,000 to 15,000 men out of 40,000 to 60,000,
and we may fairly estimate from this that his casualties were about
a fourth of his fighting strength. But only a mere remnant of the
English host survived the day, and with the King fell every man of note
in southern England, except Esegar the Marshal, who was desperately
wounded. This awful destruction of the leaders was the most disastrous
feature of the battle. There was, as after-events showed, a complete
dearth of men about whom the English might rally.
In many ways the Battle of Hastings was itself the Norman Conquest,
though the events of the following two or three years are rather those
which gave William his title of ‘Conqueror.’ The whole south-east of
England had been utterly crushed; there remained for William only
the conquest piecemeal of the west and north. Kent was conquered
with scarcely any resistance, and William, advancing to the Thames,
beat back a sortie of the Londoners, burned Southwark, and moved up
the river feeling for a passage. Detachments from his army occupied
Winchester and the neighbouring towns, and William, crossing the Thames
at Wallingford, marched upon London. Eadwine and Morkere, who were
there with the forces which had been too late for Senlac, lost their
nerve when the Normans threatened their line of retreat to the north.
They hurriedly withdrew, and the Londoners bowed to necessity. ‘They
submitted then for need, when the most harm was done,’ mourns the
‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.’
There is no reason to doubt that William, when he promised to govern
England well, had every intention of keeping his word. But he probably
found it difficult from the outset to control the greedy adventurers
who followed him; and in any case he was bound to reward them. When
his strong hand was temporarily removed by his return to Normandy,
the tyranny of Odo of Bayeux and the excesses of the foreign nobles
and soldiers soon produced revolt. Yet there was nothing national in
the various uprisings; north, east, and west acted independently,
and of cordial co-operation there was not a sign. In 1067 William,
returning from Normandy, subdued the west and captured Exeter. Then,
marching northward, he overran Mercia and Northumbria. Nowhere was
there anything like an effective resistance; such opposition as was
made appears to have been mainly inspired by King Malcolm of Scotland.
Strong garrisons were placed at York, Lincoln, Nottingham, and other
places, and earthworks thrown up, which later were to grow into the
frowning castles that have somewhat incorrectly been associated with
the Norman Conquest.
The year 1069 saw the only serious and determined attempt to overthrow
the Norman rule. A great Danish fleet, sent by Sweyn Estrithson,
arrived in the Humber, joined the Northumbrians, and marched on York.
It was stormed and captured, and 30,000 foreign soldiers, it is said,
were slain or taken. But that was all, and the peril died down before
William’s vehement energy. The Danish fleet was bought off--William
was as ready as Philip of Macedonia to use ‘silver spears.’ Then the
King reoccupied York, and, lest any succeeding Scandinavian invasion
should find a foothold, wrought the awful devastation of the north--the
worst deed that stains his otherwise not ignoble character. The north,
wasted and ruined, was at his feet, and the reappearance next year of
Sweyn with a great fleet ended in a mere fiasco. The Danes and the East
Anglian rebels did little but plunder abbeys, and after sundry useless
demonstrations the Danes returned home.
There now remained in all England in arms against William only the
gathering in the Isle of Ely under the famous outlaw Hereward. Thither
came sundry English leaders, powerless and discredited, who now could
only swell the band of an erstwhile obscure chief. Eadwine had already
disappeared--slain, so says the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ by his own
men. Morkere succeeded in reaching Ely; but at best the leaders were
but a poor remnant. The position of Ely, surrounded by its waters, was
strong; but the garrison was not sufficiently numerous to take the
offensive with any hope of success. William fixed his headquarters
at Cambridge; a fleet was collected and brought up the Wash, and the
lines of investment were steadily drawn round the doomed stronghold.
A causeway was driven across the fens, and when at last it reached
firm land, after many checks and surprises inflicted by the watchful
Hereward, Ely was forced to surrender. Legends have clustered thickly
about the figure of Hereward ‘the Wake.’ He was certainly taken into
William’s favour, and was commanding troops for him on the Continent
some years later. The mass of the rank and file, however, were treated
with what seems to us horrible barbarity, being maimed and mutilated
wholesale. The punishment of death the ‘stark’ and terrible Conqueror
was always very chary of inflicting. Famous as the defence of Ely has
become, it is noteworthy that the Chronicle does not seem to regard
it as other than an isolated incident in the struggle. It is at any
rate clear that it could never have done more than temporarily check
the progress of the Conqueror, just as eighteen centuries before the
defence of Eira could only delay the Spartan conquest of Messenia.
With the fall of Ely the Norman Conquest of England was complete. The
country settled down beneath the yoke of William with resignation if
not cheerfulness, and the lack of further outbreaks seems to indicate
that after all his rule was not worse than that of his immediate
predecessors. Perhaps one explanation of this submissiveness is that
the English thegnhood emigrated to Constantinople in large numbers, so
that the nation lacked its natural leaders, but something must be set
to William’s credit despite his many faults and crimes. The fear of
foreign invasion died away; the Danish attacks in 1075 and 1085 were
utterly futile. Englishmen, while they hated William as the destroyer
of their independence, could not forget ‘the good peace that he made
in this land; so that a man of any account might fare over his kingdom
unhurt with his bosom full of gold.’ To keep the peace in a land was
no slight thing in those days of feudal anarchy; and if the Norman
Conquest was very far from being an unmixed benefit, it at least
brought about a better sense of unity than had hitherto prevailed in
England.
CHAPTER X
CONTINENTAL INVASIONS
1066-1545
Since 1066--a period of over eight centuries--there have been, apart
from many sporadic raids, no great successful invasions of England. On
two occasions relatively large forces have landed on these shores, but
in both cases they had the support of a considerable part of the nation.
The first of these occasions was in 1216. King John’s tyranny had at
last produced something like a general revolt--at any rate among his
barons. His assent to Magna Carta, given on June 15, 1215, had proved a
farce, and his mercenary armies were too strong for disorderly feudal
and civic levies. Further, John had declared himself the vassal of Pope
Innocent III., and thus ensured his support. The men of London, the
chief baronial stronghold, stoutly withstood the thunders of Rome; but
their military weakness forced them to apply for help to the Dauphin
Louis, son of John’s great enemy, Philip Augustus of France, whom they
acknowledged as King. Despite the opposition of the Pope, who finally
excommunicated him, Louis invaded England early in 1216.
England had possessed no regular standing navy since the days of
Edward the Confessor. The ports, however, had steadily increased in
prosperity during the generally peaceful period 1066-1216; and John,
living in fear of invasion, had kept up a large naval force collected
from them. It is at this time that the association of the Cinque Ports
becomes prominent, and, besides London, Yarmouth, Fowey, Bristol, and
other places, could send out hundreds of small but well-manned craft.
In 1214, under John’s gallant half-brother, William ‘Longsword,’ they
had gained the famous victory of Damme. Their effectiveness was much
diminished by their lack of discipline and bloody feuds, but when
united they were formidable. John had succeeded in conciliating them,
and had they met Louis at sea he would hardly have landed. But in 1216,
as in 1066, the English fleet was wind-bound, and Louis landed in
Thanet on May 21.
The operations that followed are devoid of interest, owing to their
aimlessness. Most of the south-east submitted to Louis, except Dover,
which made a magnificent resistance under Hubert de Burgh. A memento of
Louis’s domination survives in the name of a row of ancient houses at
St. Albans, which are said to have lodged some of his followers. King
John made an attempt to come to the relief of his faithful officer, but
lost his baggage and treasure in the treacherous shallows of the Wash,
and died at Newark on October 19.
His son Henry, a boy of ten, was crowned king at Gloucester by Cardinal
Gualo, the Pope’s legate. His chief supporter was William the Marshal,
Earl of Pembroke, an aged warrior, who had held his present rank under
Henry II. He was also supported by a strong remnant of his father’s
mercenaries, under the fierce chief Faukes de Bréauté, as well as by
greedy but talented officials of the type of Peter des Roches. Gualo
and the Marshal made great efforts to satisfy the mercenary generals,
and to keep their ruffianly troops in hand.
Louis, on his side, distrusted his English supporters, regarding them
as traitors, and was short of money to pay his own mercenaries. For
a while he continued to gain ground, but the dissensions among his
followers increased. The Royalists promised that all past desertions
should be forgiven to those who returned to their allegiance, and
barons began to change sides once more. The Cinque Ports, which had
submitted to Louis, now repented. The Wealden peasants rose against him
under an esquire named William de Cassingham (‘Wilkin of the Weald’),
and practically besieged Louis in Winchelsea, which was patriotically
deserted by its inhabitants. He was at last relieved by a French fleet,
but the Royalists meanwhile regained most of the south. Meanwhile,
however, his lieutenant in London, Enguerrand de Coucy, had organized
a force under Gilbert of Ghent, which marched northward and besieged
Lincoln.
Louis, much disheartened, went to France for reinforcements; but as he
was now under the ban of the Pope, he obtained little support, since
his cautious father dared not act openly. He was, however, joined by
the Counts of Brittany and Perche and other nobles, with some 120
knights and their followings, and brought back with him to England a
train of siege engines. The engines, however, made no impression on
Dover; and Lincoln Castle, gallantly defended by its châtelaine, Nicola
de Camville, was defiant.
Blanche of Castille, Louis’s wife, regardless of Papal thunders,
was collecting fresh forces in France to aid her husband. Louis, in
London, had the choice of moving either north or south. In the south
the Royalists were very strong, though Winchester still was Louis’s,
and the Prince resolved to turn his strength northward. A force under
the Count of Perche, Robert Fitzwalter, who had been the Marshal of
the baronial army in the preceding year, and Saer de Quincy, Earl of
Winchester, accordingly marched to assist Gilbert of Ghent at Lincoln.
The fall of the Castle now appeared imminent. The besieging army
consisted of over 600 knights and their followers. William the Marshal
came in haste from the south and joined Peter des Roches and Faukes de
Bréauté at Newark.
[Illustration:
_A. Rischgitz._
JOHN DUDLEY, VISCOUNT LISLE, DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND (OB. 1553).
Lord High Admiral of England in 1545.
_From an engraving (by T. A. Dean) after the portrait by Holbein._]
The Royalist army consisted of 400 knights’ retinues, and 300 mercenary
crossbowmen--_i.e._, probably only about 700 really effective
troops. They wore white crosses on their garments as the army of Holy
Church, and were solemnly blessed before they set out by Cardinal
Gualo--a ceremony which may or may not have appealed to Bréauté’s
swashbucklers. On May 20 they were outside Lincoln. The crossbowmen
were passed safely into the Castle, and the knights charged into the
town by the north gate. The French seem to have had no proper guard
at any of the entrances. They fought gallantly in the streets, but
were finally driven out by Bargate. It became blocked, and hundreds of
knights, including Robert Fitzwalter, were taken. The Count of Perche
was slain by a spear-thrust in the eye. Only a few knights fell, but
there was a frightful massacre of their followers and the hapless
citizens, while so much plunder was gained that the Royalists called
the combat ‘The Fair of Lincoln.’
This defeat was a severe blow to the hopes of Louis, but he still held
firm at London, watching for his reinforcements. The Dauphiness had
collected several hundred knights and large supplies, which were to be
conveyed to England by Eustace the Monk, a renegade ecclesiastic, now
a noted pirate chief, with a fleet of 100 sail. On August 23 it sailed
from Calais, but as all the south-eastern ports were hostile, and were
held in force by the Marshal, who had his headquarters at Sandwich,
it turned up Dover Straits to round the North Foreland and put into
the Thames. As it passed Dover, the Cinque Ports squadron, some
forty vessels under Hubert de Burgh himself, put out to the attack.
The ships were well manned with bowmen (or crossbowmen) under Philip
d’Albini, and quicklime was provided for use against boarders. The
heavily laden French ships were at a hopeless disadvantage. The English
seamen manœuvred for the wind, and, having gained it, bore down on
their encumbered foes. The result was an overwhelming victory. Robert
de Courtenay, the leader of the reinforcements, was taken prisoner.
So, too, was the Monk, who, having been in the English service,
was immediately beheaded. Many knights were slain, others drowned
themselves in despair, and only fifteen ships escaped. The victory had
decisive results. Louis at once made peace, submitting to the Pope’s
legate, and abandoning all hopes of the English crown. Hubert de Burgh
became the darling of England. Years later, when he had fallen into
disgrace with Henry III., a smith who was ordered to fetter him threw
down hammer and chains and swore that he would never put iron upon the
man who had saved England from a foreign yoke.
For more than three centuries there was little that can be described
as a serious invasion of England from the sea. The constant raids and
counter-raids of the more than half-piratical seamen of the Channel
ports, indeed, went on unchecked. The State Papers afford ample
evidence that piracy was rife among the seamen of the English ports.
During the ‘Hundred Years’ War’ with France these raids became of
national significance. At first the English held the command of the sea
by their famous victories of Sluys in 1340 and ‘L’Espagnols sur Mer’ in
1350, but after 1372 it passed to the allied French and Castilians. As
early as 1360 Winchelsea was sacked--a fate it again suffered in 1361.
In 1369 Portsmouth was burned. In 1372 the French and Spaniards gained
a complete victory over the English off La Rochelle. France had now a
capable admiral in Jean de Vienne, and in 1377 he carried devastation
along the English coast. The Isle of Wight was wasted, and Dartmouth,
Plymouth, Yarmouth, Rye, Hastings, and Portsmouth, sacked one after
another. The English were helpless, and the French sailed up the Thames
to Gravesend, which shared the fate of the other ports. The Patent
Rolls of this period are full of records of the prevailing panic and
disaster.
[Illustration: A VERY EARLY CAST-IRON BREECH-LOADING GUN FOUND NEAR
DOVER.
(_In the Artillery Museum, Woolwich._)]
Something was done to retaliate by raids on France, but with little
success. In 1380 the main Franco-Spanish fleet endeavoured to raid
Ireland, but was severely defeated by the ships of Devon and Bristol at
Kinsale. Yet in the same year Winchelsea was again destroyed. It never
recovered, and its once splendid church was reduced to the fragment
which still survives. In 1385 De Vienne sailed to the Forth, and helped
the Scots to invade England. A great effort, however, in 1386, to
equip a vast fleet for the invasion of England failed utterly, and the
English port squadrons made lucrative raids upon the French ships as
they lay rotting on the coasts. This failure practically put an end to
active French operations, but they still retained to a great extent
the command of the sea. In 1403 a French squadron sacked Plymouth,
and landed a few men to assist the great Welsh rebel, Owen Glendower.
Another squadron raided the Isle of Wight, but was repulsed by the men
of Hampshire.
In August, 1405, a large French fleet appeared in Milford Haven,
and landed 800 horsemen and 1,800 infantry, under the Maréchal Jean
de Rieux and Jean de Hangest, Master of the Crossbows. Glendower
joined them with 10,000 men. The allies took Tenby, Haverfordwest,
and Caermarthen, and brought Henry IV. westward with a large army.
Glendower starved him into a retreat, and captured much of the royal
baggage, including Henry’s crown and robes. But the French fleet was
defeated by Lord Berkeley, and the French soldiers worked as ill with
the Welsh as with the Scots (see Chapter XI.). They drifted home in
detachments during 1405 and 1406, and Glendower was left to maintain
alone his gallant but hopeless contest with England.
For over a hundred years France made no further attempt. She interfered
at different times in the English dynastic broils, but not until
1545 was there any attempt at a great invasion. During this period,
despite civil and foreign war, the idea of a true royal navy had never
been really lost sight of. Henry VII. had given the question serious
attention, and his vigorous son took a strong personal interest in
naval matters. The consequence was that by 1543, when war threatened
with France, he had a really formidable naval force.
When war broke out England was in alliance with the Emperor Charles
V., while France’s only supporter was gallant but feeble Scotland.
The result was that the English Navy wasted the Scottish and French
coasts, and swept French commerce off the sea. But in 1545 François
I. succeeded in detaching Charles from the alliance. He then
slowly collected a huge fleet. There finally assembled nearly 150
great-ships (_gros vaisseaux ronds_), 60 oared vessels of 40 or 50
tons (_flouins_), and 25 galleys from the Mediterranean. Besides the
crews, there were 10,000 troops on board under the Maréchal Biez. The
Commander-in-Chief was Admiral d’Annibault. Paulin, Baron de la Garde,
and Leone Strozzi, Admiral of the Galleys of Rhodes, commanded the
galleys.
Henry had ample intelligence of the intended invasion. The whole of the
available naval strength of England was concentrated at Spithead under
the command of John, Lord Lisle, High Admiral of England, afterwards
Duke of Northumberland. It consisted of ‘great-ships’ built in England
or purchased abroad, ‘galleasses’--really galleons, or ships built
on finer lines than the ordinary great-ship (see Chapter XIII.), and
small craft. To deal with the free-moving galleys Henry had himself
designed thirteen row-barges, fast, handy little vessels of about 20
tons, armed with several small guns, and propelled by sweeps as well
as sails. The flagship was an unwieldy giant of 1,000 tons, the _Harry
Grâce-à-Dieu_. The total number of vessels was over 100. The majority
of the crews were soldiers; the supreme importance of the seaman was
not yet realized. In view of the apparent superiority of the enemy
Lisle was ordered to remain on the defensive. No less than 120,000 men
were levied for land defence, organized in four armies.
D’Annibault sailed from Havre on July 14. On the 16th he was off the
coast of Sussex, where he wasted time in pillaging fishing-villages.
He then moved on to the Isle of Wight, and anchored off St. Helens.
Next day the galleys engaged the English fleet at long range without
result. On the 18th the French threatened an attack in three divisions
of ships, with the galleys as an advance guard. There was a dead
calm, and for a while the long 60-pounders of the galleys made good
practice. But before long a breeze sprang up, and Lisle weighed so
smartly that the galleys were nearly caught before they could put
about. They succeeded in doing so, however, and retired slowly, with
the object of drawing on the English great-ships. Lisle, however,
would not be enticed, and sent the row-barges in pursuit. They chased
with great daring, and before the long galleys could turn on their
nimble tormentors they had been well peppered. Had the French made a
serious attack, Lisle had formed an able plan for their discomfiture.
He designed to fall with his whole force on their right wing and drive
them upon the dangerous shoals of the ‘Owers’ which stretch eastward
from the Isle of Wight. The wind, however, was unfavourable, and
without it he would not abandon his strong position.
[Illustration: BREECH-LOADING WROUGHT-IRON GUN RECOVERED FROM THE
‘MARIE ROSE.’
The _Marie Rose_ was built in 1509. The iron pin may have been
used for manipulating the clumsy, wooden breech-block shown in
place. The rings or dolphins were used for slinging the gun.
(_In the Royal United Service Museum, Whitehall._)]
As it was obvious that Lisle was not to be drawn out, the French landed
raiding parties in the Isle of Wight. They were roughly handled by the
garrison, and then D’Annibault gave up and retired. Disease was already
breaking out in the crowded and dirty ships. The English lost the
great-ship _Marie Rose_, which capsized owing to her bad construction
and over-armament, carrying with her Captain Grenville, (father of the
hero of Elizabeth’s reign), Sir George Carew, and 500 men.
[Illustration:
A BRASS CANNON ROYAL OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII., RECOVERED FROM
THE WRECK OF THE ‘MARIE ROSE.’
Length, 8 feet 6 inches; calibre, 8·54 inches; weight of shot,
about 60 pounds.
(_In the Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich._)]
D’Annibault made some more irritating and futile raids on Sussex, and
then went back to Havre, landed 7,000 of his scurvy-stricken troops,
and returned to sail aimlessly about the Channel. Meanwhile Henry,
annoyed at finding that the galleys could thus beard him at his very
door, had ordered some of his lighter ships to be fitted with sweeps.
Having effected this, Lisle cleared from Spithead about August 11, with
104 sail. He had carefully organized his fleet, and the flagships
all carried special flags by day and lights at night. The watchword was
‘God save King Henry!’ the countersign ‘And long to reign over us!’ The
order of battle was--
‘Vawarde’: 24 great-ships; 3,800 men. Sir Thomas Clere,
Vice-Admiral of England.
‘Battle’: 40 great-ships; 6,846 men. Viscount Lisle, Lord High
Admiral of England.
‘Wing’: 40 galleasses, shallops, and war-boats; 2,092 men.
Rear-Admiral William Tyrrell.
[Illustration: A GREAT SHIP OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII.
Vessels of this type, with the characteristic cage-works fore and aft,
made up the greater part of Lisle’s fleet.]
On the 15th the two fleets encountered off Shoreham. Lisle intended
to attack the French great-ships, which were close inshore, with the
‘Battle’ and the ‘Vawarde,’ while the ‘Wing’ of oared craft kept
off the galleys. Before he could close, however, the wind fell. The
fighting was only between the galleys and Tyrrell. The advantage rested
with the English. Lisle stated that the oared craft ‘did so handle the
galleys, as well with their sides as with their prows, that your great
ships in a manner had little to do;’ and in the night the French drew
off. They went home and dispersed, and so in this impotent fashion the
greatest invasion of England that had yet been planned flickered out.
Lisle was able to burn Tréport, and retaliate for the raids on Sussex;
and towards the close of the war an action was fought off Ambleteuse,
south of Cape Gris-Nez. There were eight French galleys against four
English ‘galleasses’ and four pinnaces. It is notable because the
English declined to close, and relied chiefly upon steady gun-fire.
The galleys were severely mauled, and one of them taken.
The attack of François I. was the first serious attempt at an invasion
of England by France from the sea since the abortive effort in 1386. It
was not to be the last, though all were to be fruitless; but not for
more than 250 years was a hostile French soldier to set foot on English
soil, and then but for a moment.
CHAPTER XI
SCOTTISH INVASIONS
1018-1424
Shakespeare in ‘King Henry V.’ puts into the King’s mouth the following
lines:
‘For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish’d kingdom
Came pouring like the tide into a breach.’
And the words express sufficiently well the popular opinion of Scotland
as the especial and persevering enemy of England. Like a good many
popular opinions, it is only partly true. Yet it has a foundation of
fact, in so far that for some three centuries England and Scotland were
generally at war. Still, this condition of chronic hostility was not
reached until the reign of Edward I., and before then the two countries
had no more than the amount of warfare that might have been expected of
two adjacent and warlike peoples.
It has already been noticed that Constantine III.’s vague
acknowledgment of English suzerainty had had less success from the
political point of view than he had hoped for, and that his attempt
to unite the disaffected sections of the English Empire had met with
crushing disaster. The old King, bereaved and broken-hearted, withdrew
to ‘his northland,’ and for many years the Scottish kingdom, slowly
growing together out of its discordant elements of Scots, Picts, and
Strathclyde Britons, was content to remain a sort of appendage of its
powerful neighbour.
But with the break-up of the English Empire in the beginning of the
eleventh century, the unsubstantial allegiance of Scotland grew more
than ever shadowy. In 1018 occurred an event which had consequences
of profound importance. England had just come under the rule of Cnut.
Deira was governed by Eric Haakonson, but the Bernicians held out
against him under Eardwulf ‘Cudel.’ Malcolm II. of Scotland, a vigorous
ruler, saw his chance. He had long coveted Lothian, and had made
various futile attacks upon it. In 1006 he had pushed southward as far
as Durham, and had there been defeated by Earl Uhtred. But this time he
was more fortunate. Eardwulf, attacked by Eric, had more upon his hands
than he could cope with, when Malcolm with his vassal, Eugenius of
Strathclyde, invaded Bernicia. He overran Lothian without assistance,
and at Carham, on the Tweed, gained a crushing victory over the weak
Bernician host, almost exterminating it. The result of the victory was
the permanent union of Lothian to Scotland. To Cnut it was a matter of
small importance; probably he regarded it as better that Lothian should
belong to the apparently loyal Scot than the rebellious Eardwulf. In
1027 Malcolm paid a formal homage to the Emperor of the North. But the
Lothians and the Merse became an integral part of Scotland, and their
sturdy Teutonic population proved the nucleus about which the inchoate
and distracted realm eventually solidified into a single state.
It is almost unnecessary to say that, as soon as Cnut was in his grave,
Malcolm’s successor Duncan threw off his allegiance. In 1040 he invaded
Bernicia. The line of the Tyne was as yet undefended, and he pressed on
to Dunholm (Durham), where the south Bernician levies had taken refuge.
Making a gallant sortie, they completely routed the disorderly swarm of
Picts, Scots, and Britons, and celebrated their victory by raising a
bloody trophy of severed heads.
Duncan’s prestige as successor of the conqueror Malcolm II. was
shattered by this defeat, and he was at once involved in war with his
many unruly vassals. Soon after the battle of Dunholm he was defeated,
and slain by his general Macbeth, ‘Mormaer’ (hereditary chief) of
Moray, who assumed the crown, and ruled very successfully for seventeen
years. It was not until 1057 that he was slain in battle by Malcolm
‘Canmore,’ the son and heir of Duncan.
Malcolm early began to interfere in English affairs. He may be very
fairly compared to those early kings of Parthia, whose single object
was to add territory to their own narrow lands. Malcolm’s power,
however, was not equal to his energy and ambition. Like the kings
of Bulgaria in their relations with the Eastern Empire, he might
gain temporary successes, but in the end the victory inclined to the
larger and more powerful state; nor, despite the courage of her people
and their stubborn pride in their nationality, was Scotland ever a
dangerous rival. At her best she was a troublesome neighbour, and as
England naturally moved faster on the path of progress than her poor
and politically hampered foe, the chances were more and more against
the latter ever gaining a decisive success.
Scotland has been well served by her poets. The average Englishman
is generally serenely ignorant of the very names of his ancestors’
victories; while not merely Bannockburn, but a score of minor
matters--mostly mere Border skirmishes--are celebrated by Scott, and
referred to with pride. This radical difference between the standpoints
of the two nations can hardly be ignored.
The hope of making further acquisitions of Northumbrian territory was
undoubtedly the main motive of Scots kings for two centuries after
Carham. Malcolm III. made a raid on Northumberland in 1061, but the
savagery of his followers can hardly have helped his cause. Later he is
found in alliance with Tosti, the rebellious brother of Harold II.
Malcolm’s hopes were rudely checked by the events of 1066. William’s
introduction of a highly centralized rule ensured that for the future
Northumbria would not be left to fight her own battles unaided, or, at
least, unavenged. Yet for a time Malcolm’s marriage to Margaret, sister
of Eadgar the Aetheling, and the considerable immigration into Scotland
of fugitive Englishmen, seemed to promise otherwise. Cumberland, it
must be remembered, was at present a part of Scotland, having been
granted by Eadmund I., after his conquest of it, as a fief to Malcolm
I., and Carlisle was an excellent base of operations. In 1070 Malcolm,
starting thence, made another savage raid into Northumberland. William
thereupon proceeded northward next year, with a great army and a fleet,
and penetrated to the Tay. Malcolm made a vague submission, but in
1079, during William’s absence in Normandy, he made a third raid, which
was replied to by a counter raid under Prince Robert. A fortress was
then constructed on the Tyne to defend southern Bernicia, called the
‘New Castle.’ The result was immediate. Malcolm made no further attack
for twelve years, and was then checked by the garrison of Newcastle.
He made some kind of submission, but Cumberland was conquered by a
treacherous attack of William Rufus, and the English king’s insults
drove him to madness. He once more invaded Northumberland, and near
Alnwick was defeated and slain.
For many years after the famous king’s death there were no Scottish
invasions. Scotland was much troubled with civil war, and afterwards
divided between two sons of Malcolm. It was not until 1124 that David
I. reunited the country under his rule. For eleven years his relations
with England were peaceful, but when Stephen of Blois usurped the
English throne, the Scottish king invaded Northumberland, nominally
to support his niece, the Empress Matilda, really, of course, to make
his profit out of the situation. Northumberland and Durham readily
submitted to him as the representative of Matilda, and Stephen, pressed
by many difficulties, was glad to purchase his withdrawal by the
retrocession of Carlisle, nominally to David’s son Henry, who also
received Doncaster and the Earldom of Huntingdon. But the great English
magnates were bitterly indignant, and in 1138 war again broke out.
David invaded Northumberland at the very beginning of the year.
Already castles were arising, and he failed to take Wark, but wasted
the open country, his hordes of wild mountaineers committing terrible
atrocities. Stephen hastened northward, and David retreated; but the
English king, with rebellion in the south, could only waste Lothian
and withdraw. David thereupon reassembled his forces and again
advanced. Norham Castle was taken, Wark again besieged, the levies of
Lancashire defeated by the King’s nephew William at Clitheroe, and the
Scottish host poured over Tees into Yorkshire. There it encountered
solid resistance. Its barbarities had exasperated the country-folk,
and they rallied _en masse_ to oppose the invaders. The nominal
commander-in-chief was the young William of Albemarle, but Thurstan,
Archbishop of York, and Sir Walter Espec, the High Sheriff, were the
real leaders.
The men of Yorkshire, with reinforcements from Durham, Derby, and
Nottingham, assembled at Northallerton, and took up a position on
Cowton Moor some distance to the northward. On August 22 they were
attacked by the Scots.
David had with him a heterogeneous host from all parts of his
dominions--said, with considerable probability, to have been 26,000
strong. But it was very unstable. The Picts of Alban were jealous
of the ‘Saxons’ of Lothian, and neither were inclined to work well
with the Britons of Strathclyde. The Niduarian Picts of Galloway were
uncontrollable, and all the old elements of the realm disliked the new
Norman-Teutonic immigrants, although their small force of about 500
mailed horsemen was to show itself the one thoroughly reliable arm of
the host.
The English army was, without any doubt, greatly inferior in number,
as is shown by the fact that it maintained a passive defensive--the
last plan of action likely to be adopted by the fiery Norman-English
knights unless there had been compelling reason for it. The bulk of
the force consisted of the country levies, but the whole knighthood of
Yorkshire were there, and there was a strong contingent of archers.
Albemarle and Espec formed their army into one solid mass, probably
with the mail-clad knights and their followers dismounted as a front
rank. In the centre of the line was a waggon with a tall mast stepped
in it, from which flew the sacred banners of St. Peter of York, St.
Cuthbert of Durham, St. Wilfrid of Ripon, and St. John of Beverley; and
beneath their shadow old Walter Espec and Albemarle took their stand,
with a band of chosen warriors as a guard. The horses were sent to the
rear, and the barons and knights promised to stand and die with the
country-folk.
There was a hot and unfriendly debate in the Scottish host, which
shows how incoherent it was. David, according to Aelred of Rievaulx,
had intended to attack in one huge column, with the mailed cavalry in
front; but the Picts violently objected. Malise, Earl of Strathearn,
declared that the ‘Saxons’ were no better than cowards, and that he
himself, though he wore no mail, would outstrip the best of them in the
charge. Alan Percy hotly replied, and the King was obliged to part the
two. The Galwegians, who had distinguished themselves at Clitheroe,
were equally furious and insubordinate, and eventually David had to
consent to deliver his attack in territorial divisions. On the right,
under the King’s gallant son Henry, were the Strathclydians with two
hundred knights at their head. On the left were the men of Lothian,
with some Argyll and Isles men; and in the centre, in advance of the
wings, were the Galwegians with, probably, other Pictish contingents.
Behind the centre King David led a reserve consisting of the men of
Moray and other Highland regions, with all the knights not on the wings.
As the Scottish masses moved forward they were assailed with showers
of arrows, and the wild Galwegians raced to handgrips just as, for
centuries thereafter, the Highland clans were to charge, brandishing
their swords and yelling ‘Albanach! Albanach!’ as they dashed through
the deadly hail. The English line gave back for a moment before the
impact of the rush, but rallied at once and stood firm--a wall of steel
upon which the Celtic billows beat fiercely, but without avail. On
the left the men of Lothian and Lorn did badly. They had never agreed
together. Perhaps the Lowlanders had little heart in the fight against
their Northumbrian kinsmen. Their leader was killed in the advance, and
the whole wing gave back after the first charge, taking no further part
in the battle.
On the Scottish right matters went differently. The Strathclydians
charged gallantly, and the knights in front burst right through the
English line, penetrating to the baggage and horses in the rear. But
so fine was the spirit of the Yorkshire men, that they rallied and
re-formed in the very face of the enemy, and cut off the Strathclydian
infantry from Henry’s squadron. The fight raged fiercely along the
line, the Scots rallying again and again, and hurling themselves in
repeated charges against the close English ranks. The hardest and
best fighting seems to have been done by the Galwegians in the centre.
They held on to the English line for two hours, and made three furious
assaults. Not until the third had been repelled, and their chiefs
Donald and Ulgarich slain, did they sullenly give back, many of them,
as Aelred says, ‘looking like hedgehogs with the arrows sticking in
them.’ The Strathclyde men also were in retreat, and Prince Henry,
cut off with the remnant of his gallant band, was vainly endeavouring
to rejoin the main body. The King’s reserve was demoralized by the
sight of the retreat of the left and the repeated repulse of the
Picts and Strathclydians, refused to advance, and broke up. David was
left among his dissolving host with only his few hundred horsemen. He
fell back some way, and raised his banner on a hill. Around it the
ruins of the right and centre, with the disgraced left and reserve,
gradually rallied, unmolested by the English, who knew that only half
the Scottish host had been seriously engaged, and were unaware of
the dissensions that had rendered it ineffective. Then David began
his retreat to Carlisle, cautiously pursued by Espec and Albemarle.
At Carlisle Prince Henry at last rejoined, having given away his
encumbering mail to a peasant, and with only nineteen of his two
hundred horsemen still with him.
The result of the ‘Battle of the Standards’ was highly honourable
to the English Northerners, but it is easy to see that the hopeless
lack of cordial co-operation between the various sections of the
Scottish host ensured its defeat. In a modified form this want of
cohesion continued to the last to affect the efficiency of Scottish
armies of invasion. David continued to fish in the agitated waters of
English politics, and during his reign retained practical possession
of Northumberland and Durham, save for a few castles; but he made no
more invasions in force, and after his death Henry II. recovered the
northern counties.
The invasion of William the Lion, in 1174, was made ostensibly to
aid the rebellious sons of Henry II. against their father. William’s
true object was, no doubt, to recover the border counties. Perhaps
no invasion of England has ever appeared so threatening, and proved
so completely ‘the fleeting shadow of a dream.’ William’s army was
large--perhaps the largest that a Scots king had hitherto gathered--but
he could not control his wild followers. His advance was marked by
ravage and destruction--peculiarly stupid in view of the fact that he
hoped to annex the country which he was ruining. Several fortresses
were captured, and in July he besieged Alnwick. He kept only a very
small force about him, and allowed the main portion of his probably
unruly host to spread over the country for purpose of pillage. The
consequences of the dispersion were disastrous. The troops of the North
had already assembled under Robert d’Estuteville, Sheriff of Yorkshire,
and were marching against the invaders. A body of some four hundred
horsemen was scouting ahead of the main body, and so hopelessly were
the Scots scattered that they passed, apparently unchallenged, through
the enemy’s line into his rear. Before the walls of Alnwick they saw
a small body of about a hundred horsemen engaged in exercising and
tilting. They can hardly have expected that they would be so rash as to
charge their own superior numbers. Yet so it was. Practically the whole
of the tilting band were taken, and the astonishment of the victors may
be imagined when they found that they had captured the King of Scots.
The Scottish army melted away across the Border. The King paid dearly
for his recklessness. He was forced to become Henry’s vassal, and so
remained until the death of the Angevin king. Richard I. very wisely
freed him from this humiliation in return for a money payment, but
there were no more Scottish invasions of England for many years. The
Scottish kings never gave up their hopes of gaining Northumberland, and
more than once hostilities appeared to threaten; but on the whole the
relations between the two countries were peaceful, and when Alexander
III. died in 1286 there had been no real outbreak of war for a century.
This peaceful period came to an end when Edward I. made his attempt to
unite the two countries. That his aim was wise and statesmanlike is not
to be doubted. There was no strong dividing line between the great mass
of the English nation and the Scots Lowlanders, who, for all practical
purposes, formed one race. The two countries had been in close and
generally peaceful connection for over a century; the estates of many
of the magnates lay on both sides of the Border. On the subject of the
repeated ‘commendations’ of the Scottish kings to those of England,
opinion will always be divided; but to Edward’s legal mind they must
have appeared to constitute a strong body of precedents. Nor does it,
on the whole, appear that there was at first any great disinclination
to the union among the Scots. It was Edward’s highhandedness, and the
blundering violence of his officials, who were foolish enough to treat
the country like a conquered land, that slowly roused the pride and
courage of the Scots.
In 1297 Scotland was in full revolt under William Wallace, and after
his famous victory at Cambuskenneth he invaded northern England while
Edward was absent in France. For some three months the Scots ranged
over the English Border counties. Newcastle and Carlisle successfully
held out, but the open country was swept bare. The chronicler
Hemingburgh accuses the Scots of committing unmentionable atrocities,
but practically admits that Wallace was not to blame for them, being
unable to control his followers. There exists a letter of protection
granted by him and his colleagues to Hexham Abbey, and doubtless there
were others. Still, great barbarities appear to have been perpetrated,
and it was largely owing to them that Edward conceived his furious
animosity against the Scottish patriot.
In the stress of their struggle for independence with Edward I. the
Scots contrived to make a raid on Cumberland in 1299, but by 1305 the
country was at the feet of the English king. Not until Robert Bruce had
taken the lead in Scotland, and the worthless Edward II. had succeeded
his great father, were the northern borders again troubled. In 1310,
and again in 1311, Robert raided Northumberland, and in 1313 he swept
through Cumberland, joined a fleet which he had sent from the Isles
and the Clyde, and annexed the Norse principality of Man. In 1314 he
gained the supreme victory of Bannockburn. The independence of Scotland
appeared assured and the way open for invasions of England.
Between 1314 to 1323 the Scots invaded England repeatedly. All their
operations were of a guerrilla type, and rarely appear to have aimed
at more than the devastation of the country-side. Robert, himself one
of the ablest generals of mediæval days, had no illusions as to the
ability of Scotland to cope single-handed with her strong antagonist,
and his famous testamentary counsel to always avoid action and to
endeavour to starve invaders out of the country is well known.
The armies which carried out the invasions of England during this
heyday of Scotland’s renown were well adapted for their purpose. They
included a force of mail-clad men-at-arms strong enough to overcome any
local resistance which might be offered, and a much larger contingent
of light-armed men mounted on rough, hardy, country ponies. Each
man carried a bag of oatmeal on his horse, and an iron plate whereon
to bake it. Otherwise men and beasts lived on the country through
which they passed. The hardy, frugal Scots were quite at home in this
rough-and-ready campaigning, and for several years they rode at will
over northern England.
There is generally a lack of interest about the invasions themselves,
which all bore almost the same image and superscription. Once the
Border was crossed, the Scots rode far and wide over the northern
counties, ravaging, plundering, or ransoming villages, towns, and
castles, much as the Vikings had done four centuries before. There was
little fighting as a rule. England was at war with herself. And when
once or twice English armies did assemble, the Scots simply avoided an
action until they were starved into dispersion.
In 1314 Edward Bruce and the ‘Good Lord’ James Douglas wasted the
English Border. In 1315 Bruce himself attacked Carlisle, but it
repulsed him. For the next two years the main energy of Scotland was
devoted to Edward Bruce’s attempted conquest of Ireland, but Douglas
was busy on the Border; and such was the dread of him in the North that
his name was used to frighten disobedient children, and the humiliation
of the times is depicted in the lullaby:
‘Hush thee, baby, do not fret thee;
The Black Douglas shall not get thee!’
In 1318 Berwick was taken, and a large English army was driven in
ruinous retreat from an attempted counter-invasion of Scotland in
the following year. In 1320 the best of Robert’s captains, the famous
Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, assisted by Douglas, retaliated.
They pressed on across Northumberland and Durham into Yorkshire, and
at Myton-on-Swale encountered the local levies under the Archbishop
of York. Perhaps the Primate hoped to repeat the famous day of the
‘Standards.’ But the results were far otherwise. The Yorkshiremen were
totally routed; 3,000 men were slain and so many of the ecclesiastics,
who were present to encourage the peasants, that the fray was called
‘Myton Chapter’ by the victors.
The result was that King Robert planned a campaign in 1322, which
should be more than a mere marauding expedition. The English obtained
intelligence, and Edward II. collected a large army at Newcastle. The
Scottish king, therefore, stood on the defensive in Lothian, while
a strong detachment crossed the western border and penetrated into
mid-Lancashire. Edward found Lothian desolate, and effected nothing but
the destruction of some abbeys--notably those of Melrose and Dryburgh.
Bruce declined to fight, and the English army, perishing from famine
and disease, melted away over the Border. So ruined were the northern
counties of England that Edward could not halt until he reached Byland
Abbey in Yorkshire. There so much as remained of the dissolving host
lay in security, when, on October 14, like a bolt from the blue, the
royal army of Scotland was upon them!
When the English army broke up, Bruce had followed from across the
Forth, and had passed through Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire so
swiftly that no tidings of his march seem to have reached the astounded
English. Early on October 14 the Scots fell upon the scattered English
divisions. There was little effective resistance; a connected line of
battle was never indeed formed. Edward fled in haste, abandoning his
baggage and military chest. A part of his army attempted to make a
stand at a good position in the rear of their cantonments. Douglas,
whose division was leading the pursuit, attacked in front, assisted by
Moray, who hurried in advance of his troops to serve under ‘Good Lord
James.’ For a time the English held their own, but when the Highlanders
arrived on the field the end came swiftly. The barefooted mountaineers
scrambled up the crags which covered the English wings, and charged in
flank and rear. The English fled in panic-stricken rout, and Walter the
Steward took up the pursuit, chasing the fugitives to the gates of York.
On May 30, 1323, Edward at last bowed his pride to calling a truce. It
was time, for the suffering North was already making terms of its own
with King Robert. The truce was ill-kept, and in 1327 broken by the
Scots. This was a diplomatic blunder on the part of King Robert; but
the disorder in England at the deposition of the witless Edward II.
was so great that he can hardly be blamed for seizing the opportunity.
He himself was already dying, but Moray and Douglas led the army across
the Border on this last great successful Scottish invasion of England.
Its strength is stated at 24,000 men, but it was probably less. The
English Regency assembled a strong force at York under the nominal
command of the boy-King Edward III., but its operations were utterly
futile. It literally lost its way in the Border wilderness, and only
ascertained the whereabouts of the Scots from a released prisoner,
Thomas of Rokeby. Even then the Scottish position was found too strong
to be assailed, and though Douglas would have accepted young Edward’s
proposal--fantastic, but quite in the spirit of the times--to withdraw
far enough to allow him to form order of battle, the able and prudent
Moray rightly refused to listen. For fifteen days the armies confronted
each other, the English suffering far more than their foes; and then
Moray quietly retreated under cover of a daring night surprise of the
English camp executed by Douglas. Three hundred men were killed, and
Edward’s tent was almost cut down over his head before the bold warrior
was obliged to retire. The supplies left behind by the Scots saved the
English from immediate starvation, and that was all. The expense of the
armament had, for the moment, exhausted England, and by the ‘Shameful
Treaty’ of Northampton, April 24, 1328, the independence of Scotland
was formally recognized.
From the high position to which she had been raised by Robert I.
Scotland fell fast. The anarchy which followed his death bade fair to
undo his life-work. Edward III. of England assisted Edward Balliol, son
of the ill-omened John, to attack Scotland, and himself made repeated
attempts to destroy her newly-gained independence. In these he was
baffled, but numerous strong places on the Border remained in English
hands. The need of an ally against England drove Scotland into the
arms of France, and the country became little better than an appendage
of the Continental Power. The ill effects of this are to be traced in
Scottish history for two centuries.
In 1346 King David II., the weak successor of his great father,
determined to invade England as a diversion in favour of France. Edward
III. was besieging Calais, and David appears to have been certain of
success. His army is said to have included 2,000 men-at-arms, 20,000
light cavalry, and 10,000 infantry. He invaded England by the Western
Marches, and sacked Lanercost Priory, a circumstance which evoked
bitter denunciations of him and his from the Lanercost Chronicle.
Moving on westward, David stormed the ‘Pyle’[F] of Liddell, hanging its
commander, Walter de Selby, and advanced to Bearpark, about six miles
from Bishop Auckland, where he encamped on October 16.
[F] Obviously another rendering of the well-known term
‘Peel’--Border stronghold.
Meanwhile the levies of the North had gathered to oppose his farther
advance. Edward’s youthful son, Lionel, was the nominal guardian of
the realm, but the real head of the government was Queen Philippa,
who herself was in the North to expedite measures of defence. Though
it is probably untrue that she accompanied the army to the field, it
is highly probable that she personally directed the levying of the
troops. By October 16 an army of some 10,000 men, under those barons
of the North who were in England, was collected in Bishop Auckland
Park. The Scots were quite unaware of its proximity, and a marauding
column, under Sir William Douglas, blundered into it on the evening of
the 16th, losing heavily before it could withdraw. David, young and
hot-blooded, at once resolved to attack, though his swarm of spearmen,
without archers, and weak in heavy cavalry, was at a great disadvantage
beside the English force.
On the morning of the 17th the English army was strongly posted on the
hills north of Bishop Auckland. The ground in its front was broken and
intersected by hedges. The Archbishop of York was on the field, and
the banners of the northern saints, suspended to a great cross, were
carried into action, as they had been at Northallerton two centuries
before. The centre was commanded by Ralph Neville, the right by Henry
Percy and the northern barons, the left, of Lancashire men, by Thomas
of Rokeby. The Scots advanced in three divisions, the centre under
the King, the right under the Earl of Moray, the left under Robert,
the High Steward of Scotland, afterwards the first Stuart King. From
the first everything went ill with the Scots. Entangled among the
enclosures and ditches, their heavy, cumbrous columns, as at Halidon
Hill, were tormented and disordered by a rain of arrows, to which they
could make no reply. Sir John Graham in vain charged with a body of
horsemen in the endeavour to ride down the bowmen. He and his band were
all shot down. Seeing the disorder among their adversaries, the English
army came on to a counter-attack, with the sacred banners waving in
their van. The Scots’ right, striving vainly to form in order amid the
hedges and obstacles, was charged by the men-at-arms, broken and driven
back in utter rout, with the loss of its leader; the Steward’s division
was forced away, and cut off from the King, and the whole English
force closed upon the centre. For some three hours the Scots fought
desperately, but their mass was finally pierced through and shattered,
and David himself wounded and taken prisoner by John of Coupland, a
Northumbrian squire.
Robert the Steward appears to have been accused of having made no
effort to save the King. David certainly seems to have suspected him;
but it must be said that had he brought up his division again, he would
probably have only added to the greatness of the disaster. He retreated
in tolerable order, drawing to him as many as possible of the survivors
from the other divisions, and the English were too weary to pursue.
With David were taken the Archbishop of St. Andrews and several nobles,
while the death-roll included more than thirty barons, including the
Lord Marischal Keith and the Constable Hay.
This great disaster brought about a cessation of Scottish invasions
for many years. David II. became more or less Anglicized during his
long residence in England, and Robert the Steward, both as regent and
monarch, was inclined to peace. The nobles, however, were warlike
and turbulent, and the people did not love England. Several Border
strongholds were still held by the English, and there was continuous
skirmishing on the frontier, which, however, rarely assumed the dignity
of national strife. The Black Death weakened both nations, and not
until 1377 was the war renewed in earnest. Berwick-on-Tweed was taken
and retaken. There was fighting on the sea, ending in the destruction
of the Scottish piratical fleet under Andrew Mercer by the London
merchant Philpot. The English invaded the Lothians more than once with
no permanent results.
In 1385 Jean de Vienne, Admiral of France, landed in Scotland with
2,000 men-at-arms, 50,000 francs of gold, and a large supply of arms
and armour. A great invasion of England was organized, and 30,000 men
under De Vienne, James, Earl of Douglas, and other lords, entered
Northumberland. So formidable did the invasion appear that the young
King Richard II. himself took the command against the Scots. To the
disgust of the French, the Scots retreated into Clydesdale, and, while
the English burned Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee, made a retaliatory
raid into Cumberland. They did not agree well with their allies,
who, on their side, conceived a great dislike for the poverty of the
country, as well as for the keenness of the people in respect of
monetary transactions. They went home sulkily, De Vienne himself being
pledge that the cost of their maintenance should be paid by France.
Chance made the two nations allies, but the French themselves never
seem to have made a good impression in Scotland.
In 1388 the Scottish nobles arranged--behind the King’s back be it
noted--an attack on England to revenge the devastation of 1385. An
army, vaguely said to have been 40,000 strong, under Robert, Earl of
Fife, the second son of the King, invaded Cumberland, with the usual
negative result; while a body of about 5,000, under Douglas, crossed
the Tweed, and carried devastation to the gates of Durham. The Earl of
Northumberland and his son Henry, the celebrated ‘Hotspur,’ were driven
into Newcastle, and Douglas retired unmolested as far as Otterburn,
some twenty miles from the Border. Here he was overtaken by a force
under ‘Hotspur,’ and a furious engagement took place, which has been
celebrated by Froissart in prose and in the famous ballad of ‘Chevy
Chase.’ In the end the English were beaten off, and Percy and other
knights fell into the hands of the Scots, who, however, had to lament
the death of their leader.
In the following year Robert II. died. His feeble son John, ‘Robert
III.,’ was anxious to keep the peace with England, and in this was
backed by his brother and co-regent, Robert, Duke of Albany. In 1398
the heir-apparent, David, Duke of Rothesay, supplanted his uncle for
a while, and inaugurated a vigorous anti-English policy. He alienated
the powerful Earl of March by breaking off his betrothal to his
daughter, and March fled to England. Henry IV. was anxious for peace,
but the Scots appear to have been determined on war, and he made a
brief expedition into Scotland in 1399. In 1402, after much desultory
skirmishing, the Scots, taking advantage of Henry’s preoccupations,
invaded England with a considerable army under Murdoch, Earl of
Fife, son of Albany (who had overthrown and murdered Rothesay), and
Archibald, Earl of Douglas, grandson of the hero of Otterburn. They
advanced, ravaging in the usual manner, as far as the Tyne, and then
turned homeward, pursued by a force under ‘Hotspur’ and the fugitive
Earl of March. They were overtaken while encamped on Homildon, or
Humbledon, Hill, near Wooler. Percy and March, adopting tactics
curiously similar to those employed a century later almost at the
same spot by Surrey, moved round the Scots’ position, and, by placing
themselves on their line of retreat, forced them to abandon their booty
and disperse, or fight.
The battle presents few features of interest; it was a mere counterpart
in tactics of Halidon Hill and Neville’s Cross. The Scots were
tormented in the old fashion by the archers, and Fife and Douglas
failed to attempt the only possible, if forlorn, expedient to stay
them--a determined charge of cavalry. Seeing the increasing disorder,
Sir John Swinton, one of the bravest knights in the army, begged
permission to advance, though only with his following of 100 lances.
Sir Adam Gordon, his personal enemy, thereupon sought reconciliation
with him, and the erstwhile foes, embracing on the field, placed
themselves at the head of the band, which rode downhill among the
archers, and perished to the last man. Driven to desperation by the
murderous discharge, the Scottish masses at last lumbered clumsily down
the hill, only to be massacred by the pitiless arrow flight, until in
despair they broke and fled. The English men-at-arms hardly struck a
blow. Fife and Douglas were both taken; the latter had received five
wounds, and owed his life solely to his well-tempered armour.
Disastrous as Homildon had been, it cannot be said to have any decisive
effects. The old frontier strife went on unchecked. The Scots recovered
Jedburgh, one of the few posts still held by the English in 1409.
A great invasion, organized by Albany in 1416, ended in a fiasco;
and when James I. returned in 1424 from his captivity in England,
hostilities had almost died away. This was largely due to the fact
that several of the chief Scottish nobles, including Douglas, had gone
to fight in the service of France against England. The result was that
direct warfare on the Border tended to die out.
CHAPTER XII
LATER SCOTTISH INVASIONS
1424-1542
When in 1424 James I., after his long captivity in England, took over
the government of Scotland, his energies were mainly directed to
internal reform, though he made in 1436 a fruitless attempt to recover
Roxburgh. James II. attacked Berwick in 1455, and raided the Border
next year. In 1460 Roxburgh was recovered, though James himself was
killed by a bursting cannon. England, involved in the Wars of the
Roses, could do little. As the price of assistance rendered to the
Lancastrians, Scotland regained Berwick, which was retained until 1482,
when Prince Richard, afterwards King Richard III., finally recovered it
for England.
For thirty years thereafter a precarious peace subsisted between the
two kingdoms, but dread and dislike of England were always strong in
Scotland, which was also more or less attached to England’s old enemy,
France. James IV. interfered in the cause of the adventurer Perkin
Warbeck in 1497 without effect, and the Earl of Surrey retaliated by
a raid. Hostilities were ended by the Peace of Ayton. In 1503 James
married Henry VII.’s daughter Margaret.
For ten years the peace subsisted, but the chronic Border feuds were
a constant source of trouble. Henry was suspicious of the frequent
passage through his realm of Scotsmen proceeding to France. James
was busy endeavouring to form a navy, and his captains, Andrew and
Robert Barton and Sir Andrew Wood, were often in conflict with English
vessels. It was the rule of those days that navy ships must support
themselves, and the English, who were often probably little better,
regarded the Scots admirals as pirates. There is little doubt that they
did occasionally behave as such.
Up to 1511 the peace lasted, though the fierce and resolute Henry
VIII. was a more dangerous neighbour than his father. But in August
came an event which precipitated hostilities. It appears that Andrew
Barton had made prize of English ships, and Lord Edward Howard, High
Admiral of England, with his brother Thomas, attacked him as he was
cruising in the English Channel. After a fierce struggle Barton was
slain, and his two ships, the _Lion_ and the _Jennet Perwyn_, were
taken. James protested, but Henry haughtily declined to treat upon a
matter of piracy. Yet it seems that he released the prisoners, and
certainly offered to make fair compensation for the unjustifiable
actions of Englishmen. In May, 1512, Lord Dacre and Dr. West appeared
in Edinburgh, but at the same time came the French Ambassador, De la
Motte, with instructions to enlist, if possible, Scotland on the side
of France in the impending struggle with England. The wisdom of making
a diversion on England’s rear was obvious. James informed Henry that
he could consent to no peace which did not include France. De la Motte
came and went between Paris and Edinburgh, and supplies of all kinds
were sent from France. To James’s romantic nature Queen Anne’s ring and
the message to ‘her true knight,’ begging him to invade England for her
sake, were perhaps dearer.
On June 30 Henry VIII. crossed to Calais to invade France, and on July
26 James sent Lyon King-at-Arms to declare war. A squadron of thirteen
ships, under the Earl of Arran, was sent into the Irish Sea, perhaps
to make a diversion by attacking Ireland. This attempt was a failure.
A futile attack was made on Carrickfergus, and then the Scottish fleet
disappears from the scene.
The whole fighting population of Scotland was ordered to assemble on
the Boroughmuir of Edinburgh. To-day the population of England is eight
times that of Scotland. In 1801 it was only five and a half times as
great, and in 1513 the discrepancy may have been less. Assuming it to
have been the same, and taking the population of England at 4,000,000,
that of Scotland would be about 700,000, and the number of fighting men
perhaps 100,000; but though this is the figure given by Hall, it is
unlikely that more than 50,000 took the field. The English chronicler
would naturally incline to exaggeration.
Still, the army was the most formidable that Scotland had ever
sent forth. Thanks to France, the Lowlanders were well equipped as
regards defensive armour. Hall says that the English arrows had less
effect than of old. The Highlanders however, as a whole, lacked mail
and consequently efficiency; and the Borderers were unstable and
turbulent, and attached more importance to pillage than fighting.
The grand Lowland foot-spearmen were, as ever, the backbone of the
army, but it lacked anything like a proper proportion of archers and
arquebusiers. The artillery was largely composed of fine cast pieces,
the work of Robert Borthwick, James’s famous master-gunner. It appears
to have included some forty guns in all, but there were few trained
artillerymen.
To cover his concentration, James ordered a raid into Northumberland
under Lord Home, High Chamberlain of Scotland and Warden of all the
Marches. Home has gained a bad reputation in the annals of his country,
but it would seem that his fault was not treachery, but mere lack
of military capacity. He collected a force estimated by the English
writers--probably with exaggeration--at 7,000 men, and did much damage;
but on his retreat he was overtaken by a small English force under Sir
William Bulmer at Milfield-on-Till, and routed with a loss of 1,000
men.
[Illustration: THE VIEW NORTH-WEST FROM FLODDEN FIELD.
Across the slope in the foreground the Scots probably advanced to
meet the English, moving past Branxton Church, which is below
the hill to the right. This was the panorama which presented
itself to the eyes of the Scottish left wing. On the left are
the Eildon Hills, in the centre is Home Castle and a bend of
the Tweed near Coldstream, and on the right Dirrington Great
and Little Laws.]
Henry, to use Hall’s quaint language, had not forgotten ‘ye olde
pranks of ye Scottes,’ and had made dispositions for the adequate
defence of the realm during his absence. His general in the north
was Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, Lord Treasurer and High Marshal
of England, a veteran nearly seventy years of age, who had fought
for Richard III. at Bosworth, but had become reconciled to the new
conditions and commanded against James sixteen years before. Henry was
undoubtedly wise in leaving him to watch over England, but the old
warrior himself was disappointed at losing a chance of distinguishing
himself in France. He grumbled in good English fashion, and growled
that, if James did invade, he should meet more than he had bargained
for. ‘Sory may I se hym or I dye that is the cause of mye abydynge
behynde, and if ever hee and I mete, I shall doe that inne mee lyeth
to make hyme as sory if I canne.’ In July, as the danger became
more imminent, he established himself at Pontefract to organize the
defence of the north. The efficacy of his measures is apparent in the
remarkable rapidity of his concentration.
On August 22 the Scottish army occupied Twisel, and on the following
day began the siege of Norham, which had often defied the strength
of Scotland in bygone days. But James brought his guns to bear
upon the walls, and breaches soon began to appear. The garrison
fought desperately and repelled three assaults, but, in the effort
to keep down the Scottish cannonade, rapidly expended their stock
of ammunition. On the 29th, without further means of defence, the
castle surrendered. This was a considerable success for James, and
was improved by the capture of Etal and Ford Castles. The next object
of attack would probably have been Berwick, but already the English
Army of the North was on the way. James therefore took up a strong
position west of the Till, and awaited attack, his own quarters being
for some days at Ford. Round this latter circumstance has gathered the
time-honoured but baseless legend that he wasted weeks in dalliance
with Lady Heron.
Surrey heard of the Scottish advance on August 25, and promptly ordered
his forces to assemble at Newcastle. He directed his son Thomas, who
commanded the fleet on the coast, to join him with his marines. On
September 1 he advanced, but the weather was so bad that not until the
3rd did he reach Alnwick, where he halted to close up. On the 4th the
Admiral joined with 1,000 men. The army was now 26,000 strong.
[Illustration: WEAPONS NOW PRESERVED IN BAMBOROUGH CASTLE TYPICAL OF
BORDER WARFARE.
1 and 6. Axes. 2. A partizan. 3. A trident. 4. Lochaber axe. 5. A bill.
7. A spear.]
Surrey organized his force in two corps. The Vanguard was commanded
by the Admiral, who led his main body in person, with his brother
Edmund in charge of his right wing and the venerable Sir Marmaduke
Constable[G] leading his left. The Rearguard was under Surrey’s
personal control. Lord Dacre led its right wing, composed mainly of
Border horsemen; and Sir Edward Stanley its left, consisting chiefly of
the fine archers of Lancashire and Cheshire. The artillery train was
under Sir Nicholas Appleyard. For the last time the famous banner of
St. Cuthbert was carried into action.
[G] This ancient warrior was buried in Flamborough Church seven
years later, and in his long and quaint epitaph appear the
lines:
‘At Brankiston feld, wher the kyng of Scottys was slayne,
He, then beyng of the age of three score and tene,
With the gode duke of Northefolke yt jurney he haye tayn.’
On September 6 Surrey reached Wooler, ‘three lytel miles, from the
King of Scots,’ says Hall. Counting upon James’s reputation for rash
chivalry, he sent him a formal challenge to fight on the 9th. The
Admiral added a provocative message of his own, informing James that
he was there in person to answer for the death of Barton. All this
‘quarrelling by the book’ was quite in the style of the times, a fact
which Mr. Andrew Lang and other modern writers who have commented upon
the ‘insolence’ of the Howards, appear to have forgotten.
The Scots were encamped upon a mass of hilly ground lying three miles
above the junction of the Glen with the Till. The southern portion
of this mass is roughly circular at the base, from two to three
miles across in every direction and 700 feet high. On the north and
north-east it sinks somewhat sharply 400 feet to a valley, across
which a saddleback runs to a second mass, roughly quadrangular, nearly
four miles long and two in breadth. The western portion is 800 feet
high; Barley Hill, the southern spur, is 582; Flodden Edge, on the
north-east, overlooking the Till, is 509. The northern spur is called
Branxton Hill; it drops from 500 feet to 227 feet at Branxton Church,
just below.
If only three miles separated the armies, the Scots must have been
stationed on the southern mass, between Milfield and Kirknewton. The
artillery was at the foot of the slope. On the 7th there was a distant
cannonade, but no further fighting. The Scottish position was far too
strong to be attacked. On the 8th, therefore, Surrey moved to his right
across the Till to Barmoor. He was, so Hall says, only two miles from
the Scottish front. This must mean that the English outposts on the
ridge between Ford and Doddington were about two miles from the Till.
The English main army, however, was behind the ridge, out of view of
the Scots.
From the ridge--perhaps the part above Fordwood--Surrey and his son
reconnoitred James’s position. Holinshed says that it was the Admiral
who advised his father to make a turning movement across Twisel Bridge,
and so plant himself on the Scottish communications. Hall, who is very
detailed as to the Admiral’s doings, does not say so; in any case, the
decision rested with Surrey. The momentous resolution was taken, and at
daybreak the English army marched for Twisel.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE FLODDEN MANŒUVRE.
Showing the English flank march behind the screen of hills.]
The Scots committed a fatal blunder in leaving Twisel Bridge unguarded.
It can, of course, be said for them that strategy so bold as that
of Surrey was almost unheard of in mediæval warfare. But there does
not appear to have been a picket at the bridge, nor does any attempt
seem to have been made to keep in touch with the English army by
means of the light Border moss-troopers. Either the Scottish leaders
were incapable of penetrating a skilful but hazardous design, or the
Borderers were surprisingly useless for scouting.
From Barmoor to Twisel Bridge is about nine miles. Wet weather had
rendered the tracks very difficult, and progress was doubtless slow.
Hall also says that the English were starving, but this statement
cannot be accepted; the vigour with which they acted sufficiently
disproves it. The bridge was found unguarded, and the Vanguard began to
stream across. The artillery train followed. The Rearguard appears to
have crossed chiefly by Mill Ford, a mile above Twisel. As the armies
were not in contact until about 4 p.m., it cannot be doubted that the
passage was not detected by the Scots until after midday.
The Scottish army was probably watching the line of the Till above
Ford, with its artillery at the foot of its strong position. Its
order of battle can only be surmised. The common idea that it was ill
supplied seems to be baseless; the Bishop of Durham, who had means of
knowing, stated that the Scottish camps were full of provisions. France
had sent shiploads of supplies, and the army had only been eighteen
days in the field. Assuming that James had commenced the campaign with
50,000 men, he must still have had 40,000 at least.
[Illustration:
_A. Rischgitz._
THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY, SECOND DUKE OF NORFOLK (1443-1524).
The Victor at Flodden over James IV. of Scotland.]
The Scottish scouts appear to have interpreted the English movement as
a counter-invasion of Scotland, and so it was reported to James.
Tents were hurriedly struck and parked, and the unwieldy host proceeded
to change front to the north. The varied and undisciplined character of
the Scottish army must have rendered the complicated manœuvre slow and
difficult. It is possible that James intended to recross the Tweed at
Coldstream in order to deal with the supposed invasion. On the other
hand, it is probable that Surrey hoped to encamp for the night on
Branxton Hill, and not to engage until next day.
About 3.30 p.m. the English Vanguard was passing Branxton Church. The
Scots were still scattered over the upland in five great masses, three
of which were moving over Branxton Hill. A division under Lords Home
and Huntly was leading on the left; next came another under the Earls
of Crawford and Montrose. On its right rear was the centre, under King
James, with Lord Sinclair in command of the artillery. The Earl of
Bothwell’s division, and the Highlanders under the Earls of Lennox and
Argyll, were still far behind. The English order of battle has already
been given. There was a considerable interval between the Vanguard and
Rearguard. The artillery was with the Vanguard.
James, seeing from the heights the English passing Branxton, ordered
the rubbish in the camps to be fired, that the acrid smoke, borne on
the south-west breeze, might drive in the face of the foe, and under
cover of it the three Scottish divisions began to advance. Probably
the smoke confused them as well; it must have put the English on the
alert. Still, the silent advance was to some extent a surprise. As the
English van reached the Branxton brook the smoke cleared away, and they
saw the Scottish ‘battles’ bristling with pikes in their front. The
peril was imminent. Taking the _Agnus Dei_ from his neck, Lord Thomas
sent it to his father, begging him to hasten into line, and hurriedly
fronted up the Vanguard. The artillery, coming into action on the left,
pounded furiously at the Scots pouring down the hill.
[Illustration: AN ENGLISH BILLMAN.]
Howard’s bold show had good effects. James halted to allow his guns
to come into action, but Borthwick’s beautiful pieces, worked by
ill-trained gunners, and badly placed on a slippery hillside, were
rapidly silenced or dismounted. Lord Sinclair was slain directing his
batteries, and the English guns soon gained the complete mastery. Then
Surrey hurried into line with his son, and James’s great opportunity
was gone. The English main-battle closed up on the Admiral and
Constable; Dacre took post behind Howard; Sir Edward Stanley was
hurrying to form on Surrey’s left. The English fire was directed
with deadly effect on the heavy masses of the Scottish centre; the
Scottish artillery was almost all out of action. Much has been said of
the rashness of the Scots in charging, but in truth there was little
alternative.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN.
Each block represents about 1,500 men. No attempt is made to
differentiate infantry and cavalry; the Scots were all on
foot during the battle and probably most of the English also.
English movements shown with dot and dash, Scottish with dashes
only.]
At first, all went well for Scotland. Home and Huntly bore down on
Edmund Howard’s division, while Crawford and Montrose charged the
Admiral. The two English divisions became separated from one another,
and Lord Edmund’s was completely broken and scattered, though he
himself cut his way through a body of Homes,[H] who endeavoured to stay
him, and joined his brother. The success of Home and Huntly was locally
complete; but they could not control their undisciplined followers,
many of whom scattered to plunder. Dacre hurried up his reserves,
and, though his Bamboroughshire and Tynemouth troops wavered and broke,
succeeded in checking the Chamberlain’s advance, and kept him at bay
throughout the battle.
[H] This body was commanded by Sir David Home, the father of
the famous ‘Seven Spears of Wedderburn.’ He himself was
slain by Howard in single combat, and with him fell his
eldest son. At Wedderburn Castle is a portion of a standard
which was probably the rallying-point of this unfortunate
detachment. After the fight it is said to have served as
Sir David’s winding-sheet.
[Illustration: A SCOTTISH PIKEMAN.]
The Scottish centre, moving down the hill, was met with a hail of
cannon-balls and arrows, but the sturdy yeomen came on with the finest
spirit, doffing their shoes to obtain firmer footing, never halting or
wavering. They closed upon the English centre, despite its heavy fire,
and under the weight and impetus of the charge it was forced backward.
But it was not broken, and the fight raged fiercely along the line,
James and his picked troops making repeated and desperate attempts to
pierce the stubborn English front.
The non-arrival of Bothwell and the Highlanders left James’s right
entirely uncovered, and Sir Edward Stanley, coming up from the Mill
Ford, was directed against it. His left reached the crown of Branxton
Hill without meeting any foe, but before he could develop his attack he
was charged by the Highlanders, who had at last arrived, while Bothwell
passed behind them down the slope to support the King.
It was bow against claymore. Again and again the wild Highlanders,
stripped to their shirts after their fashion, ‘like wave with crest of
sparkling foam,’ hurled themselves with fiery impulse upon Stanley’s
division--in vain. Their desperate courage availed nothing against the
deadly arrow flight of the best archers of England and, after both
their earls had fallen, they broke and fled westward over the space on
which the Scottish centre had stood, leaving the hillside heaped with
slain.
Somewhere about the same time, as it would seem, the Admiral had
succeeded in breaking the division of Crawford and Montrose; the earls
had fallen, and their followers were streaming away to the rear, and
becoming intermingled with the fleeing Highlanders. The sight of the
crowd of fugitives cannot but have had a fatal effect upon such troops
as Home and Huntly had succeeded in keeping together. Howard turned
the bulk of his victorious division against the uncovered left of the
Scots’ centre, while Stanley wheeled round upon its right and rear.
[Illustration:
BROWN BILL FROM NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE AND A BILL OF THE TIME OF HENRY
VIII.
(_From the Museum of Artillery, Woolwich._)]
These movements decided the battle. The Scottish centre and Bothwell’s
division were probably equal in number to the troops that assailed
them; but they were practically surrounded, destitute of artillery,
and with few arquebusiers and archers to respond to the steady fire
from the English guns, matchlocks, and bows, while the unwieldy
dimensions and density of their defensive formation made manœuvring
impossible. Possibly the mass made endeavours to move to its left, but
for all practical purposes it was stationary, and nothing was left to
the gallant spearmen but to fight to the last. King James was in the
front rank, and so long as he lived he never ceased to lead desperate
attempts to break the English line. If he was no general, at least he
wielded his ‘vain knight-errant’s brand’ as became a king. Wounded
again and again, he was slain at last, within a few yards of where his
aged opponent sat in his chariot[I] directing the battle. Still his
followers fought on desperately. Scott has told the story of their
great stand in glowing verse. The last stages of the battle must have
taken place in ever-growing gloom, and when there was no longer light
to direct the charges Surrey drew off his troops. Under cover of night
the Scottish centre, shattered and broken, but unconquered still,
struggled away to Coldstream and so across Tweed, to tell Scotland the
story of disaster.
[I] Pitscottie calls him ‘an old crooked carle lying in a
chariot.’
[Illustration: KING JAMES IV. (1488-1513).
The last King of Scotland to lead a great national invasion of England.
_From the painting in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery,
Edinburgh._]
The English passed the night in bivouac on the field. All around the
Borderers of both armies were plundering indiscriminately, stripping
the dead, and committing, doubtless, nameless atrocities. They
impartially made prize of Surrey’s tents and baggage and the Scottish
artillery oxen, for want of which nearly the whole train had to be
abandoned. When morning came it was seen that the Scots’ centre had
disappeared. Home had got some of his troops in hand again, and was
in line towards the west, perhaps covering the retreat of the centre.
His demoralized and half-hearted men were scattered by artillery fire,
and drifted away across Tweed; and then Surrey could take stock of his
victory. On the slope of Branxton Hill the victors found dead the King
of Scots, his natural son Alexander, Archbishop of St. Andrews, two
bishops, two mitred abbots, twelve earls, fourteen lords, and hundreds
of scions of every noble house in Scotland. The whole Scottish loss can
hardly have been less than 10,000; the unmailed Highlanders had been
mown down in thousands. The English superiority in troops armed with
missile weapons must have had terrible results; and it should be
remembered that as a rule quarter was neither asked for nor given. The
English put their own losses as low as 1,500. Except in Edmund Howard’s
division, they must have been far lower in proportion than those of
the Scots; perhaps 4,000 in all is a fair estimate. Prisoners in such
a conflict could not have been numerous; the only definite record
is that of about sixty taken by the Scottish left wing. Surrey took
possession of nearly all the Scottish artillery: five ‘great drakes’
(? 24-pounders), seven ‘great culverins’ (18-pounders), four ‘sakers’
(5-pounders), and six ‘serpentines’ (? 4-pounders)--all beautiful brass
pieces wrought by Borthwick’s skilled hand--besides light guns.[J]
[J] Hall gives the total of large pieces at seventeen,
including two culverins; but Holinshed says that the ‘Seven
Sisters’ were all taken, and it is most unlikely that the
Scots could have saved any of these heavy guns.
So ended the Battle of Flodden. On the Scots’ side it was a magnificent
display of fruitless courage, very little aided by military skill. On
the part of England, all the commanders on the field worked together
as one man to gain the victory; and though some of the hasty county
levies showed unsteadiness, on the whole they admirably seconded their
leaders. The boldness of Surrey’s strategy is remarkable in such an
aged man. Napoleon was emphatically of opinion that military leaders
lose their boldness with advancing age. Tried by this standard, the
only modern leader who can challenge comparison with Surrey is
Suvórov, whose greatest triumphs were gained when he was almost seventy.
In Scotland the tendency has been to throw the blame for the
catastrophe upon Lord Home. That his Borderers and Huntly’s Highlanders
largely dispersed after their successful charge is no doubt true; but
seeing how entirely unstable and unreliable they always were in battle,
the chiefs can hardly be blamed. After Flodden Home became a partisan
of the English alliance, and has therefore been condemned by many
writers who regard his action from a narrowly patriotic standpoint.
He was clearly not a man of military ability, but there is no reason
to doubt that he did his duty. Lord Dacre’s letter to his Government,
dated May 17, 1514, effectually disposes of the idea that Home looked
on at the defeat of the Scottish centre and right. It was unfortunate
for him that he survived the battle only to be put out of the way by
the Regent Albany three years later.
Flodden as regards the courage displayed on the field was honourable
to both nations. In a sense it was a decisive battle, for it seems
to have brought home to public opinion in Scotland that the country
might do better than sacrifice itself for France. There were no more
great invasions of England. In 1522, and again in the following year,
the Scottish nobles refused point-blank to cross the Border against
England. But James V. was still disposed to adhere to the French
alliance, and Henry VIII.’s somewhat truculent diplomacy did not tend
to improve matters. With brief intervals of truce, the weary Border
warfare went on for many years. James’s marriage to Marie de Lorraine
in 1538 accentuated his leaning to France. In 1542, in order to make
a diversion in favour of François I., James drifted into open war. A
small English force invaded Scotland, but was badly beaten at Haddon
Rigg in Teviotdale. A larger expedition under the Duke of Norfolk (the
Admiral of Flodden) was more successful, but had no great results.
To cope with Norfolk, James collected a large army on Fala Muir.
Finding that Norfolk had already retired, he would have invaded
England; but once more the nobles declined to rush into disaster
for the sake of France. Bitterly mortified, James fell back on the
assistance of the great Churchmen, upon whom his Gallicizing policy
chiefly depended, and raised a new army, variously estimated at from
10,000 to 18,000 men strong. On November 24 it crossed the Border north
of Carlisle. The result was the disaster of Solway Moss, the most
melancholy affair in Scottish military annals.
James himself did not accompany his army, but remained at Lochmaben.
It was thus without a responsible commander, and not apparently until
the last moment was it announced that the King’s choice was Sir Oliver
Sinclair, Standard-Bearer of Scotland. The effect was disastrous. The
nobles present were exasperated at being placed under a mere knight,
whose only distinction was that he was his master’s favourite, and the
army became an incoherent mass of ill-disciplined contingents without
a responsible head. In this condition the Scots were attacked by the
English. Sir Thomas Wharton, Deputy-Warden of the Western Marches, had
collected 3,000 men at Carlisle; and informed by Thomas, a bastard
Dacre, and ‘Jacke’ of Musgrave, of the state of the Scots, advanced
against them.
The demoralized Scottish force was in a very dangerous position. Some
miles behind them were the Esk and the dangerous bogs of Solway Moss.
Their van was charged by a detachment of English cavalry and thrown
into disorder, and then the whole army, as it seems, began to retreat
in a huddled mass to the Esk. In vain the nobles present endeavoured
to rally their followers, and dismounted to set them an example. ‘In
a shake all the way,’ the demoralized Scots crowded back towards the
only point of passage across the Esk, a narrow ford near the hill of
Arthuret. The confusion grew worse and worse: prisoners were taken and
men lost in the marshes. At the ford every trace of order was lost, and
the English, making a final charge, thrust the army into the river and
Solway Moss. The rout was piteous. Only twenty men are said to have
been slain in fight, but hundreds were drowned and suffocated in the
bogs; and 1,200 prisoners taken, including the unfortunate Sinclair,
two earls, five barons, and hundreds of gentlemen. Twenty-four cannon,
the Royal Standard of Scotland, and all the Scots’ baggage fell into
the hands of the victors.
Solway Moss was the cause of the premature death of James V., and more
than ever must have convinced the Scots that the French alliance was
the ruin of the country. But the blundering violence of England roused
the spirit of the nation, and repeated harryings of Lothian and the
disastrous defeat of Pinkie only fired its stubborn pride. For thirty
years, thanks to the blunders of her rulers, England was still to have
Scotland as a potential enemy. But after 1550 hostilities practically
ceased, and the growing strength of Protestantism in Scotland drew
the two countries slowly together. The Border disturbances gradually
died down; the presence of French mercenaries taught the Scottish
Protestants that French domination was more to be feared than that of
England. After the expulsion of Mary, a succession of rulers worked
steadily towards a closer friendship with England, and when the last
and greatest of the Tudors ended her life, the sceptre which she had
wielded so well passed quietly to the King of Scotland.
While the Scottish invasions were a perpetual menace to the peace of
the North, they cannot be said, in the slightest degree, to have really
threatened the national stability. Man for man, Scot and Englishman
were well matched, and in minor frays, in which individual and reckless
courage counted for much, the honours were fairly divided. In the
great invasions the political and economic conditions in Scotland were
never sufficiently favourable to allow of the formation of a properly
organized and equipped army large enough to make a serious impression.
The most effective Scottish invasions were those of Robert Bruce, but
the most dangerous of these only penetrated as far as York. After
Halidon Hill had taught the English generals what an effective weapon
they possessed in their archery, they never hesitated to give battle,
however great might be the odds against them.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SPANISH ARMADA
1588
The Spanish attacks upon England during the reign of Elizabeth were
hardly invasions in the strict sense of the word, since only once was
a small force actually landed. Nevertheless, they cannot be ignored,
if only for the reason that they came nearer to effecting a landing
in force than any other of England’s oversea foes since that period.
They furnish the spectacle of a remarkable display of patience and
ill-directed determination, brought to nought by the might of sea
power, happily guided at the critical moment by the first of England’s
modern scientific admirals. Finally, it is not generally realized that
more than one attack was made.
‘To Castille and to Leon, Colón [Columbus] gave a new world,’ but his
gift was to be the ruin of Spain. The preposterous papal decree which
divided all the new discoveries between Spain and Portugal was hardly
likely to be respected by powerful states like France and England.
It was the French who led the way. The Franco-Spanish wars of the
sixteenth century gave them their opportunity, and the fine seamen
of Normandy, Brittany, and La Rochelle began to harry the ports of
the West Indies. Matters became worse when the persecuted French
Protestants took to the sea. In 1553 Sores, a Huguenot captain,
with the help of escaped negro slaves, sacked all the chief Spanish
settlements except San Domingo. The corsairs were assisted by the utter
rottenness of the Spanish colonial system. It was also in their favour
that the social organization of Spain was still completely mediæval,
and that mercantile and trade interests were entirely subordinated to
those of the military aristocracy.
The English came later. The relations between England and Spain
were for long friendly, and their commercial intercourse was of old
standing. But after the Reformation the religious factor came to
complicate the situation. Though the Governments strove to maintain
peace, the Protestant rovers from the West Country preyed on Spanish
commerce, and the Holy Inquisition ignored all the laws of nations in
its treatment of heretic seamen. Nor was it in human nature to stand
idly and see the trade of half the world monopolized by two countries
merely on the authority of a papal bull. The colonists themselves
were quite willing to trade, and English merchants soon began to
endeavour to establish markets. To describe them as pirates is totally
inaccurate, but the Spanish officials did not--perhaps in their
ignorance could not--realize the comparative innocence of the English
merchants. In 1568 John Hawkins, the most prominent of the pioneers,
was treacherously attacked in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulua by
the Viceroy and Francisco de Luxan, General of the Fleet of New Spain.
The result was to deeply embitter the relations of the two Powers,
and thenceforth English seamen went to the West Indies determined,
since the Spaniards would not trade, to make their profit out of them
otherwise.
At sea the two states were most unequally matched. The power of Spain
on land was great, but her strength at sea has been ludicrously
misrepresented. Spain at this time had no sea-going navy at all! In
the Mediterranean she had some 100 war-galleys, but galleys were
useless for ocean work. On the other hand, England had, for the time,
a considerable Royal Navy, and the number of armed merchantmen liable
for service in time of war was very large. Portugal had a considerable
oceanic squadron. But Spain, for two generations, was content to leave
her Atlantic trade entirely unprotected, until the depredations of the
French corsairs forced the situation upon the notice of her Government.
It was Pero Menendez de Aviles, perhaps the greatest of all Spanish
seamen, who goaded his slow-moving and short-sighted Government into
creating an oceanic navy. Menendez was a fanatically religious man, and
regarding, as he did, the heretic corsairs as the enemies of mankind,
he was frequently guilty of acts of ferocious cruelty. That he, as
sincerely as his English antitype Francis Drake, believed himself to
be the chosen instrument of Heaven cannot be doubted; but he certainly
lacked Drake’s kindly nature.
In 1555 Menendez is found with an armed squadron guarding the trade
fleets. He built at his own cost three ‘galleons’--the battleships of
the day--and in 1561 was appointed Captain-General of the Indian Trade.
The French were checked, and by strenuous endeavour something had been
done when the English appeared on the scene. The Huguenots, driven from
the West Indian Islands, established themselves at St. Augustine in
Florida. Menendez’s untiring energy pursued them there, and in 1565 the
colony was wiped out. Menendez’s grim cruelty was bitterly remembered.
The Spanish Government, now beginning to rouse itself, issued orders
that the principal vessels of the trade fleets were always to be
armed, and twelve galleons were built for further protection, for the
maintenance of which a special tax was levied on the Indies merchants.
These galleons were the beginnings of the Spanish oceanic navy.
The Spanish sea-service was full of grave defects. A Spanish
warship was commanded by a military officer, whose special charge
was the soldiery; gunnery was neglected and the seamen treated
like galley-slaves. In these circumstances the Spanish galleon was
comparatively ineffective against ships provided with good guns and
gunners. Spain’s seafaring population, also, was not large, and
since it was impossible to commandeer and arm a powerful force of her
own merchant ships on an emergency, the Government was wont to seize
foreign ships for the purpose, whose crews naturally embraced every
opportunity of deserting.
On the other hand, the English Navy was the natural product of
seafaring instincts. It was not the outcome of policy, and was ruled
by no jealously devised legal code comparable to that of Louis XIV. of
France. It grew up almost imperceptibly without any clear conception
of the process. The old feudal traditions gave way slowly, and in
1588 they still so far prevailed that a noble had to be made nominal
Commander-in-Chief over the head of Drake, though, thanks to both, no
disaster followed. But there has usually been a spirit of comradeship
in English armaments largely or entirely lacking elsewhere, and this
spirit was beginning to be felt under Elizabeth.
During the early years of Elizabeth there was a tendency to neglect
the Royal Navy. The country was so strong in privateers and merchant
craft available for war, and so devoid were her possible antagonists,
France and Spain, of true naval power, that little was done. But about
1570 the news of Menendez’s untiring efforts brought about a new
shipbuilding programme under the direction of John Hawkins, who in 1569
became Treasurer of the Navy. Several new ships were built under his
supervision, and were the most formidable fighting engines that had yet
appeared on the seas. They were of moderate size, but very seaworthy,
heavily armed, and almost entirely lacking the high fore-and-stern
castles which had encumbered the earlier vessels. In 1574 a Spanish
agent, reporting to his Government, noted their great fighting value.
The word ‘galleon’ has been frequently misinterpreted. The galleon
was a ship fit for ocean work, built with something of the fine lines
of a galley--hence its name. The very long, narrow, lightly-built
galley was useless in the Atlantic; on the other hand, the short,
broad, oceanic trading vessels were too slow and unwieldy to be of use
in war. Trimming between these two extremes, the French shipwrights
evolved a vessel at once seaworthy and comparatively fast, and the
model was adopted by England and the Peninsular States. Its essential
characteristics were that it was three beams or more long, with a draft
two-fifths of its beam. By an extraordinary series of misconceptions
the galleon has come to be regarded as a heavy, clumsy vessel peculiar
to Spain. As a fact, Spain was perhaps the last of the great Powers
of the sixteenth century to adopt it. This conclusion has been very
convincingly set forth by Mr. Julian Corbett in his ‘Drake and the
Tudor Navy.’
[Illustration: AN ELIZABETHAN MIDDLE-RATE GALLEON OR BATTLESHIP.
She has one covered gun-deck, and shows the low forecastle as against
the high ‘cageworks’ of contemporary Spanish vessels.
(_From a contemporary drawing by Visscher._)]
In 1574, Philip II., whose bigotry and absolutist tendencies had
created a terrible enemy to Spain in her Netherland possessions, began
to collect a fleet of light vessels at Santander. The Duke of Alva had
failed in the Low Countries, and had been succeeded by Don Luis de
Requesens, who found that he could do nothing while Admiral Boisot
and his flotillas held the sea. The command of the force at Santander
was conferred upon Pero Menendez de Aviles, and by the summer it was
nearly ready to sail. There were 24 large ships and 188 light vessels
of various classes, manned by 12,000 men. Menendez, impressed by the
danger in the Atlantic, was anxious to do something more than merely
support Requesens. He conceived the design of seizing the Scillies and
Falmouth Haven, and occupying them as naval stations. In this way he
hoped, with his powerful force, to be able at once to intercept the
privateers at the outset of their Atlantic voyage, and establish a
solid check upon England.
Though Requesens himself was aware of the danger of provoking England,
Philip gave his assent. On Elizabeth’s side the now reorganized Royal
Navy was prepared for mobilization, together with some fifty sail of
armed merchantmen. But so great was the dissension in the Council that
Requesens told Menendez that he could sail up the Channel unopposed.
The attempt, made in the teeth of England’s sea-power, would probably
have failed in the end; yet it might easily have had grave results, and
Menendez was a commander of real genius. But he died in the midst of
his final preparations, and so much had the armament depended upon his
single dominating personality that it broke up.
Thus a great danger to England passed away with the man who perhaps of
all was best fitted to direct an attack upon her; and, as Mr. Julian
Corbett points out, it is worthy of note that almost at the moment when
the greatest of the Spanish ocean admirals vanishes from the scene,
Francis Drake, the protagonist on the English side, comes to the front.
For ten years after the death of Menendez peace nominally subsisted
between England and Spain, but it was a peace that was violated every
day. England, officially and unofficially, continued to assist the
revolted Netherlands, and to raid Spanish and Portuguese commerce. It
became an everyday affair for young Englishmen who wanted some fighting
to slip across to the Low Countries. Philip countenanced plots against
Elizabeth, and intrigued in England and Ireland. The exiled Queen
Mary of Scotland was an ever-present source of danger. Above all, the
religious side of the struggle became accentuated as time went on. In
no man was militant Protestantism more incarnate than in Drake. In
1577 Elizabeth permitted him to sail on his famous raid on the Spanish
Pacific Settlements, and his striking success was a new stay to the
war-party. He became at once the leading figure on the English side.
In 1580 the King of Portugal died, and Philip at once seized his
country, forcing Prince Antonio, the last (illegitimate) scion of the
House of Avis, to flee to England. Terceira, in the Azores, held out
for some years; but in 1583 it was reduced by Philip’s famous Admiral,
Alvaro de Bazan, Marques de Santa Cruz, after a naval victory off
St. Michael’s. The possession of Portugal and its colonies vastly
enhanced Philip’s power. The most important acquisition was that of the
Portuguese Navy--eleven fine galleons, besides galleys and small craft.
The Spanish Empire was now for the first time a real naval power.
After his reduction of Terceira, Santa Cruz wrote to Philip. He
suggested that his victorious squadron should be made the nucleus of
a great fleet, and an attempt made to settle the English Question.
His suggestions, if acted upon, would have meant the assembly of a
far larger force than did actually sail against England five years
later. Santa Cruz thoroughly understood that the English power was very
formidable. Philip did not see his way to immediate action, but he
issued orders in accordance with his Admiral’s suggestions. They were
only very partially carried out, but something was done, and in this
way began the ‘Enterprise of England.’
Certain aspects of the situation must be carefully held in mind.
England and Spain, though still nominally at peace, were being steadily
drawn into war by religious feeling, the jealously exclusive trade
policy of Spain, and the determination of the English to thwart it.
Philip, despite his religious fanaticism, was very loth to plunge into
a war that was clearly against his interests, since the deposition
of Elizabeth would mean the accession to the English throne of the
half-French Mary Stuart. England, under Mary, might become by dint of
sword and stake Roman Catholic in faith, but would lean to France in
policy. The Pope believed that Philip must perforce conquer England,
but Philip thought that he could gain the upper hand at sea without
wiping England off the map. Though he was clumsily putting Santa Cruz’s
precepts into practice and conniving at plots against Elizabeth, he did
not wish for war, nor was he ready.
On her side Elizabeth personally desired peace. Sir James Crofts,
the Controller of the Household, was Spain’s paid spy. The Lord
Treasurer, Burghley, was a man of peace, and especially detested
the--technically--dubious means by which the war-party and its
instruments were teaching the world that Spain was but ‘a colossus
stuffed with clouts.’ He entirely failed to see that religious ardour
had cleft an impassable chasm between the nations, quite apart from
the formidable trade question. The real force which was driving
England into war was the intense Protestant (or Puritan) feeling
of a great part of the nation, of which the war-party in the Royal
Council--Walsingham, Leicester, Hatton, and others--were the chief
exponents, and whose strongest helper was the famous seaman, Sir
Francis Drake. The London merchants, however, to a considerable extent,
were opposed to war.
In 1585 an egregious blunder on Philip’s part precipitated hostilities.
There had been a failure of harvest in the Biscayan provinces. Under
special safe-conduct a fleet of English corn-ships sailed to relieve
the distress, but once in port they were all seized and the crews
imprisoned. One ship, the _Primrose_, of London, escaped, carrying off
with her the Corregidor (Sheriff) of Biscay, who had endeavoured to
seize her. On the Biscayan official were found his directions, proving
beyond all doubt that Spain was really preparing to invade England.
The country now was resolute for war, and Elizabeth determined to give
Philip a sharp lesson. A fleet of royal and private ships, commanded by
Drake, was ordered to sail to the rescue. Philip had already released
the ships, apparently because he realized that the action had been
a blunder, but this made no difference to Drake. On September 27
he appeared off Vigo, and for more than a week blockaded the port,
extorting from the humiliated and helpless local authorities all that
he needed, and plundering in the neighbourhood. Then he went on to
the Canaries and the West Indies. Santa Cruz was ordered to prepare a
squadron to pursue him, but not for six months could he sail; and Drake
sacked Santiago in the Cape Verd Islands, San Domingo, Carthagena, and
St. Augustine in the Spanish Main, returning in triumph to England in
the summer of 1586.
After this open defiance, war seemed inevitable, and nothing but
the strange diplomacy of those days still deferred it. Elizabeth
was, at last, interfering officially in the Netherlands. In 1586 the
‘Babington’ Plot was discovered, and its result was the execution
of Mary Stuart in 1587. One of Philip’s deterring motives was thus
obviated. By 1587 the work on the Armada was in full swing, when
Elizabeth again let Drake loose with a powerful squadron. On April 18
he broke into Cadiz Harbour, worked havoc with the store-ships which
crowded it, and came out again in spite of all that the Spaniards could
do. Then, with magnificent strategic insight, he stationed himself off
Cape St. Vincent, and threw the entire Spanish mobilization into utter
disorder. Santa Cruz and Admiral de Recalde in the Tagus could not
move, and were cut off from the other Spanish squadrons in Cadiz and
elsewhere. For a month Drake held his ground, and when forced to leave
his station, owing to disease in his insanitary ships, he sailed to
the Azores and captured one of Philip’s great trading carracks, with a
cargo worth £110,000, or about £800,000 in modern value. He said that
his cruise had singed Philip’s beard. In fact, it had dislocated all
the Spanish plans, and done damage to the amount of millions of ducats.
Had the blow been followed up, Philip’s scattered squadrons could
hardly have concentrated. But Elizabeth now fell into a fit of
indecision, which was encouraged by the unscrupulous Crofts, who
actually suggested that for his services Drake should be disgraced and
his property confiscated!
After Drake’s return, the Spanish preparations were able, slowly and
painfully, to go forward. The Prince of Parma, Philip’s General in the
Netherlands, said afterwards that had the Armada sailed in September,
it would have encountered no opposition. But the point is that it did
not sail, and that the English Government was well informed of its
backward state of preparation. Santa Cruz was still at sea hunting
for Drake, who was already safe at home, and he did not return until
September. By that time the Spanish squadrons were at Lisbon under
General de Leyva, but still in a very unready state, while Santa Cruz’s
vessels needed a complete refit. After repeated efforts, the Marquis
succeeded in inducing the King to defer the expedition until March.
But he was broken by anxiety and thankless toil, harassed by unjust
attacks, and early in 1588 died. His death robbed the expedition of
most of its chances of success.
At Santa Cruz’s death the Armada was still hopelessly unready. Guns,
ammunition, food--everything was wanting. The men were unpaid, ragged,
and often dying of hunger. According to feudal notions, the command of
so great an expedition must be given to a great prince, and a harmless
Spanish grandee, Alonso Perez de Guzman, Duke of Medina Sidonia,
was appointed nominal General. The fleet was slowly patched into an
appearance of efficiency, but it could not sail until the middle of
May, 1588. To strengthen it nearly all the galleons of the Indian Guard
were added to it, leaving the Atlantic trade route almost unprotected.
[Illustration:
_A. Rischgitz._
ADMIRAL PERO MENENDEZ DE AVILES (1523-1574).
Now regarded as the greatest of the Spanish oceanic Admirals. A grim
fanatic in religion, he was frequently guilty of acts of gross cruelty.
He died while preparing to lead a great fleet against England.]
Meanwhile in England, on December 21, 1587, Lord Howard of Effingham,
Lord High Admiral, had received his commission as Commander-in-Chief
at sea. His official rank was rather civil than naval, and he was
placed in chief command for much the same reason as Medina Sidonia
had been. He was, however, greatly superior to the Spaniard in moral
qualities, and, though somewhat lacking in firmness of character, was
always ready to yield to the advice of the experienced seamen with
whom the navy swarmed. Drake, the guiding spirit of the resistance,
was given the command of an independent squadron at Plymouth. When the
news of Santa Cruz’s death came in February, there appeared to be some
chance of peace, and commissioners from the contending Powers met at
Flushing. Howard’s fleet was partly demobilized, but he himself, with
a picked force, was ordered to make a demonstration off Flushing. In
March, however, news came that the Armada would sail on the 20th, and
the whole Navy was mobilized.
Drake himself was full of contempt for the Spanish sea-power, and
endeavoured to induce the Government to allow him to attack the Armada
in port. After repeated representations, he triumphed. Lord Howard was
ordered to leave a force to watch Parma, who was making a precedent for
Napoleon in 1804, by building a flotilla for the transport of his army,
and to join Drake with the bulk of his fleet. This practically amounted
to giving Drake the command of the English Navy. With Howard present
he was nominally only second, but there is ample evidence that he was
the real chief. Abroad Howard’s name was hardly mentioned. Drake was
recognized as the English leader by everybody, from the Pope downwards.
[Illustration: IRON CANNON OF THE ARMADA PERIOD.
9 feet 6 inches long; calibre, 7 inches; weight, 59 cwt. 11·1
lbs. It bears the Tudor Rose and Crown on the second reinforce.
Girth of breech end, 5 feet 9½ inches.
(_From the Museum of Artillery, Woolwich._)]
Howard was much addicted to nepotism. To command the Channel
Squadron he appointed his nephew, Lord Henry Seymour, to guide whose
inexperience two veteran admirals, Sir Henry Palmer and Sir William
Wynter, had to be left behind. Seymour had under his command three
of the finest galleons of the Royal Navy, five smaller ones, several
pinnaces, and the whole of the ships supplied by the East Coast and
Cinque Ports. As Parma’s flotilla was already closely blockaded by
Dutch ships, this large force was practically wasted. Howard took
off to the West eleven splendid galleons and eight pinnaces of the
Royal Navy, with some forty private ships and pinnaces, half of them
furnished by London. Drake at Plymouth had five galleons specially
chosen by himself for their sailing qualities, twenty of the finest
private ships in the country, and a number of pinnaces.
The English Navy ships were very heavily armed, largely owing to the
influence of Drake. Some were, indeed, so over-gunned that they could
not use their lower tiers in a swell, and there was a lack of trained
gunners. The Government also, unused to warfare on a great scale,
failed to send supplies and ammunition in sufficient quantity.
On May 23 Howard and Drake effected a junction off Plymouth, and now
had a united fleet of about 100 sail, manned by 10,000 men. At once
Drake began to urge the necessity of sailing to attack the Armada in
port. On May 30 the whole fleet put out, but encountered gales, and
was obliged to return on June 6. Meanwhile, on May 18, the Spanish
fleet had sailed from Lisbon, but by June 9 had to put into Coruña
with half its stores spoilt, short of water, crews down in hundreds
with sickness, and with a third of its numbers missing. Medina Sidonia
and his staff, except Don Pedro de Valdes, Admiral of the Andalucian
Squadron, considered that to continue the attempt was hopeless. Philip
refused to listen to them, and for a month the fleet lay huddled in
Coruña, collecting its stray ships, painfully refitting, revictualling,
and recruiting its crews with raw peasants from Galicia. Some of the
store-ships had drifted almost to the English coast, perilously near
Howard’s clutches, before they were recalled.
Meanwhile at Plymouth Drake and Howard were also struggling with
difficulties, the chief of which was shortage of supplies. The
unlettered genius at the head of the fleet never ceased to endeavour to
impress upon his Admiral his aggressive tactics. After much argument
the whole fleet took up the station off Ushant, which was afterwards
to be so famous; and on July 7 the wind blew fair for Spain. Drake
insisted on a Council being called, and set forth his arguments more
urgently than ever. After a long debate the sea-admirals prevailed over
the hesitation of the half-feudal entourage of Howard, and at eight
o’clock in the evening the English Navy made sail for Spain. Had Drake
never done anything else, this splendid dash would stamp him for all
time as a captain of the first order. What would have happened to the
Armada had Drake attacked it in Coruña is not doubtful. But almost
within sight of the Spanish coast the breeze died away, and then turned
against the English. They were forced to put about, and on the 12th
were back at Plymouth. There they lay for a week, straining every nerve
to revictual, dismissing some of the ships so as to fully man others
whose crews were weakened by disease. On the afternoon of the 20th the
officers, after a hard day’s work, were on the Hoe of Plymouth, some
of them amusing themselves with a game of bowls, when Captain Fleming
burst upon them with the news that the Armada was off the Lizard!
It was a staggering blow. The English were caught in the same
predicament as the Spaniards would have been a week before. Everybody
turned to the short, sturdy, thick-set ‘pirate’ captain upon whom
England pinned her faith, and Drake replied by one of those little bits
of posing by which great captains so often encourage their followers.
‘Plenty of time--plenty of time!’ he remarked with studied coolness.
‘We’ll finish the game, and then go and finish the Spaniards!’--or
words to that effect. It may be imagined that the great seaman’s
nonchalance had an excellent effect in steadying the nerves of his
excited and less tried colleagues.
None the less, the situation was critical. The Spaniards were a few
miles to the windward of Plymouth. There was but one remedy--to put
to sea at once in the teeth of the wind. It says volumes for the
efficiency of the captains and crews that it was successfully done.
Everyone worked to such excellent purpose that by next morning 54
ships, under Drake and Howard, were clear of the Sound and beating out
to sea, while Hawkins, the Rear-Admiral, was warping out the remaining
10. Besides these 64 ships, there were some 20 light craft. Other
vessels were in harbour, but not immediately available owing to lack
of hands. The 64 ships included 16 Royal Navy galleons of from 250 to
1,000 tons, 5 private galleons from 300 to 400 tons, and 43 between 140
and 200 tons.
Turning to the Spaniards, the original organization of their fleet had
been in six ship squadrons, one galleasse (giant galley) squadron, one
galley squadron, one light squadron, and one _urca_ (cargo vessel)
squadron, the last being mainly intended for store-carrying, though its
vessels were armed. The six ship squadrons included two of war galleons
and four of armed merchantmen and private ships. Each consisted
nominally of ten ships, except the Castillian squadron, which contained
four armed merchantmen besides its ten galleons.
Between May and July ships lost company and did not all rejoin, while
to replace them others were added. So far as can be ascertained, the
Spanish fleet, when it arrived off the Lizard, included 19 galleons,
4 galleasses, 41 armed merchantmen, 27 _urcas_, 16 water and salvage
vessels, and about 40 small craft. The real commander, who was to
Medina Sidonia what Drake was to Howard, was Don Diego Flores de
Valdes, Admiral of the Castillian galleons. The better to discharge his
duties, he sailed with the Duke on the flagship _San Martin_. It is
characteristic of Philip that he had chosen for the substantial command
a man inferior in every respect to some of the other admirals. The
squadrons and commanders were as follows:[K]
Portugal: Alonso Perez de Guzman, Duque de Medina Sidonia.
Castille: Don Diego Flores de Valdes.
Vizcaya (Biscay): Don Juan Martinez de Recalde (Vice-Admiral of the
Armada).
Andalucia: Don Pedro de Valdes.
Guipuzcoa: Don Miguel de Oquendo.
Levantiscas (Italy): Don Martin de Bertendona.
Don Alonso Martinez de Leyva
(Lieutenant-General of the Armada).
Naples: Don Hugo de Monçada.
Light Squadron: Don Agostin de Ojeda.
Squadron of _Urcas_ (heavy supply ships): Don Juan Gomez de Medina.
[K] See Appendix.
Pedro de Valdes told Drake that the total force included 110 armed
vessels and 32 non-effective craft. There were between 7,000 and 8,000
seamen and perhaps 17,000 soldiers, besides gentlemen and slaves;
but the seamen were of many races and some raw recruits. Many of the
soldiers were also raw, though there were five Tercios, or brigades, of
veterans on board.
[Illustration: BRASS DODECAGONAL SAKER OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
Length, 7 feet 11 inches; calibre, 3·92 inches; weight of shot, 5 lbs.
Guns of this class formed the main armament of the bulk of the English
merchant-ships.]
The Spanish ships were of more antiquated pattern than those of the
English, and looked to amateur observers very large and formidable. As
a fact, the Spanish galleons were no larger, ship for ship, than those
of their adversaries, and were much more lightly armed. All the armed
merchantmen were of over 300 tons, but they carried no armament of guns
in proportion to their size. Some of the Italian ships were wretchedly
armed. Still, it is possible to labour this point too much. The English
galleons were undoubtedly by far the best fighting ships in the two
fleets, and the fine London trading galleons were also formidably
armed; but so far as can be seen, the bulk of the English private
craft were armed mainly with 4 and 5 pounders. The inferiority of the
Spaniards chiefly lay in the fact that they were even weaker in gunners
than the English, as well as badly supplied with ammunition. The
military officers who commanded most of the ships were too ignorant
and too self-satisfied to trouble about the guns, relying instead upon
their soldiers. The result was that no effective reply could be made
to the often ill-directed but rapid English fire, while the soldiers
crowded in the ships were slaughtered helplessly.
[Illustration: ORDER OF SAILING OF THE SPANISH ARMADA.
Constructed from Spanish documentary material. The English idea
of a crescent formation was due to their attacking the rear
squadron which sailed in line abreast. If the ships at the
extremities did not keep station well the crescent form would
no doubt have appeared.]
Philip’s strategic orders were faulty. No actual point of junction
with Parma was named. The fleet was to go to the Downs, avoiding an
action if possible until the two forces had united--a difficult and
indeed impossible task. The division of the English fleet was known or
anticipated, but not Howard’s junction with Drake. On the basis that
Howard with the Royal Navy was in the Downs, and Drake with a fleet
chiefly of privateers in the west, the Armada was tactically organized
in three main divisions. At its head sailed the vessels of Portugal and
Castille in one squadron under Medina Sidonia and Diego de Valdes. The
position of the galleasses is a little uncertain. It has been thought
that they sailed separately with the chief flagships; but they are
generally found acting together. Behind this vanguard was the Light
Division, and behind it again the _urcas_. Behind the _urcas_ was the
rearguard in two divisions: the ‘Rearguard,’ or left wing, consisting
of Recalde’s and Pedro de Valdes’ squadrons, under the chief command
of the former; the Vanguard, or right wing, comprising the squadrons
of Oquendo and Bertendona, under Leyva. Sidonia and Diego de Valdes
flew their flags together on the Portuguese galleon _San Martin_.
Recalde was on the Portuguese galleon _San Juan_, and Leyva on an
Italian ship, the _Rata Encoronada_. The ships generally were badly
found. The tactical formation by line abreast, too, was faulty, since
the broadsides were masked--a proof of how little the Spanish officers
realized that their best weapon was the gun. But the squadronal
organization was excellent for manœuvring, and discipline was good.
The ships seen by Fleming were not the whole Armada, but Pedro de
Valdes with his squadron, and about twenty other ships. The rest of the
fleet had been scattered in a gale, but on the 20th it reunited and
proceeded up the Cornish coast towards Plymouth. Along the shore the
Spaniards could see the beacons signalling their approach. The Pope’s
consecrated banner was hoisted on the _San Martin_ and everyone knelt
at the signal to pray for victory.
The experienced Spanish admirals, no less than the impetuous
Lieutenant-General de Leyva, urged their commander-in-chief to push
into Plymouth and destroy the English fleet at its anchorage; but
while they deliberated ships were made out ahead. It became obvious
to the astonished Spaniards that the English had slipped out of the
trap. Presently a scouting pinnace arrived confirming the unwelcome
impression, and also bringing tidings that the ships were the united
fleets of Howard and Drake. Sidonia, at a complete loss, anchored his
fleet to wait for daybreak.
Meanwhile Drake and Howard had reached out to the Eddystone, and at
dawn on the 21st they bore boldly down to attack the Armada, which
was formed in the squadronal order of battle already described. The
English fleet, coming from seaward in a long line ahead, passed Leyva’s
division, and developed a fierce attack upon Recalde. The Vizcayan
squadron was panic-stricken, Recalde’s flagship completely disabled,
and not for two hours did Sidonia and Leyva succeed in supporting him.
Howard, thereupon, drew off. As the fleets lay watching each other,
however, the Guipuzcoan _San Salvador_ was disabled by an explosion.
Howard again threatened an attack. Pedro de Valdes’ flagship, the
_Nuestra Senora del Rosario_, was also disabled by a collision as she
put about, but the Spanish squadrons came up to the rescue in such
admirable order that Howard again drew off. The injured Spanish ships
were taken in tow, and the Armada made sail to continue its voyage, as
an attack on Plymouth was obviously now out of the question.
The English pursued. The leading of the van was given to Drake, who
flew his flag on the far-famed _Revenge_, the smartest ship and fastest
sailer in the English navy. His attention was, however, distracted
in the night by some strange lights, and with a somewhat imperfect
appreciation of his duty, for which he was afterwards unduly blamed, he
turned aside to examine them. They proved to be harmless merchantmen,
and Drake put about to resume his post, but on his way he fell in with
the crippled _Nuestra Senora del Rosario_, which had fallen behind the
Spanish fleet. Resistance being clearly useless--since he was alone
amid the English fleet--Valdes surrendered. The _San Salvador_ also
was so damaged that the Spaniards abandoned her, and she was taken by
Howard, who was close behind.
This was a bad beginning for the Spaniards. While Recalde repaired
his damaged ship, Leyva took chief command of the rear, which was
strengthened by three galleasses, three Portuguese galleons, and the
Italian galleon _San Francesco de Florencia_ from the van. On the night
of the 22nd the fleets were becalmed off Portland. A group of English
ships drifted apart from their main body, and in the bright moonlight
the oared galleasses might have attacked them; but Captain-General
Monçada was sulking over a fancied slight, and would not move. At dawn
a north-west breeze sprang up, and the Spaniards boldly bore down to
the attack.
A tumultuous engagement followed, in which want of organization in
the English fleet prevented it from gaining any real advantage. Drake
succeeded in weathering the Spanish seaward wing; but on the other
flank, Frobisher, the famous explorer, who commanded the _Triumph_,
the largest galleon in either fleet, was cut off and fiercely attacked,
and Howard and Drake had to come back to the rescue. Sidonia’s flagship
was badly mauled by Howard’s flagship, the _Ark_, and no doubt the
Spaniards suffered more than their adversaries; but on the whole the
battle was drawn.
The English had learnt a lesson, and next day, as they awaited fresh
supplies of ammunition, the fleet was organized into four squadrons,
commanded respectively by Howard, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher. The
latter owed his command to the courage which he had shown at Portland;
but he was no tactician, and attributed Drake’s scientific manœuvres to
cowardice.
The Spanish admirals knew well the weak point of Philips design.
Recalde had served under Menendez, and was especially urgent in
pointing out that an English port must be seized as a base. It
was eventually decided to occupy the Isle of Wight, and establish
themselves there till a plan of concerted action could be managed with
Parma. The English harassed the rearguard incessantly, and eventually
it had to sail constantly in order of battle.
On the morning of the 25th the fleets lay becalmed to the south of the
Isle of Wight. The Portuguese galleon _San Luis_ had fallen behind
the Armada, and Hawkins attacked her by towing up with his boats. The
gallant Leyva came back to the rescue with three galleasses and some
ships, whereupon Howard towed up to assist Hawkins. After a sharp
encounter, Leyva rescued the _San Luis_, but the galleasses were very
roughly handled.
A breeze now sprang up, and the English attacked. Frobisher, with
bulldog courage, went at Recalde, and was again cut off. The Spaniards
appeared to have the _Triumph_ at their mercy, but her boats were
lowered and took her in tow. The wind rose again; her sails filled, and
she slipped away, leaving the pursuing Spaniards just as if they had
been at anchor. So says Calderon, the Spanish Fleet Treasurer.
Howard apparently took little further part in the action, except to
assist Frobisher and contain part of the Spanish fleet. But under
cover of the banks of gun-fire smoke Drake and Hawkins carried out
successfully a finely conceived and decisive stroke of tactics.
Working well out to sea, they bore down irresistibly upon the Armada’s
weather wing, with the object of driving it upon the ‘Owers,’ the
dangerous shoals which had had their place in Lord Lisle’s plan of
action against D’Annibault in 1545. The weather ships were forced
helplessly to leeward. The attack on Frobisher and Howard died away,
because Sidonia had to support Leyva’s broken division; and to save
themselves from being driven upon the Owers, the Spaniards were forced
to retreat eastward. The triumph of the English tactics was complete.
The Spaniards were prevented from occupying the island, and in despair
sailed for Calais. They were badly demoralized by the English fighting
and manœuvring powers, and their losses had been heavy. Messages were
sent on to Parma for ammunition and some vessels that might outsail
the fast English ships. Meanwhile Howard could not find room for the
soldiers who were streaming out from the coast to reinforce his crews.
Among the noble volunteers who hurried to join him were the Earl of
Cumberland, soon to be a famous admiral, and Robert Carey (son of Lord
Hunsdon), to whose Memoirs we owe an invaluable picture of Elizabethan
times. Carey tells the story of their adventure. They ‘took post-horse
and rode straight to Portsmouth, where we found a frigate that carried
us to sea; and having sought for the fleets a whole day, the night
after we fell in among them: where it was our fortune to light first on
the Spanish fleet; and finding ourselves in the wrong, we tacked about,
and in short time got to our own fleet.’ Evidently they had a narrow
escape. They found Howard so well attended that he had no cabins to
spare, and so boarded the _Bonaventure_, in which they took part in the
Battle of Gravelines.
On the day after the battle Howard celebrated the victory by knighting
some of his commanders, including Hawkins and Frobisher. All through
the 26th and 27th the pursuit went on, until about four o’clock in the
afternoon Sidonia anchored off Calais. Nothing had been heard from
Parma, and the pilots said that they could answer for the safety of
the fleet no farther, as they did not know the North Sea. The English
anchored also, to windward of the Armada, and less than a mile away.
Meanwhile a pinnace had been sent to call in the Channel Squadron from
the Downs. Seymour and Wynter had already made up their minds to join
Howard wherever he might be, and wasted not a moment. They had only
three days’ provisions in hand, but none the less weighed and beat
across to Calais. The disheartened Spaniards made no attempt to prevent
the junction, and at nightfall the whole available naval forces of
England were gathered within striking distance of the foe.
[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.
The first of the great English oceanic Admirals.
_From an engraving by Elstracke._]
On Sunday morning a council of war assembled on the _Ark_, and it
was decided to attempt to dislodge the Armada from its anchorage by
drifting fireships among its crowded ranks. Combustibles had already
been collected at Dover, but lest valuable time should be lost it was
decided to use vessels from the fleet. Drake and Hawkins immediately
offered two of their own ships for the service. Eight in all were
collected and hurriedly prepared. Guns and stores were left on board,
for there was no time to remove them. Captains Yonge and Prouse were
entrusted with the dangerous duty of directing them, and some time
after midnight they were fired and bore down with wind and tide upon
the horror-stricken Spaniards. Everyone thought of what Gianibelli’s
fireships had done at Antwerp only a few years before. Sidonia, seeing
no help for it, ordered or permitted cables to be cut, and there was
a nerve-breaking scene of disorder and panic. Ship collided with ship
in the darkness, and there were many accidents. Monçada’s flagship,
the _San Lorenzo_, lost her rudder; the _San Martin_ herself was
almost overtaken by a fireship before she could work clear. Still, the
material damage was small. Wind and tide carried the fleet clear, and
the fireships burnt out harmlessly. Sidonia, with the _San Marcos_,
the _San Juan_, and one or two other ships, anchored as soon as they
were clear, but the bulk of the fleet drifted away in a straggling line
off Gravelines. The wind was about south-west, so that they could not
easily close up on Sidonia. The latter therefore weighed to rejoin them.
At dawn the English admirals saw their foes scattered, but also
perceived that Sidonia was endeavouring to reunite his fleet. At once
they got under weigh and made sail, Drake leading the attack on the
right, Hawkins to his left rear, then Howard, and then Frobisher, with
Wynter and Seymour still farther back. All the accounts seem to show
that the squadrons did not succeed in engaging simultaneously. The
Channel Squadron came into action at least two hours after Drake.
It was now that the inexperienced Lord High Admiral committed a
huge blunder. The _San Lorenzo_ was seen on the right trying to get
into Calais, and with a total lack of appreciation of his duties as
Commander-in-Chief he turned off to seize her, followed by nearly all
his squadron. He took and plundered the galleasse, and Monçada was
killed; but for nearly four hours a fifth of the English fleet was
absent from the critical point.
Sidonia’s pilots were anxious. They assured him that if the fleet
continued to run before the wind it must go ashore. It was a crushing
announcement, but Sidonia, to his credit be it said, did not flinch.
Courage Spaniards have never lacked. Pinnaces were sent to warn the
fleet, and the devoted flagship and her consorts swung round to face
the enemy. In front, and nearest to Sidonia, the ever famous _Revenge_,
flying Drake’s flag, was bearing down upon him, closely followed by
three galleons of the Royal Navy, and for miles behind them the great
English fleet was setting all sail and streaming to the attack. No
time was to be lost. The Spanish captains knew the peril, and were
coming back to the rescue of the Admiral. The English came on in stern
silence, reserving their fire until the last moment, in order not to
waste their already too scanty supply of ammunition. At sunrise Drake
was within easy range of Sidonia’s little group. The _Revenge_ fired
her bow battery into the _San Martin_, and then, hauling to the wind,
sailed past her larboard broadside, letting fly with every gun that
she could bring to bear. Behind her came the _Nonpareil_ (Vice-Admiral
Thomas Fenner) and so, one after another, all Drake’s squadron filed
past, cannonading furiously and holding on after their leader to beat
off the main body of the Armada, which was standing out to the rescue
of the admiral. Hawkins next came into action and fastened on Sidonia,
but he does not seem to have supported Drake; and the result was that
one by one about fifty of the best Spanish ships came into action
about their Admiral. Frobisher apparently was in action soon after
Hawkins, but the Channel Squadron did not come up till about 9 a.m.;
and Howard, having wasted so much time, was not on the scene until
past ten. The Spaniards were never really able to form proper order,
and as they struggled singly into action they were attacked by whole
English squadrons and fearfully mangled. Recalde’s division mostly
found its way to Sidonia’s right, or weather wing, and upon it the
English concentrated their fiercest efforts. The English cannonade
was overwhelming. The crowded Spanish ships were mere slaughter-pens.
Deserters declared that some of them were full of blood, but surrender
was never heard of. They fought to the bitter end. The finest fighting
was done by the Portuguese galleon _San Mateo_. She was full of
veterans from the Tercio de Sicilia, and had on board its Colonel, Don
Diego de Pimentel. She was surrounded by the whole Channel Squadron,
and fought on, answering the storm of cannon-balls with musketry,
until Recalde rescued her. An English officer, filled with admiration,
hailed her to surrender; but the desperate veterans shot him, and
cursed the English cowards who would not close and fight like men.
The _San Felipe_, under Don Francisco Alvarez de Toledo, a kinsman of
the terrible Alva, vied with the _San Mateo_ in the heroism of her
resistance. In one of the shifts of the battle the _San Martin_ was out
of action. She might have escaped, but Sidonia bravely went into the
conflict again.
The English had to endure no such ordeal, but they fought with furious
determination. The _Revenge_ was severely battered. Wynter’s _Vanguard_
fired 500 30-, 18-, and 9-pounder shot--a remarkable achievement in
those days. But so completely had the English the advantage that,
according to Vice-Admiral Fenner, they lost only sixty killed.
By three o’clock the battle was at an end. Nearly twenty Spanish ships
were cut off (among them the _San Martin_, _San Mateo_, and _San
Felipe_), all sadly shattered, full of dead and dying, and with not a
shot left to reply to the merciless cannonade that was still pouring
upon them. Nothing, it seemed, could save them, when suddenly a squall
descended upon the struggling fleets. The English were forced to
cease fighting to meet the danger. The crippled Spaniards, unable to
manœuvre, had to put before the wind, and the combatants were parted.
The Spaniards had no power left to fight. All that night they fled
blindly, followed by the English, while their shattered ships went down
and drifted ashore. Several were lost in this way, including the _San
Felipe_ and the _San Mateo_, and with the wind as it was nothing could
save them from all going ashore.
[Illustration:
_A. Rischgitz._
CHARLES HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM, FIRST EARL OF NOTTINGHAM.
Lord High Admiral of England in 1588, and official commander of the
English fleet which defeated the great Armada.
_From the portrait by Zucchero in the Painted Hall, Greenwich
Hospital._]
Sidonia, having confessed and prepared for death, turned to bay; but
there was no heart left in the fleet to follow their Admiral’s example,
though Leyva and Oquendo, brave to the last, at once supported him.
The English fleet was holding off to let the Zeeland sandbanks do their
deadly work, and Leyva and Oquendo urged Sidonia to at least make a
show of attacking. It could not be. Discipline was gone. They cursed
him in their despair, and shouted to the crew to throw Diego Valdes
overboard! Nearer and nearer to the banks drifted the miserable throng
of shattered, blood-stained hulks that now represented the Fortunate
and Invincible Armada, when suddenly the wind shifted. The English
could not understand it. Twice God had intervened to save the foe! The
Armada was able to bear out from the shoals and steer a course to the
northward in deep water.
So ended the great struggle. On the surface the Armada had suffered
little; its numbers were not greatly diminished. But in fact nearly
all its fighting ships were so mangled that they could hardly hope to
survive a severe gale. They were mere floating dens of misery, full of
men wounded, sick, and worn out. The loss of life at Gravelines can
only be conjectured. The Spaniards admitted 1,400 killed and wounded.
But it is known that the _San Mateo_ and the _San Felipe_ lost nearly
all their companies, and the _Maria Juan_ of Biscay over two-thirds
of hers. Judging from such evidence as this, the total can hardly be
estimated at less than 4,000.
Seymour, to his disgust, was left to watch Parma, while the English
main fleet pursued the Armada until it was certain that it did not
intend to put into the Forth. There was apparently some thought of
fighting again. Howard’s squadron still had a fair supply of ammunition
on board, but the others had expended nearly all theirs; and on August
2 Drake flew a flag of council to discuss the matter. ‘It was found,’
says Carey, ‘that in the whole fleet there was not munition sufficient
to make half a fight.’ Compelled to be content, the fleet ran for
home. It was time, for already disease was beginning to rage in the
insanitary ships, and many men died before the fleet could be paid off.
The story of how the beaten Armada made its retreat round Scotland and
Ireland is better known than that of its engagements with the English
fleet. There was little water, and rations were reduced to starvation
limit. The shattered vessels could not fight the Atlantic gales, and
sank in the raging seas, or went ashore on the iron-bound shores of
the Hebrides and Ireland. Such of the crews as succeeded in landing
were massacred either by Irish kernes or English soldiers. Leyva
perished near Dunluce. Some sixty ships only struggled through to the
Biscayan ports. In some there was no water for fourteen days, and the
wine was nearly out. The half-dead crews were often unable to work the
ships, and they drifted helplessly into such harbours as lay in their
aimless course. Recalde and Oquendo came home only to die exhausted and
broken-hearted, and the roll of death was swelled by thousands who had
survived England’s artillery and the Atlantic storms.
The popular impression of the catastrophe of the Armada still is that
it was beaten by the English privateers. The Admirals did not think
so. The pamphlet printed for general circulation, probably inspired
by Drake, states that the work was done by the Royal Navy and a few
merchants. Wynter said bluntly that the private ships were of hardly
any use at all, and so another cherished idea fades into the limbo of
ancient misconceptions. The real truth is set forth by the Italian
writer Ubaldino, who points out that the English won because they had
a properly organized Royal Navy, composed of excellent sailing ships,
well armed with artillery, not cumbered with useless soldiers, and
directed not by mediævally-minded soldiers, but by scientific seamen.
In his summing-up lies a lesson to be remembered by Englishmen for all
time.
CHAPTER XIV
THE AFTERMATH OF THE ARMADA
The defeat of the Armada of 1588 is commonly regarded as the end of
any danger to England from Spain. This, however, is far from the
truth. Had Elizabeth and her minister Burghley been less timid, it
might have been. But they would not allow a great counter-attack
on Spain to be delivered by the whole strength of England; and the
semi-private expedition of Drake and Sir John Norreys in 1589,
though gallantly made, was hampered by injudicious instructions, and
eventually failed. Worse still, Drake lost Elizabeth’s confidence, and
retired into private life. The English relapsed into mere aimless,
commerce-destroying attempts, which had very little real success.
Philip, with a heroism which compels admiration, despite the misery
which it entailed upon his people, set to work immediately after 1588
to build up a properly organized navy. His dogged determination never
wavered. In his efforts he was splendidly assisted by Pero Menendez
Marquez, son of Menendez de Aviles, who invented a new type of swift
warship for treasure-carrying service. Spain lacked good timber, and
the supplies of it, brought from the Baltic, were often intercepted
by English cruisers. Seamen also were lacking, and the old faulty
threefold division of the crews was adhered to. Yet, in 1591, Don
Alonso de Bazan, brother of Santa Cruz, was able to appear at the
Azores with a fleet of sixty-three sail, and to drive away Lord Thomas
Howard’s squadron, with the loss of the far-famed _Revenge_, the story
of whose wonderful fight is enshrined in English poetry.
Meanwhile in France the Huguenot Henry of Navarre had become king. He
was opposed by the Catholic League, which was energetically supported
by Philip. Elizabeth sent troops to the support of Henry; but the
Spaniards were able to seize ports in Brittany, and there establish a
base of operations dangerously close to England, occupied not only by
a strong force of troops, but by a squadron of galleys, available for
brief raids in fine weather. The reports of the progress of the new
Spanish Navy were more and more alarming. The English squadrons were
kept off the trade routes by powerful Spanish fleets, and year after
year the American bullion came safely home.
Elizabeth now did what she should have done before, and summoned Drake
from Devon to take a fleet to America. The object was to attack Panama,
and intercept Philip’s treasure trains. But she made the mistake of
associating with him his kinsman Hawkins, broken by age and ill-health.
This was in the summer of 1595, and while Drake was organizing his
squadron at Plymouth, four of the galleys in Brittany sailed, about
July 15, from the Blavet River on a raid against the Channel Islands.
They raided Penmarch, but found the wind foul for the Islands, and
decided to make a descent on the Scillies instead. The galley was
always useless for a voyage of any length, being unable to carry
supplies sufficient for its crew of some 400 soldiers, slaves, and
seamen. Water ran out, and the galleys put into Mount’s Bay. On the
23rd they were before Mousehole. Six hundred soldiers were landed, and
finding nothing to oppose them, they devastated the neighbourhood,
burned Mousehole, Newlyn, St. Paul, and the adjoining hamlets, and
marched on Penzance. Sir Francis Godolphin hurriedly collected 200
peasants for its defence, but they dared not face the Spanish veterans,
and dispersed. The Spaniards burned Penzance, and next day held a
church parade on Western Hill, and vowed to found a monastery there
when England was conquered. They might have done more mischief, but
when they heard that the terrible Drake was at Plymouth, they withdrew
forthwith. This petty operation, after years of patient toil, and
though the war was to last for eight years longer, was the only Spanish
landing on English soil.
Elizabeth’s last West Indian expedition was a melancholy failure.
Hawkins died on the way out. The ports were now found fortified and
garrisoned; Drake failed before Puerto Rico, and on January 27, 1596,
the great seaman, baffled and broken-hearted, died of dysentery off
Puerto Bello, and was laid to rest in the waters whereon so many of his
boldest deeds had been wrought.
His death was a national misfortune. In 1596 the Spaniards took Calais,
and thus gained an outpost only twenty miles from England. Elizabeth
retorted by a great expedition under the young Earl of Essex and Howard
of Effingham. Cadiz was taken and destroyed, with twelve warships and
a merchant fleet worth 8,000,000 ducats. The blow to Spanish industry
was crushing, but, despite Essex’s entreaty, Howard would not garrison
the impregnable port. Had he done so, it might well have become to
England what Gibraltar is now. As it was, Philip was goaded into a
fresh attempt at invasion; but the ill-equipped fleet, largely composed
of embargoed foreign craft filled with soldiers, which he hounded to
sea in October, under the Conde de Santa Gadea, was so shattered by a
storm, that little of it could ever be rallied again.
Philip was now bankrupt, but at the cost of misery, which left its mark
on Spain for centuries, he prepared for yet one attempt more. In 1597
Essex sailed with a large fleet to the Azores on a nearly fruitless
cruise against the Spanish treasure fleet. By amazing exertions a new
Spanish fleet had been assembled in Ferrol, and while Essex was on his
way home the last great Armada, 136 ships strong, reached the coast of
Brittany. Another fleet was following from Lisbon, and in all there
were some 18,000 troops on board. The plan of action was that which
Menendez had laid down twenty years before. Essex, however, safely
made Plymouth in a violent gale, which scattered the ill-found Spanish
fleet, this time, happily, with little loss of life. It was Philip’s
last effort, and a year later he died.
After his death the war languished until 1601. The English Navy was
only employed on abortive commerce-destroying expeditions, and was
looked upon with contempt by the bold privateers who harried the
Spanish Main. In 1602 Spain made a last effort, and, assisted by the
slackness and want of foresight of Elizabeth’s chief minister, Sir
Robert Cecil, son of Burghley, succeeded in landing 4,000 troops
in Ireland. This woke up the drowsy government. The Spaniards were
blockaded in Kinsale by the army of Lord Deputy Mountjoy and the fleet
under Sir Richard Leveson. A reinforcing squadron was annihilated in
Castlehaven, and Kinsale forced to surrender. In 1602 Leveson sailed to
the Spanish coast and won a victory at Cezimbra, but in 1603 Elizabeth
died. Her successor, James I., was only too ready to come to terms, and
made peace forthwith, without settling the Indies trade question, over
which so much blood was subsequently shed. It was the first ill-service
done by the Stuarts to the country over which they had come to rule,
and it was not to be the last.
[Illustration:
_A. Rischgitz._
SIR JOHN HAWKINS (1532-1595).
Rear-Admiral of the English fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada in
1588, and the designer of all its finest ships.
_Photographed from the contemporary painting in the Sir John Hawkins
Hospital at Chatham._]
The lessons to be drawn from the story of the first Anglo-Spanish War
appear to be three:
1. So long as an island state hold the command of the sea, and it be
exercised with reasonable skill and prudence, that state is practically
invulnerable. Excepting Drake, no Englishman of the sixteenth century
apparently understood how to utilize England’s naval supremacy, hence
the frequent approach to success of the Spaniards.
2. In a naval war the operations must be vigorous and drastic, and not
wasted upon mere commerce destroying. All England’s privateers and
cruisers failed to take a single Spanish treasure fleet.
3. It is necessary to have (_a_) a regular military force strong enough
to assist the fleet in its operations on an enemy’s coast; (_b_) an
organized defensive force to deal with isolated raids.
CHAPTER XV
DE RUIJTER AND WILLIAM OF ORANGE
When the danger from Spain had passed away, it was not long before
England and the Dutch Republic began to take up a position of rivalry.
The two States had fought side by side against Spain, but they had
had trade differences, which culminated in an abominable massacre by
the Dutch East India Company of English merchants at Amboyna, in the
Moluccas. This was in 1623, and the Governments of James I. and Charles
I. had failed to obtain any success by diplomatic means. The Dutch were
supreme in the world of sea commerce, and trade rivalry and political
differences brought on the first Dutch War in 1652-53. The result was
the victory of England, but it was by no means decisive or final, and
twelve years later the two countries were again at war.
In the second Dutch War, twelve years later, there is little of which
England can be proud. The Restoration Government’s corruption and
mismanagement had allowed the Navy to fall far below the high level
of efficiency to which it had been raised by Oliver Cromwell. The
ships were crowded with useless fine gentlemen from the Court. The
seamen were so ill-provided that they deserted in numbers to escape
the misery of life on shipboard. Scotland had no interest in England’s
wars, and many Scottish seamen preferred to serve under the Dutch flag
rather than that of Great Britain. The result was several very bloody
and indecisive battles, in which the Dutch, upon the whole, held their
own. Finding that little advantage had been gained, Charles II. was
ready to come again to terms, and in May, 1667, Peace Commissioners
met at Breda. In truth, there was hardly any other alternative. The
Great Plague and the Great Fire of London had been stunning blows to
the prosperity of England. Meanwhile, though Peace Commissioners were
sitting, there was no armistice. Yet no attempt was made by the English
Government to fit out for sea the Navy, which was lying dismantled in
harbour after the late campaign. Only two commerce-destroying squadrons
were sent out. At the same time measures were taken to fortify the
coasts. In other words, the peace conference was considered as a
sufficient protection, and the fleet was deliberately demobilized.
Ineptitude could go no further. The Duke of York (afterwards James
II.), as High Admiral, approved--a fact which gives the measure of
his essentially dull and stupid character. No one appears to have
anticipated danger. The work of fortification went forward slowly or
not at all. The Court was in the midst of its usual profligacies when,
on June 7, the Dutch fleet was sighted off the North Foreland.
While Charles was lounging among his courtiers at Whitehall, the Dutch,
under the direction of the famous Grand Pensionary de Witt, were
preparing to strike a blow. Late in May a squadron, under Admiral van
Ghent, was despatched, presumably to distract English attention, to
the Forth. Van Ghent failed to land anywhere, but he made havoc of the
Scots’ coasting trade, and then quietly withdrew to join the main fleet.
On June 1 seventy men-of-war left the ports of Holland, and, though
scattered by a storm, reassembled off the North Foreland on the 7th.
The Commander-in-Chief was Admiral Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruijter,
the hero of the war, and the greatest of all the great seamen whom his
country has borne. His whole naval career is a splendid story of calm,
dauntless courage, of unerring skill, of battle after battle gained, or
maintained with honour against desperate odds.
At Whitehall all was confusion and dismay. Pepys has given a vivid
description of the scene. He himself fully expected to be murdered in
a burst of popular fury. The one man who could be trusted to do his
duty--Monk, the Lord General--was sent to take command at Chatham.
Train-bands and militia were mobilized in frantic haste--all too late.
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker, Ltd._
JAMES, DUKE OF MONMOUTH (1649-1685).
Probably a natural son of Charles II. by Lucy Walters. He was a
weak, pleasure-loving man, but nevertheless a popular favourite
owing to his good looks and general amiability. After his
father’s death he rose against James II. and claimed the crown,
but was defeated and executed.]
On June 9 the advance squadron of the Dutch, under Admiral van Ghent,
was off Gravesend, chasing merchantmen and naval light craft in
panic-terror up the Thames, while the boom of his guns could, it is
said, be heard in London. There must have been few who on that day did
not look back with regret to the victorious years of the Commonwealth.
The Dutch fleet, however, carried no great landing force, and De
Ruijter, judging that London could not be safely attacked, decided to
recall Van Ghent and turn against Chatham, the headquarters of the
English Navy.
Monk reached Rochester on the 11th, but he could do little. His hard
fate was to end his military career as a helpless spectator of the
national disgrace. The available troops consisted of a weak Scottish
regiment and some seamen at Sheerness, under Admiral Sir Edward
Spragge. The fortifications were unfinished and unarmed. The ships
were not manned, and, to complete the disgrace, the seamen refused
point-blank to fight for the king who had starved and robbed them.
There is an even darker side to the gloomy picture. The oncoming Dutch
fleet was full of English and Scottish seamen, who preferred the good
treatment and regular pay of the States to that of their discredited
king. The dockyard hands--starving, unpaid, and mutinous--deserted _en
masse_.
[Illustration: THE DUTCH IN THE MEDWAY.
(_From a Dutch contemporary engraving._)]
On June 10 De Ruijter entered the Medway. Sheerness fort was bombarded
into ruins, though Spragge and his handful of English and Scots held
their ground until an overwhelming force was landed for the storm.
Fifteen guns and all the stores at Sheerness were taken, and the
Dutch fleet worked on up the winding reaches of the Medway. On the 12th
the leading squadron under Van Ghent, with the fireships commanded by
Captain Brackel, arrived at Gillingham Reach, the usual harbourage
of the naval ships. Two small and ill-armed batteries guarded the
entrance. Between them was stretched a heavy iron chain, and behind it
were anchored three Dutch prizes and some smaller craft. Higher up Monk
was striving desperately to save the ships. But the dockyard officials
had all fled, and carried with them the ships’ boats, so that the
heavy vessels could not be towed away. Everywhere there was cowardice,
selfishness, and confusion. Brackel drove straight for the chain on
the flood-tide, and crashed through it, silencing the impotent forts,
and burning all the ships at the barrier. A little farther up lay the
_Royal Charles_, the finest ship in the British Navy. She had been the
_Naseby_ of the Commonwealth, and had carried Monk himself to victory.
She was almost unarmed, and before Monk could fire her, the Dutch
were at hand. Her crew fled to shore, and the exultant foe towed her
triumphantly down the river to their fleet.
[Illustration: A DUTCH TWO-DECKED BATTLESHIP.
With an armament of about 50 guns, the Dutch fleet which inflicted the
great humiliation on England in 1667 was largely composed of ships of
this type.
(_From a contemporary Dutch print._)]
The tide was now turning, and Brackel retired some distance and
anchored. Despairing of saving the _Royal Oak_, _Great James_, and
_Loyal London_, which lay higher up, Monk scuttled them, and sank three
ships in the fairway of the only channel by which, according to local
information, the Dutch could approach. On the following day the
Dutch came back with the tide and ran through another channel pointed
out, no doubt, by their English comrades. Upnor Castle strove in vain
to stop them. They passed its batteries in safety, and came on to the
half-sunken ships which lay aground in the shallow stream. With hardly
any resistance they fired and destroyed all three. Captain Douglas, of
the _Royal Oak_, died on board his ship, and his gallant end was the
one slight redeeming feature of the melancholy scene. Had they known
the utter panic and lack of organized defence at Chatham, the Dutch
might well have destroyed the dockyard. But they did not know; they had
inflicted upon England the greatest humiliation that she has endured
since the day of the Norse rovers, and so, well content, the small
squadron that had done so much sailed triumphantly down the river,
insulting their humbled enemies with thundering cheers and songs and
victorious music.
For six weeks the victorious Dutch fleet dominated the English seas. So
secure was De Ruijter that he left only Van Ghent’s squadron to guard
the Thames, and sailed down the Channel as a conqueror, sweeping up
English trade, and terrorizing the coasts. What he might have done had
his fleet carried troops may be judged from the pages of Pepys. Panic,
confusion, and self-seeking reigned supreme at Court, and among the
seamen discontent was rife. Sir Edward Spragge did at last succeed in
forming a squadron sufficient to hold the Thames against Van Ghent,
but this was all. When the Peace of Breda was signed in July De Ruijter
still victoriously ranged the English seas.
So ten years after Oliver Cromwell had made Britain’s name dreaded
wherever her flag flew, Charles II., ‘the Lord’s anointed,’ degraded
her to the dust. He was to wage another war with the Dutch, and to see
the heroic De Ruijter successfully withstand the combined strength of
France and her jackal--England. He left his realm the vassal of France,
the national escutcheon bearing a stain that has never been forgotten,
and the once invincible navy reduced to a mass of rotting hulks that
could not venture out of port.
When James II. succeeded to the throne discontent was already rife
among the people, and when his natural brother James, Duke of Monmouth,
landed almost alone in Dorsetshire, the West country peasantry flocked
to his standard. The hideous barbarity with which the premature
and ill-conducted revolt was suppressed merely added fuel to the
smouldering furnace. Had Monmouth been a stronger man, had he been
better supplied with money, arms, and trained officers, matters might
have been different. The navy could with difficulty mobilize a small
squadron, which was at sea too late to prevent him from landing.
The fate of the Stuart dynasty was sealed when James alienated the
sympathies of the hitherto thoroughly servile Anglican Church and the
Court, or ‘Tory’ party, in Parliament. The result was a temporary, but
for the time all-powerful, coalition against him. A nucleus of trained
troops around which the discontented could rally was necessary; and the
malcontents naturally turned to William, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder
of the Dutch Republic, the husband of the King’s daughter Mary. Every
motive of statesmanship, interest, and personal inclination, combined
to induce William to respond to the appeal. The great object of his
life was to curtail the overshadowing power of Louis XIV. Without the
assistance of England, this was all but an impossibility. It can hardly
be doubted that William looked forward to his own ultimate election as
King of England. That the men who invited him had no clear conception
of this part of the political situation seems certain; but William,
with his sagacity and experience, must have been perfectly aware of the
only possible satisfactory solution.
By October, 1688, William had gathered a fleet of some 500 transports
and store-ships, with an escort of over 50 men-of-war, at Helvoetsluys.
The danger in his path was that of France, and had James II. been less
stupid and less proud at the wrong moment, there can be no doubt that
William’s plans would have been brought to an abrupt end by a French
invasion. The great European alliance against France was already
formed, and war was about to break out. The French armies were already
collecting at the frontier. But James rudely repelled the offers of
his ally and practical overlord, and Louis turned his arms against
Germany. William was therefore left free to sail.
His expedition cannot be described in any sense as a hostile invasion.
It is mentioned in this work in order to draw a comparison between the
foreign attacks successfully repelled by England, and this officially
hostile but actually friendly expedition which landed and did its work,
because it was deliberately allowed to pass unopposed.
The fleet which James possessed was fully equal to crippling that of
William, had it been directed with energy and fidelity. This was not
the case. The ships had been for the most part reconstructed by James,
and materially the navy was strong. The commander, Lord Dartmouth, was
faithful. But the majority of the officers were disloyal, and they
persuaded Dartmouth to take up a position from which it was impossible
to work out of the Thames in time to stop any passing fleet. The army,
though it was three times as strong as that of William, was rotten to
the very core with discontent and treachery. Those of the superior
officers who were faithful were often the least capable--notably the
Commander-in-Chief, the Frenchman Louis Duras, Lord Feversham. The
ablest of them all, General Churchill, was the worst traitor. It was
practically certain that William would meet little effective resistance
from the fleet and army which were nominally opposed to him.
It must be admitted that England at this time presented to the world
a very depressing spectacle. That the House of Stuart had proved
poor and faithless guardians of the national honour was undoubted,
and the Whigs, in endeavouring to oust them, could at least lay claim
to political consistency. But the Church and the Tories were simply
obeying the dictates of self-interest and injured pride. Open rebellion
need not be dishonourable, but very many members, both of James’s civil
and defensive services, were traitors.
So far as its events are concerned, the story of the expedition may be
told in a few sentences. William had at first intended to land in the
North, where his adherents--the Whig Earl of Devonshire, and the Tory
Lord Danby--were ready to receive him. He sailed on October 19, but was
driven back, and unable to start again until November 1. The wind was
favourable, and rapidly rose. The vast fleet went past the mouth of the
Thames, and Lord Dartmouth, owing to the faulty dispositions into which
he had been persuaded, could not come out in time to oppose it. William
passed down the Channel unmolested, and landed, ‘as every schoolboy
knows,’ at Brixham on November 5. Dartmouth was following down the
Channel, but the wind again changed, and he put into Portsmouth. Had
the fleets met, the result cannot be doubted. The Dutch fleet was
commanded by the refugee English Admiral Herbert, and his ships were
full of English seamen. The crews of James’s fleet were thoroughly
discontented, and half the ships would undoubtedly have been carried
over by their captains. To discuss the events of 1688 as if they
constituted a military campaign is a mistake. William’s design rested
upon the known fact that England as a whole was not merely passive, but
actively friendly.
William, having landed, occupied Exeter with his army of 14,000, of
whom over 3,000 were British infantry. For a week there was hesitation,
for he had not been expected, and the memory of the Bloody Assize hung
over the West. But soon the Western gentry, both Whigs and Tories,
began pouring into Exeter, while all over England revolt blazed up.
The royal officers deserted in a manner that can only be described
as utterly shameless. William entered London on December 16 without
any fighting on the route, except a skirmish at Wincanton, in which
one of his Scottish battalions roughly handled Colonel Patrick
Sarsfield’s Irish regiment. James fled to France, and England was
lost and won almost without a blow. Not only this, but Jacobitism was
never again, except in one or two remote localities, a real militant
force. From the military point of view, one may almost say that
everything was prearranged, and the main lesson to be learnt from the
English Revolution is that, when public opinion is not dormant and the
defensive services are amenable to its influence, it is impossible for
the mere official administration to maintain itself.
CHAPTER XVI
THE ‘FIFTEEN’ AND THE ‘FORTY-FIVE’
The efforts of the dispossessed Stuart dynasty to re-establish itself
in the British Isles produced the last land invasions of England by way
of Scotland. That of 1715 was insignificant. It cannot be said that
either had the faintest chance of success unaided. Still, they were
invasions in the true sense of the word and, as such, merit some notice.
Though the Stuart James II. had been expelled in 1688, the dynasty
continued in a sense to reign in the female branch until 1702, though
with a gap caused by the death of Queen Mary II. in 1695. But the male
branch was now to all intents a foreign family with foreign ideas, and
it was also Roman Catholic in its religion. It is unquestionable that
the last Stuarts suffered for the misdeeds of their ancestors, but no
one who studies impartially the record of the family as kings of Great
Britain can well avoid the conclusion that the men who governed the
country in 1714 were wise not to recall them.
It does not appear that there was any widespread Jacobite feeling
in England. Certainly it assumed no practical form. That there was
sympathy with the exiled family is probable, but it was largely the
product of the chivalrous strain in the English national character
which has so often impelled Englishmen to side with a losing cause.
In Scotland matters were somewhat different. There was a great deal
of dislike to the Union of the two countries on the part of narrow
Scottish patriots. At the same time the Presbyterian Lowlanders were
thoroughly opposed to Stuart rule, and active Jacobite sympathy was
practically confined to a few nobles and their tenants. That section of
the Highlands which was at feud with the Campbells was the only part
even of Scotland which sided with the exiled dynasty, and in this case
self-interest had more to do with the action of the clans than loyalty.
On September 6, 1715, John Erskine, Earl of Mar, a shifty politician,
nicknamed ‘Bobbing John’ by his contemporaries, raised the Stuart
banner at Braemar. The ‘Royalist’ clans rose, and the Hanoverian
general, John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, could only hold the line of the
Forth and await reinforcements from England. The Hanoverian Government,
ably directed by General Stanhope, was active to nip in the bud any
Jacobite risings, and eventually the revolt broke out in the farthest
corner of England.
It was not until October 6 that Mr. Thomas Forster, the son of a
Cumberland landowner, rose in arms for the Stuart claimant, and was
joined by Lords Derwentwater and Widdrington. They hoped to seize
Newcastle and its coal-mines, but they were far too weak; and even when
joined by the few Jacobite sympathizers in south-western Scotland,
under Lords Kenmure, Nithsdale, Wintoun, and Carnwath, they mustered
only 600 horsemen.
To assist this forlorn rising the Earl of Mar detached from the large
force, now assembled at Perth, some 2,000 Highlanders under General
MacIntosh. Covered by a very feebly executed feint upon Stirling made
by Mar, MacIntosh crossed the Firth of Forth, cleverly evading the
English cruisers which guarded the passage. He occupied Leith, and the
terror in Edinburgh brought Argyll with a part of his scanty force back
from Stirling, but in accordance with his orders MacIntosh passed on
southward to join the Border Jacobites. He found them at Rothbury in
Northumberland, and the united force now amounted to 2,500 men.
From the first the seeds of disaster were present in the little army.
The one commander of any capacity was MacIntosh; but Forster, by
virtue of a commission from James, was Commander-in-Chief. He had no
military experience, and appears to have been hopelessly incapable.
The Hanoverian commander in the north, General George Carpenter, had
only four weak regiments of cavalry at his disposal; but he anticipated
the Jacobites at Dumfries, which was found garrisoned. Thereupon it
was resolved to invade England. Lancashire was supposed to be strongly
Jacobite. Widdrington believed that 20,000 Lancashire men would join
if a Jacobite force appeared among them.
[Illustration: A HIGHLAND CLANSMAN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.]
The resolution at once increased the dissension. Many Highlanders
deserted. Nevertheless the march began. On November 1 the Border was
crossed. Lord Lonsdale had collected a mass of totally undisciplined
and half-armed peasantry, some 6,000 strong, at Penrith, to oppose the
invaders; but they dispersed in terror of the wild Highlanders, and the
Jacobites pushed on into Lancashire. The advance was slow. Desertions
were frequent, and there were very few recruits. General Carpenter had
been diverted by news of an attack on Newcastle, but was returning
on his tracks; and General Willes was in front with the Government
troops in Lancashire. Not until they neared Preston did they acquire
a respectable reinforcement of some 200 well-armed men. But it was
noted that they were all Roman Catholics--an ominous fact. At Preston
itself a number of ill-armed men appear to have joined. By this time
the Jacobites were also possessed of six or seven guns. It was decided
to halt at Preston for a few days to rally the expected Lancashire
recruits, but on the 12th, before there had been time to erect proper
defences, the Government troops attacked them.
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker, Ltd._
WILLIAM OF ORANGE, STADTHOLDER OF THE NETHERLANDS AND KING OF ENGLAND.
Landed at Brixham, in Torbay, November 5, 1688, by arrangement with the
leaders of the English Revolution.
_From the picture by Jan Wyck in the National Portrait Gallery,
London._]
General Willes had collected six regiments of cavalry and a battalion
of infantry--all very weak--perhaps 1,800 men in all. The Jacobites
were certainly as numerous, and occupied a town which was easily
defensible, and might have been made very strong. The bridge over
the Ribble to the south of Preston was guarded by 300 men. At each
of the four main entrances to the town barricades were in course of
construction, and three were armed each with two guns. But the lack
of resolute or skilful leading was apparent. The garrison at the
bridge evacuated its post almost without resistance--at Forster’s own
order, so it was said. The Highlanders, however, fought gallantly,
and repulsed several attacks made by dismounted cavalry. At nightfall
the place was untaken; but early on the 13th Carpenter arrived on the
north side of the town, and Forster tamely surrendered. He was indeed
utterly unfit for his post. When accused of treachery by his associates
he shed tears, and faltered out feeble excuses. But it cannot be said
that he was much worse than the lords. Surely men of spirit and energy
would have repudiated the cowardly surrender. Yet nothing was done.
Even the Highlanders appear to have had enough of campaigning; probably
they were too home-sick to care to fight when there was a chance of
returning to their beloved hills.
The actual number of prisoners taken was 1,496, including six peers.
The Government was guilty of outraging the most distinguished of the
captives by parading them bound on horseback through the streets of
London, but there was little bloodshed. The leaders, according to
the ideas of the day, could hardly hope for mercy; but, as a matter
of fact, only Lords Kenmure and Derwentwater suffered death. Lady
Nithsdale heroically contrived her husband’s rescue from the Tower, and
Forster and MacIntosh also escaped, Forster by the aid of his sister
Dorothy. Certainly in this affair the female Jacobites showed to better
advantage than their men. Of the other prisoners, 26 were executed, and
some hundreds transported--a contrast to the awful butchery which had
followed Sedgemoor only thirty years before.
Meanwhile the Jacobite rising in Scotland had come to an ignominious
end. Though the claimant himself had appeared among his followers, the
army, demoralized by dissension and poor leading, was melting fast
away, and James soon left for the Continent. He was himself apparently
the most estimable of the Stuarts--brave, regular in his life, and not
devoid of ability, but he was not a man to inspire devotion. His son,
Charles Edward, was of a different type, and, besides considerable
capacity, possessed all the fascination of his ancestress, Mary. The
influence which the memory of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ exercised over
the susceptible Highlanders is remarkable, and is, indeed, hardly
extinct at the present day. In 1745 England was at war with France in
the cause of the Empress Maria Theresia, and was faring badly. Prince
Charles saw his chance. His father had no confidence of success, and
his son’s action was taken against his wish; but the Prince raised a
small sum of money, and with this and a slender supply of arms and
ammunition landed on the west coast of Scotland in August, 1745.
The story of the brilliant campaign that followed lies without the
bounds of this book. The success of the Highlanders was rapid and
complete. Yet, in the midst of victory, the shadow of disaster lay upon
the Jacobites.
It was but too obvious that nearly half the Highlands were hostile,
and that clans which had once been Jacobite now held aloof. Charles’s
noblest supporter, the chivalrous Cameron of Lochiel, had little hope
of victory. There were differences in the Prince’s suite. His best,
perhaps it should be said his only, general, Lord George Murray, was
at variance with the Franco-Scottish nobles and gentlemen of the
Prince’s entourage. Money and supplies were scanty, and not easily
collected. Assistance was promised by France, but, such as it was, it
was difficult to send it in face of the English fleet, and, even so, it
probably did harm by giving a dynastic war the appearance of a foreign
invasion. In England and the Scottish Lowlands a prosperous peace of
thirty years had almost obliterated the memory of the Stuarts, and in
neither country had educated men any reason to look back upon it with
pride. The Hanoverians were not popular, but Jacobitism was already
tending to recede into the region of dreams.
By the end of October Prince Charles had collected near Edinburgh
some 7,000 men. They were nearly all Highland infantry; there were
only four weak squadrons of cavalry and thirteen small field pieces,
with very few trained gunners. Against this small force the English
Government had in the field three armies, each some 10,000 strong. The
first lay at Newcastle under the now aged and worn-out Marshal Wade,
the constructor of the famous military roads of the Highlands. The
second was in Staffordshire. It was commanded in succession by General
Ligonier and the young Duke of Cumberland. The third force--royal
guards, and London militia and volunteers--was at Finchley, under the
personal command of George II., now advanced in years. London itself
formed several volunteer corps, one composed entirely of lawyers and
law-students. The military value of these corps does not affect the
issue--the point is, that public sentiment was strongly anti-Jacobite.
The Prince’s enterprise, in fact, was regarded as a foreign invasion.
Prince Charles and his advisers had resolved to enter England by way of
Carlisle, thus avoiding Wade, who lay about Newcastle. On November 16
the Jacobite army reached Carlisle, which was practically defenceless,
and on the next day it surrendered. A small garrison was left there,
and the advance continued. The forlornness of the enterprise is to be
gauged from the fact that already the Highlanders were deserting by
hundreds. When, on the 28th, Charles entered Manchester, he probably
had not more than 5,000 foot and 250 horse. Manchester welcomed him
with an illumination, but the material results of the march through
Lancashire were only 200 recruits and £2,000 in cash. The only
favourable circumstances were that Wade was far in the rear, and
that Cumberland, anxious that Charles should not enter Wales, where
Jacobitism still retained some vitality, was moving north-westward by
Stone, thus leaving the main road to London uncovered. Charles broke
up from Manchester, slipped over the Peak, and came down the dales to
Derby, which he entered on December 4. Cumberland was already falling
back towards Coventry to regain the main road, but Charles had fairly
outmanœuvred him. He was rather less than 130 miles from London by
road, and might perhaps have covered the distance in a week had he
continued his advance. But the heart was beaten out of his staff,
and they would go no farther. They saw the hopelessly meagre results
of the daring march, and they insisted upon a retreat. There were
reinforcements awaiting them in Scotland which would double their
strength; substantial aid might be obtained from France, and the line
of the Forth defended against the Hanoverians. As is well known, even
this modest programme could not be carried out. Indeed, Edinburgh
and most of the Lowlands had returned to their allegiance as soon as
the Jacobite army marched southward. The hostility of Scotland, except
the Central Highlands, to the Stuart cause was apparent.
[Illustration: PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART (1720-1788).
The leader of the last Jacobite invasion of England.
_From a miniature presented by the Prince to Lochiel._]
Would Charles have succeeded had he pressed on? It is more than
doubtful. The fact that there was considerable panic in London on
December 6, and a run upon the Bank of England, proves nothing.
Englishmen have a most remarkable capacity for such panics, and also
for seeing their enemies double on every possible occasion. King George
had at Finchley some 4,000 highly trained and mainly veteran troops, a
powerful artillery, and at least 5,000 militia and volunteers, who were
hardly likely to be entirely useless, especially in street fighting.
They show a somewhat robust faith who believe that Charles’s 5,000 men
or less, almost destitute of cavalry and artillery, would have gained
the day, and have been able to capture London before the arrival of
Cumberland. From the military point of view, Murray and the staff were
perfectly right in advising retreat. Politically, perhaps Charles
was correct in his contention that he must push on, but it was a
gambler’s chance. If one thing is more certain than another, it is that
Jacobitism, everywhere in Great Britain except part of Scotland, was
already moribund.
The Jacobite army evacuated Derby on the night of December 6. Its
retreat was disorderly. The hopes which had buoyed up the chiefs were
dying away, and they had to face a gloomy prospect of overthrow and
ruin. The men, too, could not fail to see the depression of their
leaders, and drifted out of hand. Straggling and pillage became
general. The villagers began to cut off those who strayed from the line
of march. The people of Manchester, friendly on the advance, now broke
into rioting, and were mulcted in a fine of £5,000. At Wigan an attempt
was made to shoot the Prince. He was disheartened and depressed, and
made little attempt to restrain his men, who streamed along the road
with scarcely any discipline. Only the rearguard under Murray still
closed the march in good order, and brought along with it the artillery
and baggage which would otherwise have been abandoned.
Cumberland was near Coventry when he heard of Charles’s retreat. He
at once began to pursue with his cavalry, while the country gentry
supplied 1,000 horses to mount part of his infantry. He hurried
northward through Cheshire and Lancashire, but the Highlanders had a
long start, and were well in advance. At Preston General Oglethorpe
joined with some of Wade’s cavalry. That weak old commander was still
drifting ‘in the air,’ and Cumberland acted wisely in superseding
him, though his own choice, Sir John Hawley, was hardly a success. On
December 18 Charles was at Penrith, while Murray with the rearguard
was strongly posted in enclosures at Clifton, two miles to the south.
Here he was overtaken by Cumberland’s mounted infantry, and a brisk
skirmish ensued. The fire of the infantry made little impression upon
the well-posted Highlanders, and Murray, making a fine charge with the
MacPhersons, drove them back with the loss of 100 men. By the morning
Cumberland had his whole mounted force in hand, but Murray had already
retired, and on the 20th joined the Prince at Carlisle. There the
English sympathizers were left as a garrison, to surrender, as was
inevitable, a few days later. Charles crossed the Border on the 20th,
and continued his march to Glasgow, which he reoccupied on the 26th.
So ended the bold adventure. The small Jacobite army, partly by good
fortune, partly by skilful strategy, had penetrated to within a week’s
march of London, and had returned to its advanced base in safety
indeed, but without success, and with scarce an English recruit to
swell its ranks. General Hawley’s stupidity was to give it one more
victory, and then Jacobitism as a political factor was to be trampled
out of existence on the bleak moor of Culloden.
CHAPTER XVII
FRENCH RAIDS
1690-1797
TEIGNMOUTH AND FISHGUARD.
Aristophanes, in ‘The Acharnians,’ puts into the mouth of Dicæopolis
some sarcastic observations as to what the Athenians would do if the
Spartans manned a skiff and stole a pug-puppy from one of the islands.
The poet’s imagined invasion of the Athenian Empire is very much on
a par with the two French landings which have taken place in England
since the year 1689.
The Revolution left England under the rule of a monarch of her own
choosing, but torn with faction, and committed of necessity to a war
with France. At this time the French Navy was more powerful than it has
ever been; but it was hampered by the inexperience and timidity of its
officers, and did far less than might otherwise have been accomplished.
On June 30 the famous French Admiral, Anne Hilarion de Cotentin, Comte
de Tourville, gained a complete victory over the allied English and
Dutch under Herbert, now Earl of Torrington, off Beachy Head, and for
some weeks was master of the Channel. On July 27 he put into Torbay,
while the galleys which accompanied the heavy ships rowed a few miles
northwards, and landed about a thousand men, who burned the fishing
village of Teignmouth. The inhabitants escaped. Some fishing-boats were
also burned, but after remaining on shore for awhile the landing party
re-embarked. Tourville had with him several galleys fit for inshore
work, but this insignificant operation was all that Louis XIV.’s
seamen were capable of effecting after a great victory. Its effect was
to rouse the somewhat dormant national spirit. The militia of Devon
assembled with enthusiasm and marched down to the coast, burning with
desire to meet the invaders.
For over a century no French force landed on the shores of England,
though they were successful in effecting various landings in Ireland,
chiefly during the early years of William III. The centre of British
naval defence was always the mouth of the Channel, and it was
comparatively easy to slip past the defending fleets to Ireland. It was
this design which the great French general Hoche took up in 1796, and
which brought about the last landing of French troops in England.
Lazare Hoche was, perhaps, the greatest of the warriors produced by the
Revolution, with the exception of Napoleon. He had made his mark by a
victorious defence of the eastern frontier against the Austrians in
1793, being then only twenty-five years of age. His next service--the
greatest that he ever rendered to his country--was to end the terrible
civil war in the west. It was in the course of this that he came into
communication with the Irish leaders who were busily engaged in rousing
their countrymen to rise against the harsh English rule.
Hoche’s sympathies were naturally with the Irish, and his hatred of
England, as evidenced by his letters, amounted to passionate folly. La
Vendée was at last tranquil, and Hoche proposed to employ part of his
great army of 100,000 men in an invasion of Ireland. On December 16 a
fleet of seventeen battleships, twenty frigates and brigs, and seven
transports, under Vice-Admiral Morard de Galles, sailed from Brest with
Hoche and some 16,000 troops. The expedition was a failure, though
not owing to active British naval operations. Hoche and the Admiral
lost touch with their fleet. Ships were wrecked, and the armament was
scattered, but Rear-Admiral Bouvet actually reached Bantry Bay with a
number of ships and 7,000 troops. But the weather was bad, and though
urged to disembark the soldiers by General Grouchy, the senior military
officer, he eventually put back to Brest. Hoche arrived in Bantry
Bay to find his fleet already gone, and could only follow it. Had he
actually landed, even with only 7,000 men, in smouldering Ireland,
there is no predicting where his victorious career would have ended.
The Protestant militia of Ireland were utterly worthless against the
fine French troops, as was proved a year later.
[Illustration:
_A. Rischgitz._
GENERAL LAZARE HOCHE (1768-1797).
Organized the great invasion of Ireland in 1797, to which the attack on
Fishguard was subsidiary. Perhaps the greatest of the soldiers of the
Revolution, after Napoleon.
_From the portrait by Ary Scheffer at Versailles._]
One of Hoche’s subordinate designs in this great expedition was to land
subsidiary and distracting detachments in England itself. Unhappily
for his fame, he allowed himself to be led by his bitter hatred of
England into very discreditable methods. He proposed to form columns of
military delinquents and released convicts which should lay waste and
terrorize the enemy’s country. Such a scheme had been devised by the
Committee of Public Safety; but it is a blot upon the fair fame both of
Carnot, over whose signature the plan appears, and of Hoche.
Two regiments were eventually formed out of these disreputable
elements. They were called the 1st and 2nd Legions of Franks; but
the criminal regiment was called, if not named, the ‘Black Legion.’
The whole design was distinctly foolish, despite its specious air of
cunning. The men of whom the legions were composed were scarcely likely
to risk hardships and death for the sake of the Government that had
imprisoned them, and it is tolerably clear that their capacity for
mischief must have been greatly lessened by their ignorance of the
English language. Open brigandage they might commit, but it could only
be in large bodies which could easily be hunted down. In fact, if there
were not evidence to the contrary, one might conclude that the French
Government only wished to be rid of these criminal elements.
On February 22, 1797, three frigates and a lugger, under Commodore
Castagnier, appeared near Fishguard Bay in Pembrokeshire, and landed
some 1,400 of ‘the legions.’ The Commander was an Irish-American
adventurer named Tate. The intention had been to put them ashore in
Somerset in order to burn Bristol. The actual landing was made at
Llanwnda, about two miles from Goodwick, in an inlet called Careg
Gwasted Bay. One life was lost, but otherwise by the 23rd the force was
landed in safety, with its ammunition, and bivouacked on the heights
above the inlet.
[Illustration:
_By kind permission of Mrs. Orchar._
A HIGHLAND OUTPOST.
_From the picture by John Pettie, R.A._]
Now, however, the weak point in the nefarious design showed itself.
Owing to a recent wreck there were great quantities of wine and
spirits available in the surrounding cottages. The men, devoid of
any sense of duty or discipline, and only too ready to forget the
misery of their life in prison, seized upon liquor with avidity, and
before long General Tate’s force was either helplessly intoxicated
or completely out of hand, engaged in reckless pillage. Castagnier,
having accomplished the landing, set sail and stood out to sea. It
certainly seems as if he had had orders to abandon the ‘legionaries’ to
their fate. No attempt could be made to capture Fishguard itself, and
Tate and his staff seem to have been powerless among their ruffianly
followers. There is evidence that they endeavoured to suppress the
excesses that were going on around them, but the men refused to obey
orders. Brutal violence there was none; the invaders only seized all
the food that they could find. Tate even endeavoured to return his
property to a bold Welshman who remonstrated with him.
Meanwhile the men of the countryside were assembling _en masse_. Near
Fishguard there were but 300 militiamen, seamen, and gunners, but
before evening on the 23rd they were joined by Lord Cawdor with 60
yeomanry and 320 of the Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire Militia. By
this time there were collected on Goodwick Sands, headed by all the
gentry of the neighbourhood who had been able to join, 2,000 furious
Welshmen, armed with every sort of weapon--scythes, hayforks, picks,
mattocks, and reaping-hooks--everything, in short, that had an edge
or a point. Of properly armed men, including the militia, there were
probably less than 1,000. There was a lack of ammunition, and lead
from the roof of St. David’s Cathedral was used for moulding bullets.
The women of the counties streamed after their men, and it is quite
likely that, as has been said, their high black hats and red cloaks
were mistaken by the befuddled ‘legionaries’ for regular uniforms.
Tate saw the seemingly formidable force collecting in his front; he
knew that his own men were helpless, and would in any case probably
refuse to fight. He sent a letter to Cawdor offering to surrender on
terms. Cawdor replied that, in view of his own great and increasing
superiority of strength, he could only insist upon unconditional
surrender! So next day the episode ended. The number of prisoners is
given as ‘near 1,400.’ A light is thrown upon the real intentions of
the French Government by what subsequently happened. They refused to
exchange the prisoners. The British Government thereupon threatened to
land them in Brittany to do their worst. This brought the Directory to
their senses, and the exchange was effected. France received back her
criminals; Britain regained an equal number of good fighting men, and
thus, in circumstances not far removed from the proceedings of comic
opera, ended the famous episode of Fishguard.
The fact that Hoche’s large expedition did actually, in part at least,
reach the shores of Ireland was due largely to the slackness of Lord
Bridport, the commander of the Channel Squadron. The British admirals
had not yet adopted the plan of close and relentless blockade, which
was soon afterwards initiated by Jarvis. The French were further
assisted by the violent gales which, while they scattered their
own fleet, also forced the British to run to port for shelter. The
Fishguard raid, like that of General Humbert in Ireland shortly
afterwards, is of value as demonstrating the impossibility, even to
a great naval power, of preventing the landing of small invading
forces. A close blockade might, in the days of sailing ships, be broken
by exceptionally bad weather; but since the introduction of steam,
blockades are more effective, and naval movements generally are carried
out with infinitely greater precision.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE NAPOLEONIC DESIGN
1804
No work dealing with the invasions of England would be complete without
some notice of the attempts, or supposed attempts, of Napoleon to
invade this island. To discuss them in detail here is unnecessary,
especially in view of the fact that more than one excellent work has
been produced on the subject in recent years. In any case Napoleon did
not approach success so nearly as Philip II. of Spain, since he never
brought his fleet to the vital point. He was never able, even in the
height of his power, to land a single company on the shores of England.
Taking this into consideration, it is only proposed here to very
briefly discuss the extent and scope of Napoleon’s preparations, and to
give a summary of expert opinion upon them.
The naval position in 1804, when France and Spain were united against
Britain, was as follows: The British Navy was nearly twice as strong in
numbers as those of the allies together, and enormously superior in
quality. The allied force was, furthermore, scattered in fragments in a
dozen ports from Toulon to the Texel, and closely blockaded by superior
British squadrons. Here and there, by taking advantage of favourable
circumstances, French squadrons did escape from their harbours; but
a general concentration in the face of the British fleet was always
impossible, and without the command of the sea invasion was hopeless.
Napoleon, it must be remembered, was regardless of veracity, and,
except when his statements are confirmed by independent testimony, they
can rarely be accepted. His bulletins are masterpieces of mendacity,
and his correspondence, though much of it was suppressed by admiring
editors, shows how prone he was to paint rose-coloured pictures for the
benefit of his subjects, if not to deceive himself. Moreover, as is
well known, he was so surrounded by treachery that he often literally
dared not speak his inmost thoughts, and coined fables for the
misleading of his betrayers.
Finally, there is one fact that cannot be overlooked. Napoleon was no
seaman. He was a great soldier--in his prime probably the greatest of
modern times--but in naval matters he was an amateur. His admirals
knew it only too well. His able Minister of Marine, Decrès, was always
warning him that the concentration and manœuvring of sailing squadrons
was a very different operation to that of the massing of troops on
land. Others said the same. No doubt the timidity which has always
characterized the French at sea had much to do with their caution and
nervousness. But they were certainly right in the main. The French
Navy was bad in quality; the Spanish Navy worse. Both together were
inferior in numbers to that of Britain, and in quality there was no
comparison. Numbers alone are no test of efficiency, and had Napoleon
succeeded in concentrating 60 French and Spanish battleships in the
Channel, the fleet would have been unable to meet with success a
British force of 40, even discounting the great strength of the latter
in three-decked vessels.[L] Mr. Julian Corbett, who has discussed the
question exhaustively in ‘The Campaign of Trafalgar,’ is of opinion
(1) that Napoleon was only saved from disaster up to Trafalgar by the
crafty French admirals whom he despised so much; (2) that had the
Franco-Spanish fleet really appeared in the Channel, the result would
have been its utter destruction.
[L] A three-decker was reckoned by tacticians as equal to two
two-deckers.
Colonel Desbrière, who has discussed the problem from the French side,
and has collected almost all the evidence available, sums up Napoleon’s
plans for gaining the command of the Channel in a scathing paragraph:
‘Two escapes from ports blockaded by a superior force; two blockades
to be broken at Cadiz and Ferrol; a junction at Martinique, already
indicated to the English by the despatch of Missiessy--such was the
programme, if we confine ourselves to the letter of the instructions.
It is useless for historians to admire it.’ And when Desbrière examines
it further in order to find the Napoleonic touch, he practically comes
to the conclusion that the Emperor was ready to stake all on a mere
gambler’s throw with all the chances against him. If he won, it was
well. If he lost, he sacrificed only his weak and inefficient navy.
In fact, whether he won or lost, his reputation was safe; and how
nervously tender he was of his untarnished renown it is easy to see
in the multitudinous letters in which he tries to explain away his
failures.
So much for the naval situation. Considering next the army of invasion
and its means of transport, the position was briefly as follows:
There were in the harbours of Boulogne, Etaples, Wimereux, and
Ambleteuse, some 2,000 flat-bottomed craft of all kinds, mostly armed
with guns, and capable of carrying 131,000 men and 6,000 horses. In
appearance the armament was a formidable one. But, in the first place,
the vessels themselves, armed though they were, could not move without
an overwhelming naval escort. Hastily built, useless in rough water,
almost entirely without trained crews, one British ‘seventy-four’ was
a match for scores of them. This Napoleon knew as well as anyone,
and though sections of the great flotilla crept at times along the
coast from harbour to harbour, they never ventured a couple of miles
from land. The vast swarm of vessels was more than the harbours could
contain. Enormous sums were spent on clearing and deepening them; but
as fast as they were cleared they silted up again, and the task had to
be begun anew. So packed were the harbours that not half the vessels
could be floated out on one tide, even if the troops could have been
embarked in time to take advantage of it.
This, however, might have been expected. It is true that very different
and highly-coloured accounts were spread abroad in Great Britain, and
produced that extraordinary combination of panic and preparation which
seems to be the normal condition of the British people in the face of a
remote possibility of invasion. But the strangest circumstance to all
who have been accustomed to believe in Napoleon’s overwhelming military
superiority, is that while his transport was sufficient for 130,000
men, he had only 90,000, with less than 3,000 horses within reach at
the critical moment. More than half his cavalry were without horses.
Had he landed in England he would have been opposed by a regular force
almost as large as his own, with 12,000 excellent cavalry against his
3,000, besides the local forces, some 400,000 strong. Many of these
volunteers had been in training for nearly two years.
Such, in short, is a summary of the situation which caused the British
public so much uneasiness, if not fright. One can but observe once more
that a tendency to panic before an undefined danger seems inherent in
the English national character. Had Napoleon landed, his chances of
success were remote. In quality the British Regular Army was at least
as good as the Grande Armée. The Egyptian campaign of 1801 had proved
it; the victory of Maida was soon to drive the lesson home. Whatever
disaster our generals might expose themselves to, their men might
fairly be trusted to pull them out of it. Wellington, later, calmly
counted upon this as a factor in warfare. On the whole, it is probable
that Napoleon’s career would have ended in 1805 instead of 1815, and in
Kent or Sussex instead of at Waterloo. But the chances of his landing
were of the faintest, and the British admirals knew it very well. It is
customary to believe that Napoleon deceived them. In reality, as Mr.
Julian Corbett grimly remarks, they were playing the strategic game in
assured mastery high over his head.
APPENDIX A
THE SITE OF THE BATTLE OF ACLEA
Aclea was formerly generally supposed to be Ockley in Surrey, near
Horsham, but Mr. C. Cooksey (Proceedings of the Hampshire Field
Club) gives good reasons for believing it to be Church Oakley, near
Basingstoke, close to the London-Winchester road. The Northmen had
just sacked London, and one hardly sees why they should plunge into
the Andredsweald when the capital of Wessex offered a fair prospect
of booty. In Domesday Book also Oakley is called Aclei while Ockley
is Hoclie. It is not true, as Professor Oman says, that Ockley is far
from any road; it is, of course, on the Roman road (Stane Street) to
Regnum (Chichester); but it is certainly a somewhat unaccountable place
in which to find the Viking horde. Oakley is, at any rate, almost on
the direct route from London to Winchester, and is decidedly the more
probable site of the two.
APPENDIX B
THE ENGLISH AND SPANISH FLEETS IN 1588
It is difficult to estimate the numbers of the fleets at any definite
date. The lists collected by Captain Fernandez Duro in his work ‘La
Armada Invencible’ differ widely. The tables of the Spanish fleet are
based upon a careful study and comparison of these lists, especially
Nos. 145, 150, and 180. It is worthy of note that the approximate total
arrived at is that given by Admiral Pedro de Valdes to Drake as the
strength of the Armada.
As regards tonnage, that of the English ships is, with few exceptions,
calculated on the contemporary Burden Rule (length of keel, multiplied
by the beam and the draft of water, and the product divided by 100),
with 25 per cent. added. The amount added for ‘ton and tonnage’ varied
from 25 to 33-1/3 per cent.
The tonnage of the Spanish ships is taken from the official figures.
Mr. Julian Corbett thinks that the Spanish system of measurement gave
results much higher than those of the English, but after studying and
applying the English and Spanish rules to the same ship-dimensions,
the authors have come to the conclusion that the discrepancy in this
respect was non-existent. The _Revenge_ by English measurement was 441
tons burden; by Spanish rules, apparently, 430. The main deduction,
therefore, to be made from the Spanish figures is in respect of the
difference between the Seville _tonelada_ (53·44 cubic feet) and the
English ton (60 cubic feet). But even here it cannot be said that this
can be applied to any but the Andalucian ships. On the whole, if a fair
comparison be needed, perhaps about 10 per cent. should be deducted
from the official Spanish figures; but nothing definite can be said.
THE ENGLISH FLEET
Tonnage
Type of Ship. Name of Ship. (Burden + ¼ Guns
Approx.). (Approx.).
Royal galleons (21) Triumph 1,000 64
White Bear 900 60
Elizabeth Jonas 850 60
Victory 750 56
Ark Royal 700 56
Vanguard 550 44
Revenge 550 44
Hope 550 44
Nonpareil 550 44
Elizabeth Bonaventure 550 44
Golden Lion 550 44
Marie Rose 550 44
Rainbow 480 44
Antelope 480 44
Dreadnought 450 40
Swiftsure 450 40
Swallow 400 36
Foresight 375 36
Aid 300 32
Bull 200 24
Tiger 200 24
Royal barks, or Tramontana 150 20
small galleons (3) Scout 120 20
Achates 100 20
Armed private 2 400 --
ships and 4 300 --
barks (73) 5 250 --
19 250-200 --
19 200-150 --
24 100-150 --
Pinnaces and 18 of Royal Navy 20-100 --
small craft (83) 65 private -- --
---
Total vessels 180, excluding vessels fitting out.
Of these, some 35 were detached or paid off on account of sickness,
145 were present at Calais, 8 were burnt as fireships, leaving 137 in
action at Gravelines.
Total crews about 14,000 men.
Commander-in-Chief Lord Howard of Effingham (Lord High
Admiral of England).
Vice-Admiral Sir Francis Drake.
Rear-Admiral Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Hawkins.
2nd Rear-Admiral Mr. (afterwards Sir Martin) Frobisher.
Admiral of Channel Guard Lord Henry Seymour.
THE SPANISH FLEET
Type of Ship. Name of Ship. Official Guns.
Tonnage.
Royal galleons (18) San Juan 1,050 50
San Martin 1,000 48
San Luis 830 38
San Felipe 800 40
San Marcos 790 38
San Mateo 750 34
San Juan Bautista 750 34
San Christobal (Castille) 700 36
San Juan el Menor 530 24
Sant’ Jago el Mayor 530 24
La Asuncion 530 24
San Medel y Celedon 530 24
San Felipe y Sant’ Jago 530 24
San Pedro 530 24
Sant’ Jago el Menor 520 24
San Christobal (Portugal) 350 24
San Bernado 350 24
Santa Aña 250 24
Italian galleon (1) San Francesco de Florencia 960 52
Galleasses (4) San Lorenzo 1,000 50
Napolitana 1,000 50
Girona 1,000 50
Zuñiga 1,000 50
Armed private 1 1,250 --
galleons and 1 1,200 --
great ships (41) 2 1,150 --
1 1,100 --
4 over 900 --
8 over 800 --
7 over 700 --
6 over 600 --
5 over 500 --
2 over 400 --
4 over 300 --
Armed _urcas_ 27 150-900 --
Large _zabras_
(barks) 4 150-160 --
Pinnaces and 30 approx. 40-100 --
small armed
craft of all
kinds
Water caravels 9 approx. -- --
Feluccas 7 approx. -- --
---
Total vessels 141
Of these, apparently 3 large ships and 14 small craft parted company or
were captured in the Channel, so that at Calais the total number was
124.
Total of seamen about 7,500
Total of soldiers about 17,000
Total of volunteers, gentlemen, etc. about 1,000
Total of galley slaves about 1,000
------
Grand total 26,500
Commander-in-Chief Alonso Perez de Guzman, Duque
de Medina Sidonia.
Chief of Staff and virtual
Commander Don Diego Flores de Valdes.
Lieutenant-General Don Alonso Martinez de Leyva.
Vice-Admiral Don Juan Martinez de Recalde.
BRIGADED TROOPS ON BOARD THE ARMADA.
_Brigade_ (_Tercio_). _Maestro de Campo._
Tercio de Sicilia Don Diego de Pimentel.
Tercio de Napoles Don Alonso de Luzon.
Tercio de Entre Douro y Minho Don Francisco Alvarez de Toledo.
Tercio de Isla Don Nicolas de Isla.
Tercio de Mexìa Don Agostin de Mexìa.
[Illustration: MARTELLO TOWERS ON THE SUSSEX COAST ERECTED DURING THE
PERIOD OF NAPOLEON’S PROJECTED INVASION.]
INDEX
Abbo, the monastic writer, 127
Aberffraw, 105
Adminius, 32
Ælflaed, daughter of Offa, 114
Ælla, King of Northumbria, 125
Æthelfrith, 150
Æthelred, son of Æthelwald (Moll), 114
Aedan, King of the Scots of Dalriada, 110
Aelfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury, 169, 170
Aelfmar, Abbot, 169
Aelfric, Ealdorman, 165, 166, 167
Aelfthryth, 162
Aella, King of South Saxons, 97
Aella of Deira, 78
Aelred of Rievaulx, 230
Aethelbald, King, 124
Aethelberht, King of Kent, 93, 109, 110, 124, 125
Aethelflæd, daughter of Alfred, 142, 153, 154, 156, 157
Aethelfrith, King of Northumbria, 110, 112, 113
Aethelhelm, Ealdorman of Dorset, 120, 146
Aethelnoth, Ealdorman of Somerset, 138, 146
Aethelred I., King of Wessex, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 152
Aethelred, Lord of Mercia, 140, 143, 145, 146, 147, 153, 154
Aethelred II., ‘the Redeless,’ 162, 163, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170,
171, 172
Aethelric, King of Bernicia, 110
Aethelstan, 158, 160, 161
Aethelwald, 152
Aethelweard, Chronicler, 134, 147
Aethelwulf, King, 120, 122, 124, 131
Aethelwulf, Ealdorman, 124
Aëtius, Roman General, 84, 87
Agricola, G. Julius, 53, 54, 59
Alan Fergent, 180
Alaric, King of Visigoths, 69, 73
Albany, Robert, Duke of, 245, 246, 247
Albemarle, William of, 229, 230, 232
Albini, Philip d’, 214
Albinus, Decimus Clodius, 59
Alexander III. of Scotland, 234
Alfred the Great, 107, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 139,
142, 143, 144, 145, 148, 150, 160
Allectus, 62
Alney, Isle of, Gloucestershire, 174
Alnwick, 227, 231, 234, 255
Alva, Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of, 280, 307
Alvarez de Toledo, Don Francisco, 307, 362
Ambleteuse, 221, 354
Amboyna, Massacre of, 318
Ambrosius Aurelianus, 98, 99, 104, 105, 107, 108, 113, 131
Ammianus Marcellinus, 67, 68
Amund, 134
Andover, 166
Andredsweald, 25, 143, 193, 202, 357
Aneurin, 108
Angeln, Home of the Angles, 92
Angles, 61, 67, 78
‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ 89, 104, 109, 131, 132, 134, 144, 148,
154, 163, 178, 205, 207
Anlaf Guthfrithson, King of Dublin, 159
Anlaf Quaran, 159
‘Annales Cambriæ,’ 102, 104
Anne de Bretagne, Queen of France, 251
Annibault, Admiral d’, 217, 218, 220, 302
Antonio, Prince of Portugal, 283
Antonius, M., 12
Antwerp, 304
Appledore, 144
Appleyard, Sir Nicholas, 257
Argyll, John Campbell, Duke of, 333, 334
Argyll, second Earl of, 261
Ariovistus, 7
Armies of Invasion, Scottish, 236
Arnulf, Emperor, 142
Arran, Earl of, 251
Arthur (Artorius), 99, 102, 104, 107, 108, 113, 131
Asser, biographer of Alfred, 129, 130, 131, 132, 136
Athelney, Isle of, 137
Atrebates, the, 3, 4, 30
Atrius, Quintus, 22, 23, 26
Attacotti, the, 67, 68, 69
Augustine, St., 114
Augustus, Emperor, 12
Aurelius Caninus, 105, 106
Avars, the, 108
Ayton, Peace of, 250
‘Babington’ Plot, 287
Baegsceg, 127, 129
Balliol, Edward, 241
Balliol, John, 241
Bamborough (Bebban-burh), 108, 126, 165, 265
Bangor Iscoed, 112
Bantry Bay, 346
Bardney, 127
Barmoor, 258, 260
Barton, Andrew, 250, 257
Barton, Robert, 250
Bath (Aquæ Sulis), 64, 107, 110
Battles:
Aclea, 123, 357;
Aescdune (Ashdown), 128, 129;
Agned, 100, 102;
‘Alleluia’ battle, 81;
Assandune (Ashington), 174;
Aylesford, 90;
Bannockburn, 226, 236;
Basing, 130;
Bassas, 99;
Beachy Head, 345;
Bedford, 109;
Bemfleet, 144, 145;
Blackwater (Essex), 38;
Brentford, 26, 173;
Brunanburh, 159, 160, 161;
Buttington, 146;
Byland, 238, 239;
Cadiz, 287, 315;
Cambuskenneth, 235;
Camlan, 104;
Carham-on-Tweed, 224, 226;
Charmouth, 119, 122;
City-of-the-Legion, 99;
Clitheroe, 228, 230;
Coit Celidon, 99, 100;
Crayford, 91;
Culloden, 343;
Cynuit, 138;
Damme, 210;
Deal, 18;
Deorham, 109, 113;
Deva, 112, 113;
Dubglas, 99;
Durgwentid River, 90;
Durham, 224, 225;
Durovernum, 23;
Ethandune, 139;
Farnham (Surrey), 144;
Flodden, 262-270;
Fulford, 187;
Gleni, 99, 100;
Gravelines, 305-309;
Gwinnion Castle, 99, 102;
Haddon Rigg, 271;
Halidon Hill, 274;
Hastings, 191-203;
Hengestedune, 120;
Homildon (or Humbledon) Hill, 246, 247;
La Rochelle, 215;
Lea, 147;
L’Espagnols-sur-Mer, 215;
Lincoln, 213;
London (round), 173;
Louvain, 142;
Lyons (Lugdunum), 59;
Maldon (Essex), 157;
Marden, 130;
Medway, 36;
Menai Strait, 42;
Milford Haven, 216;
Mons Badonis, or Badonicus, or Mount Badon, 100, 102, 104, 105;
Myton-on-Swale, 238;
Neville’s Cross, 243;
Northallerton, 231;
Otford, 174;
Otterburn, 245;
Paulinus’s defeat of Boudicca, 52;
Penselwood, 167, 173;
Preston, 335, 336;
Ribruit, 99, 102;
Rochester, 141;
Scapula’s with Caradoc, 41;
Sherston, 173;
Silurian defeat of Legio XX., 42;
Sluys, 215;
Solway Moss, 271, 272, 273;
Stamford Bridge, 187, 188;
‘Standards,’ 231;
Tempsford, 156;
Totanhael (Tottenhall), 153;
Verulam, 28;
Wareham, Siege of, 136;
Wight, Isle of, 301;
Wilton, 130
Bayeux tapestry, 188, 194
Bazan, Don Alonso de, 313
Bearpark, 241
Bede, 86, 89, 92, 93, 97, 110, 112
Bedford, 156
Belgæ of Britain and Gaul, 3, 31, 38
Beorhtwulf, King of Mercia, 123
Beowulf, poem of, 88
Berkeley, Lord, 216
Berkshire Downs, the, 128
Bernicia, 78, 107, 108, 159, 224, 225
Bertendona, Don Martin de, 294, 298
Berwick-on-Tweed, 238, 244, 249
Biez, Maréchal, 217
Bishop Auckland, 241, 242
‘Black Death,’ 244
Blanche of Castille, 212, 213
Blavet River, 314
Bloody Assize, 327, 331
Boisot, Admiral Louis, 282
Boroughmuir of Edinburgh, 251
Borthwick, Robert, Master Gunner of Scotland, 252, 263, 269
Bothwell, Earl of, 261, 266, 267
Boudicca (Boadicea), Queen of Iceni, 44, 45, 46, 52, 53, 63
Boulogne (Gessoriacum), 16, 62, 143, 354
Bouvet, French Rear-Admiral, 346
Bowness (Gabrosentum), 56
Brackel, Dutch Captain, 324
Brancaster, 72
Branxton Hill and Church, 258, 261, 266, 268
Bréauté, Faukes de, 211, 212, 213
Breda, 319, 327
Brentford, 26
Bridgenorth, 154
Bridport, Lord, 350
Brigantes, the, 39, 41, 42, 53, 54, 58, 59
Brihtnoth, Ealdorman of Essex, 164
Bristol, 210
British troops and chariotry, 14, 15, 16, 25
‘Britains, Duke of the’ (Dux Britanniarum), 72
Brittany, 82
Brittany, Count of, 212
Brochmail, King of Theyrnllwg, 112
Bromesberrow, 154
Bruce, Edward, 237, 238
Brutus, Decimus Junius, 12
Bulmer, Sir William, 252
Burgh, Hubert de, 210, 214
Burghley, Lord, Treasurer of England, 285, 312, 316
Burhred of Mercia, 126, 132
Burh-ware (fort-folk), 141, 145, 154, 157, 170
Cadwan, King of Gwynedd, 112
Caerleon (Isca Silurum), 40, 64
Caermarthen, 216
Cæsar, Gaius Julius, 1-30
Calais, 302, 303, 305, 315
Calderon, Spanish Fleet Treasurer, 302
Calleva (Silchester), 50
Cambridge, 157, 207
Cameron of Lochiel, 338
Campbells, the, 333
Camulodunum. See Colchester
Camville, Nicola de, 212
Candidianus (Aurelius) or Condidan, 110
Canterbury (Dur-went), 25, 123, 169
Cantii, the, 4, 31
Caradoc (Caratacus), King of South Britain, 32, 35, 37, 38, 40, 41
Carausius, Marcus Aurelius, 62, 64
Careg Gwasted Bay, 348
Carew, Sir George, 220
Carey, Robert, 303, 310
Carlisle, 227, 228, 235, 237, 339
Carnot, Lazare N. M., 347
Carnwath, Lord, 334
Carpenter, General George, 334, 335, 336
Carrickfergus, 251
Carthagena, 286
Cartimandua, Queen of Brigantes, 41, 42
Cassingham, William de, ‘Wilkin of the Weald,’ 211
Castagnier, Commodore, 347, 348
Caswallon (Cassivellaunus), King of the Catuvellauni, 9, 22, 24,
25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 40
Categirn, 90
Catus, Decianus, 43, 44, 45
Catuvellauni, the, 4, 22, 24, 25, 31, 38
Cawdor, Lord, 349
Ceawlin, King of West Saxons, 109, 110, 113
Cecil, Sir Robert, 316
Ceorl, Ealdorman, 122
Cerdic, 105, 106
Cerealis, Quintus Petilius, 45, 46, 53
Chadwick, Professor, 94
Channel Islands, 314
Charles the Bald, King of West Franks, 124
Charles the Great (Charlemagne), 114, 116, 119, 134
Charles Edward Stuart, Prince, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343
Charles I., 318
Charles II., 319, 320, 321, 327
Charles V., Emperor, 217
Chatham, 320, 321, 326
Chester (Deva), 42, 46, 47, 48, 50, 57, 70, 110, 146, 154, 162, 163
Chichester (Regnum), 146
Chippenham, Treaty of, 139
Churchill, General (Duke of Marlborough), 329
Church Oakley, 357
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 12, 28
Cicero, Q. Tullius, 12
Cimelauc, Bishop of Llandaff, 155
Cinque Ports, 210, 211, 214
Cirencester (Corinium), 50, 64, 97, 106, 110, 137
Cissa, 97
Claudian, Roman poet, 68, 69, 71, 72
Clere, Sir Thomas, Vice-Admiral of England, 221
Cnut, 171, 172, 173, 174, 176, 224, 225
Cockburnspath, 100
Coel, King of Reged, 75, 105
Coelwulf II., King of Mercia, 132, 137
Colchester (Camulodunum), 31, 37, 38, 40, 45, 46, 47, 48, 63, 157
Coldstream, 261, 268
Columbus, Christopher, 275
Comes Britanniarum (Count of the Britains), 72
Comes Littoris Saxonici (Count of the Saxon shore), 72
Commius, King of Atrebates, 3, 4, 8, 18, 20, 28, 30
Conmail, British King, 110
Constable, Sir Marmaduke, 255, 263
Constantine, British Emperor, 73, 74, 75
Constantine III., King of Scotland, 158, 160, 223, 224
Constantinople, English emigration to, 208
Constantinus of Damnonia, 105
Corbett, Julian, 280, 283, 353, 356, 358
Corbridge (Corstopitum), 59, 66
Corfe Castle, 162
Coritani, the, 39, 40
Cornavii, the, 39, 40
Cornwall (Damnonia), 31, 39, 63, 71, 79, 120
Coroticus of Strathclyde, 75, 104
Coruña, 291, 292
Coucy, Enguerrand de, 211
Coupland, John of, 243
Courtenay, Robert de, 214
Coventry, 340
Crassus, P. Licinius, 11
Crawford, Earl of, 261, 263, 266
Crofts, Sir James, 285, 287
Cromwell, Oliver, 319, 327
Crowland Abbey, 127
Culverins, 269
Cumberland, 227
Cumberland, George Clifford, Earl of, 303
Cumberland, William, Duke of, 339, 340, 342, 343
Cunedda, King of Gwynedd, 71, 75, 79
Cuneglass, King of Powys, 105
Cunobelin, King of South Britain, 31, 32, 37
Dacre, Lord, 250, 257, 263, 265, 270
Dacre, Thomas, 272
Danby, Lord, 330
‘Danegeld,’ 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 176
Danelaw, 152
Dartmouth, 215, 329, 330
Dathi, Ard-righ of Ireland, 79
David I., King of Scotland, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232
David II., King of Scotland, 241, 242, 243, 244
Decrès, Admiral, 352
Deira, 78, 107, 110
De la Motte, French Ambassador, 251
Derby, 156, 340, 341
Derwentwater, Lord, 333, 337
Desbrière, Colonel, 353, 354
Devonshire, Earl of, 330
Didius, Roman Governor of Britain, 42
Dinguardi (Bamborough), 108
Dion Cassius, 36, 38, 50, 52
Doddington, 258
Donald, Galwegian Chief, 232
Doncaster, 228
Dorstadt, sack by Danes, 119
Dover, 17, 18, 210, 212, 213, 214, 304
Douglas, Archibald, Earl of, 246, 247, 248
Douglas, Captain, 326
Douglas, James, the ‘Good Lord,’ 237, 238, 239, 240
Douglas, James II., Earl of, 244, 245
Douglas, Sir William, 242
Drake, Sir Francis, 278, 279, 283, 286-294, 296, 299-306, 310-314,
317, 358, 360
Druidism, 33, 40, 42
Dryburgh Abbey, 238
Dumfries, 334
Duncan, King of Scotland, 225
Dundee, 245
Dunluce Castle, 310
Dunstan, St. (Archbishop), 163, 164
Durham, Bishop Ruthal of, 260
Durotriges, the, 38
Dutigern, King, of Reged, 108
Eadgar the Peaceful, 161, 162, 163
Eadmund, King of East Anglia (St.), 127, 140
Eadmund I., 160, 161, 227
Eadmund II., ‘Ironside,’ 171, 172, 173, 174, 176
Eadred, 161
Eadric Streona, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174
Eadward I., 107, 144, 146, 152-158, 160
Eadward II., ‘the Martyr,’ 162
Eadward III., ‘the Confessor,’ 177, 178, 184, 210
Eadwine, King of Northumbria, 93
Eadwine, Earl, 178, 179, 183, 186, 187, 190, 191, 205, 206
Ealdred, High-Reeve of Bamborough, 158
Ealhstane, Bishop of Sherborne, 122
Eardwulf, ‘Cudel,’ 224, 225
Ebbsfleet, 90
Eboracum (see York), 125
Ecgberht, King, 120, 131
Eddisburh, 156
Edinburgh, 245, 251, 334, 339, 341
Edward I., 183, 223, 234, 235, 236
Edward II., 236, 238, 239, 240
Edward III., 240, 241
Elizabeth, Queen, 275, 279, 282-288, 312-316
Ely, 127, 206, 207
Englefield Green, Windsor Forest, 128
Eric, King of East Anglia, 153
Eric, Haakonson, Jarl, 172, 224
Esegar, the ‘Staller,’ 196, 204
Esk, the (Cumberland), 272
Espec, Sir Walter, 229, 230, 232
Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of, 315, 316
Estuteville, Robert d’, 233
Etal Castle, 255
Etaples, 354
Eugenius, King of Strathclyde, 160, 224
Eustace, Count of Boulogne, 180, 194, 202
Eustace the Monk, 213, 214
Exeter (Isca Damnoniorum), 39, 167, 205, 331
Fala Muir, 271
Falmouth Haven, 282
Farinmail, 110
Fenner, Vice-Admiral Thomas, 306, 308
Fernandez, Duro, Captain, 357
Ferrol, 315, 353
Feversham, Louis Duras, Lord, 329
Fife, Murdoch, Earl of, 246, 247
Finchley, 339, 341
Fire of London, Great, 319
Fishguard Bay, 347, 348, 349, 350
Fitzwalter, Robert, 212, 213
Flat Holm (Bradanrelice), 155
Fleming, Captain, 292, 298
Florence of Worcester, 183
Flores de Valdes, Don Diego, 294, 361
Flushing, 289
Ford Castle, 255, 258, 260
Forster, Miss Dorothy, 337
Forster, Mr. Thomas, 333, 334, 336, 337
Fowey, 210
Fræna, Ealdorman, 165
François I., King of France, 217, 222, 271
Franks, 61
French Committee of Public Safety, 347
Frisians, 61, 62, 67, 116, 148
Frithgist, Ealdorman, 165
Frobisher, Sir M., 300-307, 360
Fullofaudes, Dux, 67
Gainsborough, 171
Galba, King of the Suessiones, 2
Galwegians, 229, 230, 231
Garde, Paulin, Baron de la, 217
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 90
George II., 339, 341
Germanus, St., 76, 79-83, 87, 88, 91
Gerontius (Geraint), 74
Gessoriacum (Boulogne), 32
Geta, Hosidius, 36
Gewissæ, or West Saxons, 105, 109
Giffard, Walter, de Longueville, 194
Gilbert of Ghent, 212
Gildas, 70, 71, 74, 77, 84, 87, 88, 96, 97, 102, 106
Glasgow, 343
Glen, River, 257
Glendower, Owen, 216, 217
Gloucester (Glevum), 40, 63, 106, 110
Godfrid, King, 116
Godolphin, Sir Francis, 314
Godwin, Earl (_temp._ Aethelred II.), 165
Godwin, Bishop of Rochester, 169
Gomez de Medina, Don Juan, 295
Goodwick, 348, 349
Gordon, Sir Adam, 247
Graham, Sir John, 243
Gratianus, British Emperor, 73
Gravesend, 215
Greenwich, 170
Grenville, Sir Richard, 220
Grouchy, General, 346
Gualo, Cardinal, 211, 213
Gunhild, sister of Sweyn, ‘Fork-beard,’ 166
Guthred, 142
Guthrum I., Viking King, 134, 139, 140, 142, 143
Guthrum II., Viking King, 153, 156
Guy of Amiens, 180, 196
Gyrth, brother of Harold II., 191, 196, 198
Haakon, Jarl, 164
Hadrian, Emperor, 53, 54, 58
Haesten, the Viking, 143, 144, 145, 146, 154
Halfdene, the Viking, 127, 130, 132, 133
Halidon Hill, 247
Hall, English Chronicler, 252, 254, 257, 258, 260, 269
Halley’s Comet, 183
Halliford, 26
Hangest, Jean de, 216
Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, 179, 182, 186, 187, 188, 204
Harald Harfaagr, 161
Harold II., 177, 178, 182-192, 196, 202, 203, 204, 226
Hatton, Sir C., 285
Haverfordwest, 216
Havre, 218, 220
Hawkins, Sir John, 277, 279, 293, 301-307, 313, 314, 360
Hawley, Sir John, 342, 343
Helvoetsluys, 328
Hemingburgh, the Chronicler, 235
Hengist, 86, 87, 88, 91, 92, 93
Henri IV. of France, 313
Henry ‘the Fowler,’ Emperor, 161
Henry, son of David I., 228, 230, 232
Henry II., 211, 233, 234
Henry III., 211, 214
Henry IV., 216, 246
Henry VII., 217, 250
Henry VIII., 217, 218, 250, 251, 254, 270
Herebert, Ealdorman of Lindsey, 120
Hereward the Wake, 206, 207
Heron, Lady, 255
Hexham Abbey, 235
High Rochester (Bremenium), 59
‘Historia Brittonum,’ 71, 77, 86-99
Hoche, Lazare, General, 345, 346, 347, 350
Hocneratun (? Hook Norton), 155
Holinshed, Raphael, 258, 269
Home, Alexander, third Lord, 252, 261-270
Home, Sir David, of Wedderburn, 263
Horik, King of Denmark, 117
Horsa, or Hors, 88, 90
Howard, Lord Edmund, 255, 263, 269
Howard of Effingham, Lord, High Admiral of England, 250, 279,
288-315, 360
Howard, Thomas, afterwards third Duke of Norfolk, High Admiral of
England, 250, 255, 257, 262, 263, 271
Hroald, 155, 156
Hrothwyn (Rowena), 89
Hubba the Viking, 126, 127, 137, 139
Humber, the, 39, 122
Huntingdon, 157, 228
Huntly, Alexander, third Earl of, 261, 263, 266
Hygelac the Dane, 116
Iceni, the, 4, 31, 45
Ida, King of Bernicia, 108
Ingvar, 126, 127
Innocent III., Pope, 209, 210, 212
Inquisition, the Spanish, 276
Ipswich, 164, 169
Ireland, 78, 117, 237
Isca Silurum (Caerleon), 48
Isla, Don Nicolas de, 362
James I. of Scotland, 247, 249
James II. of Scotland, 249
James IV. of Scotland, 249, 250, 251, 255, 257, 260-268
James V. of Scotland, 270, 273
James VI. of Scotland, I. of England, 273, 316, 318
James II. (Duke of York, afterwards), 319, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331,
332
James Stuart, Prince, 334, 337, 338
Jarrow, Bede’s monastery at, 115
Jedburgh, 247
Jervis, Admiral, Earl of St. Vincent, 350
John, King of England, 209, 210
Julius Firmicus, 66
Jutes, 61, 67, 105
Kenmure, Lord, 334, 337
Kinsale, 216, 316
Labienus, Titus, 11, 22, 24
Lanercost, Chronicle of, and priory, 241
Lea, the, 147
Leeds (Loidis), 79
Leicester (Ratæ), 39, 157
Leicester, R. Dudley, Earl of, 285
Leith, 334
Lennox, Earl of, 261
Leofric, Earl of Mercia, 177
Leofwine, brother of Harold II., 196, 199
Leveson, Sir Richard, 316
Leyva, Don Alonso Martinez de, 288, 294-310, 361
Liddell, the ‘pyle’ of, 241
Ligonier, General, 339
Lincoln (Lindum), 40, 45, 46, 47, 50, 64, 206
Lindisfarne (Holy Island), 108, 115
Lisbon, 291, 315
Lisle, John, Lord, 218-221, 302
Llanwnda, 348
Llywarch, the bard, 108
Lochmaben, 271
London, 32, 36, 37, 46, 47, 50, 51, 64, 65, 80, 87, 91, 106, 107,
109, 122, 123, 132, 142, 143, 147, 165, 166, 169-172, 190,
191, 196, 205, 209-213, 285, 321, 333, 340, 341
Lonsdale, Lord, 335
Lothian, 71, 224, 225, 228
Louis XIV. of France, 328, 345
Louis, Dauphin of France, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214
Lucomon, royal reeve, 150
Ludwig ‘the Pious,’ Emperor, 117, 120
Lugotorix, 26
Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, 79, 80
Luxan, Francisco de, 277
Luzon, Don Alonso de, 362
Lygton (Leighton Buzzard), 155
Lympne, 143
Macbeth, King of Scotland, 225
MacIntosh, General, 334, 337
Maelgwn, King of Gwynedd, 102, 105
Maes Garmon, near Mold, 81
Magesaetas, 174
Magna Carta, 209
Malcolm II. of Scotland, 224, 225
Malcolm III., ‘Canmore,’ King of Scotland, 186, 205, 225, 226, 228
Maldon (Essex), 155, 164
Malise, Earl of Strathearn, 230
Man, Isle of, 236
Manchester, 340, 342
Mandubracius, 22, 24, 28
Manna, Earl, 156
Mar, John Erskine, Earl of, 333, 334
March, Earl of, 246
Marcus, British Emperor, 73
Margaret, sister of Eadgar ‘the Ætheling,’ 227
Margaret Tudor, Queen of James IV., 250
Maria Theresia, Empress, 338
Marie de Lorraine, Queen of James V., 271
Mary, Queen of Scots, 273, 283, 285, 287
Mary II. of England, 328, 332
Matilda, Empress, daughter of Henry I., 228
Matilda, wife of William I., 188
Maximus, Magnus Clemens, British Emperor, 69, 70, 71, 82
Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 288-309, 361
Medrant, 104
Melrose Abbey, 100, 238
Menendez de Aviles, Pero, 277, 278, 279, 282, 283, 301, 312, 316
Menendez Marquez, Pero, 312
Mercer, Andrew, 244
Merse, the, 225
Mersey Island (Essex), 146
Mexia, Don Agostin de, 362
Milford Haven, 216
Missiessy, Admiral, 353
Mole, River (Surrey), 51
Mona (Anglesey), 33, 40, 42
Monçada, Don Hugo de, 295, 300, 304, 305
Monk, George, Lord General, 320, 321, 324
Monmouth, James, Duke of, 327
Montgomerie, Roger de, 194
Montrose, Alexander, Earl of, 261, 263, 266
Morard de Galles, Vice-Admiral, 346
Moray, Thomas Randolph, Earl of, 238, 239, 240, 243
Morkere, Earl, 178, 179, 183, 187, 190, 191, 205, 207
Mountjoy, Lord Deputy, 316
Mount’s Bay, 314
Mousehole, 314
Murray, Lord George, 338, 341, 342, 343
Musgrave, ‘Jacke’ of, 272
Napoleon I., 269, 345, 351-356
Narcissus, treasurer of Claudius I., 34
Natan-leod, 106
Nectarides, Count of the Saxon Shore, 67
Netherby (Castra Exploratorum), 59
Neville, Ralph, 242
Newark, 211
Newcastle-on-Tyne, 227, 235, 238, 335, 339
New Forest, the, 109
Newlyn, 314
Nicholson, Mr. E. B., 104
Nithsdale, Lord and Lady, 334, 337
Norham Castle, 228, 254
Norreys, Sir John, 312
Northampton, 157, 240
Norwich, 168
Nottingham, 126, 206
Oakley, near Basingstoke (see Appendix A), 123
Ockley (Surrey), 357
Odda, Ealdorman, 138
Odo of Bayeux, 196, 199, 205
Oglethorpe, General, 342
Ohthere the Viking, 155, 156
Ojeda, Don Agostin de, 295
Olaf Haraldson, 188
Olaf Tryggvason, 118, 164, 165, 166, 167
Oquendo, Don Miguel de, 294, 298, 308, 309, 310
Ordovices, the, 40, 42
Osbeorht, 125
Oskytel the Viking, 134
Osric, Ealdorman, 124
Otadini, the, 71, 72
Otto ‘the Great,’ Emperor, 161
Owen, King of Reged, 108
‘Owers’ Shoals, 219, 302
Oxford, 176
Padstow (St. Petrocstow), 163
Pallig, Jarl, 166, 167
Palmer, Admiral Sir Henry, 290
Parma, Alessandro Farnese, Prince of, 287, 289, 290, 296, 301, 302,
303, 309
Paulinus, C. Suetonius, 42-53
Pearls, British, 28
Pelagius, 79
Penrith, 335, 342
Penzance, 314
Pepys, Samuel, 320, 326
Perche, Count of, 212, 213
Percy, Alan, 230
Percy, Henry, ‘Hotspur,’ 242, 245, 246
Perth, 245, 334
Peterborough, 127
Pevensey (Anderida), 97, 188, 190, 203
Philip Augustus, King of France, 209
Philip II. of Spain, 280-316, 351
Philippa, wife of Edward III., 242
Philpot, John, 244
Picts (Caledonians), 59-80, 224, 229, 230
Pimentel, Don Diego de, 307, 362
Plague, the Great, of London, 319
Plautius, Aulus, 33-39, 57
Plymouth, 215, 216, 291-299, 314
Poenius Postumus, 47
Pontefract, 254
Porlock, 155
Portland, 120, 164, 300
Portsmouth, 203, 215, 303
Portugal, Henrique, King of, 283
Portus Itius (Wissant), 21, 22
Prasutagus, King of the Iceni, 44, 45
Prouse, Captain, 304
Quatbridge-on-Severn, 147
Quincy, Saer de, 212
Ragnar Lodbrog, 126, 139
Ranmore, Surrey, 51
Reading, 128
Recalde, Don Juan Martinez de, 287-310, 361
Redwulf, King of Northumbria, 122
Regnald, Viking King of Deira, 158
Regni, the, 4, 31, 38
Requesens, Don Luis de, 280, 282
Richard I., 234
Richard II., 244
Richard III., 249, 254
Rieux, Maréchal Jean de, 216
Risingham (Habitancum), 59
Robert I. (Bruce) of Scotland, 236-241, 274
Robert II. of Scotland, 243, 244, 246
Robert of Mortain, 196
Robert, son of William I., 227
Roches, Peter des, 211, 212
Rochester, 122, 321
Rokeby, Thomas of, 240, 242
Roman army, 9-14, 21-23, 33, 34, 69, 72
Roman citizenship, 82, 83
Roman Emperors: Antoninus Pius, 58;
Augustus, 31, 32;
Aurelian, 41;
Caracalla, 60;
Claudius I., 32-41, 43, 58;
Constans I., 66, 70;
Constantine the Great, 63, 70;
Constantius Chlorus, 62, 63;
Constantius II., 63;
Diocletian, 62;
Gaius Cæsar (‘Caligula’), 32;
Gratianus, 70;
Honorius, 72, 73, 74, 75;
Maximianus, 62;
Nero, 43, 44;
Severus I., 56, 59, 60, 65;
Theodosius I., 70, 72;
Titus, 38;
Valentinian I., 70;
Valentinian II., 70;
Valentinian III., 86
Roman legions: IInd, ‘Augusta,’ 34-51, 72, 74;
VIth, 53, 57, 72, 73;
VIIth, 9, 16, 20, 23;
VIIIth, 9;
IXth, ‘Hispana,’ 9, 34, 40-53;
Xth, 1, 9, 10, 16, 20;
XIVth, ‘Gemina Martia,’ 34, 40, 42, 46;
XXth, ‘Valeria Victrix,’ 34, 40, 42, 46, 57
Roman walls of London, 123
Rorik the Dane, 123
Rothbury, 334
Rothesay, David, Duke of, 246
Roxburgh, 249
Ruijter, Admiral Michiel Adriaanszoon de, 320, 321, 326, 327
Rutupiae (Richborough), 35, 48, 72
Rye, 215
St. Albans, 31, 64, 65, 210
St. Andrews, Archbishop of, 244
St. Augustine, 286
St. Brice’s Day, massacre on, 167
St. David’s Cathedral, 349
St. Helens, 218
St. Paul, 314
St. Valery-en-Caux, 182, 188
Sandwich, 22, 122, 171, 213
Santa Cruz, Alvaro de Bazan, Marques de, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288,
289, 313
Santa Gadea, Conde de, 315
Santander, 280, 282
Sarsfield, Colonel Patrick, 331
Sarum, 168
Scapula Publius Ostorius, 40, 42
Scarborough, 187
Scargate, 154
Scillies, 282, 314
Selby, Walter de, 241
Selim, Prince of Powys, 112
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, 44
Severn, 39, 47, 48
Seymour, Lord Henry, 290, 304, 305, 306
Sheerness, 321, 324
Sheppey, 119, 124, 174
Ships, names of:
_Ark Royal_, 301, 304;
_Bonaventure_, 303;
_Great James_, 324;
_Harry Grâce-à-Dieu_, 218;
_Jennet Perwyn_, 250;
_Lion_, 250;
_Long Serpent_, 118;
_Loyal London_, 324;
_Maria Juan_, 309;
_Marie Rose_, 220;
_Mora_, 188;
_Nonpareil_, 306;
_Nuestra Senora del Rosario_, 299, 300;
_Primrose_, 286;
_Revenge_, 299, 306, 307, 313;
_Rata Encoronada_, 298;
_Royal Charles_, 324;
_Royal Oak_, 324, 326;
_San Felipe_, 307, 308, 309, 360;
_San Francesco de Florencia_, 300;
_San Juan_, 298, 305, 360;
_San Lorenzo_, 305;
_San Luis_, 301, 302;
_San Martin_, 294, 298-308;
_San Mateo_, 307, 308, 309;
_San Salvador_, 299, 300;
_Triumph_, 301, 302;
_Vanguard_, 308
Ships, types of, 117, 118, 148, 218, 277-290
Siegfred, 143
Sigeric, Archbishop, 165
Silchester (Calleva), 51, 64, 66, 76, 97, 109
Silures, the, 31-40, 53
Sinclair, Sir Oliver, 271, 272
Sinclair, Lord, 261, 263
Sores, a Huguenot captain, 276
Southampton, 3, 72, 78, 105, 124, 163
Southwark, 205
Spithead, 184
Spragge, Admiral Sir Edward, 321, 326
Stafford, 155
Stamford, 157
Stane Street, 357
Stanhope, General, 333
Stanley, Sir Edward, 257, 263, 266
Stephen of Blois, King of England, 228
Steward, Walter the, 239
Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, 181
Stilicho, Roman General, 69, 72
Stirling, 334
Strabo, 31, 32
Strathclyde, 75, 104, 107, 159, 224, 230
Strozzi, Leone, 217
Stuart, Alexander, Archbishop of St. Andrews, 268
Surrey, Thomas Howard, Earl of, afterwards second Duke of Norfolk,
250-270
Suvórov, Marshal, Russian warrior, 270
Swanage, Viking shipwreck at, 136
Sweyn Estrithson, King of Denmark, 179, 206
Sweyn Haraldson, ‘Fork-beard,’ King of Denmark, 165-170
Swinton, Sir John, 247
Tacitus, P. Cornelius, 36, 37, 46, 47, 53, 116
Taillefer, minstrel, 197
Talhærn, 108
Taliesin, 108
Tamworth, 155
Tasciovan, King of the Catuvellauni, 31
Tate, General, 348, 349
Teignmouth, 345
Tenby, 216
Terceira, 283
Texel, 352
Thames, 24, 25, 50, 67, 123, 128, 203, 205, 213, 321, 326-330
Thanet (Ruim), 89, 123, 163, 210
Theodosius, General of Valentinian I., 68, 70
Thorney Isle, in the Colne, 145
Thetford, Vikings at, 127, 168
Theudebert I., 116
Theudric (‘Flamddwyn’), 108
Thorkil ‘the Tall,’ 169, 170, 171, 173
Thurstan, Archbishop of York, 229
Till, the, 255, 257, 260
Toesny, Ralph de, 194
Togodubn, King of South Britain, 32, 35, 37
Toglos, Earl, 156
Torbay, 345
Torington, Admiral, Lord, 330
Tosti, brother of Harold II., 179, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188, 226
Tourville, Anne Hilarion de Cotentin, Comte de, 344, 345
Toustain de Bec-en-Caux, 196
Trebonius, C., 25
Tréport, 221
Trinobantes, 4, 22-31, 45
Twisel, 254, 258, 260
Tyne and Tynemouth, 39, 60, 265
Ubaldino, 311
Uhtred, Earl, 172, 224
Ulfkytel, Ealdorman, 168
Ulgarich, Galwegian chief, 232
Upnor Castle, 326
Urbicus, Lollius, 58
Urien of Reged, 108
Ushant, 292
Utrecht, sack by Danes, 119
Valdes, Diego de, 296, 298, 309
Valdes, Don Pedro de, 291-300, 358
Van Ghent, Admiral, 320, 321, 324, 326, 327
Vendée, La, 346
Venta Silurum (Caerwent), 97
Verulam, 26, 36-38, 47, 50, 80, 87, 96, 97, 106
Vienne, Jean de, Admiral of France, 215, 216, 244, 245
Vigo, 286
Viking ships, the, 117, 118
Viroconium (Wroxeter), 40, 42, 48, 50, 64, 70
Voelund the Viking, 124
Volusenus, C., 8, 11, 16, 17
Vortigern, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 98
Vortimer, 90
Vortipore of the Demetæ, 105
Wace, 180, 194
Wade, Marshal, 339, 340, 342
Wadon Hill, 102
Wall of Antoninus, 68
Wall of Hadrian and Severus I., 56, 68
Wallace, William, 235
Wallingford, 205
Walsingham, Sir F., 285
Warbeck, Perkin, 249
Wark, 228
Warwick, 156
Wash, the, 120, 207, 211
Watchet, 155
Watling Street, 25
Welland, 39
West, Dr., 251
Wharton, Sir Thomas, 272
Widdrington, Lord, 333, 334
Wigan, 342
Wiggingamere, 156
Wight, Isle of, 18, 216-219
Wilton, 168
Willes, General, 335, 336
William ‘Longsword,’ Earl of Salisbury, 210
William the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, 211, 212, 213
William, nephew of David I., 228
William the Lion, King of Scotland, 233, 234
William I., 178-208, 227
William II. (Rufus), King of England, 227
William III., King of England, 328, 329, 330, 331, 345
Wincanton, 331
Wintoun, Lord, 334
Winchelsea, 211, 215
Winchester, 124, 205, 212
Witham, 155
Witt, Grand Pensionary de, 320
Wood, Sir Andrew, 250
Wooler, 246, 257
Wrekin, 40
Wulfheard, Ealdorman of Hampshire, 120
Wulfnoth, brother of Harold II., 178
Yarmouth, 210, 215
Yonge, Captain, 304
York, 53, 60, 64, 72, 73, 125, 172, 187, 206
Zosimus, 75
ERRATA.
Page 59. Habitancium _should read_ Habitancum.
Page 247. Lord Adam Gordon _should read_ Sir Adam Gordon.
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed.
Inconsistent usage of ligatures has not been changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Errata have been corrected in this eBook.
Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.
Some devices and viewers will substitute question marks or small squares
for characters they cannot display.
Page 6: “Teucteri” was printed that way; may be misprint for “Tencteri”.
Page 158: “Eadward ‘the Elder’ died in 824” is a misprint: he died in
924.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Invasions of England" ***
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