Ælfgar

hires ships

CHAP. IX. did but follow the least justifiable act in the career of his rival. But, if Harold had set a bad example, Elfgar improved upon it. Harold had sought to force his way into the country at the head of mercenaries hired in a foreign land. But he had not allied himself with the enemies of his country; he had not carried on a war against England in the interest of an ever restless foe of England. To this depth of infamy Elfgar did not scruple to sink. He went over, as Harold had done, to Ireland, in Ireland, and there gathered a force of eighteen ships, besides the one in which he had made his own voyage. These ships were doubtless manned by the Scandinavian settlers in that country. With this fleet he sailed to some haven in and makes Wales, probably in North Wales, where he met Gruffydd and made an alliance with him.2 The Welsh Prince was now at the height of his power. He had this very year overthrown and slain his South-Welsh rival, Gruffydd the son of Rhydderch. He seems now to have been master of the whole Cymrian territory, and, at the head of such a power, he was more dangerous, and probably more hostile, to England than ever. Nothing then could be more opportune for his purposes than the appearance of a banished English Earl at the head of a powerful force of Irish Danes. Ælfgar at once asked for Gruffydd's help in a war to be waged against King Eadward. The plan of a campaign

an alliance with Gruffydd.

3

4

1 Chron. Ab. 1055. "He gewende da to Irlande, and begeat him ðær lið; þæt was xviii. scipa butan his agenan." So "xviii. piraticis navibus acquisitis" in Florence. The part of Ireland whence they came is not mentioned, but Diarmid, the protector of Harold, was still reigning at Dublin, and he would doubtless be equally ready to protect Ælfgar. I can find no mention of the matter in the Irish Chronicles.

2 The language of the three Chronicles and of Florence is singularly varied, but they all assert the same fact.

3 Ann. Camb. 1055. "Grifinus filius Lewelin, Grifud filium Riderch occidit et Herefordiam vastavit." So Brut y Tywysogion, 1054.

Fl. Wig. "Petivit [Algarus] ut contra Regem Eadwardum sibi esset in auxilium."

ELFGAR AND GRUFFYDD IN HEREFORDSHIRE.

387

ravage Hereford

was speedily settled. Gruffydd summoned the whole force CHAp. ix. of the Cymry1 for a great expedition against the Saxons. Ælfgar, with his Irish or Danish following, was to meet the Welsh King at some point which is not mentioned, and the combined host was to march on a devastating inroad into Herefordshire. The plan was successfully Gruffydd and Elfgar carried out, and the forces of Gruffydd and Ælfgar entered the southern part of the shire, the district known as shire, Archenfeld, and there harried the country. The border land which they entered was one bound to special service against British enemies. The priests of the district had the duty of carrying the King's messages into Wales; its militia claimed the right, in any expedition against the same enemy, to form the van in the march and the rear in the retreat. To ravage this warlike district was no doubt a special object with the Welsh King, one which would be carried out with special delight. He did his work effectually. The effects of the harrying under Gruffydd were still to be seen at the time of the Norman survey.3

2

1 Fl. Wig. "De toto regno suo copiosum exercitum congregans." The Welsh Chronicler says that "Gruffydd raised an army against the Saxons," but he takes care to say nothing of his English, Irish, or Danish allies.

...

2 Domesday, 179. "In Arcenefelde habet Rex tres ecclesias; presbyteri harum ecclesiarum ferunt legationes Regis in Wales. . . . Quum exercitus in hostem pergit,' ipsi per consuetudinem faciunt Avantwarde et in reversione Redrewarde. Hæ consuetudines erant Walensium T. R. E. in Arcenefelde." These customs are described at length (see also 181), and they give a curious picture of a border district, largely inhabited by Welshmen living under English allegiance and bound to service against their independent brethren. The district is also spoken of by the name of Yrcingafelda in the Chronicles for 915, when the country was harried by Danish pirates, and a Bishop Camelgeac, seemingly a Bishop of Llandaff (see Stubbs, Reg. Sacr. Ang. 156, and Thorpe, Chronological Index), but at any rate a valued subject of Eadward the Elder, was taken prisoner.

3 Domesday, 181. "Rex Grifin et Blein vastaverunt hanc terram T. R. E. et ideo nescitur qualis eo tempore fuerit." Blein is doubtless Bleddyn the brother of Gruffydd, to whom his kingdom was given by Harold in 1063. There are other entries of "Wasta" on the same page; also at 181 b, 182 b, 183, 183 b, 185, and 187.

CHAP. IX. The work of destruction thus begun seems to have been

October 24,

1055

Ralph

makes the

English fight on horseback.

carried on by Gruffydd and his allies without opposition,

2

till they came within two miles of the city of Hereford.1 and meet There they were at last met by a large force under Ralph, Earl Ralph near Here- the Earl of the shire, consisting partly of the levies of ford. the district, and partly of his own French and Norman following. Richard the son of Scrob, it will be remembered, was among the Normans who had been allowed to remain in England, and no doubt the forces of Richard's Castle swelled the army of Ralph. The timid Earl 3 thought himself called upon to be a military reformer. The English, light-armed and heavy-armed alike, had hitherto always been accustomed to fight on foot. The Housecarl, the professional soldier, with his coat of mail and his battle-axe, and the churl who hastened to defend his field with nothing but his javelin and his leathern jerkin, alike looked on the horse only as a means to convey the warrior to and from the field of battle. The introduction of cavalry into the English armies might perhaps have been an improvement, but it was an improvement which could not be carried into effect with a sudden levy within sight of the enemy. But Ralph despised the English tactics, and would have his army arrayed according to the best and newest continental models. A French prince could not condescend to command men who walked into action on their own feet, according to the barbarous English fashion. The men of Herefordshire were therefore called on to meet the harassing attacks of the nimble Welsh, and the more fearful onslaught of Ælfgar's Danes, while The battle still mounted on their horses. The natural consequences followed; before a spear was hurled, the English took to

is there

fore lost.

1 Flor. Wig. 1055.

2 See above, p. 344.

"Duobus miliariis a civitate Herefordâ."

3 It is now that Florence introduces him as "timidus Dux Radulfus, Regis Eadwardi sororis filius."

DEFEAT OF RALPH.

389

flight. Nothing else could have been reasonably looked CHAP. IX. for; however strong may have been the hearts of their riders, horses which had not gone through the necessary training would naturally turn tail at the unaccustomed sights and sounds of an army in battle array. But in one account we find a statement which is far stranger and more disgraceful. If Ralph required his men to practise an unusual and foreign tactic, he and his immediate companions should at least have shown them in their own persons an example of its skilful and valiant carrying out. But we are told that Ralph, with his French and Normans, were the first to fly, and that the English in their flight did but follow the example of their leader.3 I suspect some exaggeration here. Whatever may have been the case with the timid Earl himself, mere cowardice was certainly not a common Norman, or even French, failing. For a party of French knights to take to flight on the field of battle without exchanging a single spear-thrust, is something almost unheard of. It is far more likely that we have here a little perversion arising from national dislike. It is far more likely that, whatever Ralph himself may have done, the Normans in his company were simply carried away by the inevitable, and therefore in no way disgraceful, flight of the English. Anyhow the battle, before it had begun, was changed into a rout. The enemy pursued. The light-armed and nimble Welsh were probably well able to overtake the clumsily mounted English. Four or five hundred were killed, and many

1 Chron. Ab. 1055. "Ac ær þær wære ænig spere gescoten, ær fleah dæt Englisce folc, forðan þe hig wæran on horsan." Florence is more explicit ; "Radulfus.. Anglos contra morem in equis pugnare jussit."

2 See Macaulay's remarks on Monmouth's raw cavalry at Sedgemoor. Hist. Eng. i. 588, 604.

3 Flor. Wig. 1055. "Comes cum suis Francis et Nortmannis fugam primitus capessit. Quod videntes Angli ducem suum fugiendo sequuntur." But the Chronicles do not necessarily imply this.

CHAP. IX. more were wounded. On the side of Elfgar and Gruffydd we are told that not a man was lost.1

Elfgar and Gruf

and burn Hereford. Story of Æthelberht of

EastAnglia. 792.

The Welsh King and the English Earl entered Hereford fydd sack the same day without resistance. The chief object of their wrath seems to have been the cathedral church of the diocese, the minster of Saint Æthelberht. The holy King of the East-Angles, betrothed to the daughter of the famous Offa, had come to seek his bride at her father's court. He was there murdered by the intrigues of Cynethryth, the wife of the Mercian King. He became the local saint of Hereford, and the minster of the city boasted Æthelstan, of his relics as its choicest treasure. That church was now Bishop of Hereford. ruled by Ethelstan, an aged Prelate, who had already 1012-1056. sat for forty-three years. But, for the last twelve years, blindness had caused him to retire from the active government of his diocese, which was administered by a Welsh Bishop named Tremerin.5 Æthelstan is spoken of as a man of eminent holiness, and he had, doubtless in his more active days, rebuilt the minster of Saint Ethelberht, and enriched it with many ornaments. The invaders attacked the church with the fury of heathens; indeed among the followers of Elfgar there may still have been votaries of Thor and Odin. Seven of the Canons at

4

1 Chron. Ab. "And man sloh ær mycel wæl, abutan feower hund manna oððe fife, and hig nænne agean." The Annales Cambriæ (1055) have simply, "Grifinus. . Herfordiam vastavit," without mention of the battle. The Brut (1054) is much fuller. It makes no mention of Ælfgar and his contingent, but it speaks of Reinolf or Randwlf as the commander of the English. It says nothing of the special reason for the flight of the English, which it says happened "after a severely hard battle."

The battle, according to the Abingdon Chronicle and Florence, the "harrying" according to the Worcester Chronicle, was on the 24th of October, ix. Kal. Nov.

3 So all the Chronicles under 792.

See Appendix HH.

5 Chronn. Ab. and Wig. and Flor. Wig. 1055. This can hardly be the Tramerin, Bishop of Saint David's, who was consecrated at Canterbury by Archbishop Ælfric in 994. R. de Diceto, X Scriptt. 461. See Stubbs, Reg. Sac. 20, 155.