DEFEAT OF EARL RALPH. 259 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.1 The work of destruction thus begun seems to have been carried on by Gruffydd and his allies without opposition, till they came within two miles of the city of Hereford." There they were at last met (October 24, 1055) by a large force under Ralph, the Earl of the shire, consisting partly of the levies of 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,3 and no doubt the forces of Richard's Castle swelled the army of Ralph. The timid Earl thought himself called upon to be a military reformer. The English, light-armed and heavyarmed 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 leather 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. 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 Elfgar's Danes, while still mounted on their horses. The natural consequences followed; before a spear was hurled, the English took to flight. Nothing else could have been reasonably looked for; however strong may have been the hearts of their riders, horses which 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. 1 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 But Harold in 1063. There are other entries a had not gone through the necessary training would naturally turn tail at the unaccustomed sights and sounds of an army in battle array.1 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, was the first to fly, and that the English in their flight did but follow the example of their leader. 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 more were wounded. On the side of Ælfgar and Gruffydd we are told that not a man was lost.3 The Welsh King and the English Earl entered Hereford 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 of his relics as its choicest treasure. That church was now ruled by Æthelstan, an aged Prelate, who had already sat for forty-three years (1012-1056). But, for the 1 See Macaulay's remarks on Monmouth's raw cavalry at Sedgemoor. Hist. Eng. i. 588, 604. 2 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. 3 Chron. Ab. "And man sloh dær mycel wæl, abutan feower hund manna odde fife, and hig nænne agean." The Annales Cambria (1055) have simply, "Grifinus .. Herfordiam vastavit," without mention 6 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. 5 So all the Chronicles under 792. 3 SACK OF HEREFORD. 261 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.1 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 Ælfgar there may still have been votaries of Thor and Odin. Seven of the Canons attempted to defend the great door of the church, but they were cut down without mercy.2 The church was burned, and all its relics and ornaments were lost. Of the citizens many were slain, and others were led into captivity. The whole town was sacked and set fire to, and the Welsh account specially adds that Gruffydd destroyed the fort or citadel. The history which follows seems to imply that the town itself was not fortified, but merely protected by this fortress. At its date or character we can only guess. Hereford is not spoken of among the fortresses raised by Eadward the Elder and his sister Æthelflæd. It is an obvious conjecture that the fortress destroyed by Gruffydd was a Norman castle raised by Ralph. A chief who was so anxious to make his people conform to Norman ways of fighting would hardly lag behind his neighbour at Richard's Castle. He would be among the first at once to provide himself with a dwellingplace and his capital with a defence according to the latest continental patterns. If so, we may easily form a picture of the Hereford of those days. By the banks of the Wye rose the minster, low and massive, but crowned by one or more of those tall slender towers in which the rude art of English masons strove to reproduce the campaniles of Northern Italy. Around the church were gathered the houses of the Bishop, the Canons, the citizens, the last at least mainly of wood. Over all rose the square mass of the Norman donjon, an ominous foreboding of the days which were soon to come. All, church, castle, houses, fell before the wasting arms of Elfgar and Gruffydd. They went away rejoicing in their victory and in the rich 1 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. 2 Flor. Wig: 1055. "Septem canonicis qui valvas principalis basilica defenderant occisis." The Worcester Chronicler, without mentioning the number, says; "Forbærnde [Elfgar] þæt mære mynster be Æthelstan bisceop getimbrode, and ofsloh þa preostas innan þan mynstre." 3 16 Nonnullis e civibus necatis, multisque captivatis," says Florence, but the Worcester Chronicle, after mentioning the slaughter of the clergy, adds, " and manege þærto eacan;" while Abingdon says, "and þæt folc slogan, and sume onweg læddan." Cf. the exaggeration as to the slaughter at Canterbury in 1011. See vol. i. p. 446. The Brut y Tywysogion plainly distinguishes the "gaer," or castle, which was demolished, from the town, which was burned. The castle was doubtless of stone, while the houses of the town would be chiefly of wood. booty which they carried. The blow seems to have broken the hearts of the two Prelates whose flock suffered so fearfully. Tremerin died before the end of the year, and Æthelstan early in the year following.1 King Eadward was now in his usual winter-quarters at Gloucester. Either the time of the Christmas Gemót was hastened, or the King, in such an emergency, acted on his own responsibility. The defence of the country and the chastisement of the rebels could no longer be left in the hands of his incapable nephew. The occasion called for the wisest head and the strongest arm in the whole realm. Though his own government had not been touched, the Earl of the West-Saxons was bidden to gather a force from all England, and to attack the Welsh in their own land. It is not unlikely that his brother was, as in a later war with the same enemy, summoned from Northumberland to his help. Late as was the season of the year, Harold did not shrink from the task.2 This seems to have been his first experience of Welsh warfare, and we are not told whether he now adopted those special means of adapting his operations to the peculiar nature of the country, which he tried so successfully in his later and more famous campaign. He then, as we shall see, caused his soldiers to adopt the light arms and loose array of the Welsh, and thereby proved more than a match for them at their own weapons. The story seems rather to imply that he did not do so on this occasion, and that the later stroke of his genius was the result of the lessons which he now learned. In neither case did a Welsh enemy dare to meet Harold in a pitched battle; but there is a marked difference between the two campaigns; in the earlier one the Welsh successfully escaped Harold's pursuit, while in the later one they were unable to do so. Harold gathered his army at Gloucester; he passed the Welsh border, and pitched his camp beyond the frontier district of Straddele. But the main point is that Gruffydd and Ælfgar, who had marched so boldly to the conflict with Ralph, altogether shrank HAROLD'S FIRST WELSH CAMPAIGN. 263 from giving battle to Harold. They escaped into South Wales. Harold, finding it vain to pursue such an enemy, gave up the attempt. He dismissed the greater part of his army, that is probably the militia of the shires, merely bidding them keep themselves in readiness to withstand the enemy in case of any sudden inroad.1 With the rest of his troops, that is probably with his own following, he went on to take measures for securing the important post of Hereford against future attacks. The castle had been levelled with the ground, the church was a ruin, the houses of the townsmen were burned. Harold set himself to repair the mischief, but his notions of defending a city were different from those of the Frenchman Ralph. The first object of the English Earl was to secure the town itself, not to provide a stronghold for its governor. It does not appear that he rebuilt the castle, but he at once supplied the city itself with the needful defences. So important a border town was no longer to be left open to the raids of every enemy and every rebel. As a military measure, to meet a temporary emergency, he surrounded the town with a ditch and a strong wall. This wall, in its first estate, though strengthened by gates and bars, seems to have been merely a dyke of earth and rough stones. But, before the reign of Eadward was ended, Harold, then Earl of the shire, followed the example of Eadward at Towcester and Ethelstan at Exeter, and surrounded the town with a wall of masonry. The wooden houses of the citizens could soon be rebuilt. Hereford was soon again peopled with burghers, both within and without the wall, some of them the men of the King and others the men of Earl Harold. The minster had been burned, but we must remember how laxly that word is often taken. All its woodwork, all its fittings and ornaments, were of course destroyed, the walls would be blackened and damaged, but it was capable of at least 3 1 Fl. Wig. 1055. "Majorem exercitûs partem ibi dimisit, mandans eis ut suis adversariis, si res exposceret, viriliter resisterent." 2 I infer this from a comparison of the Chronicles, Florence, and Domesday. The Abingdon Chronicle says, "And Harald Eorl let dician a dic abutan þæt port ba hwile." Florence says more distinctly, "Herefordam rediens, vallo lato et alto illam cinxit, portis et seris munivit." These accounts, as well as the probability of the case, point to a mere "vallum." But in Domesday, 179, we read of there being "murus a at Hereford in the time of King Eadward, which seems to imply a stone wall. Nothing is more likely than that Harold should throw up a hasty mound now, and afterwards make a more elaborate 3 One hundred and three burghers held of the King, twenty-seven of Earl Harold, whose customs were the same as those of the King's men. The customs are detailed at great length. The burghers were liable to military service against the Welsh, and they paid a fine of forty shillings to the King in case of disobedience to the Sheriff's summons for that purpose. Some served with horses. The Reeve paid twelve pounds to the King and six to Earl Harold, that is the Earl's third penny. The King had a mint, and also the Bishop. The whole details are exceedingly curious, and I shall probably have to refer to them again. |