South London - Walter Besant

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were profuse. The figure-head was gilt, the stern was gilt, the shields were gilt; the ships were painted in long lines of bright colour – you can see that in the ships of the Bayeux tapestry. The whole of the vessel – bows, figure-head, gunwale, stern-post – were covered with carvings; the sails were decorated with embroideries; the mast was gilt. Verily the 'fleet shone as if it were on fire.'

      Such were the ships which came up, nearly a hundred in company, with Olaf and Swegen. Low in the water they came, the oars sweeping in a long, measured swish of the water: swiftly flying up the broad river, the sunshine lighting up the colours and the gilding of the ships, and the bright arms of the company on board. It was a company of tall and strong men; young, every one, with long fair hair and blue eyes. From the grey walls of the town, from the Bridge on the river, the citizens saw the splendid array rushing up to destroy them if they could. At the Bridge, the foremost stop: they go no farther; those behind cry 'Forward!' and those in front cry 'Back!' The Bridge would suffer none to pass; and so, jammed together, perhaps lashed together, as when Olaf was to meet his death five years later in his last splendid sea-fight, they essayed to take the city by assault. They shot arrows with red-hot heads over the walls, to strike and set light to the thatch; they shot arrows at the citizens on the walls; they tried to scale the piles of the Bridge. If they could get within the City, these splendid savages, there would be slaughter and pillage, ravishing of women, firing of the thatch, the roar of flames and the clashing of weapons, and next day silence, long teams of slaves and of treasure lifted into the ships, bows turned outward; and the fleet would leave behind it a London once more desolate and naked and forlorn, as when the East Saxon entered towards the end of the sixth century. It was a day of fate, and big with destiny. Had the Danes succeeded, we know not what might have been the history of London and of England.

      When they were beaten off, the people of Southwark went back to their homes, and the daily business of life was carried on as usual. We may observe that if there had been a permanent settlement here – a town of any importance – they would have built a wall to protect it. But there was never any wall; the place could be approached by the Causeway or by the river; no one ever at any time thought of protecting Southwark.

      But now a worse time fell upon the place, as well as upon London. The whole country, almost unresisting, was ravaged by the Danes: Swegen came over and proved the English weakness, and saw that time would help him, if he waited. Time did help him, and famine helped him as well.

      In 1009 occurred the second siege of London, this time by Thurkitel, who afterwards entered into the service of Ethelred. He ravaged Kent and Essex, took up his winter quarters on the Thames, apparently at Greenwich, and laid siege to the City – but in vain. It is of course obvious that without ladders, mines, battering-rams, or wooden towers, the City could never be taken. The people beat him off at every assault with great loss. It seems as if the whole valour in England was at the moment concentrated in London.

      The third siege of London was in 1013, when Swegen returned. This time, mindful of his former failure, and of Thurkitel's failure, he left his ships at Southampton; he marched upon London by way of Winchester, which he took on the way; but although he came up from the south, he did not attack from the south, nor did he encamp on the south. The reason is obvious: the Causeway was narrow; to fight on the Bridge was to engage a mere handful of men; there was no place except that and the Causeway. Swegen, therefore, passed over the ford of Westminster, and attacked the walls on the north side. Within the City was Thurkitel, now in the English service; by his help or counsel, the Londoners drove Swegen off the field. He withdrew. But all England rapidly submitted to his arms; therefore London, too, seeing that it was useless to hold out alone, sent hostages and submitted. It is reported that they were terrified at the threats of Swegen: he would cut off their hands and their feet; he would tear out their eyes; he would burn and destroy – and so forth. But these promises were the common garnish of besiegers; they no more frightened the defenders of London at this time than they frightened the defenders of any other city.

      The end of Swegen, as everybody knows, was that St. Edmund of Bury killed him for doubting his saintliness.

      SKETCH MAP

      We now come to the three successive sieges by King Cnut. The expedition with which he proposed to reduce London was far finer and more powerful than that of Olaf and Swegen. The poetic description of it says that the ships were counted by hundreds; that they were manned by an army among whom there was never a slave, or a freeman son of a slave, or one unworthy man, or an old man. Freeman asks what nobility meant if all were nobles? A strange question for one so learned! The nobles of Denmark were simply the conquering race; nobility consisted in free birth, and in descent from the conquering race, not the conquered: it was not necessarily a small caste; it might possibly include the larger part of the people.

      Cnut anchored off Greenwich and prepared for his siege. First of all, he resolved that the Bridge should no longer bar the way. He therefore cut a trench round the south of the Bridge, by means of which he drew some of his ships to the other side of it. He then cut another trench round the whole of the wall. In this way he hoped to shut in the City and cut off all supplies: if he could not take the place by storm, he would starve it out. There are no details of the siege, but as Cnut speedily abandoned the hope of success and marched off to look after Edmund, his investment of the City was certainly not a success.

      He met Edmund and fought two battles with him; with what result history has made us acquainted. He then returned and resumed the siege of London. Edmund fought him again, and made him once more raise the siege. When Edmund went into Wessex to gather new forces, Cnut began a third siege, in which, also, 'by God's help,' he made no progress.

      In twenty years, therefore, the City of London was besieged six times, and not once taken.

      Antiquaries have written a good deal on the colossal nature of the canal constructed by Cnut; they have looked for traces of it in the south of London before it was covered over by houses; they have gone as far afield as Deptford in search of these traces; they have even found them; and to the present day every writer who has mentioned the canal speaks of it and thinks of it with the respect due to a colossal work. Freeman himself called it a 'deep ditch.' How deep it was, how long it was, how broad it was, I am going to explain.

      It was in the year 1756 that the painstaking historian, William Maitland, F.R.S., announced that he had been so fortunate as to light upon the course of the long-lost trench of King Cnut.

      He had found certain evidence, he said, of its course, in a direction nearly east and west from the then 'New Dock' of Rotherhithe to the river at the end of Chelsea Reach, through Vauxhall Gardens. The proofs were, first, certain depressions in the ground; next, the discovery of oaken planks and piles driven into the ground for what he thought was the northern fence of the canal, near the Old Kent Road; and next a report that, in 1694, when the wet dock of Rotherhithe was constructed, a quantity of hazel, willow, and other branches were found pointing northward, with stakes to keep them in position, forming a kind of water fence, such as, it is said, is still in use in Denmark. It will be seen that Mr. Maitland's theory has but a small basis of evidence, yet it seems to have been generally accepted – partly, I suppose, because it was so colossal.

      The canal thus cut would actually be a little over four miles and a half in length. Another writer, seeing the difficulties of so great a work, suggests another course. He would start from the site of the New Dock, Rotherhithe, and end on the other side of London Bridge, a course of only three and three-quarter miles!

      Let us ask ourselves why it should be a 'deep' ditch; why it should be a long ditch; why it should be a broad ditch.

      Wherever Cnut began his trench, whether at Rotherhithe or nearer the Bridge, he would have the same preliminary difficulties to encounter: that is to say, he would have to cut through the Embankment of the river at either end, and he would have to cut through the Causeway in the middle. In these cuttings he would perhaps have to take down two or three houses, huts, or cabins, all deserted, because the people had all run across the Bridge for safety at the first sight of the Danes, if there were any people at the time living in Southwark – which I doubt.

      We may, further, take it for granted that Cnut had officers of sense and experience on whom he could depend

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