Yorkshire Battles - Edward Lamplough

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and intelligent our Yorkshire Battles present interesting and important studies of those subtle and natural processes by which nations achieve liberty, prosperity, and greatness.

      E. L.

      Hull Literary Club,

       January 6th, 1891.

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      From the earliest ages of our recorded national history the soil of Yorkshire has been the “dark and bloody ground” of mighty chieftains and their armed thousands. Where the sickle gleams to-day amid the golden fields of autumn, our ancestors beheld the flashing steel of mighty hosts, and triumphed by the might of their red right hand, or endured the bitter humiliation of defeat.

      Vain was the barrier of Hadrian’s Wall to restrain the fiery Caledonians from their prey in the old times before us, when the Roman Eagle was borne above the iron cohorts of the Empire through the remote and rugged Northland. When Severus visited the island, to maintain his rule and quell the raging storms of invasion, he found the city of York surrounded by barbarians, and encountered and drove them afar in bloody defeat When the Roman gallies bore off the last of the legionaries, and the Britons were left to their own resources, the tide of devastation spread wide and far, and the suffering people were driven to the verge of despair. According to William of Malmsbury, the Romans had drained the land of its best blood, and left it cursed with a sottish and debauched population. Hordes of Picts and Scots inundated the land, fired its villages, overthrew its cities, and slew the inhabitants with the edge of the sword. Oft has the pathetic earnestness of Gildas been quoted: “The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea throws us back on the barbarians; thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned.”

      Again the clang of arms and the loud tones of war rang through the north, when the White-horse Standard of the Saxons was spread upon the breeze, and the tall, muscular warriors, with their long, fair hair and flowing beards, swept towards the borders, filling the Briton with astonishment and admiration. Then blood flowed like water, and the fiery Picts were turned to sullen flight; but, ere long, Yorkshire plain and hill groaned under a fresh burden of blood as Briton and Saxon strove together for the mastery. The tide of war ebbed and flowed around the ancient city of York, and sanguinary and numerous were the engagements that ensued before the Britons relinquished the sovereignty of the island.

      The history of Edwin, King of Deira and Bernicia, is worthy of a passing notice; he was left an orphan at the tender age of three years, when King Ethelfrith seized his inheritance of Deira, and pursued his steps with implacable persistency until Redwald King of East Anglia took him under his protection. Ethelfrith at once marched upon Redwald, and two sanguinary battles followed, the usurper perishing in the last conflict. Redwald then placed Edwin upon the throne of Deira and Bernicia.

      Edwin was a pagan, but on espousing the sister of Ethelbald, King of Kent, he came under the influence of Bishop Paulinus, and his conversion followed. On Easter Day, 626, Edwin gave audience to his subjects in his “regal city” on the Derwent, a few miles from York. Doubtless it was a favourable time for the presenting of petitions, for during the night the Queen had given birth to a daughter.

      

      Towards the conclusion of the morning’s business, a messenger was ushered into the royal presence, and, when about to address the King, drew forth a long double-edged knife, with which he attempted to stab the monarch, throwing all the weight of his body into the blow. Lila, the King’s minister, perceiving his master’s danger, interposed his body, which was transpierced by the weapon, which inflicted a slight wound upon the King. Upon the instant the assassin was slain by a score of weapons, but not before he had also killed Forthhere, one of Edwin’s household. It transpired that the murderer was a servant of Cuichelm, king of the West Saxons, and was named Eumer. The knife had been poisoned, and though robbed of its virulence in passing through the body of Lila, the King had to endure somewhat at the hands of his physician, and was no doubt under some apprehension of death. In conversation with Paulinus he vowed to accept the Christian religion if he recovered from his wound, and succeeded in punishing the murderous treachery of Cuichelm, and on Whit-Sunday the infant princess received Christian baptism.

      The avenging army of Northumbria burst into the fair Westland with sword and spear, and Edwin carried his banner through many a sanguinary engagement, when the strong growing corn was trampled under foot and cursed with red battle-rain, as the massy columns of Northumbria drove over the field, banners flapping overhead, javelins and stones beating in a terrible shower along the front, whilst a forest of portended pikes rent and overwhelmed all who dared to brave the dreadful onset.

      On the King’s return he hesitated long before professing the Christian religion, and called his chiefs to take council with him. To his surprise the way was prepared for him. Coifi, chief of the pagan priests, doubted the power of his gods. He gave them careful service, omitted nothing, and deserved well of them, yet he was not first in the King’s favour, nor prosperous in his undertakings.

      One of Edwin’s chieftains took a more just and elevated view of the subject: “The present life of man, O King, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst storms of rain and snow prevail abroad—the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.”

      The result was that Coifi undertook to desecrate his gods, assuming sword and spear, and mounting a stallion, forbidden to priests. Great was the astonishment and awe of the people as the royal party rode towards the temple. As Coifi approached he brandished his spear, and hurled it into the building. As it clashed upon the floor an awful cry burst from the priests, but no dire catastrophe followed, and fire being applied to the temple, building and gods were alike consumed. The impotence of the pagan gods established, the conversion of the people rapidly followed, and the wise and good King reigned over a flourishing state for several years.

      Unhappily, the virtues of the King and the affection of his subjects were no protection from misfortune, and the chequered life went down in ruin and defeat. Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, a wretch inured to crime, entered into a confederacy with Cadwalla, King of North Wales, and, after vowing to compass the destruction of all the Christians in the island, marched against King Edwin.

      The royal Northumbrian was neither slow to mass his troops nor meet his arch-enemy; but the triumph that had so often attended his arms was not vouchsafed in this inauspicious hour; and when the terrible waves of battle rolled against each other at the village of Hatfield, near Doncaster, in the October days of 633, his throne and crown went down in the fierce storm, though brave men flung themselves before his banners, and struggled with the savage foe as long as life lingered in the hacked and bleeding frame.

      Falling with honour in the van of battle, Edwin breathed out his life amidst the roar of the contending hosts, and so the day darkened ere the night closed on Christian Northumbria. By the King’s side fell his son, the gallant young Osfrid, and the slaughter of the defeated army being very great, a season of extreme depression ensued. Great as the confusion was, the dead King received the last melancholy offices, his head being buried in the porch of the church at York, and the Abbey at Whitby receiving his body.

      In the year 655, when the winters of eighty years had bleached the head of the warlike and ferocious Penda, he again

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