On Some Ancient Battle-Fields In Lancashire Part 6

When beggars die there are no comets seen: The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

Again, in "Richard III." (Act 3, Scene 2), _Stanley's_ messenger informs _Hastings_ that his master had commissioned him to say he had dreamt that night "the boar (Richard) had raised off his helm." This, he adds, his master regards as a warning to _Hastings_ and himself--

To shun the danger that his soul divines.

The boar was the cognizance, crest, or "totem" of Richard. In the fourth scene of the same act, _Hastings_, on hearing his death sentence, exclaims:

Woe! woe for England! not a whit for me; For I, too fond, might have prevented this: Stanley did dream the boar did raise his helm; But I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly.

In Act 4, Scene 4, _Stanley_, addressing _Sir Christopher Urswick_, says:--

Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me: That in the sty of this most b.l.o.o.d.y boar, My son, George Stanley, is frank'd up in hold; If I revolt, off goes young George's head; The fear of that withholds my present aid.

In _Richmond's_ address to his army, in the second scene of the fifth act, the Aryan personification of the destroying storm-wind and "harvest blaster," as well as "the monster in former ages, which prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast," is very distinctly indicated, and adds another link to the chain of evidence by which I have endeavoured to justify the hypothesis that the rude sculpture of Winwick may represent the crest or "totem" of Penda, the ruthless pagan victor in the disastrous fight at Maserfeld, in the year 642. _Richmond_ says:--

The wretched, b.l.o.o.d.y, and usurping boar, _That spoiled your summer fields and fruitful vines_, Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough In your embowell'd bosoms--this foul swine Lies now even in the centre of this isle, Near to the town of Leicester.

There is an old rhyming couplet, referring to the three personages who were Richard's chief advisers or instruments, in his usurpation, Ratcliffe, Catesby and Lovel, which throws additional light on this beast symbolism:--

The rat and the cat, and Lovel the dog, Do govern all England under the hog.

Amongst our Scandinavian predecessors the customs and superst.i.tions now under consideration seem to have been deeply rooted. Sir G. W. Dasent, in the introduction to his translation of the Icelandic saga, the "Story of Brunt Njal," says the Icelander believed in wraiths and patches and guardian spirits, who followed particular persons, and belonged to certain families--a belief which seems to have sprung from the habit of regarding body and soul as two distinct beings, which at certain times took each a separate bodily shape. Sometimes the guardian spirit or Jylgja took a human shape, and at others its _form took that of some animal to foreshadow the character of the man to whom it belonged_. Thus it becomes a bear, a wolf, an ox, and even a fox, in men. The Jylgja of women were fond of taking the shape of swans. To see one's own Jylgja was unlucky, and often a sign that a man was 'fey,' or death-doomed. So, when Thord Freedmanson tells Njal that he sees the goat wallowing in its gore in the 'town' of Bergthirsknoll, the foresighted man tells him that he has seen his own Jylgja, and that he must be doomed to die. Finer and n.o.bler natures often saw the guardian spirits of others.... From the Jylgja of the individual it was easy to rise to the still more abstract notion of the guardian spirits of a family, who sometimes, if a great change in the house is about to begin, even show themselves as hurtful to some member of the house. He believed also that some men had more than one shape (voru eigi einhamir); that they could either take the shapes of animals, as bears or wolves, and so work mischief; or that without undergoing bodily change, an access of rage and strength came over them, and more especially towards night, which made them more than a match for ordinary men."

To those who may fancy that in this inquiry I have carried conjecture and apparent a.n.a.logy beyond the domain of legitimate critical inference, I answer in the words of Professor Gervinus, in his comments on the sonnets of Shakspere--"The caution of the critic does not require that we should repudiate a supposition so extraordinarily probable; it requires alone that we should not obstinately insist upon it and set it up as an established certainty, but that we should lend a willing ear to better and surer knowledge whenever it is offered." Professor Tyndall, too, in his "Lectures on Light," referring to the genesis of all scientific knowledge, says--"All our notions of nature, however exalted or however grotesque, have some foundations in experience. The notion of personal volition in nature had this basis. In the fury and the serenity of natural phenomena the savage saw the transcript of his own varying moods, and he accordingly ascribed these phenomena to beings of like pa.s.sions with himself, but vastly transcending him in power. Thus the notion of _causality_--the a.s.sumption that natural things did not come of themselves, but had unseen antecedents--lay at the root of even the savage's interpretation of nature. Out of this bias of the human mind to seek for the antecedents of phenomena, all science has sprung."

The value of "comparative folk-lore," in the elucidation of obscure pa.s.sages in the early history of mankind, especially with regard to manners, customs, and superst.i.tious faiths, is now pretty generally acknowledged by archaeological students. Since this chapter was first written I find the subject has been ably treated by Mr. J. A. Farrer, in the _Cornhill Magazine_ of January, 1875. He says--"The evidence that the nations now highest in culture were once in the position of those now the lowest is ever increasing, and the study of folk-lore corroborates the conclusions long since arrived at by archaeological science. For, just as stone monuments, flint-knives, lake-piles, and sh.e.l.l-mounds point to a time when Europeans resembled races where such things are still part of actual life, so do the traces in our social organism, of fetishism, totemism, and other low forms of thought, connect our past with people where such forms of thought are still predominant. The a.n.a.logies with barbarism that still flourish in civilised communities seem only explicable on the theory of a slow and more or less uniform metamorphosis to higher types and modes of life, and we are forced to believe that ere long it will appear a law of development, as firmly established on the inconceivability of the contrary, that civilization should emerge from barbarism as that b.u.t.terflies should first be caterpillars, or that ignorance should precede knowledge. It is in this way that superst.i.tion itself may be turned to the service of science."

CHAPTER III.

BATTLES IN THE VALLEY OF THE RIBBLE, NEAR WHALLEY AND c.l.i.tHEROE.

WADA'S DEFEAT BY KING EARDULPH, AT BILLANGAHOH, A.D. 798, AND CONTEMPORARY PROPHETIC SUPERSt.i.tIONS. THE VICTORY OF THE SCOTS AT EDISFORD BRIDGE IN 1138. CIVIL WAR INCIDENTS BETWEEN CHARLES I. AND THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the date 798, says--"This year there was a great fight at Hwelleage (Whalley), in the land of the Northumbrians, during Lent, on the 4th before the Nones of April, and there Alric, the son of Herbert, was slain, and many others with him."

Simeon of Durham has the following reference to this battle:--"A.D. 798.

A conspiracy having been organised by the murderers of Ethelred, the king, Wada, the chief of that conspiracy, commenced a war against Eardulph, and fought a battle at a place called by the English Billangahoh, near Walalega, and, after many had fallen on both sides, Wada and his army were totally routed."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 2.]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle informs us that four years previously (794), "Ethelred, king of the Northumbrians, was slain by his own people, on the 13th before the Kalends of May." This Ethelred seems to have been a very unfortunate or a very tyrannical ruler, even for those barbarous times, for we find, on the same authority, he, in company with Herbert, "slew three high reves, on the 11th before the Kalends of April," 778, and that afterwards "Alfwold obtained the kingdom, and drove Ethelred out of the country; and he (Alfwold) reigned ten years." This same Alfwold was evidently regarded as a patriot and not as an usurper, for the Chronicle tells us that he "was slain by Siga, on the 8th before the Kalends of October; and a heavenly light was frequently seen at the place where he was slain; and he was buried at Hexham within the church." He was succeeded by his nephew, Osred, who, the Chronicle says, afterwards "was betrayed and driven from the kingdom; and Ethelred, the son of Ethelwald, again obtained the government." Two years later, from the same authority, we learn that "Osred, who had been king of the Northhumbrians, having come home from his exile, was seized and slain on the 18th before the Kalends of October," (792).

These facts throw much light on the social and political state of the country at the period, and demonstrate that Ethelred's murder was by no means an exceptional occurrence. Indeed, the slaying of kings by their own people appears to have been the rule rather than the exception amongst our ancestors, especially in Northumbria, about this period.

Sharon Turner, in his "History of the Anglo-Saxons," referring to the internecine conflicts which took place in the North of England for a lengthened period, and especially about this time, says--"Of all the Anglo-Saxon Governments the kingdom of Northumbria had been always the most perturbed. Usurper murdering usurper is the prevailing incident. A crowd of ghastly monarchs pa.s.s swiftly along the page of history as we gaze, and scarcely was the sword of the a.s.sa.s.sin sheathed before it was drawn against its master, and he was carried to the sepulchre which he had just closed upon another. In this manner, during the last century and a half, no fewer than seventeen sceptered chiefs hurled each other from their joyless thrones, and the deaths of the greatest number were accompanied by hecatombs of their friends."

The public mind, under such circ.u.mstances, must of necessity have been deeply perturbed, and superst.i.tion a.s.sociated the social and political anarchy which prevailed with the "war of elements," and other attendant mysterious physical phenomena. The trusty old chronicler, duly impressed with the solemnity of his theme, informs us that during the year preceding the murder of Ethelred "dire forewarnings came over the land of the Northumbrians and miserably terrified the people; these were excessive whirlwinds and lightnings, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine soon followed these tokens; and a little after that, in the same year, on the 6th before the Ides of January, the ravaging of heathen men lamentably destroyed G.o.d's Church at Lindisfarne through rapine and slaughter."

The "heathen men" here referred to were Danish rovers. These "Northmen, out of Haeretha-land" (Denmark), had a few years previously (787), in three ships, "first sought the land of the English nation," and, having found it and p.r.o.nounced it good, they ceased not their invasions until they became masters of the entire kingdom, under Canute the Great. This conquest of the Northmen mainly resulted from the fact that the English monarchs of the Heptarchy were continually at war either with the Britons or amongst themselves. "Domestic treason and fierce civil strife" added additional strength to the foe, for both regal enemy and rebellious subject eagerly sought the aid of the pirates, or selected the occasion of their hostile visits to hara.s.s their opponents. Although we have no record of Danish or other Northmen's ravages in Lancashire in the reign of Ethelred or his successor, yet we get a very distinct view of their doings on the eastern coast of Northumbria, and of the internecine strife which rendered the kingdom a relatively easy prey to the brave but brutal and remorseless heathen pirates.

The battles described in the previous chapters were more or less conjectural in some of their aspects; at least the true character of the presumed Arthurian victories on the Douglas, as well as the site of that of Penda over St. Oswald, at Maserfield, have not been demonstrated with such certainty as to obtain universal a.s.sent. Such, however, is not the case with the minor struggle now under consideration. The site a.s.signed to it has never been doubted. The names recorded by the old chroniclers are still extant in the locality, with such orthographic or phonetic changes in their descent from the eighth to the nineteenth century as philologists would antic.i.p.ate. The _Hwelleage_ of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as well as the monk of Durham's mediaeval Latin _Walalega_, are identical with the present Whalley; while _Billangahoh_ is represented by its descendants Billinge, Billington, and Langho.

Archaeological remains have likewise contributed important evidence.

Three large tumuli for centuries have marked the scene of the struggle, one of which, near to Langho, has been removed, and the remains of a buried warrior exhumed. According to J. M. Kemble and other Anglo-Saxon scholars, Billington signifies the homestead or settlement of the sept or clan of the Billings, as Birmingham is that of the Beormings. This rule likewise applies to many other localities where the local nomenclature presents similar features. Consequently, from legitimate a.n.a.logy, we learn that Waddington, on the right bank of the Ribble opposite c.l.i.theroe, is the homestead, town, or settlement of Wadda and his dependents; and Waddow, in its immediate neighbourhood, the how or hill of Wadda.

In the fragment of the old Anglo-Saxon poem "The Traveller's Tale,"

mention is made of a Wada as a chief of the Haelsings. Mr. Haigh, in his "Anglo-Saxon Sagas," regards him as "probably one of the companions of the first Hencgest." Hence the probability of his being an ancestor of the chief conspirator against King Eardulph. Mr. Kemble ("Saxons in England,") says--"Among the heroes of heathen tradition are Wada, Weland, and Eigil. All three so celebrated in the mythus and epos of Scandinavia and Germany, have left traces in England. Of Wada, the "Traveller's Song" declares that he ruled the Haelsings; and even later times had to tell of Wade's _boat_, in which the exact allusion is unknown to us: the Scandinavian story makes him wade across the Groenasund, carrying his son across his shoulder. Perhaps our tradition gives a different version of this story."

This story may have something to do with the genesis of the legend of St. Christopher bearing the infant Christ on his shoulders over a broad stream, a subject of one of the early mediaeval pictures discovered some time ago, on the removal of the whitewash from the walls of Gawsworth Church, near Macclesfield. The historical anachronism in ascribing such an action to him may have resulted from the mere transference of it from the pagan hero to the Christian saint. The original story seems to have been pretty familiar to the people as late as the fourteenth century.

Mr. Kemble says--"Chaucer once or twice refers to this (Wade's _boat_) in such a way as to show that the expression was used in an obscene sense. Old women, he says, 'connen so moche craft in Wade's boat.' Again of Pandarus:

'He song, he plaied, he told a tale of Wade.'

_Troil. Cressid._

'In this there seems to be some allusion to what anatomists have termed _fossa navicularis_, though what immediate connection there could be with the mythical Wade, now escapes us.'"

The "Traveller's Tale" likewise refers to a chieftain named "Billing,"

who "ruled the Waerns," and who, in Mr. Haigh's opinion, was likewise a "probable a.s.sociate of Hencgest." Mr. Haigh likewise identifies Whaley in Cheshire, Whalley in Northumberland, and Whalley in Lancashire, with a chieftain described in the same poem as "Hwala once the best." Dr.

Whitaker, Mr. Baines, and others, however, derive Whalley from _Walalega_, "Field of Wells."

Mr. Jno. R. Green ("Making of England,") says--"In the star-strown track of the Milky Way, our fathers saw a road by which the hero-sons of Waetla marched across the sky, and poetry only hardened into prose when they transferred the name of Watling Street to the great trackway which pa.s.sed athwart the island they had won, from London to Chester. The stones of Weyland's Smithy still recall the days when the new settlers told one another, on the conquered ground, the wondrous tale they had brought with them from their German home, the tale of the G.o.dlike smith Weland, who forged the arms that none could blunt or break; just as they told around Wadanbury and Wadanhlaew the strange tale of Wade and his boats. When men christened mere and tree with Scyld's name, at Scyldsmere and Styldstreow, they must have been familiar with the story of the G.o.dlike child who came over the waters to found the royal line of the Gwissas. So a name like Hnaef's-scylf was then a living part of English mythology; and a name like Aylesbury may preserve the last trace of the legend told of Weland's brother, the sun-archer Egil."

Although we possess but little information respecting the details of the fight, or of the political complications out of which it arose, we are, at least, perfectly certain of the locality of the struggle. In addition, the magnificent scenery by which it is surrounded, in which grandeur and beauty are seen in the most harmonious combination, the interesting archaeological remains, and the numerous other historic a.s.sociations of the neighbourhood, including those connected with Whalley Abbey, c.l.i.theroe Castle, Mytton, and Stonyhurst, give an interest to the locality which is denied to the sites of many battle-fields, the names of which have become "household words," not merely with one nation or people, but with all the so-called civilised section of mankind.

One of the tumuli to which I have referred was partially opened by Dr.

T. D. Whitaker, the historian of Whalley. But, as in his day Anglo-Saxon antiquities were very little sought after and, consequently, very imperfectly understood, his labours were productive of nothing but negative results. Canon Raines, however, in a note to his edition of the "Not.i.tia Cestriensis," published by the Chetham Society, says--"In the year 1836, as Thomas Hubbertsty, the farmer at Brockhall, was removing a large mound of earth in Brockhall Eases, about five hundred yards from the bank of the Ribble, on the left of the road leading from the house, he discovered a Kist-vaen, formed of rude stones, containing some human bones and the rusty remains of some spear-heads of iron. The whole crumbled to dust on exposure to the air. Tradition has uniformly recorded that a battle was fought about Langho, Elker and Buckfoot, near the Ribble; and a tumulus was opened within two hundred yards of a ford of the Ribble (now called Bullasey-ford), one of the very few points for miles where that river could be crossed. The late Dr.

Whitaker repeatedly, but in vain, searched for remains of this battle, as he appears to have erroneously concluded that the scene of it was higher up the river, near Hacking Hall, at the junction of the Calder and the Ribble."

Dr. Whitaker does not appear to have noticed all the tumuli in the neighbourhood. In his "History of Whalley" he says--"Of this great battle there are no remains, unless _a large tumulus_ near Hacking Hall, and in the immediate vicinity of Langho, be supposed to cover the remains of Alric, or some other chieftain among the slain." The site of the tumulus, on the left bank, or south-east side of the Ribble, is marked on the Ordnance map. It is scarcely three quarters of a mile from Hacking Hall, and rather more than a mile from Langho chapel. No other tumulus is noticed by the Ordnance surveyors on the south-east side of the river.

Canon Raines states that the "large mound" removed by Thomas Hubbertsty, in 1836, was situated "about five hundred yards from the bank of the Ribble," and that the tumulus that had been previously opened was only two hundred yards distant from that stream. The "large mound" of Canon Raines, removed in 1836, in which remains were found, seems to have been a smaller affair than the other tumuli. This is affirmed by Mr. Abram, in a very able paper on the history of the township of Billington, in the Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Society's Transactions, otherwise he says, "the farmer would hardly have undertaken to level it." The tumuli on the right bank or north-west side of the river are named "lowes" on the six-inch Ordnance map, and "mounds" on the smaller one.

The former name is evidently the Anglo-Saxon _hlw_, a conical hill or a sepulchral mound, or tumulus, in the latter sense a synonym of _beorh_ or _bearw_, a barrow. Although these large tumuli are on the north-west side of the river, the nearest is scarcely half a mile distant from the site of the removed one near Bullasey-ford on the south-east.

There is some confusion in the various descriptions of these mounds. Mr.

Abram says, referring to the large tumulus called the "Lowe" on the north-west side of the Ribble--"Into this mound Whitaker had some excavation made about the year 1815, but he found the work heavy and gave it up without reaching the centre of the tumulus, where the relics of sepulture might be expected to be found." As Dr. Whitaker expressly says, he saw no remains of the battle except "a large tumulus near Hacking Hall," he must not only have been ignorant of the character of its immediate neighbour, as well as of the one on the Langho side of the river, near Bullasey-ford, if this "lowe" was the mound he but partially disturbed. This can scarcely be the tumulus referred to by Canon Raines if the distance (two hundred yards) from the river be correct. Neither can the five hundred yards distance of Mr. Hubbertsty's mound be reconciled with the site of the tumulus at Brockhall, near Bullasey-ford. Perhaps his figures have been accidently transposed. I had previously laboured under an impression that Hubbertsty had merely completely cleared away the mound but imperfectly excavated by Dr.

Whitaker.

Being anxious to arrive at some more definite knowledge respecting these "lowes" or "mounds," on the ninth of Nov., 1876, I visited the locality, and by the aid of Mr. Parkinson, the present tenant of Brockhall, I was enabled to make a far more detailed inspection of the battle-field than on a hurried visit about twenty years previously. Mr. Parkinson pointed out the site of the tumulus removed by Mr. Hubbertsty in 1836. Nothing of it, of course, now remains. He said that it was the only mound of the kind he had ever heard of on the Langho side of the Ribble. He, however, pointed out a curious circular agger, about five or six feet broad and a couple of feet high, which enclosed a level area some sixteen or seventeen yards in diameter. It is evidently an artificial work, but without additional evidence it is impossible to say, with any reasonable degree of probability, by whom it was constructed, or to what use it was originally applied. On the steep promontory called "Brockhole Wood-end,"

Mr. Parkinson called my attention to curious ma.s.ses of cemented sand and pebble stones, which some persons regarded as artificial grout, that had originally formed part of the ma.s.sive masonry of an ancient building, the foundations of which had been undermined by the falling in of the earth in consequence of the erosive action of the flood water of the Ribble at the base of the cliff. This, however, I found, on examination, to be erroneous. The "grout" in question is a geological phenomenon, a kind of conglomerate or breccia, formed by the percolation of rain water, charged with carbonic acid and lime, through the ma.s.s of glacial or boulder "till" and its sandy and pebbly contents. The "till"

contains limestones brought by ice from both the Ribble and the Hodder valleys. The phenomenon is a common one to geologists, and the "concrete" at "Brockhole Wood-end" is an excellent example of it. On gazing across the river at the larger "lowe" of the six-inch Ordnance map, Mr. Parkinson remarked that it appeared to him to be what is termed by geologists an outlier of the boulder deposits on each side of the valley, and therefore, not an artificial mound. He pointed out that the flood waters of the Ribble, Hodder, and Calder met in the plain, and when the "till" was excavated by a kind of circular motion of the combined waters, which the present appearance of the valley indicates, the land situated in the centre or vortex would the longer resist the abrading action, and eventually, as the pa.s.sage of the currents became enlarged, remain a surviving outlier of the general ma.s.s of glacial deposit. On pa.s.sing the river in the ferry-boat, and, by the aid of a pickaxe, exposing the material of which this mound is formed, I confessed that I could detect no difference in its character or structure from that of the neighbouring geological deposits. Still, as the mound, if artificial, must have been constructed from the boulder clay and its unstratified contents, this is not surprising. It is, however, impossible to solve this problem without a much more searching investigation. Even if a mound existed at the time the battle was fought, nothing is more probable than that it would be utilised by the victors in the interment of their honoured dead. The second and smaller mound seems very like an artificial one; but this cannot be satisfactorily affirmed without more complete investigation. Both mounds have been partially opened near their summits, but with only negative results, as might have been antic.i.p.ated, as the Christian Anglo-Saxons in such cases buried the body in the earth, and afterwards heaped the tumulus or barrow above it, as a monument to the memory of the deceased warrior or warriors. This mode of interment had been adopted in the instance of the tumulus removed by Mr. Hubbertsty in 1836. Interesting results, both to geologists and archaeologists, may, therefore, be antic.i.p.ated from a thorough examination of the contents of these remarkable "lowes" or "mounds;" but, as some expense would be attendant thereupon, they may yet, for some time, remain an interesting puzzle, both to the learned and the unlearned in such matters. They are situated in the midst of the level alluvial plain. The largest is nearly twenty feet high, and forms a prominent object.

When I first visited the locality I was much amused at the rough and ready way in which some of the country people accounted for their construction, or rather the object thereof. They had seen sheep, when the Ribble valley was flooded, mount on the top of them for safety, and they innocently concluded that these historic monuments, mementoes of deadly civil strife during the eighth century, or of the glacial period of geologists, had been erected by some benevolent or thrifty ancestor of the owner of the soil for the especial accommodation of ovine refugees during the deluges to which the low-lying land on the margin of the river is occasionally subjected.

It is, of course, at the present time, impossible to define the extent of ground covered by the contending armies during the conflict, or to give even a satisfactory outline of the general features of the battle.

The Roman road, the seventh iter of Richard of Cirencester, which leads from the Wyre (the Portus Setantiorum of Ptolemy), by Preston and Ribchester to York, pa.s.sed through the township of Billington, crossed the Calder near the present "Potter's Ford," a little above its junction with the Ribble, and proceeded a little south of c.l.i.theroe and north of Pendle-hill, by Standen Hall, and Worston, in Lancashire, and Downham, into Yorkshire. Mr. Abram seems to think that the battle was most probably fought on this line of road. He says--"Eardulf encountered the insurgent army on the extreme verge of his kingdom (for it seems certain that the country south of the Ribble was then a part, not of the Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, but that of Mercia). Wada and his army had probably been driven upon the neutral territory before the decisive battle could be forced upon him."