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^ THE ROYAL NAVY
A HISTORY
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT
6^un&/^ 'Sitw*
A History From the Earliest Times to the Present
By
Wm. Laird Clowes
Ftllow c/ Kings College, London : Gold Mtd-Uliit U.S. Naval InsliluU . Hon. Member of the R.U.S. Institution
Assisted by
Sir Clements Markham, K.C.B., P.R.G.S.
Captain A. T. Mahan, U.S.N.
Mr. H. W. Wilson
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt
Mr. E. Fraser
etc.
Twenty -five Photogravure*
and Hundreds of Full Page and other
Illustrations
Maps, Charts
etc.
In Five VoliiDies Vol. I.
LONDON
S.\MPSON Low, Marston and Company
LIMITED
^t. QuiiStmi'3 fijoiisf, jFcttcr Eaiu, iH.C. 1S97
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILUAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
GENERAL PREFACE.
It is upon the Navy that, under the good providence of God, the wealth, the prosperity, and the peace of these islands, and of the Empire, mainly depend. Such, in effect, is the declaration of the preamble to the Ai-ticles of "War. No thoughtful and un- prejudiced Briton doubts the truth of the assertion. His know- ledge, superficial though it be, of the general course of modern history, tells him that, but for the Navy, Great Britain, on numerous occasions, would have lain at the mercy of foreign powers, which, had they had their will, would have left her neither riches nor liberty. It tells him also that the Navy has played as great a role in the development as in the protection of Britain's commerce and Empire. It has been instrumental in the discovery of some colonies, and in the acquisition of many others ; and it is, to this day, responsible for the maintenance of secure communication with all, and of pacific trade and traffic between the various portions of the Empire and other parts of the world. And while it has advanced in a peculiar manner the special interests of Great Britain, the Navy has been not without influence upon the progress of civiHsation generally. There has been no more powerful factor in the putting down of piracy, and in the practical suppression of the slave trade.
These things are known broadly to all, and are admitted by every one. Not monarchs, not statesmen, not scientists, not re- formers, not manufacturers, not even merchants or soldiers have contributed as much as the Navy has contributed towards the building up, the extension, and the preservation of the British Empire. But the nature and the working of this all-important force have been strangely neglected by the British historian, and more especially by the British student. The acts of our kings, our statesmen, our reformers, and our soldiers have been voluminously and exactly chronicled, so that he who runs may read. And for the
V GENERAL PREFACE.
benefit of bim \ybo cannot read wbile running, and wbo must bait and laboriously spell out tbe records of wbicb be would know sometbing, tbere are brief and popular general bistories, not all free, perbaps, from inaccuracies of details, yet, for tbe most part, full a nd fair enougb to impart a tolerably just impression of tbe sbare borne by tbese kings, statesmen, reformers and soldiers in tbe creation of tbe splendid social fabric in wbicb we live.
It is not bere suggested tbat Britisb readers take anytbing Uke full advantage of tbe vast stores of knowledge wbicb bave tbus been laid open to tbem. Indeed, tbe study of bistory is sadly neglected among us. Speaking as Professor of History at King's College, London, Mr. J. K. Laugbton bas said, " I am unbappily too well acquainted witb tbe sm-passing ignorance of tbe average young man."^ And otber professors of bistory, witb wbom I bave com- municated, fully bear out tbe lament of Professor Laugbton. Tbe general ignorance of tbe facts of modern Britisb bistory is particu- • arly insisted upon by all.
Yet, even if Britisb students were in tbe babit of tborougbly digesting tbe ordinary Britisb bistories wbicb are witbin tbeir reacb, tbey would still know little about tbe natvure and services of tbe Britisb Navy. Om- greater bistorians deal very sparingly witb tbose subjects. Many of tbem seem to bave been deterred by an exaggerated estimate of tbe attendant difficulties, or by an impression tbat naval bistory is far too tecbnical to be understood by lay people. Otbers bave altogetber failed to awaken to tbe importance of tbe matter, and bave, by tbat very failm-e, convicted tbemselves of incompetence. As for tbe popular bistorians, tbe compilers of scbool bistories, text-books, and sucb-like, tbey bave for tbe most part, and indeed almost witbout exception, bungled, wbere tbe}' bave not shamefully scamped, tbe facts of om- naval story.
This neglect is doubly strange. Tbe modern Britisb bistorians of ancient Greece and Eome bave not to tbe same extent avoided or misrepresented tbe naval side of tbeir subject. Many of us can, I am sure, ecbo mucb of Dr. Miller Maguire's complaint tbat in early life "be was actually obliged to learn off by beart all tbe little nautical incidents of tbe Peloponnesian War, and to study tbe tactics and carrying power of tbe vessels of tbe Cartbaginians and tbe Eomans, wbile no one ever dreamt of telling bim anything ' ' Tlie Study of Naval HiRtorv ' ; paperiread at the K. U. S. I., March 11th, 1896.
GENERAL PREFACE. VU
about Hawke, or Boscawen, or CoUingwood, or our other naval heroes." '
Yet the neglect by the general historian of the naval side of our history is but the natui-al result of the indifference or shortcomings of many of those who might have forced this part of his work more specially upon his attention, and who might have facilitated his laboiu-s and smoothed away his real or supposed difficulties. Until Schomberg^ wrote, the British naval officer, whose position and training gave him exceptional advantages for the understanding and presentation of the facts, and the conclusions to be di-awn from them, was, for all practical purposes, almost silent on the subject. Sir Wilham Monson, it is true, and several other officers, have left us treatises on naval subjects ; and Pepys, who was a captain, B.N., has bequeathed us a mass of invaluable material for history ; but these are not naval historians. Schomberg's book is so full of inaccuracy as to be almost entirely devoid of value. Then followed Brenton. Brenton's essay ^ was a failure. He understood, it may be, something of what naval history ought to be ; but bis numerous prejiidices, national and personal, his lack of discrimination, and his ignorance of, or indifference to, the common-sense rules as to the admission or rejection of evidence, tainted his work from beginning to end. Moreover, Brenton dealt only with an historical episode.
The next naval officer to attempt the writing of British naval history was Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas. His effort * was eminently successful so far as it went, but it was rendered a comparative failure by the imtimely death of the historian when he was still at the outset of his gigantic work. The scheme of it was indeed a most generous and ample one. Nicolas spared no pains in research ; he was never satisfied until he had consulted the best contemporary authorities for the details of every event ; and he devoted as much attention to the civil history of the Navy, and to the development of its material, as to its military exploits. The result was, that although
' In discussion of Prof. Lauglitou's paper, Marcli lltli, 1896.
'^ Capt. Isaac Schoinberg, R.N. : ' Naval Clirouulogy, or an Historical Summary of Naval aud Maritime Events, from the time of the Romans to the Treaty of Peace, 1802.' 5 vols. 1802.
* Capt. Edward Pelliam Brenton, R.N. : ' The Naval History of Great Britain, 17.83 to 1836.' 2 vols. 1897. A revised and enlarged edition of an earlier work by the same author.
' Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas : ' A History of the British Navy, from the Earliest Times to the Wars of the French Revolution,' 2 vols. 1817. I cull Nicolas a naval officer, but he retired early from the Navy.
VUl GENERAL PREFACE.
he lived to complete two volumes, he brought his story down only to the year 1422. To continue the work upon the same lines up to the year 1793, as he piu-posed, he would, I estimate, have needed at least fifteen, and possibly twenty, volumes more. It may be doubted whether any writer who is already in middle life is justified in undertaking, and looking forward to the single-handed completion of, a book framed on such a colossal and ambitious scale. Nicolas, however, chose to venture upon the forlorn hope. His brilliant failure is less astonishing, though scarcely less meritorious, than his success would have been.
Since Nicolas's time, there have been but two serious British naval writers on British naval history — Professor J. K. Laughton, E.N., and Vice-Admiral P. H. Colomb. The former has given us a number of admirable, though short, studies, mamly biographical,^ and has done invaluable editorial work, especially in connection with the publications of the Navy Eecords Society. The latter has produced a learned and useful book,^ which, though it deserves mention here, belongs rather to the domain of technical criticism than to that of ordinary history.
In addition to the major writers already named, Lieutenant John Marshall, E.N.,^ Admiral Sir Charles Ekins,^ Lieutenant Miles, E.N.,^ Mr. A. Duncan, E.N.," Captain S. M. Eardley-Wilmot, E.N., Mr. Joseph Allen, E.N.,' Commander C. N. Eobinson, and others, besides the authors of numerous biographical volumes, compilations, controversial pamphlets, and technical treatises, belong to the category of naval men who, with more or less success, have striven to elucidate the history of their profession.
Yet, in spite of all this, the Navy has done relatively little towards making pubhc the true story of the progress and work of the service. For this there are obvious reasons. A British naval officer, especially if he be of the executive branch, does not receive, and never has received, in early life, sirch training as fits him for the avocation of letters. His education does not specially en-
' Some of these were collected in ' Studies in Naval Historj-,' 1887.
2 ' Naval AVarfai-e.'
3 Lieut. John Marshall, E.N. : ' Koyal Naval Biography,' 12 vols. 1823-29.
' Admiral Sir Charles Ekins : ' Naval Battles, from 1714 to the Peace in 1814, critically reviewed and illustrated.'
° ' Epitome of the lloyal Naval Service,' 1841. ' ' The Mariuer's Clironicle,' C vols, 1750 ; etc. ' 'The Battles of the British Navy."
GENERAL PREFACE. IX
corn-age him to study history, nor, during his active career, does he usually enjoy many opportunities for reading, stiU less for original research. The executive officer, therefore, who can ultimately, like Nicolas or Colomh in the British, or like Mahan in the United States Navy, free himself from the grooves of his professional vocation, and attain distinction in the new walk of hfe, must be a man of exceptional qualifications, and must always be a vara avis.
The civihan writers on British naval history have been more numerous. They include, among many — and I name only those of some eminence — Josiah Biu'chett, who succeeded Pepys as Secretaiy of the Admiralty, Samuel Colliber, John Lediard, Dr. John Camp- bell (and his continuators). Sir S. Berkeley, Hervey, Dr. Entick, Dr. Eobert Beatson, John Charnock, Charles Derrick, William James, Southey, and others, down to Mr. M. Oppenheim, besides biograx)hers like O'Byrne and Fox Bourne.
As a critical naval historian, we have, I am afraid, no Enghsh- man, either naval or civil, who approaches in accuracy, lucidity, and charm of style Captain A. T. Mahan, of the United States Navy. Another American naval historian who, however, is a civilian, has, it seems to me, shown a measure of intentional honesty and fairness which, unhappily, does not always characterise those British writers who have dealt with the same subject. I mean Mr. Theodore Eoosevelt, the writer of the history of the war of 181'2.
But it is not my intention to introduce here a naval bibUography, nor, if it were my wish to do so, would space suffice. ' I thus briefly summarise some little of the historical work that has been done in connection with the Eoyal Navy, merely in order to lead up to a statement of the chief considerations which have induced me to midertake the present book, and which have influenced me in elaborating its scheme, and in seeking assistance from others in carrying it out.
Having carefully surveyed what has been done, and having examined into the causes of failui-e, where failure or comparative failure has resulted, and into the causes of success, where success has been conspicuous, I have had certain convictions forced upon me. One is that a general naval history framed upon the scale of Nicolas's, is too huge for practical use. People will not now-a-days purchase a book in twenty volumes. Still less will they read it. Yet a general naval history, dealing with all the aspects of the
X GENERAL PREFACE.
service, from the earliest times to the present, does not exist, and is hadly needed. Another is that a naval history, planned upon Uiaes other than the most restricted, is too great a work to be tmdertaken by any single wTiter. Pepys designed such a history, but did not get much beyond the collection of part of his material for it. Nicolas began such a history, but lived to complete only two volumes of it.
So much for the failures to complete. The failures to satisfy are more numerous. I find that Schomberg and others fail because they are grossly and carelessly inaccurate. Brenton fails because he is prejudiced and injudicial. James partially fails because, although he is painstaking and, with few exceptions, fair, he is a chronicler rather than a historian ; he does not sufiiciently attempt to explain causes and motives ; he does not adequately dwell upon results and deductions. Lediard and others fail because, instead of depending first of all upon original sources of information, they have been content to go first of all to second-hand ones, and only occasionally or subsidiarily to the best of all authorities. And it must be admitted that nearly all British writers of naval history, Nicolas being the only prominent exception, have devoted their ahnost exclusive attention to recording military operations, and have left in comparative neglect such equally important matters as naval administration, the development of the materiel and jyersonnel of the service, the progress in the arts of navigation, gunnery, etc., the social life and customs of the sea, and even, in some cases, the stoiy of naval expeditions of discovery.
On the other hand, James and Nicolas and Mahan are eminently satisfj'ing to this extent — James, in that he is, as a rule, laborious and conscientious ; Nicolas, in that he is learned, full, and com- prehensive ; and Mahan, in that he is luminous and scruj)ulously fair, and has applied the teachings of the past to the possibihties of the present and the future.
It was naturally my desire both to complete my imdertaking and to satisfy the reader; and, falling into communication on the subject with Mr. E. B. Marston, of the publishing firm, I agreed with him, after we had discussed the general project, that a work in five or six volmnes of the size now in hand might be made to contain a sufficiently comprehensive account of the military history of the Royal Navy from the earliest times to the present without necessi- tating any undue neglect of the civil history, of the development of
GENERAL PREFACE. XI
the materiel and 2)crson)icJ, or of the story of the more peaceful yet still active triumphs of the service ; and that it would he roomy enough to contain such illustrations as would be requisite for the due supplementing of the text.
But I confessed myself unwilling to embark alone upon the business. I had, for many years previously, made a special study of our naval history ; but I had studied some periods more attentively than others, and in most periods there were very many events into the records of which I had made no very deep researches. I there- fore deemed it advisable to seek for assistance if I was to set about the preparation of such a history as we had spoken of.
And as to the scope and plan of the work I determined, if possible, to attempt the difficult task of combining some proportion of the various qualities which, as above noted, have rendered the works of James, Nicolas, and Mahan, each in its own way, peculiarly acceptable. This scheme involved the separation of the civil and the mihtary history of the Navy, as Nicolas has separated them, and the full treatment of both ; the recourse on every possible occasion to first-hand and official sources of information, after the example set by James and by Nicolas ; the pointing of such broad lessons as seem to be plainly taught by the events of the past, and to be applicable to the events of time to come, after the fashion begun by INIahan and Colomb ; and, finally, the scrupulous siappression of international or personal prejudice. The importance, as a factor in the building i;p of the Empire, of maritime discovery and its intimate association with the Eoyal Navy, obliged me to enlarge the scheme, so, as to include special chapters dealing with that also. And, for convenience, I determined to break up the general story into parts.
Thus digested, the plan of the History stands as follows : The work is divided into fifteen historical sections, each of which corresponds either with the duration of a dynasty or a political period, or with the endurance of a great war. The first section (.Chapters I.-III.) covers the period previous to 1066 ; the second section, the Norman Age — 1066-1154 ; the third section, the Angevin Age — 1154-1399 ; the fourth section, the Lancastrian and Yorkist Age — 1399-1485 ; the fifth section, the Tudor Age — 1485-1603 ; the sixth section, the first Stuart Age— 1603-1649 ; the seventh section, the time of the Commonwealth — 1649-1660 ; the eighth section, the age of the Eestoratiou and the Eevolution
XU GENERAL PREFACE.
— 1660-1714 ; the ninth section, the early Hanoverian Age — 1714-1763 ; the tenth section, the period of American Eevokition — 1763-1793 ; the eleventh section, the vi^ars of the French Eevolution — 1793-1802 ; the twelfth section, the Napoleonic and American wars — 1802-1815 ; the thirteenth section, the period from 1815 to the building of the first ironclads in 1856 ; and the fom-teenth and last section, the period since 1856.
Each of these sections is subdivided into chapters, dealing respectively with the civil history of the Navy, the military history of the Navy, and the history of voyages and maritime discovery during the period under review. In the case of certain sections, the importance of the naval campaigns in which great fleets were employed has led to a further subdivision of the portion treating of the military history. The major operations are in those cases described separately from the minor operations in which only two or three vessels, or small detachments, were engaged. In the tweKth section, moreover, a special chapter is devoted to the war with the United States.
Illustrations from contemporary and original sources, a full index to each volume, and a general subject index included in the last volume, will complete the work.
The gentlemen who have been so good as to associate their names with mine on the title-page of the book, and the chapters for which each has kindly undertaken the responsibility, are : —
a r, nr T- ^ -r. , , I TliB HistoFv of VovasTes and Discoveries,
Sir Clements Markham, K.C.B., late , ,„„ ,„,,o , ■ ' r?^ , ^^t,-t -i-ta.-
Tj -NT T. -J i I. i. T. iV. ) 14bu-l&y8 ; being Chapters XVI., i.I\.,
R.N President of the Royal Geo- ^ ^^^,^^ ^k^ XXXIV.,
graphical Society . . . . | xXXVIIL, XLIIL, XLVII., and L.
Captain A. T. Mahan, D.C.L., LL.D. ; i „„ ^,. . , ,, . ^.t , ,^,
TTC! XT / i.- i\ 11 i- 1 rr-i Ihe History of the Major ISaval Cam"
U.S. Navy (retired), author of ' The . , ^ ,.-,-..., ■ r„
Ta rc!T> TT-i>y paiirns, 1 1 (jo-1 1 'J.J, bemj' Chai)ter
Influence of Sea Power upon History, ( ',?,,'
' •' XXXII. etc. . . . . . .1
(The History of Voyages and Discoveries up to 1485, being Chapters III., VI., ri>i " t't' / ' /i., Tll- -VT 1 ^
. A (.■ > J. ' \ Ihe History of the Minor Naval Opera-
' ' .... tioiis, 1763-1815 (except those of the
War of 1812), being Chapters XXXIII., XXXVIL, and XLII.
Mr. Theodore Eoosevelt, author of -i The History of the War with the United 'The Naval War of 1812,' etc. . ./ States, 1812-15, being Chapter XLI.
Mr. Edward Fraser . . ) '^''"= Military History of the Navy, 1603-
■ t 1600, being Chapters XVIII. and XXI.
GENEltAL PliKFACE. XIU
But tliis by no means exhausts the Hst of those who have co- operated with me iu the work. There are two other classes of liclpers to whom I am at least equally indebted. . One class includes those who for months have spent their time in libraries and muni- ment rooms, making researches, copying docimients, hunting up portraits, plans, and pictures, and verifying references on my behalf. To them, for the manner in which they have laboured, and for the numerous suggestions which they have laid before me, I cannot too deeply express my thanks. The other class, a very much larger one, includes the volunteer helpers. Among them are navah officers, British and foreign, and distinguished historical and technical authorities. My indebtedness to these will be found specially acknowledged in various places throughout the volumes, either in the footnotes, or in the introductions. I am desirous of here recording my peculiar obligations to Mr. E. B. Marston, who has unceasingly interested himself in the progress of the work, and has helped me in obtaining, or securing a sight of, many valuable documents and little-known pamphlets and books which, otherwise, must have escaped my notice.
Upon one other subject I must say a word, though I say it a little unwillingly. When it became known in the United States that my friends Captain Mahau and Mr. Theodore Eoosevelt were to contribute to the hook chapters dealing with our unhappy con- flicts with America, a certain New York literary journal, which generally displays better taste, congratulated itself that at last English readers would be told the whole truth about those wars. It went on_^to insinuate with gratuitous offensiveuess that, although Captain Mahan, being perhaps spoilt by British appreciation of his books, might hesitate to speak out, Mr. Eoosevelt might be trusted to reflect American opinion in its most micompromising form, and that I might live to be sorry for having secured the co-operation of that distinguished writer and administrator.
I regret this outburst, and I sincerely trust that the journal iu question will, if only for the sake of international and personal comity, refrain from repeating it. Those among us who have studied the subject at all have known the truth about these wars for many a long year, and although we may not be uniformly proud of the parts which Great Britain has played as against the United States, we have no reason for desiring the suppression of any one of the facts. Like all the great characters of histoiy, nations have
xiv GENES AL PREFACE.
ever had their weaknesses and their shortcomings. The story of their occasional pettinesses and errors is often quite as instructive as the record of their normally great and noble actions; and he vFould be but a poor and short-sighted lover of his country, or of his hero, who should seek to heighten the glory of an established fame by painting out its shadows. Neither Great Britain nor the United States has uniformly behaved hke an angel : neither ever vvdU behave in that manner. But I beheve that both are essentially honest, and that both, especially when time is allowed them for cool reflection, desire truth and justice with equal sincerity.
Yet, after all, that is a small matter. The point that stiaick me as being most ungenerous in the attack of the New York j)aper was the suggestion directed, not against us Britons, but against Captain Mahan and Mr. Eoosevelt. To insinuate that one of these is capable of deliberately subtracting from the truth in order to pander to Enghsh vanity, and that the other is capable of dehberately adorning the truth in order to pander to American Chauvinism, is surely to outrage the honour of both and to besmirch the dignity of American history. I sought, and I welcome, the co-operation of these gentlemen because the transparent good faith of their writings has deeply impressed itself upon me, and because I have ever been of opinion that, coeteris iMrihus, Americans are alike as capable and as desirous as Englishmen of exercising impartiality. It seems to me fair, moreover, to let both sides be heard, and that I could not possibly offer surer giiarantees of my anxiety to do strict justice than by inviting distinguished American writers to co-operate in this work on equal terms with Englishmen. Any historian, no matter his good faith, may err, as weU in his facts as in his conclusions ; but if either Captain Mahan or Mr. Eoosevelt err it wiU not, I promise both Enghsh and American readers, be on the score of national prejudice or personal insincerity. I only wish that the two countries could be induced to permanently co-operate in the making of history with as single an aim as we Britons and our American cousins are on this occasion endeavouiing to write it.
To the reader — and with him I include the critic — I must add yet another word. The task which my fellow-workers and I have undertaken is one full of difhculties and pitfalls. Some periods of our naval history are now comprehensively dealt with for the first time. Others, which have been dealt with over and over again, have been cobwebbed with myths and en'ors. I know not whether
GENERAL PREFACE. XV
it be easier to compile new records or to remove the dust and defacement from old ones, but I know by experience that the labour, if conscientiously performed, is, in each case, such as few who have not attempted it can realise. The contradictions to be found in two or more authorities, apparently of equal weight and equal trust- worthiness, are often so serious and fundamental as apparently to defy reconciliation or explanation. Sometimes, indeed, two eye- witnesses, watching an operation on board the same ship, have left entirely contradictory accounts both of the sequence and of the issue of the events observed. Nor can statements even in official dis- patches. State papers, and Government returns, be always accepted without corroboration. It has been our business to meet and vanquish these and other difficulties to the best of our ability, and we have spared neither time nor pains in searching for the truth. But the mass of material to be consulted is so colossal that errors of omission as well as of commission cannot but abound in a work like the present. I trust, therefore, tluat the book may not be too harshly judged. Such faults as may be detected in it must, in any event, be attributed least of all to prejudice. We have desired to set down facts without fear or favour, and to draw such conclusions only as are justified by the evidence offered ; and it will be a great satisfaction to all of us, even although we may fail to some extent in other respects, if the sincerity of our intentions escape all impeachment.
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME I.
In the preparation of the civil and mihtary history of the Navy, prior to 1422, Nicolas, as was inevitable, has been generally followed, although important additions to, and some corrections of, his work y have been deemed necessary. His references have also been verified wherever possible.
After the major part of this volmne had been put in type, the appearance of Mr. M. Oppenheim's invaluable ' History of the Administration of the Royal Navy, 1509-1660 ' (John Lane), and of the same learned author's, ' Naval Accounts and Inventories of the Eeign of Henry VII.' (Navy Eecords Society), called attention to several neglected sources of information. These have been utilised, and Mr. Oppenheim's two volumes have, besides, been largely quoted from. To another publication of the Navy Eecords Society, Professor Laughton's, ' State Papers Eelating to the Spanish Armada,' a great debt is due. Both it, and Captain Duro's works dealing with affairs of the same eventful time, have, as will be seen, been freely drawn upon. To Mr. Oppenheim personally, I owe several useful suggestions. It is a matter of great regret to me that both Professor Laughton and Mr. Oppenheim were obliged to decline invitations to contribute some chapters to this volume, and that one of the grounds of the latter's refusal was the uncertainty of his health.
To Dr. W. F. Tilton, of Newport, Ehode Island, who has made a special stiidy of the Armada period, I am particularly obliged. He has generously placed some of his very careful work at my disposal, and I have been glad to take full advantage of liis kindness. My thanks are due as well to Colonel John Scott, C.B., for most interesting biographical information concerning early books on - shipping and navigation. Similar acknowledgments are owing to VOL. I. b
t>
xviii INTnODUGTION TO VOLUME I.
Mr. Cory ton, oi the Inner Temple, for suggestion on the same subjects. And I would gratefully thank the various noblemen and gentlemen who have allowed the publishers to reproduce pictures, charts, etc., in their possession ; and last, but not least, the authorities of numerous pubhc libraries and similar institutions at home and abroad, for the unvarying and unwearying kindness with which they have assisted both me and also those searchers who have had occasion to ask their aid on my behalf.
It is hoped that Volume II., bringing down the history to the year 1760, may be ready for delivery in September.
CONTENTS
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER r.
PACK
Civil History ok Naval iVKKAiRS to lOGG. . . .1
CHAPTER TT. Military History of ISTaval Affairs to 106G . . . .23
CHAPTER III.
VOYACES AND DiSCOVEKIES TO 1066 . . . . . . Tjo
CHAPTER IV. Civil History of Naval Affairs, 1066-115-t . . . .71
"' CHAPTER V.
MiLiTAitY History of Naval Affairs, I0G6-lloi . . .84
CHAPTER VI.
Voyages and Discovekies, 1066-1154 ..... y.'i
CHAPTER VII.
Civil History of this Navy, 11.54-1.399 .... 98
CHAPTER VIII. .Military History of tue N.wy, 1154-1399 .... 160
XX CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
CHAPTER IX.
PAGE
Voyages and Discoveries, 1154-1399. ..... 303
CHAPTER X. Civil History of the Xavy, 1399-1485 338
CHAPTER XI. Military History of the Navy', 1399-1485 .... 355
CHAPTER XII.
V^OY'AGES AND DISCOVERIES, 1399-1485 ..... 394
CHAPTER XIII. Civil History of the Navy, 1485-1603 399
CHAPTER XIV. Military History of the Navy, 1485-1603 .... 441
CHAPTER XV. The Campaign of the Spanish Armada ..... 539
CHAPTER XVI. Voyages and Discoveries, 1485-1603. ..... 605
INDEX 659
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOLUME I.
PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES.
PAGE
Thomas Howard, Earl op Surrey, 3rd Duke op Norfolk . Frontwpieco
Robert Devereux, Earl op Essex .... To face .512
Charles, Lord Howard op Epfingham, High Admiral ,, .538
Sib Francis Drake ....... „ 622
Sir Walter Ralegh. ...... ,, 646
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Gokstad Ship: elevation and deck plan . . Tu face 18
The Gokstad Ship : views from the starboard and the port quarter .....
Ruysch's Chart, 1508 .....
Chart from the Ptolem.ean Codex of ca. 1467. The Zeno Chart ......
The Olaus Magnus Map op 1539
Embarkation of Henry VIII. at Dover .
A Galley .......
A Galley .......
The Encampment of the English near Portsmouth, 1545
Arrival op Leicester at Flushing, 1586 .
The Armada off the Lizazd, July 19th, 1588 .
The Armada off Fowey, July 20th, 1588.
The First Engagement with the Armada .
Capture of the " San Salvador "...
20 322 322 334 336 406 450 462 464 486 560 562 ■564 566
XXll
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Captuee of Don Pedro de Valdes . The Armada ee-engaged, July 23rd, 1588 Engagement off the Isle of Wight. The Armada chased towards Calais. The Armada dislodged by Fireships. The " San Lorenzo " aground .
PAGE
To face 568 570 572 574 576 578
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.
[r/ic iUustralioiix inarkn! thus Oyarc taken from 'A Naval Exjjositm;' hij Tliumas Bihii Blam ivith fii'jrarino-'i hij Paul Foimhinifr. London, 1750.]
Initial Letter from Lediard's ' Naval History
A Roman Galley {Inter period) .
The Gokstad Ship : details (5 cuts) .
The Gokstad Ship : carving on oar .
1 Ship's Watch-Bell ....
Roman Libuenus, or galley with one tier of oaes
^ Moorings
1 Creeper ....
Noeman War-vessel : eleventh century
The "Mora" .
Misleading Effksy of a Ship {From Jul)
1 Hanging Compass
Harold's Ship .
1 Bilboes ....
^ Pinnace ....
Galley : fourteenth century
Gold Noble of Edward III.
Primitive Wiris-wodnd Gun
Seal of Lyme Regis.
Seal op Southampton
Seal op the Barons op Dover
Ancient Guns and Shot .
Ancient Dividers or Compasses
' Double Iron-bound Blocks
' Careening Hulk
Chart of the Strait op Dovee.
lilen ;
20
22
2:5
25
54
71
72
77
83
84
85
92
98
143
145
148
155
155
15G
158
158
159
161
188
ILLUSTIlATWNH.
XXlll
Map of the Loweh Netiiuri.ands
' Pennant.
' Powder-room Lantern
' Snatch Block
^Flag of Lord Hicn Admiral
Ship : fourteentji century
Ships : fourteenth century
From the MS. Life of Uriiard Beauchamp,
From the MS. Life op Richard Beaucham
1 Gin, for Pile-drivin(;
' Parrells
From the MS. Life op Richard Beaucham
Seal of John Holland, Duke of Exeter,
'Brass Box Compass.
' Hacboat
' Bitt.s ....
' Smack-rigged Sloop
Early Astrolabe
Cross-Staff
Back-Staff, or Davis's Quadrant
The "Henry Grace a Dieu" {the Norrk pi
The " Henry Grace a Dieu " {the Pcpi/a i
CuLVERiN Bastard : sixteenth century
Brass Gun from the " Mary Rose " .
Elizabethan Falconet
A Genoese Carrack.
Vessels : fourteenth century .
The Galley "Subtle"
An Elizabethan Ship of War .
Si.x-angel Piece of Edward VI.
Elizabethan Seaman.
Gold Rial of Elizabeth .
Chart of Thames Mouth, L")80.
' Careening . . .
Chart of Ferrol and Uorunna.
Chart of Lisbon ....
Sir Martin Frobisei;
, Earl of Warwick p, Earl of Warwick
p, Earl of Warwick Lord High Admihal
■Jure) tiire)
PAtl K
•252
302
.30:5
337
338
339
3-il
345
350
354
355
37G
383
393
394
398
.399
400
401
403
40(1
407
408
409
412
113
415
422
424
420
428
433
435
442
491
492
499
XXIV
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Admiral, Jan van Duijvenvoorde
Chart op Cadiz Harbour .
George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland
' Wheel .
' Bomb Vessel .
An English Ship of War, 1588
The Beacons of Kent
A Ship of the Armada
1 Triangles
1 Brigantine
Sir Hugh Willoughby
Sir John Hawkyns .
Thomas Cavendish .
' Azimuth Compass .
page 510
514
525
538
539
552
563
564
585
605
614
618
636
658
NAVAL HISTORY
CHAPTER I.
' CIVIL HISTORY (IK NAVAL AFFAIES TO 1066.
The priuiitive Britcm and the sea— KaHy Bfitish vessels— Coimiiercial relations with the continent — Ships ol' the Veneti— Maritime impotence of Britain at (Ja'sar's invasion— Picte — Cc-Bsav's ships— Britain uniler the Romans— Roman harbours in Britain The Scots and I'icts— The Saxon invaders- Their origin and character- Anglo-Saxon ships— Rise of Mercia— Offa's fleet —Rise of Wessex — Alfred's mari- time i)olicy Edgar — Danegeld — The Danish invaders — Greatness of Canute —
Danish ships Port dues — Tenures of the maritime towns — Smallness of the
iioniianent navy— 'Phe Hokstad sliiji and its construction.
MONG the inhabitants of Britain, a large number have in all ages followed the sea. In the days of extreme antiquity, when the greater part of the island was covered with forests in which wild beasts, and possibly wilder human beings, roamed, knowing no law save that of the strongest ; when marshes and lakes were more common, and watercourses broader, than they are now, and when there was little tillage, the seas and rivers yielded a readier harvest than the land.
So long as society remained unorganised, the man who planted a field gave to precarious fortune most valuable hostages in the shape of his labour and his seed. Any man more powerful than he might, without much trouble, deprive him of the fruit of both by driving him from his hard-won patch, and occupying it. Yet, even while society was in its earliest infancy, there was a certain kind of safety afloat for him who knew how to manage paddle and sail. He could not easily be ousted from his chosen fishing-grounds. To oust him — nay, seriously to interfere with him afioat — required not merely brute
VOL. I. B
FI:c)M LKDIAKD S XAVAL H15TOKY, 1735.
2 CIVIL EISTOBY TO 1066. [B.C 55.
strength but also skill and experience. The lowest man in the scale of that dawning civilisation could handle the club and the mattock ; but, from the first, the trade of seaman or fisherman was an art and mystery. The primitive Briton was, therefore, more secure in his position, as well as more independent, as a seaman, or at least as a riverman, than as a landsman. On the water he escaped having to contend with wild beasts and with much human tp'anny. As for the elements, he made it the peculiar business of his life to understand and adopt them. They cannot have been more cruel than the dangers of the shoi'e. And from river, lake, and sea he could be sure of drawing supplies of food without the trouble either of sowing or of reaping.
These considerations must have powerfully influenced the early Britons who found themselves near stream or ocean or mere, for they have profoundly influenced all primitive peoples, and especially those of the old world. They led them, not merely to seek their living on the water, but also to biuld their habitations on or above the water. In the neolithic period there were lake dwellings in Britain as well as in Switzerland and other parts of Em-ope ; and many of the Irish " crannoges," or artificial islands, which were strongholds of petty chiefs as late as the sixteenth century, were striictures dating back to prehistoric times. Soon, of course, as the numbers of those who lived on or by the water increased, the relative security of their calling diminished. Boats began to be stolen, nets to be destroyed, lines to be removed. Still, however, there was the substantial attraction of the never failing harvest of the waters ; and still a man enjoyed more liberty afloat than he could hope to enjoy ashore, unless, indeed, he happened to be a very powerful personage.
It is impossible to determine with certainty what was the nature of the earliest British vessels. But it is established by Csesar^ that in his time the inhabitants made use, probably in addition to craft of stronger build, of boats very little different from the coracles \\hich may still be occasionally seen on the upper reaches of the Severn, and from the light and unstable skiffs wherein the fishermen of Mayo and Galway \'enture to sea to this daj' in almost all weathers. They were, in effect, canoes, framed of light wood so arranged as to support and give strength to a hull of basket-work, and then covered with hides. They may have well existed long l)efore Caesar's time ; and they probably represented the first type
' ' De Bell. Civ.,' i. 54.
B.C. 55.J BltlTAlN AND THE CONTINENT. 3
of British vessel that was anything more than a raft. There seems to have been generally no sail or mast ; and the instrument of propulsion was, almost without doubt, the paddle.
Yet, although the hide canoe appears to have been the earliest craft known to our ancestors, it is difhcult to believe that, as late as the days of Cassar, the islanders had nothing better. Pytheas,' about 330 B.C., found, in what is now Kent, a degree of civilisation which surprised even his highly civilised companions from Massilia. I'osidonius, who was Cicero's tutor, describes the tin-workers of the island as being civilised and clever at their work, and as possessing waggons of some sort. In those times there were certainly iron- works in the valley of the Severn, and British princelings certainly coined money in distant imitation of Greek originals. Moreover, it is incredible that the Britons, who for generations had seen Phoenician ships and craft from the Greek colonies in the Mediter- ranean, visiting their coasts for tin, could have omitted to copy the superior foreign types. Nor is it probable that if our ancestors owned only hide canoes, they could have habitually crossed the British Channel, as C^sar himself suggests that they did cross it.
There is no evidence that any prince of Britain, inspired by principles of general policy, organised a combination of his fellow princes, either to send maritime assistance to the mainlanders who resisted the Koman seizure of the continental shores of the Channel, or to repel the threatened invasion of his own country. Indeed, the evidence is rather to the effect that the more powerful princes were on such ill terms among themselves that they could not combine, at least for operations by sea. Yet there was some combination for offensive defence, if not among the princes of Britain, then among the merchants and shipowners of the seaboard. It was, no doubt, dictated by considerations of common interests, rather than by the formal behests of people in authority ; and the probable explanation is that the fishermen and traders of the southern British coasts, who had long had some maritime traftic with the tribes ever against them on the coasts of Gaul, apprehended in some vague way that a Boman conquest would deprive them of it. We may even suppose blood ties to have existed between the two races, and the menaced mainlanders to have appealed, in their hour of peril, to the friend- ship of the islanders. Be this as it may, both Caesar and Strabo, as well as native traditions, declare Britain and Gaul to have had ' Fragments of his ' Peri|iUis,' ed. Arwoilsun.
H 2
4 CIVIL EISTOET TO 106C. [B.C. 55.
commercial relations for a long period anterior to the Julian invasion ;' and we have Caesar's word for it that when, in his advance, he came into contact ■with the Veneti, who dwelt near the mouth of what is now the Loire, he found that he had to fight not only them, but also a British flotilla acting with them.
Unhappily, Caesar does not expressly describe the vessels of the British contingent. It has been seen that he elsewhere mentions certain British craft as having been made of wicker covered with hide. Of these he speaks contemptuously, when he criticises their suitability for war ; and Lucan ^ takes up much the same position . But neither Caesar nor Lucan applies this criticism to the craft that co-operated with the Veneti ; and, when we pay regard to the fact that to enter the mouth of the Loire our ancestors, in addition to crossing the stormy Channel, must have braved the terrors of the Bay of Biscay, we are almost driven to the conclusion that the ships which helped the Veneti were not hide canoes. It is much more likely, seeing that Ccesar devotes no special description to them, that they were not very different from the ships of the Veneti themselves. These he does describe, and in some detail. " Their ships," ^ he says, " were built and fitted out in this manner. The bottoms were somewhat flatter than those of our vessels, the better to adapt them to the shallows, and to enable them to with- stand without danger the ebbing of the tide. Their bows, as like- wise their sterns, were very lofty and erect, the better to bear the magnitude of the waves and the violence of the tempests. The hull of each vessel was entirely of oak, to resist the shocks and assaults of that stormy sea. The benches for the rowers were made of strong beams of about a foot in breadth, and were fastened with iron bolts an inch thick. They fastened their anchors with iron chains * instead of with cables ; and they used skins and a sort of thin pliant leather for sails, either because they lacked canvas and were ignorant of the art of making sailcloth, or more probably because they believed that canvas sails were not so fit to bear the stress of tempests and the rage and fury of the winds, and to drive ships of that bulk and burden. Our fleet and the vessels
' Cffisar, 'De Bell. Gall.,' iii. L'l ; iv. liO.
- ' Pliarsal.,' iv.
^ 'DeBcll. Gall.,'iii. 13.
■* An example of " nothing new under the sun." Chain fal>les for shijis of war were again adoi)teil in the nineteenth century, after hempen cables had served fur uiiwards of a thousand years.
B.C. O.5.] VENETAN VESSELS. 5
of such construction were as follows as regards fighting capabilities. In the matter of manoeuvring power and ready command of oars, we had an advantage ; but in other respects, looking to the situation of the coast and the stormy weather, all ran very much in their favour ; for neither could our ships injure theirs with their prows, so great were the strength and solidity of the hostile craft, nor could we easily throw in our darts, because of the loftiness of the foe above us. And this last fact was also a reason why we found it extremely difficult to grapple with him, and bring him to close action. More than all, when the sea began to get up, and when the enemy was obliged to run before it, he, fearing nothing from the rocks and chffs when the tide should ebb, could, in addition to weathering the storm better, trust himself more confidently among the shallows." A complete victory^ was gained, nevertheless; and, no doubt, the British contingent was destroyed.
That Selden wrote primarily as a politician, and only secondarily as a historian, when he produced ' Mare Clausum," has been too much overlooked by later writers, and especially by Dr. John Campbell" and his editors, who follow Selden^ in finding, in a statement by Ctesar, evidence that the ancient Britons "had the dominion of their own seas in the most absolute degree." The statement is to the effect that Csesar could get no information concerning the country or ports of Britain, because the inhabitants permitted none but merchants to visit their island, and restrained even them from travelling up the country.'' As well might it be argued that the Chinese of our own days " have the dominion of their own seas in the most absolute degree," because they have succeeded in limiting the intercourse of foreigners with the interior. All that we know points to a different conclusion. Whatever naval power the Britaius, probably those of the western part of the island, possessed, seems to have been entirely expended in the fruitless co-operation with the Veneti. Thenceforward, the British fleet vanished from the scene ; and C»sar met with absolutely no resistance afloat.
Yet, although the Britons were weak at sea, they were not so ignorant that the cultured liomans had nothing to learn from them
' 'De Bell. Gall.,' iii. U.
- 'Lives of the British Admirals,' edit, of 1817, cli. i.
' 'Mare Clans.,' ii. 2.
* ' De Bell. Gall.,' iv. IS.
6 CIVIL HISTORY TO 10(i6. [B.C. 55.
concerning ship construction. We have seen what Csesar's opinion was of the British hide canoes. But we learn elsewhere ^ that the conquerors found in Britain another type of boat which they thought it worth while to copy for their own purposes. It was a species of long, fast-sailing pinnace, known to the Eomans as picta. It was smeared with wax, apparently to lessen the friction while running through the water, and it carried twenty rowers. It was useful for scouting and dispatch purposes ; and to decrease its visibihty its sail was dyed light blue, and its crew were dressed in clothing of the same colour. Here is a very early example of something like a naval uniform for seamen. But, with regard to the science of naval architecture generally, the Bomans must have been immensely ahead of the Britons. The Roman vessels were not so large, but that they could be hauled upon the beach ; while they were large enough to transport, upon an average, about V25 soldiers, - with baggage in each ; and if it be true that Caesar carried with him to Britain a war elephant,^ some, at least, of his ships nrast have been of imposing size and strength.
The results of Caesar's expeditions led subsequent Latin writers to use such expressions as Britannos subjugare and Vincula dare oceano almost as if they were equivalent phrases ; and the fact has ever since created a false impression that the conqueror in some way wrested the dominion of the sea from the vanquished islanders. The truth is that, after he had won the action in the mouth of the Loire, Csesar had to contend afloat with few besides natural difficulties ; and that the Briton of his day was overcome not at sea but ashore. If the Britons had any ships and seamen beyond those destroyed on the coast of Gaul, they had at least no union, no common aims, no central authority strong enough to wield effectively the naval arm. The country was broken up into petty principali- ties and chieftainships, and while little co-operation between the jealousies and hatreds of rivals was possible on shore, none at all was to be expected at sea, where only from co-operation, guided by authority, can success be hoped for, even amid the most favourable circumstances.
The descents of Cssar, and the fear of new invasions certainly disciplined the country to a degree previously unexampled. We
' Flav. Veg. ' De Ke Mil.,' iv. 37.
^ Eighty transports conveyed two legions. 'De Bell. Gall.,' iv. 'I'l.
' As Polyureus says.
B.C. 50.] BRITAIN AND ROME. 7
need not suppose that the coast populations became suddenly orderly, and hastened to give up their primitive habits of piracy ; and, indeed, we find that, a little later, these habits, far from having dis- appeared, were more firmly rooted than ever. Yet, for the time, the Britons paid or promised tribute, in order to keep Augustus ' at a distance ; and, under Tiberius, they were wise enough to refrain from plundering certain soldiers of Gennanicus,^ who were wrecked on their shores. The improvement may have been partly owing to the growth of central authority within the island ; for it seems probable that Cymbeline, though monarch only of a portion of the country, attained much greater power and influence than had before been reached by any British prince, and was often able, more or less, directly to control nearly the whole of the southern part of the island. Even Cymbeline,^ however, was not always powerful enough to control all his dependents, nor all the members of his own family. Just before his death, he was dragged, apparently much against his will, into a serious difficulty with Home ; and, although he did not live to witness the invasion of the Emperor Claudius, he must have known, ere he breathed his last, that Britanl, which, since the time of Ca?sar, had been allowed to take very much its own course, was about to lose all semblance of independence.
Claudius was not opposed by sea ; nor do ships seem to have played any part in the revolt under Boadicea in the time of Suetonius Paulinus. Indeed, during more than two hiTudred years, the country's naval progress went on so noiselessly as to have escaped the attention of historians. But progress under the Eomans there must have been ; for the bold and successful entei-prise of Caius Carausius could not have terminated as it did, had not the leader had at his command not only good ships but also good seamen. The exploits of Carausius, and of his successor, will be found summarised in the next chapter. Progress continued steadily in the later days of the Eoman dominion, when the ports as well as the fleet received much attention. The navy nearly always proved itself strong enoiigh to repress piracy in the surrounding seas ; and among the places which sprang into naval importance as military and commercial harbours or refuges were, according to Selden : ■* Othona, which Camden identifies with Hastings ; Dubris, now Dover ; Lemmanis, now either Hythe or Limehill hard by it ;
' Hor. 'Carni.,' i. 35. ^ 'Hist. Britan.,' iv. 12.
" Tacit., ' Ann.,' ii. * ' Mare Claus.,' ii. 6, 7.
8
CIVIL BISTOBY TO 1066.
[A.D. 280.
Branodunum, now Brancaster Bay, in Norfolk; Gariannonnm, now Yannouth ; Regiilbiuni, now Beculver ; Kutupiae, now Richboroiigh ; Anderida, now perhaps Newenden, in Kent.; and Adiirni, now Ederington, near Shoreham. The position of many of these places
A KOMAX SHIP OF "WAR (lATKK rKKlOI)). (FroTJi Johann .Schffffer's ' De Militia Xavali Veterum,' Cpsala, 1654.)
a. Chalatorii lunua,
b. Epitonus.
c. Ccruchi. (/. Hyperffi. ('. Pedes.
/. Protu.
(/. Ciilones. //. Thorjunuin /. Maluola. k. Antenmi. /. Coruua. //(. Dolon.
II. Velum aliud.
0. Anserculun cum aplustri.
p. Stylus cum tceuiti.
q. Propedes.
r. Anchorale.
K. Elacatc.
(WhetluT a topsail was really used in such a vessel is very doulitful.)
is in itself indication that there was at the time an important amount of intercourse with the continent; and that trade flourished under
A.D. 430.] THE SCOTS AND PICTS. 9
the Roman dominion is known. But after the departure of GaiUo, about A.D. 430, the unfortunate Britons, wlio liad been emasculated by hixury, and whose dependent position had iiradually taught them to look to the Koman power and not to help themselves, even for so necessary a business as the police of their own coasts, suddenly found themselves thrown upon their own very inadequate resources. It looks as if the liomans can have left scarcely a ship behind them ; probably they did not leave an officer.
The Scots and Picts immediately became very troublesome. The Romans, almost to the last, had wielded sea power enough to oblige these freebooters to exercise great circumspection in all their operations. A Roman tleet was always at sea, ready to act upon the flanks of the pirates, and to sever their communications with their northern fastnesses. Landings could not, in consequence, be attempted without the gravest risk. But the Roman fleet being withdrawn, and there being no British fleet to take its place, all risk disappeared.
Whether the ancient Britons were ever much inclined to military pursuits may be doubted. Certain it is that the long period of more or less intimate association with the Roman empire in its decadent days did not leave them much more military than it had fomid them. The degree of relative security afforded by the Roman occupation encouraged them to turn their attention to agriculture and commerce, rather than to arms. Those of them who were from time to time obliged to serve under the Roman eagles must have returned, with relief, if they returned at all, to peaceful pursuits. And the increasing softness of Roman manners corrupted and de- moralised them, as it demoralised the Romans themselves. The Roman influence conferred some arts and evanescent culture u])on a small proportion of the people, but it did not train the Britons in habits of independence and self-reliance, nor did it leave great scope for patriotism.
Much of the detailed history of the period lies in impenetrable obscurity. Very Httle can be collected concerning the social life of the people. But there can be no question that at the time of the flrst advent of the Saxons the Britons were a feeble and even a contemptible folk, disunited to a greater degree than has ever been common, save among barbarous ti'ibes of the lowest tj'pe, and scarcely deserving a better fate than awaited them. Their thin and sluggish blood sadly needed the iron that was eventual!}' infused
10 CIVIL niSTORY TO 1066. [A.D. 450.
into it by the young heroes of the wild Berserker brood from across the North Sea. Had these Saxons and the kindred Danes and Normans, pirates every one, not come, England might have grown learned, and possibly rich ; but she could never have become great. She must have lacked manhood and tone. She must have lacked muscle, stomach, and daring. The successive invasions of the northern pirates slowly transformed the race from one of effeminate and disorderly weaklings into one of sternly discipUned men. The raw material may have had some latent stamina ; otherwise the bitterness of those north-east blasts would surely have extinguished it altogether. But the stamina required a very long process of development ere it became good for much. It needed many centuries to change the Briton into the Englishman, and during all those centuries, the sea, and the men and influences from across it, did more than any other factors towards completing the trans- formation.
The so-caUed Saxon ^ invaders represented at least three tribes. There were the Saxons proper who, originally from Holstein, had spread inland over what are now Hannover and Oldenburg, and had established themselves among the northern Frisian islands. There were the Angles, originally from beyond the Elbe, who had established themselves in what is now Schleswig ; and there were the Jutes, probably from the modern .Jutland. The British traveller in the Denmark and Holstein of to-day will scarcely fail to be struck with the great general resemblance of the racial type still prevalent in those countries to the type characteristic of eastern and southern England. Nay, he will even find other things to remind him of his native land. In few parts of the world save England and Schleswig- Holstein are hedges an ordinary feature of the rural landscape ; and in no non-English speaking community in the world will the Englishman feel so much at home, and so completely able to sympathise with and enter into the habits and ideas of the people, as in this Dano-German district. It is really, as Ethelward," the tenth centm-y chronicler, called it, Anglki Veins.
All these tribes were piratical, if we use the word in its fullest modern sense ; but with them piracy was not a shameful but a noble and dignified employment. The might of Eome had failed to
' Elton's ' Origius of Euglish History,' xii. ; Kemble's ' Saxons ' ; Freeman's ' Norman Conquest.'
* Chronicle printed in Savile's ' Scriptores post Bcdain,' and in ' Mouum. Hist. Brit.'
A.I». 495.] THE ANGLO-SAXON INVADERS. 11
conquer these tribes, and had only succeeded in driving them into undying hostihty to it, and to Eoman civiHsation. Wealth, polish, and luxury were what the decadent Eoinans set store by. They were exactly the things which the Saxons most cordially despised. These last prided themselves upon the manner in which they endured hardships and surmounted difficulties ; they regarded blunt- ness and roughness as manly virtues rather than as defects, and they held it disgraceful and womanish for a man to seek to lie soft, or to idle at home, when there were spoils to be won abroad by good seamanship, and by axe and sword. Brutal they were ; dissolute they were ; drunken they were ; but their brutality was the brutality of strength and high spirits, and not of premeditation ; their dis- soluteness sprang from natural cravings and not from artificial vices; and though they drank deep, they did not allow their orgies to interfere with their work in the world.
The Anglo-Saxon ships ' seem to have been nothing more than long, deep, imdecked boats, sometimes, perhaps, of as much as fifty tons' biu'den, yet never having more than a single mast, provided with a single lug-shaped sail. There was no rudder. The steers- man sat in the stern, holding on his right or " steerboard " side a paddle, with which he controlled the vessel's com-se. This paddle was probably fixed by a thong, or by a thole-pin passing through it, so as to preserve it from loss, and to assist the steersman, whose other hand held the gathered up end of the sail. The arrangement was, thus, much hke that of still earher ships, and it recalls, strikingly enough, Virgil's description : '^
"Ijwe sedeiis clavuiiiqvie regit, velisque lllit^i^<tl■at.■'
It is unlikely that the crew ever exceeded fifty or sixty men. The ships ^ were usually, if not invariably, clincher built, that is, they were covered with planks so disposed that the lower edges of the superior ones overlapped the upper edges of the inferior ones. The bow was raised, and generally bore, as a figure-head, a carved model of the upper part of some fierce or fabulous beast. The stern also was raised, and occasionally ornamented, thoi;gh less elaborately
' 'Memoires des Belles Lettres,' Stockholm, 1783; 'Mems. of Koy. Soo. of Copen- hagen,' viii. ; Charnock's 'Mar. Architecture.' But see more detailed account, at end of chapter, of the Gokstad boat.
^ Applied by Mr. Dallaway in ' Archaeologia,' xxi. 81.
* Some ships of this period are called " ceols " (keels), others " hulks," others " long ships," and still others "iuscs." It seems imjwssible to say exactly what each was.
12 CIVIL EISTORY TO 1066. [A.D. 760.
than the bow, and the sail was often striped in two or more colours. A few of the larger vessels may have been half-decked, or covered in at the extremities ; but this is not certain. All were propelled by oars as well as by sail power. All were constructed with a view to being drawn up on shore, where they lay when not in use. Arrange- ments of pulleys, perhaps not very different from the rough capstans employed by modern English fishermen for their smaller boats, were arranged on the beach to facihtate the dragging of the vessels up and down. There is evidence, also, that some boats, intended exclusively for war purposes, were fitted with iron gunwales, or had their gunwales covered with iron.
At first the Anglo-Saxons in Britain were continually reinforced from the continent, but after a time they discouraged immigration. They grudged sharing with newcomers the advantages which they had already won, and they began a system of coast fortification designed to keep out further arrivals.
In the meanwhile, various chiefs reduced the interior of the island, and little by little a number of petty kingdoms sprang into existence. These, actuated by inevitable jealousies, were almost perpetually at war one with another, and, perhaps because sea warfare was at first more congenial than land warfare to the Saxon races, the internecine struggle seems to have weakened the seaboard kingdoms more rapidly than it weakened the inland ones.
The central kingdom of Mercia, which marched with the Welsh border behind which, thaiiks to the uatiural difficulties of the comitry, the fugitive Britons still held out, was, in the interval, gaining valuable experience in land warfare, and when the coast kingdoms began to be exhausted by their feuds, and had frittered away their naval strength, the opportunity of Mercia arose. First Penda, some time in alliance with the Welsh, and then Ethelbald and Otfa in succession, enlarged the borders of the middle kingdom until they touched the sea in more places than one ; and when Offa, by the exercise of his strong personality and indomitable energy, had made himself by far the most potent prince in England, he was wise enough to do what none of the more petty Anglo-Saxon princes had done before him — he created a great fleet. The posses- sion of this enabled him to treat on equal terms with even so powerful a monarch as Charlemagne,' and it convinced him so clearly of the value of a powerful navy, that, according to the Saxon ' Will, of Malmesbury, i. 5 ; and Alcuiu.
A.D. 871.] ALFRED'S NAVY. 13
Chronicle, he left to his successors the maxim that "he who would be secure on land must he supreme at sea."
Mercian ascendancy presently made way for West Saxon, under Egbert, and West Saxon intiuence, though much hindered by continual incui'sions of the Danes, as well as by Anglo-Saxon feuds, and by British irreconcilableness, gradually increased, particularly under Alfred and Edward the Elder, until it became no longer West Saxon hut English ; and so, for the first time, England was, in some sort, a state.
But the unity of England was still little more than nominal. Alfred came to the throne of a country which had been ravaged and despoiled in all directions by Danish raiders, operating with the sea as their base, and which was impoverished to the last degree. Had he been a Briton and not a Saxon, he must surely have despaired of his ragged inheritance. But he did not despair for a moment. When he could employ force, he employed it ; when his only available weapons were gold and diplomacy, he employed them. He was never inactive, nor did he ever lose sight of Offa's ma.xim. Steadily, even in his darkest days, he applied himself to the creation of a naval force. He seems indeed to have realised the nature of sea power in something like a scientific manner.' He continually put in force the principle of offensive defence as being the best, and in fact, the only sound one. Whenever it was possible, he sought his enemj' at sea, instead of waiting for him to attack or to land. Nor was he content to employ merely such ships as had been employed by his ancestors. He invented new types. His "long ships" embodied improvements upon any war vessels that had previously been seen in England. Says the Saxon Chronicle: — "They were full twice as long as the others ; some had sixty '" oars, and some had more ; they were both swifter and steadier, and also higher than the others ; they were shaped neither like the Frisian nor the Danish, but so as it seemed to him that they would be most efficient." Moreover, he paid much attention to the selection and seasoning of his materials, to the victualling, and to the supply of anus, as well as to the training of his seamen ; and, being in desperate straits, and regarding the Danes as pirates, he for])ade the granting to them of (quarter. ^
' Will, of Malmesbury, ii. 4 ; Henry nf Hunt., v. ; Etlichvard, iv. .'! ; Sax. Chron.
- Henry of Hunt, say.s "forty oars or more."
^ Heury of Hunt., v. ; Will, of Malmesbury, ii. 4, etc.
14 CIVIL HISTORY TO lOGG. [A.D. 1100.
All these innovations by the strong and fearless hand of Alfred conduced to the general disciplining of the nation, for the condition of the fleet could not but react upon the condition of the coast towns, and the condition of the coast towns, then the most im- portant, and, with one or two exceptions, the most populous in the kingdom, naturally influenced the state of the entire coimtry. All luxuries — all thmgs, indeed, that ranked much above the bare necessaries of life — reached the interior from the coast towns, and it is notorious that even in much earlier ages the ports, civilised by intercourse with abroad, and full of rich merchants, set a fashion in all sorts of matters to the inland towns and villages. There came a time when the ports were rougher and less polished than the inland districts, but that was not iintil external influences had been digested by the country.
At the end of the ninth centmy, when Alfred lived and ruled, the king was still a man chosen to rule on account of his bravery and capacity. That he generally inherited his office was an accident. When he failed to prove himself worthy of it, he was seldom able to retain it for long. Alfred set up an unusually high standard of kingship, and it is greatly to the credit of his immediate successors that, viewed even by the side of him, they loom large as men well worthy of their position. Of Edward, Freeman truly enough says : "It is only the miequalled glory of his father which has condemned this prince, one of the greatest rulers that England ever beheld, to a smaller degree of popular fame than he deserves." As for Athelstan,' he exacted tribute from the Danish pirates, who, in spite of the efforts of Alfred and Edward, still held Northumbria ; and, first of the English kings, he caused his alliance to be seriously valued and sought for abroad.
Both these monarchs fostered the fleet, wliich, indeed, under the latter of them must have reached unusual efficiency, as- well as gi-eat numerical strength, if it be true, as the Saxon Chronicle relates, that Anlaff (Olaf), the Danish king in Ireland, carried to the aid of the Scots a larger fleet than had previously been seen in their waters, yet, with his allies, was crushingly defeated by Athelstan.
The reigns of Edmund, Edred, and Edwy, were less brilliant; but they can have witnessed little or no change in the prosecution of Offa's and Alfred's naval policy, for they immediately j)receded the
' Will, (if M;ihiieslmry, ii. 'i ; Kciirer Ilovnli'i].
A.D. 9G0.] EDGAR'S NAVY. 15
reign of Edgar,' who found tin; fleet in fair order. He vastly increased it, and although he had happily but small occasion to use it — for strong navies make unwilling enemies- it is generally ad- mitted that he raised it to a point of excellence which it had never before approached. His fault was too great a love of peace. Instead of chastising and driving off the Danish freebooters who clung tenaciously to English soil in several places, he admitted them to equality before the law with his Angles and Saxons, and by his unwise mildness he prepared the way for many subsequent troubles to his comitry. Such mildness was not understood in those times. It did not induce the Danes in England to become Englishmen ; it led them rather to despise a people who could be voluntarily and deliberately guilty of the weakness of clemency. Edgar was too strong for them to strike at, but they foresaw that Edgar would not always rule, and that, pending the arrival of the day when it might be safe to strike, the advantages conceded to them would enable them to enormously improve their chances of ultimately subjugating the whole country.
He was, nevertheless, a great king. The wording of the charter, cited by Selden - as having been granted by him in 964 to the Church of Worcester, is probably spurious ; but we do not depend upon that instrument, in which Edgar is made to claim lordship of " the islands, and of the ocean lying around Britain," for an estimate of the position to which the king — alas, only temporarily — raised his country at sea. The Saxon Chronicle tells us, quoting a metrical eulogy : —
" Was 11(1 fleet so insolent. No liost so strong, That, mid the Eii<;Ush race, Took from liim aught. The wliile tlie noble king lieigued on his throne." ''
We need not attach implicit credence to Hoveden's statement^ that Edgar's fleet consisted of three thousand six hundred sail, all " very
' l''lur. of Winch. ; Roger Hovcden ; Bromton.
■^ 'Mare Clausum,' ii. Vi; Will, of Malmesbmy, ii. KemUle considers it a forgery: 'Cod. Dipl. -Kv. Sax.' ii. 404. The wording, translated from the Latin, runs: " Kdgar, King of England, and of all the Kings of the Islands, and of the Ocean lying around Britain, and of all the Nations included within the circuit thereof, Sui)reme Lord and Governor," etc. It is also found in 'Patent Kolls," 1 Edw. lY., ni. '!?>.
^ Sax. Chron. :{!».">.
* Hoveden, 244.
16 CIVIL HISTORY TO lOGG. [A.D. 980.
stout ones " ; nor to Bromton's/ that it comprised four thousand ; not to Matthew of Westminster's," that it was four thousand eight hundred strong ; but we may well believe an assertion which is made in substance by more than one writer, that, during his sixteen years' reign, no thief was found in his realm on shore, and no pirate heard of in the surrounding seas. Under him, the Anglo-Saxon monarchy in England reached its highest pitch of power. When the hand of Edgar was relaxed by death, the fabric which Alfred and his successors had so laboriously created collapsed with startling rapidity.
Edward the Martyr never reached manhood, and in his name the land was governed by weak women and self-seeking priests. Ethelred the Purposeless was also, during great part of his reign, in the same hands. In Edgar, one strong man had stood for the nation. Babies, faineants, and women could not take Edgar's place ; and there was no national life to carry on his work. All became confusion. Six years after the death of Edgar, the Danes ^ did as they liked in the narrow seas ; and by 991 the spirit of the country was so crushed that Ethelred agreed to buy off the free- booters with an annual tribute of ten thousand pounds, which was raised, under the name of Danegeld,'' by a tax of two shillings ' per hide on land.
It was then that Edgar's mild unwisdom bore fruit. The Danes contemptuously accepted the tribute ; but, holding a strong position in that part of the country known as the Danelagh, where the inhabitants were largely of Danish blood, and still full of Scandinavian sympathies ; and despising a race which thus ignobly confessed its inability to defend itself, they did not for one moment desist from their course of raid and rapine. England had corrupted its once hardy Saxon conquerors, who were no longer a match for Norse pirates, led by men who never slept beneath a raftered roof, and never sat down to drink by a sheltered hearth. The Danish scourge was needed to do for the Saxons what the Saxon scourge had done for the Britons ; but it was none the less terrible while it was being applied- Ethelred bought oft' one viking only to find
' Urcjiiikm, H70. ^ Matt, of West., l'J2. '■' Sax. Chrou., aiino 98J.
■* Sax. Chrciii., anno 991 ; Will, of Malmesbury, ii. 10. See especially Webb's ^ Treatise on Danegeld,' 175G.
■' Later, aii]iurcut]y, twelvepeuue, Churcli ]irii]icrty being excepted.
1013.] SWETN INVASION. 17
another pirate clamouring, sword in hand, for similar treatment. Even his own court hetrayed him repeatedly. Nearly every year larger sums were paid to the foe ; every year the foe hecame bolder and more exacting. Eecognisiug the impotence of the king, the Enghsh nobles raised a fleet of their own, but, being mismanaged, it did nothing beyond contribute to the general exhaustion. Every- where there were treachery and desertion. To add to the confusion, dilhculties arose with Normandy. The year 1002 saw English desperation seeking relief by means of a general massacre of the Danes throughout the realm.
This provoked Sweyn, Prince of Denmark, to throw himself officially into a quarrel which previously had been chiefly waged by the more irresponsible and adventurous of his father's nominal subjects, including Sweyn himseK, when a young man. Upon his accession to the Danish throne, the attainment of the sovereignty of England became his main object in life.
The Danegeld seems to have been diverted at this time from its original and shameful pui-pose, and to have been employed for the more creditable and legitimate end of raising and maintaining a fleet wherewith to offer some sort of opposition to the national enemy. It temporarily became Heregeld, or money for the support of a fighting force. But it was too late. The collapse had made too gi-eat progress ; Ethelred, after a brief struggle, fled to Normandy ; and, by 1013, England was practically at the feet of the conqueror. When Sweyn died, Ethelred returned, and' gained some successes, as did also his son, the gallant Edmund Ironside ; but Edmund's death left Canute's son master of the whole kingdom.
Canute began his government with a series of the hardest severities. He nearly annihilated the English royal family ; and he squeezed from the impoverished coimtry a levy of £83,000, most of which sum he gave, as a pirate chief's largesse, to his Danisli seamen. Yet, when he had established himself, he ruled well, and even generously. He abolished distinctions between Danes and Englishmen; he put Englishmen, like Godwin and Leofric, into positions of trust ; he favoured the church, although his father had been an apostate ; and, while he also ruled Denmark, and Norwaj', which he conquered in 1028, and had Scotland and Sweden as his vassals, he was essentially and primarily a great king of England.
There can be no doubt that the British collapse resulted rather from British disunion and mismanagement than from paucity of VOL. I. c
18 CIVIL niSTOET TO 106G. [1004.
means wherewith to make resistance. All Edgar's successors had fleets ; some of them at times had very large ones ; but every squadron, and almost every ship, seem to have been jealous and distrustful of every other. Many of the English leaders at the most critical period of the struggle must have had Danish con- nections, if not Danish blood in their veins ; and the mere presence m England of a tolerated Danelagh, or Danish pale, acted as a perpetual reminder to every weak-kneed Englishman that a large extension of the Danish power was not only possible, but probable. Hence, there were encouragements to half-heartedness, and, indeed, to continual double dealing. Many sought to stand well with both English and Danes, not certain which of the two would eventually gain the upper hand. Eesistance, consequently, was partial and inefficient on the side of almost all, except those few whose fortunes were in- extricably bound up with the fortunes of the royal house of Wessex. Edgar was able, and probably understood how, to employ sea power ; but his Anglo-Saxon successors certainly failed in the task, even if they comprehended the nature of it. It is abundantly clear that from the year of Edgar's death sea power in the narrow seas belonged almost exclusively to the Danes. What some of the Danish ships of the period were like we know from the ' Heims Kriugla,'' in Snorri Sturluson's 'Edda.' They were high-decked, and each bore the emblem of her commander. The prow was orna- mented with a figurehead of gilt copper, and at the truck was a vane. The vessels were painted externally, and carried around their bulwarks the polished steel shields of the crew. Sweyn's own ship, in 1004, called the Great Dragon, was in the form of the legendary animal of that name. His standard," a black raven embroidered on white silk, was not hoisted on board, and was only displayed when English soil was reached. The importance of the Danish navy in the economy of the State maybe gauged' by the fact that Canute, though only a younger son, owed his election to the fleet, ^ and that although his elder brother Harold seized the throne of Denmark, the latter could not have held it had the sailor prince cared to take it. Until Harold's early death, Canute, a pirate king in the true sense of the words, swept the seas, and afterwards he succeeded in Denmark without opposition.
' 'Heims Kringla,' ii. 12.").
* Said to have been enibruidered iu one night by three of Sweyu's sisters.
» Sax. Chron., 420 (ed. Ingram).
o
O
'A O
H
W
n
CO
O <!
H
CO
M O O
W W
1050.] HER EG ELD. 1&
It is probable that the Danes of this period built ships for war purposes only, thou^jh they may have incidentally used some of them for trade. The Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, possessed two distinct classes of vessels, one expressly designed for each object. In Ethelred's laws ' the distinction is often alluded to. And commerce w^as specially encouraged by the Saxons after they had fairly settled down in England ; for, after having made certain com- mercial ventures on his own account, and in his own ship, a churl might, by right, attain the rank of thane, or a thane that of earl.
There was already a regular system of tolls or port dues." At Billingsgate, a small vessel paid one halfpenny, and a sailing craft one penny. If a ceol, or hulk — apparently something still bigger — arrived, she paid fompence. From a vessel laden with planks, a toll of one plank was exacted.^ It is evident that there was much trade with the continent in wool, cloth, wine, and fish.
The Saxon war navy was supported by pecuniary levies, or Heregeld, raised upon the cultivated land, and was reinforced by contingents obligatorily furnished, in accordance with their tenures, by the chief ports ; * which also provided a certain number of men. Other towns, including inland ones, had to provide men and stores.^ But there seems to have been onlj' a very small permanent war navy. Canute, and Harold I. following him, maintained a somewhat larger one ; but all approach to a permanent naval establishment was ill regarded in the Midlands, and payment of Heregeld for the pui-pose was there frequently resisted, up to the time when it was abolished by Edward the Confessor.*^
General descriptions have already been given of the ships of the Saxons and of the Danes, but the subject is of sufficient interest to warrant a return to it ; and space may well be found here for an account of the vessel' which, in 1880, was dug up from beneath
' ' Auut. Laws and lustits. of Eng.,' ii. 2, and v. '1'.
^ Tlie dues of Sandwicli were granted by Canvite to Clirist Church, Canterbury.
' For other rules, see 'Anct. Laws and Instits. of Eng.,' p. 127; and Bromton, ^^llT.
■* Domesday, i. 3. Dover and Sandwich each furnished tlie king witli twenty sliips for fifteen days once a year, eacli vessel carrying twenty-one men. Probably other ports, notably those later known as Cinque Ports, had similar obligations.
" There are numerous examples, some very curious, in Domesday.
" Sax. Chron., p. 445 (ed. Ingram). It was afterwards revived. See ' .Vnct. Laws and Instits. of Eng.,' pp. 217, 224, 228.
' The particulars are sunuuarised from a paper on 'The Viking Ship,' by .Tcihu S. Wliite, in Scrihner's Marjdzine, Nov. 1SS7. To Messrs. Scribnor I am indebted for permission to reproduce the accompanying illustrations.
20
CIVIL HISTORY TO 1066.
[850.
a sepulchral tumulus known as the King's Mound, in Lower Gokstad, on a peninsula of Southern Norway. It cannot be decided with certainty when the vessel was buried ; though Mr. N. Nicolay- sen, who was then President of the Antiquarian Society of Christiana, assigned the craft to the later iron age, or between a.d. 700 and 1000, and inclined to the belief that she was of the ninth century. Nor can it be determined w^hose ship she was, and where built. She may have formed the tomb of some leader who died while on a foray far from home. On the other hand, she may have belonged to a chief whose home was at Gokstad. Other so-called Viking ships
THE GOKSTAD SHIP.
(Plan of Oar.)
THE GOKSTAD SHIP.
(Details of Planking.)
THE GOKSTAD SHIP.
(Supporters for the A-wning.)
have been discovered, but none larger or finer than the one in question ; and we may, perhaps, safely take it that this Gokstad relic fairly represents the type of vessel that was ordinarily employed by the northern pirates, whether Danish or Saxon, of the days of Alfred the Great.
The dimensions of the ship are : length over all, seventy-eight feet ; length on keel, sixty-six feet ; beam, sixteen feet six inches, and depth, four feet. The hull is of oak, unpainted, but the stem and sternposts are decorated. The planking is laid clincher-wise over the frame timbers, and tlie planks are fastened to one another
850]
THE OOKSTAD SHIP.
21
with iron bolts, and to the frames by lashings of cord made from the roots of trees. The seams are caulked with hair made into three- strand cord ; but this, instead of being driven in, was laid in during the process of construction. The decorations of the prow, gunwale, and sternpost seem to suggest early Irish influence. On each side are sixteen strakes of planking, and, in the third strake from the top, are holes, sixteen on each beam, or thirty-two in all, for the reception of oars. The planks thus pierced are nearly twice as thick as the rest ; and at the sides of the apertures there are slits to admit of the passage of the blades of the oars. The oars varied in size, the larger ones being amidships, and the smaller at the
SECTION OF THE GOKSTAIi SHIP.
THE (iOKSTAIl Slllr.
(Details of Suiiporters for tlic Awning.)
extremities. When not in use, the rowlocks or ports could be stopped by means of ingeniously constructed wooden shuttei-s. The vessel is double-ended, with great shai-pness of build and tine sheer ; and amidships the bottom is flattened. The rudder is in effect a fixed paddle, pivoted near the stern on the starboard side. The ship carried at least three small boats, was fitted with a single mast, and, as she must have needed two men at each of the oars, which are heavy, had sixty-four rowers, besides officers and, probably, fighting men. The shields ranged round the ship are circular, and are painted alternately black and yellow. There is a wooden frame- work, over which an awning seems to have been stretched at night,
22
CIVIL HISTORY TO 1066.
[1066.
and there is a flooring, but no deck ; and this last fact suggests that the Gokstad ship was not of the largest size known to the period, for some of her contemporaries were certainly decked. Unfortunately, no arms were found with the ship, the tumulus having evidently been already rifled for valuables ; but a large copper caldron, a tub of pine staves, and the chief's skeleton, that of a man six feet three inches in height, were discovered, together with many other remains.
THE GOKSTAD SHIP.
(Carving on Oar.)
( 23 )
CHAPTER II.
MILITARY HISTORY OF NAVAL AFFAIRS TO 1066.
CV'sar and the A'eneti — Battle at the mouth of the Loire — British co-oiieratioii atraiiiKt tlie Romans — Ca'sar's invasions — Submission of the Britons — Pichitions with the Boman Empire — Carausius — Relations with the Mediterranean jiiratcs — Siege of Boulofjne— Treachery of Allectus — Decline of the Roman power — Defencclessness of the Britons — The Scots and Picts — The pirates a» saviours — Heugest and Horsa — Norse invasions — Foundation of the Sa.\ou states — Their dissensions — Danish successes — Xaval battle off Sandwich — Alfred and the sea — Hasting in the Thames — Treatment of Danish ])irates— Athelstan and continental jiolitics — His naval victories — -Naval organisation imder Edgar — Successes of Olaf Tryggvesson — The Danes bought off, but in vain — Untrustworthiness of Ethelred's navy — Massacre of tlie Danes — Sweyn's invasions — Desertion of WidftH>tli — Invasion of Thurcytel — Thurcytel as a mercenary — Treachery of Edric Streona — Triinupli of the Danes — Canute — English jiarticipation in the conquest of Norway — ^The Huscarls — Rise of the house of Godwin — Hardicanute's invasion — Irksomencss of Heregeld — Edward the Confessor — Godwin, and England for the English — His popularity and naval abilitj- — Norse piracies — Futility of Edward's naval armaments — Turbulence of Godwin and his family — Godwin as rebel — Harold at sea — Edward's surrender to Godwin and Harold — Harold as mayor of the jialace — His naval successes — Harold's jiopularity and energy as king.
TX the course of his reduction of Gaul, Cassar -*- encountered few more determined and trouble- some opponents than the Veneti, a people living in and around what is now the town of Yanues, about thirty miles to the north of the estuary of the Eiver Loire. The A^eueti were formidable, not only because they were good fighting men, but also because they were a maritime folk, well supplied with shipping. Moreover, their fleet was reinforced to a strength of two hundred and twenty sail by a contingent from Britain. Thus, for the first time did Britain and Eome face one another, and the result was ominous. The vessels of the allies seem, upon the whole, to have been more powerful, and much loftier than the vessels which C?esar had hastily constructed in the Loire for the pui-pose of dealing with the enemy, and had the Komans fought merely with their ordinary weapons, they might possibly have been defeated. The Venetan
24 MILITABY HISTORY TO 1066. [B.C. 55.
ships, on account of their great sohdity, could not be successfully attacked by the rams of the weaker craft ; nor could the people on their decks be reached by the Romans, who lay several feet lower. Even when turrets or platforms were raised for the pm-pose, the high Venetan sterns still towered too far above the legionaries, and it was only by affixing scythes to poles, and using them to cut away the Venetan rigging, that the Romans disabled their opponents. Thus deprived of their ability both to manceuvre and to escape, the allies became panic-stricken and almost helpless, and Ciesar destroj'ed or took them at his leisui-e.' In this battle the fighting fleet of Britain seems to have been annihilated.
But the annihilation of their fleet was not the only evil brought upon the Britons by their interposition in favour- of the Veneti. They had inopportunely reminded Csesar of their existence, within sight of the shores which he was then engaged in pacifying, and as soon as he had made sufficient progress with that part of his task, he turned his attention to the island across the Strait of Dover. This was in B.C. 55.^
Learning or suspecting the designs of Csesar, the Britons dis- patched an embassy to him professing friendliness, and offering hostages. He returned an answer which, while it encouraged them to be peaceful, did not commit him, and soon afterwards he sent Caius Volusenus in a light craft to reconnoitre the shores of the island, and collected transport for two legions. In five days Volusenus returned with information, and Cfesar, ordering the troops on board, sailed at about one o'clock one morning from Portus Iccius, now probably Wissant Bay,^ and at ten found himself under high cliff's, which were cro^vTied by numbers of the enemy in arms. The whole of his fleet had not then come up, nor did he deem it prudent to attempt a landing where the superior position held by the defence would have told heavilj' against the assailants. Indeed, if, as is most probable, he struck the coast between Dover and the South Foreland, it would have been impossible for him, had he landed on the beach, to gain the top of the cliff, for even to-day there is no way thither. He therefore anchored so as to allow his flotilla to collect, and after a brief delay, called a council of war,
1 ' De Bell. Gall.' iii. 14.
' The account follows C'a:sar : ' De Bell. Gall.,' iv. v.
' According to D'Anville ; but some identify it with Calais, souie witb Boulogne, and some with Aiiibluteuse.
B.C. 55.]
CJESAR-S INVASIONS.
2&
communicated and doubtless discussed the intelligence brought him by Volusenus, and, as soon as wind and tide served, weighed to the north-east.
A few miles farther he discovered a plain and open shore to suit his purpose. The spot was probably a little to the south- ward of where now stands Walmer Castle.' The Britons seem to have followed along the coast as the fleet advanced, with their cavah-y and chariots in the van, and their infantry in the rear, and to have arrived as soon as the ships, and occupied the beach in force.
HUMAN LIULUNA, ull UAl.LEV, WITH MNK TlliU UF UAiiS.
(.-l,'(rr liasius.)
Landing was difficult, the draught of the transports not permitting them to draw very near the land ; and the men, laden with arms and armour, were obliged to jump into comparatively deep water and wade ashore, harassed not only by the breakers but also bj' the foe, who rode their horses down to the edge of the surf, or waded in afoot to meet the Komans. Under this kind of treatment the attack wavered, whereupon Caesar sent his lightest galle3's as close in as possible, and so stationed them that with their slings and other engines they took the Britons in flank. The effect was soon felt. ' For discussion of this subject, see ' ArcluBologia,' xxi. ."lOl.
26 MILITARY HISTORY TO 1066. [B.C. 55.
The defence began to give way, and when the standard-bearer of the Tenth Legion invoked the gods, and dashed into the water shoiiting, " Follow me, comrades, unless you would abandon your eagle to the enemy, for I, on my part, am determined to do my duty to my country and my general " ; he did not appeal in vain. Soon many of the legionaries reached dry gi-ound, and presently the Britons fled, and from a safe distance sent ambassadors with hostages to sue for peace. On the fourth day a treaty was concluded.
Caesar encamped, aj)parently, near his place of landing. He was expecting reinforcements in the shape of cavalry, the eighteen transports assigned to which had not been ready to sail with the rest of the fleet. The squadron was within sight of the camp when it was dispersed and ultiinately driven back by a sudden and violent storm. Nor was this the only cause of anxiety. On the same night there was a spring tide, which the invaders had omitted to provide against, and this, together with the storm, damaged the lighter vessels which were hauled up on the beach, and drove from their anchors several of those which were riding off shore, causing some ■of them to foi;nder, and dismasting others. Ctesar had with him no facilities for refitting his vessels, and no provision for wintering in Britain, and the British chiefs, conscious of this, did not scruple to break the treaty, and to attack with their whole force. The Roman position was j)recarious, but two or three indecisive skirmishes led up to a pitched battle, in which the Britons were completely defeated. Once more they begged for peace. Cassar ordered them to send to Gaul twice as many hostages as had before contented him, and then, feeling that, as the autumn equinox was upon him, further delay would be dangeroiis, took advantage of the first fair wind, and, weighing with the remnants of his fleet, returned safely to Gaul after a few hours' passage.
Si^ch was the first descent of the Romans. It showed how easy and open lay the way to this country, when only the white cliffs and the exertions of people on land perplexed the enemy. Had the Britons been able to oppose fleet with fleet, the result might have been very different ; for Caesar's ships were crowded, could not have been in the best fighting trim, and while crossing the Channel, did not keep in company, and might perhaps have been dealt with in detail. But the British fleet had been expended at the mouth of the Loire before Ctesar had formed any definite designs against Britain. Still, it is remarkable that there was no opposition
B.C. 54.] CJESAR'S HECOND INVASION. 27
whatsoever afloat. Not a single British ship is reported to have been so much as sighted. It is impossible to conceive that no ship remained in the country, and what happened can only be explained upon the assumption that the seafaring districts, which were then chiefly, so far as can be gathered, to the westward, were either at enmity with the men of Kent, or received no intelligence of the intentions of the Komans. That even Kent did possess vessels of some kind, though perhaps no warships, is evident from the fact that it sent over an embassy before Cn?sar (juitted the Gallic coasts, and that almost immediately after his first invasion, it dispatched to Gaul some, but not all, of the hostages whom he had demanded.
Caesar caused preparations to be made during the autumn for another descent in B.C. 54. He himself went to Illyria ; his troops wintered in Belgic Gaul ; his old shii)S were repaired at Tortus Iccius, and new ones of shallower draught and broader beam, suitable for carrying bm-den as well for being hauled ashore, were built. Eigging and stores for these was ordered from Spain. Eetm-ning in the spring, Ctesar foi;nd all ready, and as the Britons had not sent over all the hostages whom they had agreed to send, he had a pretext for an immediate renewal of operations. He left Labienus with three legions and two thousand horse to hold Portus Iccius, and to watch the Gauls, and, himself embarking with a similar force of cavalry and five legions, he weighed at about sunset with a light gale from the south-west, which, however, died away towards midnight. The consequence was that he found at break of day that the tide or the currents had taken him too far to the eastward ; but thanks to the hard work of the men at the oars, he gained the British coast at about noon, and landed at the same place as before.
He had with him six hundred transports, besides other vessels, some of which had been fitted out by private persons for their own use, making upwards of eight hundred in all. No enemy was visible, either afloat or on shore, but it afterwards appeared from the reports of prisoners that the Britons had assembled in great numbers on the coast, and had been prepared to resist mitil tliey realised the im- posing nature of the armada arrayed against them. They had then retired to the hills. ^ Caesar therefore landed without opposition, juarked out a camp close to the shore, and, having discovered the whereabouts of the foe, left Quintus Atrius with twelve cohorts and
.' 'DeBell. Gall.,' V. 8.
28 MILITARY HISTORY TO 1066. [B.C. 54.
three hundred horse to guard the base, aud attend to the fleet, which was anchored off shore, and himself advanced by night. He found the enemy about twelve miles inland, posted with horses and chariots on the banks of a river, which must have been the Stour at or near what is now Sandwich. An effort was made to prevent Caesar's passage, but the Roman cavalry quickly dispersed the Britons, and drove them into the woods. Pursuit was not per- mitted, but scouting parties were sent out in various directions, and a camp was in process of construction, when news arrived from the base that a storm had done great damage to the fleet.
Csesar at once recalled his men, and returned to Atrius to find that about forty vessels had been lost, and that the rest were so much disabled as to need extensive repair. He began the work immediately, sending meanwhile to Labienus for additional ships ; and then, unwilling to trust the sea any longer, he with much labour and difficulty hauled every one of his craft ashore, and included all within the lines of his camp. This work occupied the troops night aud day for ten days.^ At the end of that period Cffisar again left a detachment at the base, and advanced with the bulk of his forces into the country. " Near the ford where the first engagement had taken place, the Britons were found in greater strength than before, under the general command of Cassivelaunus, or Caswallon, king of the Cassi. After several actions the Britons retired, apparently to the westward. Cffisar followed, keeping the Thames on his right flank until he reached a place believed by some to be Cowey Stakes, at Walton, where he saw a large body of the enemy on the opposite side of the river behind an improvised stockade, and found a ford obstructed by sharp piles. Nevertheless the Romans crossed and defeated the enemy, inflicting such punishment on Caswallon that he was obliged thereafter to restrict himself to minor operations, and to a sort of guerilla warfare. In the meantime, the Trinobantes, Cenimagni, Segontiaci, and even the Cassi, besides other tribes, submitted ; and as an attempt by the Kentish chiefs upon the camp at the Ijase had failed, Caswallon at length saw fit to treat. Caesar, who was desirous of wintering in Gaul, accepted his opponent's submission, demanded and received hostages, arranged for the payment to Rome of a yearly tribute, and withdrew to the coast. His ships had been refitted, but all the fresh ones ordered from Labienus had not arrived, and the prisoners were numerous,
' ' De Bell. Gall.,' V. 11.
THE GOKSTAD SHIP. View looking forward froqj the starboard quarter.
THE GOKSTAD Sim-. View looking forward from the port quarter.
A.D. 75.] HUMAN CAMPAIGNS IN BRITAIN. 29
so that it was only by crowding his vessels that Cresar managed to transport all his forces back to Gaul in one voyage. He made a good passage vdthout mishap.
As in the previous year, the Britons employed no naval force against the Romans, either with a view to preventing the landing or with a view to severing Csesar's communications with Gaul, ;in(i to obstructing the reinforcements from Labienus. The only possible conclusion is that at that time the maritime strength of south- eastern Britain was insignificant.
After Csesar's second withdrawal, nothing further was done for many years towards the extension of Roman power in Britain. On three separate occasions Augustus meditated an expedition to the island, but he was as often pi-evented, either by necessitj' for his presence elsewhere, or by the diplomatic action of British emissaries, who met him in Gaul and promised to pay the tribute with greater regi^larity. Once, indeed, the ambassadors went as far as Rome itself to make their submission.' Again, when Cunobelinus, or Cymbeline, reigned at Camulodunum, and Caligula was Emperor, a Roman invasion appeared to be imminent ; but the insane vanity of Caligula was contented with a theatrical and ridiculous demon- stration on the opposite coasts ; '" and not until the time of Claudius, in A.D. 43, was any step taken towards an effective conquest of Britain.
The successive campaigns of Aulus Plautius, of Claudius himself, of Ostorius Scapula, in a.d. 50, of Suetonius Paulinus, in a.d. .58, of Petilius Cereahs, in a.d. 70, of Julius Frontinus, about a.d. 77, of Julius Agricola, from a.d. 78 to 85, and of many other leaders, were almost entirely military, and require little notice here. It will sufhce to say that under Agricola,^ the Roman naval com- manders ascertained that Britain was an island ; and that for a long time afterwards the Roman naval power in Britain ajjpears to have been steadily increased, in oi'der to secure the coasts and the surrounding seas against the Teutonic tribes, which were already distinguished for their piratical boldness, and which were later to exercise so important an influence upon the fortunes of the island.
For the repression of the Teutonic intruders, a special officer was ai length appointed by the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian,
' Hor. ' Carm.' i. 35 ; iii. 5. - Sneton. in tulis;. 14.
' Tacit, in Agric. ; .Tuvcn., Sat. II.
30 MILITARY HISTORY TO 10G6. [A.D. 280.
probably at the beginning of their reign in 284. The first holder of the office was Caius Carausius, a man whose naval prowess had already been proved, and who was given the title of Comes Littoris Saxonici,^ Count of the Saxon Shore. He is generally said to have been a Meuapian, or, as we should say, a Fleming of mean birth ; but some Scots writers claim him as a Scotsman. -
Prankish as well as Saxon pirates scoured the North Sea and the Cliannel, and extraordinary powers were conferred upon Carausius to enable him to cope with them. He appears to have himself been half pirate at heart, and he may possibly have been selected in pursuance of the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief. He probably did his work well ; but he did it in his own way, partly by sheer might, much more, as was declared in Rome, by subtleties of no very honourable kind ; and he applied most of the spoils for his own aggrandisement.
By those methods he acciimulated so much wealth and pojver that ill 286 Maximian grew jealous of him, and employed a man to assassinate him.
The project failed, and Carausius, driven into open hostility to the Emperor, and finding a hold stroke necessary for the preserva- tion of his liberty, determined to be an Emperor himself. He was gladly acclaimed by the local forces, both military and naval, and, acting with the energy which characterised all he did, he not only secured the whole Roman fleet of which he had held command, but also l)uilt a lai'ge number of new ships, and seized the important naval arsenal of Gesoriacmn, now Boulogne, which he held as a continental outwork of his British dominions. So vigorously did he harass the empire with his squadrons, that presently, according to some writers, Maximian was glad to purchase peace at the price of formal recognition of Carausius as Emperor in Britain. There is some doubt as to the recognition ; and if it was ever conceded, it was conceded only to give time to the Empire to concentrate its resources, and to create new fleets.
In the interim Britain achieved, and for a time retained, a
position as a naval power of some serious importance. Carausius
not only kept, but also extended, his influence, cliiefly by the wise
employment of his maritime strength ; but, having concluded a
treaty of confederation with certain rovers on the Mediterranean
' Coote's 'Koiuaus in Britain'; Itliys's 'Celtic Britain'; Guest's 'Origines Celticai.' '' ' Scotichrou.' ii. 38 ; Stukeley's ' Medallic Uist. of Carausius.'
A.D. 28C.] CARAUSIUS. 31
littoral, he frightened Maximiaii and his brother emperor Constantius into a renewal of active hostility.
Maximian built a larc(e fleet in the mouths of the Khine, and undertook the naval, while Constantius made himself responsible for the military, conduct of operations. The Emperors besieged their rival in Boulogne. They could do little on the land side, and at first, the sea being open to Carausius, he was in no danger ^ from failure of supplies. But after a time, the besiegers found means to block up the mouth of the harbour with earth and sand,. supported by trees driven in as piles ; and when Carausius realised his position, he made his way by night through the camp of the enemy, and, going on board one of his own vessels, escaped to Britain, where his strength was greatest. He must have been much annoyed when he learnt that on the day after his escape a storm had destroyed the elaborate works of his foes, and that Boulogne harbour was once more open.
It has been already noted that Carausius had entered into treaties with cei-tain Mediterranean rovers. These people were the descendants of the Franks who, mider the Emperor Probus, had been sent as colonists to the shores of the Euxine to keep down the Scythians and other barbarians of those districts. The Franks, instead of withstanding the Scythians, in time made common cause with them against Rome, and, entering the Mediterranean, harassed it from end to end, burnt Syracuse, devastated the coasts of Spain and Africa, and terrified the Empire. In them Carausius recognised congenial spirits. It was arranged that the Frank pirates should come into the Atlantic, effect a junction with the British fleet, and fall upon the armada which Maximian had collected in the Rhine. Had the project been successful, Carausius might have become the most powerful prince of his day, and the whole Empire might possibly have been his.
But the piratical alliance found in Constantius a worthy op- ponent. Maximian, a man of very inferior capacity, had not been ready in time to take j)art in the operations against Boulogne ; and Constantius, perhaps apprehensive of further delay, assumed the command of the thousand ships which were at length in a condition to sail, assembled and hastily built yet others, and, having stationed squadrons to observe Carausius and keep him in check, took the main body of his fleet towards the Straits of Gibraltar. Some- where near the mouth of the Mediterranean, he met the Franks,
32 MILITABY EISTOBY TO 1066. [A.D. 400.
and crushingly defeated them.^ He then returned to Gaul in order to organise an expedition against Carausius in Britain. But while the preparations were still in progress, Carausius was treacherously assassinated by his friend and general, Allectus.
Constantius, with an inferior fleet, lay at the mouth of the Seine. Allectus assembled a superior one off the Isle of Wight, and, when all was ready, sailed with the intention of falling upon his enemy. But, by a strange coincidence, Constantius also sailed at about the same time ; and it chanced that a fog came on in mid-channel. In the fog the fleets missed one another ; and so fortune gave to Constantius an advantage which he could scarcely have gained for himself, seeing that Allectus was probably strong enough to have annihilated the Eoman force had he encountered it. The influence of sea power was neutralised as it has seldom been before or since. Constantius, having thus accidentally got across the Channel un- opposed, landed before Allectus could retm-n, and burnt his ships, partly in order to inspire his people with the courage of despair, and partly, perhaps, because he realised that in an engagement at sea he was no match for the enemy, and that he must either win Britain or perish.
As soon as he suspected what had happened, Allectus also landed. His policy had alienated the people on shore, and though he was very strong at sea, he had but a comparatively feeble following on land. When, therefore, he fell in with one of Constantius' lieutenants, and attacked him with rash fury, he produced no impression, and, making a gallant fight, was Killed. A fm-ther curious circumstance characterised the conclusion of this campaign, which had been so greatly affected by accidents. After the death of Allectus, his followers, chiefly seamen, seized London, and were upon the point of sacking it, when part of the Eoman fleet, which had lost the main body in the fog, and had entered the Thames by chance, opportimely arrived on the scene, and landed a strong party which cut the pirates, many of whom were foreigners, to pieces.
In the decadence of the Western Empire, Lupicinus,- a heu- tenant of Julian, repressed the piracies of the Scots ; Theodosius, and Maximus, who was acclaimed Emperor by the army, did the same at a later date, and repeatedly chastised the Saxon marauders
' Eutroj). ix. ; Bede, i. 6 ; Aurel. Vict. 39, etc., give ' History of Carausius and Allectus.' See also Sjieed's Chronicle. '^ Bede, i. 1 ; Amni. Marcel, xx.
450.] THE COMING OF THE PICTS. 33
at sea ; and even under Honorius, Victorinus and Gallic were able to drive back the Scots, the Picts, and the Saxons, and to preserve some sort of order and security in the narrow seas. But towards the end of the period of Koman rule, the protection of the Eonian fleets and armies was only occasionally and irregularly vouchsafed ; and when at length the Britons, in reply to their prayers for assistance against the northern pirates, were told to defend them- selves, they indignantly rose and drove out the last few official representatives of the effete Empire. For the moment the islanders were free ; but they were totally defenceless, and the Picts pressed them sorely.
The Picts,* properly the Caledonii and Meatae, were the tribes dwelling north of the Eomau walls, and were probably Celts of Goidelic type. They were never subjugated by the Eomans. The Scots were Ulster Gaels of predatory habits, who at the end of the fifth centuiy colonised Argyle and established there a Scottish kingdom of Dahiada, which was for some time in alliance with the Irish Dalriada, whence the colonists had come. So much for strict definitions. But the Picts and Scots of the period immediately following the Roman abandonment of Britain, stand, in the lan- guage of early historians, for any of the freebooters who, coming from the north and west, harassed the southern and more civilised part of the main island. After the Eoman withdrawal, they appear to have broken do\\Ti the fortified walls which for many generations had limited their operations in the north ; and, when the Britons attacked them in that quarter, the invaders seem, utilising their unchallenged sea power, to have landed an army in rear of the defence, and to have completely disheartened and confounded theLr opponents. But the period is one of turmoil, darkness, and myth.
Endeavours to unravel the confusing tangle of fact and fiction left us by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Ncunius, Bede, Gildas, and the annalists, lead to the conclusion that, after the first period of chaos consequent upon the Eoman desertion, one Vortigern, a prince of the Demetae, by murder and fraud, acquired a leading position in the island ; but that, finding himself opposed, on the one hand, by a considerable Eoman party, under Ambrosius Aurelianus," a prince of the Damnonii, and, on the other, by the Picts, and having little in view beyond his own personal welfare, he called in a roving band of
' Skene's ' Celtic Scotland ' ; Khys's ' Celtic Britain.' 2 Gildas, 25 ; Bede's ' Eocles. Hist.,' j. 10.
VOL. I. D
34 MILITARY BISTORT TO 1066. [475.
Saxon pirates to assist him iu supporting his threatened position. These pirates were under the brothers Hengest and Horsa/ said to have been sons of Wihtgils and great-great-grandsons of Wodan ; and if it be true that they came with three ships only, and that nevertheless they were strong enough to effect the re-establishment of Vortigern's power in Britain, we are forced to beheve that not only the British fighting capacity, but also the Pictish navy, must have been at a very low ebb in those days.
The brothers were probably younger sons, who, in accordance with the German custom of the time, were sent forth to seek their fortunes by any means which chanced to commend themselves to them. They were adventui-ers, and irresponsible. They landed at Ebbsfleet," about the year 450, did Vortigern's work successfully, and, by way of reward, were permitted to establish themselves in Thanet. Ere long, they fell out with their old employer, one of whose sons, Vortimer, gained several successes over them, both afloat and ashore, and finally defeated them at Aylesford, where Horsa was killed.^ But Vortimer soon afterwards died, the Britons found no leader to take his place, Saxon reinforcements came over, and the party of Hengest regained its ascendancy. Ambrosius Aurehanus is reported to have defeated and slain Hengest* him- self; but Hengest left behind him a good leader in the j)erson of his son ^sc, who, at length, achieved the complete conquest of Kent.
But the descent of Hengest and Horsa, important though it was in its consequences, was only the precursor of many other Saxon expeditions to Britain.
Ella,'* with his three sons, Cymon, Whencing, and Cissa, and three ships, landed in 477 at a spot identified by Lappenberg with Keynor in Selsea, and, after a long struggle, obtained reinforce- ments and took and bmrnt the stronghold of Anderida, probably the modern Pevensey,'' in 491. He estabUshed a Saxon kingdom in Sussex.
In 495, Cerdic,' with his son Cynric and five ships, landed,
' Sax. Chron., anno 449 ; Green's ' Making of England.' ^ With three "long ships," otherwise "ceols" (keels). Sax. Chron., 298. ^ In 455. Close to Aylesford, in Kent, is Kit's Coty House, a cronilech, said to commemorate one Catigern, who also fell.
* In 489 (?). ' Sax. Chron., 300.
^ But Camden says Newenden, Kent ; others think near Eastbourne.
' Sax. Chron., 300.
775.] MERCIAN ASCENDENCY. 35
apparent!}' in Hampshire, and, though at first he was not successful, obtained at length the assistance of .^sc and Ella, and defeated the Britons. Like the other invading chiefs, he received reinforcements in course of time from the continent, and then, extending his operations, founded the kingdom of the West Saxons, and conquered the Isle of Wight as the result of a great victory at Whitgaresburh, now perhaps Carisbrooke. From this distinguished rover, all the sovereigns of England, except Canute, Haxdicanute, Harold the Dane, Harold II., and William the Conqueror, can undoubtedly trace their descent ; and Cerdic ^ himself is fabled to have been ninth in direct hne from the god Wodan.
Thus the invasion of the Saxons, including the Angles and the Jutes, continued, by wave upon wave of healthy barbarians from Gemiany, until nearly all what is now England, and Scotland south of the Forth and Clyde, was covered by Saxon states. These fought among one another for the leadership. The tide of success ebbed and flowed, now one way and now another, until at length the only two important competitors for supremacy were the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex.
For some time it seemed as if the struggle would terminate in favoivr of Mercia, especially during the reign of its gi-eat king Offa (757 to 796). Up to his day the Saxon princes in England, not being much troubled by foes from oversea, and having plenty of enemies inland, had paid little attention to the maintenance of that sea power whereby they had gained their new empire. But Offa looked without as well as within, and created a con- siderable navy, which found its justification in 787, when, for the first time, the Danes made an incursion with three ships " from Hseretha land,"''^ and plundered part of Northumbria, and in 794,^ when a monastery at the mouth of the Don was sacked. The Vikings did not fare well on either occasion. On the former, they were easily driven off with loss ; on the latter, some of their vessels were wrecked. If Ofl'a's successors had been as prudent as he was, and if internal dissensions had not opened the door to the enemy, these first efforts of the Danes might, perhaps, have been also their last for a long series of j'ears. Unfortmiately, the various Saxon kingdoms w'ere still fighting among themselves, and, as for the Britons, they were glad to welcome the co-operation of any one,
' He died about 534. ^ Ingram says " the land of robbers."
' Simeon of Durham, 112; Sax. Chron., 338.
D 2
36 MILITARY EISTOEY TO 1066. [836.
pirate or not, against their conquerors. They hated the Danes, but they hated the Saxons more ; and when, not long after Offa's death, another Danish foraying party landed in Northunibria, it met with assistance from the dissatisfied Britons. Nor were the Danes effectively withstood again until the question of supremacy among the Saxon kingdoms had been finally decided by the victories of Wessex under Egbert.
But even Egbert, the wise monarch of a more or less con- solidated England, was able to make the Danes respect him only in the last few years of his life, when all domestic enemies had been silenced. While he was still building up his power, the pirates sorely troubled the fringes of the country. In 800, the year of his accession to the throne of Wessex, bodies of Danes landed t'nice. One party pillaged the Isle of Portland, and the other ravaged' the districts in the neighbourhood of the Humber but was driven off by the country people. In 801 a body landed on Lindisfarne, and having defeated the Saxons there, re-embarked, proceeded round the south coast to Wales, and joined the Britons who were still un- conquered in the part of the country lying to the west of Offa's Dyke. Egbert, however, met and beat them, yet not so badly as to deter them from making a fresh descent in 802, when heavily reinforced they entered the mouth of the Thames, seized Sheppey, and ravaged parts of Kent and Essex, up to within sight of the gates of London, where Egbert again met and beat them.
These forays were repeated, sometimes with more and sometimes with, less success, nearly every year, and in 833 the crews of thirty-five Danish vessels inflicted a bloody defeat upon Egbert at Charmouth.^ In 835, however, Egbert retaliated, coming up at Hengestesdun, now Kingston Dovm, with a combined horde of Danes and Cornish Britons, and nearly annihilating it.^
In the following year Egbert died. Under his successor Ethel- wulf the same kind of thing continued. In 837 the Danes were defeated at Southampton,^ but gained a success at Port in Dorset- shire. In 8-JB^ they defeated the king at Charmouth,* and in 851 wcwse befel. Athelstan,* a son of Egbert, assisted by the ealdorman Ealchere, seems to have fought a naval action with a Danish force off Sandwich, and to have defeated it, taking nine vessels; but another and much stronger Danish force, consisting of three
' Sax. Chron,, 344. ^ IK, 344. ^ IK, 345. * IK, 346.
' He held sway over the South Saxons.
871.] BATTLES WITH THE DANES. -37
hundred and fifty ships, arrived in the month of the Thafnes, landed an arm}', stormed both Canterbury and London, defeated an army headed by the King of Mercia, and was moving through Surrey, when it was encountered by Ethelwulf and his son Ethclbald, and routed with immense slaughter at Ockley.^ Nevei'theless, that year the Danes wintered for the first time in Thanet.^
It is noteworthy that of the numerous actions recorded as having been fought between the Saxons and the Danes thus far, one only, namely, that in which Athelstan was victorious off Sandwich, is clearly indicated as having been a sea-fight. From this it might be supposed that the Saxons had an inadequate navy ; but by far the more probable explanation is, that they did not properly utilise such navy as they had. They seem, before the days of Alfred, to have thought more of guarding their coasts than of finding and defeating the enemy at sea ; and as the usual policy of the Danes was to make a sudden raid, land a force, and allow it to shift for itself, and subsist upon the resources of the comitry until it could find oppor- tunity to re-embark at another point, the Saxon tactics of stationing their vessels in or near the important ports may well have been very ineffective.
Ethelbert, who reigned from 860 to 8G6, was not more fortunate than his predecessors, and at one time his capital, Winchester, was attacked by his northern enemies. The reign, too, of Ethelred, from 866 to 871, was disastrous. The Danes made themselves masters of Northumbria and part of Mercia, seized Nottingham, completely conquered East Anglia, and advancing for the attack on Wessex, made Eeading their headquarters. Led by Bagsecg and Halfdene, they fought no fewer than nine great battles in that neighbourhood in the course of the year 871, and were on several occasions successful ; but King Ethelred and his brother Alfred beat them badly at Ashdown, near Didcot, and killed Halfdene. Ethel- red, who seems to have been wounded there or in one of the subsequent and less successful fights at Basing and Merton, died soon afterwards, and Alfred, then probably in his bwenty-ninth or thirtieth year, came to the imperilled crovni.
Alfred's reign began badly. In the early summer of 871 he was defeated by the Danes at Wilton, and apparently so dispirited that he came to terms with the invaders, and offered them that which
> Sax. Chron., 346. " Ih., 345.
38 MILITARY HISTORY TO 1066. [890.
induced them to leave bis part of the kingdom in the following year. But he secured this humiliating respite only to derive the greatest possible advantage from it. He at once devoted himself to naval matters, and in 875 ' he met seven Danish ships at sea, and scattered them, capturing one. Thereafter, for several years, he busied himself vyith the recovery of Wessex. In 882,^ he was again afloat with a squadron, capturing four Danish ships after a very obstinate action. In 885, his vessels took sixteen Danish pirates^ at the mouth of the Stour, but were afterwards themselves defeated by another Danish force. Until 893, however, Danish activity was less than it had been for many years previously, and Alfred had a considerable amomit of leisure for attending to the improvement of the arts of peace.
Many of the Danes who had been driven from England by the energy of Alfred were, in the meanwhile, ravaging parts of the Low Countries and the north of France, under a leader of great ability named Hasting. Their continental successes tempted them to think again of England, and assembhng at Boulogne, they built or procmred a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, embarked with their horses, and crossed the Channel to " Lemenemouth," ^ where part of them landed. Some are of opinion that Lemenemouth was the mouth of the Bother. Be this as it may, the landed party stormed a fort and took up a position at Appledore, while Hasting, retaining with him eighty ships, proceeded to the mouth of the Thames, and landed at Milton,^ where he formed a camp.
There is no record of what Alfred's fleet was doing at this period, but it does not appear to have met the enemy, and Hasting, in the next year, crossed the Thames into Essex, and fortified himself at South Benfleet, while two bodies of his friends co-operated with him, one, consisting of forty ships, going round by the north into the Bristol Channel and landing a force on the north coast of Devonshire, and the other, of one hundred ships, going down Channel, and landing a force for the siege of Exeter. Alfred divided his army into two parts, sending one against Hasting at Benfleet, and himself leading the other against his enemies in the west. Hasting was driven from Benfleet, and his fleet was part taken and part destroyed, but he fell back on South Shoebury, and was there
' Sax. Chron., 355. =* 7ft., 358. ^ 7j_^ 359,
* DifTiciilt to identify. See Southey's ed. of 'Lives of Admirals,' i. 35. ' Sax. Uliron., 363, 364.
805.] ALFRED'S SUCCESSES. 39
joined by ships from East Anglia and Northumbria. In the west the appearance of Alfred caused the invaders to raise the siege of Exeter and re-embark, but going eastward, they landed again and attacked Chichester. There they were driven off, with the loss of a few ships.' Hasting made fiirther imsuccessful efforts to push his fortunes in England, and struggled on until the summer of 897 ; but he then gave up the task as hopeless, and disbanded his remaining forces.
It was in 897 apparently, that the ships of the new and improved type* designed by Alfred were first tried in action. Six Danish vessels were ravaging the coasts of Devonshire and of the Isle of Wight, and the King ordered out against them nine of his novel craft, manning them partly with English and partly with Frisians, who were reputed the best seamen of that time. The Danes were found, three afloat and three aground. The three which were in a condition to move immediately issued from their haven, and fought very gallantly, two, however, being captm-ed and their crews put to death, in accordance vsdth the King's principle for dealing with such freebooters. The third escaped, with but five men remaining on board. Going into the haven to attack the other vessels, the royal ships all managed to nm aground, too, three lying close to the three stranded Danes, and the rest at some distance on the other side of the harbom-. When the tide had run out, the Danes furiously attacked the Saxon ships near them, killing seventy-two of their people, but themselves losing as many as one hundred and twenty. At length the tide rose again, and it would have enabled the English on the other side of the haven to intervene with decisive effect, but for the fact that it floated the Danes first. They plied their oars, and escaped from the immediate danger, but so badly damaged were they, that two of them went ashore elsewhere and were captured, and their crews, being conducted to Winchester, were there hanged by the King's command.*
Having been, as is supposed, the first EngUsh sovereign to command a squadron in action at sea, Alfred has been called the first English admiral. There is, perhaps, danger of oven-ating the importance of his exploits afloat. He won no decisive victory there ; and it is easy to form an exaggerated estimate of the efficiency to which the fleet attained vmder him, and of the material improve-
' Sax. Chron., 364-369. .4 ^ Ih, 371. See ante. Chap. I. p. 13.
» lb., 370, 371.
40 MILITARY HISTOET TO 1066. [940.
ments which he introduced. But it stands to his credit that he appreciated the value of offensive defence, and was one of the first Enghshmen to employ it.
Under Edward the Elder (901-925), the son and successor of Alfred, but two notable naval events took place, although during most of the reign the Danes were troublesome, both on the coasts and inland. In 904, Ethelwald, a son of Ethelred, having put forward his claim to the crown, obtained Danish assistance from Northumbria, and, with as many ships as he was able to collect, effected a descent in Essex, ^ subdued it and persuaded the East Anghan Danes to invade Mercia ; but he was kiUed in a skirmish in the course of the following year. In 915 or, according to others, in 918, a large piratical fleet from Brittany- fell upon the coasts of Wales and carried off the Bishop of Llandaff, who was subsequently ransomed by Edward for forty pounds.
Athelstau (925-941), Edward's son, took more interest than most of his predecessors in foreign politics, and had a share ^ in the restoration of Louis d'Outremer, son of Charles the Simple, to the throne of France. In 933 he invaded Scotland,* both by sea and land ; but his great exploit was the crushing, in 937, of the formid- able alliance arrayed against him by . Constantine, King of Scots, Olaf (or Anlaff) son of Guthfiith, Danish king of Northmnbria, Olaf (or Anlaff), Cuaran, the Danish king of Dublin, and several British princes, including Owen of Cumberland. This combination was arranged in retahation for Athelstg^n's action against Scotland, and especially for the manner in which his fleet had ravaged the coasts of Caithness. The campaign, which seems to have been to a considerable extent a naval one, was decided by the victory of Brunanburh, where Athelstan routed all his opponents. A trans- lation of the Saxon war song, composed in honour of the event, will be found in Freeman's ' Old-Enghsh History.'
The site of Brunanburh is imdetermined. Some j)lace it in the Lothians, some in Northumberland, some in Yorkshire and others at Brumby, in Lincolnshire. Simeon of Dm'ham^ makes Olaf Guthfrithsson's fleet, without the fleets of his alhes, to have consisted, on the occasion of this descent, of no fewer than 615 vessels ; so that Athelstan's power must have been, indeed, enormous.
' Sax. Chron., 372. ^ Ih., 377. = Flodoard,. quoted by Daniel, ii. 647.
* Sas. Chron., 383-385. . ' p. 25.
973.] EDGAR'S NAVY. 41
Edmund the Elder (941-94G), Edred (940-935) and Edwy (955-959), seem to have all been capable monai'chs, although the character of the last, owing to his attitude on matters of ecclesias- tical policy, is bitterly attacked by contemporary monkish historians. They held their o\vn against the Danes who were already estabhshed in the island ; but there are no records of their having had to cope with serious Danish irruptions from over sea.
Edgar (959-975), hke his immediate predecessors, was little troubled from abroad, and utiHsed the comparative peacefulness of his reign in organising his navy. It is related that he divided his fleet into three permanent squadrons of equal force, stationing one in the Noiih Sea, a second in the Irish Channel, and the third on the north coasts of Scotland ; and that every year, after Easter, he made a tour of inspection round his realm by sea, joining the North Sea Squadron first, cruising with it from the mouth of the Thames to the Land's End, and there dismissing it to its station, and joining the Irish Channel Squadron. With this he cruised as far as the Hebrides, where he met the Northern Squadron and, joining it, was conveyed by it round the north of Scotland and back to the mouth of the Thames.^ In these annual evolutionary cruises he visited all the ports and estuaries, made provision for the secmity of the coasts, and occasionally attacked his enemies.
In the course of one expedition he is said to have reduced the Irish Danes, and to have taken Dubhn. In the course of another, in 973, he is said to have been met at Chester by the kings, Kenneth of Scots, Malcolm of Cumbria, Maccus of Man, Dunwallou of Strathclyde, Inchill of Westmoreland, and Siferth, lago, and Howell of Wales, who, in token of subjection to him, manned his barge and, Edgar steering, rowed him on the Kiver Dee.^
But it must be remembered that Edgar, unlike Edwy, was on excellent terms with Dunstan and the ecclesiastical party, and that the ecclesiastics were practically the sole historians of those times ; and it may be regarded as certain that Edgar's naval glory, which was no doubt considerable, was, if anything, rather exaggerated than minimised by the chroniclers. Ethelward, one of the few con- temporary writers who possibly was not an ecclesiastic, and who,
' Matt, of West.
2 Will, of Malmesbury, i. 236 (ed. Hardy) ; Flor. of Wore, 578 (ed. Petrie) ; Hoveden, 244, etc. ; but the names of the kings are variously given. See also ' Libel of English Policie.'
42 MILITARY HISTORY TO 1066. [995.
according to his own account, was nearly related to the royal house, drops hints that, after all, Edwy may not have been inferior as a monarch to Edgar. Be this as it may, the monkish estimate of Edgar as one of the greatest of British naval reformers has received general acceptance ; and, with very few intervals, there has, in consequence, always been a large British man-of-war bearing the king's name since the day in 1668, when it was conferred upon a two-decker at the instance of James, Duke of York, Lord High Admiral, who had previously given the name to one of his sons who died in infancy.
The brief reign of the boy Edward, miscalled The MartjT, (975-979), was mieventful ; but the latter part of the reign of his half-brother, Ethelred the Purposeless (979-1016), was full of naval incident ; and, indeed, even the earlier part, from its very beginning, witnessed a marked revival of Danish aggression from across the North Sea. Not however, imtil 988 did the Danes renew their attempts to settle in the country. Up to that date their expeditions were merely raids and forays.
It was in 988 that Olaf Tryggvesson, one of the most formidable, bloody and revengeful of the Vikings, harassed Watchet and killed Gova, the Thane of Devon. Olaf was the son of a Norwegian sea king, but may have been born in Britain. In 991 he led a fleet of 450 ships to Stone, thence to Sandwich, and thence to Ipswich, and, pressing as far as Maldon, there defeated and slew the earldorman Brihtnoth, who had been sent against him. Ethelred made some attempts to assemble a fleet, so as to cut off the enemy, but his plans were betrayed by the earldorman Elfric, and only a very partial success by sea was secured. In 994 Olaf allied himself with Sweyn ^ of Denmark, son of Harold Blaatand, and the two, with ninety-four ships, made an abortive attempt on London.^ Driven thence by the townsmen they devastated Kent, Susses and Hampshire, both along the coast and for some distance inland ; and on an evil day Ethelred agreed to buy them off by payment of £16,000 and the provision for them of food and winter quarters at Southampton, Olaf promising never again to visit England, unless peacefully.^ In the spring he departed for Norway, which he wrested from Earl Hacon and ruled for several years ; but, though he personally kept his word, his promise bound no one save himself, and the Vikings presently began their inciu'sions anew.
' More properly Swegen. - Sax. Chrou., 402. ^ lb., 402, 403.
1000.] MASSACRE OF THE DANES. 43
In 997 ^ a Danish fleet entered the Tamar, went up to Lidford, crossed to Tavistock, burned the church there, and carried off an immense amount of booty. In 998 the Danes ravaged Dorsetshire and Hampshire ; and though EngHsh armies were sent against them, the pirates were invariably victorious. In 999 they sailed up the Medway, disembarked at Rochester, defeated the local forces, and ravaged West Kent. Ethelred collected a fleet as well as an army ; but the latter did no good to his cause, and the former, owing to delay on the part of the leaders, was not ready until too late.^ It is probable that this expedition, like several previous descents, was bought off, and that the refusal of Malcolm of Cumbria to contribute money for the purpose was the cause of the hostilities which Ethelred waged against him with success in the following year.
But a nearly contemporaneous descent upon Normandy, whither some of the Danes had retired, was a failure ; nor is this to be wondered at. It is tolerably clear that Ethelred's naval forces were no longer in hand, and were in fact in a state bordering upon mutiny. A fleet destined to support the king on his Cumbrian expedition, instead of accompanying him, had gone away on its own account and ravaged Maeuige, which some take to have been Man and others Anglesey.*
In 1001 the Danes reappeared, this time at Exmouth, where they were joined by a foreigner named Pallig, who had received favoiu's from Ethelred, and had sworn fealty to him. Great havoc was wrought in Devon and Somerset, and, the forces of the realm having failed to eject the pirates, a humiliating bribe of £24,000 was given them to induce them to depart in the following year.^
Then it was that Ethelred bethought himself of getting rid of the bloodsuckers who were preying upon his everweakening inheritance by murdering all the Danes resident in England. The crime, or as much of it as was possible, was perpetrated on St. Brice's Day, November 13th, 1002,'' and in the massacre a sister of Sweyn, Prince of Denmark, who had banded himself with Olaf in 994, perished. This cil'cumstance seems to have sealed the fate of England. The massacre thinned out the Danes who lived in what had in earlier times been the Danelagh, and who had for generations fitted out piratical expeditions against the rest of the
' Sax. CLroii., 406. ' lb., 407. " lb., 407.
* lb., 408, 409. ° Ih.
44 MILITAET HISTORY TO 1066. [1005.
country and provided bases of operations for their kinsmen foraying hither from Denmark ; but, on the other hand, it exasperated the Danes at home, and especially Sweyn, to madness.
Sweyn's immediate reply was a descent, in the course of which he stonned Exeter and captured Sahsbury,^ and, in fact, met with little resistance, except in East Anglia. This was in 1003. In 1004, after having drawn off for the winter, he returned, sailing up the Yare to Norwich. AVliile some of his heutenants amused the people by pretending to treat with them, he advanced surreptitiously to Thetford. Ulfcytel, Ethelred's officer at Norwich, ordered the Danish ships to be destroyed-; but his directions were not attended to. He himself, with a force of men, followed Sweyn, and met him on his way back. A fierce battle resulted, but Ulfcytel was killed, and the Danes were able to re-embark. In 1006 they came again, in greater strength than ever, captm-ing and sacking Sandwich. Ethehed bovight them off with provisions and £36,000 in money. ^ Then he made tardy efforts to reorganise a fleet,^ and in 1008 levied for the purpose a tax which, says Nicolas,* " is considered the first impost of the kind and the earhest precedent of ship-money." Great numbers of vessels were built, some authorities say 800 ; and probably about 30,000 men were armed for service; and in 1009 the fleet was ordered to make rendezvous at Sandwich. But treacheiy, mismanagement and misfortune brought the armada to nought.
A man named Wulfnoth, a South Saxon, bead of a family which subsequently made a great naval reputation for itself, and father of Earl Godwin, then a J'oung man in his teens, induced twenty of Ethelred's ships to follow him, and carried them away, probably with the design of turning pirate. Brihtric was despatched in pursuit of him with eighty vessels ; but this squadron fell in with a violent gale of wind and, being dispersed, was tirrned upon in its distress by Wulfnoth, who bm-nt every one of the ships. When the news reached the rendezvous a panic seized everyone there, the king and nobility fled to London, and the squadron was either abandoned or scattered.
The Danes took instant advantage of the confusion. Thurcytel ^ the Tall, leader of a piratical community which had for some time been estabUshed at lona, and which had just been broken up,
' .Sax. Chron., -ilO, 411. ^ lb., -112, 413. ^ Ih., 413.
* Kiculas, ' Hist, of Eoy. Kav.,' i. -13. . ° Or Tburkel.
1010.] THUBCYTEL THE TALL. 45
had an understanding with Swej'n, and arrived with fifty ships at Greenwich. He plundered great part of the south of England, extorted heavy siims by way of ransom, captured Canterbury, thanks to the treachery of Elfinar, sacked that city, and murdered Ai-chbishop Alphege at a drunken orgie on Easter Saturday, 1012. Meanwhile London was ineffectually attacked,^ and Oxford was burnt. Ethclred could do nothing. He was tired of buying off invaders. He hired Thurcytel, and forty-five of his ships,^ to assist in the protection of the kingdom. Sweyn came once more, in 1013, accompanied by his son Canute, and landed at Sandwich. Thence he went to the mouth of the Humber, and thence along the Trent as far as Gainsborough. Northern England submitted to him ; and when he had horsed his army he marched southward, leaving his prisoners and his ships under the care of Canute. London was attacked, but Thurcytel contributed to the defence ; and Ethelred was able to repulse the Danes,^ who thereupon turned their attention to the reduction of the West of England, which quickly acknow- ledged Sweyn as king. This defection decided the wretched Ethelred to abandon his country. Once more Thurcytel proved useful, for they were his ships that escorted the unfortunate monarch to Normandy ; but Thiu'cytel's fidelity was only hired, and, thi-ee years later, the soldier of fortune was fighting for Sweyn's son Canute against Etheh-ed's son Edmund Ironside. He died Eegent of Denmark.
Canute succeeded his father in 1014.^ At the news of the old king's death Ethelred retm'ned, with Edmimd Ironside, and was acclaimed by the Saxon portion of the people, who declared " that no lord was dearer to them than their natural lord, if he would rule them rightlier than he had before done." Etheh-ed made promises freely, and entered into a kind of compact with his subjects, the first of the kind on record in Enghsh history. One of the first things he did, however, was to levy £21,000 for the army,^ with which he marched against Canute, who was at Liudsey, and who retired in his ships to Sandwich, where, after mutilating them by cutting off their hands, ears, and noses, he landed the hostages who had been entrusted to his father Sweyn. "With Sandwich ° as his
' Sax. Chron., 414. ; - lb., 418. ' lb., 418, 419.
* Jb., 420. ^ lb., 420, 421.
' Later, on his safe return from a iiilgrimage to liome, Canute gave the port of Sandwich, and the dues arising from it, to Christ Churcli, Canterbury,
46 MILITARY EIST0E7 TO 1066. [1020.
base, Canute ravaged Kent, Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire ; later, he laid waste Mercia and Northmnbria, and subdued them ; but while he was still preparing for the final reconquest of Wessex, his rival Ethehed died on April 23rd, 1016.
Edmund Ironside was chosen king by the citizens of London, who were at that moment threatened by the presence of Canute in the Thames. Canute had been reinforced by the desertion from Edmund of Edric Streona, one of Ethehed's oldest, most trusted, and most deceitful advisers, with forty ships.^ Edric subsequently deserted back to Edmimd, and again, at the battle of Assandun, back to Canute — all within a year. Edmimd was iu the west when in May or June Canute's fleet approached London ; and the invaders were able, by digging a canal round the south side of the city, so to station their vessels that they could act both above and below bridge. The place was held by the inhabitants, but it was closely blockaded by water and invested by land, until Edmund, after much fight- ing, returned, and obliged the Danes to raise the siege and retire down the river. Various successes ^ were gained by each side until towards the close of 1016, when the Danes won so conclusive a victory at Assandun, supposed to be Aslington in Essex, that the Saxon Witan itself proposed the division of the country between the rivals. This solution had scarcely been agreed to ere Edmtmd died, after a reign of only seven months, and Canute became sole monarch of England.
The naval exploits of Canute after 1016 scarcely belong to English history, for although this great king spent most of his time in this country, and reckoned it the chief of his numerous posses- sions, England was at peace during most of his reign. Nicolas^ thus summarises from the Saxon Chronicle his goings and comings : "In 1018 he sent part of his forces back to Denmark; but he retained forty ships rmtil the following year, when he went with them to that kingdom. Canute returned to England early iu 1020, and in 1022 he is said to have accompanied his fleet to the Isle of Wight ; but, as in 1023, he is stated to have ' come again to England,' it would seem that he had made a more distant voyage, probably to Denmark. In 1025 Canute again visited Denmark with his ships, and being attacked at the Holm by a Swedish fleet and army, after a sanguinary conflict the Swedes remained in
' Sax. Chron., 422. - lb., 422-424.
= Nicolas, i. 48 ; from Sax. Chron., 426^29.
1038.] RISE OF GODWIN. 47
possession of the field. His return to England is not noticed ; hut in 1028 he went from England ' with fifty ships of English thanes ' to Norway, and having di-iveu King Olaf out of the country, took possession of his dominions."
In one sense, therefore, we may reckon Norway as England's first foreign conquest, in that it was made, partially at least, by Englishmen, though for the Danish rather than for the English crown. In another direction also the country made a new departure under Canute, who established the Huscai-ls, a permanent force of fighting men governed under a military code. They were either 3000 or 6000 in number, and constituted the earhest approach to a standing army in England. The invasion of Scotland in 1031 was a naval as well as a military expedition, but few details of it have been handed down to us ; and after it, until Canute's death at Shaftesbury in November, 103-5, there was peace.
Upon Canute's death, his son by Emma,' widow of King Ethelred, seized Denmark, while his reputed son by Elgiva of Northampton was generally supported in England, though not by the West Saxons nor by Godwin, who was already powerful. In consequence, the former, Hardicanute, became for a time King of Denmark and Wessex, and the latter, Harold I., King of England north of the Thames. An attempt in 1036 by two of Ethelred's sons to recover their father's kingdom failed, and was bloodily pimished by Harold ; and in the following year the people, becoming disgusted with Hardicanute's long absence abroad, forsook him, and gave in their general adhesion to Harold, who thus reunited the kingdom into a whole, which has never since been split up. Emma was banished to Flanders ; but Harold prudently reconciled himself with Godwin, who had put himself at the head of a respectable English party. Hardicanute was little inclined to submit to this arrangement, and in 1039 joined his mother at Bruges, and began preparations for an invasion of England. But before he could carry out his plans Harold died, on March 17th, 1040.
Hardicanute at once crossed the Channel, arriving at Sandwich before midsimimer with sixty ships, for the support of the crews of which he levied a tax at the heavy rate of eight marks per rower. This and his large subsequent levies of Heregeld, as well as his severities, gained him much unpopularity ; and in the hope of bettering his position in the minds of the people, he sent over to
' Also known as Edith.
48 MILITARY HISTORY TO 1066. [1013.
Normandy for his haK-brother Edward, son of Emma by Etheked, and installed him at court as heir to the throne. Accordingly, when Hardicanute died in June, 1042, Edward, later known as the Confessor, succeeded without serious opposition.
There were not wanting other pretenders to the crown. One was SwejTi Estrithson, a nephew of Canute; but Godwin was on the side of Edward, and Godwin was the most powerful man in the country. Magnus, King of Norway and Denmark, also put forward claims, and would have endeavoured to enforce them in 104.5, had his attention not been distracted by the attack upon him of Harold Har- drada and Sweyn, his rivals at home.^ Meanwhile Emma, who still coquetted with the Danish party, and who seems to have preferred her connections by her second to those by her first marriage, was disgraced ; and later, several of the more dangerous Danish lords in England were banished as a measure of precaution. Thus Edward's position was made secure. But Edward had been educated at the Norman court, and had Norman sympathies and Norman favourites. Danish influence gave place, not, as should have been the case, to Enghsh, but to Norman ; and there was much English discontent.
A man to lead the national party was happily at hand in the person of Godwin, Earl of the West Saxons, the strongest, most wealthy, and most able subject of his day, and a very distinguished seaman. He seems to have successively misunderstood the ten- dencies both of Emma and of Edward. He certainly rendered valuable assistance to the plans of each, vastly, it is true, increasing his own importance and social dignity in the process. He had married Gytha, a niece of Canute ; his daughter Edith married Edward the Confessor ; his sons and nephews were all advanced to high posts. But at length he aroused himself to the growing seriousness of the foreign aggressions, and took up a definite position in the van of the national movement. Godwin forced upon the Enghsh monarchy almost the first of the long series of constitutional compromises which have given us our liberties. He may have been a selfseeker ; undoubtedly he was, in some stages of his career, very much like a pirate. But he initiated a good work. When foreign influence, grown to an unexampled height, at length procured the outlawry of him and his family, he retired to Flanders, to reappear at the head of a fleet. He was beloved and admired by the people, and Edward, the most overrated of the English kings, was supported
' Sax. Chron., 435.
104j.] THE FLEET AT SASDWICII. 49-
only by the clei-f^' and the foreifjners. Opposition was liopeless ; the king's forces refused to tight against the EngHsh hero, and Edward had to give way on nearly all points, and to get rid of the raoi-e objectionable of his Norman advisers and sycophants. Here the sea helped in the striking of a heax-y blow for the caiise of freedom ; and although Godwin survived his triumph for only a year, he died victor in a great constitutional struggle.
But the naval events of the reign must be noted in their order. Godwin's victory came late.
The fleet seems to have been cared for throughout. In 1044 Edward was at Sandwich with thirty-five ships, and in 1045, when the invasion of Magnus was expected, as large a fleet as had ever been seen in England was collected at the same port. Edward was asked by Sweyn to assist him with a squadron of fifty vessels against Magnus, but the request was refused.' Magnus's navy being re- puted to be exceedingly powerful, and popular opinion being aj)- parently doubtful whether that of England would be justified in going far from its own coasts to intervene in a foreign quarrel. Nor was the refusal unwise, for there was plenty for the fleet to do at home. Not long afterwards Sandwich itself was attacked by the pirates Lothing and Yrling,^ with twenty-five ships, and a large amount of booty was carried away. Thanet also was attacked, but drove off its assailants. Essex fared less fortunately, and was ravaged, the pirates taking their spoils to Flanders and there selling them. The king was at sea during this time, but did not succeed in falling in with the freebooters.
Baldwin, Count of Flanders, had protected the operations of these and other sea-robbers, and consequently, when, in 1049, Baldwin was at war with the emperor, and the latter invited Edward to assist in blockading the territories of the Count, the King of England was disposed to comply, and once more collected his fleet at Sandwich.^ But he appears to have had no time to put to sea with it ere Baldwin and the emperor came to terms, and then, deeming that so large a force was unnecessary, Edward sent his Mercian contingent home.
The rest of the fleet he designed to utilise for another object. Osgod Clapa, a Dane who had been in Edward's service, but who had been banished in 1040 for suspected complicity in the machina- tions of Magnus, had taken to piracy, and was reported to be at Ulp ' Sax. Cliroii., 437, 438. ^ lb., 438. » 76., 438, 430.
VOL. I. E
50 MILITARY BISTORY TO 1066. " [1049.
with thirty-nine ships ; whereupon Edward dispatched j)art of his force in chase of the rover, who ran for Flanders with six ships only, leaving the rest to plunder Essex ; and as the English force seems to have been cojupletely deceived and to have pursued Osgod, the plunderers did their work almost unmolested, and re-embarked in safety.^ Thus the great armament at Sandwich did little good.
While the king was still at Sandwich, Godwin's eldest son Sweyn, who, in consequence of having been refused permission to marry the Abbess of Leominster, whom he had abducted, had throvni up his earldom and retired in a huff to Denmark, decided to endeavour to make his peace with Edward, and arrived with seven ships at Bosham for that purpose. Upon his appearance off the English coasts he was apparently treated as an enemy, for the men of Hastings took two of his vessels and brought them to the king after having killed their crews. ^ During his absence his earldom had been divided between his brother Harold and his cousin Beorn. Both Harold and Beorn were consequently opposed to the return of Sweyn, and directed him to put to sea again, giving him four days wherein to, do so. This, no doubt, incensed Sweyn. Soon after- wards an English squadron, consisting of two "king's ships" and forty-two "people's ships," under Godwin, and another of his sons, Tostig, with, apparently, Beorn on board, was driven by stress of weather into Pevensey while in pursuit of pirates. Sweyn went thither, and begged Beorn to accompany him to Sandwich and to intercede for him with the king. Beorn agreed, and seems to have started in a vessel of his own, or overland. But Sweyn presently seized him, and took him by boat to his own vessel, which pro- ceeded to Dartmouth, where Sweyn murdered his cousin and buried his body in the church. It was subsequently removed to Win- chester, and interred near that of Canute ; and Sweyn '■' escaped to Flanders, to be pardoned in 1050, and restored to all his possessions by Edward. '
.Another naval event of 1049 was the arrival of thirty-six ships from Ireland to assist Griffith of Wales. Towards the end of the year Edward " discharged nine ships from pay, and they went away, ships and all ; and five ships remained behind, and the king promised them twelve months' pay."*
At this time matters were rapidly coming to a head between
' Sax. Chron., 440. = jrj_^ 44i_ 3 ji,_^ 440^ 441.
* lb., 441, 442.
1052.] HE VOLT OF GODWIN. 5 J
Godwin and Edward. In 10.51 the king, contrary to the desire of the earl and of the monks of Canterbury, saw fit to advance to the Archbishopric a Nonnan, Eobert of Jumieges, who had previously been for six 5'ears Bishop of London. Another Norman had been made Bishop of Dorchester, and the English party was greatly annoyed. It was then that Godwin was ordered to Dover to punish the townsmen for their behaviour to some piratical followers of Baldwin of Flanders. Godwin declined to do this unless the men were first given a fair trial. It was then also that complaints were made by the people of Sweyn's earldom of Hereford that some Normans or French had established themselves there, and were ill treating the country folk.
Godwan and his family seem to have thought that the moment had come for stern resistance to Edward's unreasonable preference of foreigners. Sweyn and Harold, and even Tostig, who had lately married a sister of Baldwin, were of one mind. The Witan at Gloucester summoned Godwin to attend before it. The earl replied by collecting his friends at Beverstone, near Malmesbury. The Witan removed to London, and outlawed Sweyn, but contented itself with again summoning the earl and Harold, to whom, however, safe conduct and hostages were refused ; so that their only course was flight.
Godwin and Sweyn went to Bosham, embarked thence for Flanders, and stayed abroad during the winter.^ Harold embarked at Bristol for Ireland. Sweyn, recollecting the abducted abbess and the murder of Beorn, departed on a pilgi-image to Jerusalem, and died while on his way back ; but early in 1052 the other members of the exiled family began active operations with a view to return.
Harold, with a squadron, appeared off the mouth of the Severn, sacked some places in Somersetshire and Devonshire, and killed a number of people, including "more than thirty good thanes." The threat of an invasion from Flanders by Godwin prevented inter- ference ; for forty ships " of Edward's fleet, probably nearly all the vessels then in commission, lay at Sandwich imder the Earls Kalf and Odda, or cruised in the offing, on the look-oiit for the enemy. Godwin evaded them and landed at Komney, where, in his own territories, his popularity raised him a large force, all the " butse- carls," or boatmen, of Hastings and the neighbouring ports joining him enthusiastically. It is less than forty miles by sea from Sand- ' Sax. Cbroii., 44-i. ^ Ingram has '■ smacks."
E 2
52 MILITARY HISTORY TO 1066. [1002.
wich to Bomney Bay, but the king's ships did not succeed in getting to the latter place in time to prevent the earl from sailing thence to the westward. Balf and Odda returned to Sandwich, and went thence to London, where it is not astonishing that thej^ were superseded. As for Godwin, he went no farther west than the Isle of Wight, and was there joined by Harold, with nine ships from Ireland. The combined force returned up Channel, picking up more butsecarls at Bomuej^ and Folkestone, and reached Sandwich "with an overflowing army."' The royal fleet had qiiitted Sand- wich, and Godwin pressed on for the Thames. He mounted as far as Sputhwark, fomid the people there well disposed towards him, entered into an understanding with them, landed some troops, and advanced cautiously through the south arch of London Bridge. The royal fleet, increased to fifty ships, seems to have lain some- where below the spot where now stands St. Paul's ; and Godwin was upon the point of attacking it, when, happily, an arrangement was come to, and bloodshed was prevented."
Thus Godwin trimnphed. His victory led to the outlawry of Bobert of Jumieges, Bishop Ulf, and other Norman place-holders, who escajped with considerable difficulty to Normandy ; and Enghsh influences became predominant at court. But in the following year the great earl died. He had, however, a worthy successor as chief of the party of England for the English, in the person of his eldest surviving son, Harold, a time West Sa.\on, j'et also, on his mother's side, a grand-nephew of Canute. Harold, while his brother-in-law, Edward the Confessor, lived, was a strong and patriotic mayor of the palace to a roi faineant, and at first he was zealously supported by all the members of his house, including his brothers Tostig, Earl of Northumbria, Gyrth, Earl of East Anglia, and Leofwin, who held swa}' in Kent, Essex, and adjoining counties. The two last, indeed, remained faithful to their kinsman to the death.
In 1062, Griffith of Wales once more became troublesome ; and Harold and Tostig combined to repress him. The campaign was chiefly military ; but its issue was much influenced by the brilliant naval success of Harold, in 1063, at lludeland, where the Welsh fleet was destroyed. Griffith was assassinated by one of his own followers, and both his head and the prow of his ship were sent as trophies to Edward.^ Then came the defection of Tostig, in some sense the gloomiest actor in the events which were fast crowding ' Sax. Chion., 446-448. » Ih., 448, 449. ^ Ih., 458.
lOGG.]
SUCCESSION OF llAEOin.
53
upou England. He bad governed ill in Northiunbria, and his people revolted, deposed him, and set up Morkere in his stead. Edward, advised by Harold, admitted the demands of the insurgents, recog- nised Morkere, and banished Tostig, who retired to nurse schemes of revenge at Bruges. Morkere, it should be said in explanation, was brother of Edwin, Earl of Mercia, and of Aldgyth, wife of Harold, and widow of Griffith of Wales ; so that the transfer of power in Northmubria did not necessarily reduce the predominance of the family interests of the House of Godwin.
On January 6th, 1066, the Confessor died, after bequeathing his kingdom to Harold. The old king left no children of his own, and although there was a nearer heir in the person of Edgar Atheling,
SHIP OF HAROLDS FLEET. (Frovi the Bayeux Tapestry.)
grandson of Edmund Ironside, and although he had a certain following, he was but a child of eight, and, of course, was not in a position either to press his claims or to moimt the throne in those turbulent times. Indeed, it seems to have been so clearly recognised, even by his friends, that the burden of the crown would have been too heavy for the boy, that no serious efforts were made to secure it for him. On the other hand, Harold was strong, vigorous, popular, and in the prime of life. The only serious cloud upon his prospects was one which Harold, who was best aware of its existence, did not regard as threatening. It had been his misfortune, years eai'lier, to be wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, and to be handed over by the noble upon whose territory he was cast, to William, Duke of Normandy, who had exacted as price of release a sworn promise that Harold would support William's claim to the inheritance of Edward. Harold either looked upon the
54
MILITARY HISTOBY TO 1066.
[1066.
whole affair as a gi'iiu jest, or considei'ed that no promise made under duress was binding upon him ; and, when Edward died, took the crown, apparently with confidence.
He underrated William's ambition and pertinacity. But before the moment came for him to reckon with his most dangerous enemy, he had to deal with his troublesome brother Tostig, who, upon learning of Harold's accession, appeared with a fleet off the Isle of Wight, and levied money and provisions. Tostig's offer to co-operate with William was rejected ; and, quitting the south coast, the outlaw went, with sixty ships, to the Humber, whence, however, he was di-iven by Edwin of Mercia. Never very popular, he was thereupon forsaken by most of his followers, and proceeded with only twelve vessels to Scotland. Harold Hardrada of Norway, also at that time cherished vague designs against England, and was at the Orkneys with a large force. The king and the outlaw met, and agreed to work together. They sailed to the Humber, landed, defeated Edwin and Morkere at Fulford, and seized York ; but King Harold of England, the most energetic leader of his age, marched rapidly north, and on the 25th of September, 1066, fell upon the invaders at Stamford Bridge,^ on the Derwent, and gained a bloody, but complete victory, Harold himself being womided, but Harold Hardrada and Tostig being slain. The pursuit was hot, and comparatively few of the enemy gained their ships, many of which were burnt.
' Sax. Chion., 462-465.
( 55 )
CHAPTEE III.
VOYAGES AND DISCOVEKIES TO 1066.
H. W. Wilson.
Pre-Roman voyages of the Britons — Early ships — A.^ricohi's voyajjes — Intercoui'se witli Irehaiid — Witli the continent— The Saxons— Irish voyages — Evidence — Corniac MacArt — Niall — Irish sliijis — Two kinds of voyages — Tlie mythical — The religions — To the Orkneys — To Iceland — Irish discovery of America — Evidence of Sagas — Ireland the Great — Story of Bjorn Asbrandsson — Testimony of Edisius — 'Were the Mexicans Irish? — Ofl'a and his ships — Athelstan — The A'ikiugs — Othere — Wulf- stan voyages to the Baltic — The Norsemen ou the British coast — The Orkneymen — Their manner of lighting — Kavages of the Norsemen — The Manxmen.
'■"T'*'*^''"*'*! rpHE history of British voyages and discoveries
must of necessity begin with Caesar. The
stories of Brutus' or Brute's saiHng to Albion in
the days of ^neas, with the attendant fables,
may be dismissed as the figment of some ingenious
monk's brain. They appear to have had little basis in legend and
none in history. The visit of Pytheas of Marseilles to the British
Isles in the fourth century B.C., and the casual mention of the
Phoenician tin trade with the Cassiterides — which may or may not
be some part of England — are the only references to our history
in these dark ages. The indirect evidence of British seafaring in
these times is, however, considerable. A cork plug, discovered in a
canoe of very early date disinterred from the silt at Glasgow,^ points
to intercourse with Spain ; Italian earthenware has been discovered
in Lanarkshire ; the red amber, so largely found in early barrows,
indicates a trade with the Baltic countries ; '" whilst torques of gold
and strings of biight-coloured glass beads, which cannot have been
made in the island, are equally good evidence of commerce with the
Phoenicians and the land of the south. ^ Strabo alludes to the fact
that the Romans imposed customs duties upon the British imports
from Celtica, which consisted of ivory, bracelets, amber, and glass.*
It is not quite certain that the Britons of this date voyaged
' Elton, 'Origins of Eng. Hist.,' 2nd ed. 231; Burton, 'Hist. Scotland,' i. 51. 2 lb., 63. » lb.. 111. •* iv. 4, circ. 180 a.u.
56 VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES TO 106G. [B.C. 100.
themselves, though it is on the whole probable. They were not all savages ; on the contrary, the inhabitants to the soiith of the Thames appear to have been civilised, and to have made consider- able progress in the arts. It is, of course, possible that these various imports were conveyed to them in the ships of Venetan or German traders. This is the supposition of those who doi;bt whether the early Britons had ships at all, or anything more than the coracle.' But some coracles, as we shall see, were capable of long voyages.
The Latin writers never explicitly state that the Britons had ships ; on the other hand, they constantly mention the Britons as using coracles. Caesar, when he had to cross a river in Spain, remembered the coracles he had seen in Britain, and ordered his soldiers to make them.^ Lucan ^ and Phny,^ and the later Festus Avienus^ are as positive. That the British had ships of stout construction may, as hinted in a previous chapter, be inferred from the passage in Caesar, where he says " the Veneti obtained help from Britain," ^ as well as from a mention in the Welsh Triads of " roving British fleets," and from the fact of the building of a ship with sail and oar by one Ceri. Surer testimony is afforded by the two boats discovered at Glasgow, both of which are built of planks, apparently clinker fashion, and fastened together with
' For descriptions of tlie coracle, see page 3 and 60, n.
- ' Bell. Civil.' i. 54.
* ' I'harsal.' iv. 131, thus translated in Nedhani's ' Selden ' :
" Of twigs and willow boord They made small boats, covered with bullock's hide, In which they reached the river's further side. So sail the Veneti if Padus flow, The Britons sail on their calm ocean so."
■* iv. 30, uitilibus nauigiis. ' ' Oraj Marit.' v. 103 :
" Kon hi carinas quippe pina texere Acereve norunt, non abiete ut usus est Curvant phaselos, sed rei ad rairaculum Kavigia junctis semper aptant pellibus."
" 'Bell. Gall.' iii. 0. The word for "help" is "auxilia," which ndght jjerfectly well mean "troops," not ships. The ships of the Veneti are described by Ca;sar as tlat- keeled, of light draught, built of strong oak with high foc'sles and poops. The banks for the oars had beams a foot square, bolted at each end with iron jiir.s as thick as a man's thumb. Elton, 'Origins,' 231; Burton, 'Scotland,' i. 308; Ca>sar, 'Bell Gall.' iii. 9-13. Ca:sar asserts that Great Britain was almost unknown to the G.auls — only merchants went there. The Gauls may, however, have concealed their inter- course with Britain from him.
A.T). 81.] EARLY liRlTISH COMMERCE. 57
oaken pins and nails of metal. The more elaborate of these boats were 18 feet long.' Vegetius, in his treatise on military art, tells us that the British ships were painted blue, in order that they might escape notice. -
On the subjugation of Britain by the Komans, which followed the expeditions of Claudius and Agiicola, a considerable trade, as we have seen, existed with Gaul.^ Agricola sent his fleet as far as the Orkneys, which he discovered and subdued. " Thule " was seen in the distance, but was not approached,^ and Great Britain was circumnavigated. He may have sent his ships to the Isle of Man, as inscriptions and remains testify to the presence of the Romans there. ^ At the same time he made preparations to attack Ireland, where, he had learnt from traders and merchants, there were excellent harbours. It is thus to be inferred that there was, at this date (a.d. 81), intercourse between Ireland and Great Britain. London is noticed by Tacitus as now veiy much frequented by traders, which again is evidence of travel. The commerce was apparently in oysters, slaves, dogs, tin, and lead, and was carried on from the ports of Southampton and Eichborough, besides London. Strabo tells us that the favourite ports in France for the traffic with England were Boulogne, and the mouths of the Ehine, Seine, Loire, and Garonne.^ To reach the last two some very difficult and dangerous navigation would be necessary past Ushant and the Eaz de Sein, demanding seaworthy ships. In the reign of Julian (A.D. 360) we are told that there were eight hundred ships engaged in the corn trade between Briton and Gaul. The Britons of that time had, however, to suffer terribly when the Eomans withdrew.
The budding civilisation of the island was abandoned to bar-
' Elton, 'Origins,' 231. Tlie stem of the larger boat was a triangular piece of oak, fitted in as in our tiay. In one boat was a fine axe of greenstone. The prow of tlie larger vessel was galley shajieil. Early representations of ships are also found on Scotch sculptured stones. In these the rigging is quite complicated. Burton, 'Scot- land,' i. 308. Ko such early representations are, however, to lie foimd in the ' Si)a!diiig Club Book.' Jas. Stuart, Aberdeen.
- 'DeKeMilitari,' iv. 37.
' Claudius gave by law privileges to those wlio built sliii)s of 10,000 modii, or about 60 tons burden. Suet. Claud. 18.
■* Tacitus, 'Agricola,' 10. "Tlude" was i>robably the Sliethuul group. Tacitus alludes to the strong tides and races thus : " The waters are heavy and yield with diniculty to the oars ; they are not raised by the winds as on other seas."
'' Train, ' History of the Isle of Man,' i. 43.
' The passage is given. 'Monunienta Britan.' Scriptores, Gr. atcpie Lat. vi.
58 VOYAGES A^W D1SC0VEBIE8 .TO 1066. [A.D. 160.
barism and outer darkness. There is the scantiest historical record for the years which followed. The Comes Littoris Saxonici and the Comes Britannia; could no longer protect the island from the inroads of Saxon and Celt. Commerce would necessarily decline and the sea be abandoned by the weaker Britons, who tied to Brittany, or were driven from the British coasts by the depredations of the northern pirates.'
The new anivals were expert seamen. They came from the Saxon islands near the Elbe mouth in " ceols," ^ and were in the strictest sense pirates or adventurers. Besides these " ceols," which seem, to have been small ships built of wood, they had also skin boats. Whilst they harassed the east the Irish were equally busy on the west burning and plundering. To their early voyages we may now appropriately turn.
The Celtic inhabitants of Ireland appear to have been bold navigators at a very early date. Unlike their kmsmen the Welsh, and hke the Bretons, Cornishmen, Menevians, and West Coastmen of Scotland, they have always shown a taste for the sea, which has declined, but not disappeared, with the lapse of time. A large proportion of the sailors serving in our fleet during the great French war were Irishmen,^ and the fishermen of Connaught are good seamen to this day. They are, in fact, very similar in character and daring to the Bretons.
Of Irish voyages in the early Roman and pre-Eoman times we know absolutely nothing. There is, however, evidence of inter- course with the Roman Empire in the Roman coins which have been found along the east coast of Ireland. They date from the time of the Republic to a.d. 160.* Whether they came from Gaul in Irish boats, or whether from Britain, cannot be determined. There is in Spain a tradition of voyages from the Basque country,
' In this period fall the voyages of Arthur, which are probably mythical, reflecting tlie tradition of the Irish anchorites' travels. He is said by Geofl'rey of Monmouth, whose chronicle has no historical value for this period, to have subdued Ireland and Iceland, and to have extorted homage from the kings of Orkney, Gotlan<l, Norway, and Denmark. Larabarde {timp. 1568 ; see Hakluyt, B.L. i. 3) adds Greenland to tlie catalogue of his possessions. It is significant that conteiuijorary writers never mention Arthur or any of these truly remarkable voyages. Malgo, whose voj-ages are also recorded by Geofifrey of Monmouth, is probably not more historical.
=" Or " keels."
* Lecky, 'Hist. England.'
* Stokes, ' Ireland and the Celtic Church ' (London, 1886), p. 16. Skene, ' Celtic Scotland' CEdinburgh, 1890), iii. 115, doubts their historic existence.
A.D. 222.] IRISH VOYAGES. 5&
al)out '200 B.C., to Ireliiud,' the ships employed being made of tree- trunks hollowed out and covered with leather. This may he reflected in the Irish story of the " Milesian " invasion. The dark complexion of the west coast population gives some coun- tenance to the stor}', and a careful comparison of Basque and Irish skulls has fiu'ther confirmed it." There is some slight interest to the student of naval evolution in the glimpse of early Biscayan ships which it affords.
In '222 A. D., according to the 'Annals of the Four Masters,' a large fleet went from Ireland over sea, and did not return for three years. During that time Cormac MacArt, its commander and the titular king of Ireland, was ravaging the coasts of England. The grip of the Romans on Britian had been weakened by the failure of Severus to quell a Celtic insurrection between the years 208-211 a.d., and this probably was what encoiu'aged Cormac's inroads. By 3(59 the Irish ships had become so dangerous that Theodosius, on his reconquest of Great Britain, appointed a Comes Britaiiniarum, besides a Dux Britannia and a Comes Littoris Saxonici, to protect the western coast from the Irish.' The victories of Theodosius are commemorated in Claudian's verses when the poet sings of " icy lerne lamenting the heaps of slaughtered Scots," " the Orkneys reeking with Saxon gore," and Thule " growing warm with the blood of the Picts."* If this be anything more than poetic licence, the fleets on either side must have gone far afield. Less than a half centmy later, Niall of the Nine Hostages, a direct ancestor of our Queen, as it is claimed, was plundering in the English Channel, and fell in battle, probably off Boulogne.^ The Saxons and Scots, as the inhabitants of Ireland were called at an early date, were often confused by the Komans, which may explain why we do not hear even more of the Irish.
Sidonius ApoUinaris mentions these pirates as "ploughing the
British sea in a skin, and cleaving the grey waters in a sewn
skiff." "^ These phrases can only refer to coracles, which were the
earliest fonu of boat known to have existed in this country. At
the same time, it is difficult to suppose that the Irish Celts had
' Alvarez de Culinenar, 'Anii.ik's d'E-'Jiiiignc,' ii. 55 (1741). 2 SkeiieV 'Celtic Scotland,' i. 1G!I-174.
" Cf. Kltoii, 'Origiiies,' 2iid ed. .■i;!8 ; Nedliaiu's 'Seidell,' 211; Skene's 'Celtic Scotland,' i. 101.
■* Claudian, Flinders and I'etfie, ' Mon. Brit.' xcviii. » Stokes, 38. « Sid. Apoll.
60 VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES TO 1066. [540.
coracles and nothing else. The ' Tripartite Life of S. Patrick,' which is of the tenth or eleventh centuiy, mentions several kinds of ships : " noe" or ship ; " curach," or coracle ; " ethar ; " " long," or vessel ; and " coblach" ;^ whilst Adamnan, in his 'Life of Columba,' which was certainly written in the seventh century, and which is therefore older and so much the more valuable, mentions nine kinds of ships : " alnus," " barca," " cuupalhis," " curuca," " navis longa," " navis oneraria," " navicula," and " scapha."^ From this it is perfectly clear that by 6.50 a.d. the Irish had made considerable progress in the art of ship construction. They were a civilised race, and must not be confused with the painted barbarians of the early Eoman writers.
There are two distinct sets of Irish voyages. The first, which are fully narrated, mythical ; the second, true, but only to be inferred from facts which are not recorded in connection with the voyages themselves. In addition, the claim of Ireland to the dis- covery of America must also be considered, as it has been put forward of late years with renewed energy. It stands somewhat apart from the other two classes of voyages.
Of the mythical voyages — which all point vaguely to a dim knowledge of land beyond the Atlantic — the best known are those of the sons of Ua CoiTa, who, three in number, sailed with five others forty days and forty nights out into the Atlantic, till they came to a land of men moaning and lamenting.^ After many wild adventures and a visit to an Odyssean inferno, they at last arrived at Spain. The date given for the voyage is 540. A little later St. Brandan, Abbot of Cluainfert, was visited by a friend, Barontus, who told him of an island far off in the ocean, which had been promised to the saints. For this island St. Brandan set sail with seventy-five monks and spent seven years in seafaring and adventiu'e. He found the island, which was no sooner seen than it vanished.*
' ' Tripartite Life of S. Patrick ' (Chronicles and Kecords Series), vol. i. cxlix.
^ A full description of this kind of ancient coracle is to be found in the early ' Life of S. Brendan,' quoted in Heeves, W., ' Vita S. Colunihic Auctore Adananano ' (Dublin, 1857), pp. 169, 170. This coracle was made of greased skins fastened to an osier frame. Large coracles had two or even three thicknesses of skin. Tliey carried masts and sails, which shows tliey must have been of tolerably stout con- struction.
^ O'Curry, ' Manuscript Materials for h'ish History,' 289.
* This vanishing island was in later years often reported to have been seen from the Canaries, and very numerous expeditions were sent in search of it. See also page C3.
891.] " SCOTS " VISIT ALFRED. 61
Though not so named in the narrative, this was identified with the fabulous island of Brazil or O'Brazile, which was supposed to lie to the west of Ireland, and which is marked in all early maps. The St. Brandan story is a late legend and cannot be traced in early Irish history. So also Maildun, in the eighth century, sailed to the west in a triple-hide coracle with sixty men, and saw many marvels, sea monsters, demon horses, red-hot animals, burning rivers, speak- ing birds, and submex'ged cities. But these tales savour rather of fairyland than of fact.
Secondly come the true or probable voyages, which are for the most part connected with the missionary enterprise of the Irish. Nothing is more remarkable than the vigour and energy of the Irish chui-ch in the seventh and eighth centuries, before the Norsemen's coming. Irishmen went everywhere, preaching the gospel. We hear of them in South Italy, France, Lower Austria, Switzerland, and Germany.^ The centre of activity was the lonely little island of lona, from which bold monks crossed in boats to Lismore, Gairloch, Tiree, Eigg, Skye, and Applecross, voyaging fearlessly upon tempestuous seas. A peculiar feature of this early Irish Church was the asceticism which led its votaries to seek silence and solitude. They spread up the west coast of Scotland and reached the Orkneys at so early a date as Columba's time. Thus Adamnan relates how Columba bids the ruler of the Orkneys treat the Irish pilgrims gently.^ He also gives the voyage of Cormac, who was nearly put to death in the Orkneys, and afterwards was driven from his course bj' a soutli wind fourteen days' and nights' voyage northwards to land, which may have been the Faroes or Iceland. On the way he was nearly lost, as " foul and dangerous beasts smote his coracle so hard that he thought they would pierce the skin covering of the boat." Through the praj'ers of Columba he was saved. ^ With this fourteen days' voyage in a coracle may be compared one of seven days' length, mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle. Three " Scots," we read under the year 891, came to Alfred in a hide Ijoat without oars, from Iceland, after a seven days' passage on a stormy sea. They went on to Rome and Jerusalem, being probably Munstermen, who about this time pilgrimaged much
' Bryant, 'Celtic Irelaml,' .'io ; Stukes, 'Celtic Cluircli,' lol. Coluuibaiuis even asceiuls the Rhine, and voyajies on Lake Constance.
* Adanin. ' Vit. tJolumb.' ii. 42. Columba was born 521, anil (lied 5117, .\.v. ^ Op. cit.
62 VOYAGES AND DISCOVEEIES TO 1066. [950.
to Borne. Possibly the use of the coracle may have been required to satisfy asceticism.^
But the Irish monks did not stop short at the Orkneys. Dicuil," an Irishman, who wrote in the ninth century, tells us, " There are many other islands in the northern British Ocean which can be approached from the north of Great Britain with full sail and a fair wind in two daj^s and nights. An upright monk told me that in a small boat he made his way to one of these. The islands are small . . . and our anchorites sailed to them from Scottia and dwelt on them . . . but they are now deserted, because of the Norse pirates." These islands are j)robably the Shetlands and Faroes, and in the latter still survives a tradition of holy men who dwelt there before the Norsemen.^ In the Shetlands the names Papa Stour, Papa Litla, and Papa Sund recall the Norse word for a priest — "Papa." The Norse settlers appeared in the Faroes about the middle of the ninth century, and this would place the voyages of the Irish about the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century.
So, too, if we may believe the ' Islendingabok,' at the coming of the Norsemen there were Irish priests or anchorites in Iceland.'' "There were there," says Ari, its compiler, "Christians of those whom the Norsemen call ' Papas ' ; but they straightway retired because they did not wish to abide there with Pagans. They left behind them Irish books and bells and crosses, whence one may gather that they were Irish." Ari is equally emphatic in another passage: "Before Iceland was settled by the Norsemen . . . there were Christians there, and it is thought that they came from countries to the west, for Irish books, bells, and crosses have been found ... at Papey and Papyle in the east [of Iceland]." Finally Dicuil asserts that "monks have dwelt thirty years in the Isle of Thule between February and August."* He speaks of the short-
' (Jf. S;ix. Cliroii., year 891, and tlie«jiueni quuteil in Reevesj' 'Ailaninan,' 285: " Delightful to be on Benn-Edai' After comini!: o'er the white-hosonied sea, To row one's little coracle Ochone! on the swift-waved shore. How ra]iid the speed of my coracle, And its stern turned iqion Derry."
'' Dicuil, author of ' De Mensura Orbis,' circ^ 825 A.l>.
' I?ea\ivois, 'Comjite Kcndu : Con<;rfes des Americanistes' (Nancy, 1875), p. 08. ' The ' Islcudiiigabi'.k ' was written about 1120, or a little later, by Ari I'roSi, vide <'ha]iter I.
■' ' De Mens. Orbis,' vii. 2.
950.] IRELAND AND AMERICA. 63
ness of the summer nights, denies that the island is surrounded by ice, and mentions a frozen sea one day's sail to the north. It appears from his words that the monks voyaged to Iceland even in winter. The strength of this testimony finds corroboration in what we read elsewhere of the Irish anchorites, and it is difficult to refuse them the credit of discovering Iceland during the eighth century.
Whether they went farther still afield is a matter for speculation.- From Iceland to (Treenland is only a short passage — not very much longer than that from the Shetlands to the Faroes or from the Faroes to Iceland. There may too have been land at some time between, as the early Norse voyagers mention " Gunnibjorn's " skerries, whilst an early map marks a terra quae fait totalifer comhusta. There are hints and stories of earlier white settlers, both on the Greenland coast and farther south towards Winlaud, in the Norse Sagas. On these has been based the Irish claim to the discovery of America. It does not appear to the writer that there is intrinsic improbability in such a claim, but the evidence with the lapse of time must necessarily be vague, shadowy and inconclusive.'
The passages in the Sagas which may refer to these Irish missionaries or settlers are as follows : " Leif Eriksson sailed to Greenland, and found men upon a wreck at sea, and succoured them'- . . . Then likewise he discovered Winland the Good." This is probably the event to which allusion is made elsewhere — " Leif found Winland . . . and he then found merchants in evil plight at sea, and restored them to life by God's mercy." There is nothing whatever to show that they were not daring Norsemen ; indeed, the Flateybook would lead us to suppose this. Karlsefni, sailing south on a later voyage, discovered — if we can believe the Saga — new-sown wheat in Vinland,^ and also came upon the keel of a ship on the coast.* Thorwald, brother of Leif, saw in the same place a "wooden shelter for grain." '^ In " Markland," he captured five
' Ueauvoiti is the nio.st devoted .npostle of the Irish claim. Keeves, the most recent authority, cousiders the stories puzzling, and not to be readily ex]ilaincd away. Torfivus, Rafn, Zesterman, and De Costa are amongst the other believers. Winsor, 'Hist. America,' i. 83, appears scejitical, as also is Laing, editor of ' Heimskringla.' Cunning- ham, \V., 'Growth of English Industiy' (i. 80), is favourable.
- Saga of Eric the Ited. Keeves, ' Finding of Wineland,' li".
' 76., 47. Reeves translates "self-sown wheat," and believes it to have lieen wild rice.
'' 11)., Ao. Keeves su]iposes it was the remains of one of lied Erik's shijis carried south by the current.
=• iL OS.
64 VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES TO 10G6. [950.'
" Skrellings," or probably Eskimos, of whom one was bearded. " They told him that there was a land ou the other side over against their country which was inhabited by people who wore white garments, and yelled loudly, and carried poles before them to which rags were attached ; and people believe that this must have been White-man's-land, or Ireland the Great." ^ In the ' tslendingabok ' comes a story of Ari Marsson, who, in the tenth century, "was driven out of his coiu-se at sea to ' White-man's-land,' which is called by some people Ireland the Great : it lies westward in the sea near AVinland the Good : it is said to be six days' sail west of Ireland. Ari could not depart thence and was baptised there. The first account of this was given by Eafn . . . who sailed to Limerick, and abode a long time at Limerick.'- And Thorkill states that Icelanders reported Ari had been recognised there and was not permitted to leave, but was treated with great respect." ^
In the Eyrbyggia Saga,* which is of far less historic value, is a tale that has usualh' been connected with Ireland the Great. According to this, a certain chief, Bjorn Asbrandsson, sailed from Iceland in a ship and vanished. Some years later, early in the eleventh century, Gudleif was " engaged in a trading voyage west- ward to Dublin, and when he sailed from the west it was his intention to proceed to Iceland." Sailing west from Ireland, north- east winds caught him and his men, and drove them far from their course to the south, and all trace of land was lost. The summer was nearly over when they came in sight of a great country, which they did not know, and entered a good harbour, and men came to them who seemed to them to speak Irish. They were seized and carried inland, when a council was held to determine their fate. But whilst the council was being held, a body of men rode up with a chief and a banner in their midst. This chief was tall and war- like, advanced in years and white of hair. The people honoured
' Tlie Saga of Red Erik is probably as old as the thirtceiitli century in its present form. Op. cif. 23, 24. The discovery of Winl.ind by tlie Norsemen took place about 1000 A.n.
- Limerick was at an early date tlie seat of a Xorse kin.i;doni.
■■' ' Islendiniiabok,' 10, 11. ' Landnaniabuk,' ii. xxii.
■* The Eyrliyggia Saga dates from the middle of the thirteenth centmy, and contains much that is evidently faliulous. It covers the jieriod tVom the colonisation of Iceland by the Norsemen to the middle of the eleventli century. It contains the Idstory of the notalile men of the Thorsness peninsida in West Ireland, and of the Eyrbygges who were the lords of Eyre.
950.] "IRELAND THE GREAT." 65
him greatly. He accosted the Northmen in their own tongue and showed a knowledge of Iceland. Finally he permitted the Norsemen to go, with the warning that they had better leave the country and never retui'n. He gave Gudleif a gold ring which, when he went back to Iceland, the people to whom it was shown knew "to be Bjom's, who had vanished years before.* In this passage there is nothing to identify the strange land with Ireland the Great, except the allusion to the Irish tongue. The identification has been the work of later scribes, and the story has much of the fabulous and improbable about it ; for example, the portentous length of the voyage, and the presence of horses on the American mainland.^
With these Norse passages may be given the vague tradition, said to be recorded in the early Irish chronicles, that " Ireland the Great was known to the west, a great country " ; and the mention in the Arabian geographer Edrisius in the twelfth century of " Irandah-al-Kabirah," or Ireland the Great, as lying a day's sail beyond " Eslandah," which is, assumed to be a copyist's error for " Islandah." ^
Enthusiasts for the Irish discovery have made the most of these passages, and there has been the usual attempt to find philological resemblances to the GaeHc in the languages of the American natives. Ireland the Great has been variously assumed to He about the mouth of the St. Lawrence, south of this on the Floridian coast, in Mexico, in Cuba, Brazil, and the Azores. There is no ground in history for any of these identifications. Beauvois, indeed, has seen in the Mexican Quetzalcoatl, who came from Tula, some allusion to Irish missionaries from Thule, and has found in Mexican rites traces of Celtic Christian ritual.* But all this is guess-work, however ingenious. It is sufficient to know for certain that the Irish, about the time when the Norsemen were beginning to appear on their coast, or even earlier, had sailed to the Orkneys, Shetlands, Faroes, and Iceland, and that there was a general tradition amongst the Norsemen, and even in Ireland, long before the voyages of Columbus, to the effect that beyond the Atlantic lay a country
• Op. ci«. 84-87.
^ Efforts have been made to evade tliis difficulty by supposing that Bjom and his companions rode or were carried in litters.
' Beauvois, ' Compte Kendu : Congres de Americanistes ' (1875), p. 81. " Three days' navigation from the northern point of Scotland is Kslandah, 400 miles long and 150 broad ; thence to Irlandah-el-Kabirab is one day's sail."
* Beauvois, ' Comte Rendu : Congres de Americanistes ' (1683), p. 8C.
VOL. I. F
66 VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES TO 10G6. [900.
peopled with white men, who spoke a tongue which sounded hke Irish. Some have argued that Ireland the Great was only Spain, but this is hardly probable : others have seen in the legend a reflection of the Gaelic voyages to Iceland, with which they would identify Ireland the Great. The story of the Zeni has been called in as testimony, and " Estotiland " has been converted into " Escotiland," or Scotland, the old name for Ireland. The white-robed priests waving banners, chanting, and carrying with them bells and books to these far distant shores, have shared the common fate of the bulk of mankind and vanished without leaving a trace of their name or race in Ireland the Great. Their names still abide in the lonely Orkneys, where also may be seen to this day their cells, and in far Iceland. It may even be that their blood flows in the fast-vanishing Ked Indian of to-day. But guesses and conjectures can ill supply the place of historical record and evidence, though if the Irish could sail to Iceland in coracles there are few feats of navigation which we could pronounce impossible for them.
It is a curious fact that when the Saxons had settled down in England they appear to have lost their skill in seamanship.^ The influence of Christianity, to which they were rapidly converted, was in some degree against the ferocious piracy of those days, which alone made sea-faring profitable. None the less, they held trade in high honour, and all through the centuries of their domination the wealth of England was increasing. Offa, King of Mercia, endeavoured to end the reliance upon foreign transport and en- couraged his people to build ships and carry their goods themselves. - He also concluded treaties of reciprocity for the protection of his merchants ; but quarrels with Charlemagne interfered with his objects.^ Alfred greatly improved the art of shipbuilding, con- structing larger and more serviceable vessels ; ^ whilst Athelstan ordained that any merchant who made three successful voyages should be a Thane. ^
In Alfred's reign ^ the presence of the Danes and Norwegians,
' Northumbria had a considerable fleet, ■which, under Edwin (circ. G20), subdued the isles of Anglesey and Man. See Bede, ' Eccl. Hist.' ii. v.
'' Lindsay, W., 'Merchant Shipping,' i. 341.
' Matt. Paris, ' Chron. Majora,' Chron. and RoUs Series, i. 3-18 ; Lappenbcrg, 'England,' 231, 232.
* Sax. Chron. A.D. 897.
'■ 'Anct. Laws,' 81; cf. Strutt, 'Chronicles,' i. 337.
" 1'ho "voyages" of Arculf and Willibald about 690 and 720 are interesting — though a great part of their joiu'ucy was certainly performcil on land — as showing the
900.] ALFUED AND TRAVEL. 67
who were appearing on the coast, pkuulering and l)in-ning, as the Saxons had done centuries before, reawakened an interest in geography and exploration. Alfred's anxiety to learn of distant countries led him to send for two hardy Danish sailors, Ohthere, or Oddr, and Witlfstan. The former was a nobleman of great wealth and power. He told the king that he lived farthest to the north of all Norsemen. " The land thence is very far to the north, but it is all waste. And on a certain time he wished to find how far to the north land lay. So he sailed north as far as whale hunters ever go and thence north again three days. Then the land bent east, and he sailed along it four days till the land bent south, and he sailed also to the south five days till he came to a great river, up which he dared not sail, for it was all inhabited." ' On a second voyage he went to " Sciringesheal," ^ and thence to Haddeby [in Schleswig]. On this voyage he passed Iceland on the right and then the islands which are between Iceland and Britain.
Wulfstan * said that he went from Haddeby to Truso in seven days and nights, and that the ship was running all the way with sail. He had Weonodland (Mecklenburg and Pomerania) on the right, and Langland Falstey and Sconey (Skanor, S. Sweden) on his left. Then he passed Bornholm, the people of which had their own king, Bleking, Oland, and Gotland, which belonged to Sweden. Next he came to the land of the Wends and the great river Vistula, near which lies Witland of the Esthonians. He notes that the Vistula runs into the Frische Haff, and gives the dimensions of the latter correctly, showing clearly his personal knowledge. Esthonia
cirly lines of navigation in the Jleditei-ranean. Arculf was not certainly English ; he was a bishop, and perhaps a Freucli bishop. He visited Adanman, Abbot of loua (see p. 60), who wrote his travels. It appears that he was a pilgrim to the Holy Land. He sailed from Palestine — how he got there is not stated — to Alexamhia, Crete, Con- stantinople, and thence by Sicily to Konie. Willibald, Bishop of Eichstadf, ohiit 786, was a native of Hampshire, and father of S. Walpurgis. In 718 he travelled overland to Rome, and thence went to Palestine, voyaging in a ship from Gaeta to Naples, Reggie, Catania, Samos, and Ephesus. Thence he went on foot to Patera, where again he took ship for Miletus, Cyprus, and Tarsus. He proceeded to Palestine on foot, .and returning embarked at Tyre, whence he sailed for Constantinople, Sicily, and Najiles. No LaterestLng details are given of the voyage, for which, see ' Early Travels in Palestine ' (Bohn, lH-17), pp. 13-22.
' Alfred's 'Orosius' (Bohn), 249. He evidently sailed into tlie White Sea and the mouth of the Dwina.
'' Not certainly identified. Possibly Christiauia.
' Bosworth, .J., 'Alfred the Great's Descri])tion of Europe' (London, fol. 1855), pp. 18-2-i of the translation.
F 2
68 VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES TO 1060. [950.
is described as very large, with numerous towns and a king in each. There is much honey, and no stint of fish, whilst the nobles drink mare's milk and the poor mead. The dead are burnt after days or months of wassail.' The relatives preserve the bodies during this period by " bringing the cold upon them," or by the use of ice.^
Alfred is also said to have sent Sighelm, apparently a layman of distinction, to the tombs of SS. Thomas and Bartholemew in India. He had, according to the Saxon Chronicle, made a vow to this effect,* probably when England was in possession of the Danes. Sighelm, with Athelstari, carried royal gifts to Eome, and then must have taken ship for Egypt. After that they would follow the eastern trade route through the Eed Sea. No details of the voyage survive, except that the ambassadors retiu-ned safely, bringing rich presents of gems and spices to Alfred. Evidence of increasing navigation is afforded by Alfred's laws, of which the thirtieth lays down certain regulations for passengers arriving in England.
Throughout the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries the Norse- men and the Danes, a terrible race of freebooters, were arriving and settling on our coasts. The boldest and most successful of navigators, for whom the sea had no terrors, it is to them perhaps that the England of to-day most owes its love of the sea. As they successively occupied the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and the fairest spots oil the coasts of England and Ireland, and became dwellers in Britain, their feats concern us. They were of two races, dark and light ; the first, the Danes proper ; the second, the Norsemen or Norwegians. They fared over-sea from the iron- bound and barren coasts of Norway, or from the flat sandy plains of Denmark, guided by the stars, as the compass was then miknown ; and when near, but out of sight of land, loosed birds to know in which direction to steer.*
' It is known tbat the ancient PruBsians burnt tlieir dead. Bosworth, p. 23, note 32. This truth shows that Widfstan was not romancing.
^ Wulfstan is called an Englishman in Hakluyt, but this ajipears to be only an assertion.
^ Sax. Chron., a.d. 883. Cunningham, W., in ' Growth of English Industry,' i. 81, gives Sigeburt, Bishop of Sherbourne, for Sighelm. The credibility of the voyage has been q\icstioned, but unjustly it would seem. It is not mentioned in Asser. A close intercourse with Rome was kept up in Alfred's days; travellers, of course, going overhand, .^thelhelm was sent 887, Beocca 888 ; vide Saxon Chronicle. The Northmen at an early date had a trade rovite to the East, as a great number of Arabian coins have been dug up in Sweden. Cimniugbam, 8-1.
* Forstcr, ' Voyages and Discoveries in the North,' considers that the Norsemen discovered the art of sailing near the wind (pp. 77, 78).
1000.] NORSEMAN AND DANE. 69
The first attacks of the Norsemen were directed mainly against the religious houses. They took Lindesfarne in 793 ; in 794 parties were in the Wear, whilst others were wasting the Western Isles and South Wales. In 802 and 806 they burnt the monastery at lona ; in 807 they were on the west and south coast of Ireland ; in 815 they had planted a settlement at Armagh ; in 835 they were on the Cornish coast, and thenceforward their irruptions were continuous. The Orkneys became practically part of Norway : this was their base, whence they sailed to Iceland, Ireland, England, and France. The voyages of the Orkneymen fill the Sagas, and these islanders sailed with the Viking fleets to Barcelona, Pisa, Eome, and Constantinople in the ninth century.^ Kolf, who led the Northmen in their conquest of Normandy, was himself an Orkneyman, son of Rognvald, Earl of Orkney.
The Norseman and Dane, when in course of time they settled down and were absorbed into the population, must have imparted something of their enterprise and skill in navigation to the Anglo- Saxon. Commerce between the Scandinavians in England and the Scandinavians of Norway and Iceland would arise. Chester and Bristol began to trade with Dublin and the Far North, though the insecurity of the seas, which were infested by vikings, probably not too careful to spare their own countrymen, must have at first restricted the vohune of commerce. The Christian Northmen, too, voyaged to the Holy Land ; a journey of Canute's to Eome is mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1031, but it is not said whether he travelled overland.
A fine picture of an Orkney voyage and fight in the last year before the conversion to Christianity is given in the Earl's Saga. Thorfinu of Orkney and King Karl of Scotland had a feud, and Thorfinu harried Karl's land, but was surprised by Karl with eleven long ships when he had only five. The eleven ships rowed up against the five, when, as the poet sings —
" With war snakes five the wrathful cliief Rushed 'gainst eleven of tlie king, And hating flight, hiiiiseH' held on His course with constant heart. The seamen laid their sliiiis ahoard. Along the tlnvarts the t'oenien fell. Sharp-edged steel in blood was bathed, Black blood of Scottish men."
Hardo Sigurdssou sailed to Micklegarth.
70 VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES TO 1066. [1030.
Thorfinn's men when they landed were not gentle to their enemies. " They so fared amongst thorpes and farms, and so bui'ned everything that not a cot stood after them. They slew, too, all the fighting men they found, but women and old men dragged themselves off to woods and wastes with weeping and wailing. Much folk, too, they made captives of war, and put them in bonds, and so drove them before them." This same Thorfinn harried Ireland, Galloway, and even North England; where, however, the English captured a band of his men and slew all but the runagates, whom they considerately returned. Thorfinn took to peace and the fear of God in his old age. The Norsemen of the Orkneys and the Siidereyar, or Hebrides, and AVestern Isles appear to have been the boldest and most warlike of their race ; whilst in the Isle of Man was a powerful Norse colony, the king of which, Hakon, is said in the Chronicles to have sailed round Biitain with three thousand six hundi-ed ships. The Manxmen are not mentioned during these early years as pirates or voyagers, though they must have been both.^ They were soon converted to Christianity, which may have interfered with the profession of plunder.^
' In 973, says Oswald. ' Vestigia Manniae insulae .aiitiquiora.' (Douglas, 1860, p. 117.) Macon, King of Man, was appointed Edgar's admiral on the British seas, and sailed on them with three hundred and sixty ships. This is not noticed in the Saxon Chronicle, unless Macon were one of the six kings who came to Edgar at Chester, and no authority is given.
^ It must be remembered, however, that the term " pir.ate " carries no reproach as late as the sixteenth century, and that the most pious Christians reconciled robbery of the stranger with their facile consciences in the days of EUz.abeth.
( 71 )
CHAPTEE IV.
CIVIL HISTOEY OF NAVAL AFFAIBS, 1066-1154.
Ships of the eleventh century — The Long Serpent — Harold's fleet — Eeasons for its failure to oppose William I. — The Normans — William I. as pirate — His claims to the English crown — His preparations — His ships — The Mora — The Danegeld revived — William as conqueror — The admiral's court — -The law of wrecks — Ships of the twelfth century — Loss of the WJiite Ship — Size of ancient vessels probably underrated — Rarity of trustworthy representations of them — M. Jal's remarks.
rjIHE Anglo-Saxon ships of the period of the Norman conquest did not, in all probability, differ materially from those of a somewhat earlier date, save in that they were larger. The warships can scarcely have been very different from those of the contemporary Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, with whom the Anglo-Saxons of the first half of the eleventh century came into such frequent and unpleasant contact. The dimensions of the Gokstad ship have been given. In the eleventh century, they were largely exceeded. Even Olaf Trygg- vesson, who died or disappeared about the year 1000, had a ship, the Lv)ig Serpent, measuring no less than 117 feet in length, and carrying 600 men. Such a vessel ^ was, of course, decked ; and the usual division of the hull was into five cabins or compartments. The foremost one was the " lokit," in which, in a royal vessel, the king's standard-bearers were quartered. Next came the " sax," probably a general store-room, and the " ki'ap- room," where sails and tackle were kept. Abaft this was the " fore-room," containing the arms-chest, and forming the living- room of the warriors; and astern of all was the "lofting" or gi-eat cabin, which was devoted to the commander. In port, at night, the deck was covered with a "tilt" or ridge-pole with pillars and rafters, supporting a cloth, the ends of which seem to have been
' See Nicolaysen's paper on the Viking Ship.
72
CIVIL BISTORT, 1066-1154.
[1066.
fastened with cords to the ship's side at a level with the deck. Beneath this the rowers may have slept.
The build of merchantmen was much like that of men-of-war, except that the latter had more length in proportion to beam. A saga tells how at Nidaros ^ in 1199, King Sverre Sigurdsson seized some trading ships, hewed them in two transversely, and lengthened out their keels and sides that they might be used as war vessels. But it may well be that Harold never possessed any ships as large as the Long Serpent, and that most of his vessels closely resembled the Gokstad relic.
There is absolutely no reason to doubt that Harold had a
SELH«nrc
NdllMAN WAR VESSEL OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.
(As rcatori'it hij M. A. Jal, after the wdiriitiuns in the Baijeux Tapestry, the '* lioman de Roil" and the *' lioman de Brut."')
considerable fleet. Indeed, the Saxon Chronicle expressly says that in the spring of 1066 the largest fleet and army ever seen in England were assembled at Sandwich to resist the invasion threatened by WilHam of Normandy. It is not clear that any squadron of importance was detached from Sandwich against Tostig and Harold Hardrada, and therefore it becomes interesting to inquire ■why William, when he came, was not opposed at sea.
The explanation in the Saxon Chronicle^ is a little vague and imsatisfactory. It is to the effect that the crews refused to serve alter September 8th, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, and
' New TvondlijeiE. The ancient name is still lioine by a Norwegian man-of-war. " p. 463.
1066.] CAUSES OF HAROLD'S COLLAPSE. 73
that, their provisions being gone, "no man could keep them there any longer." The men went to their homes, and the ships were sent up to London, many being lost on the passage. It is just possible that Edward's abolition of the Danegeld or Hercgeld — re-established later, but not under Harold — may have had an in- fluence, concerning which we know nothing definite, upon the condition of the English fleet at the moment of the Norman in- vasion ; but it is still more likely that the king's