Battle Trails of Northumbria

Contents Front Matter..................................................4 Title Page...................................................4 Introduction...............................................5 About The Battles........................................5 Which Northumbria? .................................6 Historical background.................................7 Battle Trails of Northumberland..................11 Alnwick....................................................11 Bamburgh................................................14 Berwick ...................................................17 Carham....................................................26 Coquetdale ..............................................27 Corbridge ...............................................31 Cowton Moor...........................................33 Dunstanburgh .........................................35 Etal..........................................................37 Flodden ...................................................39 Ford.........................................................47 Glendale...................................................49 Grindon Moor..........................................51 Halidon Hill ...........................................52 Heavenfield .............................................54 Hedgeley Moor..........................................57 Hexham...................................................60 Homildon (Humbleton Hill)....................66 Lindisfarne ..............................................69 Milfield Plain...........................................71 Neville’s Cross............................................72 Newburn..................................................76 Newcastle ................................................78 Norham ..................................................83 Piperdean (Or Piperden) ..........................97

Redesdale / Redeswire...............................98 Stainmoor..............................................101 Tynedale ................................................105 Tynemouth ............................................106 Wark-On-Tweed.....................................109 Warkworth ............................................113 Yeavering Bell (Or Geteryne)...................114 Back Matter...............................................115 Also Available.........................................115

   

Title Page

BATTLE TRAILS OF NORTHUMBRIA BY CLIVE KRISTEN        

                Dedicated to the followers of Eric Bloodaxe who had every reason to be suspicious of being governed from the south.

Introduction    

About The Battles  

For the purposes of this book no serious attempt has been made to distinguish between battle ( pitched or not ), siege or skirmish. It was felt this would be at best arbitrary and at worst confusing. In many instances there are no reliable sources for numbers involved in an engagement and many conflicts cannot be adequately described in terms of a single event. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘battle’ as combat, especially between organised forces; ‘pitched’ battle, strictly speaking, is one fought on ground previously agreed upon, whilst a skirmish is technically fighting by troops in irregular or extended order. This created problems in deciding what should go into this book and what should be left out. In the end the decision was almost arbitrary. The measure taken here is the significance of the armed encounter. As many of these battles took place a very long time ago, reliable information is sometimes sketchy and sometimes non existent. Where there is an element of significant confusion this is identified in the text, otherwise the most reliable, probable, and wherever possible, contemporary accounts have been used. It is quite impossible to say how many battles have been fought in Northumbria. The earliest identified here is AD 574 and the most recent 1513. But the true story of Northumbrian battles is much more ancient. During the late iron Age/Celtic period hundreds of hill forts were built – some within view of each other. Farming surpluses - represented by grain and stock – had to be defended. We know from the excavations of burials that warriors were highly prized. It is therefore certain that there were battles in prehistory. During the near millennium of known battles identified above it could be said that for many Northumbrians there was always the

threat of armed conflict. Minor skirmishes interspersed with large raids, the Border Reivers, the occasional siege and the forays of the Norsemen and their depredations are brought home to the tourist when he reads that Northumberland possesses 10,000 fortifications. The Northumbrian’s home literally was his castle!    

Which Northumbria?

  The question of defining Northumbria has also been difficult. There are at least five plausible definitions. The widest area - the Northumbrian Kingdom of Eric Bloodaxe perhaps - covered most of the ground from the Tweed to the Humber. The most arbitrary boundaries are those defined by the modern tourist board. For the purposes of this book Northumbria is that area in which traces of the five dialects of the ancient Northumbrian language are still extant. This is primarily the area between Tweed and Tyne together with parts of Durham and North Yorkshire. As recently as a century ago everyone inside, and nobody outside, had the Northumbrian burr, and more than 80 per cent of the language was Anglian. Their language is 1000 years older than English and through it there is access to a cultural identity. This indeed is the Northumbria of the Northumbrians, although there is also a wider linguistic network which stretches from Berwick to Guisborough, across to Alston and thence to   Greenhead and back to Berwick. The parts of this area, which are to the south and west of the Anglian dialect areas, have sometimes been called the Northumbrian fringe. One ‘fringe’ encounter, at Cowton Moor, is included here : both the battle itself, and its aftermath were of great significance for Northumbria.    

Historical background

  In the beginning the local tribes used to raid each other. This simple principle became so embedded in the culture that it ended only after the union of crowns in 1603 and the decline of the border reivers. Before the coming of the Romans the indigenous tribes protected themselves as best they could, and in so doing created a landscape featuring hill forts and palisaded settlements. When not raiding each other the Ancient Britons of Northumbria also had to had to contend with incursions from the neighbouring Picts & Scottii. The Romans brought a measure of security and prosperity with that great customs and excise barrier Hadrian’s Wall. But in AD 367 a concerted attack on Roman Britain was made by a combined force of Picts, Saxons, Scots and Attecotti. This is known as ‘The Barbarian Conspiracy’ although it is doubtful that in the true sense a conspiracy existed. It was two years before full Roman authority was re-established. Many northern outposts ( such as Bremenium ) were never garrisoned again. Northumbria north of the Tyne was largely left to its fate. We know little detail of the history of Northumbria in the two centuries following the Roman’s departure in AD 410, but the Kingdom of Bernicia ( north Northumbria ) was created in AD 547 at Bamburgh by Ida the Flamebearer who had successfully rampaged his way north after landing a battle fleet near Flamborough Head. A wider Northumbrian Kingdom - the forced union of Bernicia ( of the mountains ) and Deira ( of the Waters ) - came about around AD 592 under the sword of Ethelfrith the Destroyer, a grandson of the fearsome Flamebearer. Although his hold on the whole kingdom was never complete this may just have been the largest ever Northumbrian kingdom - with the northern sector ( Bernicia ) stretching from the Forth to the Tees, and the southern ( Deira ) from the Tees to the Humber. Most historians however accept that the absolute ( tenth century ) control that Eric Bloodaxe briefly had - of a kingdom which stretched from the

Tweed to the Humber - is the archetypal Northumbria. By the early 7th. century a new threat emerged from the south and the territorial ambitions of the Angles and Saxons. In AD 633 the kingdom was devastated by Penda and Cadwallon following the death of King Edwin. Then came the religious wars as heathen was matched against Christian. Celtic Christianity however was to become a unifying force as it brought incomers and natives together to combat the marauding Vikings. In turn, they too were assimilated and accepted. The Normans marched from the south to subdue ‘the wild men of the north’ and built their famous castles to hold the land in their grip. The barons, to whom the castles were entrusted, were for the most part ‘on the make’ and took every opportunity to increase their wealth and status. The greatest threat to the welfare of the people was their overlord.   An early test to Norman rule occurred in 1068 when Earl Morcar of Northumbria led a revolt with more than a little help from what proved to be the last Danish fleet to ravage the coasts of England. Then a Civil War pitched neighbour against neighbour as one lord declared for Stephen and another for Matilda. The anarchy that resulted left the door open for the Scots to raid across the border almost with impunity. Many attempts were made in the 13th. and 14th. centuries to fix the border amicably. In 1222, 1237, 1243 and in 1249 ambitions of English kings thwarted the efforts. Further attempts were made in 1328, 1357, and 1367 when the East and West Marches were created and the policing of them became the responsibility of local barons. In 1381 the Middle March was similarly created. When the country was united again under the Plantagenets, one of Henry II’s first tasks was to take control of the Northumbrian castles. First he took the Earldom from the Scots. Then Newcastle and Bamburgh were given back by Malcolm of Scotland; other castles like Harbottle were built; yet others like Wark-on-Tweed

were rebuilt or strengthened. Some of these castles were soon to be wrecked by King John as he took his revenge on the Northern barons for their rebellion. After Bannockburn ( 1314 ) the Scots had free reign in Northumbria for a period of some ten years, and the land was again burned, looted and pillaged by Robert the Bruce. During this time many Northumbrians threw in their lot with the Scots, either for self-protection or self-aggrandisement. Ravages of a different sort - from the Black Death of 13489 - put an end to ‘official’ Anglo/Scots wars for a number of years. There was however little change in the pattern of purposeful ‘freelance’ raiding. During the Wars of the Roses, when the Percies regularly swapped sides, the Northumbrian castles saw much action. Dunstanburgh alone changed hands five times and paid the ultimate price with its destruction. The Scots, of course, saw their chance again and crossed the border at will. The uprising in support of Perkin Warbeck drew the Scots across the border for further death and destruction, just as support for the French brought them back a few years later; a tide only reversed by Flodden field. The reivers constantly took advantage of the distance from law and authority to help themselves to what they pleased. Those who got in their way were brutally dealt with. Harry Percy stemmed the tide until The Pilgrimage of Grace opened the way once more to raiders from the north. The treaty of 1551, and the clearing of the Debatable Land, brought temporary respite only, and for the whole of Elizabeth’s reign the Borders were in a state of flux. The combining of the thrones brought longer lasting peace, though the Civil Wars and the Jacobite Risings provided further opportunities for the men from north of the border. In fairness to the Scots, it should be pointed out that through the course of history the Northumbrians crossed the border a time or two themselves! It could even be argued that all this was not bad news. Castles,

peles, bastles, barmkins, towers & ordinary dwellings were built, wrecked & rebuilt many times over - creating a constant supply of work for the building trade. An entry in the tax rolls of the fourteenth century sums up the cycle of change in the region’s economy. In 1307 Northumberland paid £916 18s 11d to the king in property tax; they paid nothing at all in 1310, but were forced to pay £2,000 to   the Scottish king in 1312 for immunity - a guarantee which in hindsight was no more reliable than modern election manifestos.  

Alnwick

  Alnwick is one of those lovely small Northumbrian market towns where it is easy to smell the scent of history. Indeed the famous Percy Lion on the bridge below the castle looks north, and the question is often asked : ‘Is it keeping watch for another attack by the warrior Douglases?’ Serious warring here began soon after the Conquest and continued, almost unabated, for three centuries. On 13th November 1093 the Scots King, Malcolm III [ Canmore ], was camped on high ground above the Aln when he was suddenly attacked by English forces led by Roger de Mowbray, Governor of the Castle. It is said that Malcolm was cut down and killed by his own Godfather who was de Mowbray’s steward. Malcolm’s son, Edward, was mortally wounded. It may be that the encounter began with a ruse that can only be described at cheating. According to a contemporary account a knight named Hamund rode out to the Scots army with the keys of the castle on the point of his spear - the recognised signal of surrender. The king approached to take the keys and received a poke in the eye from the wily Hamund. In the moments of shock and confusion that followed Hamund made his escape by crossing the river at a place still known as Hamund’s Ford. Whilst details of this small battle are thin, the memorials more than make up for it. One commemoration was the building of St. Leonard’s Chapel of which there are fragmentary remains. ( However, Malcolm’s Well - to north side of chapel -, is said to be the place where he fell.) Malcolm’s Cross - 1/4 mile higher up hill on opposite side of road - is allegedly sited at the place where the King received the death wound. Only the pedestal of the original cross remains. The rest is a 1774 restoration commissioned by Malcolm’s descendant - Elizabeth, Duchess of Northumberland. Both the chapel and the cross are on private land, but can be easily viewed from the roadside.

In 1135 the castle was captured by David I of Scotland - the first of many more incursions from the north. In 1174 there was an easy victory for the English against Scots led by their king, William the Lion, who was taken prisoner. King Henry believed this was divine intervention, a sign perhaps that God had forgiven him at last for his catchphrase : ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ Such a broad a hint had led inevitably to the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett. On the very day that William was captured, Henry II was being flogged, as a penance, before Beckett’s tomb. In a superstitious age it was probably easy enough to see a connection between a penance and the downfall of his most serious enemy. But the capture of the Scots king had more to do with luck. William had been simply careless. His main invasion army were busy pillaging and laying waste elsewhere and he only had 100 or so men with him. He was waiting for the support of the main force to begin a siege of the castle. In fact William’s campaign of 1174 had been a less-thanspectacular success. His ignominious capture at Alnwick followed an unsuccessful siege at Prudhoe. That could well have been different if he had not already diluted and dispersed his forces. The army, which included Flemish mercenaries, had set out with a strength of 80,000. At Prudhoe he had only 500 knights. Most of the rest were   on general pillaging duty in various corners of Northumberland, indeed some had recently visited Warkworth where 300 men, women and children, who had taken refuge in the church, had been slaughtered. The Lion’s Stone can be found in Rotten Row, to the west of church, near the gateway to Hulne Park. This marks the spot where William was captured. A pseudo-Gothic monument had been previously erected on the south side of Rotten Row in the middle of the 18th. century. The historian, George Tate, revealed its fate when he wrote in 1881 :  

‘Although not such as to gratify a refined taste it was not without beauty and was interesting as an illustration of the style of the period ; and it is regretted that it has recently been taken down and replaced by an erection entirely devoid of taste. This is a large, square, smoothed block of sandstone nearly three feet in height resting on two steps. A polished granite tablet is inserted into the face of the sandstone block ; and on this is the inscription copied from the earlier monument’.   The town was burned under the orders of King John in 1216. In 1327 Robert Bruce led an unsuccessful attack, but his son David Bruce ( King David II ) was more successful in his famous campaign of 19 years later. Although the castle held out against the siege, the town was burned. Later battles for Alnwick are associated mainly with the Wars of the Roses, during which it was occupied successively by both sides. In 1400 the castle was bombarded into submission by Henry IV as part of his response to the Earl of Northumberland’s rebellion. The Scots made a brief return to burn the town in 1427. In 1462 Alnwick was garrisoned for Lancaster after Yorkist victories at Hexham and Hedgely Moor. Two years later it was taken again by York.    

Bamburgh

  In so many ways Bamburgh’s history parallels that of Northumbria. The ‘craggy citadel’ has better claims than Dunstanburgh to be Joyous Garde, the castle of Sir Lancelot to which he ‘eloped’ with King Arthur’s wife, Guinivere. Sir Thomas Mallory, whose 15th. century ‘Morte D’Arthur’ has become almost the authorised Arthurian text, suggested that Bamburgh was the site of Lancelot’s famous fortress. Mallory’s transplanted French legends are just as flimsy ‘evidence’ as the ( centuries-later ) so-called ‘Lancelot effigy’ in the church. What is more certain is that Bamburgh was already a royal and military centre when Ida, the ‘Flamebearer’, and his sons captured it and made it their capital in AD 547. But It was Ida’s grandson, Ethelfrith, who had the will and military muscle to join Bernicia with Deira to form a united Northumbria which covered an area much greater than most of the modern definitions. Although York became the Kingdom’s capital, Bamburgh remained an important and probably heavily fortified residence and many of the early kings were crowned here. The 7th. century was the golden age for Bamburgh. It began when the castle fell by conquest into the hands of King Edwin. He brought the Roman missionary Paulinus to preach Christianity in the lands around it. Perhaps this was not totally appreciated : he was defeated and murdered by pagan enemies at Hatfield ( near Doncaster ) in AD 633. Edwin was succeeded by Oswald, the son of Ethelfrith. He is mainly remembered for setting up the monastery at Lindisfarne that became one of the greatest centres of art and learning in Europe. But he, too, had difficulty maintaining his kingdom. He died in battle in AD 642 and the victorious Mercians under Penda spread ruin far and wide in Northumbria. Penda attempted to set fire to the castle, but it is said that thanks to St. Aidan’s prayers on Lindisfarne, the wind changed and the fire turned against the attackers. An early chronicle describes the fortress of Bamburgh in the

eighth century : ‘ Bebba is a most strongly fortified city, not very large being but the size of two or three fields, having one entrance hollowed out of the rock and raised in steps after a marvellous fashion. On the top of the hill it has a church of extremely beautiful workmanship in which is a shrine rich and costly, that contains wrapped in a pall the right hand of St. Oswald still incorrupt. To the west on the highest point of the city itself there is a spring of water, sweet to the taste and most pure to the sight that has been excavated with astonishing labour’. But the truth was that by the time the castle was besieged by Eardulph in AD 705 a real decline in Bamburgh’s fortunes had begun. There were Viking attacks in AD 993 and 995. In 1015 the town was sacked by Danes and ‘remained desolate for almost a century’. In 1095, following the fall of Tynemouth, William II [Rufus] marched north & besieged Bamburgh which was held by Roger de Mowbray, the Earl of Northumberland. As the castle was strongly defended the king ordered another castle to be built next door called Malvoisin ( bad neighbour). The theory was that this would keep the Earl bottled up. In fact de Mowbray tried to escape by sea and was captured. King William had the Earl taken back to Bamburgh. The negotiations were one sided. De Mowbray was told he could either surrender the castle or have his eyes poked out. His wife, Matilda, who was in charge within, surrendered and the castle was partly destroyed.   The castle was later restored by Henry I, but suffered two further lengthy sieges during the Wars of the Roses. There was yet another siege when the castle held out against a force led by King David of Scotland. The people of Bamburgh also suffered greatly in the Scottish Wars of Henry V. During that time the numbers of freemen in the district declined from 120 to 13. This led to a petition for the reduction of rents which was met by a predictable response.

In 1462 Bamburgh was garrisoned for Lancaster by just 300 men. After two months of siege, and having eaten their last horse, they were forced to capitulate on Christmas Eve to an army of 10,000. Early in 1464 Sir Ralph Grey, a Lancastrian, surprised the garrison and took the castle without a fight, Later the same year Bamburgh had the dubious honour of becoming the first castle in England to succumb to gunfire. In the process it was badly damaged by King Edward IV’s great guns ‘Newcastle’, ‘Dijon’, ‘Edward’, ‘London’ and ‘Richard’. It is said that for each shot fired one of the garrison was later beheaded. Sir Ralph Grey was doubly unfortunate. In the course of the battle a tower was struck by cannon and falling masonry whacked him on the head. Indeed the garrison thought he was dead, gave up heart and gave in. Sir Ralph was later to make a good recovery before being beheaded at York. By the 17th. century the castle had become sadly dilapidated. Much of what is seen today is the restoration of Lord Crewe, the Bishop of Durham. In 1894 it was purchased and further restored and embellished by the first Lord Armstrong whose family still own it today. The great keep and some other parts of the castle and ramparts are open to the public.

Berwick

  The walled town, spectacularly set close to the mouth of the River Tweed, takes its name from Old English: bere = corn; wic = farm. The visitor soon becomes aware of many historical features that evoke a long and turbulent history. During the late medieval period the town reached a zenith of prestige and importance. One contemporary account claimed that Berwick matched Alexandria as a city of merchant princes. Although this was perhaps more public relations than reality, it showed that the merchants of Berwick learned early that it paid to advertise. But Berwick’s status had not been won without bloodshed. Indeed there can be no town in Britain that has heard more calls to arms. King Ida of Bernicia, the first acknowledged ruler of the northern portion of Northumbria, made Bamburgh his capital but, by the time the kingdom was united under Ethelfrith more than a century later, Berwick had become established as the key defensive point of the northern frontier. In 1018 Malcolm II claimed the town for Scotland following his success at the Battle of Carham. It returned to the English crown as part of the ransom for William the Lion in 1174. From that date, almost until modern times, Berwick had led a chequered existence. During the period 1174 - 1482 the town changed hands some 14 times! In 1189 Richard the Lionheart sold it ( back ) to the Scots to raise money for his favourite pastime - crusading. In 1214 King John asserted his authority by burning the town and ‘perpetrating most barbarous cruelties on hapless inhabitants ‘ There was another massacre in 1296 this time perpetrated by Edward I. The English king had taken the part of John Baliol against Robert the Bruce and in controversial circumstances awarded him the throne north of the border. A plaque at the railway station refers to the English King’s championship of Baliol’s cause :

  ‘ This station stands on the Great Hall of Berwick Castle. Here on November 17th, 1292 the claim of Robert the Bruce of Scotland was declined and the decision in favour of John Baliol was given by Edward I before the full Parliament of England and Scotland and a large gathering of the nobility and populace of both England and Scotland’.   Very little of the famous fortress remains, although part of the curtain wall can be seen on the other side of the railway line. One of Northumbria’s greatest historians, Robert Hugill, noted the destruction of the castle like this:   ‘Almost 100 years ago ( he wrote in 1939 ) the last of the ancient structures that had withstood siege and counter siege, and had been occupied in turn by the Scots and English, was razed to the ground to make way for a railway station’.   Following his declaration of support, the English king undermined Baliol’s position by treating him as a subject. Berwick showed what it thought of all this by being the first town to sign the Treaty of Revolt. The price paid for this initiative was a terrible one. King Edward reduced ‘the glorious seaport of the north’ to ashes. In addition to the wholesale slaughter of townsfolk he destroyed the Flemish traders’ warehouses and ordered the repopulation of the town with English traders. The King also commissioned the building of walls, the remnants of which can still be seen near Royal Border Bridge. It made little difference. In the following year the town was recaptured for Scotland by William Wallace. But Edward I had already made sure that the trading importance of Berwick had disappeared. It was never to recover a position of such ascendancy, and, following the betrayal and execution of Wallace in August 1305, his quartered right arm was brought to Berwick to be exhibited. A wholly unauthentic but hugely entertaining visualisation of all this can be found in the film ‘Braveheart’. King Edward also took a terrible revenge on the Countess of

Buchan who was found guilty of the crime of crowning Robert the Bruce. Her punishment was to die of hunger, thirst and exposure. An iron cage was constructed so small that the victim scarcely had room to flex her limbs. She was exposed on the castle walls. The crowds increased each day. Bets were taken on how long she would survive. There was no sign of movement after 11 days. The body, which was left to rot for the next four years, became a morbid curiosity; a popular feature of any regional sight-seeing itinerary. It has even been described as a kind of early tourist board initiative! Robert the Bruce’s attempt to recapture Berwick the following year was thwarted by the barking of a dog which alerted the garrison. Edward I died in 1307. His son, Edward II, fled to Berwick after his defeat in the most decisive battle of the Scottish Wars of Independence, at Bannockburn on the 23rd. June 1314. Edward’s army of 20,000 were moving to relieve Stirling Castle when they were attacked and routed by Robert the Bruce’s much smaller force. On March 1318 the Scots were admitted into Berwick by one of the burgesses, but it took eleven further weeks before the castle fell to Robert the Bruce’s siege. In September 1319 Douglas and Randolph were sent into England by Robert the Bruce with a mission to divert Edward II from a renewed siege on Berwick. Edward was not diverted and made valiant attempts to recapture the town. His attack with scaling ladders was beaten off; and a ship towing the siege tower was burnt and ran aground. Edward was discouraged and decided that the recapture of Berwick could wait. He had intelligence of a group of Scots raiders in the borders and set off to intercept them on their way north. Their intelligence network was more effective : they changed the route and avoided the King’s force. Once again Douglas and Randolph were sent into England by Robert the Bruce with a mission to divert Edward II again from yet another siege attempt on Berwick. There was a brief and conclusive battle at Mylton -on -Swale in Yorkshire at which the Archbishop of York’s motley army was rapidly routed. The diversion had proved

successful. The English decided to avoid further humiliations and campaigns against the Scots were suspended. Indeed, in 1327, a treaty was signed with Robert the Bruce that recognised him as King of an independent Scotland, and of course Berwick. But when the Bruce died, two years later, it was only a matter of time before serious hostilities were renewed. In 1333 Edward Baliol - who remained the English approved claimant to the Scottish throne - laid siege to the town. The other Scots, supporters of the Bruce’s heir, King David II, kept the town supplied by sea. They dared not risk a pitched battle with Baliol, so, under Douglas, they set about a steady rampage through Northumberland. This gave Edward III the excuse he hardly required to break the treaty. Berwick was besieged, and the Scots forced into a pitched battle - were defeated at Halidon Hill. Edward III proved that he could not be outdone by his grandfather in the barbarity stakes. After blockading the town for three months he became impatient. He held two sons of Berwick’s Deputy Governor, Sir Alexander Seton, and made his ultimatum. Unless the keys were handed over he would hang the boys within sight of the walls. Seton’s wife begged him to give in. But the Governor, aware of the terrible privations already suffered by the townsfolk, was not prepared to give in to blackmail. Edward III kept his word. The boys were hung at Tweedmouth. The site of the gallows is still called Hangie Dyke Neuk. The incident is recalled in Sheldon’s Minstrelsy of the English Border :   ‘ The biggit a gallows on hagie-dyke-neuk, And the hangman came there betime; The cock crowed loudly o’er the muirs, ‘Seton’s sonnes, tis matin pryme’.  

The trumpets sounded out oure the Tweed, Wi’ a blast o’ deadly sound; Auld Seton and wife goed up on the wa’s, For their sonnes to death were bound.   They kennt the tread o’ their gallant bairns As they cam forth to die. Richard, he mounted the ladder first And threw himself off the tree.   William, he was his mither’s pride, And he looked sae bauldly on; Then kysed his brother’s lyefless hands, When he found the breath was gone.   He leaped from off the bitter tree, And flouchered in the wynd; Twa bonnie flowers to wither thus, And all for yae man’s mind!   Oh! there was a shriek rose in the air, So wild, so death-lyke gien; A mother’s wail for her gallant bairns, Sich site was seldom seen.  

It called the grey gull from the sea, For he wist his mate had spake, Never a mither in a city walled, Wi’ a heart that wouldn’t break.   The ballad proves several things. William McGonagall cannot claim the undisputed title of the world’s worst balladeer : this poetic effort also demonstrates an equal mastery of unintended bathos. It is also pretty clear which side the writer is on and through that we can judge the strength of anti-English feeling amongst his ‘audience.’   Hang-a-Dyke Neuk is near to the Royal Border Bridge. A late 18th. century account adds : ‘ The remains of two human skulls are to be seen to this day in the poor-house of Tweedmouth, which the oldest and most respectable inhabitants of the village affirm to have been handed down from generation to generation as being the skulls of Sir Alexander Seton’s two sons’ Following this grisly incident Berwick enjoyed almost 45 years of relative peace under English rule. By 1377 Edward III’s Governor in the town was the greatly despised Sir Robert Boynton. His unpopularity may have had something to do with over exercising his droit de seigneur to the extent, it is said, that he once raped a local bride on her wedding day. It is also claimed that he taxed the populace unfairly and kept back part of the money for himself. Those who spoke out against his indiscretions were said to have been arrested and very probably murdered. Whilst his unpopularity is undoubted, the fact that he was English may have been enough, and the catalogue of crimes therefore somewhat exaggerated. Indeed alternative accounts ( from English sources ) paint a picture of a solid family man, loyal to his king, who gave flowers to his aged mother, presented prizes at sports days and held fund-raising events for widows and orphans.

One thing is certain : his death triggered off a new chapter of violence. Seven assassins climbed the castle walls and cut the throats of the guards. After searching several of the main apartments they found Sir Robert in the Great Hall. He had just completed his meal of venison and wine. They accused him of ordering the murder of a local farmer. He denied it. They struck him to the ground with the flat blades of their heavy swords. He begged for mercy. The claymores were lifted over him and the blows rained down as he called on his Maker to receive his soul. The murderers were not satisfied until the corpse was mutilated beyond recognition. This bloody act was truly the spark of revolution. The news of Sir Robert’s murder spread like fire itself. The good men of Berwick joined the assassins on a rampage of the castle. The garrison were butchered and heads and limbs placed on spikes and displayed on the battlements. Edward III’s response was predictable. He ordered a force of 7000 archers and 3000 cavalry to Berwick. After just eight days of siege the English force managed to break through the main gate and overwhelm the defenders. What followed were reprisals that were brutal even by the standards of the age. The 50 members of the defending castle garrison, who had survived the siege, were hung or hacked to death. Many houses were burnt. Both men and women were tortured until all the names of those who had opposed Sir Robert were revealed. Then there were more hangings. In the following year occurred one of the more unusual incidents in Berwick’s turbulent history: The town was captured by raiders in the name of the King of France. The Percy family played a prominent part in its recapture. The dashing style of this adventure earned Harry Percy his nickname - Hotspur. The same gentleman was to become a prominent figure in the Earl of Northumberland’s rebellion against Henry IV in 1400. The result for Berwick was not entirely unexpected. The town was bombarded into submission. There followed more than two generations of relative calm and Berwick began to enjoy something of a revival in prosperity. But

in 1461 the town was sold to Scotland by Margaret of Anjou, the wife of Henry VI, in order to raise money for a campaign against Edward IV for the English throne.   In 1482 the town was again taken for England by Richard of York ( later Richard III ) for his brother, Edward IV. Under a special treaty Berwick became a free burgh. This semi-independent status was enjoyed until it was lost under the Reform Act of 1881. An earlier attempt to bring it into line with the rest of the country had been made in 1746 with an Act of Parliament which stated that the term ‘England’ ( when used in law making etc.) should be deemed also to apply to Wales and Berwick-upon-Tweed. All this confusion of status created at least one splendid anomaly. Berwick, it appears, failed to sign the peace treaty with Russia following the Crimean War and for many years remained technically hostile to Russia. The matter was sorted out amicably in the 1980’s when the town was visited by a Russian Trade Mission. For the most part the walls that can be seen at Berwick today date from the 16th. century. They reflect the continuing strategic importance of the town, a lesson which had been well learnt long before Queen Elizabeth I felt it prudent to secure her northern border. The Queen ordered the military engineer, Sir Robert Lee, to Berwick. After many changes and revisions to plans the work was carried out. The idea was to have semi-concealed double story emplacements within the earthwork itself, with the main and flanking cannon at the top protected by a parapet wall, Passages within the earthworks connected the bastions with the inner ring of the town’s fortifications. The threat from the north subsided after the imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1568. Indeed the work was stopped whilst still hopelessly incomplete : for defence purposes the town continued to rely mainly on its crumbling medieval walls. There were three final stages in the development of the defences. The Elizabethan design was given some practical modifications

during the 17th. century Commonwealth. The Ravendowne Barracks were built after Jacobite incursions in 1715. Following the second Jacobite challenge to the English crown in 1745 there were substantial repairs and improvements to the earthworks.

Carham

  Details of the second Battle of Carham are sketchy. Even the date - probably 1018, but possibly 1016, is disputed. But the event, whenever it occurred, is significant for it established the Tweed as the Anglo-Scottish border and permanently secured Lothian to Scotland. The ‘official’ battle site is an easily identifiable, flat field between the Tweed and the Cornhill road, approximately 1/4 mile from the village of Wark. Today there is little to be seen apart from grass and the occasional grazing animal. In what appears to have been something of a massacre King Malcolm II of Scotland, and Owain the Bald ( otherwise Eugenius the Bold ) of Strathclyde defeated Uhtred ( or Uchtred ) the Earl of Northumberland. Uhtred himself was killed and most of his force annihilated. The Earl had been a powerful and wealthy man. He had raised a levy on the whole male population between Tees and Tweed. This apparently included older men which broke with a time honoured tradition of taxing only men of an age to bear arms. But perhaps the Earl was not all bad. It is said that Bishop Aldune ( otherwise Aldhun) died of grief following Uhtred’s death. Carham means ‘at the rocks’. Following this defeat the English territorial claim to land north of the Tweed was certainly on them. A second earlier battle had probably been fought nearby. Although, by tradition, this battle took place on a field to the south of the present village, there is little evidence of this. At least one historian has argued that the whole battle took place outside Northumberland In AD 833 Ecbright, King of Northumbria, had engaged Danes ‘from 25 ships’ who had landed at Lindisfarne. Again there are few details but the dead were said to include 11 English bishops and two counts. If nothing else this suggests the extent of the carnage and the completeness of the Danish victory.

Coquetdale

  Coquetdale is the loveliest of Northumbrian valleys. Some of the castles, such as those at Alnham and Rothbury have disappeared. Others, such as Harbottle and Cartington are greatly ruined. But there are still plenty of bastles ( fortified farm buildings ) and peles ( with prime examples at Whitton, Tosson and Hepple) that bear testimony to a past when self defence meant more than a course of karate lessons. In common with many other Northumbrian valleys that run close to the border much of the danger came from the tit-for-tat raids of the moss troopers or reivers. The lawlessness was such a problem it was hardly curbed until the 16th. century and not completely conquered until the 18th. It is just possible that one of the most important battles in British history was fought in Coquetdale. Athelstan, son of Edward the Elder and grandson of Alfred the Great, had inherited tactical and political ability, and through this had consolidated what amounted to the first real Kingdom of England. But when the greatest threat came he was already old by the standards of the day. The key battle was fought at Brunnaburh in AD 935. Brunnaburh means ‘Holy place by a river’. By tradition alone this is often said to be Brinkburn in Coquetdale, although there is little solid evidence to even support a claim that Brunnaburh is in Northumbria. But, as there are simply no reputable counter claims, it is worth considering the possibility that tradition, on this occasion, has got it right. The encounter was the outcome of a long power struggle between Athelstan and the Danish Chief, Anlaf Guthrithson. This time the Dublin Danes had hatched a cunning plan with King Constantine of Scotland. The intention was nothing less than to break up the ( nearly ) united English Kingdom. But the success of the plan depended on Northumbrian hostility to Athelstan’s rule. The Danes landed in Northumbria because they knew they could

depend on supporters within the Anglo-Scandinavian aristocracy. These were men like Earl Orm and Archbishop Wulfstan of York. There are no primary sources to tell us how the armies were combined, and the only apparently reliable fact - that they landed a great fleet in the Humber - has been disputed even though the detail derives from a reputable York Chronicle of around AD 1000. Common sense dictates that the army moved northwards mustering support. It was now also late in the year ( around the 23rd. September ) and it is unlikely that they planned to strike into Southern England until the next campaigning season. There was also an inescapable logic in waiting for Idwal and the North Welsh ( who had now joined the conspiracy ) to prepare to strike at Athelstan’s western flank. If all went well, early in AD 936, the spoils of the English Kingdom could be divided between the conspirators. Athelstan’s agents has no doubt provided him with information about the strength of the invasion force and it took him some time to bring together as many West-Saxon and Mercian levies as he could. By the time he had equipped his force, and marched north, it was probably late in November. This was no time of the year for warring, particularly in North Northumbria, but, as a wily old campaigner, Athelstan must have recognised the advantage in that. The army of Anlaf Guthrithson would hardly be in a state of readiness.   Athelstan made a fast attack. The battle opened with a dawn assault. The Southern English fought in separate army units : the West Saxons took on the Celts, the Mercians tackled the Dublin Danes. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes savage hand to hand fighting in regular battle order with the English using the tactic of ‘shield walls.’ The Annals of Ulster say that the struggle was ‘immense, lamentable, horrible, and desperately fought.’ It was certainly no rout but in the end it was the Southern English who won the day. This was followed by a ‘pursuit until nightfall’ with the West Saxon mounted companies cutting down fugitives with ‘blades whetted on grindstones.’ What remained of

the allied force escaped after dark and made their way back to their ships at some very great way from the battlefield’. The losses on both sides had been heavy. The Southern English dead included two of Athelstan’s cousins, two earls, two bishops and ‘ a multitude of lesser men’. But the invading army had been destroyed and scattered. Five Kings, seven of Anlaf Guthrithson’s earls, and one of Constantine’s sons were amongst the dead. Among the fallen kings were the Viking King of the Western Isles and King Owain of the Cumbrians. The battle became known, according to the Chronicler Aethelweard, simply as ‘The Great Battle of the North’. He adds :   The barbarians were overcome on all sides and held superiority no more. The fields of England were consolidated into one. There was peace and abundance in all things’. Or, as the eminent historian Michael Wood puts it : ‘ Athelstan’s warfare provided a foundation for his nephew, King Edgar’s, peace. It had been the High Noon for the AngloSaxon Empire.’   From that time on events in Coquetdale mirrored what was happening elsewhere in Northumbria. In 1174 the valley was seized by William the Lion. In 1216 King John reduced Felton to ashes on his way to do the same to Berwick. In 1295 there were further ravages by the Scots -the following year they laid siege to Harbottle Castle and which held out against a force of 40,000 Scots but all the deer in the park were stolen and killed. The King of Scotland later supplied 20 bucks & 80 does for restocking as compensation. In 1320 the convent at Holystone was ‘totally wasted’ by the Scots. The Prioress petitioned the King for relief and was awarded £5. In 1337 there were further Scots incursions. In 1400 Alnham Castle was bombarded into submission by Henry IV as part of his response to the Earl of Northumberland’s rebellion. Throughout much of the age of the reivers, the ancient Rose & Thistle Inn at Alwinton was used as a meeting place by English and

Scots Wardens of the Middle Marches when they had disputes to settle. These were known as truce days : prisoners were exchanged and compensation for raids was negotiated. During the English Civil Wars Cartington Castle was held by Royalists. These included many noted local families - the Widdringtons, Selbys, Claverings and Horsleys. But in 1664 the castle succumbed after just a few hours of siege and the order was given for it to be dismantled. Though on private land, the distinctive outline of the ruins can be viewed from the myriad footpaths and bridleways on the moors above it.

Corbridge

  Corbridge, literally the ‘Bridge over the Cor’, has been of strategic importance since Roman times. Because of this, the town was once the capital of Northumbria. The carnage that has at one time or another taken place here is symbolised by a field 1/4 mile east of the town, called ‘Bloody Acres’ where a battle is said to have taken place - in all likelihood more than 1000 years ago. What is more certain is that in about AD 81, the Romans first came here and built their onward northern road towards Scotland - later known as Dere Street. This made Corstopitum an important crossing place of the Tyne and a junction to their lateral east-west road - the Stanegate. By the third century it had also become a significant civilian settlement. In AD 367 the wall was breached and Corstopitum fell to a combined force of Picts, Saxons, Scots and Attecotti. This, which was part of a concerted attack on the northern corner of the Roman Empire, had been made possible by the treachery of a native frontier force known as the Arcani. The chequered career of King Ethelred I of Northumbria came to a permanent end at Corbridge. Ethelred had been expelled from his throne in AD 779, had recovered it, but was murdered at Corbridge in AD 796. There is no doubt that this was made possible by a conspiracy of his nobles. The uncertainty of allegiances following the murder made the situation very dangerous. The Emperor of the Franks, Charlemagne, intervened personally. He stabilised the situation by creating a close alliance between the Kingdom of Northumbria and the Franks. In doing so he was also demonstrating support for Etheldred’s successors, Osbald and Eardwulf II. A significant battle took place at Corbridge in AD 919 ( although some sources say 918 or 914 ). Aldred, the King of Bernicia, joined forces with Constantine II of Scotland, but was defeated by Raegenwald ( otherwise Ragnald ) a Viking king from

Ireland. By the following year he had also taken York and had firmly established a new kingdom. In AD 923 both the convent and town were destroyed by Raegenwald who defeated Prince Eabald and took a firmer hold of south Northumberland. In 1138 the town was occupied by the Scots. This was part of King David I’s campaign to detach Cumbria and Northumberland from the English crown. It is said that many atrocities were committed. A century later King John visited Corbridge three times following reports of hidden treasure. His men searched the Roman remains without success. Despite this frustration the King did not take his revenge on the town and townsfolk in his customary manner, But William Wallace made up for this oversight. He burned the town in 1296. Robert the Bruce, who also enjoyed a good bonfire, did the same thing in 1312. Not to be outdone in the now firmly established tradition of pyromania King David II ordered a particularly thorough burning in 1346. The last battle fought here was in truth little more than an overblown skirmish. In 1664 Royalists led by Sir Marmaduke Langdale and Colonel Fenwick were well routed by two regiments of Scots who were fighting the Roundhead cause. Despite the need for constant building and rebuilding, medieval Corbridge became a large and prosperous borough. This was ended by a force more devastating than any of the efforts of the Scots. The population was decimated by the plague. By the time the seven arched bridge was completed in 1674 Corbridge had become little more than a village. Modern Corbridge is full of appeal for the visitor with an interest in history - and shopping! Its centre is the Market Place with the Saxon church and fascinating vicar’s pele. The seven arched bridge is still there as are the remains of the Roman settlement of Corstopitum.

Cowton Moor

  During the period of English anarchy ( otherwise known as the reign of King Stephen ) the Scots King, David I, did his best to take advantage. His support of the claim of Matilda to the English throne therefore may have less to do with the worth of her cause than an opportunity to cash in. David was no stranger to taking a calculated risk. By 1138 Stephen had largely given up the defence of the northern shires and had devolved responsibility to the barons of Yorkshire. And David’s army included the terrifying ‘Picts of Galloway’. Contemporary accounts describe them as ‘bestial men who slaughtered children, raped women and roped up survivors for slaves’. They were also frequently said to be out of control. They were lightly armed with swords, pikes and leather covered shields. These ‘Picts’ were feared skirmishers who King David expected to strike terror into the heart of the enemy. They wore short kilts fetchingly designed to leave their buttocks semi -exposed. One rationale of this is that, naturally enough, they were exceeding loathe to retreat. Or as one eminent historian put it : ‘ the fashion in which the kilt was worn offers a whole new interpretation of being exposed to an attack from the rear’. The English, who could not possibly match this fearful appearance, settled instead for a sturdy standard made of a ship’s mast which supported the banners of St. John of Beverley, St. Peter of York, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon. On August 22nd. 1138 the Battle of Cowton Moor was fought near Northallerton. The English countered the charge of the dreaded Picts with a hail of arrows. The Picts ran away, it has been observed, with ‘many looking like hedgehogs’. The rest of King David’s army lost heart and followed them. The King himself was fortunate to escape to Carlisle. He gathered together the remnants of his army and went on a vengeful rampage through north Northumberland. Encouraged by this and the developing chaos in the land he began a campaign

of more successful military ventures and by the end of 1139 an agreement was made at Durham. Prince Henry, King David’s son, was granted the Earldom of Northumberland. By 1142 King David effectively controlled England north of the Ribble and Tyne. Today it is almost impossible to identify the precise site on which the battle took place.

Dunstanburgh

  Dunstanburgh Castle appears even today to be more of an unfinished building than a ruin. It stands alone on a small rocky outcrop and it is all in the name : Dunstanburgh means ‘ the stronghold on the hill of rock.’ The castle was begun in 1313 by Thomas Earl of Lancaster, High Sheriff of England. Permission to crenellate was given three years later. Initially the castle was regarded as an ‘insurance policy’ against Scottish incursions, but after 1340 became the property of John of Gaunt, and, when Gaunt’s son made himself King Henry IV, it became a royal residence. Dunstanburgh was a Lancastrian stronghold in the Wars of the Roses. In 1462 Margaret of Anjou ( wife of the beleaguered King Henry VI ) laid siege to the castle successfully. The same Margaret was defeated by Warwick’s forces at Hexham two years later and the castle at Dunstanburgh began to fall into ruin. Tradition claims that Queen Margaret escaped from the carnage of Hexham and sought temporary refuge at Dunstanburgh before escaping in a small boat from the adjacent port. The port is referred to more than once in history and it is said that part of Henry VIII’s fleet once sheltered here in a storm. But the site seems inadequate unless the land level was once considerably lower. It is more likely that Dunstanburgh Port was never a port at all. The respected historian, Robert Hugill, believed it probably meant the well established fishing port of nearby Craster, During the Wars of the Roses Dunstanburgh changed hand five times. During one fairly brief passage of time the Governor, Sir Ralph Percy ( known as the Falcon of Dunstanburgh ) delivered the castle first to the Yorkists, then to the Lancastrians, only to see it again recaptured by the Earl of Warwick. The impressively ruined, twin towers of the gatehouse are a beacon to those who take the short walk along the shoreline from nearby Craster. The castle is in the care of English Heritage and is open to the public most days of the year.

Etal

Although greatly ruined this small castle still manages to capture the imagination. The most impressive part of the little that remains is the gate house, open to visitors all the year round. The castle and settlement, situated above the River Till, take their name from ‘the low ground settled by Eata’. Building began in the 1340’s when ‘licence to crenellate’ was requested from the King, Edward III, by Robert Manners. The Manners family had held the Manor of Etal from at least the middle of the previous century. In common with building strategies of the time the keep was created first, followed by the curtain wall, the gatehouse and outbuildings. The most substantive part of what now remains is what one historian called ‘ the massive and gloomy gatehouse’. He probably saw it on a grey day : massive it is at 36 feet square, but it is not so much gloomy as impressive. It may seem as if Scots King, James IV, had a particular grudge against Etal. In 1496 the king, known as Iron Belt, invaded in support of the claim of a Flemish boy, Perkin Warbeck, to the throne of England. [Warbeck had been trained to impersonate Richard, the younger son of Edward IV, one of the ‘Princes in the Tower’.] He ordered the destruction of the castle. But Etal will always be associated with the Battle of Flodden. Although there is no doubt that James IV again captured this stronghold, the extent of the damage he ordered - or indeed that which was carried out - is uncertain. The castle was certainly not, as one account has it, ‘dismantled.’ One irony is that some of the guns used to ‘destroy’ Etal before Flodden were brought back to the castle as spoils of war, and cannonballs similar to those used in the battle have also been found here. In 1541 the Commissioners found Etal in great decay and recommended immediate repair as this seemed an ideal place for a war garrison. As with so many recommendations to government this advice was ignored. In 1547 occupation by the Manners family ended and the wholesale destruction of the castle was left to the

greatest enemies of all - the stone stealers and the Northumbrian weather!

Flodden

  The battle took place on Friday, 9th September 1513. It was the last, and possibly the bloodiest, medieval battle fought on English soil. It was also the last time that personal standards would fly, knight would fight knight, and archers would prove triumphant over spear and sword. The principal protagonists were James IV of Scotland and Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. King James had crossed the Tweed near Coldstream on 22nd. August. His army was, according to one historian : ‘the best equipped that had ever marched from Scotland.’ The King’s purpose was to assist the French whose lands were being attacked by Henry VIII. He had made the decision to attack England after having received a ring from the Queen of France. The small matter of 14,000 French crowns was no doubt a more serious inducement. The PR version was, of course, rather different. King James said that his purpose was to revenge the death of Sir Robert Kerr, Warden of the East Marches. He had been murdered at a border meeting in 1508 by ‘The Bastard Heron’ ( a technical rather than abusive description of the gentleman ) and two other Englishmen. In fact the King of Scotland had almost too recently signed a ‘Treaty of Perpetual Friendship’ with his brother-in-law Henry VIII of England, and ( as additional insurance no doubt ) a similar treaty with France was still in force. The border castles of Norham, Ford, Etal, and Chillingham were taken rather easily. Then, having set up a major camp on the heights of Flodden ridge ( 509 feet high ) overlooking the Milfield Plain - the direction from which they anticipated the advance of the English - the Scots settled down to wait. The King made Ford his personal headquarters. The reason for this apparent inactivity was to avoid dissipating the strength of his army by advancing too far into Northumberland. Meanwhile the Earl of Surrey, entrusted with the defence of

England ( whilst his King was on a ‘working holiday’ in France ) advanced northwards. The Earl, now more than 70 years of age, was a veteran of Bosworth. More importantly he knew the Borders and Borderers well. He had begun his march from Pontefract and reached Durham on August 30th., where he received St. Cuthbert’s Banner - an important talisman to his northerners. He called the men of Durham and Northumberland to join him at Newcastle. Then with an army of 30,000 to 40,000 he advanced to Alnwick, where he was joined by his son, Thomas Howard, the Lord Admiral, who had brought an additional 5000 men by sea. Surrey advanced first to Bolton, and on to Wooler Haugh. But it was from Alnwick however that he challenged the Scots to come and do battle on the Milfield Plain. King James did not think much of the suggested venue, but agreed to the day. His present position, he believed, was much stronger. Surrey marched to Barmoor Wood, four miles from Flodden. Whilst waiting for the approach of the English army King James had dispatched raiding parties. Unfortunately for James some of the raiders decided to operate on a freelance basis and scuttled back across the border with their booty.   As the once mighty force began to evaporate the King was advised not to go into battle. But he remained confident of the strength of his position and felt honour bound not only to maintain his promise to his French allies, but to meet Surrey on the appointed day. He was also confident that reports that the English army were in poor condition were accurate, as there was evidence that supplies and essential equipment had not yet caught up with the advancing force. But as the waiting continued more of the Scots decided that the glens were more attractive than the glory and took themselves home. It is estimated that the Scots had between 60, 000 and 100,000 men when they crossed the Tweed. 18 days later, when the battle was about to begin, the numbers had dwindled to perhaps as

few as 30,000. But many of the reports received by King James were correct. The English had suffered unseasonably moist weather during the march north and were not in the best physical condition. They had also suffered great mental stress : there had been so little ale or wine on their journey they had been forced to drink water. The Scots however were well provisioned and had ample supplies of whisky and wine. This disparity was, in itself, probably a fair excuse for a battle. By the time the great drums started beating battle rhythms the armies were of probably very similar strength. Early on the morning of the 9th. Surrey left his camp with the vanguard of his force and crossed the bridge at Twizel. Meanwhile the rearguard crossed at Willowford and Sandyford respectively, to the north and east of the village of Crookham. The scene was described by Sir Walter Scott in his epic poem ‘Marmion’ :   ‘ From Flodden ridge The Scots behind the English host Leave Barmour Wood, their evening post And heedful watched them as they crossed The Till by Twizel Bridge. High sight it is, and haughty, while They dive into the deep defile; Beneath the caverned cliff they fall, Beneath the castle’s airy wall. By rock, by oak, by hawthorn tree, Troop after troop are disappearing ; Troop after troop their banners rearing, Upon the eastern bank you see. Still pouring down the rocky glen,

Where flows the sullen Till, And rising from the dim-wood glen, Standards on standards, men on men, In slow procession still, And sweeping o’er the gothic arch, And pressing on in ceaseless march, To gain the opposing hill’.   It has been argued that King James could have won the day there and then by unleashing an assault as the English crossed the river. Apart from the advantage of attacking from above, the English army was divided.   But there was a good reasons for maintaining position at Flodden : to the north of Branxton there was a near swamp - the Pallinsburn Bog - which it was thought would be a serious obstacle for the English. Furthermore the weather had continued wet. It even rained on the eve of the battle In the event part of the English force skirted the perimeter of the moss and the rest crossed by Branxton Brig, a causeway or crossing, which ( surprisingly ) had not been identified by the Scot’s scouts. At this stage King James must have realised that things were going horribly wrong. The English were intent upon occupying Branxton Hill ( 500 ft. high ), a position as strong as Flodden with the bonus of cutting off King James’s escape to Scotland. The king ordered the camp’s refuse to be set on fire and took advantage of smoke cover and a south east breeze to transfer his force to Branxton ridge. Contemporary sources referred to battle ‘on Branxton Field’ or ‘at Branxton Stead’. Indeed the naming of Flodden itself is uncertain. Whilst ‘dun’ is certainly a hill, ‘flode’ suggests a channel or stream. Alternative linguistic roots for the first syllable include ‘fluoh’ meaning rock,

and ‘flo’ which could be either flat or strata. The battle itself looked as if it would be a close run affair. Both sides had similar dispositions - a centre, two wings and a reserve force. As they took up position the battle lines were about a mile and a half long. Hostilities opened around 4 p.m. with exchanges of artillery. The ‘sturdy men’ of Tynemouth and Bamburghshire ( Dacre’s English rearguard ) fled as soon as the Scots opened fire. They were immediately followed by Edmund Cheshire’s followers. But the English had the better of the cannon fire : there can be little doubt that the morale of the Scots was severely tested by their losses. When the battle was joined at close quarters the Earl of Huntley and Lord Home, leading the Scots left wing, soon put the English right wing ( under Sir Edmund Howard ) to flight. But further Scottish success in that sector was halted by John ‘The Bastard’ Heron’s north countrymen. The Scots had more joy when Errol and Crawford engaged the Lord Admiral. At this stage the whole English position was perilous. But they did have a secret weapon. They had endured weeks of marching in wet conditions so they were well practised in coping : many of them fought in stockinged feet to counteract the slippery conditions. The big breakthrough however came from the English left wing which had held off an attack from Highlanders lead by Lennox and Carlisle. It was then that the English bowmen did their best work. Many of the clansmen were struck down. Nevertheless it is surprising that King James decided to abandon his near impregnable position on the hill. He certainly threw away what advantage remained by descending to accept hand-to- hand fighting. In mitigation for what turned out to be a military decision almost as foolhardy as that taken by Custer at Little Big Horn, there may be mitigating circumstances. He may not have known that the English flank had been turned. The Scots maintained a phalanx of eight yard pikes, effective

against cavalry but almost useless against the sustained onslaught of artillery and archers. As they moved downhill they could not maintain a proper line and shape in the slippery conditions.   The English sustained the advantage with an advance of pikemen to the summit of the ridge. From this point the Scots centre could be attacked from the rear and the real slaughter began. It continued until nightfall.   Sir Walter Scott’s descriptive verses run : ‘The English shafts in volleys hailed : In headlong charge their horse assailed ; Front, flank and rear, their squadrons sweep To break the Scottish circle deep, That fought around their king. But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, Though charging Knights like whirlwinds go, Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, Unbroken was the ring ; The stubborn spearmen still make good Their dark impenetrable wood, Each stepping where his comrade stood, The instant that he fell. No thought was here of dastard flight; Linked in the serried phalanx tight, Groom fought like noble, squire like knight, As fearlessly and well, Till utter darkness closed her wing

O’er their thin host and wounded king’.   At the darkest moment of the battle Lord Home refused to come to the assistance of his king. He said infamously : ‘ He does well that does for himself. We have fought our vanguards and have won the same, therefore let the lame do their part as well as we’. The Scots King, James IV, was killed along with 30 of his noblemen. He had dismounted before the end and fought on foot ‘like a mean soldier’. It is said that the 40 year old monarch died bravely. It was Lord Dacre [ Warden of the Middle Marches and Keeper of Harbottle Castle ] who found the king’s body amongst Scots dead. The corpse was taken to Berwick, and then ( on the orders of Henry VIII) to Shene Monastery in Surrey. In all Scots lost at least 9,000 men and the English 5,000. After the battle Lord Home joined the Moss troopers of Tynedale and Teviotdale to strip the slain and plunder the baggage of both armies. He was later to be executed for his treachery in not attacking the English. Fighting on a small scale continued the next day until the rest of the Scots learnt of the death of their king. Many of the bodies of the fallen of both sides were taken and buried in communal graves at Branxton. The Earl of Surrey, who had been stripped of another of his titles - Duke of Norfolk - following Bosworth, had that title and lands reinstated in recognition of his victory at Flodden. Beyond the modern battle cross, the cannon at Etal, and cannonballs displayed in a local hostelry, there is surprisingly little physical evidence that has survived from the site that can be viewed locally. The song ‘Flowers of the Forest’ provides an almost more tangible memorial. Anyone who has visited the memorial, though, can be left in little doubt of the horrors of the day, as its atmosphere is almost palpable.  

Scots guns ( like Mons Meg on show in Edinburgh Castle ) were supposedly the best in Europe, but it seems that their salesmen had been more effective than the weapons themselves. St Cuthbert’s Banner was taken back to Durham along with Scottish Royal Standard, which was also placed in the shrine.

Ford  

Ford is a model village of great charm. There is little left of the medieval castle of the Herons. The main buildings were transformed into a gothic mansion in the middle of the 18th. century. It is now a County Council owned conference centre. This belies its warlike past. It began its chequered existence in the 13th. century as Odinel de Forde’s manor house. Sir William Heron won a licence to crenellate the building in 1338. He was an important man - Captain of the castles of Bamburgh, Pickering and Scarborough, Warden of the Northern Forests, and High Sheriff of Northumberland. He also knew how to look after his own interests. When a Scots raiding party plundered him of £600 worth of cattle he countered with a foray of his own. His ‘bag’ included 320 oxen, 1,600 sheep and around £100 in ready cash. By 1367 Ford was reckoned to be a key border fortress. Certainly the Scots thought so. They captured it in 1385 and so effectively demolished the place that a survey of just a few years later described it as ‘utterly ruined.’ The popular story about Ford concerns events leading up to the battle of Flodden. It is said that Lady Heron was determined to buy time for Surrey’s expeditionary force by delaying the further advance of the Scots. The tactic she employed was to make advances of her own to King James who, it is said, found this bargain more to his liking than the return of two noblemen. The dalliance that followed was supposed to have been facilitated by a secret staircase that linked their apartments. Indeed, when the Marchioness of Waterford restored the castle to make it her home a staircase was discovered and there was immediate speculation about its ‘historical significance’. Sadly there is good evidence that the staircase was built two and a half centuries after Lady Heron’s heroic efforts to improve the chance of an English victory. James IV had chosen Ford as his base before Flodden but there is no proof that he slept there. But the tradition remains that he left reluctantly and wearily on the dawn of the day of battle. The story

may be improbable, although it is recorded that Chatelaine Heron was a remarkably beautiful woman... There is an inscription in the ‘King’s Room’ in the King’s Tower, to the west of the main building, that reads : King James ye 4th. of Scotland did lye here at Ford Castle AD 1513. This perhaps only proves that people should not believe what they read - even if it is written in stone. One thing we know for certain is that when the soldiers left Ford on the fateful road to Flodden Field, King James left instructions that the castle should be razed to the ground. Presumably this was a military decision rather than a comment on the standards of comfort and entertainment provided by the management. The castle did rise again from the ashes but was only partially restored. In 1541 it resisted a strong attack by the French on behalf of Scotland, but again the damage was considerable. All but the north-west tower was destroyed. It was Thomas Carr who heroically held out in the tower against Sieur d’Esse, the brilliant French commander who had battered most of the castle to pieces with four guns. Carr’s gallant exploit found favour in the eyes of the heiress and they were married, although more blood was spilt before they were allowed to settle down. The Herons wanted to retain Ford and a party of them were on their way to seize it when they were ambushed by Carr’s supporters. Most notable amongst the dead was the Mayor of Berwick ( a Heron supporter ) who ‘was slain with fifteen bloody wounds upon him.’ The Scots returned during the English Civil Wars, most notably in 1640. One account says : ‘ they deal very subtly, they hurt no man and pay for what they take, so the country gives them all the assistance they can. Many of the country gentry came to entertain them, one of them was Mr. Carr of Ford’. Eight years later, when the Royalists came, their attitude was markedly different. They plundered all they could carry.

Glendale

  It is said that King Arthur fought the first of his 12 battles at the mouth of the River Glein. The historian Nennius, writing around three centuries after Arthur’s supposed death, is one of ( two ) key sources thought to contain authentic survivals from fifth and sixth century history. He believed the battle was fought where the Glen joins the Till. A translation of the relevant document begins :   ‘ Then Arthur fought against them ( that is, the AngloSaxons ) in those days with the kings of the Britons, but he himself was the leader of battles. The first battle was at the mouth of the River Glein’. €

We later learn that one of the Saxon chiefs ranged against Arthur in the ‘great battle’ had the unlikely name Ossa the Knife Man. And, as far as documentary ‘evidence’ goes, that is about it. And, as with everything connected with Arthurian tradition, even Nennius would not ordinarily be regarded as being anything more than informed speculation. However this speculation was refuelled when, in the late 19th. century, two ancient bronze swords were found buried upright on Ewart Park lands. Human bones, dated as Saxon, have also been found, and, an Anglo-Saxon royal hall with its associated buildings including a fort-like enclosure taken over from the British predecessors on the site. As historian, Michael Wood, puts it :   ‘Could this famous place, later chief residence of the Northumbrian royal family, have been Nennius’s Glein? It is not impossible that an early battle was fought here at a major Celtic site conquered by the Anglo-Saxons. But, again, a late fifth century battle with the Anglo-Saxons is

out of the question. They were not here until the mid sixth century’. €

There is also speculation that the battle site, of whatever age or provenance, could be the bed of Prehistoric Glendale Lake. Even today part of the beach and bank of this ( around 40 feet high ) can be seen from between the Wooler Auction Mart and the Tankerville Hotel.

Grindon Moor

  Grindon is one and a half miles north west of Duddo. The word means ‘green hill’ which is probably a fair description of the landscape on a fine day. This is lovely rolling countryside running up the Cheviots. In 1558 around 1000 Scots horsemen and foot soldiers encountered a force led by the Earl of Northumberland and his brother, Sir Henry Percy. There are only scanty accounts of the course of the battle. Suffice to say the Scots came second and were driven back over the Tweed.

Halidon Hill

  The Scots, under Robert the Bruce, captured Berwick in 1318 and held it for 15 years. In a negotiated settlement in 1328 Edward III gave up his claim to Scottish territory in return for £20,000 paid by the Scots as compensation for damage done on English soil. The treaty was further cemented by a royal marriage : King Edward’s son married the Bruce’s heir. However, following the death of the Scot’s King, Edward III prepared for a new campaign against Scotland and the Siege of Berwick began on April 12th. 1333. The town however was well garrisoned and provisioned and whilst the siege continued King Edward led the greater part of his army into Scotland, a campaign which culminated in the capture of Edinburgh Castle, Lord Archibald Douglas meanwhile had raised an army to relieve the Berwick Siege. In an attempt to divert Edward’s army he marched to Bamburgh where the Queen was resident. But Edward insisted that the Berwick siege continue. This demonstrates either his confidence in Bamburgh’s impregnability, or his totally focused bloody mindedness. Douglas now had little choice but to seek a battle with Edward’s forces. He wish was granted on June 13th. (1333 ) when he encountered the English army occupying Halidon Hill, two miles north west of Berwick. The site is remarkably easy to recognise and there are magnificent views to the south over the town. [ The battlefield of Halidon ( ‘ Holy’ Hill ) can be most easily accessed today by taking the A6105 ( Duns road ) out of Berwick. Turn right at the Maternity Home, park safely and then continue on foot, left, down an unmade road.] Before the battle began there was a challenge to single combat issued by a giant Scotsman called Turnbull, It was accepted by a brave, if foolhardy, Norfolk Knight called Sir Robert Bensale. Turnbull advanced with ‘a most fearful mastiff at his heal’. This he released and the beast ran menacingly towards Sir Robert who dispatched it to the great kennel in the sky with three skilful thrusts

of his sword. Turnbull proved to be a more worthy adversary and Sir Robert required all his agility to avoid the blows that rained down on him. But when he saw his opening he took it. One side swipe removed Turnbull’s arm. A second took off his head. The Scots did not appear to be intimidated by this setback. They were hugely superior in numbers, and though slowed by the boggy conditions, they advanced steadily up the hill, only to be greeted by a shower of arrows. The tactic of using the bowmen in this way proved to be devastating. The English spearmen followed up the advantage with a charge down the hill. Most of the Scots fled. Estimates of how many died are predictably varied. But it seems clear that somewhere between 14,000 and 35,000 Scots perished with their leader. English casualties were light. The battle is still recalled as one of the most humiliating defeats in Scottish history. Berwick was to surrender almost immediately. King Edward took hostages from the most eminent families as insurance against the future loyalty of the town to the English crown. The victory also meant that Edward III was now master of southern Scotland. The novel tactical use of the archers was also to have a farreaching effect. Edward was so delighted with this success that it was incorporated into the battle plan for Crecy - arguably England’s greatest ever military success against the French. Today the only physical reminder of the battle is a tall monument stone at the roadside below the hill.

Heavenfield

  Heavenfield, which was fought in AD 635, is one the most important and decisive battles in early English history. It effectively resolved a long running saga of strife between the Anglo-Saxons and Welsh, and established Roman Christianity in Northumbria. The site of the Battle of ‘Hefenfield’ ( or Hefenfelk, or Haethfelth) is marked by a plain wooden cross outside the village of Chollerford on the B6318. This was said to be the first memorial of its kind ever raised in Bernicia. During the early decades of the 7th. century the Northumbrians became embroiled in an extended period of conflict with the heathen King of Gwynedd, Cadwallon. In an earlier battle, which took place at Heathfield ( Hatfield in AD 633 ) near Doncaster, Cadwallon had been allied with Penda of Mercia. King Edwin of Northumbria was killed and much of his army destroyed. Within the year Edwin’s natural successors had also been killed. This exposed Northumbria, once again divided into Bernicia and Deira, to a series of raids and incursions during which the land was pillaged. The Northumbrians rallied round Oswald, an unlikely character to be cast as ‘saviour’. Oswald, second son of Ethelfrith, was a deeply religious and contemplative man who had been educated by Celtic monks. He set up his military HQ at Bamburgh before beginning a march south. Cadwallon had anticipated this and attempted to wrong foot Oswald by rushing north from York along Dere Street. But King Oswald’s small, but highly mobile force, was able to divert in time. They prepared a special ‘reception’ for the Welsh near Hexham. King Oswald had wisely chosen a plateau which was protected from the west and south by rocky escarpments, and to the north by a section of the Roman wall which was then still largely intact. In effect Oswald was using it to protect his flank and to make the enemy approach and attack more predictable. The great chronicler of the event was Bede. He describes how

Oswald put up a cross as a standard and led his fighting men in prayer : ‘ Let us all bow the knee, and together pray the Almighty God, living and true, that He will in his mercy save us from a proud and savage enemy, as he knows that we have undertaken a just war for the salvation of our nation’. €

The compact shape, and natural flanking defences of the battleground was to prove important. It prevented Cadwallon from using his wings and left him vulnerable to a sustained downwards attack at his centre. This is what happened. The army of the allconquering Welsh King was routed in the first charge. Cadwallon roused his main force for a last ditch stand at Hallington ( five miles north of Chollerford ) but this was also doomed to failure. In his understated way Bede recalls : ‘Oswald lead his army towards the enemy with the first dawn of day and obtained the victory as their faith deserved. Never was day more lamentable for the Britons, or more joyful for the Angles’. Bede was also fond of omens, particularly if they accorded with his sense of natural justice. He points to the significance of the Heavenly Field, a name bestowed long before the battle and therefore ‘ a sure omen of events to come’. To add to the import of this he records a number of miracles that occurred later. For Bede, Heavenfield was much more than ‘Popular Northern Leader Defeats Welsh Upstart’. It represented a famous victory for a Christian king against the pagan.   The remnants of the Welsh army took flight down Dere Street and were pursued by the Northumbrians. At Deniseburn ( almost certainly the Rowley Burn ) Cadwallon was caught and killed. It was the last major battle fought between Angles and Britons. The victory reunited and Christianised the whole of Northumberland. It also placed Oswald in a very powerful position

: he was acknowledged as overlord in East Anglia, Wessex and in much of Scotland. Oswald invited Aidan to come down to Lindisfarne from Iona. This was the catalyst for a cultural and religious awakening which is still regarded by many as the Golden Age of Northumbria. A memorial church was built on the Heavenfield site. An 18th. century Chapel of St. Oswald-in-Lee was erected in the same place, and close to the fields where the battle was fought. A Roman altar was previously used as the base for a stone cross - between the church and the wall - which marked the battle site. Today there is a small lay-by for parking and an information board, too. On the south side of the road opposite the chapel is a field named Mould’s Close where it is believed the greatest carnage occurred. Plenty of skulls and sword fragments have been recovered from there, and, according Camden, repairs to the earlier chapel during the reign of Elizabeth I unearthed a silver coin featuring Oswald’s head on one side and a cross on the other. The Durham Covent used this as their common seal for many years, Unhappily, Oswald was not to enjoy his victory for very long. He was killed at Oswestry ( Maserfield ) in AD 642. He was 37 years old.

Hedgeley Moor

  During the Wars of the Roses the Lancastrians came to rely on Scotland as an ally. So, when in 1464, James III of Scotland sent ambassadors to negotiate with the English King, Edward IV, at York, the implications were serious. It was Lord Montague, the younger son of Warwick the Kingmaker, who was charged with travelling north to provide an escort for the ambassadors through Northumberland. His small force - ‘Four score spears and bows too’ - evaded an ambush set at Newcastle, and he built up his army through local recruitment before finding his way blocked by Sir Ralph Percy, the second son of the Earl of Northumberland. It is said that before the battle Sir Ralph summoned a soothsayer and was warned that the treachery of Lords Hungerford and Ros would lead to his own death in battle. Historians disagree on the date of the encounter. The 25th. April 1464 ( St. Mark’s Day ) is most commonly offered, with 23rd. and 15th. April as the alternatives. But less in doubt is the battle site - a ridge which forms part of Hedgely Moor not far from the village of Wooperton. The modern A697 passes close to the spot. The battle was fierce but brief and indeed Sir Ralph’s trust in Hungerford and Ros was misplaced. They were quick to save their own skins when the tide of battle turned against them and left Sir Ralph to his fate. A balladeer put it like this :   Cursed be Hungerford, cursed be Ros Who left the noble Percy there; ‘“But on,” he cried, “I will not yield For honour be my strength and shield.”   This was typically heroic, but tactically stupid. Even Sir Ralph Percy was finally forced to the conclusion that ‘discretion is the better part

of valour’. But his tardy escape from the battlefield was thwarted. A small lay-by opposite the saw mill marks the spot where two large standing stones, about 10 metres apart, are said to mark ‘Percy’s Leap’ . This is not an Olympic long jump record but the distance covered in one bound by the faithful steed on which the already mortally wounded Sir Ralph was mounted. It is a charming piece of folklore which should be weighed against pretty conclusive evidence that the stones were in place several centuries before the battle. An information board gives the disposition of the armies at the start of the battle and only a little imagination is required to hear galloping horses heading down the ridge. Half a mile from the ‘Leap’ is Percy’s Cross, a more reliable battle monument. This can be located by a stone bungalow and a gate bearing the legend ‘Public Access to Percy’s Cross’. The cross, which is now located in a farmyard, is found via a short swathe of woodland. The cross is in fact a four-sided pillar mounted on a circular pedestal which bears the Percy arms and associated heraldic insignia. It is likely that the cross was commissioned by Sir Ralph’s nephew - a future Earl of Northumberland. In bygone times annual games of cudgel and football were played here.   Inevitably there is also a Percy’s Well nearby. According to tradition Sir Ralph paused for a drink here in the heat of battle. This is the stuff of legend if not fact. The former St James’s Well was renamed to the greater glorification of the Percies more than a century after the battle. It is said that Sir Ralph’s dying words were : ‘ I have saved the bird in my bosom’. This is assumed to be figurative and possibly a reference to his oath of allegiance to Henry VI. One problem with this is that Sir Ralph was an opportunist whose coat had been turned more regularly than a tailor’s dummy : he had twice sworn allegiance to Edward IV. A better possibility perhaps is that Sir Ralph had kept a secret - possibly the temporary North Sunderland address of the fugitive Queen Margaret And the Lords Hungerford, Ros did not long escape the revenge

of the Percies, although the deed was done on the instruction of the again victorious Lord Montague. Also on the axeman’s agenda were the Lords Molins, Findern, Taillebois and two others. Scarcely a month after the battle of Hedgely Moor, a de luxe scaffold erected on Newcastle’s Sandhill. A huge crowd gathered for a special event : hangings were common enough but the prospect of watching the headsman’s special skill was irresistible. Only the very privileged were awarded dispatch by the axe rather than the rope. There was a massive cheer as the captured Lords were led out to meet the executioner and a special ballad was hastily composed to mark the occasion : ‘ Oh happy headsman swing your axe For Hungerford and Ros, And may Taillebois thank his Maker For he has escaped the noose’.

Hexham

  Hexham was known to Bede as Hagustaldes-ea which means ‘the water beside which dwelt the younger son.’ The town escaped the worst of the early Viking raids. But in AD 875 the town’s luck changed. The church was burned and wrecked by Haldane and his marauding Danes and the townsfolk were slaughtered or driven away. Hexham remained desolate until 1113. It is said that Hexham, unlike Ripon, never fully recovered from this setback. Booty from the period - thought to have been deliberately hidden - was found in 1832 in the old graveyard ( known as Campy Hill ) to west of the Abbey’s north transept. An equally violent attack in 1295 led to the death of 200 scholars of the Abbey school. A raiding party, featuring the bare backsided Picts of Galloway led by Robert de Ros, fired the building and blocked the doors. All the Abbey documents were also destroyed. In 1346 the town was again ravaged by Scots under King David Bruce. The Battle of Hedgely Moor in the Wars of the Roses was a major setback for the Lancastrian cause. Many of the Premier League noblemen who had been on the side of Henry VI were now putting self interest and preservation first. But most of the ordinary people in the north, particularly those in the countryside, remained loyal to the Lancastrian cause. Lord Montague, the victorious Yorkist leader at Hedgely Moor, advanced from Newcastle towards Hexham. King Henry was warned of this and fled westwards leaving his weary army to stand alone. Montague crossed the Tyne ( at either Bywell or Corbridge ) and moved towards the dispirited Lancastrian force. The battle of May 15th. 1464 ( once source claims May 8th ), was hardly worthy of the name, but it was nevertheless significant. The Lancastrians held their position only until the first skirmishes and then fled the field. Their leader, Somerset, was captured, summarily tried, and executed at Hexham the next day. Taillebois and four other Lords were sent for execution at Newcastle. Taillebois, who

had tried to conceal himself, was obviously well prepared for flight : ‘ He hadde moche mony with hym, both golde and sylvyr, that should have gone to King Harry...’ The exact location of the battlefield is disputed. Most historians have accepted Hexham Levels, a spot half a mile south of Linnel’s Bridge over Devil’s Water close to the modern B6306. The Levels are easily located along a cart track. Above, and to the left, is Dipton Wood from which the Yorkists charged. The Lancastrian retreat was hampered by the steep rocky ravine below. The battle proved to be the final turning point of the Wars of the Roses. The Scots had been swift to negotiate a truce after Hedgely Moor, and a second defeat within a month led almost directly to the death of Henry VI. This most unfortunate of medieval kings found a temporary refuge at Bywell, but had to escape so quickly that he left behind his helmet. Two months later he was captured trying to cross the Ribble near Brungerly. He was taken to the Tower of London, where he languished as a prisoner for four years before emerging to hold a shadowy kingship as Warwick’s puppet. King Edward IV’s final victory at Tewkesbury amounted to a signature on his death warrant. King Henry died violently, almost certainly on the orders of King Edward, on 21st. May 1471.   The battle will be forever associated with the famous escape of Queen Margaret although the provenance of the story is doubtful. The Warrior Queen, Margaret of Anjou, was used to making a hasty exit. She and her husband, Henry VI, had been forced to escape to Scotland a second time in 1461 following defeat at the battle of Towton. They had been welcomed north of the border by the Queen-dowager, Mary of Gueldres, but when it was clear that local levies could not be relied on as front line fighting men, Margaret crossed to France to seek help for the Lancaster campaign. In the following year, her forces were so overwhelmed by a storm at sea she was forced to escape in an open boat to Berwick. But no setback deterred her. By 1463 she was again raiding

the Northumberland coast and met with many hardships and adventures. On one occasion she escaped and evaded capture through the generosity of a Yorkist squire who carried her to safety on her own horse. But it was following the Battle of Hexham that the legend of her greatest escape was born. Based on the much earlier accounts of historians Hume and Montstrelet, this is the way the story was retold in the Monthly Chronicle of 1888 :   ‘ Following the battle the queen and young prince took refuge in the adjoining forest. There she was beset during the darkness of the night by robbers, who, either ignorant or regardless of her quality, despoiled her of her rings and jewels and treated her with much indignity. But the partition of the rich booty raised a quarrel amongst the robbers ; and while their attention was thus engaged, she took the opportunity of making an escape into the thickest of the forest. There she wandered for some time, overspent with hunger and fatigue, and sunk with terror and affliction. While in this wretched condition she saw a robber approach with his naked sword; and, finding that she had no means of escape, she suddenly embraced the resolution of trusting entirely for protection to his faith and generosity. She advanced towards him, and presenting the young prince called out to him, ‘ Here, my friend, I commit to your care the safety of your king’s son.’ The man, whose humanity and generous spirit had been obscured, not entirely lost by the vicious course of his life, was struck by the singularity of the event and charmed with the confidence reposed in him, and vowed not only to abstain from all injury against the princess, but to devote himself entirely to her service. By this man’s means, Margaret dwelt for some time in a wretched cave which lies in an extremely secluded situation, beneath the southern bank of the little river that runs past Dilston Castle, exactly opposite to the Black Hill farmhouse. She was at last conducted to the sea coast where she made her escape to Sluys, in Flanders. From the Low Countries she

passed to the court of her aged father at Aix in Provence, where she lived several years in privacy and retirement before returning to England to create new troubles’. €

Other sources for the story refer to Dipton Wood specifically. It is also said that the reformed robber discharged himself from her service after locating her attendant, Sir Pierre de Breze, who escaped with the queen to Scotland before taking ship to Flanders. Other versions have the robber, referred to in one source as Will Sheldon, accompanying the queen and her entourage on their travels. One problem with this story is that Queen Margaret had almost certainly already fled abroad at the time of the battle. But it is thought, though, to have some basis of truth. Perhaps it happened some weeks earlier, or possibly even years earlier at Norham. Queen Margaret’s Cave, according to a survey of 1822, ‘does not exceed 31 feet at its greatest length and 14 feet in breadth. It is supported by a pillar of rude masonry’. The tradition is that the pillar formed part of a wall which divided the cave into ‘apartments’. Seven years after her escape Margaret of Anjou took advantage of the quarrel between the Earl of Warwick and King Edward IV to return. But her luck had not changed. She landed at Weymouth on the very day of Warwick’s defeat at Barnet, and three weeks later the Lancastrians suffered another defeat at Tewkesbury. Her only son, Edward ( the young prince of the reformed robber story ) was killed in the battle, This time their was no escape. Margaret was arrested and taken to London where she was held prisoner for five years. In 1476 she was ransomed by King Louis XII of France and lived out her days on a modest pension. She died in 1482 and was buried in the great cathedral of Angers. Life in Hexham continued to be influenced by national events. In 1536 the monks barricaded the door of the Priory and lined the walls with men at arms. This was a ‘protest’ against King Henry VIII and more specifically his Commissioner who had come to dissolve

the monastery. They held out for three weeks before bowing to the inevitable. In March 1761 there was serious rioting because of local opposition to the system of balloting for the militia. This was really compulsory service in a kind of territorial army. Today the system would be seen as akin to being forced to buy a lottery ticket with the dubious prize of becoming a poorly recompensed part-time soldier if you ‘won’. Traditionally the militia had been raised by landowners and was, in effect, a form of taxation based on land ownership. The landowners would recruit the men, or pay recompense so that others may be recruited. The system had changed very little since the days of feudal levy. For economic reasons the landowners choose mainly their own people and generally saw to the welfare of their families, or, more often than not, paid the compensation. The Act of 1662 had ‘required owners of property to furnish men, horses, and arms in proportion to the value of their property, and the liability of persons of small property is to be discharged out of a rate levied on the parish.’ But following the 1745 rebellion it was recognised that the method of recruiting a militia had to be reformed. The Act of 1757 passed on the liability of the parish to the individual. Men between the ages of 18 and 45 were to be chosen by lot to serve for three years, or to pay £10 for the provision of a substitute. The ballots were to be held as, and when, national security demanded. Such was the strength of feeling in Hexham that several families refused to be balloted or to pay compensation. This, in turn, led to conflict with those charged with enforcing the law. There is some doubt about the particular incident, or incidents which led to riots and finally to nothing less than running battles in the streets. One officer and one soldier were killed. The magistrate ordered the soldiers to fire. 50 local citizens were killed and more than 300 injured. The North York Militia became instantly rewarded with the nickname ‘The Hexham Butchers’. Hexham Abbey always repays the visitor’s attention, but the town jail, now a museum to the border reivers, is well worth a visit.

Homildon (Humbleton Hill)

  The Battle was fought on either 13th. or 14th. of September 1402. In the long running saga of border battles it proved to be one of the most important. Today the hill appears as steep and rounded, covered in bracken and surmounted by a stone cairn. The name is taken from Hameldun - ‘the cleft hill’. The site is close to the modern A697 about a mile short of Akeld, heading north. A battle stone, known as the Bendor Stone, stands on the opposite ( right ) side of the road. It is found in a field some 120 metres before a sharp right turn leads to a minor road, signposted Akeld Steads and Ewart. The people of the borders paid as little attention to a 15th century truce between England and Scotland as they do to the speed limits on the A697 today. Those who choose to park for the Bendor Stone are recommended to pull well off the road. In the 15th. century things could be even more hazardous. Ignoring the truce completely George, the Earl of March, had assisted the Earl of Northumberland with his ravages north of the border. Most of these incursions had focused on the lands of the Douglases. There had already been a number of significant skirmishes. In one of these, at Nesbit Moor, Sir Patrick Hepburn and a number of other Scottish knights had been killed. The Earl of Douglas was not a happy man and his response was predictable. He canvassed the active support of the Scots nobility and raised an army of 10,000 men. They marched south and laid waste, pillaged, and raped their way through Northumberland as far as the gates of Newcastle. At that point, well aware that a force mustered by the Earl of Northumberland and his son, Henry ( Harry ) Hotspur, intended them no goodwill, they set off towards the border with their considerable booty. They were camped near Wooler when Douglas received news of the Northumbrians waiting for him on the River Glen near Milfield. The Scots with their superior strength should perhaps have struck

at once. It is estimated that the Northumbrian force was based on 3000 archers and perhaps 1,500 mounted fighting men : many of the archers were detached from the main force on a deer hunt. But the Northumbrians had blocked the Scots line of retreat so Douglas was cautious. He took up a defensive position on the lower slopes of Humbleton - an unfortunate decision because it exposed them completely to the English archers firing from a higher vantage point on the neighbouring hilltop of Harehope. The Scots suffered many fatalities. The Earl of March wisely counselled Hotspur to hold back on his instinct to rush up Homildon to begin the hand to hand fighting. The increasing success of the English archers concentrated the minds of two former Berwickshire enemies, Sir John Swinton and Adam Gordon, who led the Scots vanguard in an attempt to break through the English ranks. The balladeer described what happened :   ‘ Like two huge rocks on Braemar’s brow, When loosened from their bed, That thunder down and overthrow The pines that crown the glade.   ‘ Thus they, through ranks, the Earl of March, And the bold Percies sought,   And blood and carnage marked their path, Where’er they stepped and fought.   ‘ At length they’re with their gallant train, By numbers compassed round, And fighting fall on heaps of slain,

And stain with gore the ground.   So did these valiant chieftains fall, Who lived in mortal strife: But locked in one another’s arms, Dear friendship closed their life’.   It turned into something of a rout for the English. Douglas lost an eye in the fighting and was captured shortly afterwards. Indeed Douglas had become used to coming second on the battlefield : he had already earned the nickname Tine-man ( tine means to lose ) because of an impressive ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. At Homildon he maintained his near 100 per cent record. Montgomery was also taken prisoner. But other members of the Scots nobility were less fortunate and they died in very fierce handto-hand fighting. Some 800 Scots were killed immediately. Another 500 drowned or served as targets for English archers as they tried to escape across the Tweed. Hotspur was characteristically unmagnanimous in victory. One prisoner, Sir William Stuart of Forest, was accused of treason on the rather flimsy grounds that he had been unfortunate enough to be born in Teviotdale at a time when it was English land. By ‘packing’ the jury at York, Hotspur ensured a guilty verdict. Sir William was hung, drawn and quartered. Some physical evidence of the carnage at Homildon has been unearthed in a field called Redriggs, not far from the Black Bull Inn. Human and horse bones were both found in large quantities.  

Lindisfarne

  Lindisfarne is a ‘must’ on any tourist itinerary although the tide tables should be carefully studied as it becomes an island twice daily. As Holy Island, it has been a place of pilgrimage and culture for twelve centuries. In the cooler months in particular the island still manages to capture a reflective mood. But despite these traditions, and the fact that the island is of limited strategic value, Lindisfarne has not escaped a warlike past. During the period AD 572 - 579 the King of Bernicia, Theordoric, was besieged on the island by the Welsh under Urien. But it was following his famous victory at Heavenfield ( AD 635 ) that King Edwin sent to Iona for the monk Aidan. This has often been seen as the true beginning of the consolidation of Christianity in England. It could also be argued it was the first chapter of a minirenaissance of learning. The Viking incursions of the following century were to destroy much of what had been achieved. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle introduced the dark days of AD 793 like this :   ‘ In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of Northumbria, and wretchedly terrified the people. There were excessive whirlwinds, lightning storms, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and shortly after in the same year, on January 8th., the ravaging of heathen men destroyed God’s church at Lindisfarne through brutal robbery and slaughter’. €

A terrible famine followed the ‘foreboding omens’ and in June of the same year we learn that ‘the heathen miserably destroyed God’s church in Lindisfarne by rapine and slaughter’ The monastery was revived successfully after the attack. But

when the Vikings came again in AD 873 the population was forced to flee. The buildings remained semi-derelict until 1082 when monks from Durham were sent to the island. The ruins of the monastery are in the care of English Heritage and, together with the museum, are a mecca for visitors to the island. The island also boasts a castle, built circa 1550 with stone from the monastery, on a rocky promontory rather like Bamburgh’s. The castle withstood a Parliamentary siege during the civil war, but was occupied, under bizarre circumstances, by Jacobites in 1715. A fanatical Jacobite, Lancelot Errington, and his nephew took the castle by trickery. The castle’s garrison - an elderly gunner and a sentinel - were not expecting trouble and the gunner was known locally as a barber. Errington gained entry to the castle as a customer and later returned, with his nephew, to look for ‘the key to his watch’. As the door was opened, he thrust a pistol into the face of the elderly gunner and took him prisoner. The sentinel was quickly subdued and both were thrust out of the castle. For several days the castle remained in their hands as they confidently expected a large Jacobite force to arrive from the mainland. Instead King George’s men arrived and the unfortunate men were hustled off to Berwick Jail. The castle fell into disrepair but, in 1903, it was turned into a luxurious gentlemen’s residence by the architect Lutyens. It is currently in the care of the National Trust and is open to the public.

Milfield Plain

  Milfield Plain, part of the bed of the great Glendale Lake in prehistoric times, was the scene of a minor battle ( on August 13th. 1315 ) between the Scots and English which proved to be a prelude to Flodden a month later, though its precise location is uncertain. A party of Scots under Lord Home were returning from a village-burning spree when their 3000 horsemen were attacked in a carefully rehearsed ambush with 1000 archers and men-at-arms, who had been well concealed on the roadside by the tall broom that grew abundantly on the plain. The Scots were not only surprised but also semi-immobilised by the weight of the booty they were carrying. Their resistance was therefore fairly puny. The archers were devastatingly accurate. Hundreds of Scots died before they had even ascertained the source of the attack. The rest were thrown into a shambles of confusion. Five to six hundred of Lord Home’s men died and 400 more were taken prisoner. The English lost no more than 60. The road was dubbed ‘ the ill-rode’ by the Scots. The same spot was suggested by the Earl of Surrey to Scotland’s James IV as an admirable choice for a battlefield. It may be that one of King James’s reasons for declining in favour of Flodden was because of the all too recent morale sapping success of the English at Milfield Plain.

Neville’s Cross

  The Scots campaign tactics during the first half of the 14th. century often amounted to hitting soft targets, collecting as much booty as possible, and escaping and dispersing north of the border. This was largely a matter of practicality. Most of the invading forces consisted largely of inadequately armed feudal levies, and their leaders often had more of an eye for profit than politics. One near contemporary writer described the invading army of 1327 like this :   ‘ The Scots are a bold and hardy race and much inured to war. When they invaded England they were all usually on horseback except for the camp followers. They brought no carriages neither did they encumber themselves with provisions. Under the flap of his saddle each man had a broad plate of metal ; and behind each saddle a little bag of oatmeal, so that when the occasion needed cakes were made of the meal and baked upon the plates. The most part however they ate the half sodden flesh of the cattle they captured and drank plain water’. €

They may not have been the most efficient army in history but they did have the great advantage of mobility. This made it relatively easy to by-pass the garrisons of the larger border castles. The Tyne and Wear however presented greater problems, so the popular route to the south passed to the west of Durham. David Bruce’s ( King David II ) invasion of 1346 followed the model of previous campaigns. There was plenty of laying waste to the countryside but the larger settlements were avoided until he reached Hexham where the priory was sacked but the town spared. King David planned to use the place as a temporary plunder store. After crossing the Tyne and Derwent the king made camp

at Ebchester. Then, meeting no opposition, he advanced and destroyed as far as Beau Repaire ( Bear Park ) - the manor of the Prior of Durham. But a large army, commanded by northern nobility, was mobilising. Foremost amongst them was the Queen ( (Philippa of Hainault ), the Archbishop of York and senior members of the Neville and Percy families. By the 16th. of October, when they set up their camp at Auckland Park, the strength was close to 16,000 well armed men with a particularly strong detachment of bowmen. The army moved on to Merrington and sent out scouts to keep close observation of the movements of the Scots army as they ransacked and ravaged their way through the hills west of Durham. The English then proceeded steadily to ‘Fery on the Hill’ where they surprised Sir William Douglas’s foraging force and pursued them as far as Sunderland Bridge. The Scots lost around 500 men in this encounter. But Douglas escaped and warned his King about the strength and disposition of the English army. His advice was that they were too tough to tackle and a fast exit into the hills was recommended. King David however was confident of victory. Meanwhile the English moved over the moors to Neville’s Cross in battle order. They were flanked on the left by the River Browney and on the right by the Wear. The battle took place on October 17th, in an area of broken ground close to the Wear. The Scots force was divided into three divisions, one commanded by the King, and the others by the High Steward, James Graham, and the other under the Earl of Moray and Sir William Douglas. The English were in mirror formation in a line roughly along the present railway track. The divisions were led by Lord Neville, Lord Percy and Sir Thomas Rokeby. But they also had a reserve force of cavalry under Edward Baliol, craftily hidden in a hollow. Another secret weapon - a holy cloth associated with St. Cuthbert’s celebration of the Eucharist - was carried by the prior and monks

on a spear and prominently displayed on a small hilltop known as Maiden’s Bower. Further divine intervention was also sought by monks praying in the Durham Cathedral tower as they looked out in the direction of the battlefield. The Scots responded to the drums and trumpets first. But Douglas’s division had to swing left to avoid a ravine and fell partly out of battle order as some of his men became mixed in with the king’s division. This melee was the cue to the English archers who proved to be in fine form. It was round one to the English. But Graham’s division countered with a bold assault on the archers who retreated hastily through Percy’s division causing considerable confusion. Round two to the Scots. But they were not to hold the advantage for long. Edward Baliol’s ‘hidden’ cavalry attacked and pushed Graham’s division back before completely sweeping them from the field. Meanwhile King David’s division was battling it out with Neville. The balance of this pivotal encounter swung to the English when Baliol, having concluded his sweeping operation, attacked the Scot’s flank. The outcome was no longer in question. Two divisions were now in retreat and disarray. The king fled the field but gave away his hidey hole under Aldin Grange Bridge and was captured by a Northumbrian knight, John Copeland. The bridge still stands proudly over the River Browney about one mile from the battle cross. The third division carried on the fight but was now attacked by almost the full strength of the English army. The retreat was hampered by walls and ditches and the Scots were cut down one by one. It is said that no more than a handful of men survived. Although estimates of the dead vary enormously it is clear that Scots losses overall were as high as English losses were light. King David was held prisoner at Prudhoe. In the following year he was released against a promised ransom of 100,000 marks. It was never paid. The battle was commemorated by a special monument. It is

recorded that :   ‘ On the west side of the city of Durham, where two roads pass each other, a most notable, famous, goodly cross of stone work was erected to the honour of God for the victory there obtained in the field of battle and known by the name of Neville’s Cross, and built at the sole cost of Lord Ralph Neville, one of the most excellent and chief persons in the said battle. Also in token remembrance of the Battle of Durham, and to the perpetual memory and honour of the said Lord Neville and his posterity for ever, it was termed by the title and name of Neville’s Cross, as above said, and so did remain till the year 1589, in the night time the same was broken down and defaced by some lewd, contemptuous and wicked persons, thereto encouraged ( as it seemed ) by some who loved Christ the worse for the Cross sake, as utterly and spitefully condemning all ancient ceremonies and monuments’. €

Which only goes to prove that the 20th. century cannot be regarded as the starting point of a tradition of mindless vandalism.   Sir Ralph Neville happily has another memorial. He was the first layman to be buried in Durham Cathedral.

Newburn

  The financial and religious policies of King Charles I and Archbishop Laud in the 1630’s completed the alienation of the political nation and provoked rebellion in Scotland. It was a course of events which was to lead to the English Civil Wars of 1642 - 51. The supporters of the Scottish National Covenant ( 1638 ) and their successors opposed the reintroduction of episcopacy. In early August 1640 an army of 20,000 foot and 2,500 horse under General Leslie crossed the border. As they marched they had ‘ daily sermons their ministers, prayers morning and evening under the canopy of heaven to which they were called by the beat of the drum ; besides reading of the scriptures, praying, and psalm singing in every tent’.   This army, which carried banners declaring ‘For Christ’s crown and covenant’ passed through Wooler, Eglingham and Netherwitton before making camp at Heddon Law above Newburn. This was a solid strategic site on high ground with a gentle descent to the Tyne. They consolidated further by putting cannon in Newburn village : even the church tower was used as a firing point. And, as the English army approached, foot soldiers were hidden around the buildings and hedges. There were plentiful supplies of coal and fires were lit around the camp. The English took up their position opposite on Stella Haughs on the opposite side of the river. The 3,000 foot and 1,500 horse dug in behind earthworks, the remnants of which are still visible. The battle of August 28th. began almost accidentally when an English musketeer scored a direct hit on a Scots trooper who was watering his horse at the riverside. Leslie replied with steady bursts of cannon fire which soon breached the English earthworks. From this point it was only a matter of time before the Scots superiority in numbers won the day. The English began to abandon their vulnerable position and, as

the river had now fallen with the tide, Leslie sent a few hundred cavalry and musketeers to fording points. This turned the English withdrawal into flight. But some were overtaken by the Scots who took them as prisoners. But old fashioned brutality, that traditional aftermath of battles between England and Scotland, was notably absent. The prisoners were treated well and soon released. The greater part of the English army escaped to Newcastle and Durham. At midnight on the same day Lord Stafford decided that Newcastle could not be defended and marched south leaving behind almost all stores and munitions. The Covenanters entered the city unchallenged on August 29th. and within a few days had won control of all Northumberland and Durham. The Bishop of Durham escaped to Yorkshire. The Dean had even better reasons to assume he may be safer elsewhere :   ‘ He fled in great haste because he understood the Scots gave out that they would seize upon him as an incendiary for writing the king’s large declaration against the Scots. All the rest of the clergy of Durham fled away also ; and the Scots shortly after employed men to receive their rents and the rents of Papists for the use of the Scottish army’.   The Royalist historian, Clarendon, described the Battle of Newburn as ‘ the famous, irreparable rout’. That is possibly understating things slightly. There can be few battles that were less serious contests or few victories that were   more complete. Much of the blame for this must be placed on the shoulders of Lord Conway who was an inveterate coward with strategic insights that were limited to self preservation.

Newcastle

  Newcastle upon Tyne is the region’s capital. For some reason the city does not capture the tourist imagination like say York or Lincoln, but it has perhaps more to offer than either. The strategic position was recognised early. Even before the work on Hadrian’s Wall began the Romans had already bridged the Tyne and built a fort. But after the Romans left it fell into Dark Age obscurity, emerging in later Saxon times as Monkcaster, a name that reflects the number of monastic foundations based there. But it was the Normans who really laid the foundations of the modern city. From the time the Conqueror’s son, Robert, built a wooden fort, a new name and reputation were born. William Rufus ordered the construction of the first stone castle. During the anarchic reign of Stephen ( 1135 ) it fell to King David I of Scotland but was swiftly returned to the English king by treaty. But perhaps just to prove how easy it was King David took it again in the following year and in 1339 the Scots further breached the city walls ‘ for distance of six perches’. In that assault it is said that 160 men drowned in the river. In 1342 the Scots attacked the town yet again but this time failed to capture it. But it was not until the defeat of William the Lion (1174 ) that the English could truly claim a firm hold on the town. In 1388, despite getting the better of skirmishes outside the walls, Scots ( led by the Earl of Douglas ) withdrew knowing that the garrison ( commanded by Sir Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy ) was virtually impregnable. The Scots took the part of Parliament during the English Civil Wars of 1642 -51. In January 1644 a Scots army crossed the Tweed in a snowstorm and threatened to capture for Parliament large swathes of Northumberland that had been almost undisputedly controlled by the Royalists. The Scots army of perhaps 20,000 men were led by the charismatic and competent Earl of Leven. The force marched swiftly south to the gates of Newcastle. The city was well prepared for siege and the walls were in good

repair and well manned. Leven knew there was no chance of a quick result so he continued his march south leaving behind ‘a sufficient force to sustain a siege and blockade’. They made their principal camp in the area now known as Scotswood. After several skirmishes, and Cromwell’s famous victory over the Royalists at Marston Moor, Leven turned north again to deal with the unfinished business at Newcastle. Reinforcements had still not managed to break into the city despite a steady bombardment from the Half Moon Battery at Gateshead. A fairly small garrison of 1,700 - which included around 900 ‘volunteers, prest-men, coliers, keill-men and poore trades-men’ - had held out for almost ten months. Leven created a bridge of boats across the Tyne and effectively encircled the city apart from a gap at Shieldfield Fort and that was outside the walls. This total blockade meant that hunger and a lack of fuel became a serious problem in the town. Divisions amongst the townsfolk began to emerge. Negotiations for terms of surrender began as the Scots made final preparations for an all out attack. When fairly honourable terms were refused the propaganda war began in earnest : hundreds of leaflets were dropped over the walls. One of these, ostensibly signed by ‘A Well Wisher of Newcastle’ read :   ‘ I have been silent waiting when you should have taken some course for your own happiness. But now, seeing your distraction ever rife, if not timeously prevented, I could not but give you a fair warning, and desire that both citizens and soldiers, for the preservation of your town, the safety of your persons, estates, and families, to think upon some way of speedy accommodation, and no question you shall meet with a very favourable hearing. It is no more wisdom nor honour, but extreme madness, any longer to hold out when the danger is present and certain, and when all your hopes of relief have now failed you’.  

The townsfolk were encouraged ( some would say coerced ) not to surrender by the Mayor, Sir John Marley. The Earl of Leven upped the propaganda stakes with a threat. Unless surrender was immediate he would fire on the magnificent steeple of St. Nicholas’s Cathedral until it was destroyed. Sir John Marley put his Scottish prisoners in the tower and informed Lord Leven that if he wished to be remembered as destroyer of classic architecture, and a murderer of his own people, he should open fire immediately. But it was already clear that time was running out. On 19th. October Marley sent a desperate letter to the Scots :   ‘ My Lord - I have received diverse letters and warrants subscribed by the name of Leven but of late can hear of none that have seen such a man ; therefore, to remove all scruples, I desire our drummer may deliver one letter to himself, Thus, wishing you could think of some other course to compose the differences of these sad distracted kingdoms than by battering Newcastle, and annoying us who never wronged any of you, for if you seriously consider, you will find that these courses will aggravate, and not moderate, distempers. But I will refer all to your consciences, and rest, your friend, John Marley’.   The people of London were becoming seriously worried for their own comfort during the coming winter. They relied heavily on ‘seacoal’ for their house fires - coal which was brought to the capital, by sea, from Newcastle. Thus, on October 20th 1644 the serious bombardment began. The city walls were thoroughly breached. Others had been mined through the expertise of colliers from Benwell and Elswick. The running battles lasted two hours after the Scots entered the town before the defenders were overwhelmed. A report to the Lord High Chancellor of Scotland describes the events briefly :   ‘ My Lord Chancellor’s regiment entered at a breach at Closegate, others entered by two mines at White Tower and

Westgate, while two other mines were sprung and two more breaches made. Some houses were burned. They within the town made all the opposition that could on the walls and in the streets’.   Only the castle itself, where Marley had fled, was not in the hands of the Scots. But the townspeople suffered greatly during the next day :   ‘ The whole army, commanded and uncommanded, observing King David’s ancient rule, that they who stayed with the baggage and they that fought in the field, should share in the plunder alike. For twenty-four hours they plundered, but without any great result. For the common soldiers being only able to plunder the common people ( although they might have stretched out their hands further ) had for the greatest part but small benefit, excepting only household stuff, as bed clothes, linings, tanned leather, calf skins, men’s and women’s apparel, pans, pots, plates, and suchlike common things’.   One account goes so far to suggest that some of the townsfolk welcomed the deaths of many of the garrison :   ‘Because there was such a scarcity of victuals and ammunition, that it was considered that unless one half of the people devoured the other they could not have held out ten days longer’.   The castle held out for a further four days after which Marley surrendered. When he came out with his officers :   ‘ The people sought to set on them as they, it was said, had been the cause of unrighteous suffering’.

  Marley was sentenced to hang and was thrown in the dungeon. He escaped, possibly with the connivance of Leven, and went abroad. After ‘the day of plunder’ Leven reigned in his men and insisted their should be no further pillage and slaughter. The fall of Newcastle was a massive blow to Royalist morale. Two years later King Charles I himself was captured by the Scots and held prisoner here before being handed over to Parliament. But despite the even darker days that were to follow the Stuarts never forgot the courage and fortitude of the people of Newcastle. Following the restoration they invested the town with a special motto - ‘Fortiter Defendit Triumphans.’ Rufus’ great stone keep still rises above the railway and the Tyne, though it is now detached from its gatehouse, known as the Black Gate. The dungeon where Marley was kept can be entered by anyone prepared to climb the steps to the main entrance and pay the small fee. Remnants of the massive city walls can be seen along the roadside between Stowell Street and Westgate road.

Norham

  Although much ruined, nowhere captures the mood of a warlike past better than Norham Castle. It is known as ‘the Queen of Border Castles,’ not least because of the lovely red sandstone. It rises starkly above the Tweed and the village of Norham, forcing the modern road past the still-impressive gatehouse to the south gate where English Heritage permits visitors to enter. Because of an historical oddity Norham remained technically part of the County Palatine of Durham of until 1844. Consequently it was governed by a constable appointed by the bishop. Strategically it was important, not only as a major fording place on the Tweed, but as part of the network of border strongholds. It was Bishop Flambard who ordered the building of the castle in 1121. The earliest structure was of the motte and bailey type featuring a wooden central tower and ditches. Just 15 years into its history the castle was seized by the Scots king, David I. Two years later David returned for a second visit and burnt it down. It was not until the reign of Henry II that the English could claim any real control over Northumberland. In 1157 Henry hoped to secure this position by sturdy rebuilding to the castles of Wark, Bamburgh and Newcastle. The next year Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, ordered a stone keep to be constructed at Norham. Surprisingly perhaps two storeys of this keep, parts of the inner and outer wards and gatehouse can still be seen today. Another Scots king, Alexander, laid siege to the castle for 40 days in 1215. The garrison held out. The pattern was repeated in 1318 and 1319 when lengthy Scots sieges and blockades were equally unsuccessful. On the first occasion Robert the Bruce, who used the church as his HQ, gave up after almost a year. Sir Thomas Gray’s garrison were only forced to hold out for seven months in 1318. During a brief period of English occupation King Edward I, the ‘Hammer of the Scots’, decided here to support John Baliol’s claim to the Scottish succession. In 1322 the castle was again captured by the Scots but was recovered by King Edward II after a seven day

siege. It was during the siege of 1319 that a legendary incident took place. The story was recorded by the great antiquarian John Leland in 1554 :   ‘ Aboue this tyme there was a great feste made in Lincolnshir to which can many gentelmen and ladies. And among them one lady brought a heaulme for a man of were, with a very riche creste of gold, to Walter Marmion, knight, with a letter of commandment of her lady, that he should go into the daungerust place in England, and there let the heaulme to be seen and known as famouse. Se he went to Norham ; whither withyn four days of his cumming, cam Philip Moubray, gardian of Berwicke, having yn nande of 140 men of armes, the very flour of men of the Scottish marches. Thomas Gray, capitayne of Norham, seying this, brought heis garrison afore the barriers of the castel, behynde whom cam William, richely arrayed, as al glittering in gold, and wearing the heaulme his lady’s present. then sayd Thomas Gray to Marmion, ‘ Syr Knight, ye be cum hither to fame your helmet. Mount up on yor horse and ryde lyke a valiant man to your foes even here at hand, and I forsake God if I rescue not thy body deade or alyve, or I myslf wyl dye for it.’ Whereupon he toke his cursore, and rode among the throng of ennemyes, the which layed sore stripes on hym at the last oute of his sadel to the grounde. Then Thomas Gray with al the hole garrison lette prik yn among the Scottes, and so wondid them, and their horses, €

that they were over throwen, and Marmyon sore beraten was horside agayn, and with Gray pursewid and Scottes yn chace. There were taken fifty horses of price, and the wemwn of Norham brought them to the foote men to folow the chace.’

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The tale can be briefly translated as follows : Sir William Marmion from Lincolnshire was challenged by a gorgeous female to seek out the most dangerous place in England and was given a golden helmet to take with him. Just four days after arriving at Norham the Scots obliged him with a taste of serious danger by turning up. In the true traditions of chivalry and some of the more unlikely Hollywood movies, Marmion rode out to wreak a little havoc and after suitable heroics was wounded and grounded. The castle Governor, Sir Thomas Gray, came to Marmion’s rescue with his own force. He was not only successful but also managed to wreak a little gratuitous havoc of his own until the Scots turned tail and ran away. The tale was later developed as Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem ‘ Marmion.’ If Norham was not quite the ‘most dangerous place in England’ it certainly deserved shortlisting for the title. Norham was in the thick of the Anglo/Scots wars of the 14th. century. Apart from the sieges of Robert the Bruce the castle was attacked in 1327 by Scots led by Douglas, and in 1355 it was ‘plundered’ by Sir William Ramsay. On his way to Flodden in 1513 King James IV of Scotland made a concerted attack on the castle. It was the mighty cannon ‘Mons Meg’ that did most of the damage. As the castle was blasted to ruins the garrison surrendered. Earthworks which sheltered the guns can still be seen on the opposite bank of Tweed. It took only two days for the castle to fall, but, because of King James’s pressing appointment at Flodden it was held for just a week. The difference had been the use of the big guns. The positioning of the great cannon on flat ground at Gin Haugh offered an excellent field of fire. Blasting from above had been rewarded with only limited success. It is said that the ‘advice’ to take up a lower position had been passed to the Scots by a groom who had formerly been employed at the castle.   The ‘Ballad of Flodden’ puts it like this :

‘ So when the Scots the walls had won And rifled every nook and place, The traitor came to the King anon But for reward met with disgrace.   ‘Therefore for thy traitorous trick Thou shalt be tried in a trice : Hangman, therefore,’ quoth James,’ be quick; The groom shall have no better price’.   A field known as ‘Hangman’s Land’ can be found to the north of the castle so there is a balance of probability that the execution took place here. A more solid memento of King James IV’s visit, a set of cannonballs, still reside in the keep vaults. The same king had a brush with death when he came off his horse and almost drowned trying to cross the river. He ordered that a church be built across the river at Ladykirk because his life had been spared. By the middle of the 16th. century this proud fortress had fallen into disrepair. So serious the situation was that in 1580 the Warden reported to Lord Cecil, ‘If speedy remedy be not had it will fall flat to the ground’.   Queen Elizabeth, who no longer had need of this border fortress, refused to pay. The result is the magnificent ruin we see today.

Otterburn   The fourteenth century was the age of private armies; the king ruled by good will, or by force. The nobility enriched themselves, and the king occasionally, by institutionalised theft and murder. The border between England and Scotland offered a perfect excuse for ambitious men on both sides. Never was this better demonstrated than in the families of Douglas and Percy. But a great deal of uncertainty surrounds the battle of Otterburn. The exact date, the numbers in each force, and even the site, are matters of dispute. This version relies on the assumption that the most commonly suggested site, approximately half a mile north west of Otterburn village, is correct. This is slightly to the north of the modern A696 following the line of an ancient trackway along the valley of the River Rede. Most of the fighting took place on open ground between the last houses of the village and the school. Percy’s Cross, which stands in a coppice near the road, was erected in 1777. The prima face evidence for this being the right place is that fragments of swords, spears, and other warlike accoutrements, have been here in an area still known locally as Battle Riggs or Battle Croft about half a mile south east of the present picnic site. The probable dates for the encounter are 5th., 10th., or 19th. August 1388. For the English it is customarily seen as part of the Hundred Years War against the Auld Alliance - France and Scotland. The Scots see it as part of a continuing war of independence. The Scots plan of campaign for 1388 was to divide and conquer as much of northern England as possible. This was a realistic option because the English government was going through a period of near anarchy. In the previous year the Duke of Gloucester ( an uncle of King Richard II ) had, together with the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, raised an army and inflicted a defeat on the king. They used this as a power base to ensure that many of the most able men in the country were executed, exiled or imprisoned. This created an unhealthy and unstable political climate which remained not fully resolved until Richard II was imprisoned and murdered at

Pontefract a dozen years later. In the summer of 1388 one large Scots army plundered around Cumberland, whilst a second smaller force set out to do their worst to Northumberland and Durham. If things went particularly well, and the English remained well and truly divided, the two Scots armies could combine for a celebrated rampage on the way home. But one important obstruction to this success were the private armies of the Earl of Northumberland at Alnwick, his sons Henry (Hotspur) and Ralph, the garrison commanders at Newcastle, and the Bishop of Durham. The Scot’s rampage, led by the Earl of Douglas, came to a halt outside Newcastle. Douglas recognised that he had no chance of capturing the town but was determined to make as much of a nuisance of himself as possible. The English, however, were not for giving up a heavily fortified position. The Earl of Douglas’s army was made up of horsemen, spearmen and archers. And, despite the booty they were carrying, this would have been a mobile Scots force who had already enjoyed a fruitful rampage down the Tyne Valley. Douglas challenged Percy to single combat. Typically, the challenge was accepted but Hotspur lost the contest on points. William Davison, writing in 1822, recalls that Douglas captured Hotspur’s pennant. The ‘dialogue’ however may be a little less likely :   ‘This, ‘ crowed Douglas, I shall carry as a sign of thy prowess to Scotland, and shall place it on the pinnacle of my castle to be known by all.’ Hotspur retorted : “Thou shalt never carry it out of Northumberland; and in the end shall have little cause to boast.” ‘Then thou must come this night, and take it from my tent.’ ‘To horse!’ shouted Hotspur.

A rather different view of the encounter is taken from the Ballad of Chevy Chase : ‘ And he marched up to Newcastle, And rode it round about ; O wha’s the lord of this castle? Or wha’s the lady o’t?’   But up spake proud Lord Percy then, And O but spake hie! ‘I am the lord of this castle, My wife’s the lady gay.’   ‘If thou art the lord of this castle, Sae weel it pleases me! For ere I cross the border fells The tane of us sall die.’   He took a long spear in his hand, Shod with the metal free, And for to meet the Douglas there He rode right furiouslie.   But O how pale his lady looked, Frae off the castle wa’, When down before the Scottish spear

She saw proud Percy fa’!   ‘Had we twa been upon the green, And never an eye to see, I wad ha’ had you, flesh and fell, But your sword shall gae wi’ me.   ‘But gae ye up to Otterbourne And wait there day is three; And if I come not ere three day is end, A fause knight ca’ ye me’.   It seems that anything is possible in poetry, even the clairvoyant anticipation another meeting. The truth is more mundane. Despite successful skirmishing, and the moral victory to Douglas, the Scots withdrew carrying with them the accumulated booty of the season. The intention was to make a steady pace back to Scotland. Their route took them through Ponteland ( where they delayed briefly to capture and loot a pele tower ), and then to Belsay, Cambo, the Harwood Forest and Elsdon, before reaching the Rede Valley near Otterburn. This is where they made their night camp. It was a carefully selected site at a narrowing of the valley. The right flank was protected by a bend in the river and the left by woodland. It approximates to where the farm at Greenchesters is now situated. This is also known at Holt-Wood which begins to explain how shelters were made from trees and branches within the area of an ancient hill fort. The baggage and servants were placed at the centre. Those who have doubts that this was the camp point to alternative battlefields above Elsdon, or on Fawdon Hill to the north of Otterburn.

On the morning after making their camp the Scots attacked, but failed to capture, Otterburn Tower. It has been argued that this delay made an encounter with the Percies inevitable. But it is likely that Douglas had already decided on a battle. Following the setback at Otterburn Tower there was a division of opinion amongst the Scots’ commanders. Some wanted to head immediately for home. Douglas overruled them. He knew that Henry Percy’s vow to retrieve the pennant should be taken seriously. If a battle was inevitable he could at least set the field to his best advantage. He studied the terrain carefully. The camp, which had a partial moat of marsh land, was ideal for protecting the stolen cattle. And he had noted a well drained incline running down to the river - an ideal area to place his reception committee for the English. He also picked out the crest of a small hill at the north of the incline which featured a small depression. This could provide sufficient cover for the movement of a force that could attack the English right flank. He was so delighted with that possibility he elected to lead the flanking force himself. Meanwhile, at Newcastle, Harry Percy had been informed of the Scots progress to Otterburn. After a hurried Council of War it was decided to immediately lead an army in pursuit. A slight delay, not the Hotspur way of doing things, may have been wiser. The Bishop of Durham was about to set out for Newcastle with considerable reinforcements. Another day, or two at the most, would have doubled his army of around 600 lances ( knights and squires ) and 8,000 infantry ‘accoutred with the dreadful long-bows of England’. It may be that Hotspur had received poor intelligence. Certainly the scouts had suggested that the Scots force was no more than 3000 even though the Earl of Dunbar had brought reinforcements. It is possible that the scouts mislead themselves if they only saw those Scots guarding animals and not main force on higher ground. The question of numbers is highly disputed. It is largely based on the conclusion of the noted French chronicler, Froisssart, who claimed that the English had a three to one superiority at

Otterburn. This is unlikely. Although the ‘professional’ force may have numbered only around 3000, it is inconceivable that the grooms, lackeys and other servants were unarmed and untrained. It is likely that approximately 9000 English fought with 7000 Scots at Otterburn. Before engaging the Scots, a section of the English force, under Sir Thomas Umfraville, were ordered to make a wide detour so they could attack the Scots camp from the flank or rear. This meant Umfraville must have followed a route more or less along the line of the present road to Otterburn Hall and then swung through what is now the Otterburn Hall estate. This meant the English could attack the Scots left flank down the hill. Although fairly well prepared the Scots could not have expected the English to arrive so soon. Most of them for preparing for the night when the trumpets and drums sounded. The Earl of Douglas did not have time to put on his armour before hostilities began. Once he had done so he hastily led his ‘concealed’ detachment to the position that would bring them down on the English right flank. The other Scots were forced into equally hasty preparations as they moved out of their camp to take up their position on the ridge. Such was the pace of events the Earl of Moray forgot to put his helmet on. Hotspur was determined to take full advantage of his rapid march to intercept the Scots. He ignored the fact that his force was tired and hungry whilst the Scots were rested and well fed. In one of the boldest gambles in the history of warfare he decided to attack immediately, at twilight. This meant that Otterburn would become famous as the battle fought by moonlight. If Hotspur had hoped that the element of surprise would win him the day ( or in this case the night ) he was soon to become disillusioned. Perhaps if he had not ordered his musicians to make as much row as possible there may have been more chance of early success. This was presumably intended to intimidate, or it may simply have been a response to the racket already being made by the Scots’ horns which each man was required to carry. But the battle of

the bands probably had little effect beyond giving a position marker. Or, as one of the Scots later recalled : ‘ I be more goodly afeared of the spear than the bugle’. The twilight attack had another tactical disadvantage. The English archers, normally a formidable force, found themselves shooting at shadowy moving targets. It has even been suggested that their arrows put paid to as many English as Scots. As the archers were virtually useless the battle was almost entirely fought at close quarters with swords, spears, lances and axes. The moon had fully risen when Hotspur attacked the servants’ camp, thus giving Douglas ( in main camp ) a few precious minutes longer to prepare. It was Sir Matthew Redman who led the first attack on the main camp. The main contest on the ridge was to be fierce all along the line. The English made good use of numerical superiority until Douglas set a stirring example of close quarters counter attack by ‘ wielding a two handed axe and going where the fighting was thickest’. Meanwhile Umfraville, who could hear the sound of the contest, misinterpreted what he heard and missed the chance to attack the Scot’s rear. His uncertainty, created largely because of the darkness, encouraged him to lead his force back along the same route as before and to join the main army on the ridge. It was a mistake which certainly contributed to the outcome. Douglas was more successful in his ploy. His forced swooped down on the English right which crumpled as survivors of the initial attack escaped to the relative safety of the centre. It was in this melee that Douglas was struck by three lances which pierced his armour. He fell to the ground mortally wound and the fighting continued around him. In the continuing darkness and confusion the Scots did not know that their leader lay dead at their feet. Nor did the English. But the leadership of the Earl of Moray, fighting helmetless, was to remain a massive inspiration to the Scots. The centre remained the scene of white hot carnage with bodies piled upon bodies. But, as the battle drifted into a third hour it became clear that the hunger and fatigue ( following the day’s 32

mile march from Newcastle ) was beginning to take its toll on the English. Slowly they began to fall back. The Scots now had full control of the ridge. Sir Ralph Percy had been seriously wounded and his brother, Harry, taken prisoner. But the fighting was not yet ended. As the Scots pursued the retreating English several skirmishes developed. Fragmented English groups fought with renewed determination and took around 200 Scots prisoners before completing their retreat. Six centuries later there are still questions to answer about Otterburn and its protagonists. It was a defeat for the English which has somehow recalled as a victory. That is largely because Hotspur was alive and Douglas was dead. But Hotspur had failed to win back his pennant and had lost around 1800 men. Another thousand were wounded. The Scots losses and wounded did not amount to more than a few hundred. Any realistic assessment makes this a stunning Scots victory. But the English, and Northumbrians in particular, have always been good at reinterpreting history. Percy’s Cross, not so much a battle memorial as a celebration of the gallant Hotspur, stands at the spot where Douglas is supposed to have fallen. The leader who masterminded an overwhelming victory is thus usurped in public esteem by the hot head who ordered a night attack after a long march. To make matters worse the injured Ralph Percy had been taken prisoner by Maxwell. Generously though he was permitted to remain in Northumberland until recovered from his wounds but was ‘forsworn to go to Scotland or send his ransom.’ Sir Matthew Redman had escaped only to be taken prisoner by Sir James Lindsay who paroled him. In all 1400 English were taken prisoner. Hotspur himself had fought a duel with Montgomery before also being taken captive to Dunbar. He was later released on the payment of a large ransom to which Richard II contributed £3000. He died at the battle of Shrewsbury ( 21st July 1403 ) fighting alongside the Earl of Douglas’ kinsman. The nature of changing political affiliations was summed up in the following lines :

 

‘ But while these generous rivals fought and fell, These generous rivals loved each other well, ‘Tho many a bloody field was lost and won, Nothing in hate, in honour all was done’.  

But there was further ignominy for the English to follow Otterburn. The Bishop of Durham, with a large army, tracked and caught up with the main Scots force. It is said they frightened him off with their hunting horns and he scuttled back to the safety of Newcastle. At least 1,000 men of both nations were buried at Elsdon. The graves were undisturbed by the rebuilding of the church in the early 15th century. In 1810 renovations at Elsdon church revealed that foundations on north wall were less deeply laid than others - almost certainly because the 15th. century workmen were well aware of the Otterburn graves. When the graves were disturbed the skeletal remains were found packed in two rows, the skull of one on the thighs of another - to use as little space as possible. They were dug up and re-interred in 1877 during a major restoration. The original Percy stone at the battlefield was also removed at some time and its whereabouts remain unknown. The present monument, on the edge of a picnic site, was erected in 1777 following the decision to extend the turnpike road beyond village. The upper part of stone is the lintel from the kitchen fire place at Otterburn tower. The two pieces of iron are not symbolic: they were used to hold cooking pots. Only the socket of present stone is original. This formerly stood 150 yards east of present stone.   A more unlikely monument, the stone seat by the roadside at nearby Elishaw was given by a benefactor in 1888. It commemorates the 500th. anniversary of Otterburn and gives the date of the battle as 10th August. The seat has three inscribed panels. The left quotes Andrew

Fletcher, a Scots political writer who bitterly opposed the AngloScottish union of 1707. It says enigmatically : ‘Give me the making of the people’s songs and I will let who will make their laws’. His better known epigram on the social influence of literature puts his position more clearly. He said : ‘ If a man were permitted to make all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation’. The centre panel is a partly obscured declaration about the battle itself. ‘The right is a quote from Sir Philip Sidney, master poet of the first Elizabethan Age : ‘I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet’. The irony, about the effect of trumpets and horns on the outcome of the battle, is surely unintentional. The high land at Greenchesters is today bisected by a minor road. It is possible to park briefly and take in the whole scope of the battlefield, laid out below like a patchwork quilt.

Piperdean (Or Piperden)

  Such is the confusion in accounts of the annual cross border ravages of the early 15th century we can only say that this battle was fought on either September 30th. 1435, or 10th. September 1436. The principal protagonists were William Douglas and Henry Percy, the second Earl of Northumberland. Their forces were roughly even with around 4000 men each. The second Earl, who had embarked on a late season rampage over the Scots border, encountered Douglas by the Presson Burn, about a mile and a half north west of Mindrum. This is almost uncharacteristic countryside between the Cheviots and the river. This chance encounter seemed an ideal opportunity to break the truce. There are few details of casualties or prisoners but it is certain that the English got the better of things after a short sharp conflict. Some of the details of this battle may have become confused with Otterburn which would explain anomalies in versions of the Ballad of Chevy Chase.

Redesdale / Redeswire

  Redesdale means ‘ the dale of the red river’ - a colour sometimes associated with peaty water, but has been insinuated as referring to the spilt Anglo-Scottish blood. A ‘swire’ suggests a pass joining valley heads. The battle took place by Carter Bar, at 1,370 feet, on the border itself. The word ‘bar’ comes from the tollhouse that stood here when the 18th. century turnpike was built. ‘Carter’ almost certainly derives from the Celtic ‘Cart’ meaning a hill. It is a bleak and desolate spot. There is documentary evidence that the ‘English side’ of the upper Rede valley was ravaged as early as 1295 by the Scots under Robert de Ros and the Earls of Atholl and Menteith. This is hardly likely to have been the first warlike encounter in the area. In 1377 some fairly serious rape and ravage was recorded. This time the cross border foray was conducted by members of the Douglas family. There was a more solid skirmish in 1400 when English led by Sir Robert Umfraville defeated the Scots. But the famous incident - the Redeswire Raid - took place on 7th. July 1595. It was the last great battle to between England and Scotland. In order to make sense of events it is helpful to know something of the larger than life characters involved. Sir John Forster was, in some respects, the Robert Maxwell of his age. Indeed the only blemish on an otherwise distinguished career of villainy occurred on that notable day by Carter bar. Sir John was the first great name of the Bamburgh dynasty of Forsters. If his story isn’t quite rags to riches it is near enough to make it worth telling. As the second son of a not particularly wealthy father life may not have seemed too promising. But young John was determined to climb to the top. He served Henry VIII loyally and was well rewarded. He was also shrewd enough to marry a beautiful Blanchland heiress. Whilst still a young man he paid £650 - the equivalent perhaps of a million pounds today - for his lands. By

now he was Lord Constable of Bamburgh, Warden of the Middle Marches, and one of the most powerful landowners in Northumbria. His considerable rent revenues were topped up by stripping castles, dodgy deals, and hugely profitable border raids. His income was considerable, but his expenses ( which included maintaining ever increasing numbers of illegitimate children and several legal heirs ) meant that his villainy had to be constant. And, despite a legendary capacity for strong ale and sustained debauchery he lived to be 101 years of age. Sir John Carmichael, Keeper of Liddlesdale, was an entirely different character. He took his duties seriously, was entirely honourable, sincere, and deeply religious. It had become the custom that from time to time the Warden of the Middle Marches should have contact with his opposite number. These were known as Truce Days - an opportunity to exchange prisoners and information and to discuss the punishment of those who had committed crimes on either side. Until the unification of crowns in 1603 Redesdale was a semi-autonomous ‘Liberty’ where ‘the king’s writ did not run’. The armistice was usually declared from sunrise to sunrise and every man attending had safe conduct. These events were something akin to a bank holiday, with a market, entertainment and a little carousing enjoyed by folk from both sides of the border.   On this occasion the day’s formal business was conducted amicably enough until a dispute arose over a notorious villain called Farnstein, aka Harry Robson, of North Tynedale who was also related to the notorious Charleton family. It was almost the perfect reivers pedigree. Sir John, who presumably had his own reasons for not delivering him, admitted that this was an oversight and offered to produce him on the next truce day. When he was asked for further explanation he claimed that he had failed to apprehend the man. Finally, he said that the prisoner had escaped. It may be his was as befuddled as he was dishonest. Or, as one account has it : ‘ He had copiously tasted

the fruits of the grain and the wine’. But Sir John Carmichael knew he was being lied to. There can be few doubts that he was aware of some of the Constable of Bamburgh’s more dubious activities. Certainly he told Forster a few home truths. Forster lost his temper and began casting aspersions on the validity of the marriage of Carmichael’s parents and their species. Carmichael annoyed him further by maintaining a dignified calm and refusing to continue the meeting. Forster drew his sword and a serious skirmish followed. ( Some accounts suggest Carmichael was first to draw ). It was probably the only time in Sir John Forster’s life when he had both failed with bluff and bluster, and in measuring the strength of the opposition. In a brief and inglorious fight he was bundled from his horse. Carmichael must have considered ending it then with one well aimed blow, but perhaps he judged that the repercussions would be too great. ( Some accounts have the wardens trying to put a stop the affray. Both psychologists and historians have noted that this is no more likely than the purposeful intervention of the 15th. Airborne Porkers. ) All around them was mayhem. The men of Tynedale used the diversion to raid some of the peddler’s stalls. But the Scots ‘Jeddarts’ ( famous fighting men from the Jedburgh area ) soon had the English on the run. They retreated for three miles leaving behind many dead, including Deputy Warden, Sir George Heron. The Scots, who lost only one man in the fighting, followed the retreat into Redesdale, gave up on the chase, but carried off around 300 cattle. Sir John Forster was trussed like a chicken, thrown into a cart with the other prisoners, and taken to the Scottish Regent in Edinburgh. A few days later Sir John, and all his men, were released and sent home with placatory presents. Queen Elizabeth had threatened serious consequences if it was otherwise. Such was the meaning of power four centuries ago.

Stainmoor

  Perhaps the most crucial battle fought on Northumbrian soil is one of the least well documented. Northumbria had submitted to the English crown in AD 920, when Athelstan defeated the Northumbrians at Brunnaburh. When he died in AD 939 and confusion reigned, Northumbria briefly regained an independence of sorts. The kingship seemed to change hands as if in a bloody game of pass the parcel. Between AD 939 and 954, when independence was lost forever, there were nine separate kings ruling in York, and ten monarchs altogether as Eric Bloodaxe held the reins of power twice. Eric was the most powerful of the rulers, in part because he was supported by the influential Archbishop Wulfstan. It was an unusual alliance. Eric Bloodaxe was a born again pagan: Wulfstan was more of a Northumbrian than a down the line Christian. In AD 940 he had ridden south with the York Vikings and helped to devastate the midlands in general and Tamworth in particular. A victory over the Anglo-Saxon king, Edmund, at Leicester briefly secured five boroughs for Viking rule. This provided a buffer of security for a Northumbrian kingdom. The careers of the two men were bound together. Wulfstan was certainly no puppet. In AD 947 he lead the ‘Witan’ - the ‘Council of Wise Men’ ( the effective leaders of Northumbria ) in border negotiations with the southern King Eadred. Amongst his principal supporters, and consequently a supporter of Eric Bloodaxe, was the mighty Earl Orm whose ‘help and advice’ had been a key ingredient in the victory of AD 940. Eric had arrived almost out of the blue. He was not related to the Norse kings of Dublin, nor could he claim any royal lineage within England. But he came from a line of fighting Norwegian kings. His father, Harald Finehair, had been first to have a serious undisputed claim to the crown of Norway. He had achieved this by the divide and conquer method, and more than a little honest barbarity. These lessons for a career in kingship were not lost on young Eric. When

his father died he rapidly did away with two of his brothers, but his violent character had not endeared him to the key nobility and people. They rallied round his 15 year old brother, Hakon, and put him on the throne. Eric sailed away into exile, and, after a little practical pirating he landed in Orkney. There he heard tales of the wealth of Northumbria and set off to grab a slice of his own. It was clear, almost immediately, to men like Orm and Wulfstan, that here was serious leadership potential. They nurtured it, and when the moment came, offered him the throne of York. His first reign was brief, perhaps just a little more than a year. In the summer of AD 948 King Eadred gathered an army of Southern Angles, marched north and ravaged Ripon. This outrage, which included burning the Minster of St. Wilfred, enraged the people of the north. Fearful of ambushes he spread his mighty army out for the march south. Eric’s small force lay in wait for the rearguard at Castleford on the Aire and ‘a very great slaughter took place there’. Eadred was furious. He threatened to turn his army round and ‘destroy all the land about.’ When the Northumbrian Witan understood this they backed down. Eric was ordered to disband his army, which he did reluctantly. Then the Witan bowed to further pressure from Eadred and told Eric he was out of a job. He resigned before he was sacked and taking just a few of his men with him, he returned to his pirating career.   But in AD 952, Northumbrian leaders who were desperately sick of the weak kneed King Anlaf, and the extent of his ‘co-operation’ with Eadred, sent out a special deputation to Eric and invited him to return. But this time he would have to survive without Wulfstan who had been tricked into a visit to the south and was languishing in a Essex prison. The first challenge came in AD 952 from an alliance of North Saxons ( sent by the traitorous Oswulf of Bamburgh ) and some Scots and Cumbrians. There is no record of where the battle took place but it was certainly a victory that consolidated Eric’s position and reputation. He was still capable of great barbarity but had also

learned at least some of the skills of statesmanship. Perhaps not many liked him but everyone knew where they stood. And wasn’t that better than being ruled by a King in the south? But the end was not far away. According to one chronicler Eric had begun to believe his own publicity : He had so great an army that five ( vassal ) kings followed him because he was a valiant man and a battle winner. He trusted in himself and his strength so much that he went far up country, and everywhere he went with warfare. Then came against him King Olaf, a tributary king of King Eadred...’ Again the traitor was Oswulf of Bamburgh who combined forces with King Olaf and his son, Earl Maccus. The battle was at Stainmore. The modern road between Brough and Bowes, which follows a Roman road, probably also marks the line of Eric’s march on that fateful day in AD 954.   The Saga of Hakon the Good tells us : ‘ A dreadful battle ensued in which many English fell. But for every one that fell there came three in his place out of the country behind. When the evening came the loss of men turned against the Norsemen and many were killed. King Eric was slain by Maccus and with him died his son, Haeric, and his brother, Ragnald’. €

The History of the Ancient Northumbrians ( a lost manuscript ) reputedly added as its own conclusion : ‘And since that time the Northumbrians have been mourning their lost liberty’. There may not be many, even today, who would disagree with that. Wulfstan regained his freedom the following year but it was already too late. There are those who would argue that a combination of his wit and Eric’s axe may have established a Northumbrian kingdom in perpetuity.

Eadred of Essex had re-established the kingdom of his forebears Alfred and Athelstan. But it is said : ‘ he was not so great as one, nor so wise as the other’. And he was not to enjoy it long. He died in sinister circumstances the following year. On the southern side of the modern A66, close to a roadside lay-by and summit, and exactly at the Cumbria-Northumberland boundary, is a stump of monumental stone called the Rey Cross - from the Norse Hreyrr, meaning boundary. This was identified in the 1920’s by Professor W. Collingwood as an English style wheel-cross with figured decoration. He suggested it was created by an English sculptor commissioned by sympathisers in York who wished to commemorate their king. If this is true, it must be, according to another well known historian, one of the strangest memorials in Britain.

Tynedale

  In 1279 a judge at Newcastle refused to try a case because the crime was committed beyond his jurisdiction - ‘in Tynedale in the Kingdom of Scotland out of the kingdom of England’. This was not Scots territory at the time so the judges reluctance to interfere may have had something to do with the general confusion and lawlessness of the time, or perhaps he was simply afraid of not acknowledging the claim of Alexander III. Indeed Tynedale was regarded as a semi-autonomous ‘Liberty’ - where the king’s writ did not run - right up to 1603. In 1295 the citizens were subjected to the ravages of the Scots. It is perhaps less than surprising therefore that in 1314, when Robert the Bruce successfully invaded the north of England, Tynedale recognised him, perhaps over hastily, as their rightful king. It may also perhaps reflect the affection the people of the Tyne Valley had for the English king, Edward II. But Tynedale escaped most of the more violent excesses of medieval England, although a large force of Scots raiders enjoyed a rapid rampage through the Kielder Gap in 1327.

Tynemouth

  Tynemouth is today is still dominated by the impressive castle and priory, though the visiting public may find these overshadowed by the 20th. century fortifications. The first monastery was established here in the seventh century, and there are claims that this was the site of the oldest church in Northumbria. It is also the burial place of two saints - Oswin who was murdered here in AD 651, and Henry of Coquetdale who expired in mysterious circumstances in 1127. In AD 792 the church and monastery were destroyed in a Viking raid. Intermittent Viking raids encouraged the monks to develop and improve their defences. In AD 832 an unfriendly deputation of Danes raised both the monastery and church to the ground. Contemporary accounts describe this attack as a terrible massacre. Nuns of St. Hilda, who had come here form Hartlepool to be safer, were ‘ translated by martyrdom to heaven’. In AD 870 it was again attacked and wrecked. Earl Tostig made Tynemouth his fortress during the reign of Edward the Confessor, and had intentions of refounding the monastery. But provoked by banishment, he took up arms against King Harold and was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. In 1095 Robert de Mowbray, the Earl of Northumberland, rebelled against William II who promptly marched north and besieged Tynemouth. The siege lasted two months and the town fell. De Mowbray, captured after the siege of Bamburgh, ended his days in prison. The Benedictines of Durham failed in their attempt to revive the monastery at the end of the 11th. century. The St. Albans Chapter were more successful in the early part of the 12th. The monastery was dissolved in 1539 although the church remained in regular use until 1688. Illustrious personages, including Queen Margaret and Edward II, have featured on a long list of those who at one time or another

claimed sanctuary within the ‘Peace of St. Oswin,’ which extended for a mile round his shrine in the monastery. The castle building was finished in the early part of the 15th. century, and a garrison of 80 men-at-arms was ‘vested in the Prior of the convent for the protection of all under his charge’. During the English Civil Wars Charles I took care to strengthen the fortress ; but in spite of this it was taken by General Leslie, Earl of Leven, and his Scots. It was later held by General Lilburn for Parliament, but he turned his coat and released all his Royalist prisoners, with the eventual sequel that his head appeared on a pole on the battlements. But Tynemouth will always be associated first with the legend of Prior Olaf. This is one of many versions of the story all of which have equally doubtful provenance. It is said that Olaf himself was a Dane well versed in the arts of rape, pillage, and the sword. After a disastrous raid he was wounded and left for dead on the beach near Seaton Sluice. Monks nursed him back to health, he took holy vows, and in the fullness of time became leader of the order. But he greatly feared the possibility of a Viking raid and could often be seen gazing out to sea from the central parapet of the gate tower. On the day that the dreaded red-brown sails were sighted he was found praying at the shrine of St. Oswin for deliverance from the threat of the Norsemen. The defences had been well mustered and the monks refused the demands of the Viking leader, Eric, to hand over monastery treasure. In the battle that followed the monks made telling use of hot oil and boiling lead, followed by a shower of heavy stones. Discouraged by such resistance, the Vikings retreated to their boats and went to seek easier pickings elsewhere. The casualties were brought to the infirmary to be tended by the monks. One who proved to be beyond their ministrations was the same Eric who had led the raid. He had suffered the misfortune of standing directly beneath a position from which two large boulders descended. When the monks realised they had in their hands the

body of the Viking leader, Olaf was summoned. Olaf recognised the dead man as his younger brother and became distraught with grief and anguish. After arranging the burial he retired to the chapel and asked to be left alone for silent prayer and contemplation. For some hours the monks honoured his wish, but later became anxious about their leader’s suffering and solitary vigil. They entered the chapel and found Olaf cold and dead on his knees before the altar.

Wark-On-Tweed

  Warlike Wark has a name to match. Wark derives from the Saxon weorc, meaning a fortification. It is surprising how little of the ‘Honour of Carham’ remains. All that can be seen today is large green mound with remnants of walls scattered amongst the ivy and grass. But the position remains impressive. The castle mound is so close to the Tweed it could almost be used as a diving platform. A tributary earthwork snaking out Scotland and the west may well have been part of curtain wall. The panorama from the Cheviots to Coldstream is excellent. On a decent day you can even see the sea. Little of this would have been much consolation as ‘garrison after garrison were surprised, starved, surrendered or slain’. In 1126 the castle was seized by David I of Scotland. In the years 1136 - 1523 castle it was besieged by Scots 11 times, most notably on a return visit by David I. On this occasion he was unsuccessful. In 1139 the unfortunate King Stephen of England used it as base to retaliate against Scots incursions. Almost as soon as he departed David I lay siege to it again. After a long blockade the garrison marched out under full honours of war, but the castle was dismantled. Such was its strategic importance the rebuild was complete by 1157. The next attack, in 1174, came from William the Lion’s Flemish mercenaries. When William was held up at the inner gate he brought in his heavy duty catapult. ‘ Unless our engineer’s a liar,’ he declared, ‘ we shall gain the bailey without delay.’ The first stone went wide and felled a Scottish knight. The following shots were hardly more profitable. History does not tell us what became of the engineer. William’s next tactic was to set fire to the castle. This was almost as useless. The next day he marched off to the sound of fanfares, songs of triumph, and a few ribald insults from the Wark garrison. He headed south to see if he might enjoy greater success at Prudhoe.

[He didn’t and was later captured ignominiously at Alnwick.] In 1216 King John was more thorough in his burning. Once the castle was well alight he celebrated his success by torching the town. Wark changed hands as frequently as any border stronghold with the exception of Berwick. The main period of Scots domination was between 1150 and 1295 during which period Tynedale was held by the Scottish crown. Much to the fury of the English a succession of Scots kings held occasional court here. Scots ascendancy at Wark declined following a brief but bloody encounter in 1295 a number of Edward I’s men were killed, but the Scots were routed. His son, Edward II ( 1307 -27 ) was equally hard pressed by the Scots, but it is during the reign of his successor, Edward III, that the most famous Wark story occurred. In 1341 the beautiful Countess of Salisbury was holding the besieged castle for King Edward. After two days of stubborn but desperate resistance the Countess’s nephew managed to break through the Scots lines and ride to warn his sovereign at Newcastle. The enemy retreated as the large English army approached. Following his successful relief of a siege Edward celebrated victory with a famous ball. It is said that during a dance the countess’s garter dropped to the floor and there were titters from the assembled gentry. The King rebuked them with the French aphorism ‘ Honi soit qui mal y pense’. Then picking up the garter he placed it on his own leg. This, according to tradition, is the origin of the of the noble Order of the Garter and the motto has been adopted by the Princes of Wales. The story sounds apocryphal but there is plenty of evidence to sustain it. Froissart’s Chronicle goes further by claiming that Edward had a serious passion for the lady. She however was immune to his attempts at seduction and even went so far as to entreat him to ‘ drive from his mind such villainous thoughts’. But at least he got to keep the garter. In 1342 the Governor of Castle, Sir William Montague, set out with 40 horse to attack the rear of King David II’s army. The king was mightily displeased by this interruption to his raiding schedule

( he already had 100 horse laden with spoils ) and decided to make a personal response. He attacked and captured the castle. Sir William however had managed to send a message to Edward III, who ( in a carbon copy of the previous season’s campaign ) marched north and the Scots once again decided to beat a swiftish retreat. It is not known if there was a celebratory ball at which the king decided to wear an unusual item of women’s clothing. In 1378 Scots attacked several times but returned with a vengeance in the following year when the castle’s new owner, Sir Thomas Grey was away at Parliament. The Scots took his castle, robbed his goods to the value of £2,000, put his people to ransom for a further £1,000, burnt his houses, and did great damage to the castle walls. In 1384 the castle was taken by army of the French master tactician, Jean de Vienne, who led a number of diversionary attacks to aid the Scots cause. In the following year the castle was again attacked & dismantled. 1419 was a particularly busy year at Wark. The castle was taken by the Scots, then retaken by Sir Robert Ogle’s English who made their way in via a sewer from the Tweed to the kitchen. Both times the garrison was put to the sword. In 1460 the Scots, provoked by the success of garrison raiding parties, attacked, captured, and demolished the castle yet again. Oh to be a stonemason in medieval Wark! In 1523 the Duke of Albany sent 4,000 Scots and French to attack the castle. They burst through the outer bailey but broke off the attack in the face of the advance of the Earl of Surrey’s army.   In 1560 it is recorded that the walls were still 24 feet high. The final decline and ruination of the fortress cannot be placed at the door of the Scots or French. Local masons found the plentiful supply of stone irresistible.   Just before the Second World War the historian, Robert Hugill, believed he had found the sewer through which Ogle’s men forced

a way into the castle. Unhappily he was unable to pursue his find. When he returned, some time later, he ‘found the spot was unlocatable.’

Warkworth

  Warkworth, sited on the final bend of the Coquet, was known to the Saxons as Warcewode - after Werce - a wise woman ( and very likely an abbess ) who is best remembered for donating the linen shroud used for Bede’s burial. ‘Worth’ is the Anglo-Saxon term for both a fenced enclosure and a hall. It is likely that the site has been fortified since Saxon times but the first stone defences were put up by a Scotsman - Henry, the son of King David I - who was created Earl of Northumberland. Today Warkworth remains one of the loveliest of Northumbrian villages with splendid walks along the riverside below the castle. It is known that the church at Warkworth was destroyed by Danes in AD 875. Thereafter, by north Northumbrian standards, the settlement enjoyed three centuries of relative peace. That was firmly concluded on 13th July 1174 when the town was fired by Scots led by Duncan. Earl of Fife, and his king, William the Lion. The 300 townsfolk who took sanctuary in the church were massacred. The castle declined in importance during the late medieval period as Alnwick became more favoured by the Earls of Northumberland. In 1327 it was attacked by Scots under Douglas. In 1400 it was bombarded into submission by Henry IV as a consequence of the of Earl of Northumberland’s ill fated rebellion. In 1405 it was again captured by Henry IV’s troops and this event was later recalled as a scene in Shakespeare’s play Henry IV (Part One ). The castle is also associated with an important moment in history as late as 1715. It was here, on October 9th. that the first proclamation of the ( Scots ) ‘Old Pretender’ was read on English soil. Otherwise, the principle claim to fame of this still massively impressive fortress is that it features the only complete system of water sanitation in a feudal castle. The castle is still sufficiently intact for visitors to stand within the keep and let their imagination run riot. It is in the care of English Heritage.

Yeavering Bell (Or Geteryne)

  The name is a corruption of Gefrin which signifies the presence of goats. Gefrin was the capital of an Anglo-Saxon Kingdom. Behind the modern Gefrin memorial plaque, which is located on the north side of the road to Yetholm, is a flat field. It is recorded that here ‘on Magdalen Day 1414 Sir Robert Umfraville ( called Robin-mend-the market ) together with the Earl of Westmoreland ( and 140 spearmen and 300 bowmen ) opposed 4,000 Scots’. If these numbers are correct the battle must be one of the most remarkable victories in history. This modest English force apparently even followed up by ‘chasing and harrying the Scots across the border’. It is recorded that 60 Scots were killed and 160 taken prisoner.  

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