Category: English Villages And Towns

Battle of Northam

26/6/2016

Soon after Hastings William the Conqueror was quick to realise the importance of securing the West Country, the first step in achieving this was to take Exeter, the fourth largest city in the country.

Exeter was still controlled by the Godwin family. Harold’s son had fled to Ireland but his mother, Gytha, who still lived within the city walls, held out against the Norman forces during William’s return to Normandy, however on his return to England he made the city his first port of call. Exeter’s city walls withstood an eighteen month winter siege, many of the Norman soldiers succumbed to the cold, eventually though Exeter fell and Gytha escaped with her granddaughters to island of Flatholme in the Bristol Channel. There is no mention of Harold's son’s at the Siege of Exeter and it may well be that they were already in Ireland.

Gytha’s stand at Exeter in 1068 wasn’t the last effort by the Godwin's to take back some control of their father's country. Inevitably though, Devon would submit to Norman control, but before that Harold’s sons would give the invaders a run for their money.

On the 26th June 1069, in the lush green fields that look over the Taw estuary, Godwine and Edmund landed with an invading force in what could actually be a rematch of the Battle of Hastings. New evidence has recently come to light that this battle took place in the fields that lie in between the villages of Northam and Appledore. The Godwin’s forces arrived from Ireland on board sixty four longs ships given to them by the Irish king of Leinster. The defending army was made up of Normans, Breton's and English headed by Brian of Brittany who had fought with the Conqueror at Hasting. Following the battle it is thought that a total more than 3,000 men died in this clash. Brian of Brittany was rewarded with lands in Cornwall, however the fates of the sons Harold is not known.

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James Audley

15/2/2016

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By the end of 1264 James Audley replaced his brother in law, Peter de Montfort, (no relation to Simon) as Constable of both Bridgnorth and Shrewsbury Castles. He spent much of his time, as did his father, arbitrating between the English lords and
the Welsh and was appointed one of the royalist members of the council of fifteen appointed to advise HenryIII in accordance with the Provisions of Oxford. A year later he witnessed, as James of Altithel, the king's confirmation of the council's powers on the 18th of October 1258.

Audley was a supporter of Henry III and was with the king at the Battle of Northampton and the Battle of Lewes in 1264.
James Audley had married Ela, the granddaughter of William Longspree, the acknowledge illegitimate son of Henry II, but
their relationship was not a happy one, and this may have been one reason why my ancestor, Alice Mohun, became
Audley's mistress and the mother to his son James.

In 1237, Alice's first husband had died and it was not until 1245 that she remarried. That year, James Audley had
witnessed a Charter issued by Alice’s father confirming the Soke of Mohun in Westminster to Alice and Robert
Beauchamp and it maybe that it was in connection with this Alice had met Audley.

Alice gave birth to six children with Beauchamp and James Audley was the father of six children with Ela Longspree, but where Alice and James's son fits in (date wise) I am yet to find out.
James Audley gave a number of manors and land to Alice but she had to fight to retain them, which after his death
she succeeded in doing.

James Audley appears in another of my family histories. His elder sister, Amice Audley, had married into my Whitchurch/Blanchminster family of Shropshire, and he appears in a dispute of the over the wardship of the Whitchurch heiresses with John de Warenne the Earl of Surrey.

The images above show Bridgnorth and Shrewsbury Castles and the tomb of the William Longspree, the great grandfather
of Alice's son James.

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The Martyrdom of St Edmund

1/11/2015

It has been written that the Saxon king Edmund the Martyr died on the 20th November in 869/70 tied to a tree, flogged and then used for target practice by archers until he was

“all covered with their missiles as with bristles of a hedgehog.”

Edmund was born around 840 and is thought to have been descended from our country's early kings, but according to
later legends he was born at Nuremberg, the son of King Alcmund of Saxony. He was said to have been fair haired, tall, well built and a 'natural majesty of bearing."

In 855, aged fifteen when he was crowned king, he was said to have shown great promise. As a peacemaker he was interested in justice, and in the world of war he saw off two small Danish invasions headed by Ivar and Ubba, who according to one Abbo were the

"devil's right hand men."

The Danish invaders returned in 870 with a much bigger force.

Edmunds piety, for which he was much respected, forced him to refuse their terms, he disbanded his troops and a fruitless massacre was avoided. Following this he left for Framlingham, but was captured and taken in chains to Ivar, whose demands Edmund again rejected. For this Ivar had him put to death.

According to Aelfric of Eynsham in the Passio Sancti Eadmundi, Kind Edmund.

"against whom Ivar advanced, stood inside his hall, and mindful of the Saviour, threw out his weapons. He wanted to match the example of Christ, who forbade Peter to win the cruel Jews with weapons. Lo! the impious one then bound Edmund and insulted him ignominiously, and beat him with rods, and afterwards led the devout king to a firm living tree, and tied him there with strong bonds, and beat him with whips. In between the whip lashes, Edmund called out with true belief in the Saviour Christ. Because of his belief, because he called to Christ to aid him, the heathens became furiously angry. They then shot spears at him, as if it was a game, until he was entirely covered with their missiles, like the bristles of a hedgehog (just like St. Sebastian was). When Ivar the impious pirate saw that the noble king would not forsake Christ, but with resolute faith called after Him, he ordered Edmund beheaded, and the heathens did so. While Edmund still called out to Christ, the heathen dragged the holy man to his death, and with one stroke struck off his head, and his soul journeyed happily to Christ."

The Anglo Saxon Chronicles suggest that Edmund was killed in battle fighting against the Great Heathen Army. However, later chroniclers preferred to show Edmund in an idealised light and this may be the reason Edmund's gruesome death is always associated with Ivar and Ubba, the pagan marauding sons of Ragnar Lothbrok. Chroniclers have a difference of opinion as to the relationship of these two men, some state that they are not related at all.

Which ever way Edmund the Saxon king met his death, he has gone down in history as an early Christian martyr.

Edmund is thought to have been buried first at Hoxne in Suffolk, his relics later removed to Beodricsworth, which is now
Bury St Edmund.

Edmund is the patron of a number of kings, pandemics, torture victims and wolves. He is celebrated on the 20th of November each year and represented in Christian art with a sword and arrow, the instruments of his torture.

Thomas Cromwell Visits Boston in Lincolnshire

17/9/2015

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In 1515, not too long after he arrived back in England from Europe, Thomas Cromwell was called upon to sort a problem the Guilds of the town of Boston in Lincolnshire were having with Pope Leo X.

Pope Leo was threatening to stop the use of indulgences. These guilds and the church received large sums of money from the people of the town and fen lands who wished to pay for the safety of their souls in heaven. Cromwell duly arrived at the Guildhall in Boston pictured below.

With money from the Guilds, Cromwell embarked on his task hoping to gain Papal Bull of Indulgence for the town. Diarmaid MacCulloch, a professor of the history of the church at the University of Oxford, states that he managed to set up a meeting with the Pope during a stag hunt, during which and knowing of his eminences sweet tooth he managed to persuade him to change is mind by prying him with sweets and delicacies.

Cromwell's plan worked and the indulgences were reinstated.

MacColluch calls Cromwell Henry VIII's enforcer and he also claims it was while he was here in Lincolnshire that he was introduced to Protestantism.

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Sir Ralph de Blancminster of Bien Amie

10/4/2015

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The ballad, that you can read at the end of this blog was written by Reverend Stephen Hawker, was published in 1867, and is the story of a crusading knight known as Ralph de Blanchminster of the manor Bien Amie in the County of Cornwall.

Ralph, whose tale in the ballad, is not fictitious but based on the true story of Reginald Blanchminster, a devoted husband and father, abandoned for another man by Isabel his adulterous wife.

I am adding, along with Hawkers ballad, an excerpt from my ongoing research into the "Blanchminster of Binamy" the story of my medieval maternal ancestors who were prominent in England from 1086 to 1289.

Ralph's real name was Reginald, he was the Blanchminster heir, born around the middle of the thirteenth century.

Reginald Blanchminster was the brother of my 20th great grandmother, both have a very very special place in my heart.

Islam had spread as far as France by 732, and by 1095 the Saracens had refused to allow the Christians to continue their pilgrimages to the Holy City. The Christian world considered this as an act of aggression, so it was inevitable that warfare between the civilisation of Christianity and Islam followed. Having left Isabel and Ralph behind Reginald probably arrived in Palestine shortly after Prince Edward and joined others to relieve the Christian forces in Acre, but by the time they had arrived in Tunis he found the French king had signed a peace treaty just before his death and Edward's crusading army was forced to return to Sicily to wait the arrival of the forces of the French kings successor Phillip III. Phillip never arrived and Edward and his troops continued to Acre alone finally landing at on the 9th May 1271. Jerusalem had fallen in 1244 and Acre was now the centre of the Christianity. Reginald and his fellow crusaders, although they were an important addition to the garrison at Acre, stood little chance against the Muslim superior forces and they would have soon realised that their position was increasingly desperate, by the middle of 1272 they had seen the Cypriot army join forces against them. Reginald was either killed outright in one of the many battles with Muslim forces but as the aforementioned Hawker suggests he was fatally wounded. Before we go on to reveal the real reason of Sir Reginald Blanchminster’s sad death in Syria we must read the Reverend Hawker’s ballad entitled Sir Ralph de Blancminster of Bien Amie......."

".........In Hawkers ballad we see the fictitious Bertha as a young woman who was already resolved of the fact that her husband will not return to Binamie with his life, she states “Time trieth troth” or “time tests faith” She goes on to give Reginald a time frame and a ultimatum stating “three years let the severing seas divide” and “a warrior must rest in Bertha's bed”. Obviously undeterred by these words from his wife, he cries a sad farewell to his turreted castle and riding into the distance shouts "Thou too farewell my chosen bride" Hawker then goes onto suggest in the verse “The Treachery” that Bertha had not kept her side of the bargain. In a wilful betrayal of fidelity, Bertha becomes an adulterous wife fleeing Ralph’s manor of Binamie on the call of one Sir Rupert! The Cornish messenger tells the dying Ralph of three dark omens in a kindly effort to break the new of Bertha's betrayal but the astute Ralph asks “Say on the woe thy looks betide” to which the poor page has to reply “Master, the Lady Bertha s fled the hall."

Reginald’s wife in Hawkers ballad is named Bertha, in fact she was Isabel, a woman who we know little about. At this point Reginald had been married only a few years and between 1262 and 1265 Isabel had given Reginald a son who they named Ralph. During the next five years Reginald became increasingly unhappy and his family think that this was due to the discontent he felt on having heard of the decision of the young prince Edward and Edmund of Cornwall leaving on a crusade to the Holy Land, but we now know is that this could not be further from the truth. At prayer and his frequent times spent alone he struggled with his conscience, asking himself whether he should he remain at his Cornish manor or if he should take up the cross himself. Ralph’s decision to journey to the Holy Land would have been either duty or religious sentiment. Of course both of these would have undoubtedly influenced him as it had done large masses of people who enthusiastically set out for the east to meet the Muslims in battle. Finally with his mind made up Reginald set forth in 1270 to join Prince Edward and the Earl of Cornwall on crusade.

Hawkers ballad is of the sentimental kind, very popular in the late nineteenth century, he has romanticised the tale of a hero knight and his young wife fleeing to the arms of her waiting lover, in fact Hawker was not too far from the truth.
The Sir Rupert in the ballad was one John Allet.

According to an entry for him in the Cornish Fleet of Fines it is stated

Ralph Blanchminster * She was the widow of Sir Reginald Blanchminster, and her marriage with John de Aleth had been secretly performed. ...

in a manuscript dated 1284 it states

John Allet in Kenwyn and Isabella his wife hold the Isle of Scilly and hold there all kinds of pleas of the Crown throughout their jurisdiction and make indictments of felonies.

The aforementioned * entry of Reginald’s fathers death in the Episcopal Register of Exeter we find the entry of the death of Reginald and along side it, probably written at the same time, is an entry regarding Isabel Blanchminster. The purpose of this entry regarding Reginald’s widow in this register is to record the sentence of excommunication pronounced against her for her adultery with Allett. We can assume that Isabel began an affair with Sir John Allet soon after the birth of Ralph and this was the real reason that induced Reginald to take up the cross. How poor Reginald came to know of this infidelity is not known, betrayed and rejected his journey to the Holy Land must have been a sorrowful one. Away on crusade and supposing him dead Isabel and Allet married in secret. The effect all this had on their son is not known but the news of this adulteress marriage and excommunication must have been a major scandal at the time. The Allets must have been keen to stay on good terms with Reginald’s sister Margery, for we know that the two families were still in contact by 1290 as John Allet witnessed a gift of land on the 9th June.

After this date both Isabel and Allett fade into obscurity.

And now for Hawker's Ballard

The Vow

Hush! Tis a tale of elder time
Caught from an old barbaric rhyme
How the fierce Sir Ralph, of the haughty hand
Harnessed him for our Savious land.
“Time trieth troth” the lady said
“And a warrior must rest in Berthas bed.
Three year let the severing seas divide,
And strike thou for Christ and they trusting bride”
So he buckled on the beamy blade
That Gaspar of Spanish Leon made
Whose hilted cross is the awful sigh
It must burn or the Lord and his tarnished shrine.

The Adieu

“Now a long farewell tall Stratton Tower
Dark Bude, thy fatal sea
And God thee speed in hall and bower
My manor of Bien amie.
“Thou, too, farewell my chosen bride,
Thou Rose of Rou-tor land
Though all on earth were false beside
I trust thy plighted hand.
“Dark seas amy swlll, and temests lower,
And surging bellows foam,
The cresset of they bridal bower
Shall guide the wander home.
“On! For the cross in Jesu’s land,
When Syrian armies flee;
One thought hall thrill my lifted hand,
I strike for God and thee”

The Battle
Hark! How the brattling trumpets blare,
Lo! The red banner flaunt the air,
And see, his good sword girded on
The stern Sir Ralph to the wars has gone.
Hurrah! For the Syrian dastards flee
Charge! Charge! Ye Western chivalry
Sweet is the strife for God’s renown,
The Cross is up and the Crescent down.
The weary seeks his tent
For good Sir Ralph is pale and spent
Five wounds he reaped in the field of fame
Five in his blessed masters name.
The solemn Leech looks sad and grim
As he binds and sooths each gory limb
And the solemn Priest must chant and prey.
Lest the soul un-houseled pass away.

The Treachery

A sound of horse hoofs on the sand
And lo! A page from Cornish lands
Tidings,” he said as he bent the knee
“Tidings, my lord, from Bien amie”
“The owl shrieked thrice from the warder’s tower
The crown-rose wither in her bower
Thy good grey foal, at event fed,
Lay in the sunrise stark and dead”
“Dark omens three!” the sick man cried
“Say on the woe thy looks betide”
“Master! At bold Sir Rupert’s call,
Thy lady Bertha fled the hall

The Scroll
Bring me,” he said “that scribe of fame,
Symeon el Siddekah his name
With parchment skin, and pen in hand
I would devise my Cornish land.
“Seven goodly manors, fair and wide,
Stretch from the sea to Tamar side,
And Bien amie, my hall and tower,
Nestles beneath tall Stratton Tower
“All these I render to my God,
By seal and signe, knife and sod
I give and grant to Church and poor
In franc-almoign for evermore
“Choose ye seven men among the just,
And bid them hold my lands in truse:
On Micheal’s morn, and Mary’s Day,
To deal the dole, and watch and pray.
“Then bear me coldly o’er the deep,
Mid my own people I would sleep
Their hearts shall melt, their prayers will breathe,
Where he who loved them rests beneath.
“Mould me in stone as here I lie,
My face upturned to Syria’s sky
Carve ye this good sword at my side
And write the legend, “True and tried”
“Let mass be said, and requiem sung;
And that sweet chime I loved be rung,
The sounds along the northern wall,
Shall thrill me like a trumpet call”
Thus said he, and the set of sun
The bold Crusader’s race was run.
Seek ye his ruined hall and tower
Then stand beneath tall Stratton Tower

The Mort Main
Now the Demon had watched for the warrior’s soul
Mid the din of war where blood streams roll
He had waited long on the dabbled sands,
Ere the Priest had cleansed the gory hand
Then as he heard the stately dole,
Wherewith Sir Ralph had soothed his soul
The unclean spirit turned away,
With a baffled glare of grim dismay.
But when he caught those words of trust,
That sevenfold choice among the just,
“Ho! Ho! Cried the fiend with a mock at heaven
“I have lost but one, I shall win my seven.”

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Sweyn Forkbeard and the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough

2/2/2015

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The 3rd of February 1014 was the last day of the reign of Sweyn Forkbeard, he holds the title of England's shortest reigning King.

On Christmas Day 1013 Forkbeard was declared king of England, and it was in our Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough that became his capital. It was here that he began to organise his new kingdom, but died this day one thousand and one years ago, having ruled England for only forty days. With the support of his son Cnut, he waged war on the English people.
He is said to have been a brutal man, burning people alive and impaling them on lances. Historian Darron Childs says of Forkbeard brutality

"It is perhaps one of the reasons why he has been largely forgotten. It's hard to make a big thing of someone so bad. It's a difficult thing to try and overcome."

It is more than likely that the main reason this man is forgotten is because of lack of evidence.

There is one fortification in Gainsborough, on the site of what is now the Old Hall, that is thought to have been where Forkbeard made his centre of his operations. Mr Child's believes that Gainsborough could have been where Forkbeard's son, Cnut, attempted to hold back the waves, not on the coast like we all imagine but at the Trent Aegir, a tidal bore, which takes its name from the Viking God of the Sea.

After Forkbeard's death his embalmed body was returned to Denmark and the council of England sent for the deposed Aethelred to return as king. He arrived in the spring of 1014 and drove Cnut out of England.

Cnut soon returned to became King of England in 1016.

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Bratton, A Sleepy Wiltshire Village.....

9/9/2014

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with surprisingly so much to see.

In a lot of ways, the sleepy and picturesque English village of Bratton in Wiltshire has a lot in common with Laurie Lees novel Cider with Rosie. It has rose covered thatched cottages, narrow paths and a single village shop, where if you stand outside long enough you get to hear of what going on in the village, from the time of someones doctors appointment, all about granny whose is still trying to give up smoking or the route of the midnight dash to the vets of a poorly cat.

As you walk through its narrow lanes you can be forgiven for thinking you have been plunged into another world, as with Lees book, the new world has arrived here, Bratton has a main road running though is centre, new housing and its infant school is bright and modern and you can sit outside the pub, a conversion of three eighteen century buildings into one, and enjoy your local ale.

The village of Bratton can be found sheltering under the north edge of what only could be described as a mighty great hill. This 'hill' is in fact an escarpment of Salisbury Plain. Bratton lies just over a mile from the bigger town of Westbury and not too far the beautiful city of Bath. A village in it own right since 1892, Bratton comes up trumps in both Geography and History categories. It can boast of is proximity to Salisbury Plain, a three hundred square mile chalk plateau leading to the above mentioned large grass covered escarpment, Bratton also lies in the edge of Bratton Downs, a geological site of special scientific interest.

Historically speaking, Bratton can also boast of many events linked with its ancient past from its White Horse hill carving, one of only sixteen in the country, a double ditched iron age hill fort, the suspected site of an Anglo Saxon battle won by King Alfred the Great against an 'uncoordinated band of Vikings' under its leader Guthrum. Bratton has a fifteenth century court house used by Judge Jeffreys, the notorious hanging judge during the Monmouth Rebellion, earthworks of a moated medieval English Heritage site and finally Bratton was the home of Major General Sir Jeremy Moore, Commander of British land forces during the Falklands War who lived in the village for twenty years until his death in 2007.

Like other West Country English villages Bratton is pleasant, but unlike some that are much prettier Bratton has, as previously mentioned, an ace up its sleeve. It is steeped in history and has a beautiful array of geographical features. If you blink as you pass through you will miss it, but if you have your walking boots and are prepared to stop and look you will be genuinely surprised.

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Forward>>

Battle of Northam

James Audley

The Martyrdom of St Edmund

Thomas Cromwell Visits Boston in Lincolnshire

Sir Ralph de Blancminster of Bien Amie

Sweyn Forkbeard and the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough

Bratton, A Sleepy Wiltshire Village.....

with surprisingly so much to see.

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Battle of Northam

James Audley

﻿The Martyrdom of St Edmund

Thomas Cromwell Visits Boston in Lincolnshire

Sir Ralph de Blancminster of Bien Amie

Sweyn Forkbeard and the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough

Bratton, A Sleepy Wiltshire Village.....

with surprisingly so much to see.

Archives

Categories

The Martyrdom of St Edmund