The Leaders of the English Resistance

HERO'S OF THE ENGLISH RESISTANCE

HEREWARD THE WAKE

There  was a time when most Englishmen knew of Hereward the Wake  (meaning  'Wary'), the Fenlands most famous hero, sadly not so nowadays,  this is  the reason behind not only this article, but also this  following part of  the article on the Resistance, i.e. the reason for  the title of this  part, Hero's of the English Resistance, for among  others it was these  men like Hereward who led and inspired the English  not only during the  years of the Resistance but for century's after,  hopefully this part  will rekindle the memory and story of these English  Resistance Leaders  to the modern English and especially to the younger  generations of the  English Nation, who at most a lost generation, lost  because of their  lack of knowledge of their past, of who they are and  where they came  from, of their History and of the men like Hereward who  made their  History, in the hope that they will continue to keep their  names, story  and memory alive. Hereward lived at a time of change, and  often bloody  change in English History, he lead a revolt against Duke  William the  usurper Bastard of Normandy, who had usurped the English  Crown and  throne after defeating the English army on that long hard and  bloody all  day struggle on Senlac Ridge (Blood Lake Ridge) on 14th  October 1066,  killing the last true Native King of the English, Harold  Godwinson, and  the flower of the Native English Nobility in the  process. But how do we  split the fact from the legend?

Well the  real Hereward held lands in Warwickshire and Lincolnshire  during the  reign of Edward the Confessor, he left England some time in  the year  1062 AD, and reappeared to plunder the Abbey of Peterborough  some time  in the year 1070 AD – at least mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  for that year – since at this time it was being written at  Peterborough  – it says simply that among those at the sack of  Peterborough were  'Hereward and his crew'. Around this time, or shortly  after the sacking  of the Abbey, he was holding the Isle of Ely, against  the Norman  invaders in 1071 AD. At this time of his resistance to the  Norman Yoke,  he at times had support from the Danish. He also had  support and  fighting men from many dissident English resistance fighters  such as  the Earl Morkar, and Siward Bain. The hard and stubborn bloody  struggle  for the Isle took up a lot of Norman effort to finally capture.  But  Hereward was one of the many English warriors to escape. Continuing  his  struggle for sometime, operating in and around the Fens.

From  many of the sparse facts has grown the undying legend of Hereward,  son  of Leofric, Earl of Mercia (or Leofric of Bourne, Lincolnshire).  His  mother was said to be Lady Godiva or Godgifu, who was a  powerful  landowner in her own right. He was also said to be the uncle  of Earl's  Edwin and Morcar. His is also said to be son of Earl Leofric  was said to  be a harsh lord, and it is said that the people of Coventry  suffered  greatly because of him. His wife the Lady Godiva was very  different, she  was said to be a gentle woman, pious and a loving woman  who had already  won an almost saintly reputation for sympathy and pity  by her sacrifice  to save her husbands oppressed people of Coventry,  where her pleading  is said to have won relief for them from the harsh  earl on the pitiless  condition of her never-forgotten ride through the  streets of the city  naked, so the legends say. It is said that her  gentle self-suppression  was to awake a nobler spirit in her husband and  enabled him to play a  worthier part in England's history.

In  his youth Hereward was wild and wayward, and ran with like  wayward  company, when the young Hereward was in his teens his farther  persuaded  King Edward to make his wayward son an outlaw. Later perhaps  in his late  teens early twenties he came back to England, when he had  received news  that the Normans had seized his father's estates. When he  returned he  found that the new Norman owners had not only taken the  land but also  killed his brother, whose head was set above the door of  the hall.  Hereward like an avenging angel descended upon the Norman  usurper's and  killed every last one of them. The next day 14 Norman  heads had replaced  that of his brother above the door. Within days the  news of Hereward's  exploits spread and he became the leader of a mixed  band of English and  Danish warriors, who flocked to him at his new base  at the great Abbey  of Ely.

When the news of the rebels in the  Fens reached William the Usurper, he  led a force to Ely, which was at  that time an island in the Fens, three  times the Usurper was foiled in  his attempts to build a causeway across  the marshes, and losing many  men in the process. On the third attempt,  while the Usurper was  encamped at Brandon, Hereward rode there on his  horse, which is said to  have been a noble beast called Swallow, on the  way he met a potter,  who agreed to exchange clothes with him and lend  him his wares. While  in this disguise Hereward made his way into the  Usurper's camp and  over-heard his plans (as according to legend it is  said Alfred the  Great did the same but disguised as a harper and entered  the camp of  the Norsemen). On the usurper's third attempt at building a  causeway,  and proceeded to send his men across it to attack Ely,  Hereward's  warriors, who were hidden in the reeds, set fire to the  vegetation. The  Usurper's troops were engulfed in flames, and those that  who tried to  escape were either drowned in the marsh or picked off by  English  arrows.

Hereward continue to foil any Norman attempts to capture  the stronghold  or Hereward himself, until through the treason of the  monks of Ely, who  it is said were growing tired of the on going siege,  told the Usurper of  a secret path, one even led the Normans along this  path leading to the  fall of the Isle of Ely. But although the Normans  had taken Ely,  Hereward had escaped with a handful of men and he was  soon leading a new  resistance. It is said that while mounting an attack  on Stamford,  Hereward and his men were soon lost in Rockingham Forest.  According to  legend, Hereward and his men were shown the way out by a  wolf that was  sent by St Peter (St Peter animal), and as darkness fell,  it is said  that lighted candles appeared on every tree and on every  man's shield,  burning steadily no matter how the wind blew. It is said  that this was a  token of the apostle's gratitude for Hereward sparing  the abbot of  Peterborough and returning part of the Abbeys treasure.

It  is said in legend, that eventually the Usurper made peace  with  Hereward, but he still had many enemies, it is said that one day  a  chaplain, whom he had asked to keep watch while he slept,  betrayed  Hereward and sixteen Normans broke into the house. And  although he slew  fifteen with his great and famous sword nicknamed  Brain-biter, and the  sixteenth with his shield, he fell when four other  Normans entered and  stabbed him in the back with their spears an  Heroic English Warrior to  the end, perhaps it is wise not to trust  so-called men of God.

Like Edric the Wild, and other Resistance  leaders of the time, it was as  a Resistance leader that Hereward first  became famous, but after his  rebellion many legends and fabulous tails  and stories were attracted to  his name, and within eighty years of the  real Hereward's death, the  Hereward of the legends was in full cry, in  the Estorie des Engles of  Geoffrey Gainmar from around 1140, and the  Gesta herewardii Saxonis  ('The Deeds of Hereward the Saxon'). The  author of the Gesta, writing  perhaps no more than fifty years after the  usurper's assault on Ely,  tells us that on the one hand that he  remembers seeing fishermen  dredging Norman skeletons, still in their  rusty chain-mail, out of the  Fen; and on the other that Hereward once  slew a Cornish giant!

Songs were being sung about him in taverns a  hundred years after his  death; and in the thirteenth century the  English still visited a ruined  wooden Castle in the Fens which was  known as Hereward's Castle, later he  was supplanted by another outlaw  hero, Robin Hood, as a symbol of  English Resistance to Oppression, but  perhaps Hereward and Robin Hood  are one and the same, who knows, but in  a growing number of Englishmen  today, Hereward's name is being spoken  again, and it is my hope that  through this article his name and his  stories and tails will be passed  on to other Englishmen and especially  to the English youth.

EDRIC THE WILD

Who was Edric  the Wiled? And what was his part in the English Resistance  to the  Usurper? Well as we shall find out, he was a real historic  figure, and  he was perhaps one of the first English Earl's to revolt  against the  Usurper's Rule.

Edric was a land owner who held or leased land in  the counties of  Shropshire and Herefordshire in the Welsh  Marcher-lands. And as far as  is known Edric was not at the Battle of  Senlac Ridge (Hastings), if he  had have been, his lands would have been  forfeit to the Usurper William  the Bastard. There is some evidence  that that he was the Bishop of  worcester's 'shipman', and thus would  have been at sea at the time, he  would have been engaged in blockading  the Norman beachhead. For whatever  reasons he was not at Senlac (Blood  Lake) Ridge, the chronicler,  Orderic Vitalis, tells us that he  submitted to the Usurper King soon  after the coronation.

In the  year 1067 two Norman Earls in the Welsh Marcher-lands, used  the  confusion caused by the Usurper's seizing of the English Throne,  to  extend their land holdings at the expense of Edric and other  local  English thanes, especially those lands held by Edric, who was  soon to  gain the title 'the Wild'. At the time there was already much  bad blood  between Edric and his Norman neighbours and now he was forced  into armed  revolt, and open bloody warfare had broken out along the  Welsh  Marcher-lands. In revenge for Norman raids on his lands Edric,  in  alliance with two Welsh princes, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, he  devastated  Herefordshire and then sacked the city of Hereford itself,  before  retreating back into the hills ahead of the Usurper King's  revengeful  army. As far as we know though, the Usurper did not make any  attempt to  gain Edric's submission.

Then in the year 1069, the  late true English King Harold's sons, who at  that time based in  Ireland, began raiding the West Country for a second  time. But as  things turned out though were defeated by Earl Brian of  Penthievre, and  withdrew back to Ireland. Around the same time Edric now  known as 'the  Wild' and his Welsh allies had broken out from their  Marcher hills and  took Shrewsbury before moving on and sacking Chester.  These two  attacks forced the Usurper King to leave them to their own  devices,  since he could not spear any troops to either pursue or  garrison the  towns that were or had been sacked, because he'd had his  hands full  dealing with yet another revolt in Northumberland which was  lead by the  English earl of that Earldom Morkar and his brother Earl  Edwin of  Mercia, who were supported by the Danish King, Swein  Esthrithson, who  also had a claim to the English Throne. And fighting  along side them,  were the Earls Waltheof and Gospatrick, together with  Edgar Atheling,  this part of our story of the English Resistance has  already looked at  above so I will not go any further.

As the bloody rebellion  continued in Northumberland, revolt had also  broken out under Hereward  in the Fens, of which we have looked at, after  leaving troops to  contain, or at least try and contain Hereward's  revolt, the Usurper led  the remainder of his force across the Pennine  hills to face the  growing threat from Edric the Wild and his Welsh  allies, who by now had  amassed a formidable army bolstered by the men of  Cheshire and  Staffordshire. The Usurper and his force joined the force  under Earl  Brian, who had marched through the West Country after beating  Harold's  Sons. After bloody fighting, Edric became wary and withdrew to  the  hills with his fighting men of Herefordshire and Shropshire. While  his  Welsh allies, along with the remaining English, marched on and were  met  and defeated at the Battle of Stafford. After the bloody put down  of  the revolt in and around the Marcher-Counties, the Usurper proceeded  to  devastate and lay waste those counties and the lands of Edric and  other  English thanes and Earls in that part of England.

It is  later said that Edric came to an accommodation with the Usurper  King in  the year 1070, and in the year 1072 he is reported as  accompanying the  Usurper King on his punitive expedition to Scotland.

In the year  1075 there was yet another revolt against the Usurper, this  revolt  involved Roger, Earl of Hereford. There are those historians  who  believe that Edric was also involved, and thus he lost his lands.  But  the truth is, no-one really knows as Edric the Wild had by then  vanished  from the pages of English History. We do know though that he  was not  holding lands by the time of the Domes-day survey.

WALTHEOF  THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON AND NORTHUMBERLAND

Unlike most of his  contemporary and fellow English resistance leader's  Edric the Wild,  and Hereward the Wake, of which there is little in  recorded English  history, most of their story has been passed down to us  through legend.  But of the life and death of Waltheof we know much,  since there is  more in our recorded history about him. He was the  youngest son of one  of Cnut's Danish jarls or Earls, Siward, and  Aelfled, the daughter of  the English Earl of Northumberland we know that  he was more prepared as  a child by his parent's for more of a life in  the Church, than for the  life of a Warrior. But through the intervention  of the fates, this all  changed when his father Siward, with the  encouragement of King Edward  the Confessor and the Witan, led an English  force north to Scotland in  the year 1054 in support of Malcolm, son of  Dunstan, king of Scots,  against king Thorfinn Macbeth. But as the fates  would have it, in that  resultant campaign Siward's eldest son, Osbarn,  was killed, thus we  find Waltheof at the age of 10, becoming Siward's  heir. Waltheof's  father died of natural causes in the year 1055, and his  father's  Earldom was given to Tostig Godwinson, since Waltheof was  obviously too  young to control a vital marcher region.

For many reasons, of  which we wont go into here, the Earldom of  Northumberland revolted  against Tostig in the year 1065 and the thegns  demanded that the  Earldom be handed to Morcar, who as we already know  was the brother of  Edwin, Earl of Mercia. The lower half of the Earldom,  which would have  been known before then as Middle Anglia, was handed to  Waltheof, and  his title has been given in some records as the Earl of  Huntingdon and  in others as the Earl of Northampton.

We know very little of the  young Earl's involvement in the bloody  fighting of that year of much  upset for the English, 1066, and much of  what we know of Waltheof's  involvement has been the subject of much  speculation. What reliable  English sources we know of are silent, or  little if any record is not  really helpful, we have various Icelandic  sources which contain mostly  garbled and, at times very contradictory  evidence, in those we find  mention of him being involved in all three  great and bloody Battles of  that year, i.e. Fulford, Stamford Bridge and  Senlac (Hastings). But  what ever the truth of this may be, we find  Waltheof making peace with  William the usurper Bastard in late 1066 and  retained his Earldom. But  if we look at this information which in its  self indicates that he  could not have been involved in the last of those  bloody Battles, at  Senlac, since we know that the Bastard usurper had  rather resumptuously  proclaimed that all Englishmen holding lands who  fought against him  there, were traitors and therefore would have their  lands confiscated.  As presumptuous as this proclamation was, since it  was made before the  usurper Bastard was yet to be proclaimed King of  England by the Witan,  which was much later, it means without a doubt and  indicating that  Waltheof was not at Senlac Ridge, since he would not  have kept his  lands if he had been.

Earl Waltheof was one of the hostages,  other hostages including Edwin,  Morcar and the Archbishop of  Canterbury, Bishop Stigand, were all taken  to Normandy in 1067 and kept  until the following year of 1068. While  they were held, the North of  England at this time was still well out of  the usurper's grasp,  although he had appointed Copsi, a rather dubious  henchman of the late  Tostig Godwinson who as we know was killed during  the bloody Battle of  Stamford Bridge on the wrong side in the September  of 1066, as Earl to  rule in the absence of Morcar, as a sort of puppet  Earl. This move may  have been cunning since the North was seething with  discontent, since  the usurper knew full well that there many disputes  between various  thegns who had been appointed by our late, and last true  King, Harold  II, also Earl Morcar and those appointed by the usurper  himself. But  for the usurper William, there was also another unsettling  element in  the North, in the presence of Edgar Atheling who had, after  King  Harold's death in Battle, been declared King by the Witan.

Over  all of this fermenting pool of discontent and self-interest in  the  North of England, there was hovering the shadow of Gospatric,  a  descendent of the old Northumbrian Royal House and its past Kings,  and  he was also a cousin of the King of Scots. And at a very  opportune  moment for himself, Gospatric bought the earldom of  Northumberland from  the money hungry William the usurper Bastard. In  1068 was seen the first  bloodshed in Northumberland, in that earldoms  first spark of revolt  against the Norman usurper king, but since the  English leadership in the  north was split it ensured that it fizzled  out before the blood letting  of revolt really got going. In the  following year, 1069, there were  four uprisings in the north. But  Waltheof only appears in the last and  perhaps the most important of  them. The first real revolt to Norman rule  in the earldom, had been  caused by the appointment of Robert of Comings  as Earl, to replace  Gospatric, who had fled to Scotland after the  previous year's revolts  collapsed. The northern English found it hard  enough to accept a  southerner such as Tostig Godwinson, so they  certainly were not going  to accept a usurping Frenchman. When that first  revolt broke out it was  very bloody, for the Normans, since the  northern English killed Robert  and massacred his whole force numbering  around 500-900.

At the  city of Durham, but the accounts of the Norman dead vary, out of  all  the butchered Normans only one lived to tell of what he had  seen.  Encouraged by the bloodshed at Durham, the City of York exploded  in  bloody revolt, killing the new Norman Governor but failing in  their  attempt to take the newly built keep, Eastertide and the whole  North of  England erupted in bloodshed, Englishmen and woman were  killing the  Normans where ever they were found, but the usurper being  the man he was  couldn't leave this un-punished, and took an army up  north and smashed  the Northumbrian English force that was besieging  York castle or Keep.

It was however, it was both the Northern  English and their Norse allies  who gave the Normans their worst defeat  in the north; it was the arrival  of the Danish Norse fleet in the  September of 1069 who dealt the  Normans a greaves blow. King Swegyn  Astrithson of Denmark had a strong  claim on the English throne. He had  an appeal from the English to pursue  his claim, and to revenge the  death in Battle of his cousin, King  Harold, this appeal had been made  while the Usurper King was in Normandy  in 1067, putting down a revolt  against him there. But ever cautious,  Swegyn did not act strait away,  not until two years had passed, but even  then he sent his brother,  Asbjorn, to lead the fleet. It was can act  that, rather than uniting  the English under one war leader, as might  have taken place under  Swegyn, instead it just added yet more discontent  and yet another  strand of confused leadership.

Raiding the East Coast of England  on their way north, the Norse fleet  and among them other elements, had  met very little success until they  entered the River Humber. Here  Waltheof and those who had fled earlier  to Scotland, who among them  included Edgar Atheling and Gospatric were  waiting for the Norsemen.  After a war meeting, the Anglo-Norse force  moved on York, which by this  time had two Castles to keep the English in  the City subservient to  the Norman yoke. On the arrival of the force,  the Norman defenders  fired the houses near the castles to clear a  killing ground, so they  could have a clear view of their attackers, and  also to destroy any  thing that could be used to fill in the defensive  ditches surrounding  them. But of course this act was done with the usual  Norman delicacy,  which resulted in the burning of almost the whole  City. In the  resulting bloody street fighting, the Norman garrisons of  both Castles  came out to attack the Anglo-Norse warriors, but in coming  out, the  Norman defenders were butchered to a man at the hands of  their  Anglo-Norse attackers. It was at this time we begin to hear of  the  exploits of Waltheof, and his beheading of the Norman defenders of  York  with his long axe as the came charging at him through the gates,  his  exploits were recorded both sagas, poems, songs and stories long  after  the Warrior Waltheof had been executed by the usurper King.