class="tdr">XXII.—

Preface.

In the history of our national evolution Yorkshire occupies a most important position, and the sanguinary record of Yorkshire Battles possesses something more than material for the poet and the artist. Valour, loyalty, patriotism, honour and self-sacrifice are virtues not uncommon to the warrior, and the blood of true and brave men has liberally bedewed our fields.

It was on Yorkshire soil that the tides of foreign invasion were rolled back in blood at Stamford Bridge and Northallerton; the misfortunes attendant upon the reign of weak and incapable princes are illustrated by the fields of Boroughbridge, Byland Abbey, and Myton-upon-Swale, and, in the first days of our greatest national struggle, the true men of Yorkshire freely shed their blood at Tadcaster, Bradford, Leeds, Wakefield, Adwalton Moor and Hull, keeping open the pathway by which Fairfax passed from Selby to Marston Moor.

Let pedants prate of wars of kites and crows; we take national life as a unity, and dare to face its evolution through all the throes of birth, owning ourselves debtors to the old times before us, without being either so unwise or ungenerous as to contemn the bonds of association, and affect a false and impossible isolation.

To the educated and intelligent our Yorkshire Battles present interesting and important studies of those subtle and natural processes by which nations achieve liberty, prosperity, and greatness.

E. L.

Hull Literary Club,
January 6th, 1891.

YORKSHIRE BATTLES.

I.—WINWIDFIELD, Etc.

From the earliest ages of our recorded national history the soil of Yorkshire has been the “dark and bloody ground” of mighty chieftains and their armed thousands. Where the sickle gleams to-day amid the golden fields of autumn, our ancestors beheld the flashing steel of mighty hosts, and triumphed by the might of their red right hand, or endured the bitter humiliation of defeat.

Vain was the barrier of Hadrian’s Wall to restrain the fiery Caledonians from their prey in the old times before us, when the Roman Eagle was borne above the iron cohorts of the Empire through the remote and rugged Northland. When Severus visited the island, to maintain his rule and quell the raging storms of invasion, he found the city of York surrounded by barbarians, and encountered and drove them afar in bloody defeat When the Roman gallies bore off the last of the legionaries, and the Britons were left to their own resources, the tide of devastation spread wide and far, and the suffering people were driven to the verge of despair. According to William of Malmsbury, the Romans had drained the land of its best blood, and left it cursed with a sottish and debauched population. Hordes of Picts and Scots inundated the land, fired its villages, overthrew its cities, and slew the inhabitants with the edge of the sword. Oft has the pathetic earnestness of Gildas been quoted: “The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea throws us back on the barbarians; thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned.”

Again the clang of arms and the loud tones of war rang through the north, when the White-horse Standard of the Saxons was spread upon the breeze, and the tall, muscular warriors, with their long, fair hair and flowing beards, swept towards the borders, filling the Briton with astonishment and admiration. Then blood flowed like water, and the fiery Picts were turned to sullen flight; but, ere long, Yorkshire plain and hill groaned under a fresh burden of blood as Briton and Saxon strove together for the mastery. The tide of war ebbed and flowed around the ancient city of York, and sanguinary and numerous were the engagements that ensued before the Britons relinquished the sovereignty of the island.

The history of Edwin, King of Deira and Bernicia, is worthy of a passing notice; he was left an orphan at the tender age of three years, when King Ethelfrith seized his inheritance of Deira, and pursued his steps with implacable persistency until Redwald King of East Anglia took him under his protection. Ethelfrith at once marched upon Redwald, and two sanguinary battles followed, the usurper perishing in the last conflict. Redwald then placed Edwin upon the throne of Deira and Bernicia.

Edwin was a pagan, but on espousing the sister of Ethelbald, King of Kent, he came under the influence of Bishop Paulinus, and his conversion followed. On Easter Day, 626, Edwin gave audience to his subjects in his “regal city” on the Derwent, a few miles from York. Doubtless it was a favourable time for the presenting of petitions, for during the night the Queen had given birth to a daughter.

Towards the conclusion of the morning’s business, a messenger was ushered into the royal presence, and, when about to address the King, drew forth a long double-edged knife, with which he attempted to stab the monarch, throwing all the weight of his body into the blow. Lila, the King’s minister, perceiving his master’s danger, interposed his body, which was transpierced by the weapon, which inflicted a slight wound upon the King. Upon the instant the assassin was slain by a score of weapons, but not before he had also killed Forthhere, one of Edwin’s household. It transpired that the murderer was a servant of Cuichelm, king of the West Saxons, and was named Eumer. The knife had been poisoned, and though robbed of its virulence in passing through the body of Lila, the King had to endure somewhat at the hands of his physician, and was no doubt under some apprehension of death. In conversation with Paulinus he vowed to accept the Christian religion if he recovered from his wound, and succeeded in punishing the murderous treachery of Cuichelm, and on Whit-Sunday the infant princess received Christian baptism.

The avenging army of Northumbria burst into the fair Westland with sword and spear, and Edwin carried his banner through many a sanguinary engagement, when the strong growing corn was trampled under foot and cursed with red battle-rain, as the massy columns of Northumbria drove over the field, banners flapping overhead, javelins and stones beating in a terrible shower along the front, whilst a forest of portended pikes rent and overwhelmed all who dared to brave the dreadful onset.

On the King’s return he hesitated long before professing the Christian religion, and called his chiefs to take council with him. To his surprise the way was prepared for him. Coifi, chief of the pagan priests, doubted the power of his gods. He gave them careful service, omitted nothing, and deserved well of them, yet he was not first in the King’s favour, nor prosperous in his undertakings.

One of Edwin’s chieftains took a more just and elevated view of the subject: “The present life of