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Ancient Battlefields

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Ancient Battlefields
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Author(s): Charles Hardwick
Date Published: 2013/04
Page Count: 176
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-78282-067-3
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-78282-066-6

Battle sites of the Anglo-Saxon period

This book is a thorough academic examination of ancient battlefield sites in the north-western region of England. The author has engaged in highly detailed and in-depth research and referencing and so this book is perhaps best suited to the serious student of the subject rather than the casual reader. Hardwick examines battles fought in the region from the earliest times, including the Roman period, and takes into account the basis of those derived from legend. It is divided into three sections which focus upon the sites of the battles which brought about the death of St. Oswald of Northumbria at Maserfield in A. D. 642, the battles fought in the Ribble Valley at Whalley and Clitheroe and Athelstan’s victory at Brunanburh in A. D. 937.
Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

The Brit-Welsh Christians and the disciples of Augustine and Paulinus hated each other with more than ordinary sacerdotal intensity, and the former often entered into alliances with the pagan Anglo-Saxons, in order to avenge themselves on their detested rivals. One of the subjects of fierce contention between them, as is well known, related to the time for the celebration of Easter. Bede, referring to the defeat of Edwin at Heathfield and the consequences attendant thereon, says—<br>
A great slaughter was made in the church or nation of the Northumbrians; and the more so because one of the commanders by whom it was made was a pagan, and the other a barbarian more cruel than a pagan; for Penda, with all the nation of the Mercians, was an idolator and a stranger to the name of Christ; but Cadwalla, although he bore the name and professed himself a Christian, was so barbarous in his disposition and behaviour, that he neither spared the female sex, nor the innocent age of children, but with savage cruelty put them to tormenting deaths, ravaging all their country for a long time, and resolving to cut off all the race of the English within the borders of Britain. Nor did he pay any respect to the Christian religion which had newly taken root among them; it being to this day (the 8th century) the custom of Britons not to pay any respect to the faith and religion of the English, nor to correspond with them any more than with pagans.<br>
Unquestionably no Christian church was dedicated to St. Oswald at Oswestry until after the final subjection of the district by the Anglican Christians. The probability therefore is that the locality was merely named, as in the other instances referred to, from the fact that it had become the location of a place of worship dedicated to him, and that gradually the various traditions about the saint and his rivals became inextricably confused. The last syllable “tre” is indicative of British influence in the formation of the word Oswestry, as in Pentre, Gladestry, Coventry (in Radnorshire), Tremadoc, Trewilan, Tredegar, etc., which simply means, according to Spurrell’s Welsh Dictionary, “resort, homestead, home, hamlet, town (used chiefly in composition).” Indeed, Oswestry is more suggestive of Oswy’s-tre, and may refer to a successor who, sometime after Oswald’s death, built a church and dedicated it to the saintly monarch.<br>
The pagan Mercian king, Penda, was himself slain in the following year by Oswy, the successor to St. Oswald. Bede says:<br>
The battle was fought near the River Vinwed, which then with the great rains had not only filled its channel, but overflowed its banks, so that many more were drowned in the flight than destroyed by the sword.<br>
Most authorities place this battle at Winwidfield, near Leeds. Mr. Thos. Baines, however (Historical Notes on the Valley of the Mersey, His. Soc. Lan. and Ches. Pro. session 5), claims for Winwick the scene of both engagements. He says—
Penda and upwards of thirty of his principal officers were drowned in their flight, having been driven into the River Winweyde, the waters of which were at that time much swollen by heavy rains. There is no stream in England which is more liable to be suddenly flooded than the stream which joins the Mersey below Winwick, and there both the resemblance of the names, and the probability of the fact, induce me to think that Penda met with his death within two or three miles of the place at which Oswald had fallen.<br>
This seems, at first sight, plausible enough, but as Bede distinctly states that “King Oswy concluded the aforesaid war in the country of Loides” (Leeds), Winwidfield must unquestionably have preference over the Lancashire site, as the scene of Penda’s discomfiture and death.<br>
It is generally accepted that Oswald died either at Oswestry or Winwick. There are some, however, who accept neither, but contend that the true site of the battle may yet, possibly, be found in a different locality. This appears to be the opinion of Mr. John R. Green. In support of this view he says (Making of England)—<br>
Though the conversion of Wessex had prisoned it (Mercia) within the central districts of England, heathendom fought desperately for life. Penda remained its rallying point; and the long reign of the Mercian king was in fact one continuous battle with the Cross. But so far as we can judge from his acts, Penda seemed to have looked on the strife of religion in a purely political light. The point of conflict, as before, (that is when Edwin was defeated and slain at Hatfield) seems to have been the dominion over East Anglia. Its possession was vital to Mid-Britain as it was to Northumbria, which needed it to link itself with its West-Saxon subjects in the south; and Oswald must have felt that he was challenging his rival to a decisive combat when he marched, in 642, to deliver the East Anglians from Penda. But his doom was that of Eadwine; for he was overthrown and slain in a battle called the Battle of Maserfeld.