Medieval dates to remember

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In my last post I presented these dates as pivotal ones – to my mind at least- to the medieval period: 1066, 1086, 1100, 1135, 1154, 1204, 1215, 1265, 1314, 1337, 1348, 1381, 1399.  How did you do at identifying which events lurk in the dim recesses of my brain?

At different times, a number of you have also asked how I remember different events and dates. I guess that these particular dates act as way markers to other dates, events and significant interludes, throughout the medieval period. They’re bit like a ‘neural motorway’. I don’t need to think about them – they’re just there. And to continue the analogy, other dates are signposted along different, often more convoluted, neural pathways from the ones I automatically know.

1066 – the Norman Conquest – I don’t think that there’s anyone in the UK who wouldn’t get this date, especially after years of the Horrible Histories entertaining children and adults alike.

1086 – The Domesday Book – William I’s great book of tax and land evaluations linking back to the reign of Edward the Confessor as well as providing a snapshot of post-Conquest England (but not Cumbria because it was Scottish at that point).

1100 – Henry I ascends the throne. I think this one sticks in my head because of William Rufus’s unfortunate demise in the New Forest, Henry I’s pro-English outlook and also because his coronation charter – called the Charter of Liberties- which is a forerunner to Magna Carta. Interestingly I wouldn’t necessarily identify regnal dates as key ones, although I do know them. Also it heralds a period relative stability and we begin to see more chronicles detailing events from now onwards.

1139 – The Anarchy begins with the invasion of the Empress Matilda following the death of Henry I in 1135 and lasts for 19 years – this date is one that fans of Cadfael will remember. It’s not a particularly popular period of history these days.

1154 – Henry II, the son of Empress Matilda, ascends the throne. It’s the period of the Angevin Empire, Thomas Becket, falling out with the Pope, invading Ireland, Richard the Lion heart, the Crusades and of course King John.

1204- King John lost Normandy (which was careless) to the French. There is a new emphasis on England – bringing changes to administration, law and order and society- even if kings spend most of the rest of the medieval period trying to retrieve their former continental possessions.

1215 – turns out John gets two dates! This one is for Magna Carta.

1265 This date corresponds to the Second Barons’ War and Simon de Montfort’s Parliament – democracy is evolving. King Henry III’s reign is a lengthy one from 1216 to his death in 1272.

1314 Battle of Bannockburn – Edward II loses rather badly to the Scots. Interestingly Edward I’s reign which would include the start of the Scottish Wars of Independence in 1296 isn’t something that pops into my head in the first instance despite my interest in the history of the borders and border reivers, probably because the date is part of the back story to Tudor turbulence.

1337 King Edward III starts the Hundred Years War – which actually lasts for 116 years and is most definitely a game of two halves for those of you who don’t mind cliches.

1348 The arrival of the Black Death in England – the changes are obvious and dramatic in the first instance but, longer term, the disease contributes to the decline of feudalism and the number of women inheriting property increases as well.

1381 The Peasants’ Revolt – Up until 1381 the peasants don’t get a voice – the people who have acquired more say in the running of the country up until the end of the fourteenth century were the elite but now the peasants protest and will go on being stroppy, occasionally beheading people they don’t much like, across the next 500 years or so.

1399 Richard II is deposed by his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke, who ascends the throne as Henry IV, unleashing the delights of the Houses of York and Lancaster during the fifteenth century.

I should add that for each name on this list or key event I have a mental map of places, people and events linked with that person. – So for Richard II, in no particular order other than how my mind produced them, I have the Black Prince, Joan of Kent, John of Gaunt, poll tax, Peasant’s Revolt, the Savoy, Wat Tyler, John Ball, Mile End, Simon of Sudbury, Anne of Bohemia, Isabella of Valois, Lords Appellants, Duke of Gloucester – mattress, Wonderful and Merciless Parliaments, Chester archers, Wilton Diptych, white hart, Ireland, Conwy Castle, Flint Castle, Pontefract Castle, Froissart Chronicles, royal portrait, Geoffrey Chaucer, Sheen Palace, flushing toilet, majesty, handkerchiefs and last but not least pointy shoes. I could go on but I think its probably time to stop while I’m ahead!

For fans of the History Hit podcast, which is one of my favourite history podcasts (all of them are really good), who want to delve into the medieval world:

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Medieval Colchester

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Colchester Castle By Jonathan Dann – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129383764

There are no prizes for spotting yesterday’s typo I’m afraid. Several of you identified that instead of 1086 I managed to land in the twentieth century – the error has now been fixed. Many thanks to those of you who gave me a gentle nudge. However, today we’re back in medieval Colchester.

East Anglia became associated with sheep, wool and the cloth trade during the medieval period. Magnificent churches, such as the one at Lavenham, were built on the back of the profits. Colchester was a centre of the trade with its own market, although it was never as wealthy as Norwich. And matters weren’t helped at the turn of the thirteenth century when the Bishop of London established the town of Chelmsford which was close to a royal manor and more convenient for court sittings. However, until 1250 Colchester Castle was key to the defence of the region. The Plantagenet kings all spent time in the town.

In 1214, prior to the Barons’ War, King John showed up to try and persuade the castle’s constable, William de Lanvali, to side with him rather than the barons – to no avail. The castle did find itself under siege in 1215 having changed hands from de Lanvali, to the king’s man Stephen Harangood( who was a Flemish mercenary) and then back to de Lanvali after the signing of Magna Carta in June 1215. In March 1216, John arrived in Colchester to take the surrender of the castle garrison which was composed of 115 French troops. The garrison thought that they had safe passage to London but on leaving the castle they were all arrested. That year the castle changed hands five times but it was a few months later when an army favouring the barons looted the town. Keeping up? Good, because in 1217 Prince Louis of France reoccupied the castle on behalf of the barons. It reverted into the hands of Henry III’s regents the same year, by which time I’m guessing that the inhabitants of the town were well and truly fed up.

In 1290 Colchester’s Jewish community, nine households, were expelled from the kingdom, by Edward I under the jauntily named Edict of Expulsion. Essentially the king wished to raise taxes to fight a French campaign and parliament saw an opportunity to rid itself of the realm’s entire Jewish population. Edward’s need for funding proved greater than his desire to safeguard England’s Jews. On the same day as the edict became law the Sheriff of Essex, Henry Gropinel, received a writ to proclaim that the county’s Jewish community was to leave the kingdom by 1 November, taking with them only what they could carry. Property was forfeit to the Crown, anyone remaining might be executed but the king provided that families should be escorted to safety to prevent any harm coming to them (not always terribly successfully). Up until 1290, medieval Colchester had a synagogue on Stockwell Street. It and nine properties on Stockwell Street became Crown property. Officially, anyone Jewish was not allowed to resettle in England until 1656 unless they had a special licence.

In 1348 the Black Death arrived and two years later the castle’s principal role changed from fortification to goal.

Throughout the period there were tensions between St John’s Abbey and the town over land rights and fishing rights but the abbey wasn’t alone. The FitzWalter family held the manor of Lexden and appeared reluctant on several occasions to allow the people of Colchester their rights. In 1343, John FitzWalter accused 96 townsmen of cutting down his trees, hunting deer and taking his fish. Trespass turned into a brawl. There were injuries, a death and a protracted court case which involved jury intimidation.

Colchester even has its own chronicle, or oath book, dating from the fourteenth century written by the town clerk of the time. Morant’s History of Essex, written during the eighteenth century, contains a translation and explanation for its existence. This is one of the texts that gives us the story of St Helena originating from Colchester and being the daughter of King Coel or Cole (yup – the merry old soul) and identifies the town’s problems with the Danes in 1071. The chronology for early Colchester is not entirely accurate but as Philip Crummy observes, the archeology and the medieval account of Colchester’s past tie together remarkably well even if the inhabitants of the town mistook the Temple of Claudius for King Cole’s palace The book also contains information about the burgesses, where they lived and where they came from, deeds, wills, legal precedents and a summary of court rolls. It helps to unpick the evolution of Colchester’s civic administration and the increasing power of the burgesses. It was only in the Elizabethan period that the town clerk was required to keep more thorough records.

What I like about my study of Colchester is that many of the followers of the History Jar, and those of you who have attended various classes, will know the national history that impacts on Colchester and be familiar with key events. Seeing examples from a specific location – in this case my home town- gives context to the various patterns of development and decay that can be repeated in towns across England.

I’m only mildly concerned that the key dates that pop up in my head for medieval history are 1066, 1086, 1100, 1139, 1154, 1204, 1215, 1265, 1314, 1337, 1348, 1381, 1399. The fifteenth century and the Wars of the Roses have their own set of dates lurking at the back of my mind. Of course, you may have different dates entirely that act as your historical reference points. But can you identify the key events which I work around when I navigate medieval history from the Normans onwards. I’ll provide the answers in my next post. You’ll be relieved to hear that I won’t be doing the same for the fifteenth century!

Crummy, Philip, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Colchester, (Colchester: Colchester Archeological Trust, 1981)

https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-history-and-antiquit_morant-philip_1768_1_0/page/28/mode/2up?q=chronicle&view=theater

As a complete aside I’m quite tickled by a discovery made during my search on the Internet for Morant’s History of Essex – regional colouring books for adults depicting the past as well as the present. There’s one for Yorkshire, Hampshire, Cumbria and even one for castles that I spotted in my cursory search. They’re produced by The History Press (what will they come up with next?). I’m thinking that images from the books could be an excellent basis for a blackwork embroidery- because let’s face it I do love my history in many shapes and forms. I’ll also admit to being tempted by the Great Tapestry of Scotland Colouring Book – the original is currently housed in Galashiels…whether the whole experience would be a mindful one is another matter entirely.

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The Normans in Colchester

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So here we are at 1066 – Colchester suddenly became much more important once more when they decided to build a massive castle there. It’s likely that work began in 1075 and very sensibly the Normans decided to use the remains of the Temple of Claudius as their foundation. It’s always good to have building materials at hand! The use of the footprint means that by ground area, the keep at Colchester is the largest Norman keep in Europe. A handy bank and ditch left by the Romans were also incorporated into the build. When it was new it would have looked extremely intimidating. The Saxons knew who was in charge and any passing Scandinavians would have had second thoughts about raiding.

The other thing that the Conqueror gave Colchester was a new tax code. The Domesday book shows that the tax burden rose five fold from the reign of Edward the Confessor to William I. The records of 1086 show that there were 193 households, making in one of the largest towns of the time. Among the principle landowners were the Bishop of London, the Abbey of St Mary in Barking, the Abbey of St Ouen at Rouen, Count Eustace of Bologne who was at Hastings in 1066 (and who had a colourful past), the king who took over the Crown lands that Edward the Confessor held. It also recorded a number of mills on the River Colne. It was also clear that St Peter’s Church was already well established.

The man in charge of building the castle and all that tax gathering was Eudo Dapifer (meaning steward) who I have written about before. https://thehistoryjar.com/2023/06/10/eudo-dapifer-and-his-elder-brother-ralph/. At the time of the Domesday Book, he owned five houses and 40 acres of land which had once belonged to the town burgesses. He also founded St John’s Abbey, where he was later buried, and St Mary Magdalen Hospital (initially for lepers). Dapifer served three Norman kings and was married into the powerful de Clare family. It was Dapifer and Colchester’s strategic importance in the region which turned the town into a prosperous borough with a population reflecting the waves of settlers that had passed through East Anglia by that time.

Philips, Andrew, Colchester a History

Open Domesday Book online

From the Saxons to the Normans – Colchester

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After the Roman legions departed at the beginning of the fifth century until about 900 AD, Colchester’s history is a bit of an enigma. The world shifted – the Germanic Angles, Saxons and Jutes who arrived on England’s shores in successive waves were both pagan and illiterate.

In 527 the East Saxons established the kingdom of Essex. They did not, as a general rule, live in towns or cities. However the East Saxons – from whom the name Essex derives- provided the town with the name Colchester, which appears to have meant colonia camp, suggesting that someone in the know explained to the new comers the town’s Roman origins.

The Saxons buried their dead on the edge of established cemeteries and a market developed but when they built in stone it was with Roman bricks, tiles and dressed stone. In general, there is a lack of archeological evidence because they didn’t build with materials that endured over hundreds of years. And besides which, other locations, including Ipswich, became more important than Colchester at that time. However, there was some habitation within the ruins of the Roman town and the remains of the Temple of Claudius are likely to have been a tempting dwelling given its size and defensibility.

And then the Vikings landed – suddenly those Roman walls must have looked very appealing indeed. The Great Danish Army arrived in 865 and ultimately the Danes took control of Colchester. In 917, Edward the Elder arrived with his army of West Saxons and sent the Scandinavians packing. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle wrote about the death of the Vikings who were all killed apart from the ones who got over the wall before they were slaughtered. It was the first written mention of Colchester since Roman times.

Edward mended the walls, realigned the street plan and restored the borough. In 926, King Athelstan held a witan, or council meeting, there as did King Edmund in 940. It’s possible that they met at the Temple of Claudius or perhaps in an earlier version of the moot hall. Soon coins were being minted in the town and in 991 the area provided men for Brithnoth, Earl of Essex (who owned lands near Colchester) who fought the Battle of Maldon – lost it and was killed in the process. The poem about the event is pretty impressive.

What Colchester does have that speaks of its Anglo-Saxon heritage is several churches that were founded in Saxon times. Holy Trinity Church on Trinity Street has a tower that’s datable to 1000. Other evidence largely takes the form of pot shards, grave goods, and the remnants of two huts at Lion Walk built in the ruins of Roman houses. In 1916, two seaxes were found in the River Colne during dredging. These are the single edged swords are typically germanic in origin and seem a good place to end this post since there are three seaxes on Essex’s coat of arms as shown at the start of this post.

Next post – the Normans get in on the act.

A P Baggs, Beryl Board, Philip Crummy, Claude Dove, Shirley Durgan, N R Goose, R B Pugh, Pamela Studd, C C Thornton, ‘Medieval Colchester: Introduction’, in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 9, the Borough of Colchester, ed. Janet Cooper, C R Elrington( London, 1994), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol9/pp19-26 [accessed 8 July 2024].

Multiple empires, civil wars and breakaway states: Rome- not all it was cracked up to be.

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Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

I’m still working my way through the history of Colchester. It means that for the time being I’m in very different territory to the usual History Jar posts and need to get to grips with some of the dates and events of the period.

At the end of the second century, between AD 193 and AD 197 life in Colchester became slightly less certain, although whether Rome’s civil conflict impact on a provincial town is another matter entirely. Clodius Albinus was proclaimed  emperor by the legions in Britain and Hispania. This occurred after the murder of Emperor Pertinax in 193. AD 193 was a difficult year for the empire being known as the ‘Year of Five Emperors. ‘ Emperor Commodus had ruled from AD 177 to AD 192 when he was murdered. Pertinax ruled for a very short time (Jan-March in 193) and after his murder, the Praetorian guard sold the throne Didius Julianus who became emperor in March and was gone by June 193 (another murder). Pescennius Niger proclaimed himself emperor when Didius purchased his position as did Septimus Severus who defeated Niger and had him executed. Septumus Severus ruled until AD 211 .

Albinus was Britain’s governor and he took the legions stationed here to Gaul to fight for his own claim to the throne. He initially came to an arrangement with Septimus Severus who controlled Rome but the pair fell out and, besides which, Severus’s aim was to be sole ruler. It was February AD 197 Albinus was defeated and executed. Severus also had Albinus’s family beheaded. Severus then crossed the Channel to Britain and created two provinces – a southern one ruled from London and a northern one ruled from York.

As the third century got under way there was inflation, Germanic raiders, and ever soaring costs. In 260 the Gallic Empire broke away from Rome . The aim of the ruler of this breakaway empire, Posthumus, was to create a power base from which he could attack Rome and become sole ruler of a united empire. He was assassinated in 274.

In Britain the collapse of the Gallic Empire resulted in a revolt between 277-279. Blame was placed squarely on the shoulders of recently settled Germans for the unrest. They had arrived in Britain as mercenaries to provide support to the overstretched legions.

In 286 there was yet another period of instability when Carausius, a naval commander, took control of Britain and was then murdered by his associate, Allectus. So far – so many murders and much upheaval. Alecto’s ruled until AD 296 when Constantius, the father of Emperor Constantine, invaded and reunited Britain with the rest of the empire. It is said that Constantius rocked up at Colchester but came to an agreement with its then ruler King Coel (I kid you not) and ended up marrying the king’s daughter Helena. This story was promoted in the medieval period by the chronicler Henry of Huntingdon and by Geoffrey of Monmouth. No one knows where the story originated. It may have come from a lost source or from oral history but in any event, Colchester’s patron saint is Saint Helena (other versions of the tale are available).

And what was Colchester doing? By the end of the third century the citizens of Colchester were increasingly alarmed by the fighting and had taken the decision to strengthen their defences. The wall built after the Boudiccian Revolt contained six gateways. Now they blocked off the Balkerne Gate. They also made sure that the ditch outside the wall was enlarged. The suburbs which had thrived outside the walls in earlier times began to disappear by the fourth century it is thought that none remained. The threat was not only from within the fractured empire. By the end of the third century Saxons from modern North Germany were raiding Britain. The Roman Saxon Shore forts found along the coast from Norfolk to Hampshire were built at this time to deter the barbarians.

There were other changes. A huge barn was built (modern Culver Street) to store grain. Colchester was a town adapting to the need for self sufficiency once the smooth running of the empire could no longer be guaranteed. And in 313, Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be legal – his mother Helena may have come from Colchester. It is her statue that stands watch from the top of the town hall.

And just as you’re heaving a huge sigh of relief after this post’s gallop through emperors, pretenders and various assassinations – in 350 Magnentius proclaimed himself emperor having gained control of the Western Empire (of which Britain was part) by killing Emperor Constans who was Constantine’s younger son. Constan’s elder brother Constantine II defeated Magentius and made life difficult for his supporters. And last but not least in 407, Constantine III, who started out as an ordinary soldier, declare himself emperor but by then Rome had plenty of troubles of its own. It was sacked by the Goths in 410. The archeological record shows that no more new bronze coins were circulated from Rome to Britain and taxes were not collected. It meant that the administrative service gradually came to a halt because there was no pay for the men who ran it.

It did not mean that the Romano-British way of life was at an end but more changes were coming. And so far as history was concerned until the mid twentieth century Colchester was plunged into the Dark Ages – which scholars today agree aren’t as dark as previous texts may have suggested. During the fifth and sixth centuries waves of Saxon migrants settled in Britain. And among the changes was a new name for Camulodunum.

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The Iceni Revolt – Colchester burned to the ground.

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In AD 60 King Prasutagus of the Iceni died. he was a client king and he decided to leave half his estate to the Emperor Nero to ensure that his wife Boudicca and his daughters would be allowed to continue ruling. Unfortunately the Romans who dealt with the matter plundered the kingdom, enslaved many of the Iceni, flogged Boudicca and raped her daughters. Tacitus wrote condemning the behaviour of the Romans involved but matters had gone beyond a strongly worded note.

The Iceni rose in rebellion and were joined by the Trinovantes who had had just about enough of the Romans. They headed for Colchester with its expensive temple dedicated to the Emperor Claudius and its triumphal arch…and no walls. The Roman army led by the provincial governor, Suetonius Paulinus, was on Anglesey and when the citizens of Colonia Victricensis sent to Londoninium for help there was only a small force available to assist.

It has to be supposed that the Roman villas outside the town were the first to be attacked and their inhabitants murdered. Then the Britons swept into the town, looting, destroying, killing and razing the colonia to the ground before it turned its attention to the hated Temple of Claudius. Today archeologists have their own name for that layer of soil – it’s the Boudicca destruction layer. Excavations have revealed smashed Samian ware pottery, glass that became so hot that it melted, carbonised dates and charred figs. The Fenwick Hoard tells the story of a panic stricken couple hiding their valuables beneath the floor of their home before fleeing. The fact that they never returned suggests that they were among the victims of the revolt. Oddly though, very few bodies have ever been discovered.

Tacitus recorded that those Romans who remained in Colchester sought sanctuary in the Temple of Claudius where they held out until they were finally overwhelmed and killed. Boudicca and the Britons swept through St Albans and on to London which also went up in flames. Suetonius and the Roman army dashed back towards London and in a set piece battle near St Albans, called the Battle of Watling Street, the Britons were defeated. Boudicca survived the battle and either died soon afterwards or took poison. No one knows where she is buried – and no its not under one of London’s railway stations.

For Colchester it meant the end of its time as the Roman capital. Even so, Colchester today reflects the lines of a Roman garrison and the first colonia in Britain. The town needed to be rebuilt and repopulated. Many of the houses were rebuilt on the same plots as before and most importantly the new town had walls. Today Colchester is proud of the fact it has the most complete Roman walls of any town or city in England. In places they were over six meters high and almost 2.5 meters thick – perhaps a case of bolting the stable door after the horse had well and truly bolted. A new theatre was built at Gosbecks, apparently capable of seating 5,000 people; a circus – the only one discovered thus far in this country; the Temple of Claudius was restored; more temples were built; workshops and shops sprang up; oysters from the region were exported across the empire.

During the next 350 years Colchester would see other uprisings and unrest. The third century saw inflation, a decline in the administrative system across the empire and increasing problems with raiders from outside the empire… more of that tomorrow. In the meantime when Colchester Town Hall was built, Boudicca, the queen who razed the town to the ground was commemorated by a statue and a stained glass window. The more famous statue is in London near Westminster Bridge, commissioned by Prince Albert, depicting the queen driving a war chariot like none that the Iceni would have driven…but its still one of my most favourite statues ever.

I’ve not read the MacKay book yet but am looking forward to doing so. Click on the image to open up the link in a new tab. And for those of you who like a more lighthearted moment, why not look up the wonderful Horrible Histories ‘Boudicca Song’ – what’s not to like?

Colchester – the first city in Britain

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Razumukhin, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s quite a claim but Colchester has been inhabited for a very long time indeed. The Iron Age, which is well outside my usual time frame, began in about 700 BC. About 2000 years ago the inhabitants of modern day Colchester created a series of defensive dykes which stretch for between 12 and 15 miles depending upon which source you read. In either event it was a huge undertaking. It seems likely that the settlement was a high status agricultural estate. An additional benefit of the earthworks may have been to keep herds from straying. As well as the settlement at modern day Gosbecks there was a more industrial settlement at Sheepen.

In 55/54 BC Julius Caesar crossed the Channel. He wrote that the Trinovantes who lived in Essex and the southern parts of Suffolk were the strongest tribe in the southeast. The neighbouring tribe were the Catuvellauni (based in modern Hertfordshire). The visit established links with Rome and trading relations developed. British kings began to issue their own currency. By the time he returned in 54 BC the Trinovantes had been overtaken by the Catuvellauni. King Tasciovanus minted coins at St Albans and later at Colchester.

In 15 BC, or thereabouts, one of the high status individuals who lived in Colchester died and was buried in a tumulus with his possessions. The Lexden Tumulus contains many grave goods demonstrating the man’s status. Among them, 17 amphoras for storing wine. There is also a silver medal bearing the head of the Emperor Augustus. It is possible that it is the resting place of King Addeomaros of Camulodunum as Colchester was then known. Camulodunum means ‘fortress of the war god Camulos’.

In about AD 5 Cunobelin, or Cymbeline as Shakespeare called him, began to issue coins – and kept them coming for about the next thirty years. Colchester was his power base.

AD 40 Cunobelin dies.

AD 43 Emperor Claudius invades. The Roman army, under the command of Julius Plautius, heads for Colchester. Cunobelin’s son, Togodumnus is killed and his second son, Caratucus, rather than accept defeat continued fighting a guerrilla war for several years afterwards . He was eventually betrayed and sent to Rome with his family and lots of loot. He made a dramatic speech to the emperor and was pardoned. He and his family remained in exile in Rome. By then Claudius had accepted the submission of several British kings who become clients of the empire, including the Iceni tribe of present day Norfolk which meant that they retained some independence but were required to pay taxes. It left the Romans with a buffer zone between peaceable tribes and those who were actively hostile. The invasion and early Roman years of Colchester were described by Tacitus in his Annals and later by Dio Cassius.

AD 44 – Colchester became a legionary fortress. The XX legion, who originated from modern Germany, build their fort away from the Iron Age settlement on top of a hill near the River Colne. They continued to utilise the industrial site at Sheepen. In addition, the Romans started their own cemetery on the road leading south away from the garrison. There are two gravestones associated with the garrison in Colchester Castle. One is in memory of Marcus Favonius Facilis, a centurion with Legio XX. The other is dedicated to Longinus Sdapeze, an officer of the 1st squadron of the Thracian cavalry unit. His gravestone depicts him trembling a vanquished Briton beneath his horse (very similar to the one at Hexham).

AD 49 – As the Romans secured the southeast the need for an army in that part of Britain was reduced . It was decreed that Camulodunum should become a colonia. A colonia was a colony for retired army veterans who were entitled to land to support themselves and their family after 25 years service. If they were not already Roman citizens, they were also granted that status. In part, as Tacitus explains, they were there as a military reserve but the real reason for the establishment of colonia in vanquished regions was to Romanise the locals and provide a model of good Roman behaviour. And since the veterans were from the Legio XX it made sense to provide them with land in the newly established province rather than permitting the battle hardened soldiers to return to their own country where they might have turned their skills against the empire or to settle them in Italy. Colchester was the first colonia in Britain, and would remain so for 40 years, but it was joined by Lincoln, Gloucester and York. The fort was repurposed. Some of the barracks were reused, others were demolished and new buildings established.

The new Roman town was named Colonia Victricensis which differentiated it from Iron Age Camulodunum which remained at modern Gosbecks. The two were connected by a road. The Britons who lived there were clients of the Romans and watched over by a Roman fort. Because the inhabitants were part of the British elite they were expected to become more Romanised. This can be seen by the existence of a Romano-Celtic temple there. Little is known about the deity it was built to worship but it is likely to have been dedicated to Camulos-Mars. A theatre was added later. Even so, the burial site at Stanway, close to Gosbecks, reveals its inhabitants continued to be interred according to their own rituals. At Gosbecks it seems that the Romans were careful not to alienate the Britons and left them with their land. Elsewhere it was a different story.

The Roman temple dedicated to Claudius was built at about the same time. It was to the east of the site of the garrison and the defeated Britons were required to help fund its construction – it became symbolic of the power of Rome. Colchester, or Camulodunum, was now the capital of Roman Britain. There was even a monumental gateway built on the orders of Claudius to celebrate his victory over the British. This later became Colchester’s Balkerne Gateway but there weren’t any substantial defences around the colonia.

Tacitus recorded that the veterans of the colonia did not behave well to towards the Trinovantes. Many people were driven from their land and enslaved. It would not end well for the inhabitants of the colonia. More on that tomorrow.

Meanwhile during the course of my search for various texts I was tickled to come across the Colchester edition of Monopoly – I quite fancy owning the Balkerne Gate or the Roman circus, even if its only in a game! Click on the image if you’re tempted- to open the link in a new tab.

Nottinghamshire and the English Civil War

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Eljx1988, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I’m researching the Little History of Nottinghamshire among other things at the moment and am having a dabble into the 17th century.

Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham Castle on 22 August 1641. It marked a call to arms and the start of the English Civil War. A little under four years later, the king surrendered to the Scottish Parliamentarian army at the Saracen’s Head at Southwell near Newark. He was moved from there to Kelham and ordered to write a letter requiring the surrender of Newark to Parliament.

Newark experienced three sieges through the course of the civil war. The town even produced its own siege money during the last siege which occurred in 1645-46 because cash was in such short supply. Inevitably after three sieges the town wasn’t in good shape and the population became ill with plague to add to the general misery. Inevitably after the surrender the church St Mary Magdalene, whose spire is said to have been damaged by a canon ball during the second siege of 1644, was badly damaged by victorious Parliamentarian soldiers.

The castles at Newark and Nottingham were both razed in the aftermath of the war. Meanwhile int he countryside a series of manor houses suffered the consequences of civil conflict. At Shelford the church tower was used by sharp shooters while the Manor House, which belonged to the Earl of Chesterfield, was provided with trenches and earthworks for the defence of almost 200 royalists. The earl’s son, Philip, was so badly wounded in the final battle that ended the siege that he died the following day and that seem evening Shelford Manor was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt after the Restoration.

Wiverton Hall, belonging to the Chaworth family, was a Tudor Manor House complete with a moat. Following the events of Shelford, its governor, Sir Robert Therrill, came to terms with the Parliamentarians and made the hall indefensible. Only the medieval gatehouse escaped demolition. Wollaton Hall near Nottingham had been damaged by a fire in 1642 and the Willoughby family lived at their home in Warwickshire so although the estate supported the garrisons a Wiverton and Shelford it did not suffer the consequences of being garrisoned.

Near Worksop, Wlebeck Abbey was the residence of the Earl of Newcastle. he would be rewarded with a dukedom upon the Restoration but his home became a garrison under the command of his eldest daughter Lady Jane Cavendish during the civil war. Some of the earl’s valuables were buried for safekeeping – in the time honoured manner – while both royalists and parliamentarians helped themselves to anything else. The duke and his second wife, Margaret Lucas, spent many years after the Restoration restoring the property and its estates.

While the Duke of Newcastle was the most prominent of Nottinghamshire’s royalists, the Byron family of Newstead Abbey also played a significant part. There were seven brothers who all joined the Royalist army and all of them are thought to have fought at Edgehill. Thomas Byron killed by one of his own men at Oxford in a dispute over pay. His brother John was at the battles of Newbury, Nantwich and Marston Moor where he commanded the right flank of the Royalist line. He would eventually die in exile in 1652. Robert Byran became the military governor of Liverpool but was forced to surrender when his Irish troops mutinied. He spent some time in custody, fought at Naseby and was rearrested as a royalist spy. After the war he returned to Ireland with a commission. William was knighted by the king on the very day that he surrendered to the Scots at Southwell. He was with his brother John Byron at the Siege of Carnarvon and afterwards he went into exile where he continued to work for the royalist cause.

Gilbert was the youngest of the brothers and he is known to have fought in the Bishops’ War in 1639 when he was part of the King’s Lifeguard. In 1640 he was in Europe fighting on behalf of the king’s sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia but by January 1642 he was back in England and was one of the men who went with Charles I to arrest five members of Parliament. He may have been at Marston Moor before going to Wales with his brother. Eventually he made his way to Pontefract but was captured when he sallied out of the castle in search of provisions with a band of men. Like other royalists he was required to pay a fine but his health appears to have been poor, perhaps because of wounds – I’m not sure- and he died in 1656 leaving a wife and two daughters.

During the second, short lived, civil war which broke out early in 1648 Nottinghamshire saw a small but important battle near Willoughby-on-the-Wolds. At the end of the encounter 100 or so royalists were dead including Michael Stanhope, the brother of Philip Stanhope. There is a brass commemorating him in Willoughby Church.

Interestingly one of the most interesting accounts of Nottinghamshire’s civil war comes from Lucy Hutchinson, the wife of Colonel John Hutchinson who held Nottingham for Parliament and was a regicide, having signed Charles I’s death warrant. Lucy, who was devoted to her husband and wrote his biography and while it’s not as famous as Margaret Cavendish’s biography about her husband it provides an insight into the war in and around Nottingham.

Click on the image to open the link to Amazon (Amazon Associate) – For kindle owners the biography is currently (at time of writing) 49p but rathe more expensive if you prefer a hard copy.

Wollaton and the Willoughbys

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Wollaton Hall, Enchufla Con Clave, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Prior to the Conquest Wollaton was known as Olaveston – medieval spelling and pronunciation resulted in the change of name. The manor was in the hands of Alfa the Saxon who paid Danegeld for about 180 acres of land. After 1066 the manor was granted to William Peverell and continued in his family until Henry II confiscated it and the land became Crown property. In 1174, Henry II gave it to his youngest son John. The land was held throughout by a tenant who paid a Knight’s fee in order to hold the manor.

During the thirteenth century a wool merchant named Ralph Bugge purchased lands in Willoughby-on-the-Wolds. Across the next hundred years the family, who changed their name to Willoughby, accrued more wealth, made judicious marriage alliances and ended up with the Wollaton estate on the outskirts of modern Nottingham. They also acquired Cossal and the following century added the estate of Middleton in Warwickshire to their portfolio. As they made good marriages and acquired land they became part of the gentry and served in various administrative capacities. In 1427, Hugh Willoughby served as one of Nottinghamshire’s MPs before becoming Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. It helped that some of the Willoughbys’ land was sitting on coal seams. Sir Henry Willoughby, who lived at the end of the fifteenth century was regarded as a very wealthy man, who invested his income in land and through making judicious marriages for his children.

Sir Henry Willoughby looked to Lord Hastings as his patron and as a consequence fought for the Tudors at Bosworth in 1485. He was also on the field at Blackheath in 1497 and won favour from Henry VII. Not that Sir Henry was without blemish, in 1485 he abducted Jane Sacheverell who was both a widow and an heiress and forced her to marry his brother, Richard. The following year Jane was granted a divorce and married William Zouche, who she had been contracted to prior to her kidnap.

And now we come to Sir Francis Willoughby – who built Wollaton Hall. His father, (another Henry) married Anne Grey, the sister of the Duke of Suffolk. The Willoughbys were closely tied by marriage to the Greys several times over. When Francis was two, his father died. He and his brother became wards of their uncle. In 1554 Francis’ cousin Lady Jane Grey, was executed as was the duke. In 1559, Francis’ elder brother died and Francis became heir to his father’s estates.

Francis married Elizabeth Lyttleton when they were both in their teens. It was not a happy relationship. Eventually the Earl of Leicester adjudicated between the couple and they went their separate ways, although Francis was required to pay Elizabeth £200 per year.

Sir Francis initially tried to sell Bess of Hardwick land at Willoughby to try and raise funds to begin building Wollaton Hall. She told him his asking price was too mach and declined the offer. Instead, she leant him the money on the understanding that the land would be security for the debt. He began to build his hall with Ancaster stone from Lincolnshire, in 1580 and finished it in 1588. He died less than a decade after its completion and still in debt from the construction of the hall. It is thought that the building cost about £8,000. It did not help that he had six daughters who all required dowries.

In Derbyshire, Bess of Hardwick, watched the building take shape with keen interest, she even visited it when it was nearing completion on a journey home from London. In 1591 she signed Willoughby’s mason, John Roses, to complete the stonework on her own grand design at Hardwick which was designed, as was Wollaton, by Robert Smythson. Situated on a hill, with large windows covering the walls it has been described as a ‘lantern house’ which seems an appropriate description of both Wollaton and Hardwick.

Willoughby did not forget to emblazon his coat of arms above the front entrance but it was a nineteenth century extension designed by Jeffrey Wyatville, (real name Wyatt) who remodelled the interior of the hall, adding a large hall with a hammer-beam ceiling and rather gothic corbels and grotesques.

Francis had no sons so the estate passed to his eldest daughter and her husband – who also happened to be a cousin, named Sir Percival Willoughby.

There was a fire in 1641 which caused extensive damage, so the house was unoccupied for the better part of fifty years. When the Willoughbys returned, Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos, ordered that the house should be changed on its exterior to reflect a more Italianate style with the addition of statues from Italy. Cassandra’s efforts to resurrect her family home included cataloguing the family papers.

In 1801 there was yet another fire which allowed Wyatville’s extensive remodelling.

Nottingham crept ever closer to the hall and its fourteenth century deer park. In 1881 the Willoughby family sold Wollaton to the Nottingham Corporation who turned it into a natural history museum.

Strauss, Sheila M., Wollaton and Wollaton Hall, A Short History (Nottingham: Nottingham City Council Leisure Department, 1989)

And it turns out that you can even buy a vintage travel poster for Wollaton Hall – just goes to show how popular visiting stately stacks and natural history museums can be!

Amazon Associate link – click on picture to open new tab.

Little History of Derbyshire – in the window!

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Well this is very exciting – I’m in the window of Waterstones in Derby! The History Press publication The Little History of Derbyshire is in the window…yes I did a little dance of happiness and have been photographed standing next to it.

Someone asked me how much I enjoyed writing it – and the answer is that I absolutely loved it the research process. I guess one of the things we’re all slightly guilty of is not visiting places on our own doorsteps, so it was a real pleasure to revisit locations I hadn’t been to for years and others that I’d never seen. I also became fascinated by the importance of geology and the development of infrastructure which impact on the prosperity of different locations as well as their evolution as settlements. Derbyshire is quite unusual in that there was no dominant noble family for many centuries after the de Ferrers earls of Derby blotted their copy books and Henry III ordered that Duffield Castle should be demolished, thus removing the county’s largest and most significant keep. Instead, more middling families assumed roles and responsibilities within the county working for the Dukes of Lancaster and, in due course, Lancastrian monarchs. By the fifteenth century Derbyshire’s gentry, of which there were about 30 families, were both prosperous and influential.

And the other thing I really enjoyed was turning my hand to some pen and ink drawings to illustrate the book. This pair didn’t make it into the book. It’s a quick sketch of the Thomas Cokayne and his wife Dorothy in St Oswald’s Church, Ashbourne. The Cokaynes were one of the gentry families who played a significant role in Medieval Derbyshire. Thomas was in the household of the 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, he took part in Henry VIII’s Rough Wooing in 1544 and was knighted by Edward Seymour for his part in it – notably the burning of Edinburgh. In 1587, he was one of the gentleman warders of Mary Queen of Scots on the orders of the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. The following year, again on the orders of Shrewsbury, he joined other members of the Derbyshire gentry, as justices of the peace, recruiting men and arming them in preparation for the Spanish Armada.