Winter of Discontent nc-2

by Iain Campbell

  Large fires were lit to smoke and dry meat and fish to last for the next few days. Other animals were roasted or boiled for immediate consumption. Vegetables, once picked, were boiled for use that day or placed into sacks for future use- peas, beans, cabbage and carrots. The only regret of the men was that there was no bread and no ale.

  To the north the poachers were having success in locating the enemy, but not yet killing them. Ten groups of hunters moved silently on foot down the path through the trees and tangled undergrowth on the west side of the river, leaving before first light. Another two pairs worked down the path on the east of the river. As expected, the enemy was on the west of the river. They knew where the invaders were and where they were most likely to go. It would make little sense for the Anglo-Norman force to cross the river at Denbigh and then do the same again to cross back onto the west bank at St Asaph, at the confluence of the Rivers Elwy and Clwyd.

  Moving in conjunction, the Anglo-Norman scouts moved fifty or so paces at a time through the trees on each side of the path, avoiding the path itself. One pair would creep forward, carefully scan the forest and listen. They were seeking not only the direct signs of the enemy, but also the sights and sounds of the forest that would indicate the presence of danger. When satisfied they would wave one of the supporting pairs forward.

  The discipline of the Welsh warriors was less than perfect. They could often be heard talking, about what the Anglo-Normans knew not as they were speaking Welsh, but presumably grumbling about the rain which was now falling more heavily. In other cases their location was given away by the birds, or a few times just by the feeling that somebody was watching and that something foreign was in the forest. Then the scouts would pause until either satisfied they were wrong or had located the men sitting in ambush.

  Each ambush site was carefully mentally recorded and they reached the edge of the forest near St Asaph a little before noon. There they turned and beginning the journey back. The return was quicker- the positions of the enemy were known but not taken for granted. The same procedure was followed as before, but in a more abbreviated manner. No additional ambush places were located on the return, but the hunters did take the time to diverge and follow pathways to the nearby hills where they found large caves. Groups of people could be seen; sometimes these were solely warriors; other times they were villagers who had taken shelter. Occasionally the caves were used to house livestock. Again, note was taken for later report.

  After the scouts returned Alan spent half the night in discussions with them, with a large piece of parchment, quill and ink. Although illiterate, the huntsmen had the incredibly retentive memories that the unlettered usually possess. They’d paid particular attention to their surroundings and could describe the journey virtually step by step. Alan carefully recorded the information from each man onto the parchment.

  Next morning the army, with replete stomachs after a large breakfast and carrying meat and vegetables for a week of campaigning, moved out well before first light. The hunters acted as pointer-dogs, bringing small parties of soldiers within close range of the unsuspecting Welshmen, who were then attacked from the rear or the flanks. Of the 23 ambush points identified, only two noticed the approaching danger in time to resist.

  The caves containing the villagers were left unmolested, although Alan had to argue long and hard with fitzOsbern to achieve that, citing the need to move quickly and the unnecessary delay that would occur. The earl wanted to visit vengeance on every man, woman and child in Wales, but an argument that they needed to stay focused, stay compact and move quickly if they were to be successful won the day. The caves with livestock were visited and, to the regret of all, the animals were slaughtered except a few driven off to be cooked for the army pots that night. Cattle, swine and sheep were worth money, but not here and now. They couldn’t drove them to England through hostile territory and they were the main wealth of the Welsh hillsmen. Killing them removed the wealth of the Vale for many years.

  The caves with warriors were another matter entirely. No soldier willingly proceeds in enemy territory with a known force of the enemy behind them and 100 men were sent to each such cave to attack with stealth and without warning. Over 100 ponies were taken, putting more of the invaders on horseback- although with no overall improvement in the pace of advance, which had to be that of the slowest foot-soldier. However, the horses offered greater mobility and options for later. Many of the Norman bowmen swapped their weapons for the superior bows used by the Welsh, taking these and the larger arrows from slain Welshmen.

  From Denbigh to St Asaph was a little more than nine miles. Moving with caution, taking out the ambushers and clearing the caves, they passed into the vale of the Afon Elwy and saw St Asaph a short distance ahead. The few lookouts were easily dealt with, as the Welsh thought enemy were nine miles away and no warning of their approach had been received.

  The Welsh village was unprepared and unsuspecting. St Asaph had a long history, back to the Romans and before. It had a Celtic monastery, despite its small size of less than 500 souls. William fitzOsbern sent a group of trusted men to guard the gate of the monastery with the first wave to attack the village. The men had been strictly instructed not to burn the village- or at least not until they departed. As the Anglo-Norman force approached from the south, a stream of villagers fled into the forest to the west and north, meaning that there were few people in the village when fitzOsbern’s men entered. This was by no means a disadvantage as it minimised problems with controlling the men. Only a few aged and sick remained, and the few who were caring for them were generally left unmolested. And there were the monks in the monastery.

  Prior Gryffyd met William fitzOsbern at the gate of the monastery and invited him inside. Alan and the other officers were busy trying to maintain control of the men sacking the village, to ensure an orderly looting with no disputes between the looters and a minimum of rapine and destruction. Stripping the village clean took little time. There were barely forty rough cottages with minimal contents of value and many soldiers doing the searching. The village, poor as it was, did replenish the food supplies, and allowed bread to be baked while the men gathered vegetables and killed and cooked swine and chickens. Between the contents of the cottages and the tavern there was enough ale for each man to sup a quart, much to their satisfaction as all knew that water is unhealthy to drink.

  The scouts were already working their way downriver to the next village of Rhuddlan, a little over three miles away. Alan would have liked to push on and secure Rhuddlan that afternoon while the enemy were still unawares and unprepared, but accepted that moving professional troops away from a village that had not yet been thoroughly looted was impossible and that they would have to be satisfied with one village a day.

  Rhuddlan was an important place. It was strategically located on the middle of the north coast of Wales on the coast road between Caernarfon and Chester, and at the lowest point that the River Clwyd could be bridged. As the seat of Cantref Rhos, and formerly the seat of the then Welsh king Gruffydd ap Llywelyn until just five years previously, Alan was hopeful that King Bleddyn would make a stand there- not that Alan expected fitzOsbern to fight fair. Hereto on the march along the river they had encountered mainly local forces and fought with superiority of numbers and equipment. Now they may face warriors called together by their king, who could call on several thousand men and outnumber the invaders.

  Alan went to visit Prior Gryffyd to request that Mass be said for the army. After all they were soldiers and it would be at least a week since they last attended Confession and took the sacrament, and there would be few soldiers who hadn’t incurred significant sin in that time. Unfortunately, Prior Gryffyd was less than accommodating. Apart from the village being sacked, and presumably in due course to be put to the torch, Earl William had made it clear that every scrap of precious metal from the monastery, from the few silver coins in its coffers to the gold furniture on the altar, was to be handed over to him if the monaster
y was not to suffer the same fate. Only the reliquary, which was decorated only with thin gold leaf, and its contents were to be excluded. Alan thought this ungenerous and counter-productive but was unable to do anything to sway the earl from his intent.

  Sunset was after eight and a nearly full moon rose at a little before ten. Sunrise would be shortly prior to four. Alan had advised fitzOsbern to have the whole army in position at Rhuddlan before first light. FitzOsbern, unused to such tactics, was alarmed at the novel approach, but in the end agreed when Alan advised he’d used the same tactic against the Welsh on the southern border. The army marched as the moon rose, crossing the River Clwyd at the bridge just east of St Asaph and taking the less frequently used path down the east side of the river. The western path was more easily traversed, but later crossed the river at the bridge at Rhuddlan itself. While Alan was confident in his planning, he wasn’t arrogant enough to assume that they could seize what would be a well-defended bridge and bring across an army in the face of strong opposition, nor that Bleddyn would be foolish enough to allow them to do so.

  The scouts were out, clearing away first the Welsh scouts that had been sent to observe the Anglo-Norman camp, and then the lookouts stationed along both banks of the river- as a lookout on one side of the river would almost certainly see or hear the progress of an army on the other bank just a few dozen paces away. A small rear-guard remained at St Asaph until dawn, keeping the monks inside the monastery and to fulfill the task of firing the village as they departed. Alan saw that as a waste of time, as the only asset of value in the entire village other than the monastery was the water-mill, which had been thoroughly demolished on Earl William’s order early in the first day, but it was the traditional way of making a point clear out here on the border.

  The Vale was flat, with virtually no rise in land anywhere. The oak forest was dense but the bridle-path was easily enough traversed, although with only one or two men able to ride or march abreast the column of troops was quite long. To the south of the village a number of fields had been won from the forest, and after the Welsh look-outs had been removed, the Anglo-Normans formed up and prepared themselves on one of these fields. Alan, Earl William and several of the other officers rode to the tree line to observe the village. It appeared that there were a substantial number of warriors in the village, more than it could accommodate as there were dozens of camp fires smoldering in the open, each surrounded by a group of men.

  “There lies the enemy, Lord William, if you’d wish to give the order to form up and attack? I’d suggest that you fall on them quickly, taking them by surprise, as it appears we may be outnumbered,” suggested Alan.

  “At last I’ve caught a Welsh army in the field!” exclaimed fitzOsbern with delight. “Bring the men up. Infantry here and here,” he said pointing. “Archers there and there… and there. Cavalry in the centre and both flanks. One squadron to loop around to the enemy’s rear to cover them if they fall back. Sir Alan! If they retreat, where would they go?”

  “Across the bridge to the west and try to hold us off- or possibly east. I’d expect they’d try to move west and use the river for defence, as that would also put them on the same side of the river as their fall-back towards Abergele and Caernarfon. I’d suggest several cavalry squadrons to go direct to the bridge and secure it. That would bottle them up and give them nowhere to go,” replied Alan.

  Earl William nodded. “Do it, Basset!” he instructed the young Norman lord by his side. Presented with an enemy and a tactical situation Earl William was in his element, giving instructions and in total control.

  In less than half an hour, and still by the light of the moon, the Anglo-Normans hit the Welsh camp like a fist. Unexpected and unforgiving they smashed through the camp in minutes, slaughtering the dazed and unprepared men who staggered from their beds. By the time they reached the village itself the warriors billeted there had heard the shouts and were alerted, pouring from the cottages brandishing sword and shield. But the Welsh were fighting as a mob, surprised and disorganized, whilst the Anglo-Normans were fighting like a well-oiled machine. The Welsh fell back towards the Cantref Hall and the horse-lines at the north of the village. A large contingent decamped from the Hall, presumably Bleddyn and his professional warriors. As dawn was breaking the Welsh were rallying and moving west towards the bridge.

  Osmond Basset had taken his squadron of fifty or so horse, de Grandmesnil’s men, directly to the bridge. Unfortunately for them the bridge had a strong guard, who were now well alerted to the danger and who were armed with long spears. Equally unfortunately for the Norman troops, the approach to the bridge was narrow. This combination meant that the Welshmen, now fighting fiercely, were able to hold off Basset’s attack. Further, within minutes as the Welsh rallied to the north of the village and took to their horses, 200 or more very angry Welshmen on ponies were engaging the rear of Basset’s force. Basset’s men now had their back to the bridge and were being peppered with arrows from that direction, the large arrows punching clear through the chain-mail armour on the backs on the Normans, while at the same time they tried to cope with the attacks of the mounted Welshmen. The small group of Normans near the bridge was like a piece of metal being hit repeatedly on an anvil, and with nowhere to go they broke and tried to escape to the south. FitzOsbern sent some men to provide cover to the remains of Basset’s force, now numbering about twenty.

  The Welsh had secured the east side of the bridge with about 400 men either on horse or on foot starting to organise themselves, and began to cross to the west side of the river in good order. Meanwhile many of the Anglo-Norman troops, particularly the foot-soldiers, were engaged in looting the village- to Earl William’s great anger. When the last of the Welsh crossed the river the bridge was then damaged by them sufficiently to make it at least temporarily impassible without totally destroying it, as after all the Welsh knew that they would have to rebuild it in a few days. As the last of the Welsh fell back across the bridge the first Norman troops were being strung up by the neck on the trees on the village green in punishment for their dereliction of duty.

  FitzOsbern didn’t want to reduce the strength of his force too much and so restricted himself to hanging ten of the most blatant looters. The point was made very strongly. Looting is permitted only after the battle is won, not during the battle. Discipline would be maintained at all costs.

  After the hour or so that it took fitzOsbern to get his men back in hand, Alan, fitzOsbern and the other officers stood on the east bank of the river, carefully out of arrow-shot of the Welsh on the other bank. “An interesting situation,” commented Alan. “Bleddyn can either stand and oppose our movement to the other side of the river, or he can moved west and fall back to the other side of the River Conwy. That would abandon Abergele and Betws yn Rhos to us, along with several fishing villages along the coast- Llandrillo-yn-Rhos and Llanwst. Whether it is worth his while to defend them, or worth our while to attack them, are both questionable.

  “We won’t be able to cross the River Conwyn and threaten Caernafon or Bangor, both of which would be worth taking, and we don’t have a large enough force to go south to where we could cross the Conwy. You’re in your element here, my lord!” said Alan to Earl William. “You’re trained to force an opposed river crossing, and no doubt have done so in the past. The co-relation of forces is also interesting. If we force a crossing, will we have enough men left to move forward? The Welsh receive reinforcements every day and we do not. A difficult decision, Lord William.”

  Bernard de Neufmarche added his own comment. “The men are tired, my lord. They marched all night and have fought hard this morning. They need food and rest and will not be able to move until mid-afternoon.”

  FitzOsbern scowled. While an extremely intelligent man and not illiterate, nor was he well-lettered or used to a debating chamber. He wasn’t used to having military considerations presented so quickly and thoroughly, nor with such erudition. It took him a minute or so to work out what Alan had
said. Having finally, after over a year of effort primarily in South Wales, brought the Welsh king’s army into the field to oppose his forces, he couldn’t engage them. “How do we get to them?” he demanded simply.

  “I don’t know, Lord William,” replied Alan with a blank expression. “Conjuring a way to get 800 men across a river 70 yards wide and too deep to ford, in the face superior numbers of enemy troops who will be shooting arrows is something beyond my experience. I did manage to find Bleddyn and his men, though.”

  “Neufmarche, keep 100 men near the river. The remainder can rest and eat. We’ll see what Bleddyn does over the next few hours,” ordered fitzOsbern.

  “And then, my lord?” queried Neufmarche.

  “I’m buggered if I know at the moment! Thorrington is right. We’d lose 200 men just to get across the river, probably more, given their damn archers. We’ll think about it and rest the men. The Welsh aren’t going anywhere at the moment.”

  Six hours later, with no change to the situation, fitzOsbern called his command group back together. “Ideas?” he demanded.

  “Well, we could send a force of men back upriver to seize and hold a fording point,” suggested Guy de Craon.

  “If we had a dozen longboats, we could hold their force here while we slipped 500 men behind them, to either attack Bleddyn or sack the villages behind him,” commented Alan.

  “Wishful thinking won’t help!” barked fitzOsbern angrily.

  “Well, I’ve been trying to get the king to have that sort of a naval force and it would allow plenty of options for attack. Perhaps you might like to talk to him about it also? That would give you more options in the future,” replied Alan.