When the Norman column was halfway across the ford, the two forward squadrons would attack, cutting William’s force in two. The other squadrons would then confront the entire length of the column. The English cavalry would emerge from the trees in compact groups of forty, while the Normans would be strung out along a thin and vulnerable line. The rear squadrons would try to destroy William’s baggage train, disperse his spare horses and make off with his supplies. Hereward and his men would attack William’s Matilda Squadron head-on.
In different circumstances, the scene of the ambush could not have been more picturesque. Nature had painted the valley in shades of black and white, its blanket of snow dissected by the inky silhouettes of the trees and by the burnt umber of the winding brook.
Two hours later the weather was atrocious, with snow falling heavily, driven by a powerful westerly wind that would lash the faces of the oncoming Normans. Their cloaks would be drawn across their mouths and noses, and their heads would be bowed into the teeth of the blizzard. Few would be casting glances to the sides of the valley. The conditions were ideal for a surprise attack; for once, circumstances favoured the English.
The Normans came on slowly. Hereward could see the Duke clearly; he had become fat and now bore only a passing resemblance to the fearsome figure he remembered from Rouen. Only the men of his Matilda Squadron were watchful, riding upright, scanning the trees for danger.
On Hereward’s signal, his squadrons swept down through the trees and scythed into the Norman column. The ambush worked perfectly and the Normans had no time to form up. When William’s herald signalled full gallop and the column tried to ride out of trouble, the track soon became congested. Most riders dispersed anywhere they could through the forest.
Hereward got within ten yards of William and their eyes met for the first time in six years. In the Englishman’s was fiery determination; in the Norman’s, boiling anger. Repeatedly, Hereward rode into the Duke’s finest cavalry, cutting them down in droves in his attempt to bring down his prey. Every time he cleared a path, more of the Matilda Squadron closed around their leader. At one point, Martin handed him a lance, which he hurled at his quarry with immense force. It missed William by only a foot and thudded into the chest of his standard-bearer with such venom that it took him clean off his horse.
Hereward could see the Duke fervently directing his men and issuing orders. At one point he could hear William bellowing threats of revenge but, try as he might, the ranks of defenders were too deep for Hereward to get any closer; there was just too much equine and human flesh between him and his enemy.
William escaped at a gallop into the trees and out of sight, and Hereward ordered his squadrons to return to their original positions. Short of impaling William on a lance, the ambush had been a great success: Hereward had lost over 30 men and a few more had serious injuries, but there were over 250 Norman dead and William’s entire baggage train had been captured.
There were a dozen or so Norman soldiers from the battle who had not been able to flee the carnage. Hereward learned from these prisoners that many of their fellow soldiers were appalled at what had been happening in recent weeks, but that William was constantly in a rage and would listen to no one, not even his senior lieutenants. William had split his force into four as it left York. One group had gone north-east towards the coast, a second had made for Lincoln and the South, and a third had moved south-west towards Wakefield and Doncaster. William’s group, about 500 strong including his own Matilda Squadron, had travelled as far as Durham, which had been put to the sword in an orgy of killing. None of the local people was spared, no building was left standing, nothing edible was left alive, and all food stores and smokehouses were destroyed. The group was now bound for Chester.
The Duke’s regime was almost unbearable. He made his men ride for twelve hours every day; it was pitch black when they broke camp in the mornings and just as dark when they made camp in the evenings. When they were ordered to leave York in the winter, there was significant discontent in the ranks, but when it was discovered that they were to go through the Pennines to Chester, murmurs of mutiny began. When hints of this reached William, he had the ringleaders singled-out and flogged in front of all his squadrons. The talk stopped, but the resentment grew deeper.
Hereward had heard enough. The morale of William’s men was clearly at a low ebb, and disgruntled men do not fight well. In addition, William was obviously in a constant rage, and men in ferment make mistakes; perhaps he would soon present Hereward with the opportunity he prayed for.
Alphonso asked Hereward what should be done with the Norman prisoners.
‘Let them go. Tell them to help their wounded, but they must fend for themselves.’
‘We should kill them. They’ve been slaughtering the innocent – women and children. Besides, when they are found, they’ll tell William everything they’ve seen and heard here.’
‘Let the Normans do the cold-blooded killing. We will have plenty of opportunity to kill them in battle. As for what they reveal about us, William will know all our secrets long before we see these men again.’
Hereward looked back on the scene of the ambush.
The wind had relented, allowing the snow to fall gently on the fells. The valley was no longer the light and dark of a winter idyll. Chat’s Burn had turned crimson; the chestnut flanks of the fallen horses glistened in the snow amid the bloodied shapes of the dead.
In a series of lightning strikes from horseback and night-time guerrilla attacks, Hereward harassed William all the way to Chester.
None of the encounters was on the same scale as Chat’s Burn, but they were effective. At long last, the Normans were on the run. By the time they reached Chester, William’s force had dwindled to less than half the strength he had when he left York.
On several occasions, their eyes met and they came close to one another, but Hereward’s force was too small to do anything other than harry and withdraw. William also seemed to retain his good fortune: well-aimed arrows and lances missed him by inches or struck men close to him. He was never isolated from his elite defenders, and he was always able to find an escape route from any trap Hereward had designed for him. Even so, it was a disconcerting and embarrassing experience for the Duke.
However, Hereward soon had to face yet more disappointment.
Eadric, his English rebels and their Welsh allies had abandoned Chester and fled to the relative safety of Wales as soon as they heard that William’s murderous campaign had turned westwards. The Normans were able to ride into the burgh unopposed, depriving Hereward of any more opportunities to snipe at them. William licked his wounds and sent for reinforcements. Hereward moved inland, towards Stafford, and found a remote place to camp and plan his next move. It also provided an opportunity to make a tally of the significant booty he had taken from William at Chat’s Burn. It was a major windfall: there was a considerable amount of money, enough to keep his campaign going for some time, although not enough to entice the Danes into more action. There was also a plentiful supply of food, armour and clothes, plus over sixty horses, including nearly thirty cavalry destriers.
To celebrate, Hereward declared two nights of feasting and the entire contingent was given a pouch of silver each, enough to keep a family for the best part of a year. But the celebrations were short-lived. Within days, more bad news arrived – and continued in a steady stream over the ensuing weeks.
When they had reached the safety of their homeland, the Welsh had told Eadric the Wild that, having witnessed William’s unrelenting determination and gruesome tactics, they were gravely concerned about their future security and would not be returning to England to continue the rebellion. Eadric’s daughters had been taken hostage to persuade him to submit, and he had returned to Chester to bow to William.
In the South West, Count Brian the Breton, the new Lord of Cornwall, had driven Harold’s sons back to Ireland. Their siege of Montacute had failed, and the defenders had been relieved by the Norman
lord Geoffrey of Coutances, at the head of a large force that included a significant number of Englishmen from London, Winchester and Salisbury.
Disastrous news also came from the North. Of the brave men who had fought so well at York, only Siward Bjorn was prepared to continue the rebellion. Cospatrick, cowed by William’s merciless slaughter of the people of the North, was not prepared to leave the safety of Scotland and had been made Earl of Dunbar by King Malcolm. Worst of all, Earl Waltheof, horrified by the slaying of thousands of innocents in the North, had thrown himself at the mercy of William, who forgave him, and had become betrothed to William’s niece, Lady Judith.
Finally, finding that he had few honourable companions left and unable to persuade King Malcolm to do any more than offer a safe haven, Edgar the Atheling had become dispirited and was preparing to go to the court of Philip of France, to raise support for an attack on Normandy from the south.
Hereward found the depressing reports hard to take, especially the news of brave Eadric’s submission and that of the courageous Waltheof, who had decapitated Normans at York as if they were daisies in a field.
Hereward’s men were stood down and given leave until the autumn. They were to return at the beginning of October, after the harvest. The rendezvous would be at a ford over the Great Ouse just outside Huntingdon, a place all soldiers knew well. Standing the men down was a huge risk, as many might not return, but Hereward had no choice. He had no more speeches to give and no more rallying calls to issue. He had not given up, but he did not know how to continue.
His senior retinue stayed with him. Edwin had no family left, as his father and brothers had died on Senlac Ridge. Although Edmund had a family in Kent, he refused to go, perhaps fearful of what he might find. As for Gohor, he let his men go, but he decided to stay; he had adopted the womenfolk in his care, just as they had adopted him, and he now felt part of the family.
Now, as a renegade band of just fourteen souls, they travelled through England’s heartland in an arc from the Avon and the Thames to the Stour and the Trent. They kept on the move, stayed away from villages and burghs, and spoke only to the poor people of the land in their isolated communities. From a distance, they watched the Normans build their mottes and baileys and saw their soldiers scurrying about their duties.
Hereward avoided the subject of the rebellion and would not be drawn on his thoughts or his state of mind.
Accompanied only by his daughters, Gunnhild and Estrith, he made a private pilgrimage to the holy sisters at Hereford, and from there to visit Torfida’s grave. On his return, he offered few details of the trip, except to say that the nuns had taken her to a wonderful resting place in a clearing she often talked about, deep in the forest and close to the summit of Pennard Hill near Glastonbury.
There were commanding views across the water meadows below that were not unlike the fens of his own home. Glastonbury Tor stood proudly in the distance, a towering symbol of Harold, of Wessex and of England. The grave had been marked by an oak sapling, reared from an acorn gathered from the place where she had died. The nuns had called the clearing ‘Torfida’s Glade’ and made pilgrimages there to pray.
Hereward was content that it was an idyllic resting place for his wife, where her soul could mingle with the heritage of the wildwood.
27. The Brotherhood
In the middle of August 1070, Hereward announced that he would like to undertake another pilgrimage. It would be to Bourne, his Lincolnshire home, a place he had not visited in a very long time and somewhere his girls had never seen. This journey would not be a private one; he wanted his companions to see the enigmatic Fens and his unremarkable birthplace.
In the turmoil of a conquered England, he had no idea if his family would still be there. He had often thought about them and had vowed that, when the time was right, he would return.
Several days later, they could see in the distance the small bronze cross above the unassuming wooden church of Bourne. Little seemed to have changed as they moved through ever-widening clearings of the Bruneswald to reveal fenlands stretching far into the distance. The Fens were just as challenging as the Pennines, but the trials were different. The most ominous presence was the ground itself, often an impenetrable melange of water and earth, matted by centuries of the decay and renewal of reeds, moss and sedge. There were many rivers and streams, but their courses were concealed by undergrowth so dense, it made them unnavigable.
To the north-east was The Wash and the beginnings of the North Sea, but where land ended and sea began was impossible to chart and constantly changing. There were few landmarks or vantage points and the ground was so unpredictable, it would bear the weight of a man in one moment, but become a deep bog in the next. The few settlements that did exist stood on higher ground, often no more than a few feet above the vast quagmire.
Bourne was on the western periphery of fenland, on the old Roman route north, with the giant Bruneswald to the west, and the morass of the wetlands to the east. Before they got to the village, Hereward made a private excursion to Gythin’s cottage nearby. It had become an overgrown ruin, but he found the small mound, marked by a pile of stones, where his father and his men had buried her pitiful remains seventeen years ago. He stayed and reflected for over an hour, evoking memories of his wayward youth and the needless tragedy that had befallen a harmless woman.
Later, when he had regained his small band of followers and they were within a mile of the village, Alphonso noticed something about twenty yards off the track. It looked like a pile of discarded clothes in the thick undergrowth.
Martin’s equally sharp vision recognized the bundle immediately. ‘It’s a child.’ He rushed over, picked up the lifeless little heap and brought it to Hereward.
It was indeed a child, a little boy, filthy and cold to the touch and barely breathing.
Hereward sensed danger. ‘The fact that he’s here could mean that all is not well in Bourne. Alphonso, go and see what’s happening. Let’s move into the trees and get some nourishment into this boy.’
Alphonso was soon back with a shocked look on his face. He pulled Hereward away from the others and sat him on the trunk of a fallen tree. ‘The Normans are there; they are inside the longhouse. I counted nine horses.’
Hereward made to get up, thinking the village was in imminent danger.
Putting a heavy hand on his shoulder, Alphonso shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, we’re too late. There are bodies all over the village and all the houses are burned to the ground except the longhouse and the church.’ He then hesitated for a moment and swallowed hard. ‘There are three heads on lances outside the church. I think one is the priest; the others are an elderly man and woman.’ He paused again, knowing that Hereward would have realized what the news implied. ‘This boy must be the only one who got away.’
Hereward lowered his head and grasped it firmly in his hands. Alphonso walked away to join the others. By the time he had reached them, Hereward was on his feet, marching with purposeful strides towards Bourne.
‘Martin, stay here and keep everybody safe. Watch the trees and the road; there are Normans around. Alphonso, Einar, follow me. When I go into my father’s house, wait outside. If any Normans try to leave, cut them down.’
Hereward’s companions were used to taking his orders and acting on them precisely, so they stood and watched as their leader pushed open the door of his parents’ longhouse. They could see the three heads impaled on lances next to the church, their expressions strangely calm, their eyes closed, as if in repose. One of the men had the tonsured scalp of a monk, leading to the obvious conclusion that the grisly heads were those of the village priest and the thegn and his wife, Hereward’s parents.
The scene that confronted Hereward as he walked into the house in which he had been born more resembled a brothel than a family home. Food and drink were strewn across the table and floor, half-naked men dozed around the embers of the fire and the room stank of stale sweat, urine and vomit. Huddled together and cow
ering in the corner were three young village girls, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. They looked terrified and pulled the rug they were hiding behind tightly to their chins.
Hereward gestured to them to stay quiet, but two of the Normans stirred.
One of them spoke. ‘What do you want?’
Hereward did not answer.
The largest man, who seemed senior to the others, focused his eyes and realized that standing before him was a fully armed warrior, dressed like someone of high rank. ‘Who are you, Englishman?’
‘I am Hereward of Bourne and, now that my father has been murdered, I am Thegn of this village.’
‘Well, Hereward of Bourne, there isn’t much of a village left for you to be “Thegn” of.’ He leered cruelly. ‘Except these young wenches, who have been kind enough to keep us entertained.’
The other Normans had roused themselves and were looking around for their weapons. They were not unduly alarmed, as Hereward was but one Englishman in a room of nine, highly trained Norman soldiers.
Hereward remained calm. ‘I would like to have your name, sir.’
One of the Normans peered out of the window to see if more Englishmen lay in wait. He could see no one and turned to his leader with a reassuring shake of his head.
‘I am Ogier the Breton. These are my men and we serve William, King of England and Duke of Normandy. By his authority, I am now Lord of Bourne and all its lands. King William granted me this privilege in recognition of my service to him. Following your repeated attacks on him in the North, about which he is greatly vexed, he told me to punish the entire village and spare no one. I was also to make it abundantly clear to all before they died that it was the treasonable behaviour of Hereward of Bourne that had led to their suffering.’
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