2. The Loss of King John’s Treasures in the Wash, A.D. 1216

Everyone has read how King John in his last days lost all his baggage train in the waves of the Wash (the great bay or inlet which separates Lincolnshire from Norfolk), and is supposed hardly to have saved his own life. The ordinary histories go on to say that he died soon after of chagrin at the disaster, and that Henry III was crowned in a gold circlet because the Crown had been lost with the rest of John’s treasure. The old chroniclers are vague and avoid detail, and it is the kind of story which lends itself to exaggeration. It seems to have struck Sir William St. John Hope that it might be worth while to investigate closely the exact circumstances, and to consider what was lost, and where. Such a quest might indicate possibilities even of the recovery of the treasure, if the spot could be ascertained, and the brilliant results of his application of scientific method have more than justified his attempt, and afford a really interesting example for imitation.

1. First, the chroniclers’ accounts were noted and compared. Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris and the Coggeshall chronicler state in varying terms that the King and his army barely escaped, and that the baggage which followed was lost in whirlpools or quicksands in the “Well stream,” which disembogues into the sea through the Wash. These are original authorities, and Sir William observes that the first-named was at the time Prior of Belvoir in Leicestershire, about forty miles only from the scene, and that the priory was of the same (Cistercian) order as that of Swineshead, where the King lodged on the night after the catastrophe, and where he fell ill.

2. The route followed by the King himself can fortunately be absolutely ascertained from the fact that every day he made grants which are registered among the Patent and Close Rolls, and each is marked as made at a certain place. We at once learn, therefore, that the King, who had swept much of Norfolk clear of its gold and silver treasures in revenge for the revolt of the Barons, left King’s Lynn on October 11, 1216, for Wisbeach, went thus round the head of the great indentation of the Wash, and journeyed thence on the fateful 12th to Swineshead, in Lincolnshire, where he ordered his baggage to join him by a direct route northward from King’s Lynn across the Wash at low tide. All this is ascertained fact, and we learn already that the King himself was never in danger, but only his baggage train, and its guard and the attendant forces.

3. There is no question of the great changes in the coast line during the last seven hundred years. Whereas the sea used to cover what is now flat and fruitful meadow land, almost as far as Wisbeach, the water is now kept out by the silt it has deposited and by embankments. The accounts of later writers on the disaster, Camden, Brady and local antiquaries, mention the old lines of embankment and with this help they can still be traced. Thus emerges the important fact that there was a definite ford of no great width straight across the Wash and across the Well stream, now called the Welland; the route to the ford is marked by a road and a line of old churches and villages.

4. Next, military historians were asked to estimate the probable amount of baggage and the numbers and composition of the train and its guard. It was estimated that the whole cavalcade would be something like three miles long, not capable of moving more than 2½ miles an hour at best, the crossing being not less than 4½ miles, from Cross Keys northward to Long Sutton, and the channels, where the long and narrow ford encounters its chief difficulty, not far from Long Sutton.

5. On the great day, October 12, 1216, what were the tides? An official of the Nautical Almanac Office specially worked out the problem, with the result: Low water about noon, high water about 6 p.m., the sunset being at 5.15 p.m. It was a spring-tide, favourable for crossing, as so much of the route would be uncovered at low water, but it is clear that the available time for crossing the long ford and the mid-stream of the Welland would not be more than from about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.—barely time enough, even if all went well.

The position is now clear. Probably the whole train crossed the Lynn stream (the Ouse) from King’s Lynn the day before, and camped as near their supplies at Lynn as possible, in fact just across the river. In the fogs and mists of October, the train would hardly start on the 12th till about 8, and would reach Cross Keys a little before noon. For so unwieldly a cavalcade that was too late. When the Welland was reached the tide would be in full flow, and when the long train of baggage wagons, men, soldiers, mules and horses, excitedly endeavoured to turn back all would be in confusion. They were like the Egyptians in the Red Sea. As none escaped, the whole train must have been on the sands; the ghastly scene of turmoil and death in the quicksands and swiftly rising waters must be left to the imagination; no circumstance of horror was absent. The King probably watched the scene from the northern bank, and saw the hideous tumult and disorder, and the struggles for life.

6. But the treasure fell into soft, shifting quicksands, silt and mud. To what depth? Sir William approached the Great Northern Railway Company, who built in 1887 a new swing-bridge over the river near the spot, and found that probably at 23 feet, certainly at 32 feet, the slowly sinking gold, silver and jewels would be stopped. The composition of every foot of depth, whether silt, clay or sand is known.

7. The fact that the Welland stream, now 240 feet across and 27 feet deep, had in old days no one definite channel, but roamed divided over the wide delta, with much less force and depth than now, completes the enquiry. No part of the treasure would be carried out to sea, but all would sink slowly down to its present place.

A trench cut in those meadows from East to West on the line of the old ford would encounter mules’ bones and human bones, which could be thence tracked with certainty both North and South. On that line will certainly be found, uninjured and secure, Edward the Confessor’s Crown, all the other contents of the King’s movable Chapel and his other portable treasures, with countless pieces of plate and relics and jewels from the rich abbeys and churches of Norfolk.

Such is an outline of a successful application of method to the vague accounts of a great disaster.

In conclusion, some specimens may be given of various kinds of material which await, so far as the writer knows, investigation. Some may turn out to be used or printed, some not to deserve printing, but they may at least lead on intending researchers to adopt the only satisfactory plan, which is to read through the Catalogues of the manuscript collections, and find what suits their tastes and capabilities. The field of Oxford history is so plentiful and so untilled that it can be found by any one without trouble, and it is therefore here passed over. Any one inspired to cultivate it will find a wealth of material, both antiquarian, topical and literary. The following jottings are divided under a few general headings, but are otherwise in no order and could be indefinitely extended. The Bodleian statute requires that the leave of the Librarian or Curators be obtained before any manuscript is copied with a view to publication. The purpose is, not to stifle research, but to eliminate incompetent or conflicting editors.

Historical

Chronicle of England to 1221, Latin, 14th cent. (2444).

Fountains Abbey records (1892, etc.).

Rich. II and London, a Latin poem, A.D. 1393 (3631).

Military expenses of Henry VIII (30300).

Pococke’s Tour in Ireland, 1758 (30722).

Letterbook of a Parliamentarian officer (Bradshaw) 1648-60 (25573).

Triple picture of the battle of Pinkie, 1547 (30492).

Civil War Scouts’ reports (33552).

Gulielmus Gemeticensis, Historia Normannorum, abt. A.D. 1100 (2580).

Latin Chronicle of the First Crusade and England, 1095-1118 (2402).

Letters to Bp. Burnet (30175).

Literary

Latin Dialogue between Magister and Discipulus on the Latin tongue, 11th cent. (2737).

“The Chaunce of the Dyse” (dice), etc., Middle English verse, 15th cent. (2078).

Middle English treatise of a son instructing his mother abt. 1400 (2315).

The history of Greek Studies in Europe (Hody), late 17th cent. (8887-90, 8901-3, etc.).

Middle English verse (3440, 29003, 30314, etc.).

Miscellaneous

Hearne’s autograph autobiography (15603).

Pointer on clog-almanacks, 18th cent. (13478).

Aubrey on English architecture, A.D. 1671 (28427).

Letters from China, A.D. 1701 (27874).

Laws, etc., of the Swanimote, A.D. 1587 (30273).

Malone correspondence, A.D. 1767-1811 (28578).