The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

Battle of Hastings (From Bayeux Tapestry).

None the less the new invaders were “men,” and had a “man” to govern them, while William, the king by right of everything that in those days made kingcraft, ruled.

“Stark was he,” says the English Chronicler, “to men that withstood him; none dared resist his will. Earls that did aught against his bidding he cast into bonds; bishops he stripped of their bishopricks and abbots of their abbacies. But stern as his rule was, it gave peace unto the land.”

This was William. “Out of the strong cometh forth sweetness,” out of the horrors that followed the Norman Conquest came the English people, and, as time went on, that army which has mostly conquered, often suffered, and generally met disaster with a bold front. And so the new, or rather the last successful invaders seized the fair isle of Britain, added their names to old place-names of Celtic or Saxon origin as an affix, converting, for example, the “town by the water” of Ashton into “Ashton Tyrrold,” and, holding the richest lands as their own appanage, raised the massive frowning towers of Norman castles at all important strategic points throughout the country, marking their conquest as by a sign-manual that they held the land, as they had gained it, by the sword.

Notwithstanding that the Norman had many friends in England, it was long before the whole country was subdued. There was fighting in the north of England and on the marches of Wales; there was prolonged resistance by Hereward in the Fenland and central forests, until, in 1071, the “Wake” surrendered, and became the “king’s man.” There was much still to settle, and William settled them in his own stern way. So much so that his own often parvenu barons revolted, and for many a century rebelled against the royal authority, which, backed by the clergy and English, won in the end. Ralf Guader was quieted in 1074, and Robert of Bellème, with Robert Mowbray and Prince Robert, were beaten in 1078. Similarly, when Rufus reigned, the same Robert Mowbray, with Odo of Bayeux and others, held their castles as rebels until they were stormed in 1095.

The Celts of both Wales and Scotland proved troublesome, so to hold the latter frowning Norman castles were erected at each end of the neck between North Britain and England at Carlisle and Newcastle, while the former were shut in by a chain of similar fortresses from Cheshire to the Severn valley, along which hostilities continued for many a year, to the territorial aggrandisement of the defenders of the “Marches.”

Henry I.’s marriage, uniting the old royal race with the new, much pacified matters, or at anyrate gave the king still more aid from the English people as distinct from the Norman barons. Again Robert of Bellème on the Welsh border revolted, but was driven into exile by the sovereign: in the claim of Robert to the throne, Englishmen sided with Henry, and for the first time served abroad to defeat the pretender at Tenchebrai. But Henry left no male successor, and Matilda his daughter was distasteful to the barons, who chose Stephen, grandson of the Conqueror, as king. This created two factions—that of Stephen and that of Matilda, the first of the great Civil Wars (for now the “English” counted for much more than heretofore), and the king, unlike his predecessors, unwisely allowing the barons to build castles on their own lands, paid for his over-confidence. For Matilda’s party, led first by the Earl of Gloucester, formed in the west of England, assisted by David King of Scots in the north. Stephen advanced against the latter, defeating the former at Northallerton, and after many vicissitudes on both sides, the war ceased by the retirement of Matilda to Normandy.

So in anarchy and suffering—suffering so great that it was said “that God and His saints were asleep,” so terrible were the wrongs done in the land—the Norman power as such ceased to be, and Plantagenet kings (no longer Norman but English) reigned over the realm for more than three hundred years.

Out of that time grew up the system of feudal levies, that is, of men who served as the personal retainers of some baron or overlord, and who fought therefore no longer as freemen, fighting freely in their country’s wars. Military service long remained personal rather than national.