On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire / And Their Historical, Legendary, and Aesthetic Associations.

by Charles Hardwick

It is, of course, at the present time, impossible to define the extent of ground covered by the contending armies during the conflict, or to give even a satisfactory outline of the general features of the battle. The Roman road, the seventh iter of Richard of Cirencester, which leads from the Wyre (the Portus Setantiorum of Ptolemy), by Preston and Ribchester to York, passed through the township of Billington, crossed the Calder near the present "Potter's Ford," a little above its junction with the Ribble, and proceeded a little south of Clitheroe and north of Pendle-hill, by Standen Hall, and Worston, in Lancashire, and Downham, into Yorkshire. Mr. Abram seems to think that the battle was most probably fought on this line of road. He says—"Eardulf encountered the insurgent army on the extreme verge of his kingdom (for it seems certain that the country south of the Ribble was then a part, not of the Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, but that of Mercia). Wada and his army had probably been driven upon the neutral territory before the decisive battle could be forced upon him."

This notion that the Ribble and not the Mersey was the southern boundary of Northumbria in the earlier period of the Heptarchy, was first propounded by Dr. Whitaker, but upon very slight evidence. It is sufficient here to say that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the date 923, expressly states that King Edward sent a force of Mercians to take possession of "Mameceastre (Manchester), in Northumbria, and repair and man it." Again, the same chronicle, when referring to this very battle, A.D. 798, expressly states that it took place "at Whalley, in the land of the Northumbrians." Against such evidence, Dr. Whitaker's mistaken dialectal argument, as well as that based on the extent of the episcopal see of Lichfield, at some period of the Heptarchy, is utterly valueless. His authority is the ancient document entitled "De Statu Blackborneshire," supposed to have been written in the fourteenth century by John Lindeley, Abbot of Whalley. Some notion of the value of this monkish compilation, with reference to the earlier history of the district, may be gathered from the fact that the author makes Augustine, and not Paulinus, the missionary who planted Christianity amongst the Northumbrian Angles. Dr. Whitaker likewise contends that the Ribble is the dialectic boundary between the two kingdoms. My own observation, however, leads me to a very different conclusion. To my ear the change is by no means so distinctly marked on the north and south sides of the Ribble as it is on the north and south banks of the Mersey. The swampy country between the two rivers would rather seem to have been a kind of "march" or "debateable ground," during the earlier portion of the Anglo-Saxon and Danish periods, districts in it being sometimes governed by tributary British chieftains under both Northumbrian and Mercian kings as the fortune of war from time to time prevailed. Lancashire is not referred to as a county till the middle of the twelfth century. The name is never mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. As we find the "Lands between the Ribble and the Mersey" are surveyed with those of Cheshire, in the Domesday book, it seems highly probable that they formed a part of Leofric's earldom of Mercia, at the time of the Norman conquest. Consequently it is to the latter and not to the earlier portion of the Anglo-Saxon period that the Ribble formed the southern boundary of the earldom of Northumbria, rather than of the earlier independent kingdom.

Mr. J. R. Green ("Making of England,") says—"The first missionaries to the Englishmen, strangers in a heathen land, attached themselves necessarily to the courts of the kings, who were their earliest converts, and whose conversion was generally followed by that of their people. The English bishops were thus at first royal chaplains, and their diocese was naturally nothing but the kingdom. The kingdom of Kent became the diocese of Canterbury, and the kingdom of Northumbria became the diocese of York. So absolutely was this the case that the diocese grew or shrank with the growth or shrinking of the realm which it spiritually represented, and a bishop of Wessex or of Mercia found the limits of his see widened or cut short by the triumphs of Wolfhere or of Ine. In this way two realms, which are all but forgotten, are commemorated in the limits of existing sees. That of Rochester represented, till of late, an obscure kingdom of West Kent, and the frontier of the original kingdom of Mercia might be recovered by following the map of the ancient bishopric of Lichfield."

After describing in detail some of the subdivisions made by Archbishop Theodore (A.D. 669-672), he adds—"The see of Lichfield thus returned to its original form of a see of the Mercians proper, though its bounds on the westward now embraced much of the upper Severn valley, with Cheshire and the lands northward to the Mersey."

Notwithstanding this error with regard to the southern boundary of Northumbria at that period, the Roman road, in all probability, was utilised by the contending forces, and some portion of the main battle was, doubtless, fought in its immediate vicinity. On the other hand, it is equally probable, as the two larger tumuli are situated on the north-west bank of the Ribble, that the chief conflict occurred in their neighbourhood. On this hypothesis, Wada and his allies, on leaving Waddington, crossed the Hodder, at the ford nearest its mouth, met the King's army on the banks of the Ribble, and the possession of Bullasey-ford was the immediate object of the encounter in which the rebellious chieftain was discomfited. Or the route may have been reversed. Wada may have crossed the Ribble, at the Bungerley "hyppyngstones," to the north-west of Clitheroe, or the Edisford, to the south-west, and after penetrating the southern portion of the present county, had to fall back before the advance of the King's army, and, unable to retrace his steps he made for the nearer ford at Bullasey, where he was defeated and pursued across the river. As the slaughter is generally greater when a discomfited enemy is routed, perhaps the two large tumuli, named "lowes," mark the spot where the greatest carnage ensued. This, however, of course, is merely conjecture. Its value cannot be tested unless a thorough investigation of the contents of these huge mounds should throw additional light upon the subject.

The good fortune of King Eardulf deserted him on a future occasion. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says—"A.D. 806. This year the moon was eclipsed in the Kalends of September; and Eardulf, King of the Northhumbrians, was driven from his kingdom.... Also in the same year, on the 2nd before the Nones of June, a cross appeared in the moon on a Wednesday at dawn; and afterwards in this year, on the 3rd before the Kalends of September, a wonderful circle was seen about the sun." This is the last we hear of the victor of Billangahoh, and the manner of his exit from the historic stage would seem to indicate that his rule, like that of his predecessor, had become so intolerable that further revolts ensued, and that Wada's successors, whoever they may have been, being successful in their contumacy, would be regarded, not as traitors, but as "saviours of their country." Truly, in struggles of this character, in all ages, successful "rebels," writing their own history, are ever lauded as heroes or patriots, while discomfited rulers are, with equal verity, denounced as tyrants and enemies of the common weal.

A little higher up the Ribble than its junction with the Hodder, and about a mile below the venerable ruin of the keep of Clitheroe Castle, the ancient stronghold of the De Lacies, is a handsome modern bridge, named Edisford or Eadsford, to which I have previously referred. The country people, however, call it "Itch-uth Bridge," pronouncing the latter syllable as in Cuthburt.

Johannes, Prior of Hagulstald, records that in this neighbourhood, in the year 1138, one William, the son of the bastard brother of David, king of Scotland, when engaged on a foray into England, was gallantly encountered by a small band, near Clitheroe, but, being overpowered by numbers, the Lancashire men sustained a slight defeat, and the Scots took a considerable number of prisoners. The monkish chronicler calls the northern assailants "Picts and Scots," and adds that they with difficulty held their own till the fight had lasted three hours. Tradition has preserved both the memory and the site of this conflict. Mr. Edward Baines says:—"Vestiges of this sanguinary engagement have been found at Edisford Bridge, and along the banks of the Ribble, during successive ages up to the present time."

The "Bashall-brook," after passing "Bashall Hall," enters the Ribble a little above Edisford Bridge. This is the stream referred to by Mr. Haigh,[29] as the "Bassus" of Nennius, and the site of one of the Arthurian victories which attended Colgrin's flight to York, after his defeat on the Douglas, near Wigan. I have, however, never heard of any legend or tradition which referred to a battle in the neighbourhood, except the one recorded by the Prior of Hagulstald.