Richard, duke of Glocester, and three hundred men in his companie, tooke land in another place foure miles distant from thence, where his brother king Edward did land. The earle Riuers, and with him two hundred men, landed at a place called Pole, fourteene miles from the hauen where the king came on land. The residue of his people landed some here, some there, in place where for their suerties they thought best. On the morrow, being the fifteenth of March, now that the tempest ceased, and euerie man being got to land, they drew from euerie of their landing places towards the king, who for the first night was lodged in a poore village, two miles from the place where he first set foot on land.

Photo by][C.W. Mason
Henry of Lancaster’s Cross.
Now in the garden of Holyrood House, Hedon.

The landing of Edward IV. at Ravenser Spurn was not entirely to the liking of the men of Holderness. At first he was opposed by forces raised by ‘Syr John Westerdale,’ the vicar of Keyingham, and by a certain Martin atte See, or Martin de la Mare, a descendant of the first inhabitant of Ravenserodd. The vicar of Keyingham was afterwards cast into a London prison for his opposition, but Martin de la Mare was won over to Edward’s side, and was knighted eleven years later.

By his will Sir Martin de la Mare directed that he should be ‘beried in the queere of the parissh churche of Alhalowes in Barneston in Holdernes;’ and on the left-hand side of the chancel in this church there is an altar tomb, with a beautiful alabaster effigy, which until recently was thought to be his. It is, however, now known to be that of another knight who was buried at Barmston some fifty years before the death of Sir Martin de la Mare.

XVIII.
LIFE IN A MEDIÆVAL TOWN.

Present Seal of the
Borough of Hedon.

What sort of life did the townsfolk lead five centuries ago? Suppose the townsfolk of to-day could suddenly be transported back five hundred years, what would be the things likely to strike them as most strange?

One of these would certainly be the way in which the town was cut off, as it were, from the surrounding district. Thus Hedon was cut off by two Havens, one natural, the other artificial, and by another artificial watercourse called the Town Moat. Beverley was entirely surrounded by a similar moat, part of which remains in our own day, and entrance to the town was gained by Bars spanning the roads. Those at Beverley were known respectively as the North Bar, Newbiggyn Bar, Keldgate Bar, Norwood Bar, and South Bar.