The Siege of Norwich Castle: A story of the last struggle against the Conqueror

by M. M. Blake

'Ahoi! By Freya! thou art a pearl among women!' cried the wild Leofric, who was much of a Viking himself.

'Ah, kinsman Leofric, leave those heathen names alone!' said Eadgyth. 'Thou hast a better symbol in the hilt of thy sword!'

But he had not stopped to listen to her. He had gone off to call his carles together, and to choose his twenty men from the garrison.

And some forty of them, for the most part Anglo-Danes or Saxons, left the castle a few minutes later, leaving by the western horn of the barbican, and making their way by the streets north of the castle, by Tombland, to the river; slipping along through the fire-lighted night with a panther-like trot on their silent shoes of untanned leather, their trusty seaxes in their right hands, and their round red shields on their left arms.

Arrived at the river, they possessed themselves of boats without particularly asking the leave of the owners, and crossed-over to the marshes on the eastern bank, leaving a man in each boat to guard it. They crept through the rushes, as only men who had grown up amid the fens could have done, and fell upon the unsuspecting Normans like thunderbolts; knocked their balistas to fragments, served a good many of their men likewise, and returned as they came to the west bank of the river.

Then they added their strength to that of the townsfolk to fight the flames, and, by means of clearing large spaces to windward of the burning houses, stopped the fire from spreading its ravages indefinitely. But five less returned through the castle gate than had left it.

So went the first day and the first night of the siege.

When day broke, the attack on the barbican began again, and so it was for five days afterward; but at the end of the sixth the barricades were almost battered down, and strong bridges were established across the ditch, so that the defenders thought it wise to abandon it to the enemy, as scarcely worth the lives it would cost to maintain possession of it. But this meant no very great advantage to the besiegers.

They stood before the great gate of the castle, the actual entrance to which looked like a mere mouse-hole between the sheer strong walls of its two flanking towers. They well knew the make of such gateways: their folding-doors of solid oak, strengthened with bars and bolts of iron, and studded with huge nails to prevent the cutting out of a panel or staving in of the same; the strong portcullis behind them, a harrow-shaped iron grating, to be let up and down in a moment by means of pulleys from the inside; above the doors a row of chimney-like apertures, called machicolations, through which the defenders could pour scalding water, molten lead, or any other deadly matter, upon the devoted heads of the assaulting column, who were exposed also to a cross fire of quarrels, stones, and other missiles from the flanking towers.

Truly, to assault such a portal was no child's play, even with such aid as could be given by the rude artillery of the times: petronels and agerons for throwing stones and leaden pellets, catapultas for shooting arrows, and the trebuchettum, or warrewolf, specially designed for the smashing in of gates and walls; all these, and more of their kind, the king's men were well provided with.