Bishops in Battle.
By Edward Lamplough.
After William, Duke of Normandy, came in with great toil and rout of war, on Senlac’s evil day, it was not difficult to apply the poet’s lines to many a proud prelate of the Anglo-Norman epoch:—
“Princely was his hand in largess, heavy was his arm to smite,
And his will was leaded iron, like the mace he bore in fight.”
Not that English Bishops had not found it necessary to take the field in pre-conquest times, when the old Danish wars convulsed the island, and the inhabitants suffered severely from the unbridled passion and cruelty of a barbarous and heathen soldiery.
Many a grand old Anglo-Saxon prelate found himself called upon as a Christian and a patriot to take his station in the van of the king’s army, to bar the path of the invader, and fence with sword and spear the ancient churches and the fruitful plains of his beloved island.
The old English chroniclers have preserved for us the names of a few of those warrior bishops. Ealstan, Bishop of Sherborne, may be specially referred to. A.D. 823, he assisted Prince Ethelwulf during an expedition into Kent, and in 845 he was one of the commanders in the great victory over the Danes at the mouth of the Parret. He died, full of years and honours, in that unhappy and troublous 867, having held the Bishopric of Sherborne fifty years. His successor, Bishop Heahmund, was not so fortunate; he fought under Ethelred and Alfred during the sanguinary and disastrous campaign of 871, and was slain at Marden, when victory remained with the Danes. When Edmund Ironsides encountered Canute at Assingdon, and was betrayed by that infamous traitor Edric Streon, among those who swelled the huge death-mounds was Ednoth, Bishop of Dorchester, and Abbot Wulsy, but Hoveden asserts that “they had come for the purpose of invoking the Lord on behalf of the soldiers.”
Another Bishop of Sherborne was slain on the eve of Brunnanburgh, A.D. 937. When the two armies were within striking distance, and prepared for what was certain to prove a sanguinary and stubborn conflict, Anlaf, disguised as a harper, entered the lines of Athelstan’s army, and, by the merit of his performance, was admitted into the royal presence, and received several pieces of gold in reguerdon of his skill. Too proud to carry away his minstrel’s fee, he secreted it beneath the turf, before passing out of the camp. During the performance he had been narrowly scrutinised by one of Athelstan’s soldiers, who had formerly served the Northumbrian Prince, and was suspicious that the talented minstrel was no other than the warlike Anlaf. After witnessing Anlaf’s disposal of his fee, his suspicion was confirmed, and he hurried to Athelstan to warn him of the danger that might result from Anlaf’s visit. His having once sworn fealty to the Northumbrian Prince was alleged as a sufficient reason for not betraying him into the king’s hands, and Athelstan readily accepted the explanation. Nevertheless, he removed his tent to a distant and less exposed position; and when, some time afterward, the Bishop of Sherborne arrived, with his contingent of warriors, he pitched his tent on the recently vacated ground. That night, when the watch-fires burnt low, and, save the weary sentinels, the royal army was buried in slumber, Anlaf burst in with sword and spear, and a sudden storm of midnight battle convulsed the whole camp. After a fierce struggle the enemy was driven out, but when day dawned the Bishop of Sherborne was found, cold and still, in the midst of the slain.