The Scouring of the White Horse

And they were rare then as now, and then as now men went their own way, and not God’s way, and cut out their own work instead of taking his. For “when King Edmund was slain, his brother Edwold, dreading the pleasures of the world, and seeing that a hard lot had fallen on himself and his brother, retired to the monastery of Carnelia in Dorsetshire, near a clear well which St. Augustine had formerly brought out of the earth by prayer, to baptize the people in, and there he led a hermit’s life on only bread and water.”12 Yes! and no doubt thought himself righteous and despised others – and left the kingdom which God had given him to the Pagans, who “subdued all the land and destroyed all the ministers they came to,” which Edmund his brother had built – “and that same time they came to Medeshamstede, and burned and beat it down, slew abbot and monks, and all that place which before was full rich, they reduced to nothing,”13 while Edwold, who should have been there with the remnant of the East Angles, to make his last stand, like a true shepherd of his people, was eating his bread and drinking his water in peace, by a clear well near the monastery of Carnelia in Dorsetshire.

And now the Pagan kings, “with a new army, very great, like a flowing river which carries all along with it,”14 having doubtless been reinforced again from over the sea, where the story of their victories had spread far and wide, were looking about for some new field for plunder and murder. The whole north and east of England was a desolate wilderness behind them; London was in ruins, and Kent had been harried over and over again by their brethren the sea-kings. But some thirty miles up the Thames was a fair kingdom, stretching far away west, down to the distant sea. This was Wessex, the kingdom of the West Angles, over which Æthelred, the brother of Alfred, was now ruling, and entering on the sixth year of his reign. The kingdom had had peace for ten years, and was full of royal burgs, and rich pastures, with cattle and horses, and sheep. Perhaps Hinguar and Hubba remembered the leaguer of Nottingham three years before, and how the West Angles, with their king and his brother, had hemmed them in and watched them there through a long summer.

In the early years of their inroad, the Pagans would not have dared to brave a united people with Æthelred for king; but they had now grown bold from success, and were in numbers so great that “by reason thereof they could not advance together, but went by different roads.” So in an early month of the year 871, with their usual swiftness, they marched up the Thames valley and seized on Reading, a royal burg, and the then easternmost city of note in Wessex. Reading is situate on the south bank of the Thames and on the north bank of the Kennet, at the confluence of the two rivers; and, while part of the Pagan host made a rampart between the rivers, to protect their camp and the town which they had taken, a large force, on the third day after their arrival, began scouring the country for plunder, under two of their earls.

But the men of Wessex had increased and multiplied as well as their cattle, and Æthelwulf, Alderman of Berkshire, was a man “who raged as a lion in battle.” So Æthelwulf, with what men he could get together, fought with the two earls at Englefield, though he had but a small band of Christians with him. But he cheered his men, saying to them, “though they attack us with the advantage of more men we may despise them, for our commander Christ, is braver than they.”15 Whereupon the men of Wessex buckled to their work under the oaks of Englefield Chase (afterwards beloved by the great Queen Bess), and there discomfited the pagans very sore, and slew one of the two earls. In one of the old chroniclers, there are a few lines which may partly account for Æthelwulf’s victory; “their two consuls,” says Æthelwerd, “forgetting that they were not on board their fleet, rode proudly through fields and meadows on horseback, which nature had denied them;” possibly therefore these were the new comers, who had just joined the Pagan army and were not used to horses or landfighting.

Within the next three days King Æthelred and his brother Alfred came up from the west, each leading a strong band of West Saxon warriors, and joined Æthelwulf; and on the fourth day they attacked the Pagans at Reading. Those who were outside the rampart they cut to pieces, and at first had the vantage; but the Pagans came out with all their forces, and after great slaughter had been made on either hand, and the brave Æthelwulf had been slain, “the Pagans had possession of the place of death.”16 Thus the chronicle states it; probably the men of Wessex were grievously beaten, and went back with their king, in confusion, along the chalk hills to the other end of Berkshire, pursued by Bægseeg and Halfdene, the two lately arrived Danish kings, with the strength of the Pagan host. I suppose that Hinguar and Hubba stayed at Reading, to hold the place of safety; for neither of them were at Ashdown.

But every mile as they fell back added strength to Æthelred and Alfred, as bands of men came up from the rear; from the broad Wiltshire plains over the Kennet at Hungerford, and along the chalk hills from Swindon and Ashbury; from the vales of the Kennet and the Thames on either flank; and a few perhaps already from Glostershire and Oxfordshire, where the news was doubtless spreading like the wind. So Æthelred and his host turned to bay at Ashdown, and set the battle in array against the pagan kings.

There is some question between antiquaries as to where the exact site of this battle is. It must however, it seems to me, be somewhere in the western part of Berkshire; for it is quite impossible that Æthelred and Alfred could have fought at Reading, at Ashdown, and at Basing, as they unquestionably did, within three weeks, if we are to look for Ashdown battle-field either at Ashdown forest, in Essex, or at Ashendon, in the hundred of Bernwood in Buckinghamshire, which are the only sites out of Berkshire claiming this honour, and supported by a tittle of authority. Besides, even supposing these three battles could have been fought in the time, yet the battle of Reading, having gone against the Saxons, (as to which every chronicler agrees,) is it likely that they should have retired past the town and stronghold of the Danes, either northeast into Buckinghamshire, or southeast into Sussex, leaving the whole of Wessex open to the enemy, instead of falling back westward into Wessex, and so covering their own homes? It is perfectly absurd to suppose this, Alfred being one of their generals; and how such ancient and venerable persons as Bishops Kennet and Leland can have talked such nonsense, is hard to say; unless, indeed, they were born, the one in Sussex, the other in Buckinghamshire, in which case it is of course excusable, nay, justifiable in them; but of this I know nothing.

As to the Berkshire sites, I don’t see any reason for troubling you with their several titles. I am myself satisfied that the battle was fought here; but all the sites are somewhere on this range of chalk hills, of which the old White Horse is king. So now we will turn to the account of the great battle in the old chroniclers.

“About four days after the battle at Reading, King Æthelred and Alfred, his brother, fought against the whole army of the Pagans at Ashdown. And they were in two bodies; in the one were Bægseeg and Halfdene the Pagan kings, and in the other were the earls.” “Now the Christians had determined that King Æthelred with his men should attack the two Pagan kings, but that Alfred his brother with his men, should take the chance of war against the earls. Things being so settled, the king remained a long time in prayer, hearing the mass, and said he would not leave it till the priest had done, nor abandon the protection of God for that of men. And so he did, which afterwards availed him much with the Almighty, as we shall declare more fully in the sequel. But the Pagans came up quickly to the fight. Then Alfred, though holding a lower authority, as I have been told by those who were there and would not lie, could no longer support the troops of the enemy unless he retreated or charged upon them without waiting for his brother; so he marched out promptly with his men in a close column and gave battle.” “He too,” as Simeon says, “knowing without a doubt that victory would not lie with a multitude of men, but in the pity and mercy of God,” and seeing also that, mass or no mass, the Pagans must not be allowed to get between him and his brother. “But here I must inform those who are ignorant of the fact, that the field of battle was not equal for both armies. The Pagans occupied the higher ground, and the Christians came up from below. There was also in that place a single stunted thorn-tree, which I myself have seen with my own eyes. Around this tree the opposing hosts came together with loud shouts from all sides, the one to pursue their wicked course, the other to fight for their lives, their dearest ties, and their country.” “In the midst of the fight, and when Alfred was hard pressed,” – according to Brompton, for the older chroniclers do not mention this, – “the king came up with his fresh forces.” “And when both hosts had fought long and bravely, at last the Pagans, by God’s judgment, could no longer bear the attack of the Christians, and having lost great part of their men, took to a disgraceful flight, and all the Pagan host pursued its flight not only until night, but the next day, even until they reached the stronghold from which they had come out. The Christians followed, slaying all they could reach until it became dark.”17 “And the flower of the Pagan youth were there slain, so that neither before nor since was ever such destruction known since the Saxons first gained Britain by their arms.” “There fell in that battle King Bægseeg and these earls with him; that old Earl Sidroc, to whom may be applied that saying ‘the ancient of evil days,’ and Earl Sidroc the younger, and Earl Osbern, and Earl Frœna, and Earl Harold; who, with their men, choosing the broad and spacious way, went down into the depths of the lake;” or, let us perhaps hope not, old monk Simeon, seeing that they died gallantly in harness, and that, as you yourself add in the next sentence, “they knew not the way of teaching nor understood its paths; it was kept far away from their faces.” It is fair to add that Brompton states that Æthelred slew Bægseeg with his spear, and another Pagan of note with his sword, after, he got up to the fight; but the older chroniclers do not mention this.18

To finish briefly the history of the rest of the year 871, fourteen days after the battle of Ashdown, Æthelred and Alfred fought another battle with the Pagans (probably with that part which had remained in garrison at Reading, with Hinguar and Hubba, and the relics of Halfdene’s army), at Basing, which seems to have been undecided; and two months afterwards another at Merton. After which, in the summer, reinforcements came from beyond sea, and joined the Pagans; King Æthelred died, and Alfred fought before the winter four more pitched battles. So, as the Saxon Chronicle sums up, “in this year nine general battles were fought against the army in the kingdom south of the Thames; besides which, Alfred, the king’s brother, and single aldermen and king’s thanes, oftentimes made attacks on them which were not numbered, and slew of them within the year one king and nine earls.” This was not what the Pagans reckoned on; they liked fighting very much in reason, as an accompaniment of spoiling a country, and did it well; but to be fighting nine pitched battles in a year, hemmed in in one corner of a rich kingdom (for they never got farther than a few miles into Wiltshire), and getting no spoil even there, was not to their taste; so in the winter they made truce with Alfred, and took themselves off to their old haunts in Mercia and Northumbria, and did not return for five years.

This year, A.D. 871, is a year for Berkshire men to be proud of, for on them fell the brunt of that fiery trial; and their gallant stand probably saved England a hundred years of Paganism. For had they given way at Ashdown, and the reinforcements from over the sea come to a conquering, instead of to a beaten army in the summer, there was nothing to stop the Pagans between Reading and Exeter. The other eight battles were skirmishes in comparison with this one; they scarcely occupy five lines each in the chroniclers, and out of the king and nine Pagan earls who were slain within the year, six fell at Ashdown. It was Alfred’s crowning mercy; and so he felt it to be, and in memory of it he caused his army (tradition says, on the day after the battle) to carve the White Horse, the standard of Hengist, on the hill-side just under the Castle, where it stands as you see until this day.

“Thank you, Sir,” said I, when he paused, “what a grand story it makes! And are those the real words of the old chroniclers, as you call them, Sir, which you used?”

“Yes,” said he, “almost every word is simply a translation from one or other of them, but the greater part is taken from the Chronicle of Asser, who was a contemporary and intimate friend of Alfred, and a very learned and pious ecclesiastic.”

“I suppose they were; mostly priests and monks who wrote the Chronicles then, Sir, for they don’t read at all like our modern histories. They seem a much more religious sort of books.”

“Don’t call them religious books,” said he, “it puts one in mind of religious newspapers, – the greatest curse of our times. Yes, people sneer at the old English chroniclers now-a-days, and prefer the Edda, and all sorts of heathen stuff, to them; but they are great books, Sir, for those who have eyes for them; godly books is the name for them, written by God-fearing men, who were not ashamed of the faith which was in them; – men who believed, Sir, that a living God was ruling in England, and that in his name one of them might defy a thousand. Your historians, now-a-days, Sir, believe that Providence (for they dare not talk of God) is on the side of the strongest battalion. There’s some difference, when you come to think of it, between the two creeds, Sir.”

The old gentleman looked at me quite fierce, so I made all the haste I could to change the subject.

“Don’t you think it very curious, Sir, that the figure should have lasted all this time?” said I; “because you see, Sir, if you or I were to cut a trench, two feet or so deep, up here, on the side of the hill, and stamp down the chalk ever so hard, it would be all filled up and grown over in a few years.”

“You are not the first person who has made that remark,” said he. “In the year 1738, an antiquary, of the name of Francis Wise, who lived at Oxford, visited the hill, and wrote a letter on the subject to Dr. Mead, the most learned antiquary of that day. First he speaks of the figure of the horse as ‘being described in so masterly a manner that it may defy the painter’s skill to give a more exact description of the animal.’”

“How could he talk like that, Sir?” said I; “why the figure isn’t a bit like – ”

“You are as bad as Camden,” said he, “who talks of I know not what shape of a horse fancied on the side of a whitish hill; but the truth is, it is a copy of the Saxon standard, which, of course, was a rude affair. However, Wise, whom I was telling you of, goes on: —

“When I saw it, the head had suffered a little and wanted reparation; and the extremities of his hinder legs, from their unavoidable situation, have by the fall of rains been filled up in some measure with the washings from the upper parts; so that, in the nearest view of him, the tail, which does not suffer the same inconvenience, and has continued entire from the beginning, seems longer than his legs. The supplies, which nature is continually affording, occasion the turf to crumble and fall off into the white trench, which in many years’ time produces small specks of turf, and not a little obscures the brightness of the Horse; though there is no danger from hence of the whole figure being obliterated, for the inhabitants have a custom of ‘scouring the Horse,’ as they call it; at which time a solemn festival is celebrated, and manlike games with prizes exhibited, which no doubt had their original in Saxon times in memory of the victory.”19

“Scouring the Horse! yes, of course,” said I, “that is what they are doing now, and the games are to come off to-morrow.”

“Exactly so,” said he, “but you will like to hear how Wise goes on: —

“If ever the genius of King Alfred exerted itself (and it never failed him in his greatest exigencies), it did remarkably so upon account of this trophy. The situation of his affairs would not permit him to expend much time, nor his circumstances much cost, in effecting one,” (truly, for he had six more pitched battles to fight between April and November.) “His troops, though victorious, were harassed and diminished by continual duty; nor did the country afford, to any man’s thinking, materials proper for a work of this kind. Though he had not therefore the opportunity of raising, like other conquerors, a stupendous monument of brass or marble, yet he has shown an admirable contrivance, in erecting one magnificent enough, though simple in its design – executed, too, with little labour and no expense – that may hereafter vie with the Pyramids in duration, and perhaps exist when these shall be no more.”

“But, dear me, Sir,” said I, “how can the White Horse vie with the Pyramids in duration? Why, the Pyramids were built – ”

“Never mind when they were built,” said he; “don’t you see the old antiquary is an enthusiast? I had hoped you were one also.”

“Indeed, Sir, I am very anxious to hear all you can tell me,” said I, “and I won’t interrupt again.”

“Well, as to the scouring, Wise says: —

“The ceremony of scouring the Horse, from time immemorial, has been solemnized by a numerous concourse of people from all the villages round about. I am informed, though the Horse stands in the parish of Uffington, yet other towns claim, by ancient custom, a share of the duty upon this occasion. Since, therefore, this noble antiquity is now explained, and consequently the reason of the festival, it were to be wished that, in order to prevent for the future its falling into oblivion, some care was taken of the regulation of the games, and that they were restored to their ancient splendour, of which, without question, they are fallen much short. I know that these rites are cavilled at and maligned by the more supercilious part of mankind; but the dislike to them seems to be founded merely upon the abuse of them to riot and debauchery, which I intend by no means to justify or excuse. The practice of the best and wisest states, whose maxims we approve and profess to follow, is sufficient authority for their use. The liberty we so justly boast, and which ought to be a common blessing to all, pleads loudly for them. The common people, from their daily labour, stands at least in as much need of proper intervals of recreation as their superiors, who are exempt from it, and therefore in all free states have been indulged in sports most suited to their genius and capacity. And if manlike games contribute any thing towards the support of the natural bravery of these, who are to be our bulwark and defence in times of danger, they cannot be more seasonably revived than at this juncture, when, through the general luxury and dissoluteness of the age, there was never more likelihood of its being extinguished. Besides all this, from hence a superior influence diffuseth itself through the better sort, who are supposed to enter further into the intention of these solemnities; for which reason it is, that to perpetuate to posterity the remembrance of great men, and of great actions, has been always recommended, as a proper incentive to virtue. Customs of very trifling import, some ridiculous in themselves, others owing to causes equally ridiculous, are oftentimes kept up by Englishmen with much zeal and tenacity; and shall the greatest prince that this isle was ever blessed with, and the greatest action of that prince’s life, be in danger of being forgot, through the neglect of a solemnity, the only one, perhaps, that was ever instituted, at least, that is now preserved, to his honour?”20

I didn’t say a word now, though he seemed to have finished.

“Well,” said he, after a minute, “have you nothing to say? You’re very glad that it’s over, I suppose?”

“No, Sir, indeed I am not,” said I; “but I am very much obliged to you for your kindness in telling me all that you have.”

“You are a very intelligent young man, Sir,” said he; “most young fellows of your age would have been bored to death half-an-hour ago, even if they hadn’t managed to run off altogether, and so they would have lost a good lesson in English history – not that they would have cared much for that though. But now, I dare say you are getting hungry. Let us go up and see what they are doing in the Castle, and I shall be very glad if you will do me the honour of lunching with me.”

“Well,” thought I, as we got up from the turf, “there are not many better things for getting a man on than being a good listener. Here is a very learned old gentleman who doesn’t know my name, and I have got the length of his foot, and he has asked me to luncheon, just because I have been listening to his old stories. I wonder where the lunch is to be though? he spoke of a Castle, perhaps he lives in it – who knows?”

So we strolled away together up over the brow of the hill.

“So that atte laste to Estangle agen hym come:Ther hii barned and robbede and that fole to grounde slowe;And as wolves among ssep reulych hem to drowe,Seynt Edmond was tho her kyng, and tho he sey that delvol casThat me morthred so that fole, and non amendement n’as,He ches levere to deye hym-sulf, that such soreve to ysey —He dude hym vorth among ys ton, n’olde he nothyng fle.Hii nome hym and scourged hym, and suthe naked hym boundeTo a tre, and to hym ssote, and made hym mony a wounde,That the arewe were on hym tho thycke, that no stede n’as byleved.Atte laste hii martred hym, and smyte of ys heved.” Robert of Gloster’s Chronicle, p. 263, apud Thomas Hearne. Ed. 1724.“The Kyng and Alfred ys brother nome men ynowe,Mette hem, and a batayle smyte up Assesdowne —Ther was mony moder chyld, that sone lay ther doune —The batayle ylaste vorte-nygt, and ther were aslaweVyf dukes of Dene-march, ar hii wolde wyth drawe,And mony thousende of other men, and tho’ gonne hii to fle;Ac hii adde alle ybe assend, gyf the nyght n’adde y bee.Robert of Gloster, p. 263, apud Thomas Hearne. Ed. 1724.”

CHAPTER IV

“Well, here’s the Castle, you see,” said he, when we had walked a few hundred yards, and were come quite to the top of the hill.

“Where, Sir?” said I, staring about. I had half expected to see an old stone building with a moat, and round towers and battlements, and a great flag flying; and that the old gentleman would have walked across the drawbridge, and cried out, “What ho! warder!” and that we should have been waited upon at lunch by an old white-headed man in black velvet, with a silver chain, and keys round his waist. Somehow, the story of the battle, and all the talk about Pendragon and Arthur, coming upon the back of the farm-house, and the out of the way country life, which was so strange to me, had carried me into a sort of new world; and I shouldn’t have been much surprised to see a dragon running about the hill, though I should have been horribly frightened.

“I can’t make up my mind about this Castle,” he went on, without noticing me; “on two sides it looks like a regular Roman castrum, and Roman remains are found scattered about; but then the other sides are clearly not Roman. The best antiquaries who have noticed it call it Danish. On the whole, I think it must have been seized and occupied in succession by the lords of the country for the time being; and each successive occupier has left his mark more or less plainly. But, at any rate, you see it is a magnificent work.”

“Yes, Sir,” said I, “no doubt;” though I own I was a good deal disappointed. For what do you think the Castle is? Up at the very top of the hill, above the White Horse, there is a great flat space, about as big as Lincoln’s Inn Fields, only not the same shape, because it is only square on two sides. All round this space, there is a bank of earth, eight or ten feet high in some places, but lower at others. Then, outside, there is a great, broad, deep ditch; it must be twenty-five feet from the top of the inner bank to the bottom of the ditch; and outside that again, is another large bank of earth, from the foot of which the downs slope away on every side. But the banks and ditch are all grown over with turf, just like the rest of the downs, and there isn’t even a single stone, much less a tower, to be seen. There are three entrances cut through the double banks, one on the west, one on the southeast, and the third at the northeast side, which was the one through which we entered.