Gordon Home - The Invasions of England

THE INVASIONS
OF ENGLAND
BY EDWARD FOORD
AND GORDON HOME

A. AND C. BLACK, LIMITED
SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. : 1915

Published, 1913, as England Invaded
Reissued, 1915, as The Invasions of England

It has quite recently been stated in an American journal that Herr Dernburgthe German official apologist to the United Statesspeaking of the shelling of Hartlepool and Yorkshire watering-places, was convinced that it would bring home to the English people a keen realization of the fact that every serious attempt to invade England in the past has been successful. Had Herr Dernburg read any connected narrative of the invasions of England we are of opinion that he would never have made this statement, for it is obvious that since the Norman conquest no successful invasion has taken place without the active sympathy and assistance of a great section of the population.

Both before and during the present war the Germans have shown themselves so incapable of reading correctly the habits of thought of the British, of Americans, of Indians, of South Africans, that one is scarcely surprised to find them ignorant of the history of the British peoples also.

Let Herr Dernburg study the history of the Cinque Ports, or of any of the seafaring towns of South Devon and Cornwall, and he will find that sporadic raids and bombardments were frequent enough in medival, Tudor, and even later times; but for any invasion that did not meet in some degree with the approval of the country he will search in vain after he has passed the landmark of 1066. Even the Norman conquest was achieved through the lack of that real national cohesion which could not come to pass within such a brief period as the interval between the last Danish invasion and the death of Edward the Confessor.

Great Britain and Ireland in 1915 show a united front to the invader, and the inevitable fate of any force that has the temerity to set hostile feet on British soil will be the same as that of General Tate and his 1,400 men in the year 1797.

There is such a widespread lack of exact knowledge on the subject of the invasions of England that this new edition, at a popular price, of a volume concerned with the whole of them, from Csar to Napoleon, may help to clear a good many minds of misconceptions.

E. F.
G. H.

Since the year 1794, when England seethed with excitement through fear of a French Republican invasion, no book has been produced dealing with the invasions of England. The historical and archological work of the century that has passed has shed so much light on dark and shadowy periods of English history that the materials available for a new work on the subject have become increasingly extensive, and the authors have endeavoured to take full advantage of all this new material. They have, either together or separately, visited all the important, and many of the minor, battle sites and campaign areas mentioned in the text, and, as a result of close study, they have in certain instances arrived at conclusions at variance with those generally accepted.

By careful topographical work, aided by every shred of historical evidence available, the authors venture to hope that they may have thrown a little new light upon the great campaign in which the Roman general Paulinus crushed the British struggle for independence under Boudicca. They have also devoted much time and thought to the elucidation of the problem of the identity of the heroes of the Romano-British contests with the oncoming Teutons, and to the areas of their chief military operations. After much consideration and study of the available authorities, they have arrived at the conclusion, which they have not hesitated to express, that Arthur, or Artorius, is a well-established historical figure. One of the authors has, through his familys territorial connection with the Eastern Border, had exceptional opportunities for becoming familiar with the topography of the wild and intricate region in which both are inclined to place the fields of at least four, and perhaps six, of Arthurs twelve famous victories.

The field of Senlac has been examined by the authors in the company of Sir Augustus Webster, Bart., the present owner of Battle Abbey, himself a practical soldier. The result of their investigations has been to convince them that the line of the Norman advance lay considerably to the east of where it is generally placed, and that the great bulk of Harolds army was massed about the site of the abbey itself. His right wing, being almost unassailable owing to the protection given to it by the marshy ground in its front, was probably very weakly held. Relying on the contemporary evidence of the Bayeux tapestry, and considering the circumstances of Harolds march, the authors are inclined to discount any effective entrenchments or palisading.

In regard to the strategy and tactics of Flodden, a close study of contemporary documents and authorities tends to emphasize certain features which are often overlooked or ignored. First, the Scottish army evidently changed its position twice to counteract Surreys puzzling flanking movement. Second, it can have had no proper service of scouts, and was too cumbrous to manuvre readily, circumstances which left it at the mercy of its numerically inferior antagonist. Third, it was never able to form a complete line of battle owing to the slowness of the right wing in coming into action. Fourth, so far as appears from the letters of the English leaders, there was no slackness on the part of the Scottish Lord Chamberlain who commanded the left wing.

Much has been written on the relative strengths of the English and Spanish fleets in 1588. The authors opinions may be summarized as follows: (1) The Spaniards had an undoubted superiority in tonnage, but in strength of ships actually built for war the English had the advantage. (2) The English ships, being manned by a majority of sailors, were infinitely better handled; and the galleons of the Royal Navy were faster sailers than those of the Spanish. (3) There is no real reason to think that the Spaniards were outmatched in number and power of guns, but the English gunnery, though bad, was better and more rapid than that of their antagonists. (4) The Spanish tactics, as compared with that of the English, was antiquated, being based on the formation of line abreast and a close order, which hampered the manuvring of individual ships and impeded the use of broadsides.