INVASION RELICS IN ENGLAND.
CONSIDERING the happy immunity which our land has so long enjoyed from foreign invasion, it is as sur- prising as it is interesting to find still existing so many reminders of ruder times when the dread of invasion was ever present. With the commonest, although the moat ancient, of these relics, those of our earliest forefathers and of their Roman conquerors, we cannot deal in the limited space at our disposal, but shall call attention to some of more historic and less legendary times, of which the signifi- cance is often overlooked. As might be expected, the ex- treme North and the extreme South of 'England are richest in these relics, although in East Anglia the frequent incur- sions of the Danes have left strong impress in the shapes of racial peculiarities and place-names, and although such a frontier line as Offa's Dyke and the string of castles on the
Welsh border remind us of centuries of international warfare in the West.
It is impossible for an observant Southern visitor to our two northernmost shires not to be impressed, even to-day, with the aspect of defence and defiance which characterises the borderland settlements of men. It must be patent to him that something more than mere sternness of climate accounts for the sturdy, stone-built cottages, for the fortress- like houses, for the huddled nature of the villages, for the comparative rarity of isolated dwellings, and, above all, for the military aspect of the church towers. All these, in fact, speak of centuries of invasion, often carried on when the respective countries were politically at peace with each other, as well as of a pretty constant internecine warfare. It is true that most of the " peel-towers " have dis- appeared, that of those which remain many are mere picturesque shells of masonry, and that many have been incorporated with modern dwelling-houses, and the same may be said of the scores of sullen castles which dotted the land ; that villages have expanded beyond the square, camp-like shape in which they were originally built, and of which Wall, on the North Tyne, is a type, and that isolated dwellings are to be seen. But the church towers still remain as they were, battlemented, dimly lighted by mere loopholes, constructed of immense thickness, and in some cases actually shut off from the body of the church. This carries us back to the days when the church was often the local stronghold, not merely for defensive purposes, but as a depository of local valuables. Nor is this peculiar to the extreme North. Many old churches in the Weald of Kent and Sussex contain strong- rooms, thickly walled and heavily doored, in their towers, whereto at the first alarm of invasion or local disturb- ance all who had anything worth keeping sent it for safe custody. Indeed, Kent and Sussex church towers seem to have been used down to a comparatively recent date as local armouries, and even as powder magazines. As the Scots were the scourge of the North, so were French and Spaniards the dread of the South. Until the last century had well advanced the whole coast country of Kent and Sussex kept constantly on the watch against invasion, and a strong family likeness exists between the histories of such towns as Sandwich, Hythe, Rye, Winchelsea, and Hastings, and such as Berwick, Aln- wick, Newcastle, Hexham, and Carlisle. There is, however, a difference between the invasions to which the two widely separate districts were subjected. The invasions of the South were only from abroad. The invasions of Northumber- land and Cumberland were not merely from Scotland as a hostile country, not merely freebooting raids from Liddes- dale and Teviotdale in times when the two countries were at peace, but the invasion of dale upon dale and of -clan upon clan, of Liddesdale upon Redesdale, of Redesdale upon Tynedale, of Fenwicks upon Elliotta, of Robsons upon Arm- strongs, of Crosiers upon Halls, of Percys upon Nevilles, of Herons upon Carnabys, and even of different branches of a family upon each other. The Northumbrian dalesman always kept watch for the Scot, but he trusted not a whit more the men from the other side of a. stream or from over a hill, and opened the door to his first-cousin just as cautiously as to the stranger from over the Border. Of these days many interest- ing relics exist, such as the Buccleuch claymore religiously kept by the Charletons of Hesleyside ever since one of them captured it in a Border affray; the Flodden pennons at Ford Castle ; the English pennons at Jedburgb, taken at Ancrum Moor and the Raid of the Redeswyre ; and numberleis other arms and trophies kept in private houses.
Even in such metropolitan counties as Kent and Sussex, over which constant waves of change have swept, relics of invasion are both numerous and various. The memory of many centuries of vigilant watching by day and night is kept up by the many beacon hills in these two counties. What the fiery cross did in the turbulent days of Scotland, the beacon did in England's times of danger, and according to contemporary accounts the system of communication in this primitive way must have been brought to a state of very high efficiency. Indeed, the arrangement of the Kent and Sussex beacons of the Armada period was considered so excellent by the War 'Office during the Bonapartist invasion scare of 1802-4 that the map drawn up by Elizabeth's Chief, of Ordnance, Lord Brooke, was reprinted and largely acted
upon. Most of the high-standing Wealden churches had fire cressets on their tower turrets, but the vandalism of the Early Victorian " restorers " swept.them away, and not one is in situ at present. The place-name of " The Butts " reminds us of those parlous times which in some respects we should do well to imitate, especially in the wholesome and patriotic law which made it obligatory on every able-bodied man to practise with the national weapon.
When Henry VIII., in spite of Papal fulminations, deter- mined to proceed with his divorce from Catharine of Aragon, it seemed as if a European Crusade might be let loose against us. So that astute Monarch looked to his Southern coasts, and along the Kent and Sussex shore built five castles, at Sandown, Deal, Weimer, Sandgate, and Camber. With the first and last of these the sea sported, helping to destroy the first by washing it away, and leaving the last high and dry two miles inland, a not unpicturesque ruin much patronised by picnickers. The other three have always been kept in repair, and although converted into private houses, retain externally most of their original features. During the Kentish Rising of 1648 these strong and well-found castles—all, that is, but Camber—were held for the King, but made the feeblest resistance, and capitulated one after the other with disgraceful alacrity.
The prevalence of a dark physical type amongst the in- habitants of the country around Rye and Winchelsea has suggested descent from shipwrecked survivors of the Spanish Armada, and the same legend prevails concerning the " dark lot" on the Cornish coast by Veryan and Gorran Haven; but as there is no record of Armada ships having been lost on either coast, it is more probable that the Sussex people are descendants of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Gascon traders who settled among them, whilst it is not impossible that the latter may have Phoenician blood in them. The so- called Armada Communion-table in Rye Church, and the so- called Armada chests not uncommon in Kent and Sussex, have been proved to have no connection with that momentous epoch.
The most unmistakable invasion relics now extant are those associated with the Bonapartist scares at the beginning of the last century, and perhaps if all other testimony were lacking to the marvellous influence of the man who, so to speak, held the destinies of Europe in his hand for nearly twenty years, it would be found in the magic of his name long after he was a broken exile. There are people still living in the remoter parts of Kent and Sussex who have heard their mothers talk of the absolute terror which the mere mention of the name of Bonaparte was capable of pro- ducing ; how the idle cry that the French had landed would stir a whole countryside into excitement, and bow the naughtiest child could be hushed to instant goodness by the threat that " Boney " would have him. Place-names in all directions record the preparations of the period to resist invasion: in most out-of-the-way places we meet with "Barrack Hill," or " Magazine Field," or " Artillery Lane," and amidst the now torpid surroundings find it hard to picture the drumming and Hug, the marching and drilling, the enthusiasm and excitement, which stirred the country during those three or four eventful years.
Of more tangible relics we have the martello towers which dot the coast from Folkestone to Seaford, and the military canal which ran from Hythe along the base of what were once cliffs overhanging a tidal morass, making the circuit of Romney and the adjoining marshes and coming back to the sea at Rye. In these days of advanced military science we may smile at these trumpery preparations to check a com- mander who had crossed the Alps in mid-winter and to whose progress the broadest rivers in Europe were no obstacle; but they were taken very seriously at the time, and possibly exaggerated accounts of their character may have influenced the decision of Bonaparte to postpone his project. The martello towers take their name from a single tower at Mortella; in Corsica, which in 1794, with a garrison of forty men, made so effective a resistance to a simultaneous land and sea attack by Hood and Dundee; that the Government adopted the model for our own coast defence: As weapons of defence they have, of course, long ceased to be of the smallest use, but they are still used either as targets for artillery or as humble dwellings, and form not unpicturesque features of the coast-line. As
for the Royal Military Canal, constructed for the purpose of conveying troops and stores from point to point, it is at present best known as a favourite resort of picnickers and anglers in summer, and of skaters in winter; and the only= suggestion of the martial purpose for which it was intended is to be seen in the large earthen bastions and redoubts which flank its zigzags. Another relic of these times is the not in- frequent name of Signal Hill, telling us of the day system of signalling by semaphores, which was evidently brought to a high state of efficiency, if we may trust the story that at an experimental trial made in 1803 a message was signalled from Deal to London and a reply received in seven minutes, the distance covered being about a hundred and fifty miles. We may presume that the weather and everything else had ber3 carefully arranged beforehand.
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