Sussex and the Invasion of England 1216
The Resistance of English Freedom Fighters against Prince Louis
Aug 20, 2009
In May 1216 a French army landed on the south coast of England. It was led by Prince Louis, son of the French King Philip Augustus, and he had been invited over by English barons to depose the tyrannical King John and take the English crown for himself. Had Louis succeeded the country would have been conquered by a foreign power just as it was by the Normans in 1066, but his invasion failed. This was largely thanks to the staunch resistance of the men of the Weald, the great stretch of forest that at that time covered much of Sussex and Kent.
The Invasion of Kent by Prince Louis
Louis landed at the Isle of Thanet in Kent, but his army made swift progress as King John, uncertain whether he could trust the mercenaries in his own army to fight, retreated north rather than oppose the French. Louis entered London where he was welcomed and acclaimed as the new king, and his troops set about reducing the rest of southeast England.
The Emergence of William of Cassingham
By June much of southeast England was in French hands, the only exceptions being the great fortresses of Dover and Windsor. It was at this point that a ‘certain youth’ and his men emerged. An obscure country squire named William of Cassingham (now Cassingham near Sandhurst in Kent) and the archers he gathered were volunteers from the forests and ‘waste places’ of the Sussex Weald. Unlike the mailed knights and men-at-arms of the French army they would have been crudely equipped and armed with little more than the hunting or short bow.
The Rustic Archers of The Weald
Despite their rustic appearance the Weald archers mounted an effective resistance, slaying ‘many thousands’ of the invaders. Under the leadership of William, who acquired the nickname of ‘Willikin of the Weald’, and operating from the depths of the forests, these archers formed a stubborn resistance to the otherwise triumphant Prince Louis, ambushing French troops and inflicting fatal casualties on them.
The Death of King John and Accession of King Henry III
By October 1216 King John’s situation was desperate. Dover Castle had endured a siege of fifteen weeks and could not hold out for much longer, and if the castle fell that left nothing but the Windsor garrison and William’s guerrillas to resist the French in the southeast. John then performed the best service he could for his country: he died at Newark in October 1216, leaving his nine-year old son Henry to succeed him as Henry III.
English fortunes in the war now changed, as many barons and influential men who had defected to Louis due to hatred of John had no quarrel with his son. The child-king found a champion in the aged knight William Marshal, who was appointed regent, and by early 1217 Louis became aware that he was losing ground and decided to return to France for reinforcements.
Prince Louis Struggles to Reach the Coast
From London Louis was obliged to fight his way to the coast as the forests and highways were swarming with loyalists, and near Lewes in Sussex part of his army marched into an ambush laid by William of Cassingham. The French were routed and suffered further humiliation as two of their leading knights were captured and held to ransom. Alarmed, the rest of the French redoubled their pace towards Winchelsea, pursued by William and his men destroying bridges behind them and picking off stragglers. Finally Louis was rescued by a French fleet that arrived just as his army was on the point of starvation.
The Return of Prince Louis and his Army
Louis was still determined to conquer England and returned with reinforcements in April 1217. Once again his plans were spoiled by the efforts of William of Cassingham and the archers of Sussex, who were waiting at Dover to resist the landing. As the French fleet approached the coast William led an assault on the French advance guard on the beach, slaughtering them and burning their huts. Unwilling to attempt a landing in the face of such resistance, Louis turned aside to land at Sandwich.
The Treaty of Lambeth
The war thus resumed, but after further defeats of his army and navy Prince Louis’s cause was in tatters and he signed the Treaty of Lambeth, admitting that he had never been the legitimate King of England, and returned permanently to France.
William of Cassingham Rewarded for his Services
For his good service William was rewarded with a pension and made Warden of the Weald, and the rest of his life was spent in quiet obscurity. The descendents of the Sussex archers who had done so much to resist the French invasion were recruited to fight in later civil wars between medieval English kings and their barons and English campaigns in France, and became among the most effective and feared fighting men in Europe.
Sources:
King Henry III and the Lord Edward: The Community of the Realm in the Thirteenth Century by FM Powicke, 1947
The Struggle for Mastery; Britain 1066-1284 by David Carpenter (2003)
