History of England 1-6

Yet no body was found within the boat. It may have been a cenotaph, an empty tomb erected as a memorial. But it is more likely that a wooden coffin and its occupant have been eaten by the acid sand all around. There is one memory of Redwald, however. It resides in the helmet; it is silver plate on a base of iron, with ornamentation of bronze. It is monstrous, savage, a thing out of nightmare.

The life of the people under his rule was harsh and unremitting. It was, for the poor, one of incessant labour; their food was coarse and their clothes were made out of rough woollen fabrics. They lived in earth-floored cottages of wicker or wattle. They knew only the rake and the sickle, the plough and the pick and the spade. The rich engaged in a life of hunting and of warfare. They ate voluminous quantities of pork and venison. They drank to excess and were celebrated for doing so. Their faces were often painted or tattooed. Men as well as women dyed their hair; blue, green and orange were the colours favoured by the male. Both sexes were heavily adorned with gold bracelets. Young boys were trained in bravery by being placed on steep sloping roofs; if they held fast, without screaming out in fear, they were deemed to be fit for purpose. The sports were those of leaping, running and wrestling; at the age of fourteen a boy had the right to bear arms.

The kingdom of Mercia occupied what is now known as the midlands; the East Saxons gave their name to Essex, the Middle Saxons to Middlesex and the South Saxons to Sussex. The West Saxons created Wessex, of course, but that territory has not survived as an administrative entity. Mercia was until the time of Alfred always a mixture of kingdoms, and the tribal name of the West Saxons was Gewissae, meaning ‘confederates’. These allied tribes moved further westward, conquering Devon and Cornwall. But the Germanic tribes did not move against the native kingdoms alone; they fought among themselves, and there were some ferocious struggles between the tribes of Wessex and the tribes of Kent.

Kent offers an interesting case of continuity. It was the first part of England to be settled by Germanic mercenaries and traders, who may have obtained a permanent presence there as far back as the time of Roman rule. That is why the administrative structures set up by the Romanized English survived intact. The settlers and natives did not need to confront one another. So the native name for the area was maintained even after the Jutes and others had acquired supremacy. The people were known as ‘Cant-ware’, but the origin of ‘Cant’ lies somewhere in prehistory. The names of Canterbury and Dover date back at least to the Iron Age. There is abundant evidence for continuity of use, in settlements and in sacred sites, from the Iron Age to the Jutes; the churches of many Kentish neighbourhoods are linked by prehistoric roads. They are also characteristically associated with holy wells, springs and female saints, all of which point towards prehistoric worship.

Another continuity can be noticed. When the first Germanic settlers came they were planted as freeholders, following the custom of their country. That is why the land of Kent is marked by individual farmsteads and hamlets rather than manorial villages; no tradition of cooperative farming under a lord existed. There was no room in Kent for powerful magnates or great mansions. There are few of the ‘common fields’ found throughout the rest of the country. The county bears all the signs of the ‘free folk’ whom Tacitus recognized among the northern peoples.

That tradition was maintained over the centuries. In The Perambulation of Kent, written in 1570, William Lambarde wrote that ‘the Yeomanrie, or common people is no where more free and jolly than in this shyre … in manner every man is a freeholder, and hath some part of his own to live upon. And in this their estate they please themselves and joy exceedingly.’ In fact the legal custom of Kentish land tenure was not abolished until 1926, the only known example of specifically county law surviving into the twentieth century. That independence has taken other forms. In the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 ‘the men of Kent’ were the first to take up arms behind Wat Tyler. Seventy years later, under the leadership of Jack Cade, they provoked a popular revolt against unfair taxation; their petition was entitled The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent. The men of Kent were the first to rise against Richard III. In the miners’ strike of 1984 the miners of Kent were the most militant and vociferous. The old history still manifests itself. It still matters.