The magic foot of Saint Simon

In late 1266, while Henry III was struggling to put down rebels in East Anglia, a fresh revolt blew up in distant Northumbria. Unable to go himself, Henry sent his heir the Lord Edward to deal with the rising.

Alnwick Castle

The ringleader was John de Vescy, lord of Alnwick. Vescy had been one of Simon de Montfort’s phalanx of bachelor knights, who followed him about like a latter-day Praetorian Guard. At the bloodbath of Evesham in 1265, where Montfort was hacked to pieces, Vescy managed to escape with one of his beloved master’s severed feet. He returned to his northern fastness and donated the foot to a local priory. The grisly object was placed inside a silver shoe, of all things, and worshipped as a relic with magic healing properties. It was noted that this ‘foot of incorruption’ exhibited a wound, either made by a hatchet or a sword.

Vescy entered into a pact with certain other northern barons. According to the chronicler Thomas Wykes, they swore that each would adhere to the other and thus, being reliant on mutual aid, restore their lands seized by the king. In reality Vescy’s followers may have not had much choice in the matter. It is possible to trace at least two of them, Henry de Bilton and William de Lisle, both tenants on the Vescy estates. As such they were obliged to obey their lord and offer him ‘mutual aid’, whether or not they wanted to.

He may have recruited some allies from north of the border. The Meaux Chronicler in East Yorkshire mentions Scots among the Alnwick garrison. This seems inexplicable, as England and Scotland were not at war at this time. Perhaps Vescy hired a few wandering Scottish mercenaries; alternatively, the Yorkshire-based chronicler was unable to tell the difference between Northumbrians and Scotsmen!

Edward raced north to contain the revolt. A true son of the Devil’s Brood, he marched with the same breathless speed as Henry FitzEmpress or the Lionheart: one of his followers, Richard Clifford, recalled in later years the prince’s army marching ‘day and night continuously with horses and arms’. On the way he raised the militia of the northern counties, a ‘large multitude of fighters’, and then pressed on towards Alnwick.

The arms of John de Vescy

Vescy chose to retreat inside his stronghold. The usual tactic was to throw a garrison inside a castle and remain outside with a flying column to try and break the siege lines, but Vescy found himself bottled up inside four walls. Perhaps Edward moved too quickly for him. Few details survive of the siege that followed, except for the curious tale of William Douglas and Gilbert Umfraville, Earl of Angus.

While the siege was in progress, Edward was approached by Angus. The earl accused Sir William Douglas, known as Longleg for his height, of being a traitor. Angus asked Edward to confiscate Douglas’s manor at Fawdon and give it to him: it just so happened that Douglas was one of the earl’s tenants.

Edward agreed, provided Douglas was convicted by a jury. At the trial, held at Boulton in Northumberland, the accused was cleared of all charges. The enraged earl sent his retainers to seize Douglas’s goods at Fawdon. When the court ordered him to give them back, Angus went a step further. He and his lieutenant, John Hirlawe, raised a hundred riders of Redesdale, for centuries a notorious den of thieves, and set them on Douglas and his family. William and his wife and children were dragged about from place to place, tortured with fire, and his son William junior sliced through the neck with a sword. He survived and was known afterwards, appropriately enough, as William le Hardi (the Hardy).

A Border Reiver in silhouette

A second trial was held in October, where Angus denied all the above. He seemed in remarkably good humour, and asked the jurors when all of this was supposed to have taken place. When they gave him a date - 19 July - he smiled and pointed out ‘there were many days in a week’. The jurors lost their bottle and acquitted Angus of his misdeeds. Poor old Douglas was found guilty of false accusation and sentenced to a brief term in prison.

None of this was any help to John de Vescy. In the summer of 1267 he surrendered to Edward, who pardoned the lord of Alnwick and his followers. How the castle fell is something of a mystery. John Fordun, writing decades later, states that Edward took it by stealth. Perhaps he had a spy among the garrison, as he did in Hampshire and other rebel headquarters. The northerners expected to be punished, and the prince’s mercy took them by surprise. Edward took the sting out of the revolt by permitting the rebels to recover their lands, though for a price. John de Vescy later had to find 3700 marks, borrowed from an Italian creditor, to redeem his lordship.

This brief northern revolt is a footnote in the story of the Montfortian wars, but contains much of interest. Students of the Border Reivers may be intrigued to find the lancers of Redesdale, a notorious ‘riding surname’ of the Tudor era, very much alive and kicking several hundred years earlier. It seems you can’t keep good men down, or bad ones either.