Walter Besant - London

Loftie's opinion is thus summed up ( London , vol. i., p. 54):

Roman evidences, rather negative, it is true, than positive to show that the East Saxons found London desolate, with broken walls, and a scanty population if any; that they entered on possession with no great feeling of exultation, after no great military feat deserving mention in these Chronicles; and that they retained it only just so long as the more powerful neighboring kings allowed them. This view is the only one which occurs to me to account for the few facts we have.

And that great antiquary Guest thinks that good reasons may be given for the belief that London for a while lay desolate and uninhabited.

The evidence seems to me positive rather than negative, and, in fact, conclusive. London, I am convinced, must – not may , but must – have remained for a time desolate and empty.

The evidence is before us, to me clear and unanswerable; it is furnished by the Chronicle of Conquest, coupled with the question of supplies. The city could receive supplies from six approaches. One of these, called afterwards Watling Street, connected the city with the north and the west. It entered the walls at what became, later, Newgate. The second and third entered near the present Bishopsgate. One of these, Ermyn Street, led to the north-east, to Norfolk and Suffolk, the great peninsula, with fens on one side and the ocean on two other sides; the other, the Vicinal way, brought provisions and merchandise from Essex, then and long afterwards thought to be the garden of England. The bridge connected the city with the south, while the river itself was the highway between London and the fertile counties on either side the broad valley of the Thames. By these six ways there were brought into the city every day a continual supply of all the necessaries of life and all its luxuries. Along the roads plodded the pack-horses and the heavy, grinding carts; the oxen and the sheep and the pigs were driven to the market; barges floated down the stream laden with flour, and with butter, cheese, poultry, honey, bacon, beans, and lentils; and up the river there sailed with every flood the ships coming to exchange their butts of wine, their bales of silk, their boxes of spice, for iron, skins, and slaves.

In this way London was fed and its people kept alive. In this way London has always been fed. The moorland and swamps all around continued far down in her history. Almost in the memory of man there were standing pools at Bankside, Lambeth, and Rotherhithe. It is not two hundred years since Moorfields were drained. Wild-fowl were shot on the low-lying lands of Westminster within the present century. The supplies came from without. They were continuous. It is impossible to keep in store more provisions – and those only of the most elementary kind – than will last for a short period. There may have been a city granary, but if the supplies were cut off, how long would its contents continue to feed a population, say, of thirty-five thousand?

Four points, in short, must be clearly understood:

(1) London was a port with a great trade, export and import. To carry on this trade she employed a very large number of men – slaves or free men.

(2) If she lost her trade her merchants were ruined, and her people lost their work and their livelihood.

(3) The lands immediately round London – beneath her walls – produced nothing. She was therefore wholly dependent on supplies from without.

(4) If these supplies failed, she was starved.

Now you have seen the testimony of history. The port of London closed by the ships of the Kentish and the Essex shores; communications with the country gradually cut off; first, with the south; next, with the east; then, by the river; lastly, by the one gate which still stood open, but led only into a country ravaged by continual war, and overrun by an enemy who still pushed the Britons farther west. There was no longer any trade; that, indeed, began to languish in the middle of the fifth century; there were no longer either exports or imports. When there were no longer any supplies, what happened? What must have happened?

Let me consider the history from a contemporary Londoner's point of view. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is written from the conqueror's view; the prophecies of Gildas take the ecclesiastical line, that misfortunes fall upon a nation because of their wickedness, which is perfectly true if their wickedness leads them to cowardly surrender or flight, but not otherwise, or else the Saxons, whose wickedness, if you come to look at it, was really amazing, would themselves have been routed with great slaughter, and smitten hip and thigh. There are sins and sins. Those which do not corrupt a nation's valor do not cause a nation's fall.

This is what the man of London saw. It is a hitherto unpublished chapter from the Chronicle of a layman, a British citizen:

"The Legions left us. They had gone away before, but returned at our solicitations to drive back the Picts and Scots who overran the land (but reached not the walls of London). This done, they went away for good. And now, indeed, we understood that our long security was over, and that we must arise and defend ourselves, or meet with the fate that overtakes the weak and cowardly. They put up for us a wall before they went away, but the wall availed not long. No walls are of any avail unless there be valiant defenders behind. Then the enemy once more overran the country. To them were joined pirates from Ireland. Thus the land of Britain seemed given over to destruction, especially in the North and West. The merchants who traded with these parts were now driven to sore straits, because no goods came to them from their friends, nor were those who were once wealthy able to purchase any more the luxuries which had formerly been their daily food. But in the lands east and south, and that part of the country lying east of the fenny country, the people were free from alarms, and feared nothing, being protected by the sea on one hand and the fens on the other; so that we in London looked on with disquiet, it is true, but not with alarm. Nay, the situation looked hopeful when our people, recovering their spirit, drove out the enemy, and once more sat down to cultivate the lands. For a few years there was peace, with plentiful harvests and security. Then our trade again revived, and so great was the quantity of corn, hides, iron, and tin which was brought to our ports and shipped for foreign countries that the old prosperity of Augusta seemed destined to be doubled and trebled. Many merchants there were – wise men and far-seeing – who taught that we should take advantage of this respite from the greed and malice of our enemies to imitate the Romans, and form legions of our own, adding that the island wanted nothing but security to become a great treasure-house or garden, producing all manner of fruit, grain, and cattle for the maintenance and enrichment of the people. This counsel, however, was neglected.

"Then there fell upon the country a plague which carried off an immense number. The priests said that the plague, as well as the Pict and the Scot, came upon us as a visitation for our sins. That may be, though I believe our chief and greatest sin was that of foolishness in not providing for our own defence.

"Now we had long been troubled, even when the Count of the Saxon Shore guarded our coasts, by sudden descents of pirates upon our shores. These devils, who had fair hair and blue eyes, and were of greater stature than our own people, carried swords a yard long, and round wooden shields faced with leather. Some of them also had girdle daggers and long spears. They were extremely valiant, and, rushing upon their foes with shouts, generally bore them down and made them run. They seemed to know, being guided by the Evil One, what places were least defended and therefore most open to attack. Hither would they steer their keels, and landing, would snatch as much pillage as they could, and so sail home with loaded vessels, at sight of which their brothers and their cousins and all the ravenous crew hungered to join in the sport.