Battle of the Thames

“ A civilised man can cross a river more easily than a barbarian; and in civilised times there are permanent bridges, where in barbaric times there would be only fords or ferries.
Nevertheless, it is true of the Thames, as of nearly every other division in Europe, that it was much more of a boundary at the end of the Roman Empire, and is more of a strict boundary to-day, than it was during the Dark Ages, and presumably also before the Claudian invasion. ”

“ Though we know nothing of the progress of the Saxon pirates in the province of Britain, and though history is silent for the hundred and fifty years covered by the disaster, yet on the analogy of other and later raids from the North Sea we may imagine that no inland part of the country suffered more than the valley of the Thames. All that was left of the Roman order, wealth and right living, must have appeared at the close of that sixth century, when the Papal Mission landed, something as appears the wrecked and desolate land upon the retirement of a flood. ”

“ One hears the grating of cranes and the shouts of men; the peculiar “dumb-barges” of the Thames cluster round the hulls of screw-colliers from Newcastle, and receive from them their separate loads of coal; and excitable little steamers are running in and out as if they had lost their way among the crowded shipping. In mid-stream the traffic is almost as busy and confusing as that of a London street. Vessels are coming up with the tide; barges are slowly floating onward, their brown sails spread, tacking to the wind, their decks washed now and again by some arrowy wave from a paddle-steamer. ”

“ While, however, the upper Thames was thus easy to cross where individuals only or small groups of cattle were concerned, the marshes on either side always made it difficult for an army. The records of early fighting are meagre, and often legendary, but such as they are you do not find the upper Thames crossed and recrossed as are the upper Severn or the upper Trent. ”

“ Coming in from the eastward, the bright colouring of the lightship marking the part of the river committed to the charge of an Admiral (the Commander-in-Chief at the Nore) accentuates the dreariness and the great breadth of the Thames Estuary. But soon the course of the ship opens the entrance of the Medway, with its men-of-war moored in line, and the long wooden jetty of Port Victoria, with its few low buildings like the beginning of a hasty settlement upon a wild and unexplored shore. The famous Thames barges sit in brown clusters upon the water with an effect of birds floating upon a pond. ”

“ The river of Thames rushed blood-red in the beam, the winds at play on the broad waves of the Humber, broke the surge of the billows into sparkles of fire. With three streamers, sharp and long as the sting of a dragon, the foreboder of wrath rushed through the hosts of the stars. On every ruinous fort, by sea-coast and march, the warder crossed his breast to behold it; on hill and in thoroughfare, crowds nightly assembled to gaze on the terrible star. ”

“ There is a quiet, solemn, lapping of the waters; barges at rest, sailing ships at anchor, a yacht lying here and there, break the line of the sky with their tapering masts and their sails partially furled; a belated steam-tug pants upward, with asthmatic breath, and from either shore comes the dull regular throb of half-suspended life. The Lower Thames is never so imposing as in the night-time, when the moon is pouring down long streaks of light on the throbbing waters, and even the brown piles of the river bank seem tinged with gold. ”

“ Whereupon the mayor and aldermen fortified all along the Thames side, from Baynard's Castle to the Tower, with armed men, guns and other instruments of war, to resist the invasion of the mariners, whereby the Thames side was safely preserved and kept by the aldermen and other citizens that assembled thither in great numbers. Whereupon the rebels, being denied passage through the city that way, set upon Aeldgate, Bishopsgate, Criplegate, Aeldersgate, London Bridge, and along the river of Thames, shooting arrows and guns into the city, fired the suburbs, and burnt more than three score houses. ”

“ The estuary has, of course, always formed a division, and in the barbarian period it separated the higher civilisation of Kent from that of the East Saxons, who were possibly of a different race, and certainly of a different culture. But the Thames above London Bridge was not a true boundary until the civilisation of England began to form, towards the close of the Dark Ages. It is perpetually crossed and recrossed by contending armies, and the first result of a success is to cause the conqueror to annex a belt from the farther bank to his own territories. ”

“ Now Reading, save, perhaps, in barbaric times, when the Thames was the main highway of Southern England, occupied no such vantage until the nineteenth century. To-day, with its large population, its provision of steam and electrical power, and above all, its command of the main junction between the southern and middle railways, Reading would again prove of primary strategic importance if we still considered warfare with our equals as a possibility. But during all previous centuries, since the Dark Ages, Reading was potentially, as it is still actually, civilian ”

“ The preponderatingly military aspect of the Thames Valley in English history dwindles with the dwindling of military energy in our civilisation, and passes with the passing of a governing class that was military rather than commercial. ”

“ For this Thames is such an avenue and entry into marvellous life that earth can show no greater rival, none more rich in dignity or in the multitude of its merchandise. And if the flood of that merchandise shall cease, and the stream once more go lonely to the sea or carry coracles, it cannot be again as if it had never borne great ships, or swung the Admiral's galley on its tide. ”

“ I question whether all the officers of the royal navy can bring together from all their journals, a collection of so many wonderful escapes as this man has known upon the Thames, on which he has been a thousand and a thousand times on the point of perishing, sometimes by the terrors of foolish women in the same boat, sometimes by his own acknowledged imprudence in passing the river in the dark, and sometimes by shooting the bridge under which he has rencountered mountainous waves, and dreadful cataracts. ”

“ Von Kronhelm, it is reported, is at Hampstead, and the zone of the enemy's artillery reaches, in some cases, as far south as the Thames itself. It is true, as the honourable member asserts, an enormous amount of damage has already been done to various buildings, and there has undoubtedly been great loss of life. My latest information is that the non-combatant inhabitants—old persons, women, and children—are in flight across the Thames, and that the barricades in the principal roads leading in from the north are held strongly by the armed populace, driven back into London. ”

“ The Thames as an avenue of ingress or invasion belongs [Pg 118] to the earlier part of English history. The importance of the lower river in this category ends very nearly with the close of the Dark Ages. Its second character, that of an obstacle to the invader who would go northward or to troops marching from the north southward, in the main is discoverable of course throughout history, but chiefly belongs to the Middle Ages and the seventeenth century. I will take these three points, therefore, in their order and deal first with the invasions of England which the Lower Thames has served. ”

“ It is further remarkable that the one great definite boundary of the Dark Ages in England—that which was established for a few years by Alfred between his kingdom and the territory of the Danish invaders—abandons the Thames above bridges altogether, and uses it as a limitation in its estuarial part only, up to the mouth of the Lea. ”

“ The glory of the Thames is measured by the density of the population to which it ministers, by the commerce which it supports, by the grandeur of the empire in which, though far from the largest, it is the most influential stream. ”

“ For coming by way of Thame—which I was advised was to be preferred because some troopers of the Prince Rupert lay at Fawley near to Henley-upon-Thames and harried all travellers with small respect of parties—and staying to bait my horse at the inn, I heard that a notable man was lying dead in one of the chambers. ('Twas Midsummer Day, I remember.) This was Master John Hampden, who had been shot in the shoulder upon Chalgrove Field six days before, and being carried to Thame died there on the very day on which I chanced to pass through. ”

“ The Thames to seaward looks different to me every time I float on its noble flood. I have seen it from on board steamers large and small, from an Indiaman’s deck, the gunwale of a cutter, and the poop of an ironclad, as well as from rowboat and canoe, and have penetrated almost every nook and cranny on the water, some of them a dozen times, yet always it is new to see.
Thames river life is a separate world from the land life in houses. The day begins on the water full an hour before sunrise. Cheery voices and hearty faces greet you, and there seems to be no maimed, or sick, or poor. ”

“ Down the Thames to the right you see Blackfriar’s Bridge, which does not yield much, if at all, in beauty to that of Westminster; on the left bank of the Thames are delightful terraces, planted with trees, and those new tasteful buildings called the Adelphi. On the Thames itself are countless swarms of little boats passing and repassing, many with one mast and one sail, and many with none, in which persons of all ranks are carried over. Thus there is hardly less stir and bustle on this river, than there is in some of its own London’s crowded streets. ”

“ It is observable, that in 1716, by a long dry season, the river Thames was reduced so low, that by a violent storm of wind at west south west, it was blown so dry, during the recess of the tide, that many thousands of people passed it on foot, both above and below bridge, and walked thro’ most of the arches.
The year 1720 will be ever famous in this city, for the destructive South Sea scheme, by which many thousands of the wealthy citizens and others were impoverished, 115while others acquired immense riches. ”

“ The defence of the City had all along been felt to be extremely difficult against an army of any magnitude. The Tower had been turned into a first-class fortress, although the approach of an enemy by way of the Thames was an absolute impossibility, owing to the measures that had been taken to protect the great water-way. The Arsenal of Woolwich, and the great magazines in Plumstead Marshes were, therefore, safe and of immense advantage to the English. ”

“ When the tide is running out it races through the arches of London Bridge, and swirls round the buttresses, and eddies to right and to left in such manner that the Thames waterman, having remembrance of many disasters brought about by absence of knowledge or want of care, amazes his passenger by his singular method of progression, rowing round a clump of barges, getting under the hull of a steamer, shooting across the river with the current, creeping slowly along by the wharves, and otherwise manœuvring as if he were a general preparing to take a town. ”

“ The clouds, alternately deep blue and flaky-white, seem to cast their moving reflections upon the crest of the hills, for the gilded sunshine melts with delicate gradations into soft, shimmering shadow. Half a mile or so below Cleeve Lock the stream divides, the cut to the left going to Goring Lock and the main channel to Streatley. From the point of divergence to Streatley and Goring Bridge is but a brief pull, and few pilgrims of the Thames will desire to push on without halting for a while at this pretty village. ”

“ Everything is very still and soft and shadowy. It is such a scene as seems appropriate to happy dreams. In another hour or two the river will be awake, the twitter of birds flitting across the waters will be drowned in the shouting of labourers and the shrieking of cranes; the stream, its brief glory departed, will be churned up by paddle-wheel and screw; the swarthy steam-colliers will come, hard and clear, out of the soft haze, and the Thames will become a workaday river again, wonderful still, but, after such a vision, too grimly prosaic and real. ”

“ In the second engagement, with great hazard to his men, he defeated the Britons and put them to flight. Thence he proceeded to the river Thames, where a great multitude of the enemy had posted themselves on the farther side of the river, under the command of Cassobellaunus,34 and fenced the bank of the river and almost all the ford under water with sharp stakes: the remains of these are to be seen to this day, apparently about the thickness of a man's thigh, cased with lead, and fixed immovably in the bottom of the river. ”

“ It is a tribute to the great place of the river in history that there is no other watercourse in England nor any other natural division of which this is so universally true.
The reason that the Thames, like so many other European boundaries, has come late into the process of demarcation, and the reason that its use as a limit is more apparent in civilised than in uncivilised times, is simply the fact that limits and boundaries themselves are never of great exactitude save in times of comparatively high civilisation. ”