Transcript
Did Anything Important Ever Happen on This Marsh?
Look at this soggy, salty sea marsh in the middle of nowhere. Nothing important can ever have happened here, surely. But of course, this is England, and England is nuts. And I’m here inappropriately tired on a baking hot day to investigate a truly bonkers monument on this marsh only in England.
And as well as being unexpectedly hot, there are cows on this marsh today. And if you know your stuff, you will know that cows are responsible for the death of more people in the UK every year than things like, uh, being murdered by a postman. Alternative titles for this video included things like, “How can we possibly imagine that anything historically important happened in a place like this?” a pretty isolated marsh then on the Solway Firth.
Now take a look at this, uh, which will show you where this is in relation to that god-awful seat of all power in this country, that London. So why on earth would anybody important from there—and they’re all important there, aren’t they?—why would they come here? Well, they did come here. They were a king, and they only went and blooming well embarrassingly died here on this soggy old marsh. This then is the story of that event and the extraordinary marker of it that exists here in this landscape over 700 years later. Is there nowhere in Britain where something historically important didn’t happen?
I don’t know why I insist on having a title sequence. Don’t ask me to stop. Too far away. Won’t go in the sea. Uh, I’m a product of my time. Anyhow, as Paul Whitewick might say in a more YouTube way, it’s really time to step things up a gear. This is the name of the village on the edge of the marsh.
Nearby Village
Try and say it. Go on, say it. Burr. Burr. Burough. It’s Bruff by Sands, you bunch of off-comedons. And in here we have St. Michael’s Church, which dates back to the 12th century. And this plays an important role in our story. And down in the nearest village, we have this unveiled in 2007 by the Duke of Kent of Camden. And it marks the death 700 years ago of someone important. Oh, and I must point out that this church is built into and in fact out of a Roman fort. And Hadrian’s Wall ran through here and the Valum. And then there was a medieval manor stroke castle just over there as well. So far from being a place where nothing much has happened, certainly in the times of Roman Britain, this was a very important place. But that is not our story today. Because here on the marsh, we have this incredible monument.
A Monument to Edward I, Longshanks
First erected in 1685, rebuilt in 1803, restored in 1876 and 2000. It marks here on this exact spot the death of the actual king of England on the 7th of July 1307. Edward I, Hammer of the Scots, Longshanks. A truly pathetic end for Robert the Bruce’s worst nightmare. The Hammer of the Scots being reduced to snuffing it, snuffing the candle, as they say, on a desolate bog, carried here in a litter by his servants. And what was the king of England, dysentery-ridden king of England doing in this desolate bog? Well, he was hoping to cross the Solway Firth into Scotland to crush what he saw as a rebellion of subjects. I think the Scots might have had a different view about that.
Incongruous, isn’t it? I want to ask our overseas audience, do you do things like this in other countries? Do you put things like this in windswept places that hardly anyone ever goes to like we do here? He was only 68 for heaven’s sakes. That’s 10 years older than what I am. Uh, and he’d been holed up here in the northern part of England for months due to his dysentery. He’d been at Lanercost Priory and he’d been convening a parliament in Carlisle as well. He couldn’t get back to London, basically. He was, uh, yeah, he was screwed.
Now, this is not really my period of history, but I love incongruous things in the English countryside, and you couldn’t really get more incongruous than that, a monument to a king on a smelly old marsh. But what really fascinates me about this as an antiquity, if we could call it that, is the long gap between July 1307 and 1685 when this was erected.
How did they know that it was the exact spot? Is it the exact spot? Well, as far as I can tell, we are dependent on Daniel Defoe writing in the 18th century, so after this monument was erected. And he tells us that when Edward I’s body was removed from here, either local countrymen and/or Longshanks’s troops piled a can of stones, marking the exact spot. And we are led to believe that the local countrymen then maintained that through all the centuries up to 1685 when this was built and dedicated to the Duke of Norfolk, who sounds like an off-Cumbrian in these parts, doesn’t he? But he actually held the bar of Bruff and that manor house that we mentioned earlier.
Oh, and for any purists or pedants out there, of which I have many, it was actually erected by a John or Thomas Longstaff. I guess it’s not entirely implausible, is it, to imagine that a pile of stones put here to mark the death of the king of England, a king that was sometimes compared to King Arthur, another King Arthur. That was the nature of his standing. And that that ken should be maintained for over 350 years until they came along at the beginning of the sort of monument building sort of fad that sort of accompanied the spread of our empire around the world trying to remind people of how great our kings had always been.
I think it seems possible that this could be the exact spot. But what I really like about it is that the story tells us that back in the 14th century, they were still using the ancient Estuary Ford crossing to get to the other side here. And the other side here is the Lockmaben Stone that we looked at in a proper video last year. And the Solway Firth may actually take its name from that, the estuary of the Pillar Ford. Marvelous.
In the Church at Burgh by Sands
And this church, St. Michael’s Church, is important to our story because the towering giant that was Longshanks was brought here from the marsh, whose dead body was, and, uh, he was laid out in here to rest. And we believe that Edward I’s body was laid out in this church, this very building that I’m in here now, for 10 days. The king of England in this remote village very much at the edge of his kingdom. And whilst here, he was visited by heads of state, important people, and his son, the imaginatively titled Edward II, came here before going on to become the next king.
As far as I know, a lot of Edward I’s wishes were just completely ignored. His heart was not sent to the Holy Land. His bones weren’t sent on the next campaign into Scotland. And Piers Gaveston was allowed back into the country. All powerful king one day, nothing and nobody the next. It reminds me a little bit of my own journey as a YouTuber. One minute I’m riding high. The, uh, views are increasing. The subscribers are increasing. But then for the last two months, nothing. Hardly anybody is watching the channel. What’s the point of having 33 and a half thousand subscribers when on average only 8,000 of them watch your videos? And it’s nothing to do with the summer or the football or any of these things, because I look at my peers, and I do look at them. And many of my peers are riding high, getting their best viewing figures right now that they’ve ever had, riding the algorithm like champion jockeys of the algorithm.
This is a pretty fabulous church. By the way, there’s something I’ve read in here that I want to share with you. This tower was actually built onto the church later on than the period we’re looking at as a sort of defendable tower. Things got pretty rough here up on the border, uh, in the centuries after Edward I. Right here, it’s on this bit here. Really like it.
Ah, [snorts] right. Even now, such a hugely significant event taking place in such a remote and rural place. So far from the seat of power at Westminster would have had a shattering impact on the local inhabitants. So long ago, without the ready means of rapid communication we take for granted, it would have been almost unbelievable for those who witnessed these events and lived through that time.
[Plea for subscribers]
Right, I’m going to just quickly address the elephant in the room. Obviously, there isn’t an elephant in this room. It’s tiny. It wouldn’t work. But you cannot have failed to notice that this is a different sort of video to what I normally do. And the reason for that is that for the last two months, my views have fallen through the floor. Hardly any subscribers watching, hardly any other viewers. And I just found it really impossible this week to motivate myself to do the normal sort of thing. I think particularly after last week’s video about the Ruscar Warriors, which, uh, I put so much effort into, and it’s my worst performing video for ages. So, uh, yeah, I guess I’m having a bit of a st. I’m sulking.
So, if you are one of my subscribers who has stopped watching, then please let me know in the comments, uh, below why I can maybe try and do something about it.
[back to the video]
I did get a bit excited earlier when I spotted what almost looked like a Roman road style agger and side ditches. I thought, “Oh, that’s the actual approach to the ancient S3 Ford.” But then I noticed that there’s a whole sort of sequence of them along there. So, uh, that was a rubbish idea, but, uh, the location for crossing point is good. It does make sense.
Estuary Ford
I don’t know how well my drone footage is going to come out today. Once again, it’s always so windy, isn’t it? But, there’s an inscription on the actual red sandstone itself, which I guess dates to the 1803 rebuild. Then there’s a couple of metal plaques. There’s not a huge amount of decoration on this thing. You know, those people that are experts in the sort of occultic symbolism of these sort of monuments might see something in it. But, uh, you know, there’s a cross on the top. And really, that’s about it.
Yeah. So, I’m sorry this is a bit of a slight episode this week. I’ve decided to have a little bit of a rest and do a few light episodes, WC21 light for the next few weeks and, uh, see if I can get my winning formula back. See if I [clears throat] can find my mojo that I have clearly lost with my falling figures. But I hope you found this interesting and enjoyed finding out about, uh, a king that wasn’t buried under a car park. It’s a little bit different, I guess. Uh, thank you very much for watching and, uh, how embarrassing [clears throat] though. How embarrassing for the king to die here in this bleak place.
