Results of Mondays search for Eddy 1 Battlefield

[Radnor Bandit (Ian)]

!

[Radnor Bandit (Ian)]

Yesterday Da Monkey and myself assisted Chris Smith from Archeology Wales at a 1295 battle site to the west of Welshpool, The plan was to dig all metal and hopefully find artifacts relating to the battle,
Unfortunatly as we were severly restricted by time limitations - big field - 1 day - all metal. by midday we had only managed to search a relativly small area as it was littered with mainly 19th & 20thC ferrous junk. The field had not been ploughed for a long time and everything was deep in stoney gravel sub base.  Locating and digging the iron signals was slow and hard work. After a few hours of this and the amount of Iron signals, we then started to be more selective on the iron and concentrated on the non ferrous.
We could have spent a month on the site and still not covered it properly.
in conclusion apart from misc iron 2 George 3 1/2d's (1 Irish) George 5 1/2d, a few buttons, ointment tube, shoe buckle and bit of hob nail boot.
The photos show the finds ! and size of the fields.
The notes on the battle are as follows

The battle took place to the west of Welshpool on land owned by the abbey of Ystrad Marchell (Strata Marcella) on 5 March 1295
This battle marked the end of the most significant revolt following the completion of the conquest of Gwynedd by  Edward I. In the course of this battle, the leader of the rebellion, Madoc ap Llywelyn was defeated by an army led by the earl of Warwick
The battle came at the end of the most significant rebellion in Wales after the death  of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282 and the defeat and death of his brother Dafydd a year later
 The causes of the rebellion were twofold: undeniable discontent following oppressive governmental intervention inthe decade after the Conquest and, in the shorter term, a harsh taxation assessment in 1292-3. The newly created county of Merioneth, for example, was assessed to pay £566, more than a third of the sum (£1604) which was to be levied from the far richer county of Essex  ten years later. It can be no accident that the rebellion began on the date that an instalment of the lay subsidy was due, 30 September.The advent of the rebellion also coincided with Edward’s recruitment of soldiers from Wales to serve in Gascony. The revolt was a serious threat to English government in Wales. It affected almost the entire country:
It seems that Madog  was  accompanied by only part of his army: Madoc came down onto Powys with the elite of the Welsh.
 Warwick, at Oswestry, received this news from his Welsh agents at night; The Earl of Warwick, hearing that the Welsh were massed in great numbers in a certain plain between  two forests, took a picked body of men-at-arms with crossbowmen and archers
 surprising them by night, surrounded them on all sides. They planted the butts of  their spears  n the ground, and turned the points against the charging cavalry, so as to defend themselves from their rush. But the earl placed a crossbowman between each two men-at arms, and when the greater part of the spear armed Welsh had been brought down by the bolts of the crossbows, he charged the rest with a squadron of horse, and inflicted on them a loss greater it is believed, than any which had been experienced by them in the past wars.’
On Madog ap Llywelyn’s side, the numbers of both his forces, and consequently, the proportion who were killed is unknown
The indication is that 700 ‘of the most noble sort’ were killed in addition to those drowned or  mortally wounded.
The Hagnaby chronicle agrees with the total, noting 600 dead in the course of the battle and a further 100 in a secondary action, possibly an attack on Madog’s baggage train. That men were drowned indicates that the battle ended in a rout and disorderly retreat pursued by Warwick’s forces. its suggested that these could be the river Vyrnwy and its tributary the Banwy to the north of the battle site and, given the inclement weather that was a feature of the winter and spring of 1294-5 these rivers would have formed substantial obstacles to a retreating army.
The Worcester annalist noted that Madog himself ‘barely escaped’, but surrendered to John de Havering before 31 July, was escorted to London and survived, as a prisoner, until at least 1312
   On Warwick’s side the picture is clearer, if still ambiguous., that they must have been small. The evidence for the cavalry is inconclusive but among the infantry, there were clearly some losses and men wounded. The roll mentions that six injured in the discomforting of  Madoc ap Llywelyn) received payments, two of them ‘’ (by order of the lord, the Earl of Warwick),to treat their wounds. There is also a slight fall in the number of infantry paid between 5 March to the 6 and 7 March. On 5 March, 27 constables and 2,689 men were in pay while by 7 March the figures were 26 constables and 2,597, a reduction of 1 constable and 90 infantry. It is reasonable to suggest that they were victims of the battle If we are to trust the figures given by the Worcester annalist – who is otherwise accurate and well informed – then this was clearly a comprehensive victory for Warwick and his forces which ended in a rout. That said the battle was clearly a contest between two relatively small forces– by the standards of infantry armies in Edward I’s wars –  It is probable that Madog’s force was outnumbered, but relatively well- equipped and experienced following decades of war under Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

[DEADLOCK]

Good read mister

[Val Beechey]

Well done both.  Some of those bits look familiar      At least you had a day on a different field and learned some History.


Val

[Radnor Bandit (Ian)]

I meant to add , the photo of finds are only the small selection the Archi let me keep. Im sure his van was 3" lower at the back when he left the site.

[the-BANGOR-citizan]

Should have spoke to me Ian. I have concerns about a number of Supposed Battle Sites in Wales. Painscastle for one which I believe was searched in totally the wrong place. I think the battle site is (in my opinion having researched a lot over the last five / six years ) about a mile and a half away from where you looked. The big clue is in a name of a feature that goes back to the early OS maps. But hey we detectorists know nothing and you had a good day out. Hope you enjoyed it. I,ll send a Email to Jeff at CPAT and speak about my conclusions. Sorry Ian I should have said my reason to question the supposed site is the written documents use of the word "HAD" or the translation as HAD" in that Madoc and his men had got as far as C*********, but does not say if they are still there when surrounded.

[win]

A pity I never heard about this as I'm in the Welshpool area. I've worked with CPAT on a Civil War battle site a couple of times. Two of us turned up a hammered coin each which we were allowed to keep after photographs and GPS. The archaeologists were more interested in any lead finds, especially those with jagged edges which they reckoned were from cannons. A scatter of these would have done much more damage  than a cannon ball.

[Radnor Bandit (Ian)]

Hi Win,
I also help out CPAT on the Walton Basin Project, and a their jolly good bunch of people to help.
Most of the work I help out on is mainly prehistoric so not much metal work to be found. I did find a denari of Augustus 1BC - 1 AD while helping out on a barrow excavation. Unfortunatly I couldnt keep it as it was on a scheduled site. Pity though because it was quite a rare campaign issue.
Plus side though ,how often would you get to see very early pottery in situ ?
This battlesite near you was a basic search for mainly arrow heads. Not much chance after 800 years. as Paul said above the exact locations of these sites does leave a lot to interpretation.
Cheers Ian