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FORNHAM ST. GENEVIEVE.

"Some mark the fields as they pass,
With their mighty names.

The heath through dark brown years

Is their's."

OSSIAN.

THE little village of Fornham St. Genevieve, situate a few miles from Bury St. Edmund's, is celebrated in history as being the spot where the peaceable retention of the English Crown in the person of Henry II. was decided by a bloody battle, which took place in the twentieth year of the reign of that Monarch1173* The obliterating hand of time has, of course, removed from the place much evidence of the ground having been occupied as a military position, but there are mounds still existing by the lonely road side, beneath which the dead were huddled at the conclusion of the fight, and which serve as memorials of the event, and of the immensity of the slaughter.

The soil of Suffolk has been frequently watered with the blood of her own sturdy sons. The native monk has laid down his life to perpetuate the power of his monastery, and the religion which he believed true. Under Saint Edmund, and other Monarchs of East Anglia, the brave peasantry, and the nobles of the land fought and perished, to save from Danish tyranny

* According to Cole, 1178.

the country of their forefathers and themselves. The victims of rebellion and misguided zeal strew the plains and hills of the county. Jack Straw left upon the soil of Suffolk his hecatomb of simple warriors, who thought that national prosperity consisted in its being made "felony to drink small beer." The blood, however, shed at Fornham St. Genevieve, was of a different character. It flowed to support the rights of a kingly father against the inroads of his rebellious sons.

The circumstances which led to the encounter are as follows. Among the many partizans who espoused the quarrels of the princes against their parent Henry II., was Robert Bellomont, surnamed Blanchmains, Earl of Leicester. This man who clung to the cause of the young rebels more for the purpose of personal aggrandisement, than love for their good fortune, assembled an army at Leicester, and made war in their favour; but being defeated by the friends of the monarch, was so closely pressed as to render it necessary in order to save his life that he should fly the kingdom. He accordingly took refuge in France, where after fomenting the causes of quarrel between Henry and his sons and insulting his sovereign by a blow during an interview with Louis, the French King, on the subject of a settlement of family grievances, he collected an immense army of Flemings, and passed over to England. Landing at Walton, on the 21st September, he marched to Framlingham Castle, then in the possession of Hugh Bigod, who was favourable to the cause, and after some days spent in refreshing his levies, he was joined by another force of Flemings, and passed on to Ipswich, where he again increased his number. Leaving that place, he made an attack upon the castle of Haughley, commanded by Ralph Broc, who espoused the cause of the old King. Having thus shewn his army the country in which it was brought to fight, Leicester returned to Framlingham and refreshed his men.

The partizans of Henry were, of course, not idle in endeavouring to repress the outbreak against the authority of the Monarch, but the Scottish King co-operating with the friends of the princes, passed the borders of his kingdom, penetrated as far

as Yorkshire, and not content with carrying off an immense quantity of treasure, allowed his army to commit the most horrible excesses. This inroad greatly embarrassed the loyalists. Humphrey de Bohun, constable of England, Richard de Lacy, and other powerful Barons, asserting the supremacy of Henry, collected a large army, marched against the marauder, and drove him back into the fastnesses of his own kingdom. In the height of their victory, hearing of the descent of Leicester on the coast of Suffolk, the leaders of the successful army, with the speed of lightning, hastened into the eastern counties to give him battle. The arrival of this force in the neighbourhood of the rebel encampment, was probably unknown to Leicester; as upon hearing, through his Countess Petronella, an Amazonian heroine, who by her decision, talents and energy, was a fit match for the warlike Earl, that the cause he had espoused wanted prompt assistance in Leicestershire, he directed his march towards that part of the country, and while passing Fornham St. Genevieve, was attacked by the King's troops, lying at Bury St. Edmund's. The battle soon became general, and the issue of the encounter was, that the insurgent Earl, completely routed, lost his cause, and ten thousand Flemings were slain upon the field. The battle took place on the 27th October, 1173.

It is beneath the mounds of earth which stand up like solitary monuments of a far earlier age, at Fornham St. Genevieve, that the slaughtered of that day are entombed. The gleams of the summer's sun, and the storms of winter pass over these solitary sepulchres from year to year, and from century to century. The traveller passes these lonely tombs, unheeding the story of their mouldering tenants. Even the villagers living close to their green precincts are ignorant of the history of the great fight, whose victims lie beneath the heaped-up turf. Below the sod, however, sleep the remains of thousands of stalwart men, knights and heroes of a foreign chivalry, who quitted their native land only to leave their bones upon a strange soil. The immense number of Flemings brought over from their own country to assist in the wars against Henry, may be gathered

from the circumstance that, after the disastrous issue of the battle of Fornham to the rebellious cause of the Earl of Leicester, and the surrender of Hugh Bigod to the powers of the King, permission was given to the foreign forces to pass back to their own country; and no less than 14,000 Flemish men marched through the heart of the county of Suffolk, in their road to embarkation on the coast.

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In the celebrated battle of Fornham, which destroyed the hopes and the cause of Leicester, not only was the blood of 10,000 fighting men, shed upon the soil of Suffolk, but the Earl, and with him his countess, was taken prisoner. Both were conveyed into the presence of the King, who, unwilling to lose sight of so dangerous a subject, took Leicester with him when he visited France, and kept him close prisoner in the castle of Falaix, in Normandy until the monarch had overcome all his enemies.

In the battle of Fornham, a banner, hallowed by some connection with the sacred person of St. Edmund, was carried in the ranks of the royal army, and by its presence, added much to the chances of victory.

In a note attached to the account of St. Edmund's Bury Monastery, in the last edition of the Monasticon, it is stated that in a MS. Life of St. Edmund, by Lydgate, which formerly belonged to King Henry VI, are representations of two banners, said to have been borne by St. Edmund, in his war with the Danes. "The first represents Adam and Eve, by the Tree of Life, about to eat the forbidden fruit, which is reached to the woman by the serpent, who appears, down the middle, with a human shape. Above is the Holy Lamb, within a gold circle, and a glory about its head, its right foot bearing up a golden cross fleuree fitchee, The red ground of this banner which contains the Lamb, is powdered with crescents, and with stars, all of gold, as is the tree itself. The figures of the woman, serpent, man-the apples, and the lamb, are all of silver. The second banner represents the coat of arms belonging to the Abbey, Az, three crowns, Or: the crowns ac

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