A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



The character of the Suffolk coast, river-pierced, and in some parts fringed by tidal marsh, 

 must in early times have rendered communication between the inhabitants by water, where that 

 was possible, easier than by such paths as then existed. The fact, also, that it was included in the 

 Saxon Shore shows that arrivals and departures by sea were comparatively frequent. Therefore, 

 although we have no maritime history for a long period, it is fairly certain that there was a 

 maritime life, especially as the fisheries, the foundation of all traffic by sea, must have existed 

 immemorially. For geographical and political reasons the first attacks of the Norsemen were on 

 the north-eastern and southern coasts, and although they encountered a more stubborn resistance in 

 England than in any other country of the western world, it was more by land than by sea. Never 

 such good seamen as the Norsemen the Saxons seem to have lost much of their earlier maritime 

 aptitude ; although fleets were formed, and did sometimes win battles, it would appear to have been 

 more an artificial effort than a natural inclination. At first Ireland and Wessex promised the 

 Norsemen richer spoil than East Anglia, of which, perhaps, they had heard little, so that their first 

 recorded appearance there is in 838, after which an interval of nearly thirty years elapsed before the 

 Danes came in force in 866. It may be surmised that many a disastrous wreck among the 

 dangerous sands fringing Essex and Suffolk had taught the raiders to be cautious in their approach 

 and careful in the choice of season for their arrival in those waters. No land or sea battle is 

 spoken of in connexion with Suffolk during the thirteen years' contest which ended with the peace 

 of Wedmore in 878, for East Anglia had long been in the possession of the Danes, and the 

 English were struggling to hold even Wessex. In 876 the Danish army ' stole away ' to Wareham 

 from the camp at Cambridge ; ' most commentators think that it was by a series of forced marches, 

 but Mr. J. R. Green 2 assumes, as is most probable, that Guthrum went by sea, and if so Orwell 

 Haven would have been the natural place of embarkation. 



The peace of Wedmore was but a truce, and the hard fighting the Vikings had experienced 

 on the continental shore tempted them once more to try their fortune in England in 884. The 

 direct onslaught fell upon Kent, and their repulse from Rochester was followed by an attack by 

 Alfred's fleet on Guthrum's Danes of East Anglia, who had assisted their fellow countrymen. 

 The resulting battle in 885, at the mouth of the Stour and at Shotley Point, 3 when sixteen Danish 

 ships were captured and their crews killed, is the first known sea fight directly connected with 

 Suffolk and Essex, although the victors were themselves defeated by a superior force during their 

 return passage. The years of war which followed Alfred's death had for their object national 

 consolidation, and have nothing to do with naval history, but we may note that Athelstan, in the 

 campaign which ended at Brunanburh in 937, was accompanied by a fleet to which probably 

 every maritime shire contributed its quota. In 980 the Danish harrying recommenced, and in 

 991 Ipswich was plundered and perhaps destroyed. In the following year there was a levy of 

 London and East Anglian ships to meet this invading army, for which Suffolk must have supplied 

 its share. The scene of war was chiefly in Wessex and for a long time the county seems to have 

 escaped the calamities that were suffered by the greater part of England in the succeeding years, but 

 no doubt it sent men to the ' fyrds,' and in 1008 obeyed the new law that every 310 hides of 

 land should build and equip a warship, the legal precedent for the subsequent ship-money levies. 

 In 1010 a Danish army sailed from Kent and landed at Ipswich, but it is not said to have done any 

 mischief there, although it ravaged and burnt its way through the whole of East Anglia. Again, 

 in 1 01 6, Cnut landed in the Orwell, necessarily at or near Ipswich, and marched inland destroying 

 and killing everywhere. In all these cases Ipswich seems to have escaped comparatively lightly, 

 possibly because of the presence as settlers of descendants of former Norse invaders. With the 

 accession of Cnut ended the era of a devastating war of conquest ; the lesser civil commotions 

 which occurred during the reign of the Confessor do not appear to have affected Suffolk. Fleets 

 were frequently raised during this period, and as Harold, before becoming king, was earl of the 

 East Angles, it is probable that Suffolk ships followed in his service to Wales and elsewhere. No 

 doubt, also, they were present in the fleet discharged too soon in 1066. 



The commerce of daily life, the coasting and fishing trades, voyages to Flanders, and perhaps 

 to the North German ports, must have gone on notwithstanding such epoch-making events as the 

 battle of Hastings and the Conquest. We are ignorant of the maritime strength not only of 

 Suffolk but of all the counties. The fact, however, of Domesday showing that in several places 

 manorial rents were paid partly in herrings indicates that the fishery was a well-established industry 

 long before the Conquest. William I was the last man likely to underrate the importance of 

 maritime power, and if he had no English he had a powerful Norman fleet at command. At 

 any rate both in 1071 and 1072 he was able to send fleets to sea to act in conjunction with his 

 land forces, and if many of the ships were Norman others must have come from the English ports 

 and have been collected in proportion to the importance of the coast towns in the manner customary 



1 4ngl.-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 145. ' Cenjutst ofEngl. 108. 



1 Still called Bloody Point.' 



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