History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 118

Chapter II
Intercourse through War and Mercenary Service
2. 1.
MILITARY intercourse between English and Low Dutch people falls under three heads.
(1) Low Dutch mercenaries served in England or in English armies, and this is
especially common in the period between the Norman Conquest and the Hundred
Years War. (2) English armies campaigned in the Low Countries, either against the
natives or with the natives as their allies. (3) Englishmen served in the armies of the
Low Dutch states as mercenaries, especially in the Elizabethan period when they
helped the Dutch in their war of independence against Spain.
The army of William the Conqueror was not purely Norman, but included adventurers
of many nationalities. Flemings were well represented, for William was married to
Matilda of Flanders, and the Count of Flanders lent his son-in-law much assistance.
The men of Flanders and Brabant had taken late to horsemanship, and the growth of
an indigenous feudal cavalry did not supplant the foot-soldiers as in other lands. As
early as 1100 we have record of Netherlandish infantry armed with the pike, which
enjoyed a reputation far above that of foot levies of other countries. Oman assumes
that the mailed, mercenary infantry armed with the pike, which the Conqueror
employed at Hastings, were largely Flemish.
William granted lands to some of these Flemings, others he appointed to military
posts. Gherbord became the first Earl of Chester; Gilbert of Ghent was one of the two
commissioners at York when the city was taken by the Danes and English in 1069;
Walcher of Lorraine, already Bishop of Durham, became Earl of Northumberland, and
many of his retainers were Flemings; Dreux de Beveren, a captain of Flemish
mercenaries, obtained the grant of Holderness in 1070.
The immigration of soldiers from abroad did not cease with the Conquest. The wars of
the next hundred years were waged, to a considerable extent, with the help of Flemish
mercenaries.
Among the mercenaries who shared the spoils of Fitzhamon's conquest of Glamorgan
was one John the Fleming, while Henry I had mercenaries sent him by Robert of
Flanders. It is not till the reign of Stephen, however, that we find them appearing in
great force and forming a prominent element in the armies.
Stephen, deserted by the greater part of his barons, supplied the place of the feudal
levies by great bodies of Flemings and Brabanters under leaders such as William of
Ypres and Alan of Dinan. His opponents followed the same policy. Many of these
mercenaries were spread up and down the land as garrisons in the numerous castles
which were springing up everywhere.
The first task of Henry II was to get rid of these mercenaries. The Flemings gave him
little trouble; William of Ypres retired without a struggle, and most of his countrymen
went with him. Some were allowed to settle in Pembrokeshire to strengthen the colony
there, while Ralph de Diceto states that the Flemings were driven from the castle to
the plough, from the camp to the workshop.

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