Battle of Stoke Field

‘…You have heard of the battle of Stoke, my good host, and perhaps of old Sir Roger Robsart, who, in that battle, valiantly took part with Henry VII, the Queen’s grandfather, and routed the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Geraldin and his wild Irish, and the Flemings whom the Duchess of Burgundy had sent over, in the quarrel of Lambert Simnel?’

‘I remember both one and the other,’ said Giles Gosling, ‘it is sung of a dozen times a week on my alebench below. Sir Roger Robsart of Devon — O, ay, ’t is him of whom minstrels sing to this hour —

He was the flower of Stoke’s red field, When Martin Swart on ground lay slain; In raging rout he never reel’d, But like a rock did firm remain.‘ Ay, and then there was Martin Swart I have heard my grandfather talk of, and of the jolly Alamins whom he commanded, with their slashed doublets and quaint hose, all frounced with ribands above the nether-stocks. Here ’s a song goes of Martin Swart, too, an I had but memory for it:

Martin Swart and his men,
Saddle them, saddle them;
Martin Swart and his men,
Saddle them well.’ ' …’

The Battle of Stoke Field was the end of road for Yorkist pretender to the throne Lambert Simnel, and of Yorkist efforts to take the crown from a Lancastrian, Henry VII of England.  The text above comes from “Kenilworth”.

Siege of Dunbar Castle

Among the warlike exploits of this period, we must not forget the defense of the Castle of Dunbar by the celebrated Countess of March. Her lord, as we have seen, had embraced the side of David Bruce, and had taken the field with the Regent. The Countess, who from her complexion was termed Black Agnes, by which name she is still familiarly remembered, was a high-spirited and courageous woman, the daughter of that Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, whom I have so often mentioned, and the heiress of his valour and patriotism. The Castle of Dunbar itself was very strong, being built upon a chain of rocks stretching into the sea, having only one passage to the mainland, which was well fortified. It was besieged by Montague, Earl of Salisbury, who employed to destroy its walls great military engines, constructed to throw huge stones, with which machines fortifications were attacked before the use of cannon.

Black Agnes set all his attempts at defiance, and showed herself with her maids on the walls of the castle, wiping the places where the huge stones fell with a clean towel, as if they could do no ill to her castle, save raising a little dust, which a napkin could wipe away.

The Earl of Salisbury then commanded them to bring forward to the assault an engine of another kind, being a species of wooden shed, or house, rolled forward on wheels, with a roof of peculiar strength, which, from resembling the ridge of a hog's back, occasioned the machine to be called a Sow. This, according to the old mode of warfare, was thrust up to the walls of a besieged castle or city, and served to protect from the arrows and stones of the besieged a party of soldiers placed within the sow, who were in the meanwhile to undermine the wall, or break an entrance through it with pickaxes and mining tools. When the Countess of March saw this engine advanced to the walls of the castle, she called out to the Earl of Salisbury in derision, and making a kind of rhyme,—

" Beware, Montagow,
For farrow shall thy sow.'' 

At the same time she made a signal, and a huge fragment of rock, which hung prepared for the purpose, was dropped down from the wall upon the sow, whose roof was thus dashed to pieces. As the English soldiers, who had been within it, were running as fast as they could to get out of the way of the arrows and stones from the wall, Black Agnes called out, "Behold the litter of English pigs!”

The Earl of Salisbury could jest also on such serious occasions. One day he rode near the walls with a knight dressed in armour of proof, having three folds of mail over an acton, or leathern jacket; notwithstanding which, one William Spens shot an arrow with such force that it penetrated all these defences, and reached the heart of the wearer. "That is one of my lady's love-tokens," said the Earl, as he saw the knight fall dead from his horse. "Black Agnes's love-shafts pierce to the heart."

Upon another occasion, the Countess of March had well nigh made the Earl of Salisbury her prisoner. She made one of her people enter into treaty with the besiegers, pretending to betray the castle. Trusting to this agreement, the Earl came at midnight before the gate, which he found open, and the portcullis drawn up. As Salisbury was about to enter, one John Copland, a squire of Northumberland, pressed on before him, and as soon as he passed the threshold, the portcullis was dropped, and thus the Scots missed their principal prey, and made prisoner only a person of inferior condition.

At length, the Castle of Dunbar was relieved by Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsy, who brought the Countess supplies by sea both of men and provisions. The Earl of Salisbury, learning this, despaired of success, and raised the siege, which had lasted nineteen weeks. The minstrels made songs in praise of the perseverance and courage of Black Agnes. The following lines are nearly the sense of what is preserved :

She kept a stir in tower and trench,
That brawling boisterous Scottish wench ;
Came I early, came I late,
1 found Agnes at the gate. 

The Siege of Dunbar Castle is dated by Rampant Scotland as June 16, 1338.  Sir Walter Scott recounts the story in his “Tales of a Grandfather” (above).  The main conflict of this period was the effort of Edward Balliol, with English support, to take the Scottish throne from David II.  Black Agnes Dunbar’s husband Patrick was away fighting the English when the William Montagu, the Earl of Salisbury arrived. 

Siege of Gibraltar

The Siege of Gibraltar effectively began on June 16, 1779, when Spain declared war on Great Britain, hoping to regain territory lost to the British in previous wars. Great Britain was engaged in the American War of Independence at the time, making the moment especially opportune. Part of Spain’s overall plan of attack against the English included a land based assault on British soil. But Gibraltar held strategic significance for trade in the Mediterranean region.

Spanish and allied French navies formed a blockage of Gibraltar, while land forces readied themselves to fight with British troops, which were under the leadership of George Elliot. The Brits held out, forcing Spain to commit more men to the siege, and forestalling the planned invasion of England. Various attacks on the British fort failed, and the British navy scored major victories over the blockading fleet, so that the Siege of Gibraltar ended up a decisive British victory.

Walter Scott voyaged to several European spots toward the end of his life, partly in an effort to improve his health.  He records reaching Gibraltar in his Journal...

November 14 (1831)… I wrote to Mr. Cadell to-day, and will send my letter ashore to be put into Gibraltar with the officer who leaves us at that garrison. In the evening we saw the celebrated fortress, which we had heard of all our lives, and which there is no possibility of describing well in words, though the idea I had formed of it from prints, panoramas, and so forth, proved not very inaccurate. Gibraltar, then, is a peninsula having a tremendous precipice on the Spanish side--that is, upon the north, where it is united to the mainland by a low slip of land called the neutral ground. The fortifications which rise on the rock are innumerable, and support each other in a manner accounted a model of modern art; the northern face of the rock itself is hewn into tremendous subterranean batteries called the hall of Saint George, and so forth, mounted with guns of a large calibre. But I have heard it would be difficult to use them, from the effect of the report on the artillerymen. The west side of the fortress is not so precipitous as the north, and it is on this it has been usually assailed. It bristles with guns and batteries, and has at its northern extremity the town of Gibraltar, which seems from the sea a thriving place, and from thence declines gradually to Cape Europa, where there is a great number of remains of old caverns and towers, formerly the habitation or refuge of the Moors. At a distance, and curving into a bay, lie Algeciras, and the little Spanish town of Saint Roque, where the Spanish lines were planted during the siege.[485] From Europa Point the eastern frontier of Gibraltar runs pretty close to the sea, and arises in a perpendicular face, and it is called the back of the rock. No thought could be entertained of attacking it, although every means were used to make the assault as general as possible. The efforts sustained by such extraordinary means as the floating batteries were entirely directed against the defences on the west side, which, if they could have been continued for a few days with the same fury with which they commenced, must have worn out the force of the garrison. The assault had continued for several hours without success on either side, when a private man of the artillery, his eye on the floating batteries, suddenly called with ecstasy, "She burns, by G----!";[486] and first that vessel and then others were visibly discovered to be on fire, and the besiegers' game was decidedly up…