Deva Victrix (Roman Chester Part One) - Chester 2018

The XX Legion set up home in Deva Victrix or modern day Chester

"By the early years of the second century AD the three legions stationed in Britain were in the fortresses where they were to remain until at least the end of the third century. Legion II Augusta at Isca (Caerleon), Legion VI Victrix at Eboracum (York), where it had replaced IX Hispana, probably at the beginning of Hadrian's reign, and Legion XX Valeria Victrix  at Deva (Chester). All three were founded in the seventies of the first century AD."

W.H. Manning 'Roman Fortress Studies' in Deva Victrix (1999)

Our visit to Chester earlier this month adds the third of the Roman fortresses in Britain to be visited following previous visits to Caerleon in 2016 and York last year - see the links below.

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2016/02/caerleon-and-national-roman-legion.html

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2016/02/caerleon-and-national-roman-legion_24.html

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-yorkshire-museum-york.html

As can be seen in the map below, with the subjugation and Romanisation of the south, south-west and midland regions of Britain, the Roman front line was moved north of the first frontier, namely the Fosse Way running from Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) in the south west to Lindurn (Lincoln) to establish itself anchored on the three towns that would be the centre of operations for the British legions.

Original map created by Andrei Nacu

These bases made sense as the Roman commanders pushed out into first Wales and the subjugation of the four tribes (Silures, Ordovices Demetae and Deceangli). 

With the north anchored on Deva and Eboracum, the northern tribes were suppressed, although, it seems, probably never fully subjugated; as Agricola under orders from Emperor Vespasian and later his sons Titus and Domitian set out to complete the final occupation of the whole island with the final push into Caledonia, culminating in the Battle of Mons Graupius about 83 AD.

In the end the project to control the whole of Britannia was left incomplete as other areas of the empire drew attention and manpower and then a change of policy to stop further additions to the empire caused a consolidation on the Antonine and later Hadrian's Wall.

Battle of Mons Graupius, Sean O'Brogain - Osprey

As well as supporting operations in Wales and the north, the establishment of Deva also allowed the Romans the use of a fortress port that may well have been seen as a base to facilitate the projection of Roman power yet further and a possible invasion of Ireland.

The probable appearance of Deva fortress from the 2nd century AD, with the amphitheatre seen on the south-east corner

The Romans are thought to have established a small fort at Deva as early as 60 AD, however the first legionary fortress with a timber palisade atop an earthen rampart and surrounding ditch was probably built in the 70's AD enclosing an area of some 24 hectares.

The XX Legion Valeria Victrix provided the garrison during most of its occupation but the II Adiutrix may have also been stationed there for a short time as well.

It was in the 2nd century AD that the fortress was rebuilt in the famous local red sandstone as seen in the picture above of the model of the city in the Grosvenor Museum.

The Romans named Deva after the sacred river that flows past it, 'Deva' thought to mean 'goddess' or 'holy one'. Known today as the River Dee, the river still follows a course from the Welsh hills to the Irish Sea, although silt deposits over the intervening centuries have greatly altered its course and depth for ship navigation from the river that the Romans would have known.

My adaption of the readily available tourist map of the modern day wall to show the Roman perimeter wall (in white) against the later medieval extension. This will help to illustrate where my pictures were taken and other parts of the city discussed in the post.

It used to be thought that Flavian fortresses were standardised in their layouts and planning but this theory has since been disproved, all be it that the layouts followed a level of standardisation that allows one to work out where particular buildings were likely to be found.

The map above shows how the Roman fortress aligns to the modern city and the extended medieval wall that takes in the original Roman fortification along its north and eastern facing.

Much of the Roman infrastructure of Deva remains hidden under the modern town and a few discoveries are available to be seen in the basements of various shops in the town centre, by prior arrangement.

We confined our tour around the city with visits to places that are readily accessible and then followed that up with a visit to the Grosvenor Museum to see the artifacts that have been discovered over the centuries.

At the centre of a Roman fortress close to the junction of the two roads that connect each of the walls, the Via Principalis (Watergate and Eastgate Streets) the Via Decumana (Northgate Street) and the Via Praetoria (Bridge Street), the Principia (administrative headquarters) has been discovered and in Hamilton Place, just off the Market Square an amazing basement room is visible to passers by in the street.

The strongroom is a massive walled basement room at the back of what would have been the Pricipia built below another room at ground level that would have housed the shrine and statue of the emperor alongside the cohortal and legionary standards when not in the field.

The Principia shrine room with the strongroom below 

The strongroom seen below, under a reconstructed floor level to give a better idea of its position relative to ground level, would have housed the legion's valuables such as the soldiers pay.

In addition to this easily accessed part of the Principia there are also the remains of the cross-hall colonade that was inside the headquarters building in the basement of 23 Northgate Row.

Leaving the centre of the town we headed off down Bridge Street, turning left into Pepper Street to join the wall at Newgate which marks the beginning of the old Roman wall that still remains.

Newgate

This part of the wall is also a good place to start for the Roman enthusiast as to the right of the gate seen above lies the entrance to the Roman Garden where various pieces of discovered Roman stonework and masonry have been placed for the public to see.

Alongside the garden is also the remains of the amphithetre and across the road are the foundations of the south-east angle tower indicating where the Roman wall originally turned west along Pepper Street to meet up with the lost western wall that ran along the line of  St Martin's Way and Nicholas Street.

The mosaic is typically Roman with reference to the four seasons incorporating designs from around the empire

Turning right into the entrance to the Roman Gardens the visitor is greeted by a Roman style mosaic using designs from north Africa, Vienne in France, Istanbul and an encircling scroll taken from the Woodchester Villa in Gloucestershire.

In Roman times the garden lay outside the south-east corner of the fortress and was a quarry site producing the blocks of red soft sandstone used in the construction of the buildings.

The garden was laid out in 1949 and now serves to display the many Roman building fragments discovered in the city over the previous century, such as the remains of the bath house and columns from the Principia.

The replica hypocaust is based on the remains of the Roman baths first discovered on the east side of Bridge Street near the Via Praetoria South Gate access in 1732.

The remains of the Basilica were later excavated over a hundred years later in 1863 with some of the bases to the pillar columns and a few of the hypocaust pillars can be seen here in the gardens.

However for the more determined visitor, remains in situ are still visible in the medieval rock cut cellar of 39 Bridge Street.

The scale and opulence of these fragments of Roman Chester indicate the stature of the public buildings and the importance of the city in Roman Britain.

The replica black and white mosaics are indicative of the similar patterns discovered in the bath house excavation, part of which is still visible in the basement of the shop at 18 St Micheal's Row.

Some of the sandstone pillars recovered from the basilica are about 2.5 feet in diameter at the base and originally would have been about 11.5 feet in height.

With an arcade above them supporting sloping roofs as in the depiction above, it is estimated that the height of the nave ceiling would have been about 56 feet, a truly imposing building, close to the south wall.

Heading back to the entrance to the garden and turning right leads into the entrance to the Deva amphitheatre.

The amphitheatre's whereabouts was a mystery up until 1929 with the chance discovery by workmen working at a nearby convent school uncovered a piece of curved wall.

Excavations soon followed, led by Professor Robert Newstead who established the northern limits and size of the structure, together with the positions of two entrances.

Work came to a halt with local development plans that unbelievably threatened to build a road right through the site.

A national campaign was started to save the monument which went to the top of government leading the Ministry of Transport to veto the plan, which became world news with reports as far afield as in the New York Times

Large scale excavations took place in the 1960's revealing the remains that can be seen today, with further work done in 2004 to 06 revealing little of the structure has survived but that intriguingly there was originally a much smaller building.

In addition the later work revealed that the first amphitheatre was of stone with wooden seating but that the larger later building was all stone and a much grander affair.

Carolyn and I have visited a couple of other amphitheatres in the UK and I have posted about, with  the one at Carleon (see link above) and earlier this year at Cirencester (Corinium Dobunnorum)

http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2018/03/corinium-dobunnorum-cirencester.html

The Chester structure seemed much more on a scale with Cirencester, but the revealed walls together with the added modern dressed stones that help illustrate the massive scale of this building have an impact that is not as obvious at Cirencester.

The arena floor surrounded by the area that would have housed the tiered rows of seats above it

Whilst taking our time to take in the majesty of this amazing building, we came across two members of the Roman Tours Ltd reenactment team who provide knowledgeable guides around the city.
www.romantoursuk.com

Whist talking to the chaps about all things Roman they let me know about their current project to develop a historical park that will faithfully recreate a Roman fort and Iron Age farmstead recreating agricultural techniques and crops from the period very much on the theme of Butser Ancient Farm.
http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2018/07/butser-ancient-farm-experimental.html

More information about the 'Park in the Past' can be found here.
http://www.parkinthepast.org.uk/

Carolyn's Dumnonii accent gave her away as a stranger to the local garrison

Close to the arena floor and main entrance was the entrance to the small temple to Nemesis, seen below.

The size of the building that once towered above these remains are hinted at by the thickness of the double circular walls now encased with modern dressed stones that show where the original stonework would have been.

Alongside the massive outer wall, the concrete plinths indicate where a circular row of columns would have been placed on two levels as indicated in the model of the building above.

The role of this building should and cannot be ignored, and it is only emphasised as you walk down the main entrance, which would have been a covered way that would have been much darker to walk along before entering the bright daylight of the arena.

A few of the dressed outer stones are still to be seen and show the marks of the Roman masons.

Towards the centre of the arena close to the wall painted to give an impression of the wider extent of the boundary is the tethering or 'Apprentice Stone' to which combatants or beasts could be tethered during the various contests.

This stone with evidence of a metal ring attached to it was found resting on a plinth of bedrock within about a yard from the centre of the arena and is the strongest possible evidence for gladiatorial combat in Deva.

The Apprentice Stone as depicted in the Bignor mosaic

Interestingly, I photographed a design from the mosaic at Bignor Villa back in 2016 illustrating such a stone in use with either one or both combatants chained to it.

The Romans in Britain Part Two - Bignor

The other entrance discovered in the early excavations is on the east of the arena and the column fragment at the base of one of its walls is thought to have come from one of the official boxes that would have been built above.

The eastern entrance with the column from the official box

The entrance to the eastern access point

Behind the part of the structure that remains fully covered the sections of walls left exposed confirm the size and extent of the whole building.

Wall sections exposed on the part of the building left covered

Close by were yet more examples of the stonework uncovered in the excavations including the curved stones of a massive arch seen below.

Across the road from the amphitheatre Carolyn and I rejoined the wall at Newgate where we were able to see the remains of the Roman south-east angle tower.

The rather discoloured illustration was taken from the information board and despite the effects of pigeons still gives a good impression of how this tower may have looked with a piece of Roman artillery set up on top and with a twenty foot wide and nine foot deep ditch surrounding its perimeter.

Built sometime between 74 to 96 AD the stone wall would have presented a formidable barrier to the local tribes with any ideas of contesting Roman occupation.

Getting on to the eastern wall we headed north as the path took us among buildings that illustrate the rich and varied past of Chester throughout British history and whilst looking for the Roman sites I was more than aware of the medieval and English Civil War parts that I intend to cover in a later post.

The wall has been rebuilt and modified over the centuries last being put to the test of protecting the inhabitants back in 1745 during the Jacobite Rebellion.

The Roman parts of the wall are more often to be seen at its base as later additions were built over or on top of the original foundations.

The entire Roman fortress went though several rebuilds in its history which seems to come to an end in 125 AD and is thought to correspond with work redirected to Hadrian's Wall.

In the later 2nd early 3rd century AD the curtain wall was replaced with a new one twenty-two feet high incorporating the typical semi-circular towers projecting from it and with a recut defensive ditch.

Evidence of the semicircular towers can still be seen along sections of the wall as seen below.

Perhaps some of the best sections of the original Roman wall are to be found along the north wall were large sections still stand almost to the level of the walkway as you follow the route of the Shropshire Union Canal.

Working our way along the northern ramparts we reached the end of what remains of Roman Chester's wall at the modern 1966 St Martin's Gate that bridges the road and allows a view of the pavement below where the position of the north west angle tower is marked out at the foot of the steps to the bridge.

The Roman north-west angle tower marked out on the pavement below

The new houses along this side of St Martin's Way follow the route of the demolished Roman western wall

Referring back to the model of the Roman city of Chester illustrates just how close the original course of the River Dee came to the now demolished western wall.

The top of this picture of the model of Roman Deva shows the original course of the River Dee through ground now occupied by Chester Race Course

Chester worked hard over the centuries to maintain its access to the sea and the trade that access brought it, but time and silting gradually caused the river to become unnavigable to larger ships and indeed the silted land became the prime spot for the development of Britain's first race course which came to occupy the site of Deva and Chester's harbour.

This is a busy time of year for Chester Race Course and looking at this area it is hard to imagine how the Roman harbour would have looked, so without any period pictures to call on I grabbed a picture from my trip to London last week and the model of the Roman harbour in Londinium to aid the imagination.

If you take the time to look, the original Roman harbour wall is still visible at the back of the car-park underneath the foot of the medieval wall that extended down to the waterfront.

The original Roman harbour wall of Deva now firmly upon dry land

As mentioned, repair of the Roman wall was an ongoing process and the Romans reused gravestones and monuments from a disused part of their cemetery outside the Northgate of the fortress.

These tombstones laid sealed away and protected from the elements for sixteen hundred years until revealed and recovered in the late 19th century during repair work to the wall.

This amazing collection, perhaps some of the finest Roman gravestones now form part of the Roman exhibition in the Grosvenor Museum.

In the second part of this post on Roman Deva Victrix we will look at the collection of items discovered in the city from this period on display in the Grosvenor Museum.

Hold the Pass - Augustus to Aurelian

Yesterday's meeting of the Devon Wargames Group was a buzz as we had four games up and running together with over twenty members in attendance.

Not only that but I got to play my first game with the new Romano-Dacian collection using a scenario from the Warlord Games Scenario book which sees a Dacian force blocking a mountain pass before a Roman supply column.

Having been away this week in London, I still needed to add one more unit to the collection and was thus getting my Praetorian Guard cavalry finished yesterday morning, literally an hour before they went on the table.

The game also featured the first two of a collection of wagons and crews I got recently from Colonel Bill's wargames supply depot, and they looked really great alongside the troops.

I intend to put up some close ups of these models a bit later but in the meantime you can see the game and read about the result on the Devon Wargames Group club blog

Devon Wargames Group - Hold the Pass, Augustus to Aurelian

Stokesay Castle - Visiting Shrewsbury, Part One:

Back in 2016 on a day trip to buy a load of 7YW stuff from Timecast, I thought it would be a good idea if I arranged to come back for a slightly longer stay in the Shrewsbury area so that I could have a look at all of the interesting places that I didn’t have time for on the day. Well it took a little bit longer than I had originally thought but now with a hotel booked, a rough itinerary of places to see and more importantly excellent weather forecasted for the duration I was on my way.

I had planned a couple of stops enroute so as to break up the drive, the first of these was to have a look around Stokesay castle which is roughly eight miles north of Ludlow and is well signposted off the main road.

Stokesay is actually a fortified manor house and which fortunately for us survived the English Civil War mass slightings that afflicted most fortified places reasonable well, only losing its curtain walls which weren’t that substantial anyway.

Originally built in the 1280’s by a wealthy wool merchant, the Welsh border had quietened down quite a lot by the late 13th C but it could still be a pretty lawless place so Laurence of Ludlow combined comfort and showing off with a good bit of protection just in case.

Great hall with magnificent timber ceiling

Unfortunately there are no reports of anything exciting happening in these early days that I can tell you about so we rapidly move on to the Early 17th C. By now Stokesay had changed hands several times and the latest owner, William, 1st Earl of Craven (I haven’t heard of him either) splashed the cash and rebuilt the gatehouse to what we can see today.

The new gatehouse

Now we finally get to some action, well a little bit, actually none at all. During the English Civil War Stokesay castle was held for the King along with most of Shropshire and in 1645 when some Parliamentarians were marching past they paused to send a message into the castle asking for them to surrender; defiantly Captain Daurett who was the garrison commander refused, so the Parliamentarians stopped their march and formed up to lay an official siege. Once everyone was nicely lined up and had their hats on straight etc. they summoned the garrison again and Captain Daurett promptly surrendered.

Great Hall, inner yard and South tower

Then something exciting did actually happen, a small Royalist force attempted to recapture the castle which was now garrisoned by the Parliamentarians. The counterattack was unsuccessful after a skirmish at nearby Wistanstow three miles to the north. Oddly this small battle is included in Warlord Games Pike and Shotte supplement ‘To Kill a King’

https://www.warlordgames.com/focus-battles-in-to-kill-a-king/

It is also included in “English Civil War Gaming Scenarios (Vol 3)” by Robert Giglio

http://www.caliverbooks.com/Partizan%20Press/partizan_fhs_3.shtml

For such a seemingly popular battle I cannot find out much about it apart from the above and a few wargaming recreations, in fact it doesn’t even get mentioned on the Wiki page of the village which instead quite rightly highlights the time that Anneka Rice and Treasure Hunt came to the village.

Stokesay seen from the car park

Then, as became normal for many large manor houses, Stokesay slowly fell into decline and in 1813 it was said to:
“Have been abandoned to neglect, and rapidly advancing to ruin: the glass is destroyed, the
ceilings and floors are falling, and the rain streams through the opening roof on the damp
and mouldering walls.”

But by 1869 the Craven family were bankrupt and so all of their estates which still included Stokesay were sold and the new owner, a John Allcroft who just happened to be No.1 in glove making at the time and therefore extremely rich carried out extensive repairs, this coincided with the Victorians discovering tourism and Stokesay became popular. It is now in the hands of English Heritage.

Entrance as of 2018 costs £8.30 which includes an audio tour and £1 for parking. It is a bit pricey for the short time needed to see everything especially if there are a few of you; if you are a member of English Heritage then it is of course free.

As usual, more detailed information is available from the link below:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stokesay-castle/

This has been a day out with Mr Steve

Roman Auxiliary Cavalry

The principle arm in most Roman forces is going to be composed of a solid core of legionaries and/or auxiliary infantry.

That said the armies of the Principate were well served by a comparatively smaller but no less effective body of cavalry mainly composed of the auxiliary ala with many of the soldiers hailing from conquered tribes used to fighting in the saddle.

As in previous posts and with my first game using these figures with 'Augustus to Aurelian' (AtoA) coming up, I thought I would illustrate the combat effectiveness of this kind of unit.

I intend to operate my auxiliary Roman cavalry in half, or perhaps that should be demi, ala representing about 250 men.

The Combat and Shooting table from AtoA

A half ala of 'new kids on the block', untrained auxiliary cavalry will get to roll three d10 in combat and two when throwing javelins.

Their 'to hit' factor in both cases is 2, which reading down the appropriate column in the table above means, against unarmoured or lightly armoured opposition they will cause casualties on 5 or less or 4 or less respectively before any column shifts for specific factors that might make those odds harder or easier.

Of course you would rather hope not to take on Cataphracts too often!

The more usual trained and experienced troops illustrated in the table below add a 10% improvement on those dice even against cataphracts, although I would still urge caution with the latter.

In addition to improved combat ratings the training(Outlook) and morale (Rating) are improved meaning these units can take up to five hits before becoming shaken and would need to roll seven or less on a d10 to pass a reaction test before any additions or subtractions for additional factors.

The hardened or veteran ala go another 10% on the combat dice and start to become competitive against the better protected cavalry opponents.

Like wise the Outlook and Rating means the ability to take casualties and to respond well to difficult situations is also improved.

Finally we can model the unit to represent one of the specialised ala such as the Batavians who proved their worth at the Medway and likely at the crossing at the Menai Straits, Anglesey with their inherent swimming abilities for getting across difficult waterways.

The special ability 'Expert Waterman' means these troops treat different types of watery terrain one level of difficulty less, thus a simple ford or boggy ground have no effect on their movement.

This added combat skill might of course be regretted for some Roman units when we come to do some Batavian revolt scenarios.

My auxiliary cavalry are from the Warlord range of figures and are finished off with shield and banner decals from LBM.

I am hoping to add a similarly sized group of Praetorian cavalry to accompany them before the game - more anon.

Finally it would be remiss of me not to say how much I am looking forward to the release of the Victrix plastic EIR cavalry planned to be rolled out in September so I hope to add yet more cavalry going forward.

I'm off to London this week to watch England play India in the second test at Lords and to take in a bit of Roman Londinium. So that means more travel reports, a Roman supply column and some Praetorian Guard cavalry to show you, not to mention the first run out with the collection next weekend at the Devon Wargames Group.

King Stephen and the Anarchy, Civil War and Military Tactics in Twelfth-Century Britain - Chris Peers

I am sure that you all do the same thing as I do when you get a new book in your hands for the first time; you flick through looking at the chapter headings, the pictures and the maps to get an initial feeling about it. When I did that to this book I got a little uneasy, for a start it’s far shorter than I like , then I saw the maps included in the book and …., well we will come back to that at the end and the pictures whilst they were all in colour aren’t all that inspiring.

Now that I have read it, its not that bad, for a start the writing style is good and it flows very well, the topic is fully covered and all the major events are included but it is a little strange.

Following a short introduction there are then 13 chapters, a conclusion, some brief biographies, a source list and an index.

King Stephen

The first few chapters outline the political situation leading up to the disputed succession of the throne upon Henry I’s death in 1135 and then what happened immediately afterwards. It outlines the two main contenders Stephen of Blois and the Empress Matilda along with their claims and key supporters. There is quite an interesting chapter on “Disorder in the West Country”, Henry’s death suddenly gave an opportunity to all those nobles with designs on their neighbours lands to quickly start grabbing especially whilst King Stephen was busy elsewhere trying to consolidate his power base. Unfortunately a good way of showing others that you are now the man in charge is by chastising disobedient nobles, so the King raced down to Devon and laid siege to Exeter. He caused such a good impression that the name Stephen is still staggeringly popular in the area today ( I am not sure this is true. JJ)

Now the book wanders away from the action or is padded depending on your point of view.

Chapter Three: “A Land Full of Castles”

Chapter Four : “The Armies of England”

Even Chapter Five ,”Wales Liberated” is tenuous although I can see the link to the break up of  control caused by the Anarchy. It does fit quite well with the next chapter “Scotland Resurgent”, the two chapters main point I suppose is that Stephen had to temporarily relinquish non-core parts of the kingdom whilst concentrating on first of all winning control of the throne.

Chapter Seven : “The Battle of the Standard “ is another self contained piece getting thirteen pages and continues on to explain how King David was given large swathes of Northern England to ‘look after’ as Earl of Northumberland rather than directly being ceded to Scotland.

We get back on track with Chapter Eight : “Matilda and Civil War in England” with the Battle of Lincoln ( Chap. Nine), its aftermath and the capture of King Stephen. Matilda and her followers look like they are about to win until the debacle of the Siege of Winchester (Chap. Ten) which disperses their forces and allows Stephen to be exchanged for Robert of Gloucester his main opponent.

Capture of Stephen at Lincoln

Chapter Eleven is mainly about King Stephen dealing with the independent nobles around England who had broken away in their own little territories, usually because he had previously upset them at some time or other.

Chapter Twelve is bizarre : “Svein Asleifsson and the Earls of Orkney”. I have no idea why this chapter is in the book as it has no relation to events down south and even the tiniest possibility that it is an example of a different sort of Anarchy which just happened to be occurring at the same time is hard to make stick. It is however a very interesting chapter and might be one of the best ones in the book, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Chapter Thirteen: “Henry Plantagenet” wraps up the story with events that lead to Stephen being recognised as sole King and Henry being his successor, I didn’t realise that as a young man Henry II had come across to England in an attempt to help his mother. He tried to seize the castle at Purton and the town of Cricklade near Cirencester from Stephen as both bordered Matilda’s power base of Gloucester, unfortunately it was a fiasco and King Stephen kindly lent him the money for his passage home.

Queen Matilda

I cannot find any mention of a castle at Purton, even the outstandingly excellent Castles of Wessex by Mike Salter only mentions defences at Cricklade and “Nothing remains of a castle built by Matilda's supporters in 1144” ( his books are ridiculously cheap on Amazon). The OS map does show a couple of nearby moats but nothing else.

The short conclusion is scanty as most of the topic has already been wrapped up, it does explain what happened to Stephen's children which was informative and then you get “Who was Who in the Anarchy”, four or five lines of people who all appear to have the same first name with a town as a surname, there’s at least eight Roberts.

Its an odd book, there is detail in places but not enough in others, what battles that took place are covered but not in much depth, sometimes its just a mention of two sides fighting. I understand that quite frequently all we have is that the King fought someone at someplace and he was victorious but this isn’t one of those books where the author has gone the extra mile to flesh out things. Quite frequently it mentions that the King then built a castle nearby to contain the enemy, well where was it ? What was it called and in one case he even built three, none of which are named or located.

I also realise that Normandy is outside the scope of the book but I am sure that a chapter on how Stephen lost control of this valuable area would have been more relevant than on one on an Orkney Viking.

Overall its OK, you get the impression that King Stephen wasn’t that bad a king, he was quite good at winning battles as long as he wasn’t facing Richard of Gloucester who always defeated him and he was quite a brave warrior. He was also quite decisive in his actions and didn’t dither when action was needed, he just wasn’t that good at ever finishing anything he started.

So apart from not a single mention of Cadfael my main complaint yet again is about the maps. This time I would go as far as saying that if I was Chris Pears I would be embarrassed to have a book with my name on it which had these maps inside.

There are two.

Map One : England in the time of Stephen. This is an outline map of England with 21 towns marked with dots and another dot for the Battle of the Standard, nothing else.

Same map but in colour!

Map Two: Medieval Orkney, if you want to know what each stretch of water is called between the islands then this is the book for you.

No Maps of the key battles mentioned, The Standard or Lincoln, no maps showing other key action areas, no maps of the regions fought over that otherwise get many pages in the books, no campaign maps with little arrows perhaps, no map of Normandy, no map of the key events at Winchester, no map on the events in Wales or Scotland or the North, all of which get chapters to themselves. Any two of the above would have been better than what is in the book and it's not as if they are trying to squeeze everything into a limited space, I would have been more than happy with just half page versions if need be.

I know we always complain about the maps in books nowadays but this is the worst yet.

As I said at the start, it reads easily and covers the subject, I think there is still another book out there which will do the period of the Anarchy better and in more detail but if you can find this book in Hardback discounted to £8-£9 then its worth getting.

Hardback & Kindle
RRP in Hardback £19.99: best price as of 30th July 2018: £12.26 free P&P from Wordery.

Wordery.com - King Stephen and the Anarchy, Chris Peers

Readable Pages: 172 out of 183

This has been a Mr Steve Presentation

Next up - more Romans, historical visits to Chester, Stokesay Castle, Wroxeter and Chester