The Welsh village was unprepared and unsuspecting. St Asaph had a long history, back to the Romans and before. It had a Celtic monastery, despite its small size of less than 500 souls. William fitzOsbern sent a group of trusted men to guard the gate of the monastery with the first wave to attack the village. The men had been strictly instructed not to burn the village- or at least not until they departed. As the Anglo-Norman force approached from the south, a stream of villagers fled into the forest to the west and north, meaning that there were few people in the village when fitzOsbern’s men entered. This was by no means a disadvantage as it minimised problems with controlling the men. Only a few aged and sick remained, and the few who were caring for them were generally left unmolested. And there were the monks in the monastery.
Prior Gryffyd met William fitzOsbern at the gate of the monastery and invited him inside. Alan and the other officers were busy trying to maintain control of the men sacking the village, to ensure an orderly looting with no disputes between the looters and a minimum of rapine and destruction. Stripping the village clean took little time. There were barely forty rough cottages with minimal contents of value and many soldiers doing the searching. The village, poor as it was, did replenish the food supplies, and allowed bread to be baked while the men gathered vegetables and killed and cooked swine and chickens. Between the contents of the cottages and the tavern there was enough ale for each man to sup a quart, much to their satisfaction as all knew that water is unhealthy to drink.
The scouts were already working their way downriver to the next village of Rhuddlan, a little over three miles away. Alan would have liked to push on and secure Rhuddlan that afternoon while the enemy were still unawares and unprepared, but accepted that moving professional troops away from a village that had not yet been thoroughly looted was impossible and that they would have to be satisfied with one village a day.
Rhuddlan was an important place. It was strategically located on the middle of the north coast of Wales on the coast road between Caernarfon and Chester, and at the lowest point that the River Clwyd could be bridged. As the seat of Cantref Rhos, and formerly the seat of the then Welsh king Gruffydd ap Llywelyn until just five years previously, Alan was hopeful that King Bleddyn would make a stand there- not that Alan expected fitzOsbern to fight fair. Hereto on the march along the river they had encountered mainly local forces and fought with superiority of numbers and equipment. Now they may face warriors called together by their king, who could call on several thousand men and outnumber the invaders.
Alan went to visit Prior Gryffyd to request that Mass be said for the army. After all they were soldiers and it would be at least a week since they last attended Confession and took the sacrament, and there would be few soldiers who hadn’t incurred significant sin in that time. Unfortunately, Prior Gryffyd was less than accommodating. Apart from the village being sacked, and presumably in due course to be put to the torch, Earl William had made it clear that every scrap of precious metal from the monastery, from the few silver coins in its coffers to the gold furniture on the altar, was to be handed over to him if the monastery was not to suffer the same fate. Only the reliquary, which was decorated only with thin gold leaf, and its contents were to be excluded. Alan thought this ungenerous and counter-productive but was unable to do anything to sway the earl from his intent.
Sunset was after eight and a nearly full moon rose at a little before ten. Sunrise would be shortly prior to four. Alan had advised fitzOsbern to have the whole army in position at Rhuddlan before first light. FitzOsbern, unused to such tactics, was alarmed at the novel approach, but in the end agreed when Alan advised he’d used the same tactic against the Welsh on the southern border. The army marched as the moon rose, crossing the River Clwyd at the bridge just east of St Asaph and taking the less frequently used path down the east side of the river. The western path was more easily traversed, but later crossed the river at the bridge at Rhuddlan itself. While Alan was confident in his planning, he wasn’t arrogant enough to assume that they could seize what would be a well-defended bridge and bring across an army in the face of strong opposition, nor that Bleddyn would be foolish enough to allow them to do so.
The scouts were out, clearing away first the Welsh scouts that had been sent to observe the Anglo-Norman camp, and then the lookouts stationed along both banks of the river- as a lookout on one side of the river would almost certainly see or hear the progress of an army on the other bank just a few dozen paces away. A small rear-guard remained at St Asaph until dawn, keeping the monks inside the monastery and to fulfill the task of firing the village as they departed. Alan saw that as a waste of time, as the only asset of value in the entire village other than the monastery was the water-mill, which had been thoroughly demolished on Earl William’s order early in the first day, but it was the traditional way of making a point clear out here on the border.
The Vale was flat, with virtually no rise in land anywhere. The oak forest was dense but the bridle-path was easily enough traversed, although with only one or two men able to ride or march abreast the column of troops was quite long. To the south of the village a number of fields had been won from the forest, and after the Welsh look-outs had been removed, the Anglo-Normans formed up and prepared themselves on one of these fields. Alan, Earl William and several of the other officers rode to the tree line to observe the village. It appeared that there were a substantial number of warriors in the village, more than it could accommodate as there were dozens of camp fires smoldering in the open, each surrounded by a group of men.
“There lies the enemy, Lord William, if you’d wish to give the order to form up and attack? I’d suggest that you fall on them quickly, taking them by surprise, as it appears we may be outnumbered,” suggested Alan.
“At last I’ve caught a Welsh army in the field!” exclaimed fitzOsbern with delight. “Bring the men up. Infantry here and here,” he said pointing. “Archers there and there… and there. Cavalry in the centre and both flanks. One squadron to loop around to the enemy’s rear to cover them if they fall back. Sir Alan! If they retreat, where would they go?”
“Across the bridge to the west and try to hold us off- or possibly east. I’d expect they’d try to move west and use the river for defence, as that would also put them on the same side of the river as their fall-back towards Abergele and Caernarfon. I’d suggest several cavalry squadrons to go direct to the bridge and secure it. That would bottle them up and give them nowhere to go,” replied Alan.
Earl William nodded. “Do it, Basset!” he instructed the young Norman lord by his side. Presented with an enemy and a tactical situation Earl William was in his element, giving instructions and in total control.
In less than half an hour, and still by the light of the moon, the Anglo-Normans hit the Welsh camp like a fist. Unexpected and unforgiving they smashed through the camp in minutes, slaughtering the dazed and unprepared men who staggered from their beds. By the time they reached the village itself the warriors billeted there had heard the shouts and were alerted, pouring from the cottages brandishing sword and shield. But the Welsh were fighting as a mob, surprised and disorganized, whilst the Anglo-Normans were fighting like a well-oiled machine. The Welsh fell back towards the Cantref Hall and the horse-lines at the north of the village. A large contingent decamped from the Hall, presumably Bleddyn and his professional warriors. As dawn was breaking the Welsh were rallying and moving west towards the bridge.