The Full Story
In February 1797, a French expeditionary force of about fourteen hundred men landed at Carreg Wastad Point, just outside Fishguard in Pembrokeshire. It was the last time a foreign army set foot on British soil. Many of the soldiers were convicts pulled out of prison. Most of them, within hours of landing, had broken into the local farms and got drunk on looted Portuguese wine.
Jemima Nicholas was a real woman, a Fishguard cobbler. According to local tradition, proudly recorded in the town, she picked up her pitchfork, walked out and rounded up twelve French soldiers in a field near Llanwnda, who were held in St Mary's church. Tradition also says that Welsh women in their red cloaks and tall black hats, watching from the headlands, were mistaken at a distance for British Redcoats. Historians treat both stories cautiously, but they are the heart of how Wales remembers 1797.
What is documented is the collapse: local yeomanry, militia, sailors and townspeople mobilised quickly under Lord Cawdor, and two days after landing the French commander surrendered unconditionally. The surrender was negotiated at the Royal Oak pub in Fishguard. Jemima Nicholas was reportedly awarded a pension for the rest of her life. She died in 1832 and was buried at St Mary's, Fishguard, where a memorial stone raised by public subscription at the centenary in 1897 records what she did.
Why This Matters
The Battle of Fishguard is the last invasion of mainland Britain, and it collapsed in two days, defeated mainly by local forces and the speed with which ordinary people turned out. The town remembers it through Jemima Fawr, Jemima the Great, and the women in red. It is also a useful national story: the British are harder to conquer than they look, partly because the people who will stop you will not always be in uniform.
Key Facts
- ⚠Correction: the video tells the pitchfork capture, the red-cloak ruse and the pension as fact. The landing, the surrender and Lord Cawdor's command are documented; Jemima's 12 prisoners and the red cloaks are folk tradition, first recorded locally, and the pension is reported rather than proven. The French commander, Colonel William Tate, is given no nationality because sources dispute it.