HOW KING WILLIAM WON THE WHOLE KINGDOM.
=1. The Regency of Bishop Odo and Earl William.=--The rule of those
whom King William left in England to govern in his name was not of a
kind to win much love from the English people. William himself seems to
have done all that he could to gain the good will of his new subjects,
consistently with firmly establishing his own power. He could be harsh,
and even cruel, when it served his purpose; but at no time does he seem
to have been guilty of mere wanton oppression for oppression’s sake.
He was always strict in punishing open wrong-doers of any kind, of
whatever nation. It was otherwise with his two lieutenants, Bishop Odo
and Earl William Fitz-Osbern. If they did not actually take a pleasure
in oppression, they at any rate allowed their followers to do whatever
they chose, and, whatever wrong an Englishmen suffered, he could get no
redress. Above all things, they everywhere built castles and allowed
others to build them, and we have already seen with what horror our
forefathers looked on the building of castles. It would almost seem
as if oppression was worst immediately under the eyes of the two
regents. At least it was in their own earldoms, in Odo’s earldom of
Kent and in William Fitz-Osbern’s earldom of Hereford, that special
outbreaks against the new King’s authority now broke out. But the two
movements were of a different kind. In Kent, which had fully submitted
to William, the attempt was strictly a revolt against an established
government. In Herefordshire, where the whole land had not submitted,
men still tried, just as they might have done before the great battle,
to keep the foreign invaders out of a district which they had not yet
entered.
=2. Eadric in Herefordshire.=--The chief leader in resistance to the
Normans on the Herefordshire border was Eadric, a powerful man in those
parts who had never submitted to the new king. He still kept part of
the land quite free, holding out in the woods and other difficult
places, whence the Normans called him the _Wild_ or _Savage_. Earl
William’s men were always attacking him, but in vain. At last he made
an alliance with the Welsh Kings Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, those to whom
the kingdom of Gruffydd had been given by Harold. With their help he
laid waste the land which had submitted to the Normans, and carried off
great plunder. In fact the Normans were never able to overcome Eadric,
and we shall hear of him again more than once.
=3. Count Eustace at Dover.=--The Kentishmen meanwhile sought for help
beyond the sea, as Eadric had sought for help beyond the border; but it
was a very strange helper that they chose. They sent to Count Eustace
of Boulogne, the brother-in-law of King Edward, the same who had done
so much harm at Dover in Edward’s days, and who had been one of the
four who mangled the dying Harold. They must indeed have been weary of
Odo when they sent for Eustace to help them. Why Eustace listened to
them is not very clear. William had given him lands in England; we do
not hear of any quarrel between them, and Eustace could hardly have
thought that he would be able to drive William out and to make himself
king instead. However this may be, he sailed across with some troops,
and was joined by a large body of English, chiefly Kentishmen. Their
first attempt was on the castle of Dover; but Eustace lost heart and
gave way; the garrison sallied; his whole force was routed, and he
himself escaped to his own land.
=4. William’s Return.=--Besides those who thus openly revolted
against William or withstood his power, other Englishmen showed their
discontent in various ways. Some left the country altogether; others
tried to get help in various parts, above all from King Swegen in
Denmark. Swegen, it will be remembered, was nephew of Cnut and cousin
of Harold, and there had been talk of choosing him king five-and-twenty
years before instead of Edward. If any foreign prince could really have
delivered England, Swegen was the man to do it. But he missed the right
time when so much of the land was still unsubdued. The worst was that
Englishmen could not agree to act together. One district rose at one
time and one at another. Some were for Swegen, some for Edgar, some for
the sons of Harold; Edwin and Morkere were for themselves. So there was
no common action against William, and the land was lost bit by bit.
In December William came back. He held an assembly at Westminster,
where much land was confiscated and granted out again. He also caused
Count Eustace to be tried in his absence and outlawed. As Count of
Boulogne, Eustace owed William no allegiance; but as his man, holding
lands in England, he could be thus tried and outlawed. In after times
Eustace gained the King’s favour again, and got back his lands. William
also sent embassies to various foreign princes, to hinder anything
from being done against him in their lands. Especially he sent the
English Abbot Æthelsige as ambassador to King Swegen. And he made two
appointments which are worth noticing. The bishopric of Dorchester was
vacant; so he gave it to a Norman monk, Remigius of Fécamp. This was
the beginning of a system which he carried on through his whole reign,
that of giving bishoprics, as they became vacant, to Normans and other
foreigners. Also the earldom of Northumberland was vacant by the death
of Oswulf. William had not the least authority in Northumberland; yet
he made a show of again granting--or rather in truth of selling--the
earldom to Gospatric, a man of the kin of the old earls. But Gospatric
was as yet no more able to take possession than Copsige had been.
=5. The Siege of Exeter.=--In the spring of 1068 William began
seriously to undertake the conquest of that part of England where his
kingship was still a mere name. All western, central, and northern
England--all Northumberland in the old sense, the greater part of
Mercia, and a large part of Wessex--was still unsubdued. At this
moment the state of things in the West was specially threatening.
Exeter, above all, the greatest city of the West, was the centre of
all resistance. Gytha, the widow of Godwine and mother of Harold, was
there, most likely with her grandsons, Godwine, Edmund, and Magnus.
The citizens of Exeter made leagues with the other towns of the West;
men joined them from other parts of England; if the other unconquered
districts had risen at the same time, and if they could all have agreed
on some one course, it may be that even now William could have been
driven out. But while the West was in arms, the North stayed quiet, and
even in Exeter itself men were not fully of one mind. Before William
went forth to war, he sent a message to the men of Exeter, demanding
that they should swear oaths to him and receive him into the city.
They sent word that they would pay him the tribute which they had
been used to pay to the old kings, but that they would swear no oaths
to him nor receive him within their walls. That is, they would be a
separate commonwealth, paying him tribute, but they would not have him
as their immediate king. William was not likely to allow this kind of
half-submission; so he began his march against Exeter, taking care to
call on the force of the shires which were already conquered to come
with him. To strike fear into his chief enemy, he took and harried the
towns of Dorset on his way. The great men of the city were frightened
and sent to William, making submission and giving hostages. But the
commons disowned the submission; so William laid siege to the city,
after he had put out the eyes of one of the hostages. Exeter held out
bravely for eighteen days, and was then taken by undermining one of the
towers. William then entered the city, and granted his pardon to the
citizens. Gytha and her companions meanwhile escaped by the river. The
King then caused a castle called _Rougemont_, or the Red Hill, to be
built to keep the city in his power, and he greatly raised the amount
of its tribute; but he seems to have done no further harm.
=6. The Conquest of the West.=--The taking of Exeter was followed, at
once or before long, by the conquest of all western England. Dorset,
Devonshire, Somerset, Cornwall, and most likely Gloucestershire and
Worcestershire, were now added to William’s dominions. But Eadric still
held out in his corner of Herefordshire. William was now master of
all Wessex and East-Anglia and of part of Mercia. His conquest of the
western lands was clearly followed by many confiscations and grants
of land; above all the King’s brother Count Robert got nearly all
Cornwall, and large estates in other shires. Among these he got the
hill in Somerset where the holy cross of Waltham had been found, and
which the Normans called _Montacute_ or the peaked hill. William now
thought that things were quiet enough for him to bring his wife to
England; so at Pentecost, 1068, the Lady Matilda was hallowed to Queen
at Westminster by Archbishop Ealdred.
=7. The First Conquest of the North.=--Meanwhile, just after the
West was subdued, the North was in arms. Though Edwin, Morkere, and
Gospatric were nominally William’s earls in Northern England, yet
their earldoms had never submitted, and the earls themselves seem to
have lived chiefly at William’s court. But now all Northern England
made ready to resist, York being naturally the centre of the movement,
as Exeter had been in the West. They got the Welsh to help them, and
sent messages to Scotland and Denmark. The whole land was in arms.
And now Earl Gospatric went out and joined his own people, and so did
Edgar the Ætheling, and seemingly the Earls Edwin and Morkere also; so
there was no lack of leaders. King William marched to meet them as far
as Warwick, seemingly his first conquest in this campaign. Near that
town the English army met him; but the hearts of Edwin and Morkere
failed them. They submitted, and were restored to their earldoms and
to William’s seeming favour; one of the King’s daughters was even
promised in marriage to Edwin. The army now dispersed; only a party
of the bolder men marched northwards and held Durham. Gospatric, with
Edgar and his mother and sisters, found shelter with King Malcolm in
Scotland. William had now nothing to do but to march northward, taking
one town after another. Some, it would seem, were taken by force, while
others submitted peaceably. In all cases he built a castle to keep
the town in order; but there was a great difference in his treatment
of one town and shire and another. In some parts many more Englishmen
kept their lands and offices than in others; these were doubtless
those which submitted most quietly. In this way he occupied most
likely Leicester and certainly Nottingham, and so went on to York. The
city submitted quietly; but a castle was built. Having thus gained the
capital of the North and the main centre of resistance, William did not
this time go on any further, but marched back another way, occupying
Lincoln, Stamford, Cambridge, and Huntingdon. These two campaigns
of the year 1068 gave William a greater part of England than he had
won in 1066. Northumberland in the narrower sense, with Durham, and
north-western Mercia, with Chester as the chief city, were all that now
remained unsubdued. But William’s hold on some of the lands which had
submitted was still very insecure.
=8. The Sons of Harold.=--This same year 1068 the three sons of Harold,
Godwine, Edmund, and Magnus, who had escaped with their grandmother
Gytha, came back by sea with a force from Ireland, doubtless chiefly
Irish Danes. But they did nothing except plunder. They were driven off
from Bristol, and then fought a battle with the men of Somerset, who
were led by Eadnoth, a man who had been their father’s _Staller_ or
Master of the horse, but who was now in the service of William. Eadnoth
was killed, and Harold’s sons sailed away, having only made matters
worse. Some time in the same year William had a son born to him in
England, namely his youngest son Henry. He was the only one of his sons
who was born after his father was crowned; so he alone, according to
English notions, was a real Ætheling. Moreover he was brought up as an
Englishman. He was afterwards King Henry the First.
=9. The First Revolt of York.=--Neither the North nor the West long
remained quiet. The year 1069 was still fuller of fighting than
the year 1068. But this was the year in which England was really
conquered. At the Christmas feast of 1068 William again made a grant
of the earldom of Northumberland in the narrower sense. That land
was still quite unsubdued; but now that he had York, it would be
easier to attack Durham and the parts beyond. So the King granted the
earldom to one Robert of Comines, who set out with a Norman army to
take possession. But he fared no better than Copsige had done. The
men of the land determined to withstand him; but, through the help of
the Bishop Æthelwine, he entered Durham peaceably. But he let his men
plunder; so the men of the city and neighbourhood rose and slew him
and all his followers. This success encouraged the men of Yorkshire
and their leaders who had fled to Scotland. Gospatric and Edgar came
back; they were welcomed at York and laid siege to the castle. But King
William at once marched north, drove them away, built a second castle,
and left his friend Earl William of Hereford in command. He then sent
a force against Durham, but it got no further than Northallerton. No
sooner was the King gone than the English again attacked the castles at
York, but they were defeated by Earl William. And a little later, in
June, Harold’s sons came again and plundered in Devonshire, but were
driven away. So the land was harried alike by friends and by foes.
=10. The Coming of the Danes.=--All this shows how all efforts were
in vain, simply for want of a real leader, a king of men like Harold
or Edmund Ironside. Englishmen could fight; but their fighting was
of no use, when there was no steadiness in the chief men, no concert
between one part of the land and another. In fact they seem to have
fought best when they had no earls or other great men at their head,
when each district fought for itself. In the autumn of this year 1069
there was the best chance of deliverance of all. A large part of
England was in arms at once. The West rose; the men of Somerset and
Dorset besieged the new castle of Montacute; the men of Devonshire and
Cornwall besieged the new castle of Exeter. On the Welsh border Eadric
with a host of Welsh and English attacked Shrewsbury; Staffordshire
too, which most likely had not yet submitted, was in arms. But all
these movements were put down one by one; save that Staffordshire was
left alone for a while. Meanwhile yet greater things were doing in the
North. King Swegen of Denmark at last sent a great fleet to the help of
the English, under his brother Osbeorn and his sons Harold and Cnut.
After some vain attempts on Dover, Sandwich, Ipswich, and Norwich, the
Danes entered the Humber, and the English came joyfully to meet them.
All the chief men of the north joined them. Edgar and Gospatric came
back from Scotland, and this time Earl Waltheof joined them. William’s
commanders at York, William Malet, he who had first buried Harold’s
body, and Gilbert of Ghent, sent word to the King that they could hold
out for a whole year; but it was not so. The host, Danish and English,
began to march on York, and Archbishop Ealdred, worn out with troubles,
died as they were coming. The Norman commanders now set fire to the
houses near the castles, and a great part of the city was burned. The
Danes and English soon reached York; the Normans sallied, and were,
some cut to pieces, some made prisoners, the two leaders being among
the prisoners. In this fight Earl Waltheof slew many of the enemy, and
won himself great fame. The castles were broken down, and York was now
quite free from the Normans. But, instead of holding the city, the
English dispersed, and the Danes went back to their ships.
=11. The Final Conquest of the North.=--When King William heard of
the fall of York, he at once marched northwards. But when he found
that his enemies were all scattered, he left his brother Robert in
Lindesey to act against the Danes, while he himself went and subdued
Staffordshire, seemingly by hard fighting. He then marched to York,
and recovered the city. And now he did one of the most frightful deeds
of his life. He caused all northern England, beginning with Yorkshire,
to be utterly laid waste, that its people might not be able to fight
against him any more. The havoc was fearful; men were starved or sold
themselves as slaves, and the land did not recover for many years. Then
King William wore his crown and kept his Christmas feast at York. In
January 1070 he set out to conquer the extreme north, which was still
unsubdued. The Earls Waltheof and Gospatric now craved his pardon. They
were restored to their earldoms, and Waltheof received the King’s niece
Judith in marriage. William then went on to Durham, where the Bishop
and nearly everybody had fled from the city, and ravaged the whole land
as he had ravaged Yorkshire. He then went back to York by a very hard
winter’s march, and settled the affairs of his new conquest. He was now
at last master of all Northumberland, Deira and Bernicia alike.
=12. End of the Conquest.=--Still William had not yet possession of
all England. Not only did Eadric still hold out on his border, and it
may be that the Isle of Ely had never fully submitted; but one whole
corner of England, and one of the chief cities, still held out. This
was Chester. Now then in February 1070 William made another hard winter
march from York to Chester. The sufferings of the army were frightful,
and many of the mercenaries mutinied. But William went on, and received
the submission of the last free English city, whether peaceably or by
fighting we know not. He built castles at Chester and Stafford. He then
marched to Salisbury, where he reviewed and dismissed his army, as
having now won the whole land. And so in truth he had. If a few points
were still unsubdued, no whole shire or great town held out against
him. At last, more than three years after his coronation, he was really
king of the whole land in fact as well as in name. From henceforth
such opposition to him as we still hear of was no longer resistance to
an invader, but rather revolt against an established, though foreign,
government.
=13. The New Archbishops.=--William had now time to turn his mind to
the affairs of the Church. Things had naturally got into confusion
during the time of warfare; and besides this, William had made up his
mind to subdue the Church of England as well as the state, or rather to
make the Church a means whereby to hold the kingdom more firmly. As he
gradually transferred the greatest estates and highest temporal offices
from Englishmen to strangers, so it was part of his policy to do the
same with the chief offices of the Church. His rule was that, as the
bishops died, Normans or other strangers should be put in their places,
and that those of the English bishops against whom any kind of charge
could be brought should be deprived without waiting for their deaths.
With the abbots the rule was less strict; their temporal position was
not so important as that of the bishops. So, though several English
abbots were deposed and many foreign abbots were appointed, still many
more Englishmen kept their places than among the bishops, and some
Englishmen even received abbeys from William himself. In doing all
this he had the help of Pope Alexander and of those who advised him;
for it was part of William’s policy to strengthen the connexion of
England with Rome, though he firmly refused to give up a whit of his
own royal power. At the Easter feast of 1070 two papal legates came,
and, when the King wore his crown, it was they who put it on his head.
A council was then held, in which Archbishop Stigand was deposed, as
his right to the archbishopric had all along been thought doubtful.
His successor was one of the most famous scholars in Europe. This was
Lanfranc of Pavia in Lombardy, who had settled in Normandy and become
a monk, and was now abbot of the monastery of Saint Stephen at Caen,
which William himself had founded. Lanfranc became Archbishop in
August, and was William’s right hand man for the rest of his reign. The
other archbishopric also was vacant by the death of Ealdred of York.
At Pentecost this was given to a Norman, Thomas, a canon of Bayeux,
also a great scholar and a careful bishop. For many of William’s
appointments were very good in themselves, if only the men chosen had
not been strangers. These two new archbishops went the next year to
Rome to receive from the Pope the pallium or badge of metropolitan
dignity; so England had two foreign primates. Stigand’s other bishopric
of Winchester was also given to another Norman, Walkelin. And so the
work went on through the whole of William’s reign, till at the end,
Saint Wulfstan of Worcester was the only Englishman who was a bishop in
England.
=14. The Danes at Ely.=--Before the two foreign archbishops were
consecrated, there was again fighting in England. The Danish fleet,
which after all had done so little for England, stayed in the Humber
while William was subduing Northumberland. William then gave bribes
to the Danish commander Osbeorn, and it was agreed that the Danes
should sail back when the winter was over, and that meanwhile they
might plunder in England. Thus again was the land harried by friends
and foes alike. At last, in May 1070, the Danes sailed to the Fenland,
and showed themselves at Ely. The people welcomed them, believing that
they would win the land; most likely they were ready to have Swegen
for king. Thus the revolts began almost at the moment when the conquest
was finished. We now hear for the first time of the famous name of
Hereward. All manner of strange and impossible tales are told of him;
but very little is known for certain about him, though what we do know
is quite enough to set him before us as a stout champion of England.
He had held lands in Lincolnshire, and he had fled away from England,
but when or why is not known. He would seem to have come back about the
time when the Danes came to Ely, and he joined himself with them and
with the men of the land who helped them. The abbey of Peterborough was
now vacant by the death of its Abbot Brand, and William had given it to
a Norman named Turold. He was a very stern man, and came with a body
of Norman soldiers to take possession of the abbey. But Hereward was
before him. Lest the wealth of the abbey should be turned to help the
enemy, he came (June 1, 1070) with the Danes and the men of the land,
and plundered the monastery. The Danes now went away, taking with them
much of the spoil of Peterborough. But, when they got home, King Swegen
banished his brother Earl Osbeorn for having taken bribes from William
and having done so little for England.
=15. The Defence of Ely.=--About this time Eadric the Wild submitted
to the King, which marks that all resistance was over on his side of
England. But the revolt went on in the Fenland. The monastery of Ely
was the centre of resistance, as it stood in a land which then was
really an island and which was very easy to defend. The Abbot Thurstan,
who had been appointed by King Harold, and his monks, were at first
zealous for the patriots. Men flocked to the isle from all parts, and
they held out all the winter of 1070 and through the greater part of
the next year. In the spring of 1071 the two earls, Edwin and Morkere,
at last left William’s court, being, it is said, afraid lest the King
should put them in bonds. Edwin tried to get to Scotland, but he was
killed on the way, either by his own men or by Normans to whom he was
betrayed. But Morkere made his way to Ely and helped in the defence
of the isle. Other chief men came also; but it is clear that the soul
of the enterprise was Hereward. There are many tales told of his
exploits; but this at least is certain. William came and attacked the
isle from all points, and there was much fighting for many months, in
which William Malet, whom the Danes had released, was killed. At last
in October 1071, the isle surrendered. Some say that the monks of Ely,
when the King seized their lands outside the isle, turned traitors;
others that Morkere and the other chiefs grew fainthearted. Anyhow the
war was at an end. The King took possession of the isle; he built a
castle at Ely and laid a fine on the abbey, while Morkere and others
were kept in prison. Hereward alone did not submit, but sailed out into
the sea unconquered. There are several stories of his end. It seems
most likely that he was at last received into William’s favour, and
even served under him in his wars on the mainland. But some say that he
was killed by a party of Normans who set upon him without any orders
from the King, and that he died fighting bravely, one man against many.
=16. Summary.=--Thus we see that, after five years from William’s first
landing, he was in full possession of the kingdom and had put down all
opposition everywhere. The great battle had given him real possession
of south-eastern England only; but it had given him the great advantage
of being crowned king before the end of the year. During the year 1067
William made no further conquests; all western and northern England
remained unsubdued; but, except in Kent and Herefordshire, there was
no fighting in any part of the land which had really submitted. The
next two years were the time in which all England was really conquered.
The former part of 1068 gave William the West. The latter part of that
year gave him central and northern England as far as Yorkshire, the
extreme north and north-west being still unsubdued. The attempt to win
Durham in the beginning of 1069 led to two revolts at York. Later in
the year all the north and west was again in arms, and the Danish fleet
came. But the revolts were put down one by one, and the great winter
campaign of 1069–1070 conquered the still unsubdued parts, ending with
the taking of Chester. Early in 1070 the whole land was for the first
time in William’s possession; there was no more fighting, and he was
able to give his mind to the more peaceful part of his schemes, what
we may call the conquest of the native Church by the appointment of
foreign bishops. But in the summer of 1070 began the revolt of the
Fenland, and the defence of Ely, which lasted till the autumn of 1071.
After that William was full king everywhere without dispute. There was
no more national resistance; there was no revolt of any large part of
the country. There were still wars within the isle of Britain; but they
were wars in which William could give out that he was, as King of the
English, fighting for England. And there was one considerable revolt
within the kingdom of England; but it was not a revolt of the people.
The conquest of the land, as far as fighting goes, was now finished.
We have now to see how the land fared under a king who claimed to be
king by law, but who had to win his crown by fighting at the head of
an invading army. His rule, as we shall see, was neither that of a
king who had really succeeded according to law nor yet that of a mere
invader who did not even make any pretence to legal right.