=Source.=--Simeon of Durham, _Historia Regum_, ed. Arnold, vol. ii., p.
186. (Rolls Series.)
In the year 1069, the third year of his reign, king William sent earl
Robert Cumin against the Northumbrians in the country north of the
Tyne. But they had all united in one determination not to submit to the
lordship of an alien, and resolved either to slay him or to fall, all
of them together, by the edge of the sword. On his approach, Aegelwin,
bishop of Durham, met and forewarned him to be on his guard against
ambushes; but he, thinking that none would be so bold, despised the
warning. Entering Durham with a large force of knights, he allowed his
men to act with hostility in all quarters, and some peasants belonging
to the church were killed. He was received, however, by the bishop with
all courtesy and honour. But the Northumbrians, hastening all night to
Durham, at daybreak broke through the gates with great violence, and
on all sides surprised and slew the earl’s followers. The struggle was
fiercely waged; the knights were struck down in houses and streets,
and the combatants attacked the bishop’s house in which the earl
had been received, and since they could not endure the darts of the
defenders, burned down the house with all who were therein. So great
was the multitude of the slain, that almost every part of the city was
filled with blood; for out of seven hundred men only one escaped. This
slaughter took place on the 28th of February, the fourth day of the
week.
In the same year, before the Nativity of St. Mary, the sons of Sweyn,
king of the Danes, Harold and Canute, and their uncle earl Osbarn,
and Christian their bishop, and earl Turkill, came from Denmark with
240 ships and landed at the mouth of the river Humber. There they were
joined by Edgar Atheling, earl Waltheof and Marlesweyn and many others,
with a fleet which they had made ready. Earl Cospatric also came with
the whole strength of the Northumbrians, and all with one accord
joined forces against the Normans.... On Saturday, the 19th September,
the Normans who were holding the castles (at York), fearing that the
houses near the castles would be of aid to the Danes in filling up the
castle-moats, began to set them on fire, and the flames, increasing,
raged throughout the whole city and destroyed with it the minster of
St. Peter. But divine vengeance was speedily and disastrously wreaked
upon them. For before the whole city was burned down, the Danish fleet
arrived on the second day of the week, and the Danes on one side and
the Northumbrians on the other stormed and burst into the castles on
the same day. More than 3000 Normans were slain, the lives of William
Malet, who was sheriff at that time, and of his wife and two children,
and of Gilbert de Ghent and a few others, being spared; the Danes took
ship with their innumerable forces, and the Northumbrians returned to
their homes.
But when king William heard the news, he at once gathered an army and
hastened to Northumberland with exasperation at heart, and all the
winter without ceasing laid waste the country, cut men to pieces and
committed many other deeds of cruelty. Meanwhile he sent envoys to earl
Osbarn the Dane, and promised to give him secretly a large sum of money
and to allow his army freely to seize provisions along the sea-coasts,
on condition, however, that he should depart without fighting at the
close of winter. To these proposals he assented, in his greed for gold
and silver, with great dishonour to himself.
While the Normans were laying waste England, in Northumberland and
other districts in the preceding year, but in the present and following
year throughout the whole of England and especially in Northumberland
and the neighbouring provinces, so great a famine prevailed that men,
compelled by hunger, ate human flesh, and horses, dogs and cats,
and anything whatsoever that is loathsome to experience; some sold
themselves into perpetual slavery, so long as they could somehow
support a miserable existence; others leaving the country as exiles
gave up the ghost in the middle of their journey. It was horrible to
behold human corpses rotting in the houses and streets and highways,
swarming with worms and reeking with putrefaction. For there was none
left to bury them, all were cut off either by the sword or by famine,
or for hunger had abandoned their native land. And so for nine years
the land was destitute of tillers, and far and wide there extended a
barren waste. Between York and Durham never a town was inhabited; there
were only dens of wild beasts and robbers to terrify the heart of the
traveller.