burial; but William is reported to have refused, ordering the corse to
be buried on the strand, remarking, with unknightly anger--"He guarded
the coast while he was alive, let him thus continue to guard it after
death." The dead King was, however, interred in Waltham Abbey, which
he had founded and endowed; or, if Tovi, Canute's standard-bearer, was
the original founder of the abbey, yet Harold was largely its
benefactor.
On the field of Senlac King William built the famous Battle Abbey,
that priests might perpetually pray for the souls of the slain, but,
as Palgrave remarks:--
"All this pomp and solemnity has passed away like a dream. The
'perpetual prayer' has ceased for ever--the roll of Battle is
rent--the shields of the Norman lieges are trodden in the
dust--the Abbey is levelled to the ground--and a dark and reedy
pool fills the spot where the foundations of the quire have
been uncovered, merely for the gaze of the idle visitor, or the
instruction of the moping antiquary."
Yorkshire endured terrible evils at the hands of the Conqueror, as he
penetrated its wilds with his famous bowmen and men-at-arms.
The year 1068 witnessed a Northumbrian revolt, which was easily
quelled; but a more determined effort to cast off the Norman yoke was
made in the following year. The events are thus recorded in the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," and were graphically realized by the acutely
sympathetic mind of the Rev. Charles Kingsley in his stirring story of
"Hereward, the last of the English." The accuracy of the latter part
of the title of his novel is, however, generally disputed:
"A.D. 1068--This year King William gave the earldom of
Northumberland to earl Robert, and the men of that country
came against him, and slew him and 900 others with him. And
then Edgar etheling marched with all the Northumbrians to York,
and the townsmen treated with him; on which King William came
from the south with all his troops, and sacked the town, and
slew many hundred persons. He also profaned St. Peter's
minster, and all other places, and the etheling went back to
Scotland.
"After this came Harold's sons from Ireland, about Midsummer,
with sixty-four ships, and entered the mouth of the Taff, where
they incautiously landed. Earl Beorn came upon them unawares
with a large army, and slew all their bravest men; the others
escaped to their ships, and Harold's sons went back again to
Ireland.
"A.D. 1069--This year died Aldred, Archbishop of York, and he
lies buried in his cathedral church. He died on the festival of
Protus and Hyacinthus, having held the see with much honour ten
years, all but fifteen weeks.
"Soon after this, three of the sons of Sweyne came from Denmark
with 240 ships, together with earl Osbern and earl Thorkill,
into the Humber, where they were met by child Edgar and earl
Waltheof, and Merle-Sweyne, and earl Cospatric with the men of
Northumberland and all the landsmen riding and marching
joyfully with an immense army; and so they went to York,
demolished the castle, and found there large treasures. They
also slew many hundred Frenchmen, and carried off many
prisoners to their ships; but, before the shipmen came thither,
the Frenchmen had burned the city, and plundered and burnt St.
Peter's minister. When the King heard of this, he went
northward with all the troops he could collect, and laid waste
all the shire; whilst the fleet lay all the winter in the
Humber, where the King could not get at them. The King was at
York on Midwinter's day, remaining on land all the winter, and
at Easter he came to Winchester."
It was on the 19th of September that the Danes and Northumbrians
entered York, and, amid the flame and smoke of burning houses, stormed
the Norman stronghold, and put the garrison to the sword. Egbert, the
seventh Archbishop of York, had founded a valuable library in the
city, but it was utterly consumed in the flames.
The triumph of King William was not so easily achieved as might be
supposed from the account given in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle;" and
had he not succeeded in buying off the Danish fleet, it is quite
possible that all the fruit of his great victory at Senlac might have
been swallowed up at York. Although the Northumbrians were not strong
enough to brave the Normans in open field, they defended York against
all the attacks of the King's troops for a period of six months, and
the garrison only surrendered when they were in danger of perishing
from starvation.
During the siege Waltheof Siwardsson especially distinguished himself,
and on one occasion defended, single-handed, a breach in the
city-wall, dashing out the brains of the Normans as they came within
the sweep of his axe.
In the first burst of rage on receiving news of the slaughter of the
Norman garrison, William vowed to lay the whole of Northumbria in
ashes, and he carried out with ruthless severity this rash and cruel
resolution. The troops who fought beneath his banner were mercenary
cut-throats, the fit agents of his vengeance, and they addressed
themselves to the work of destruction with a keen appreciation. The
peasantry fell by the edge of the sword, neither age nor sex being
respected: the shrieking children were mingled in the common ruin.
Cottages were fired, orchards hewn down, the instruments of husbandry
destroyed, and every energy was bent to the destruction of human life,
and to ensure by starvation the death of those whom the sword failed
to reach. For nine years after the storm had passed over the devoted
province, the ground remained untilled, and the villages unrestored.
The wretched fugitives who hid their heads in forests and caves were
driven to feed upon the flesh of unclean cats and dogs, and finally
they endeavoured to prolong their miserable lives by the last resort
to cannibalism. It is computed that one hundred thousand persons
perished in a district of sixty miles in length. The sea-ports were
subjected to the same severities, that, in case of further Danish
invasions, the ships might be unable to obtain supplies.
York itself was not spared by the ruthless Norman. The prisoners, who
had been delivered into William's hands by the extreme pangs of
famine, were put to the sword, and the city was given to the flames.
During his expedition to Northumbria, William narrowly escaped
receiving the reward of his demerits, an example of poetic justice
that would have been particularly striking to the historian, and
useful to the moralist.
While on the march from Hexham to York, he became involved in a wild
and unknown country; his horses perished, his soldiers were reduced to
the extremes of suffering and privation; and William missed his way,
in the obscurity of a night-march, and was reduced to a state of great
anxiety, not to say fear, being uncertain of the ground over which he
wandered, and equally uncertain of the direction in which his troops
were marching.
The North continued to suffer from war and invasion. Malcolm wasted
Northumberland, A.D. 1079, and his wild Scots invaded the country as
far as the Tyne, and re-entered Scotland with much spoil, and many
prisoners.
The bishopric of Durham had been bestowed upon Walcher of Lorraine,
and as he equally governed by crozier and sword, taxing the people
heavily, and allowing his Norman mercenaries to plunder, insult, and
slay his flock at their pleasure, he was bitterly hated; and, when his
servant Gilbert murdered Liulf, a noble Englishman, who had married
Jarl Siward's widow, the mother of the heroic Waltheof, their rage
knew no bounds. Walcher consented to confer with the Northumbrians at
Gateshead, and was attended by a large escort. Every Englishman
carried a weapon with him, concealed beneath his garment, and the
bishop, becoming alarmed for his life, took refuge in the church,
which was speedily fired, when the murderer and his accomplice were
driven out, and received a summary requital for their crime. Compelled
to sally out by flame and smoke, the bishop appeared among the raging
multitude, his face wrapped in the skirt of his robe. There was
silence, then a voice gave the death-words: "Good rede, short rede!
slay ye the bishop!" and the protector of murderers was slain. His
escort of a hundred men, Normans and Flemings, died beneath
Northumbrian steel in that awful hour, only two of his servants,
menials of English birth, being saved.
Vengeance was delegated to Odo of Bayeux, and there was no Hereward,
no Waltheof to welcome him with blood-wet steel. He entered Durham
unopposed, a Norman army at his back, and slew or maimed all the men
that he could find.
Seven years later, and William lay dying in the monastery of St.
Gervas, passing to his last account at sunrise on the 9th of
September, as the bells of St. Mary tolled the hour of prime. His last
words were: "I recommend my soul to my Lady Mary, the holy mother of
God."
Rufus succeeded, and in his reign the King's army besieged Durham
Castle, and received its surrender. This arose from the revolt of Odo
of Bayeux, who was captured at Rochester Castle, and sent out of the
country, to the sound of Saxon curses and the triumphant strains of
Saxon trumpets, for the proud prelate who had cursed England with his
presence since the day of Senlac was conquered by Saxon steel at last.
The North was again ravaged by the Scots, A.D. 1091, when Rufus
marched to protect it, and "Edgar Atheling mediated a peace between
the kings." The following year saw the King again in the North, with a
large following, when,
"he repaired the city (Carlisle), and built the castle. And he
drove out Dolfin, who had before governed that country, and
having placed a garrison in that castle he returned into the
South, and sent a great number of rustic Englishmen thither,
with their wives and cattle, that they might settle there and
cultivate the land."
A.D. 1093.--
"King Malcolm returned home to Scotland, and as soon as he came
thither, he assembled his troops and invaded England, ravaging
the country with more fury than behoved him: and Robert, Earl
of Northumberland, with his men, lay in wait for him, and slew
him unawares. He was killed by Moræl of Bamborough, the earl's
steward, and King Malcolm's own godfather: his son Edward, who,
had he lived, would have been King after his father, was killed
with him. When the good Queen Margaret heard that her most
beloved lord, and her son, were thus cut off, she was grieved
in spirit unto death, and she went with her priest into the
church, and having gone through all befitting rites, she prayed
of God that she might give up the ghost."
The Northern province had little rest from marching armies, sieges,
and battles. In the Easter of 1095, Robert, Earl of Northumberland,
treated with contempt the King's summons to attend the court at
Winchester; whereon the King took an early opportunity of attacking
him, seized his principal servants and officers, took Tynemouth
Castle, and after vainly besieging Bamborough, built a castle,
_Malveisin_, or "evil neighbour," over against it, and leaving
therein a strong garrison departed. After the King's departure, the
earl sallied out one night, riding towards Tynemouth, when a part of
the garrison of _Malveisin_ pursued after him, carried him off,
wounded, and slew or captured his attendants. On this Rufus ordered
his captains to carry Northumberland to Bamborough Castle, and summon
it to surrender, threatening to put out the earl's eyes if the castle
continued to hold out. The scheme was successful, the countess--a
young and beautiful woman, recently married to Northumberland--at once
surrendered, when the unhappy earl was condemned to a life-long
imprisonment.
The mysterious death of William Rufus, who was found in the New
Forest, slain by an arrow, on the 2nd of August, A.D. 1100, was
followed by the accession of Henry I., when the Northern provinces of
the island enjoyed a period of unwonted repose, which was terminated
by the usurpation of Stephen of Blois, when the Scottish invasions
re-commenced, and the battle of the Standard was fought.
During these years York was steadily rising from its ashes, after the
Conqueror's fiery chastisement, when, on the 4th June, 1137, a fire
accidently broke out, and the city was again consumed.
Of the patriots who combatted so valiantly against the Conqueror
during the invasion of Northumbria, Earl Edwin was slain in 1071,
being betrayed to the Normans by three of his servants; Morkar, after
joining Hereward in the famous Camp of Refuge, fell into the hands of
the King, and was cast into prison, pursuant to a sentence of
imprisonment for life, but, when the Conqueror lay on his death-bed,
he ordered his release, and William Rufus immediately re-committed him
to prison; Earl Cospatrick was banished for the slaughter of the
Normans at Durham and York, and received honours and lands from the
King of Scotland. Hereward was murdered by the Normans, but exacted an
heroic price for his life.
IV.--BATTLE OF THE STANDARD.
A.D. 1138.
The crown which the Conqueror won at Hastings was fated to pass from
the direct male line of succession in the third generation.
Robert, the eldest of King William's sons, was passed over by his
father, who transmitted the crown to Rufus. When that violent, but not
wholly ungenerous, prince was slain in the New Forest Prince Henry,
the Conqueror's youngest son, usurped the crown, and ultimately
overcame his brother Robert, seized his Duchy of Normandy, and
condemned him to a life-long imprisonment.
Each of the brothers had a son bearing the name of his grandsire, and
it appeared certain that the feud of the fathers would be perpetuated
by the children.
William, son of Robert, had many stout friends, and enjoyed, in a
special degree, the protection of the King of France; hence wars and
revolts arose in the King's usurped Duchy of Normandy, and it seemed
probable that when King Henry died the duchy would be re-conquered by
Robert's son. All the energies of King Henry were therefore turned to
securing the duchy for his son. In the year 1120 he carried the prince
to Normandy, and, by his valour and address in the field, seconded by
his crafty policy, he succeeded in restoring peace and order in the
duchy, and also in detaching his nephew's chief supporters from his
cause.
When about to sail from Barfleur, he was accosted by an ancient
mariner, who claimed that his father had piloted the Conqueror to
England in 1066, and besought the honour of now carrying King Henry
across the Channel. The King had already made his arrangements, but he
entrusted Prince William and his suite to the care of Fitz-Stephen. It
was a serene, moonlight night when the _Blanche Nef_ sailed, but the
prince had provided too generously for the good cheer of the mariners,
and a drunken and careless crew carried him to his fate. The _Blanche
Nef_ struck on the rocks of the Ras de Catte, and rapidly filled.
Prince William was hastily thrust into the ship's boat, but he
insisted upon attempting the rescue of his half-sister, and vainly,
but generously, sacrificed his life in the endeavour.
The position of Duke Robert's son was apparently more hopeful now that
he was the only lineal male heir to the throne. King Henry was not,
however, the less earnest in his endeavours to transmit all his
dignities to his own children. Thus reads the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,"
for 1127:--
"This year at Christmas, King Henry held his court at Windsor,
and David, King of Scotland, was there, and all the headmen of
England, both clergy and laity. And the King caused the
archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and all the thanes who
were present, to swear to place England and Normandy, after his
death, in the hands of his daughter the princess, who had been
the wife of the Emperor of Saxony. And then he sent her to
Normandy, accompanied by her brother Robert, Earl of
Gloucester, and by Brian, the son of the Earl Alan Fergan; and
he caused her to be wedded to the son of the Earl of Anjou,
named Geoffrey Martel."
In the following year the brief, but brilliant, career of Prince
William came to an end. After a most honourable campaign, whilst
"he was besieging Eu against King Henry, and expected on the
morrow to receive its surrender, for the enemy was almost
worn-out, the young man died of a slight wound in the hand,
leaving behind him an endless name."
Robert of Normandy fulfilled the number of his days in the year 1134.
No doubt the statement of Matthew Paris was quite correct:--
"When the King heard of his death, he did not grieve much, but
commanded the body to be reverently interred in the conventual
church of Gloucester."
King Henry had reigned many years, and committed many crimes to secure
his crown, but, such is the irony of fate, he was not permitted to
enjoy his triumph long, for, on the 1st of December, he died through
over-indulgence in supping on lampreys, and, to use the expressive
ambiguity of Carlyle, "went to his own place, wherever that might be."
Prominent among the nobles of England was Stephen, Count of Blois, the
son of the Conqueror's daughter Adela, and the first peer of the
realm--a position which he put to the proof when the oath of
allegiance was taken to the ex-Empress Matilda, Robert, Duke of
Gloucester, having vainly claimed precedence, although he could only
claim as the natural son of the King.
Stephen was a brave, generous, and popular noble, and both the peers
and commons of England would have preferred his rule to that of the
King's daughter; when, therefore, he made claim to the throne no
opposition was raised.
"For when the nobles of the kingdom were assembled at London,
he promised that the laws should be reformed to the
satisfaction of every one of them, and William, Archbishop of
Canterbury, who was the first of all the nobles to take the
oath of fidelity to the Empress as Queen of England, now
consecrated Stephen to be King. In fine, all the bishops,
earls, and barons who had sworn fealty to the King's daughter
and her heirs gave their adhesion to King Stephen, saying that
it would be a shame for so many nobles to submit themselves to
a woman."
Having obtained the crown, Stephen assisted in burying the corpse of
his uncle, being one of those who sustained the coffin on their
shoulders. How suggestive such a scene must have appeared to many who
were present. The dead King had broken the closest ties of
relationship and blood in obtaining the crown; the retribution that
took the shape of his son's untimely death was to some extent
compensated by the death of his nephew; but no sooner is the old King
dead than his nephew usurps the crown, maugre his vows of allegiance
to Matilda, and piously assists in conveying him to the grave.
For the moment no man seemed disposed to maintain the claims of the
ex-Empress: the first to move on her behalf being her uncle David,
King of Scotland, a humane and religious prince, who occupied the same
relationship to Stephen's wife that he did to the ex-Empress.
In his first invasion David succeeded in occupying Carlisle and
Newcastle, but being confronted by Stephen at the head of a powerful
army, a treaty was entered into at Durham, whereby King David engaged
to abandon hostilities on certain territorial concessions being made
to him. Thrice in one year Northumbria was inundated by the wild
Scots, and Stephen, harassed by his treacherous barons, could only
avenge his unhappy subjects by laying waste the frontiers of Scotland.
The wildest storm of war swept over Northumbria in the year 1138, the
unfortunate inhabitants of that province being mercilessly
slaughtered in requital for the sins of their princes and
nobles--sins in which they had neither art nor part. David was deeply
afflicted by the enormous cruelties which his troops perpetrated, but
he was utterly unable to control their passions, and endeavoured to
quieten his conscience by condemning the acts of his armies, and by
his royal munificence to the church--James the First expressed his
appreciation of the liberality of his predecessor by remarking that,
"He kythed a sair saint to the crown."
The tumultuary army which followed him "consisted of Normans,
Germans, and English, of Cumbrian Britons, of Northumbrians, of men
of Teviotdale and Lothian, of Picts commonly called men of Galloway,
and of Scots."
Barely threescore years and ten had elapsed since William the Norman
had carried fire and sword through Northumbria. The charred and
blackened ruins of grange and village were not yet entirely hidden by
the dense growth of bramble and thorn; and the human bones, that had
been gnawed by the wolves in their midnight banquets in the evil days
that succeeded the Confessor's death, had not yet mouldered into their
kindred earth.
It was in the wild and stormy season of the opening spring of 1138
that King David commenced his operations.
Shaken to its centre, Northumbria lay at the mercy of the invader:
again the sword reaped its bloody harvest, again the torch performed
its evil office, and the midnight skies were illumined by the glare of
burning homesteads and villages. The highways and byeways were strewn
with the dead: with the gashed clay of strong men, of women, and of
little children. Age and womanhood lay together in dishonoured death;
the white hairs and the flowing tresses trodden in the same bloody
mire, and, most cruel spectacle! the little babes, pierced and
shattered by spears, lay where they had been cast in fiendish sport by
the pitiless barbarians. The blood of the priests reeked upon the
altars of the most High God, and the sacred fanes were heaped with the
sweltering corruption of slain worshippers. Miserable fugitives turned
their faces towards the Humber, striving to escape the hot-footed
Scot, who pressed so keen and fast upon their track.
The remnant of the maddened people, desperate in their despair, only
required a leader to organise and direct their strength.
Thurstan, the aged Archbishop of York, although bowed down to the
verge of the grave by the weight of many years and infirmities, came
forward to organise the strength of his afflicted people. Stephen
being unable to disengage himself from the toils of his revolted
barons, the civil war having already broken out in the south,
despatched Bernard de Baliol to the north, at the head of a body of
men-at-arms. The real strength of the movement was, however, the
combination of those eminent northern barons, William, Earl of
Albemarle, Robert de Ferrars, William Percy, Roger de Mowbray, Ilbert
de Lacy, and the veteran Walter l'Espec, who, responding with prompt
energy to the supplications of Archbishop Thurstan, gathered their
vassals together, and prepared to take the field, as soon as all
arrangements were completed, and the widely scattered strength of the
North was concentrated.
To draw the people to one standard, and to animate them with an
unconquerable fortitude, was the peculiar work of the Archbishop; but,
being too infirm to take a public part in the exciting scenes which
were being enacted, he deputed Ralph Nowel, the titular Bishop of
Orkney, to carry out his plans. This prelate caught the spirit of his
superior, and a signal success rewarded his efforts. Processions of
the clergy were organised, and the exhibition of crosses, relics, and
religious banners, tended to increase the devoted courage of the
superstitious peasantry. The whole of the male population was called
to arms, and a certain victory was promised, with a quick transition
into paradise for those who perished on the field. Thirsk was the
rendezvous, and, as the news was carried through the province,
men-at-arms and knights came trooping in, attended by the desperate
peasantry, whose rude arms, and lack of defensive armour, but ill
befitted them for what promised to be so dubious and sanguinary an
enterprise.