THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
CXXXI.---YORKSUIRE :-TLIE NORMAN CONQUEST AND PARTITION.
T"period from the death of Edward the Confessor to the final subjugation of Yorkshire by the Normans is one of great events, but of the greatest misery for that county. The North of England was at the date of the election of Harold, son of Godwine, under the rule of the house of Leofric, Yorkshire being governed by Earl Morkere. Tostig, the dispossessed Earl of Northumbria, after making several unsuccessful attempts on the Isle of Wight and Lincolnshire, is said to have sought help from the Norwegian King, Harold Hardreda. Whether the Scandi- navian expedition was not prepared quite independently of this application is more than doubtful ; but, in any case, Harold of Norway sailed for the coast of England with a great armament, and was joined by Tostig in the 1yne, in September, 1066, and troops sent by Malcolm of Scotland also swelled the invading forces. The fleet then sailed along the coast southwards, plunder- ing. " The coast of Cleveland was ravaged, and the district sub- mitted without resistance. At Scarborough a better spirit was shown. When the Northmen landed the men of the town dared to meet the invaders in arms." But the Northmen " raised a vast pile of wood " on the heights above the town, where the ruins of burning timbers down (upon the town ; house after house caught fire ; the town now surrendered, but it was none the less given up to slaughter and"plunder. The whole coast now submitted ; the men of Ilolderness alone, like the men of Scarborough, venturing bravely but unsuccessfullyton local resistance." The Scandinavian fleet then passed up the estuary of the Humber, " and at last they cast anchor on a spot on thejleft bank of the Ouse, not far from the village of Riccall. They were now at a distance by land of about nine miles from York, but the windings of the river made the distance by water considerably greater." While " a detachment, under the command of Olaf the son of the Norwegian King, of the two Earls of Orkney, and of,the:Bishop of those islands, was left to guard the ships, the main body, under Harold and Tostig," marched on York, from which city a large English army, under the Earls Eadwine and Morkere, marched forth to meet them. Passing along a ridge of land between Selby and York, they encountered each other at a spot "known as Gate Fulford, about two miles" from York. The battle began (on September 20th) favourably for the English, but they were broken and routed by a charge under Harold Hardreda:himself. The slaughter was great ; many in their flight were hurled into the river or marsh, and the remnant took ahelter:in:York. In a few days that city capitulated to the victors, the citizens at a gemot agreeing to recognize Harold as Lord of Northumbria, and to aid him in his invasion of the South of England. Provisions were supplied to the army, and hostages mutually given. Hostages from the whole shire were to be given on a future:pay at Stamford Bridge, the situation of which place (nine miles from York by the present road) we have already mentioned. On the right bank of the river Derwent, three miles above Stamford Bridge, is Aldby, a residence of the Northumbrian Kings, and the site, Mr. Freeman conjectures, of the Roman station OILDERVENTIO. He attributes the movement of the Norwegian King in this direction, to the necessity which there was of quartering the army on a new district for supplies of provisions, and to the existence of this royal place of residence. At any rate, at Stamford Bridge the Norwegian army awaited the attack of Harold the Saxon, who was marching rapidly along the Roman road, from London to York, and had reached Tadcaster on the day of the capitulation of York (September 24th). From Tadca.ster the English marched on along the portion of the Roman roadway still called in the locality High Street, and on the 25th:entered York, and passed through without delay, and on the sameday, to encounter the enemy. The battle of Stamford Bridge which ensued belongs to the general history of England, and nee I only:be (recorded here so far as its result is concerned. Both Harold Hardreda and Tostig fell, and their army was thoroughly routed, though with heavy loss to the English. The Saxon :King] then sent to the leaders of the forces left to guard the Norwegian ships, and offered them peace, which they accepted, came to the king, gave hostages and swore oaths of peace and friendship, and then sailed away in four-and- twenty ships from the English shores. At York, meanwhile, a great feast was held in honour of King Harold's victory, and there and then the news reached him of the landing of William of Normandy on the coast of Sussex on the 28th of September, and he had to hasten southwards to oppose this new invader.
The submission of London to William the Bastard, and his coronation in that city,"were immediately followed by the personal submission of Earls Eadwine and Morkere, and of Copsi, who had been Tostig's deputy in Northumbria while he ruled that earldom ; and the King carried the':two earls with him in his train to Normandy. To Copsi he gave the government of the northern part of Northumbria, which had been (as we have seen) entrusted by Earl Morkero to Oswulf, son of the Earl Eadwulf whom Siward murdered. The people resisted, and Oswulf had to be expelled by force, and wandered about for some time in the woods. He then surprised Copsi at Newburn, on the Humber, pursued him to the neighbouring church, set it on fire, and slew Copsi at the door (March 12, 1067). Oswulf, however, soon afterwards perished by the spear of a robber, and Gospatric, a grandson of Earl Uhtred of Northumbria, claimed the vacant earldom by right of descent, and obtained a grant of it in consideration of a large sum of money. But King William had no sooner returned to England, and released the Earls Eadwine and Morkere from their forced attendance on him, than they, irritated at the treatment they had received in Normandy, and humiliated at the position to which they found the great Saxon nobles degraded, entered into a con- spiracy against the Norman King, in which they were joined, among others, by the new Earl of the northern part of Northumbria, Gospatric. But the hearts of Eadwine and Morkere failed them once more when they were confronted with the King's army near
Warwick, and they again submitted without a battle. The bitterest hatred, however, continued to prevail in Northumbria towards the Normans. Edgar the ZEtheling had fled thither from William's Court. The citizens of York were not deterred by the defection of their Archbishop. A general rising took place, and many swore never to sleep in a house till the enemy were driven out of the kingdom. Whatever may have been the barbarities committed by these wild insurgents, it is not easy to avoid sym- pathy with them in their struggle for independence, for there certainly were within them the elements of orderly though free self-government. The march of the Conqueror, however, crushed all resistance. Earl Gospatric, the great thane Maerlesweyn, and the 1Etheling Edgar, with his mother and sisters, fled to Scotland, where King Malcolm soon afterwards married (against her will) the Lady Margaret. York surrendered to the Normans, seemingly without a struggle, the noblest hostages were delivered to William, and Archil, the most powerful thane of the Northumbrians, made his submission, giving his son as a pledge of his fidelity. Two strong castles were erected at York, and committed to the custody of William Malet and Robert Fitz-Richard, with 500 horsemen. In the ensuing year (1069) William sent Robert of Comines with 700 men to administer the county of Durham. The inhabitants rose upon him throughout the district between the Tees and the northern or 7yne-Derwent, and he perished in the flames of the episcopal residence in Durham. Only a few days after this occurrence, Robert Fitz-Richard was slain at York, with a considerable number of his followers. William Malet maintained himself in the other castle built at that city, and sent for assistance to the King. He was attacked by an Anglo-Saxon. force from Scotland, headed by Edgar the 2Etheling, Gospatric, and 'Maerlesweyn, but was relieved by the sudden arrival of King William, who left a reinforcement in York, under the command of William Fitz-Osbern, and himself returned southwards to Win- chester. The Saxons, marching again upon York, were met and routed by Fitz-Osbern. The next event of importance in this quarter was the arrival of a Danish fleet in the mouth of the- Humber, under the two eldest sons of King Svend Estrithson, of their uncle Asbiirn, who had been formerly banished from England,. and of the Jarl Thorkell. They had been repulsed at several other points of the coast, but on their arrival in the Humber they were joined, by Gospatric, Maerlesweyn, Archill, Waltheof, and other Anglo-Saxon chiefs, while Edgar the IEtheling made an un- successful raid into Lincolnshire. King William sent word to his commanders in York to act with caution, and to send for him if necessary ; but they declared they should not require aid for a year, as they had above 3,000 Normans already. As a precaution they burned those houses of the citizens of York that lay round the castles, but the flames spreading, consumed the greater part of the- city, with the Minster of St. Peter (September 19th). The Danish fleet meanwhile sailed up the Ouse, and on the third day the allies appeared before the walls of York, and on the same day succeeded in taking the castles by storm. The garrisons, with the exception of William Malet and a few others, saved for the sake of their ransom-money, were put to the sword. King William was for some time detained by insur- rections in other parts of the kingdom, but at length marched. northwards, crushing resistance wherever he appeared. He was- detained three weeks at Pontefract by the swollen state of the .lire, but at last discovering a practicable ford, proceeded to York. The Danes had abandoned the city on his approach, and William. now bought the Jarl Asbiirn by large promise of gold to hold his. countrymen in a state of inaction on the coast till the spring and. then return with them to Denmark. The King, leaving a part of his forces to occupy York and rebuild the castles, and sending another portion to watch the Danes on the Humber, himself marched in pursuit of the insurgent Northumbrians. Not content with ordinary means of vengeance, he collected all the food and provisions for the future of the wretched inhabitants and destroyed them. A famine in consequence raged for more than a year, some of the people are even said to have been driven to cannibalism ; "hunger forced many to sell themselves and their families into perpetual slavery." Conjecture has carried the number of those that perished as high as 100,000. The corpses lay rotting in the houses and streets and public roads, no one remaining to bury the dead. Northumbria and the parts adjacent became " one vast desert, where no one for the next ten years would settle with the- object of cultivating the land ; and even after the lapse of more than half a century, tracts of above sixty miles in extent were still in a state of desolation. On the once frequented road. from York to Durham, as far as •the eye could reach, not a single inhabited village was to be seen. In ruins and caverns.
dwelt only crews of robbers and wolves for the destruction of the traveller."
After this infamous act of vengeance, King William spent his Christmas at York, whither he caused the crown and other regalia to be brought from Winchester. Large districts in York- shire, particularly the possessions of the Earls Eadwine and Morkere, who had taken part in the last rising, were now bestowed on the King's adherents. " Alan Fergant (the Red), Count of Brittany, received in Yorkshirt lands on which he erected the castle of Richmond; Gilbert de Lacy received Ponte- fract; a Fleming—Drago Bruiere, Odo of Champagne, Gamel — son of Ketil of Meaux, and others received vast grants of land, but which scarcely afforded them a scanty subsistence." The King then marched to the Tees, and spent a fortnight there, during which time Earl Waltheof made his submission in person, Gospatric renewed his oath of fealty by proxy and was reinstated in his earldom, while Edgar the JEtheling and the other Saxon leaders took shipping for Scotland. William then returned to York by a way untrodden up to that time by an army, through a thick snow, a great number of his horses perishing from the cold, and the King himself losing his way, and passing a whole night with only six knights, unable to find his army. After arranging matters at York, he left the county for Cheshire. Scarcely had he done so, when King Malcolm burst into it from Cumberland, under pretext of assisting, the /Etheling, and plundered or burnt nearly all that William had left untouched, carrying away with him from the north-eastern counties of England numbers of the inhabitants into Scotland, where they remained as slaves in the households of the Scots. " Sixteen years after " these devas- tations, " the value of land in Yorkshire was still only about a fourth of what it had been under the Confessor, and the popula- tion perhaps only a third. Henceforth William had nothing to fear from the North."
"The most powerful Norman barons established in Yorkshire after the Conquest, or within the next half-century, were (besides those already mentioned) those of Percy, Mowbray, and Cllfford. At a later period appear the Scropes of Upsall and Bolton. William de Percy is said to have married a daughter of the great Saxon Earl Gospatric, of whose lands at Seaner, near Scarborough, he had taken possession. He received from the Conqueror eighty lordships in Yorkshire, including Topcliffe and Spofforth, where were the chief Percy strongholds, until in 1309 Antony Bek, the great Bishop of Durham, granted and sold the barony of Alnwick to Henry, Lord Percy. The Lacy fee extended, for the most part, round Pontefract ; the great illowbray Castle was Thirsk, and the northern portion of the so-called plain of York, the compara- tive level or valley between the hill ranges east and west, was almost entirely in their hands. The Clijibrds, from Skipton Castle, ruled much of Craven and the adjoining country, and the ' Honour of Richmond' was supreme in the north-west."
" These great Norman lords and their sub-infeudatories seem to have been active in church-building after Yorkshire had somewhat recovered from the Conqueror's devastation." To them are due many small Norman churches still extant, "but it was not until the twelfth century that Yorkshire became rich in those great monastic houses which from that time formed one of the great features of the county."
Previous page
