Other freeholders become tenants of the crown.
In the rest of England, those of the native landowners who had not fought at Hastings were allowed to "buy back their lands." That is, they paid William a fine, made him a formal surrender of their estates, and then received them back from him under the new feudal obligations, becoming tenants-in-chief of the crown; agreeing to hold their manors directly from the king as his personal dependents and vassals. So there was no longer any land in England held by the old German freehold tenure, where every man was the sole proprietor of his own soil.
Risings in the west and north.
If things had stopped here, northern England would have remained in the hands of the old landholders, while southern England passed away to Norman lords. But the rapacious followers of the Conqueror were soon to get foot in the north also. William went back to Normandy in 1067, leaving his brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, regent in his stead. The moment that he was gone, the new settlers began to treat the English with a contempt and cruelty which they had not dared to show in their master's presence, and Odo rather encouraged than rebuked them. There followed the natural result, a widespread rising in those parts of England which had not yet felt the Norman sword. Unfortunately for themselves, the English rose with no general plan, and with no unity of purpose, every district fighting for its own hand. The western counties sent for the two sons of Harold, who came to Exeter, and were there saluted as hereditary chiefs of Wessex. But in Northumbria the insurgents proclaimed the Etheling Eadgar as king; and in Mercia there arose a thegn, Eadric the Wild, who was descended from the wicked Eadric Streona, and wished to reassert hereditary claims to his ancestor's earldom.
The rebels subdued.—Further confiscations.
William immediately returned to England, and attacked the rebels. They gave each other no aid; each district was subdued without receiving any succour from its neighbour. William first marched against Exeter, took it after a long siege, and drove the young sons of Harold over sea to Ireland. Then he moved into Mercia, and chased Eadric the Wild into Wales, clearing Gloucestershire and Worcestershire of insurgents. The North made a perfunctory submission, and a Norman earl, Robert de Comines, was set over it. These abortive insurrections led to much confiscation of landed property in the west and north, which was at once portioned out among William's military retainers (1068).
Second rising in Northumbria.—Yorkshire desolated.
But there was hard fighting to follow. In the spring of 1069 a second and more serious rising broke out in Northumbria. The insurgents took Durham, slew Earl Robert, and sent to ask the aid of the Kings of Scotland and Denmark. They were headed by Waltheof, Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon, the son of that Siward who had vanquished Macbeth. Both the monarchs who had been asked for aid consented to join the rebels. Malcolm Canmore of Scotland had married Margaret, the sister of the Etheling Eadgar, and thought himself bound to aid his brother-in-law. Swegen of Denmark, on the other hand, had hopes of the English crown, to which, as Cnut's successor, he thought he might lay some claim. Waltheof and his army ere long took York, and killed or captured the whole Norman garrison. But after this success the allies drifted apart; Swegen did not care to make Eadgar King of England, and Eadgar's party were angry with the Danes for ravaging and plundering on their own account. When William came up against York with a great host, the Danes took to their ships and left the English unaided. William was too strong for the Northumbrians; he routed them, retook York, and then set to work to punish the country for its twice repeated rebellion. He harried the whole of the fertile Yorkshire plain, from the Humber to the Tees, with fire and sword. The entire population was slain, starved, or driven away. Many fled to Scotland and settled there; others took to the woods and lived like savages. Several years passed before any one ventured forth again to till the wasted lands, and when the great Domesday Book was compiled—nearly twenty years after—it recorded that Yorkshire was still an almost unpeopled wilderness. While William was venting his wrath on the unfortunate Northumbrians, the Danish king, instead of aiding the insurgents, sailed up the Nen to Peterborough, and sacked its great abbey, the pride of the Fenland; this act completely ruined the already failing cause of the English, who would not trust the Danes any longer.
Final subjugation of the west—Hereward the Wake.