A short history of the Norman Conquest of England

by Edward A. Freeman

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.