The year 1069 saw the only serious and determined attempt to overthrow the Norman rule. A great Danish fleet, sent by Sweyn Estrithson, arrived in the Humber, joined the Northumbrians, and marched on York. It was stormed and captured, and 30,000 foreign soldiers, it is said, were slain or taken. But that was all, and the peril died down before William’s vehement energy. The Danish fleet was bought off—William was as ready as Philip of Macedonia to use ‘silver spears.’ Then the King reoccupied York, and, lest any succeeding Scandinavian invasion should find a foothold, wrought the awful devastation of the north—the worst deed that stains his otherwise not ignoble character. The north, wasted and ruined, was at his feet, and the reappearance next year of Sweyn with a great fleet ended in a mere fiasco. The Danes and the East Anglian rebels did little but plunder abbeys, and after sundry useless demonstrations the Danes returned home.
There now remained in all England in arms against William only the gathering in the Isle of Ely under the famous outlaw Hereward. Thither came sundry English leaders, powerless and discredited, who now could only swell the band of an erstwhile obscure chief. Eadwine had already disappeared—slain, so says the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ by his own men. Morkere succeeded in reaching Ely; but at best the leaders were but a poor remnant. The position of Ely, surrounded by its waters, was strong; but the garrison was not sufficiently numerous to take the offensive with any hope of success. William fixed his headquarters at Cambridge; a fleet was collected and brought up the Wash, and the lines of investment were steadily drawn round the doomed stronghold. A causeway was driven across the fens, and when at last it reached firm land, after many checks and surprises inflicted by the watchful Hereward, Ely was forced to surrender. Legends have clustered thickly about the figure of Hereward ‘the Wake.’ He was certainly taken into William’s favour, and was commanding troops for him on the Continent some years later. The mass of the rank and file, however, were treated with what seems to us horrible barbarity, being maimed and mutilated wholesale. The punishment of death the ‘stark’ and terrible Conqueror was always very chary of inflicting. Famous as the defence of Ely has become, it is noteworthy that the Chronicle does not seem to regard it as other than an isolated incident in the struggle. It is at any rate clear that it could never have done more than temporarily check the progress of the Conqueror, just as eighteen centuries before the defence of Eira could only delay the Spartan conquest of Messenia.
With the fall of Ely the Norman Conquest of England was complete. The country settled down beneath the yoke of William with resignation if not cheerfulness, and the lack of further outbreaks seems to indicate that after all his rule was not worse than that of his immediate predecessors. Perhaps one explanation of this submissiveness is that the English thegnhood emigrated to Constantinople in large numbers, so that the nation lacked its natural leaders, but something must be set to William’s credit despite his many faults and crimes. The fear of foreign invasion died away; the Danish attacks in 1075 and 1085 were utterly futile. Englishmen, while they hated William as the destroyer of their independence, could not forget ‘the good peace that he made in this land; so that a man of any account might fare over his kingdom unhurt with his bosom full of gold.’ To keep the peace in a land was no slight thing in those days of feudal anarchy; and if the Norman Conquest was very far from being an unmixed benefit, it at least brought about a better sense of unity than had hitherto prevailed in England.
CHAPTER X
CONTINENTAL INVASIONS 1066–1545
Since 1066—a period of over eight centuries—there have been, apart from many sporadic raids, no great successful invasions of England. On two occasions relatively large forces have landed on these shores, but in both cases they had the support of a considerable part of the nation.
The first of these occasions was in 1216. King John’s tyranny had at last produced something like a general revolt—at any rate among his barons. His assent to Magna Carta, given on June 15, 1215, had proved a farce, and his mercenary armies were too strong for disorderly feudal and civic levies. Further, John had declared himself the vassal of Pope Innocent III., and thus ensured his support. The men of London, the chief baronial stronghold, stoutly withstood the thunders of Rome; but their military weakness forced them to apply for help to the Dauphin Louis, son of John’s great enemy, Philip Augustus of France, whom they acknowledged as King. Despite the opposition of the Pope, who finally excommunicated him, Louis invaded England early in 1216.
England had possessed no regular standing navy since the days of Edward the Confessor. The ports, however, had steadily increased in prosperity during the generally peaceful period 1066–1216; and John, living in fear of invasion, had kept up a large naval force collected from them. It is at this time that the association of the Cinque Ports becomes prominent, and, besides London, Yarmouth, Fowey, Bristol, and other places, could send out hundreds of small but well-manned craft. In 1214, under John’s gallant half-brother, William ‘Longsword,’ they had gained the famous victory of Damme. Their effectiveness was much diminished by their lack of discipline and bloody feuds, but when united they were formidable. John had succeeded in conciliating them, and had they met Louis at sea he would hardly have landed. But in 1216, as in 1066, the English fleet was wind-bound, and Louis landed in Thanet on May 21.
The operations that followed are devoid of interest, owing to their aimlessness. Most of the south-east submitted to Louis, except Dover, which made a magnificent resistance under Hubert de Burgh. A memento of Louis’s domination survives in the name of a row of ancient houses at St. Albans, which are said to have lodged some of his followers. King John made an attempt to come to the relief of his faithful officer, but lost his baggage and treasure in the treacherous shallows of the Wash, and died at Newark on October 19.