“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[44] 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.