William the Conqueror and the Rule of the Normans

by F. M. Stenton

Other matters than the fortifications of York demanded King William’s attention at this time. Danger was threatening from the side of Scotland, for the rebels had sought the help of King Malcolm Canmore, and a great army was gathering beyond the Tweed. The northern frontier of England was as yet unprotected by the castles of Berwick and Carlisle, and on the west the possessions of the king of Scots extended as far south as Morecambe Bay. Also the best English authority asserts that Edgar the Etheling and his friends had already taken refuge with King Malcolm on their flight from William’s court, and the marriage of the etheling’s sister to the Scottish king was very shortly to make the northern kingdom a point d’appui for all unquiet nationalists in England. There was clearly good reason for William to define his position with regard to the king of Scots, and this the more as it would give him an opportunity of claiming fealty as well as submission at a moment when he was all-powerful in the north. An ambassador was found in the person of Bishop Ethelwine of Durham, who had revolted with the rest of Northumbria, but had made his peace with the Conqueror, and conducted the present business to a successful issue. King Malcolm sent representatives to York in company with the bishop of Durham, and according to the Norman account they swore fealty to William in the name of their master. It was no part of the Conqueror’s plan to engage in an unnecessary war in Scotland, and, all the purposes of his northern journey being for the present accomplished, he turned south again by way of Lincoln, Huntingdon, and Cambridge, at each of which places the inevitable castle was raised and garrisoned.[^[210]]

Denier of Baldwin of Lille

CHAPTER VII
THE DANISH INVASION AND ITS SEQUEL

The year 1068 had closed under a specious appearance of peace, and the only result of the revolts of Exeter and York had been a proof of the futility of isolated resistance to a king who could strike with equal decision at the west or north. The following year opened with two north-country risings which formed an unconcerted prelude to fifteen months of incessant strife, in which the strength of the Norman hold on England was finally tested and proved. The flight of Gospatric in the previous summer had vacated the Bernician earldom, and at the beginning of 1069 the Conqueror tried the experiment of appointing a Norman[Norman] baron to the command of the border province. His choice fell on one Robert de Comines, who immediately set out for the north at the head of a force of five hundred knights. The news of his appointment preceded him, and the men of Northumbria, who had enjoyed virtual independence for two years, were not minded to submit quietly to the rule of a foreign earl. A league was accordingly formed, the members of which bound themselves either to kill the stranger or to perish in the attempt. Bishop Ethelwine of Durham had evidently heard rumours of the plot, for as the earl approached Durham he was met by the bishop, who warned him of the impending danger. Robert took no heed, and his troops behaved badly as they entered Durham, killing certain of the bishop’s humbler tenants, but meeting no armed opposition. The earl was entertained in a house belonging to the bishop, and his men were quartered all over the town, in open defiance of the bishop’s warning. But during the night a large body of Northumbrians moved up to the city, and as dawn broke they burst through the gates and began a deliberate massacre of the Frenchmen. The surprise was complete, but the earl and his immediate companions were aroused in time to enable them to make a fight for their lives. They could expect no quarter, and their defence was so desperate that the rebels were unable to break into the house, and at last set it on fire, the earl and his men perishing in the flames. Of the five hundred Normans in Durham, only one survivor made his escape.[^[211]]

YORKSHIRE
1066–1087

This episode was quickly followed by the death of Robert Fitz Richard, the governor of York, who perished with a number of his men in an obscure struggle, which nevertheless left the castle untaken in Norman hands. Encouraged by these events, Edgar the Etheling, Marleswegen, Archil, and Gospatric reappeared upon the scene, and made a determined attack upon the fortress, so that William Malet, who would appear to have become castellan on Robert Fitz Richard’s death, sent an urgent message to the king, saying that he must surrender at once unless he received reinforcements. Upon receiving this appeal, the Conqueror flew in person to York, scattered the rebels with heavy loss, and planted a second castle within a few hundred yards of the first, but on the opposite bank of the Ouse. This fortress, of which the mound, known as the Baile Hill, still rests against the city wall, was committed to the charge of no less a person than Earl William Fitz Osbern, and the king after eight days returned to Winchester to keep his Easter feast there. His departure was followed by a renewal of the English attack, now directed against both the castles, but William Fitz Osbern and his men gave a good account of themselves against the insurgents.[^[212]]

It was, however, apparent by this time that a spirit of revolt was generally abroad, and Queen Matilda was sent back into Normandy to assume command of the duchy once more. No very coherent narrative of the military events of this year can be extracted from the confused tale of Ordericus Vitalis or the jejune annals of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but the outline of the history is fairly plain. We seem to recognise three distinct areas of revolt: Devon and Somerset, Shropshire and Staffordshire, and, most dangerous of all, Yorkshire and the north. We have no reason to suppose that the English leaders had any thought of uniting in common resistance to the Norman rule; their plans extended to nothing more than the destruction of single fortresses, the execution of isolated revenge for local injuries. On the other hand the dispersion of the centres of revolt incidentally produced some of the effects of combination; the Normans were compelled to divide their forces, and the rapidity with which King William dashed about the country from point to point proved that he at least thought the situation sufficiently precarious.