He found no difficulty in suppressing the insurrection when he reached York, putting to the sword those of the insurgents who remained there after their leaders had fled towards Scotland. In order to prevent any future rising, with any possible chance of success or gleam of hope, he then meditated and carried out a cold-blooded scheme, which might have been deemed a measure of policy, but which for ferocity equalled any act of cruelty perpetrated by the most atrocious tyrant of pagan ages. He sent forth his men with swords and torches, to the north, the west, and the east, and for an extent of sixty miles, from York to Durham, by several miles in breadth, laid the country desolate. Villages, churches, monasteries, and castles, with the granaries of corn and the standing crops, were all destroyed by fire, and every person, man, woman, child, or priest, met with was slaughtered without mercy; and when the work had been accomplished, this vast extent of country bore the aspect of a Western American prairie after it had been swept by fire, leaving only the charred stumps of the trees standing, with this difference, however, that there only the half-burnt bodies of animals, such as were not able to escape by flight, are found; whilst here, scattered profusely on the wood-side, and round their once cheerful and happy homesteads, lay the rotting and putrefying corpses of human beings, on which the wolves and birds of prey were battening and gorging themselves; and it took many and many a year before this region recovered itself and became again a country of farmsteads and villages, of crops and fruit trees, and of an industrious population. William of Malmesbury says that not less than 100,000 persons perished in this fearful act of vengeance; and Alured of Beverley, a monkish writer, and treasurer of St. John's Church, states that "The Conqueror destroyed men, women, and children, from York even to the western sea, except those who fled to the church of the glorious confessor, the most blessed John, Archbishop, at Beverley, as the only asylum." An indisputable proof of the desolation wrought on the lands appears in the Domesday Book, which in most places in Yorkshire is described as waste or partially waste, and which is represented as of no value or of much less value than in King Edward's time; whilst in Beverley and the lands of St. John there is scarcely any waste mentioned, and the value is given as the same or nearly the same as in the reign of the Confessor. Under Bevreli we read, "Value in King Edward's time, to the Archbishop 24 pounds, to the Canons 20 pounds, the same as at present."
The King not only exempted the town and demesne from devastation, but became a notable benefactor thereto. He added to the possession of the church certain lands at Sigglesthorne, and granted the following confirmatory charter:—"William the King greets friendly all my Thanes in Yorkshire, French and English. Know ye that I have given St. John at Beverley sac and soc over all the lands which were given in King Edward's days to St. John's Minster, and also over the lands which Ealdred, the Archbishop, hath since obtained in my days, whether in this Thorp or in Campland. It shall all be free from me and all other men, excepting the Bishop and the Minster priests; and no man shall slay deer, nor violate what I have given to Christ and St. John. And I will that there shall be, for ever, monastic life and canonical congregation so long as any man liveth. God's blessing be with all Christian men who assist at this holy worship. Amen."
And from this time the town flourished greatly, and grew rapidly in population and wealth. As to the church, it became more than ever the resort of pilgrims, who left rich presents on the shrine of St. John. In the year 1188 the old Saxon church was destroyed by fire, which may be deemed a fortunate occurrence, as men were stimulated at this, the best period of Gothic architecture, to erect over the relics of St. John a structure worthy of his eminence and fame; and the outcome of this impulse was the uprising of the existing magnificent church, which is now the great architectural glory of the East Riding.
[The Beatified Sisters of Beverley.]
In the south aisle of the nave of Beverley Minster may be seen an uninscribed canopied altar tomb. It is a very fine specimen of the Early Decorated style, manifestly dating from the period of Edward II. or the earlier portion of the reign of his successor. It is covered with a massive slab of Purbeck marble, rising above which is an exquisitely proportioned pointed arch or canopy, with pinnacles and turrets, crocketted work and finials, all elaborately chiselled and carefully finished. History records not whose mortal remains are deposited in the tomb: there it stands like the Sphynx on the sands of Egypt, maintaining a mysterious silence as to its origin, "a thing of beauty," displaying its elegance of form and the charms of its sculptured features to all beholders; but seeming to say—"Admire the perfection of my symmetry if you will, but inquire not whose relics I enshrine, whether of noble or saint. Unlike my more gorgeous sister tomb, in the choir, near the altar, which blazons forth the glory of the Percys, I choose, with Christian humility, and recognising the fact that death renders all equal, and that in the sight of the Almighty Judge a Percy is no better for all his glories than the pauper—to draw a veil over the earthly greatness of the family to which I belong."
Although history is thus silent in respect to the origin of the tomb, tradition is less reticent, and from its oral records we learn, not perhaps all that can be desired, but a narrative that probably has a basis of truth.
About a mile westward of Beverley Westwood, on the road to York, lies the pretty picturesque village of Bishop Burton, with its church on an eminence commanding an extensive view of the Wold lands on one hand, and of the country sloping down to the Humber on the other. It is environed by groups of patriarchal trees, including a noble specimen of the witch elm on the village green, with a trunk forty-eight feet in circumference, and which is held in great veneration by the villagers; and in the valley below is a small lake, which doubtless supplied fish to the household of the Archbishops of York when they had a palace here. It is a very ancient village, dating from the Celtic period, when it formed a burial place of the Druids and British chieftains. One of the numerous tumuli was opened in 1826. It was seventy yards in circumference, and was found to contain several skeletons of our remote forefathers of that race. From some tesselated pavements which have been discovered, it appears also to have been occupied afterwards by the Romans.