Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Library of Universal History and Popular Science, Vol. 7 of 25: Containing a Record of the Human Race From the Earliest Historical Period to the Present Time; Embracing a General Survey of the Progress of Mankind in National and Social Life, Civil Government, Religion, Literature, Science and Art
King William's absence from England was a disaster to the king dom, as his officers were neither so just nor so wise as their master; and their violence and avarice excited animosity between the Normans and the Anglo - Saxons, which was not appeased for several centuries. About half of England yet remained unconquered. The men of the Danelagh scorned submission to the Norman Conqueror, and offered their homage to Sweyn II., King of Denmark, who entered the Humber with a large ?eet and army in A. D. 1069 and besieged and took York, massacring the Norman garrison of three thousand men.
Great numbers of the English, who had hitherto smothered their dis content, now felt encouraged to cast off the Norman yoke, and the kingdom was everywhere ready for revolt. But William the Conqueror now acted with exceeding and effectual severity. After bribing the Danish invaders to return to Denmark, he turned upon the armed rebels of the Danelagh with a tiger - like ferocity; ravaging the sea-board so that no Dane should find either foothold or plunder thereafter, and lay ing waste with fire and sword the old fertile region of Deira, between the Humber and the Tees, the heart of the rebellion. The devastation was so complete that for the space of sixty miles north of York the entire region remained for half a century without a human being, a barren waste, and marked only by blackened ruins. One hundred thou sand people, who had ?ed from their homes to the woods when William appeared, died of starvation after returning to the ashes of their homes.
This cruel work was performed in midwinter, but the hard-hearted king at once started for the West of England, where the revolt was still formidable; the starving army toiling painfully on its way, with the tireless king at its head, through an unbroken wilderness, covered with snow drifts and crossed by swollen streams; and with the fall of Chester the rebellion was virtually ended.
Many of the vanquished Danes and Saxons took to the woods as robbers and outlaws. Others proceeded to Constantinople and enlisted in the guards of the Eastern Emperor. Many of the fugitive Danish and Saxon nobles were hospitably received by Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland; among them being Edgar the Atheling and his two sis ters, one of whom married the Scottish king.
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