1071 make a stand in the fens. they also returned to Denmark. Wherefore they thus suddenly withdrew is not told; but when we recollect in what manner William had on previous occasions averted Danish hostility, there can be no difficulty in conjecturing the arguments he employed. The English were thus, at length, entirely abandoned by the Danes; Hereward established himself in the Isle of Ely, and English more and more of the English resorted to him. It was now that Bishop Egelwine and Siward Barn came from the North, there being a most ready access to the fen-lands from the sea. Great was their confidence in their leader and in their position, so inaccessible, and so well supplied with the means of subsistence, the waters swarming with fish, and the numerous islands and eyots abounding with pasture; besides which, they had many ready means of communication with the adjoining country. blockades them. ? 28. William did not rush to the attack of William a position which, difficult as it might be to reduce, could not, if well watched, be very dangerous; the very marshes which constituted their protection, equally cutting them off from the rest of England. But they were encircled by his troops and his dungeon towers, commanding the surrounding means of access; and he made use of the antient Rech-dyke, the rampart of the Giants, as a line of defence, manning it with his soldiery. During this pause, he contrived to place himself in communication with Morcar, and induced him 1071 Morcar captured. Edwin. Is slain. 472 FATE OF EDWIN AND MORCAR. to come forth from Ely; so doing, he was seized, sent to Normandy, and placed in custody in the castle of Roger de Beaumont, who kept him in hard prison, in chains and fetters, whilst his (Roger's) son Henry was lording it in Warwick, that noble portion of Morcar's inheritance. Edwin now lived only to avenge his brother. He sought help everywhere, from Scots, from Cymri, from the English, instigating them against the stranger. Possibly he might yet have escaped; but English treachery surrendered him into the hands of his implacable enemies. Three Englishmen-three brothers, three of his most intimate followers-presented themselves before the Conqueror, bearing Edwin's gory head as an offering. It was they who had betrayed the fugitive, when he and a small and faithful band were hemmed in by a stream on the one side, and the rising tide on the other. Edwin and those with him fought bravely, but all were slain. William, as it is said, wept bitterly when he gazed upon the disfigured features. Instead of rewarding the traitors, he punished them by exile; but their crime taught him no mercy: Morcar continued in chains and fetters; all the remaining possessions of the family of Algar were confiscated, and widely distributed. sister, whom the Normans called Lucia an appellation probably substituted for some baptismal name uncouth to their ears-was bestowed in marriage upon Ivo Talboys, Lord of Holland, A and thus the line of the Earls of Mercia passed 1071 into a Norman family soon destined to decay. against the Isle of Ely. § 29. William, proceeding warily, now deter- Operations mined to crush the rebellion; he himself brought up all his disposable power against the insurgents, ships and engines, horse and foot, carrying on his operations by sea and by land. On the east, his navy closely blockaded the coast; his boats filled the streams, where there was sufficient water to float them. The operations began by the attempts which the besiegers made to pass the treacherous morass and shallow waters, for which purpose rafts and floating bridges were employed. This attempt was unsuccessful. Years afterwards, the bones and the armour found in the depths testified the failure of the devices employed. But the difficulty roused the skill of the Norman engineers a causeway was stretched along the marshes, which brought the invaders close up to the isle and its castellated monastery. Refectories and cloisters were filled with warriors. Amongst themselves were no incompetent defenders. It seems, however, English that provisions began to fail; escape was hopeless, and they all surrendered at the Conqueror's discretion, save Hereward alone, who escapes, as it were, from history into the mist of poetic fable; his form vanishing, as it were, amidst the giants and warriors of the mythic age. Did we not find, in the earliest and most authentic of our records, the dry, technical, legal entries starved out. 1072 Fate of unite with of his oxgang of land in Kesteven, held by Hereward, "die qua aufugiit," we might very plausibly maintain that the Hereward, the protector of the host, was entirely the creation of fancy, such as we are now taught to consider Numa or Romulus, the hero of an old song. § 30. Troubles and sorrows were now rising in Normandy, occasioning political anxiety and great anguish of mind to Matilda; but William, however much he might wish to give her his comfort, could not yet venture to quit England, for the northern parts continued to threaten disturbance. Waltheof and Gospatric had been permitted to retain a considerable degree of inThe English fluence and power; and there were even yet Malcolm, some other of the antient English nobles whom he could not immediately sweep away. And much might be dreaded from the influence of the English fugitives, Edgar and the many with him, now settling beyond the Tweed, and still more beyond the Forth, under the protection of the Scottish king, the husband of the lawful heiress of the English crown. Their influence, or more possibly, some depredations upon the borders, instigated the Scots to a desperate invasion. Malcolm's army, marching round through Cumberland, as yet his own territory, entered Northumbria proper, wasted and devastated Teesdale, Cleveland, and the greater portion of St. Cuthbert's territory. A great battle took place between him and the English, at the place called Who enters 1072 the Scots. Hundredeskeld, not far from the Darwent, and so called from the numerous streams with which the vicinity abounds. The old story is told of Ravages of the Scots throwing infants into the air, and receiving them on the points of their spears: this aggravation of cruelty is a mere tradition, often repeated, - - a conventional mode, so to speak, of describing their excesses. revenge. The incursion on the part of Malcolm was Gospatric's impolitic. Gospatric, who had been so lately received as a friend by Malcolm, retaliated by invading Cumberland, which he pillaged, carrying off his prey athwart the country, to his strong castle of Bamborough. Malcolm, on his part, carried off a great number of captives of every age, belonging to the class of the villeinage, so numerous, as it is said, that they formed a large proportion of the population of the land. Hostilities were stayed for a time; but, if William had endeavoured to play Gospatric off against Malcolm, by placing them as neighbours, no plan could have been better devised. William Malcolm's hostility furnished, however, to William a sufficient reason for asserting his supreme authority over the antient vassal of the Anglo-Saxon crown. He invaded Scotland, waliates by both by land and by sea, conducting the army Scotland. himself, and having Edric the Wild as the chief commander under him. Nothing whatever is told of the circumstances which caused Edric to adhere to the Conqueror, or the Conqueror invading |