The Conquest and its Aftermath

Page 8 of 16

• 1. Collaboration
• 2. Odo and the Bayeux Tapestry
• 3. Orderic Vitalis
• 4. Robert D'Oilly
• 5. Land seizure
• 6. The Sheriff of Cambridge
• 7. The Rebellion of 1069
• 8. Retribution
• 9. Consolidation in the north
• 10. Treachery of the Earls
• 11. Hereward and the Isle of Ely
• 12. The taking of Ely
• 13. English exiles: the Varangian story
• 14. Domesday Book
• 15. Defending the Conquest
• 16. Find out more
• Print entire article

Retribution

William reacted with his customary brutal efficiency. Leaving Roger de Montgomery to deal with the Welsh raid of Eadric on his own, he himself marched north to York, building new castles at Warwick and Nottingham on the way. Once again, the castles did the trick. Simple motte and bailey structures of mounded earth and timber, which could be erected within as little as 6 days, they formed easily defensible strongpoints from which the Normans could exert control, and were potent psychological symbols of authority. The Mercian revolt crumbled.

'He did more than ravage just the city...'

Edwin and Morcar went on the run, and Eadric the Wild retreated back into Wales, unable to do any more than set fire to the surrounding town of Shrewsbury. William's northward march against the Northumbrians was as swift and surprising as Harold's on Stamford Bridge three years before. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle deals with it in two simple lines:

King William came on them by surprise from the south with an overwhelming army and routed them, killing those who could not escape - which was many hundreds of men - and he ravaged the city.

He did more than ravage just the city. Having spent Christmas up in York, rebuilding the castle and pacifying the area, he ordered the most notorious act of his reign: the so-called Harrying of the North. Northumbria was systematically ravaged, laying waste to the land, burning the crops and destroying the houses. The action caused a famine in Yorkshire which is graphically described by a chronicler in Durham: corpses decaying, survivors eating cats and dogs, no village left inhabited between York and Durham. Orderic Vitalis was not the only one to roundly vilify William for this act of cold brutality, though once again he is the most eloquent:

My narrative has frequently had occasion to praise William, but for this act which condemned the innocent and guilty alike to die by slow starvation I cannot commend him. For when I think of helpless children, young men in the prime of life, and hoary grey-beards alike perishing of hunger, I am so moved to pity that I would rather lament the griefs and sufferings of the wretched people than make a vain attempt to flatter the perpetrator of such infamy.

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Published: 2001-05-01