Irritating the Conqueror

       In the year of our Lord 1066, the Lord, who ruleth all things, accomplished what He had long designed with respect to the English nation; giving them up to destruction by the fierce and crafty race of the Normans...

       Meanwhile, William Duke of Normandy, was inwardly irritated and deeply incensed...because Harold, committing perjury, had usurped the kingdom, which by right of relationship belonged to himself. William, therefore, assembling the principal men of Normandy, called on them to aid him in the conquest of England.

       Thus the hand of the Lord brought to pass the change which a remarkable comet had foreshadowed in the beginning of the same year: as it was said:

       "In the year 1066, all England was alarmed by a flaming comet."

                                                                 Henry of Huntingdon, History of the English (1129)

STERN BEYOND ALL MEASURE

Historians writing in the eleventh and twelfth centuries did not vary much in their assessments of William the Conqueror's character. The mildest of them was William of Malmesbury in his History of the Kings of England (1125):

       "On this account perhaps the conduct of the king may be reasonably excused if he was at any time rather severe against the English; for he scarcely found any of them faithful. This circumstance so exasperated his ferocious mind, that he deprived the more powerful, first of their wealth, next of their estates, and finally, some of their lives."

In an age-old defense of tyranny, William of Malmesbury claimed,

       "King William, conducting himself with mildness towards the obedient but with severity to the rebellious, possessed the whole of England in tranquillity...His anxiety for money is the only thing for which he can deservedly be blamed...I have no excuse whatever to offer, unless it be, as one has said, that 'Of necessity, he must fear many, whom many fear'. For through dread of his enemies, he used to drain the country of money, with which he might retard or repel their attacks."

Of the Normans generally, the chronicler is freer in his opinion. They are "a race inured to war, and can hardly live without it; fierce in rushing against the enemy; and where strength fails of success, ready to use stratagem or to corrupt by bribery". Their attitude towards themselves and others is equally fraught: "they envy their equals; wish to excel their superiors; and plunder their subjects, though they defend them from others."

He is probably at his most honest when, early in his account of the Conqueror, he says of the Battle of Hastings: "This was a fatal day to England, a melancholy havoc of our dear country, through its change of masters".

THE DEEDS OF SUPRESSION

There were a number of historians writing at or about the same time as William of Malmesbury ― the anonymous monks who updated their Anglo-Saxon Chronicle year after year, John of Worcester in his Chronicle of Chronicles (1128), and Henry of Huntingdon whose History of the English is quoted above. Together, these authors reveal a fairly shrewd measure of England's new king by reporting his actions for each of the first five years of his reign.

1066

After his victory at Hastings on 14th October, the Conqueror took a circuitous route to capture London. John of Worcester writes: 

"Meanwhile, earl William was laying waste Sussex, Kent, Hampshire, Surrey, Middlesex and Herefordshire, and ceased not from burning vills and slaughtering the inhabitants untill he came to a vill called Beorcham [Berkhampstead], where Aldred, the archbishop [of York], Wulstan, bishop of Worcester, Walter, bishop of Hereford, Edgar the etheling [next in line for the Anglo-Saxon kingship], the earls Edwin and Morcar [of Yorkshire and Northumbria], and some Londoners of the better sort, with many others, met him, and, giving hostages, made their submission, and swore fealty to him, but although he concluded a treaty with them, he still allowed his troops to burn and pillage."

1067

John of Worcester continues:

"After this [William's coronation at Westminster 25th December 1066], King William imposed on the English an unsupportable tax. He then marched into Devonshire and speedily reduced the city of Exeter, which the citizens and some English thanes [lesser Anglo-Saxon nobility] held against him...and the citizens submitted to the king, and paid him fealty."

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggests this victory was not easily won:

"After which he marched to Devonshire and beseiged Exeter eighteen days. Many of his army were slain, but he had promised them well and performed ill; the citizens surrendered the city, because the thanes had betrayed them."

William of Malmesbury adds a note of local defiance and disrespect:

"Indeed he had attacked it with more ferocity, asserting that those irreverent men would be deserted by God's favour, because one of them, standing upon the wall, had bared his posteriors, and had broken wind, in contempt of the Normans."

1068

Henry of Huntingdon writes:

"The king having given the earldom of Northumberland to Earl Robert [de Comines], the provincials slew him and 900 of his men [at Durham]; upon which Edgar the Etheling, with all the people of Northumberland, marched to York, and the townspeople made peace with him; but the king advancing northward with an army sacked the city and made great slaughter of the rebellious inhabitants, and Edgar retired to Scotland."

William of Malmesbury adds:

"He almost annihilated the city of York, that sole shelter of rebellion, and destroyed its citizens with sword and famine."

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle emphasises the unrestrained nature of the king's revenge:

"On which, King William came from the south with all his troops, and sacked the town, and slew many hundred persons. He also profaned St Peters [Yorkminster] and all other places..."

1069

John of Worcester notes the landing of a fleet of 240 Danish ships at the mouth of the Humber, which then is joined by "Edgar the etheling, earl Waltheof, Marlesweyn, and many others" in a second regional uprising:

"King William, receiving intelligence of this, immediately assembled an army, and hastened into Northumbria, giving way to his resentment; and spent the whole winter in laying waste to the country, slaughtering the inhabitants, and inflicting every sort of evil without cessation."

William of Malmesbury describes a deliberate policy of deprival:

"He then ordered both the towns and fields of the whole district to be laid waste; the fruits and grain to be destroyed by fire or water...Thus the resources of a province, once flourishing, and the nurse of tyrants, were cut off by fire, slaughter, and devastation; the ground for more than sixty miles, totally uncultivated and unproductive, remains bare to this day."

In a chilling postscript, John of Worcester notes the aftermath of the king's 'Harrying of the North':

"In consequence of the ravages of the Normans, first in Northumbria the preceding year [1068], and again in the present [1069] and following year [1070], throughout nearly the whole of England, so severe a famine prevailed in most parts of the kingdom, but chiefly in Northumbria and the adjacent provinces, that men were driven to feed on the flesh of horses, dogs, cats, and even of human beings."

1070

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports ongoing trouble from the Danes:

"The same year Sweyne came from Denmark into the Humber, and the people of those parts came to meet him and made an alliance with him, for they believed he would conquer the land. Then Danish bishop, Christien, and earl Osbiorn, and their Danish retainers, came into Ely, and all the people of the fens joined them, for they believed they should conquer the whole country. Now the monks of Peterborough were told that some of their own men, namely Hereward and his train, would pillage the monastery..."

John of Worcester records the harassed king tempted by church wealth:

"By advice of William, earl of Hereford, and some others, King William, during Lent, caused all the monasteries of England to be searched, and the money deposited in them by the richer sort of English, for security against his violence and rapacity, to be seized and carried to his own treasury."

1071

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continues the East Anglian story:

"The earl Morcar took ship and went to Ely...and Bishop Engelwine, and Siward Barn, and many hundreds with them came into Ely. And when King William heard this, he called out a fleet and army; and he surrounded that land, and he made a bridge and entered in, his fleet lying off the coast. Then all the outlaws surrendered...bishop Engelwine and earl Morcar and all who were with them, excepting only Hereward, and his followers whom he led off with great valour. And the king seized their ships, and arms, and much treasure; and he disposed of the men as he would."

John of Worcester provides further explanation of the rebel's defeat, including the meaning of the ominous phrase, "and he disposed of the men as he would".

"The king, hearing [that Morcar, Ethelwine, Siward Barn and Hereward had resorted to "the Isle of Ely], blocked up every outlet on the eastern side of the island by means of his boatmen, and caused a bridge, two miles long, to be constructed on the western side. When they saw they were thus shut in, they resisted no longer, and all surrendered themselves to the king, except the brave Hereward, who escaped through the fens [flooded marshland] with a few others. The king sent bishop Ethelwine to Abingdon, where he was imprisoned, and died the same winter. The earl and the rest were dispersed in various parts of England, some being placed in confinement, and others set at liberty with the loss of their hands or their eyes."

In the end, of course, the Conqueror won. He paid off the Danes with gold, and he pulverised the English into submission. The lesson, painfully learnt, was best expressed by Henry of Huntingdon:

When he plundered his subjects, not urged by his wants, but by excessive avarice,      however they might curse him in the bitterness of their hearts, 

he set at nought their muttered revenge.

It behoved everyone to submit to his will who had any regard for his favour,

or for his own money or lands, or even his life.

__________________________________________________________________________

SOURCES:

Maps:

'William the Conqueror's March on London 1066', Mike Cartwright, 2019,

from <worldhistory.org/William-the-Conqueror>

'Norman Conquest of Britain 1066-1086', Mike Cartwright, 2019,

from <worldhistory.org/william-the-conquerors-march-on-london>

World History Encyclopedia 

Text:

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. JA Giles, 1914 edition, <https://archive.org/stream/anglosaxonchroni00gile.pdf>

Henry of Huntingdon, 'History of the English', Historia Anglorum, trans. T Forester, 1853,

<https://archive.org/details/chroniclehenryh01foregoog.pdf>

John of Worcester, 'Chronicle of the Chronicles', Chronicon ex Chronicus, trans. T Forester, 1854, <bsswebsite.me.uk/History/JohnofWorcester/Chronicle-John2.html>

William of Malmesbury, 'Deeds of the English Kings', Gesta Regum Anglorum, trans. JA Giles 1847, 1908 edition, <https://archive.org/details/williammalmesbu00gilegoog.pdf>