to the detriment of the Normans, numberless bold adventures, which failed not to excite the admiration of his adversaries. But if the Normans were unable to extirpate the band of Hereward, the latter were too few to inflict any very serious injury on their adversaries. The Danes under Asbiörn had at this time betaken themselves to Ely, which they quitted after a short stay. Of this opportunity-why not earlier we are not informed-the earls Eadwine and Morkere, who for two years had been living amid the pomp of the royal court, although really in a state of durance, availed themselves to flee from that and greater evils to be apprehended. Not finding the general disposition favourable to a revolt, Morkere fled to Ely, where Hereward had constructed a fort of wood, which served as a place of refuge and a gathering spot for his adherents. Morkere found here the bishop of Durham, Ægelwine, who had returned from Scotland, probably also Frederic, abbot of St. Alban's1, also Siward Barn and others, who had either not sworn fealty to the conqueror or, in consequence of his breach of faith, considered themselves released from their oath2. They prepared themselves to pass the winter here, protected by the inaccessibility of the place, when the king, perceiving the danger with which the trans

1 Hist. Abb. S. Albani. Thom. Eliens. Hist. in Anglia Sacra, i. p. 609, where, under the name of Egfridus, abbot Frederic is, no doubt, meant. In the same place it is also related, that Willelmus, Herefordensis episcopus, suggested to the king measures against Ely, where the editors emend William into Walter, whereby the foregoing statement relative to this bishop would receive a new refutation. I should, however, be more inclined to change episcopi into comitis, as Walter was not among the intimate friends of the king, while William fitz Osbern is known also as the adversary of the Anglo-Saxon monasteries.

2 Thierry infers the presence of Stigand from Thomas of Ely. But it is hardly credible that the Anglo-Saxons would not have mentioned the circumstance with praise, and that the Normans would not have reckoned it among his transgressions. Some ground for the supposition is, indeed, afforded by the Annales Wintonienses, where it is said that Stigand was not imprisoned till the year 1072. But this is too late to be connected with Morkere's capture.

formation of an asylum of a few outlaws into a rendezvous of the old nationality threatened him, spared neither promises, nor threats, nor preparations to dissolve the Anglo-Saxon confederacy. On the east of the isle he posted his “butsecarls," for the purpose of obstructing all egress on that side. On the west he caused a large causeway to be thrown up, two miles in length, to enable him to send his cavalry against the insurgents. Yielding to the sapient counsel of one of his commanders, Yvo Taillebois, from Anjou, lord of Holand, William caused a sorceress to cast her spells over the besiegers; but who was burnt by the bold Hereward and his men, together with the wooden tower in which she had been drawn near to the fort. Many a daring exploit was achieved by the brave adventurer, which afforded delight even to the Normans themselves. Among others, it is related how Yvo Taillebois with a numerous army, with which he boastingly swore he would drive the banditti from their forests and lurking places, entered their retreat on one side, while Thorold, the Norman successor of Brand, with several persons of note, remained behind, all of whom Hereward, issuing forth and coming round from the other side, captured without difficulty, and did not release them until he had received a ransom of three thousand marks weight of silver1. But the weakness of the Anglo-Saxons soon again appeared manifest. Morkere was seduced by the fair promises of the king to return to him. Bishop Ægelwine and the rest, with the exception of Hereward and his band, surrendered to William 2, who, in violation of his word, ordered them to be treated as rebels, and, only sparing their lives, to be cast into prison, or sent home, either blinded or with the loss of hands and feet. Bishop Ægelwine was imprisoned at Abingdon, where he died

1 Petri Blesensis Cont. ad Ingulphi Hist. p. 125.

2 Sax. Chron. Flor. Wigorn. a. 1071. It is singular that Orderic Vitalis, p. 521 (Maseres, p. 248), represents Morkere as less culpable, and the king as more treacherous than the above Anglo-Saxon authorities.

the following winter. Morkere was committed to the custody of Roger of Beaumont, in whose castle in Normandy1 he passed a miserable life in chains. Eadwine, bitterly exasperated by this new treachery, resolved on avenging his brother and his people. He gathered a band of faithful AngloSaxons and leagued himself with Scots and Welsh. Exalted birth, wealth derived from his forefathers, great personal beauty, liberality, kindness of disposition-all these combined to render Eadwine, more than any other Anglo-Saxon, beloved by the Normans, who had been in the habit of regarding him as one of themselves: and William, since his coronation, had no other adversary to fear than this. Of this care he was relieved by treachery. Eadwine, after having for six months striven to find partisans, to incite, unite, and order them, was betrayed by three brothers among his "huscarls" to the Normans, who surprised him with twenty of his warriors on their way to Scotland, not far from the sea, when being arrested in their progress by the swell of a rivulet at flood-tide, they were all massacred2. The king confiscated the vast estates of both earls, yet did not venture to applaud the murder, but feigned to share in the general sympathy for the fate of these unfortunate victims, by banishing the disappointed, rapacious assassins. Of Ælfgar's race there still remained a daughter, whom the king, according to the feudal law, bestowed, as his ward, on Yvo Taillebois, the most detested of the foreigners, together with the family possessions of that race in Holand.

Hereward strove for some time to maintain himself in his isolated warfare. Finding help and friends in all the country people, he frequently succeeded in deceiving the Normans

At Beaumont-le-Roger, dep. Lower Seine.

2 It is a mistake that Eadwine was slain in the Isle of Ely (Palgrave, Engl. Comm. ii. p. ccxcii.), or, as Thierry says, that he sojourned there. We must also notice another of his errors, viz. that he places this event in the year 1072, and in the same year makes the Danes leave England, who took their departure in 1070.

M

and causing them sensible loss. When Gilbert of Clare and William of Warenne, the king's son-in-law, had made themselves masters of Ely, Hereward fled to the fens of Lincolnshire. Fishermen conveyed him and his adherents in their boats, concealed under heaps of straw, into a fort there occupied by the Normans. The well-known fishermen were received with welcome by the garrison, and a repast was prepared of their capture. But scarcely had the men of the fort sat down to their meal, when Hereward and his followers started up from the straw, slew their unarmed adversaries, and mounted their ready-saddled horses'. Not until he felt convinced that all his efforts were vain, did Hereward, together with Eadric the Forester and other right-minded, valiant men, demand and obtain an honourable capitulation from the Conqueror. Elfthryth, a rich Anglo-Saxon lady, captivated by his fame, offered him her hand, and allured him to the enjoyment of a more tranquil life. But her love does not seem to have had the influence it merited over this restless man he fled again, but after a while returned to his country, which after a lapse of many years, received his bones in her maternal lap at Crowland 4. His memory appears to have been soon effaced in England, and has been preserved chiefly in the chronicles of some monasteries in the neighbourhood of Ely 5.

The subjugation of these desultory enemies William left to 1 Geoffroy Gaimar, in Michel, Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, t. i. Rouen, 1836.

2 Geof. Gaimar. [History is silent as to the fate of his first wife.-T.] 3 Herewardum die quæ aufugit.-Terram S. Guthlaci.......Vlchel abbatem commendasse eam ad firmam Herewardo....sed abbas resaisivit eam antequam Herewardus de patria fugeret, eo quod conventionem non tenuisset. Clamores de Chetsteven in Domesday, i. fol. 376 b., 377.

4 Ingulph. p. 511 b. edit. 1596. According to Gaimar, he was, during an armistice or safe-conduct granted by the king, attacked while at dinner by some Normans and slain.

5 Crowland, Peterborough, and Ely. An old narrative, "De Gestis Herewardi," is mentioned by Cooper on the Public Records, ii. p. 165.

his knights and to time, while he himself strove to destroy the hotbed of every important conspiracy, the asylum of all his foes. In the following year (1072), therefore, he marched with a strong army, composed chiefly of cavalry, to Scotland', to the coast of which he had also despatched a fleet. He met with no considerable resistance, and when he had advanced, across the Forth, as far as Abernethy on the Tay, he was met by king Malcolm Canmore with offers of submission and hostages for his fidelity, among which was his own. son 2. On his return William passed through Durham, where he found the successor, whom he and Lanfranc had appointed to bishop Ægelwine, named Walchere, a man highly esteemed for his upright life and his knowledge, of a family of consideration, in Lorraine, though he had previously lived at Liege3; and for which reason was, perhaps, nominated to a see but little suited to a Norman. At Durham the king caused a new castle to be constructed, and, in the place of Gospatric, whom he banished, under the pretext, that, three years before, he had secretly instigated the murder of Robert Cumin, and taken an active part in the insurrection at York against the Normans, bestowed the earldom on Waltheof, the son of Siward, who had recently submitted to his authority. Gospatric fled to king Malcolm, who at first did not receive him; but, after he had passed some time in Flanders, bestowed on him Dunbar, with its demesne lands in Lothian. His property in England does not appear to have been all confiscated, as at a later period we find much of it as fiefs held either by himself or his sons, Dolfin and Gospatric, though not in every case immediately of the king. His other son, Waltheof

He was accompanied by Eadric the Forester. Flor. Wigorn. h.a. 2 Among the homages rendered by the Scottish kings, this one is particularly a subject of difference; though the chronicles, although not explicit as to the extent of the subjection, yet leave no doubt with regard to the fact itself and the other circumstances. See Lingard, ii. c. 1. Palgrav e Commonw. ii. pp. 331 sq. Ann. Ulton. a. 1072; Allen, Vindic. p. 47. 3 Sax. Chron. Flor. Wigorn. Sim. Dunelm. a. 1071.