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CHAP. 9. partial insurrections, which the English, encouraged by the intrepidity of William the the besieged, attempted in various parts of the kingdom. But famine aided Conqueror. his arms. The miseries which were everywhere experienced surpass the powers of description. Throughout the districts north of the Trent, the lands were untilled. The inhabitants of Mercia and Northumbria, although they assailed his troops, in all the wretched despair of hunger, died in the fields and highways around him. The garrison of York was compelled to subsist on the bodies of their companions, and their numbers were thinned by the ravages of disease. In these circumstances Waltheoff capitulated, and was again received, on honourable terms, into the favour of the king. William then marched onwards to Durham, and the ravages he committed proved that he had determined to exterminate the English and to supply their places with his Norman followers, to whom he gave their lands, having reduced the surviving population to the most abject condition of slavery. To his nephew, Hugh Lupus, he gave the palatinate of Chester, and the rest of the possessions of Edwin he bestowed upon his son-in-law, Alan, the duke of Bretagne. Henry de Ferrariis received Tutbury, besides sundry manors in Staffordshire and Derbyshire, and other territories held by the English were confiscated and given to Normans.

During the siege of York, prince Edgar had returned to Scotland, where he found refuge with Malcolm, who had espoused his sister Margaret. The two noble brothers, Edwin and Morcar, sought safety in concealment : they retired to the monastery of St. Albans, where they found many other English noblemen, who, under the direction of the abbot, were devising means to recover the liberties of their country. The abbot was a man of ardour and prudence. His monks were despatched to different parts of the country, and by their instigations a numerous army was ready to assemble at the shortest notice. Edwin undertook to apprize the king of Scotland of the strength and views of the conspirators, and repaired to the court of Malcolm. He had hardly departed, when the plot became known to the conqueror, who immediately summoned the most influential of the English nobility to meet him at Berkhamstead. He there conferred with them in the most amicable manner : restored to some of them their estates, and solemnly swore, upon the holy Evangelists, to establish the ancient laws of the realm, and strictly to observe the statutes made under the reign of Edward the Confessor. Satisfied by his promises and his oath, they withdrew themselves from the conspiracy and dismissed their troops; but they had no sooner given him this testimony of their confidence, than he seized upon the persons of many and banished or imprisoned the rest. The abbot of St. Albans, with earl Morcar, sought refuge in the isle of Ely.

In that retreat they found Hereward, a warrior of distinguished prowess and abilities. He was uncle to the two noble brothers, Edwin and Morcar, and nephew to the venerable Brand, abbot of Peterborough. In his youth he had been banished for offences resulting from his incontrollable independence, and had in Flanders raised himself to eminence by his heroic actions, where he espoused a princess of wealth and beauty. Although he had taken little share in the troubles of his native country, his patrimonial possessions had been seized, and when he appeared at the court of William to re-claim them, he was dismissed with indignity. With a mind burning

for revenge he sought his aged uncle, to whose representations he attentively gave car, and swore to emancipate England from Norman domination. The isle of Ely, surrounded by a wide morass, was a place of considerable security, for it was too extensive to be encompassed by any besiegers, and afforded spots for the concealment of both men and arms in its well-wooded marshes. Hither the discontented English flocked daily, and Hereward was unanimously chosen their chief. As he had never been knighted according to the Saxon ritual, he underwent that ceremony under the direction of the venerable abbot. He made confession of his sins, received absolution, and having passed a night in prayer and meditation, he was invested with his sword, in the presence of the assembled confederates, at the conclusion of high mass. The scene was presented as a union of piety and patriotism, and the noble conspirators were animated with cheering expectations.

СНАР. 9.

William the
Conqueror.

Hereward immediately began to perform with activity and vigilance the Siege of duties of the station conferred upon him. He fortified the most accessible Ely. parts of the morass with citadels, and caused stores of provisions to be brought from every quarter. His forces were rapidly increasing, and he was about to march forth and proclaim prince Edgar as king of England, when William drew near at the head of a large army. The conqueror was surprised to meet with the numerous obstacles which he had to encounter. He was assailed by continual sallies from the citadels, and was compelled to sit down on the outside of a marshy district, which art as well as nature had rendered impassable. He then had recourse to the arts of dissimulation, and having means of communicating with some of the confederate nobles, he renewed his promises of restoring to them their estates and treating them with respect. Some of them listened to his persuasions and deserted their brave leader. An apprehension of treachery paralyzed the efforts of the rest. The monks of Ely began to be alarmed for the manors they held beyond the limits of the island, and they sent to implore the king to spare their property, which he was causing either to be destroyed or to be given as prizes to his Norman soldiers. The artful conqueror knew well how to manage such advantages. He entered into a negotiation with Thurstan, who had been appointed successor to the venerable abbot Brand, on his death, which happened a few days after the consecration of his nephew Hereward as the champion of English freedom. Thurstan, in the name of the monks, promised to put the king in possession of the isle and to pay him a thousand marks, if their manors should be restored to them. The offer was accepted. The treacherous abbot, by means which the old historians have not detailed, contrived to deliver the isle to William. The troops of the king entered by night, and instantly made earl Morcar and Egelwin, the bishop of Durham, their prisoners. A conflict made ensued, and Hereward, with a body of his personal adherents, cut his prisoner. way through the opposing Normans and escaped to Flanders.

Edwin, on hearing of his brother's seizure and imprisonment, continued

Morcar

to urge the king of Scotland to levy troops and to support the claims of Expedition prince Edgar to the English crown; and when Malcolm intimated the and fate of success of the conqueror and the instability of the English nobles, the un

B b

Edgar.

CHAP. 9. happy duke of Mercia hastened to Wales, and prevailed upon his nephew William the to entrust him with a vessel and a body of men, with which he might atConqueror. tempt the liberation of his brother Morcar. The coast to which Edwin

directed his course is not mentioned by the old historians, but it is stated that he was betrayed by three brothers, who were his principal military officers, into the hands of the Normans. He had landed and had been joined by the inhabitants of the district when the Norman garrison received intelligence respecting him, and sallying out, pursued him and a band of twenty horsemen who attended him, to the shore. There the tide coming in with a heavy surf, prevented him from regaining his vessel and hemmed him in between the sea and the projecting rocks. Escape was impossible, but he would not surrender to the Norman soldiers, who were rushing down upon him and his few adherents. After a severe conflict, he fell, covered with wounds, into the waves which had risen high over the bank on which he still strove to defend himself. He was lamented even by his enemies, and the conqueror himself was heard to declare, with tears, that the death of this brave and benevolent noble, was the greatest calamity that England had sustained.—Earl Morcar was liberated, by the dying command of the conqueror, but he was again imprisoned by William Rufus and ended his days in his dungeon.

СНАР. 10.

CHAPTER X.

Historical incidents, in which the inhabitants and the great baronial and

other distinguished persons of Derbyshire are connected with the general history of the kingdom.

under the

Dukes of

ON the death of Edwin, earl or duke of Mercia (as he is indifferently styled by the old historians) the Mercian name was lost even as a titular distinction. Few particulars relative to Derbyshire, during the period we Derbyshire have been describing, are recorded, and we have, consequently, considered it only as a part of the Mercian territory, in the government of which it Mercia. was incorporated. We have already observed that its chief town was one of the five considerable posts held by the Danes in the middle districts, and from which they were repeatedly driven by the Saxon sovereigns. Derby seems, at that era, to have been a mart of some importance. It was privileged to coin money; for coins of the reigns of Athelstan and Edgar have been discovered, impressed with its ancient name (Deoraby) and at the time of Edward the Confessor, there were fourteen water-mills within its boundaries. In the general calamities that attended the conquest, it suffered with more than equal severity: Edwin, in his expedition against the Norwegians, had compelled the inhabitants to supply his army with men and accoutrements, and during the insurrections that broke out against the Norman tyranny, this town and county were frequently the scenes of devastation. The burgesses of Derby were in the space of a few years reduced from two hundred and forty to somewhat more than one hundred, and numerous houses were laid waste.

quest.

Throughout the county the freeholders were dispossessed and their places Divided at supplied by Norman soldiery. William the Conqueror gave to his follow- the Coners nearly the whole of the land. In the partition of Derbyshire, Hugh de Ferrers, a distinguished officer and counsellor in the court of the Conqueror, had nearly a hundred manors in this county, and to William de Peverel, the natural son of the Conqueror, were given, together with the Peak castle, twenty manors in Derbyshire, and extensive possessions in the adjoining county of Nottingham.—Ralph Fitz Hubert is mentioned in the Doomsday Book as being in possession of nearly thirty Derbyshire manors. The other proprietors in this county were Roger de Busli, Hugh, earl of Chester, Geoffry Alselin, Ascoit Musard, Walter Deincourt, Ralph de Buron, Nigel de Stratford, Roger de Poictou, Gilbert de Gand, Robert Fitz William and others; together with the abbey of Burton and other ecclesiastic establishments. The king retained the town of Derby and about a hundred and twelve manors in his own hands.

So rapid and violent a change in the proprietorship of the land was at- Inhabitants. tended with calamitous consequences to the enslaved and degraded people. The manners and even the language of the English were despised by the Normans, and although William pretended to respect the body of Saxon

under the

Normans.

CHAP. 10. laws which had been compiled during the reign of Edward the Confessor, from the West Saxon, Mercian and Danish institutions, he endeavoured to abrogate such of them as had relation to the liberties of the people, and Derbyshire to introduce the more despotic laws of Normandy. Many of the Normans, who regarded the expedition of William in the light of a piratical adventure, hastened, by every means of rapine, to enrich themselves, and to return to their native country to enjoy their spoils. Odo, bishop of Bayeux, the maternal brother of the Conqueror, after a residence in England of fifteen years, thought himself rich enough to purchase the popedom. He caused a magnificent house to be built and prepared for his reception at Rome, but while he was collecting his plunder together and making ready to convey his accumulated treasure from the island, he was seized by the king himself, who told him that he arrested him not as bishop but as earl of Kent. Numerous charges of extortion were proved against him, and his wealth, being confiscated, enriched the royal treasury. This was not a singular instance in which the Norman barons, after plundering their English vassals, became themselves the prey of the greedy court.

William
Rufus.

Services of
William de
Peverel.

King
Stephen.

Standard.

During the reigns of the Conqueror and his two sons, William Rufus and Henry, we have few historical particulars immediately connected with this county. The castle of the Peak is supposed to have been the seat of government, where William Peverel held his court, with an authority, more circumscribed, but nearly similar to that previously exercised by the earls or dukes of Mercia. There are still some vestiges of this court, which continues to be held at Lenton in Nottinghamshire; but of this and of the court derived from the manor of Lancaster, we shall take notice more at large in the proper place.

In the contention that was carried on between William Rufus and his brother Robert, the latter reluctantly submitted to a treaty which not only deprived him of the crown of England but gave to his younger brother certain important towns and districts on the coast of Normandy; he was therefore easily encouraged by the king of France, in the year 1093, to infringe the treaty and seize upon some of these important places. William, upon this, levied troops and hastened to France. His natural brother, William Peverel, was entrusted by him with the command of Helme, a town and castle in the province of Eu, which he garrisoned with men drawn out of the counties of Derby and Nottingham. Robert having received aid from the king of France, took Argentau and besieged Helme, where Peverel, after a short resistance, surrendered at discretion.

The next historical incident that we meet with in any way connected Battle of the with the inhabitants of this county, is the celebrated battle fought at North Allerton in Yorkshire, in the third year of the reign of king Stephen. David, king of Scotland, had invaded the northern provinces of England, with a numerous army, in which many of the most warlike chieftains of his kingdom were attended by their followers, in order to espouse the claims of the empress Maud, the niece of their sovereign, to the English throne. The Scottish monarch had also a more personal interest in this invasion, and he took occasion to foment the troubles which distracted the reign of Stephen, in order, more successfully to enforce his own claims to the earldoms of Northumberland and Huntingdon. These claims he derived from

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