The hider of the north1/31/2024 ![]() īack in Northumbria, William changed tactics and appointed a Norman, Robert de Comines, as earl, rather than an Anglo-Saxon. The opposition melted away, with some of them – including Edgar – taking refuge at the court of the Scottish king Malcolm III. He marched north and arrived in York during the summer of 1068. With two earls murdered and one changing sides, William decided to intervene personally in Northumbria. He was not long in power before he joined Edgar Ætheling in rebellion against William in 1068. When, in turn, the usurping Osulf was also killed, his cousin, Cospatrick, bought the earldom from William. After just five weeks as earl, Copsi was murdered by Osulf, son of Earl Eadulf III of Bernicia. When Copsi offered homage to William at Barking in 1067, William rewarded him by making him earl of Northumbria. He had managed to escape after Harald's defeat. Copsi had fought in Harald Hardrada's army with Tostig, against Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. Remains of the motte (1068–69) at Baile Hill, topped by the later York city walls.Ĭopsi, a supporter of Tostig (a previous Anglo-Saxon earl of Northumbria who had been banished by Edward the Confessor), was a native of Northumbria and his family had a history of being rulers of Bernicia, and at times Northumbria. William faced a series of rebellions and border skirmishes in Dover, Exeter, Hereford, Nottingham, Durham, York and Peterborough. However, of all the men who submitted to William at Berkhamsted it was only Ealdred, Archbishop of York, who would remain loyal to the Norman king. It is said the English conceded defeat, not at Hastings, but at Berkhamsted two months later when Edgar and his supporters submitted to William in December 1066. Ironside was half-brother to Edward the Confessor. The earldom of Northumbria stretched from the Tees to the Tweed Īfter the defeat of the English army and death of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, English resistance to the conquest was centred on Edgar Ætheling, the grandson of Edmund Ironside. In 962 Edgar the Peaceful had granted legal autonomy to the northern earls of the Danelaw in return for their loyalty this had limited the powers of the Anglo-Saxon kings who succeeded him north of the Humber. The more popular route between York and the south was by ship. įurther, communications between the north and south were difficult, partly due to the terrain but also because of the poor state of the roads. Yorkshire in 1086 was larger than it is now. Records from the Domesday Book of 1086 suggest that as much as 75% of the population could have died or never returned.Īt the time of the Norman conquest, the counties north of Yorkshire had not been conquered. ![]() Some present-day scholars have labelled the campaigns a genocide, although others doubt whether William could have assembled enough troops to inflict so much damage and have suggested that the records may have been exaggerated or misinterpreted. ![]() William paid the Danes to go home, but the remaining rebels refused to meet him in battle, and he decided to starve them out by laying waste to the northern shires using scorched earth tactics, especially in the historic county of Yorkshire and the city of York, before relieving the English aristocracy of their positions, and installing Norman aristocrats throughout the region.Ĭontemporary chronicles vividly record the savagery of the campaign, the huge scale of the destruction and the widespread famine caused by looting, burning and slaughtering. The Harrying of the North was a series of military campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–1070 to subjugate northern England, where the presence of the last Wessex claimant, Edgar Ætheling, had encouraged Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Scandinavian and Danish rebellions.
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