Two sons of Harold, by name EDMUND and
GODWIN, came over from Ireland, with some
ships, against the Normans, but were
defeated. This was scarcely done, when the
outlaws in the woods so harassed York, that
the Governor sent to the King for help. The
King despatched a general and a large force
to occupy the town of Durham. The Bishop
of that place met the general outside the town,
and warned him not to enter, as he would be
in danger there. The general cared nothing
for the warning, and went in with all his men.
That night, on every hill within sight of
Durham, signal fires were seen to blaze. When
the morning dawned, the English, who had
assembled in great strength, forced the gates,
rushed into the town, and slew the Normans
every one. The English afterwards besought
the Danes to come and help them. The
Danes came, with two hundred and forty
ships. The outlawed nobles joined them;
they captured York, and drove the Normans
out of that city. Then, William bribed
the Danes to go away, and took such
vengeance on the English, that all the former
tire and sword, smoke and ashes, death and
ruin, were nothing compared with it. In
melancholy songs, and doleful stories, it was
still sung and told by cottage fires on winter
evenings, a hundred years afterwards, how,
in those dreadful days of the Normans, there
was not, from the River Humber to the
River Tyne, one inhabited village left, or one
cultivated field—how there was nothing but
a dismal ruin, where the human creatures
and the beasts lay dead together.

The outlaws had, at this time, what they
called a Camp of Refuge, in the midst of the
fens of Cambridgeshire. Protected by those
marshy grounds which were difficult of
approach, they lay among the reeds and rushes,
and were hidden by the mists that rose up
from the watery earth. Now, there also was,
at that time, over the sea in Flanders, an
Englishman named HEREWARD, whose father
had died in his absence, and whose property
had been, given to a Norman. When he
heard of this wrong that had been done him,
from such of the exiled English as chanced to
wander into that country, he longed for revenge;
and joining the outlaws in their camp
of refuge, became their commander. He was
so good a soldier, that the Normans supposed
him to be aided by enchantment. William,
even after he had made a road three miles in
length across the Cambridgeshire marshes,
on purpose to attack this supposed enchanter,
thought it necessary to engage an imposing old
woman, who pretended to be a sorceress, to
come and do a little enchantment in the royal
cause. For this purpose she was pushed on
before the troops in a wooden tower; but
Hereward very soon disposed of this
unfortunate sorceress by burning her, tower and
all. The monks of the convent of Ely, near at
hand, however, who were fond of good living,
and who found it very uncomfortable to have
the country blockaded, and their supplies of
meat and drink cut off, showed the King a
secret way of surprising the camp. So, Hereward
was soon defeated. Whether he afterwards
died quietly, or whether he was killed,
after killing sixteen of the men who attacked
him (as some old rhymes relate that he did),
I cannot say. His defeat put an end to the
Camp of Refuge, and, very soon afterwards,
the King, victorious both in Scotland and in
England, quelled the last rebellious English
noble. He then surrounded himself with
Norman lords enriched by the property of
English nobles; had a great survey made of
all the land in England, which was entered
as the property of its new owners, on a
roll called Doomsday Book; obliged the
people to put out their fires and candles at
a certain hour every night, on the ringing of
a bell, which was called The Curfew;
introduced the Norman dresses and manners;
made the Normans masters everywhere, and
the English, servants; turned out the English
bishops, and put Normans in their places;
and showed himself to be the Conqueror
indeed.

But, even with his own Normans, he had a
restless life. They were always hungering
and thirsting for the riches of the English
and the more he gave, the more they wanted.
His priests were as greedy as his soldiers.
We know of only one Norman who plainly
told his master, the King, that he had come
with him to England to do his duty as a
faithful servant, and that property taken by
force from other men had no charms for him.
His name was GUILBERT. We should not
forget his name, for it is good to remember
and to honor honest men.

Besides all these troubles, William the
Conqueror was troubled by quarrels among his
sons. He had three living. ROBERT, called
CURTHOSE, because of his short legs; WILLIAM,
called RUFUS or the Red, from the colour of
his hair; and HENRY, fond of learning, and
called, in the Norman language, BEAUCLERC,
or Fine Scholar. When Robert grew up, he
asked of his father the government of
Normandy, which he had nominally possessed, as a
child, under his mother, MATILDA. The King
refusing to grant it, Robert became jealous
and discontented, and happening one day,
while in this temper, to be ridiculed by bis
brothers, who threw water on him from a
balcony as he was walking before the door,
he drew his sword, rushed up stairs, and was
only prevented by the King himself from
putting them to death. That same night, he
hotly departed with some followers from his
father's court, and endeavoured to take the
Castle of Rouen by surprise. Failing in this,
he shut himself up in another Castle in
Normandy, which the King besieged, and where
Robert, in a sally, one day unhorsed and nearly
killed him without knowing who he was. His
submission when he discovered his father, and
the intercession of the queen and others,