leaders, one of them his brother Robert of Mortain and Cornwall; he
then went westward and subdued Staffordshire, and marched towards
York by way of Nottingham. A constrained delay by the Aire gave
him an opportunity for negotiation with the Danish leaders.
Osbeorn took bribes to forsake the English cause, and William
reached and entered York without resistance. He restored the
castles and kept his Christmas in the half-burned city. And now
William forsook his usual policy of clemency. The Northern shires
had been too hard to win. To weaken them, he decreed a merciless
harrying of the whole land, the direct effects of which were seen
for many years, and which left its mark on English history for
ages. Till the growth of modern industry reversed the relative
position of Northern and Southern England, the old Northumbrian
kingdom never fully recovered from the blow dealt by William, and
remained the most backward part of the land. Herein comes one of
the most remarkable results of William's coming. His greatest work
was to make England a kingdom which no man henceforth thought of
dividing. But the circumstances of his conquest of Northern
England ruled that for several centuries the unity of England
should take the form of a distinct preponderance of Southern
England over Northern. William's reign strengthened every tendency
that way, chiefly by the fearful blow now dealt to the physical
strength and well-being of the Northern shires. From one side
indeed the Norman Conquest was truly a Saxon conquest. The King of
London and Winchester became more fully than ever king over the
whole land.


The Conqueror had now only to gather in what was still left to
conquer. But, as military exploits, none are more memorable than