A larger body, sent to avenge them, halted between York and Durham, and, seized with an unwonted terror, refused to proceed; the good people said that Saint Cuthbert had struck them motionless by supernatural power to protect his shrine in Durham.

This success stirred up the people of Yorkshire, who, later in the year, besieged William Mallet in York, aided by a Danish force which had landed on the coasts, and took it on the eighth day, when all the garrison was slain—­“three thousand men of France,” as the Chronicles express it.  The Earl Waltheof killed, with his own battle-axe, twenty Normans in their flight, and, chasing a hundred more into the woody marshes, took advantage of the dry season, like our friends at Aescendune, and burned them all with the wood.

All over England the struggle spread.  Hereward took the command at the Camp of Refuge, in the Isle of Ely, and crippled the Normans around.  Somerset and Dorset rose again; the men of Chester and a body of Welshmen under “Edric the Wild” (sometimes called the Forester), besieged Shrewsbury.  The men of Cornwall attacked Exeter, and a large body of insurgents collected at Stafford.

It was in putting down the northern insurrection that William devastated Yorkshire and Northumberland, with such severity that the country did not recover for centuries, while the victims to famine, fire, and sword equalled a hundred thousand.  These spasmodic insurrections were only the dying throes of Anglo-Saxon liberty.  Everywhere they miscarried, and the Normans prevailed.

xvii The readers of Alfgar the Dane will remember that we gave a brief account of this interesting spot in that chronicle.  It was the town to which Edmund Ironside and Alfgar first repaired after their escape from the Danes in the Isle of Wight.

xviii On one of these islands now stands the mill, on the other the Nag’s Head Inn; the site of the old abbey is chiefly occupied by a brewery!

xix Monastic Offices.

These were seven in number, besides the night hours.  Lauds, before daybreak; Prime, 7 A.M.; Terce, 9 A.M.; Sext, noon; Nones, 3 P.M.; Vespers, 6 P.M.; and Compline, 9 P.M.  These were in addition to many daily celebrations of Mass.

Our modern prayer-book Matins is an accumulation and abridgment of Matins, Lauds, and Prime; our Evensong of Vespers and Compline.  Terce, Sext, and Nones, which consisted mainly of portions of Psalm 119, with varying Versicles and Collects, are unrepresented in our Anglican office.

If the older reader is curious to learn of what Compline consisted, he may be told that its main features were Psalms 4, 31, 91, and 184; the hymn, Te Lucis ante Terminum, “Before the ending of the day.”—­H.  A. & M. 15; and the Collect, “Lighten our Darkness.”

xx Roll of the Conquerors.

These names are taken from a charter, long preserved in Battle Abbey, and quoted in the notes to Thierry’s Norman Conquest.  It gives a list of the principal warriors who fought at Hastings, whose names are afterwards found, much to their advantage, in Domesday Book.  Many names now common, even amongst the poor, make their first appearance in England therein, besides the noble ones quoted in our text.  We regret that our space does not allow us to give the roll, which is many columns in length.