Edric the Forester is captured by Ralph de Mortimer.

The Normans plunder Cardigan.

A.D. 1072. A council held from Easter to Pentecost, which affirms the primacy of Canterbury.

William invades Scotland by sea and land, Edric the Forester being with him; "but he found nothing there of any value." He grants peace to Malcolm, “who became his man.”

.

William, on his return, fortifies Carlisle and Durham1. A.D. 1073. William leads an army, principally of English, into Maine and subdues it.

Blethyn, prince of North Wales, is murdered. Trahern succeeds.

Griffin ap Conan, an exiled descendant of Griffin ap Llewelynm, arrives from Ireland and conquers Anglesey. A.D. 1074. William goes to Normandy.

Edgar Atheling, who some time previously had gone to Flanders, returns to Scotland, July 8; being invited to the court of France (the king was at war with William), he sets sail, but is shipwrecked, when, by the advice of Malcolm, he passes over to Normandy to William, "who received him with much pomp; enjoying such rights as the king confirmed to him by law." Rytherch of South Wales killed; Rhys ap Owen succeeds.

Or vassal; not for Scotland, probably, but for Cumberland. (See p. 110.) The same remark applies to similar acknowledgments of a later date.

1 The number of castles built by William and his barons appears to have been forty-eight; their existing remains shew their strength, and of their size we may judge from an entry in the Domesday Book, which states that 166 houses were destroyed to make room for the castle at Lincoln.

See p. 105.

A.D. 1075. Ralph de Guader and other Normans conspire against William, on occasion of Ralph's marriage, at Norwich, and ask aid from Sweyn of Denmark; Waltheof joins them.

Their plans frustrated by William's sudden return.

Waltheof flees over sea; "but he asked forgiveness, and proffered gifts of ransom. And the king spoke him fairly till he came to England, when he had him seized."

A fleet of 200 ships, commanded by Canute, the son of Sweyn of Denmark, and Haco the earl, arrive on the east coast, but finding the conspiracy crushed, they plunder York Minster and retire.

William inflicts heavy punishment on the conspirators; some were blinded, some driven from the land, some towed to Scandinavia. So were the traitors of King William subdued m."

Edith, the widow of Edward the Confessor, dies Dec. 18; she is buried with much pomp beside him at Westminster.

A.D. 1076. A great earthquake in England.

Waltheof (who had been betrayed into the hands of his enemies by his wife) is beheaded at Winchester, May 31; his body is buried at Croyland Abbey, and miracles are asserted to be performed at his tomb".

m This unpatriotic remark is probably an interpolation.

n

These miracles were spread abroad by Ulchel, the abbot of Croyland, which gave so much offence, particularly to Ivo Tailbois, the possessor of the lands of Edwin and Morcar, that the unfortunate abbot was by his means summoned to London, accused of idolatry, deprived of his office, and committed to prison under the charge of Thurstan, (whose violent and cruel temper may be judged from the occurrence in 1083, see p. 197,) and the treasures of the abbey confiscated.

William is foiled in an attack on Britanny.

Rhys ap Owen killed in war against North Wales. He is succeeded by Rhys ap Tudor, descended from Howel Dda.

A.D. 1077. London burnt, March 24.

Archbishop Lanfranc greatly advances the cause of the monks against the secular clergy.

The coasts of South Wales ravaged, and St. David's plundered, by pirates, who also kill Abraham, the bishop.

A.D. 1078. A council holden at London, when it was determined that several episcopal sees should be removed to more important places; in consequence, Bath, Chester, Chichester, Exeter, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Thetford, become bishops' sees.

Robert rebels; and, in an action at Gerberoi, wounds his father.

A.D. 1079. Malcolm of Scotland ravages Northumberland, in the autumn. Robert, the king's son, advances against him, and builds a fort on the Tyne, where Newcastle now stands.

Trahern of North Wales killed. Griffin ap Conan becomes prince of North Wales and Powys.

THE NEW FOREST.

A.D. 1079. The New Forest, in Hampshire, is formed.

The Saxon Chronicler, remarking on the barbarous penalties of the Norman forest law, says that William

"He made many deer-parks; and he established laws, so that whosoever slew a hart, or a hind, or a boar, should be blinded."

"loved the tall deer as if he was their father," and that he and his great men made many deer-parks; but he does not state, as later writers have done, that wellpeopled districts were reduced to deserts by the operation. William of Malmesbury (the next nearest authority in point of time) says that William, in forming the New Forest, desolated the towns and destroyed the churches for a space of more than 30 miles; and other authors affirm that as many as 52 churches were levelled with the ground; but there is good reason for believing that this is a great exaggeration. A forest, called Ytene, (probably a portion of the great Andred's wood of the early Saxons,) existed in the region between the rivers Itchin and Avon, to which the Domesday Book shews that at least 17,000 acres had been added from the time of King Edward. Some open spots bear names indicative of former dwelling-places, as Churchplace, Church-moor, Castle-hill, &c.; and some evidences of former foundations are to be traced in various places within the forest, but they are quite as probably the remains of royal hunting-seats as of churches. The only fair conclusion seems to be, that, finding a rough and thinly peopled tract in the neighbourhood of the old royal seat of Winchester, one, too, whose poor soil prevented its making any profitable return to the husbandman, the new king enlarged its bounds P, and if here and there a few dwellings or a church opposed an obstacle to the design, we may suppose they were at once demolished; whether any compensation was made, it is of course

P Several entries occur in the Domesday Book of the woods only of a manor having been taken to enlarge the king's forest.

impossible to tell, though the general tenor of the Norman rule would lead to the inference that it was not, and there is evidence in the Chartulary of Abingdon, that Windsor Forest was enlarged by William at the expense of that abbey.

A.D. 1080. Walchere, the first Norman bishop of Durham, is slain, with all his attendants, by the people, May 14.

Odo of Bayeux ravages the country in revenge.

A.D. 1081. "This year the king led an army into Wales, and freed many hundreds of men."

Caradoc of Llancarvan says that he advanced "after the manner of a pilgrim, as far as St. David's, where he offered his devotion to that saint, and received the homage of the kings and princes of the country."

William issues certain laws modifying the laws of Edward the Confessor.

An earthquake does great damage in England.

A.D. 1082. Odo, bishop of Bayeux, falls into disgrace; his vast possessions are seized by the king.

A.D. 1083. Thurstan, the abbot of Glastonbury, quarrels with his monks, and brings armed men into the church, who kill three and wound eighteen others around the altar.

A heavy tax of 72 pence (or treble the former rate) is laid on each hide of land.

Queen Matilda dies, Nov. 2.

A.D. 1085. Canute, king of Denmark, Olaf of Nor

See p. 198.