th brave captains
and trusty soldiers. Warwick Castle was given to Henry de Beaumont,
whose lady we have seen at Aescendune, at the dedication of the
priory, and the jousts which followed; Nottingham was held by
William Peverill; and similar measures were taken at York, Lincoln,
Huntingdon, Oxford, Cambridge, and elsewhere.

But ere all this was fully accomplished, the three sons of King
Harold--Godwin, Edmund and Magnus--who had been kindly received by
Dermot, King of Leinster in Ireland, reappeared in the southwest,
and although, after some partial success, they were forced to
retreat, yet they aroused anew the spirit of resistance to the
Norman yoke, and kindled the expiring embers of patriotism.

In the month of February 1069--at which period the city of York was
the extreme limit of the Conquest--one Robert de Comyn was sent to
reduce Durham and the banks of the Tyne to subjection. As he
approached the city, Egelwin the bishop met him, and begged him not
to enter or there would be bloodshed; but he disdained the mild
request, and, entering, his soldiers behaved with the utmost
insolence, and slew a few inoffensive men "pour encourager les
autres," to intimidate the rest. The soldiers then encamped in the
streets of the town, and the general took up his quarters in the
bishop's palace.

When night came on, the gallant countrymen who dwelt on the Tyne
lit the beacon fires on all the hills; the country arose, and all
hastened to Durham. By daybreak they had forced the gates, which
the Normans defended; the soldiers then took refuge from the people
they had so cruelly insulted, in the Episcopal palace; thence they
had the advantage with their arrows, until the English, unable to
storm the place, set it on fire, and burned the dwelling, with
Robert de Comyn, who well deserved his fate, and all his men:
twelve hundred horse, and a large number of foot soldiers and
military attendants, perished, and only two escaped.

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,"