arly two hundred and fifty years.

For over three centuries Eboracum was a great Roman city. Here came the
emperor Severus and died in 211, his body being cremated and the ashes
conveyed to Rome. When the empire was divided, Britain fell to the share
of Constantius Chlorus, and he made Eboracum his home, dying there in
305. Constantine the Great, his son, was first proclaimed emperor at
Eboracum. When the Romans departed evil days fell upon York; the
barbarians destroyed it, and it was not till 627 that it reappeared in
history, when Eadwine, King of Northumbria, was baptized there by St.
Paulinus on Easter Day, a little wooden church being built for the
purpose. Then began its ecclesiastical eminence, for Paulinus was the
first Archbishop of York, beginning a line of prelates that has
continued unbroken since. In the eighth century the Northmen began their
incursions, and from spoilers ultimately became settlers. York
prospered, being thronged with Danish merchants, and in the tenth
century had thirty thousand population. In King Harold's reign the
Northmen attacked and captured the town, when Harold surprised and
defeated them, killing their leader Tostig, but no sooner had he won the
victory than he had to hasten southward to meet William the Norman, and
be in turn vanquished and slain. York resisted William, but he
ultimately conquered the city and built a castle there, but being
rebellious the people attacked the castle. He returned and chastised
them and built a second castle on the Ouse; but the discontent deepened,
and a Danish fleet appearing in the Humber there was another rebellion,
and the Norman garrison firing the houses around the castle to clear the
ground for its better defence, the greater part of the city was
consumed. While this was going on the Danes arrived, attacked and
captured both castles, slaughtered their entire garrisons of three
thousand men, and were practically unopposed by the discontented people.
Then it was that the stalwart Norman William swore "by the splendor of
God" to avenge himself on Northumbria, and, keeping his pledge, he
devastated the entire country north of the Humber.

York continued to exist without making much history for several
centuries, till the Wars of the Roses came between the rival houses of
York and Lancaster. In this York bore its full part, but it was at first
the Lancastrian king who was most frequently found at York, and not the
duke who bore the title. But