the wasted fields. Some
prolonged life by feeding on the flesh of horses, or even of men.
Others sold themselves into slavery, bowing their heads, as was said,
in the evil days for meat. "Waste! waste! waste!" was the account
given long afterwards of field after field in what had once been one
of the most fertile districts in England. William's work of conquest
was almost over. Early in =1070= he crossed the hills amidst frost and
snow, and descended upon Chester. Chester submitted, and with it the
shires on the Welsh border. The whole of England was at last subdued.

4. =Hereward's Revolt and the Homage of Malcolm. 1070--1072.=--Only
one serious attempt to revolt was afterwards made, but this was no
more than a local rising. The Isle of Ely was in those days a real
island in the midst of the waters of the fens. Hereward, with a band
of followers, threw himself into the island, and it was only after a
year's attack that he was driven out. When the revolt was at its
height, Eadwine and Morkere fled from William's court to join the
insurgents. Eadwine was murdered by his own attendants. Morkere
reached Ely, and when resistance was at an end was banished to
Normandy. No man ever deserved less pity than these two brothers. They
had never sought any one's advantage but their own, and they had been
faithless to every cause which they had pretended to adopt. Before
Hereward was overpowered, Malcolm, king of the Scots, ravaged northern
England, carrying off with him droves of English slaves. In =1072=
William, who had by that time subdued Hereward, marched into Scotland
as far as the Tay. Malcolm submitted to him at Abernethy, and
acknowledged him to be his lord. Malcolm's acknowledgment was only a
repetition of the acknowledgment made by his predecessors the Scottish
kings, to Eadward and Cnut (see pp. 63, 84); but William was more
powerful than Eadward or Cnut had been, and was likely to construe the
obligation more strictly.

5. =How William kept down the English.=--William, having conquered
England, had now to govern it. His first object was to keep the
English in subjection.

_(a) The Confiscation of Land._--In the first place he continued to
treat all who had resisted him as rebels, confiscating their land and
giving it to some Norman follower. In almost every district there was
at least one Norman landowner, who was on the watch against any
attempt of his English neighbours to revolt, and who knew that he
would lose