Sensible of the
restless disposition of the Northumbrians, he determined to incapacitate
them even after from giving him disturbance; and he issued orders for
laying entirely waste that fertile country, which, for the extent of
sixty miles, lies between the Humber and the Tees.[*] The houses were
reduced to ashes by the merciless Normans; the cattle seized and driven
away; the instruments of husbandry destroyed; and the inhabitants
compelled either to seek for a subsistence in the southern parts of
Scotland, or if they lingered in England, from a reluctance to abandon
their ancient habitations, they perished miserably in the woods from
cold and hunger. The lives of a hundred thousand persons are computed to
have been sacrificed to this stroke of barbarous policy,[**] which, by
seeking a remedy for a temporary evil, thus inflicted a lasting wound on
the power and populousness of the nation.
But William, finding himself entirely master of a people who had given
him such sensible proofs of their impotent rage and animosity, now
resolved to proceed to extremities against all the natives of England;
and to reduce them to a condition in which they should no longer be
formidable to his government.
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