and Southern England, the old Northumbrian kingdom never fully recovered from the blow dealt by William, and remained the most backward part of the land.  Herein comes one of the most remarkable results of William’s coming.  His greatest work was to make England a kingdom which no man henceforth thought of dividing.  But the circumstances of his conquest of Northern England ruled that for several centuries the unity of England should take the form of a distinct preponderance of Southern England over Northern.  William’s reign strengthened every tendency that way, chiefly by the fearful blow now dealt to the physical strength and well-being of the Northern shires.  From one side indeed the Norman Conquest was truly a Saxon conquest.  The King of London and Winchester became more fully than ever king over the whole land.

The Conqueror had now only to gather in what was still left to conquer.  But, as military exploits, none are more memorable than the winter marches which put William into full possession of England.  The lands beyond Tees still held out; in January 1070 he set forth to subdue them.  The Earls Waltheof and Gospatric made their submission, Waltheof in person, Gospatric by proxy.  William restored both of them to their earldoms, and received Waltheof to his highest favour, giving him his niece Judith in marriage.  But he systematically wasted the land, as he had wasted Yorkshire.  He then returned to York, and thence set forth to subdue the last city and shire that held out.  A fearful march led him to the one remaining fragment of free England, the unconquered land of Chester.  We know not how Chester fell; but the land was not won without fighting, and a frightful harrying was the punishment.  In all this we see a distinct stage of moral downfall in the character of the Conqueror.  Yet it is thoroughly characteristic.  All is calm, deliberate, politic.  William will have no more revolts, and he will at any cost make the land incapable of revolt.  Yet, as ever, there is no blood shed save in battle.  If men died of hunger, that was not William’s doing; nay, charitable people like Abbot AEthelwig of Evesham might do what they could to help the sufferers.  But the lawful king, kept so long out of his kingdom, would, at whatever price, be king over the whole land.  And the great harrying of the northern shires was the price paid for William’s kingship over them.

At Chester the work was ended which had begun at Pevensey.  Less than three years and a half, with intervals of peace, had made the Norman invader king over all England.  He had won the kingdom; he had now to keep it.  He had for seventeen years to deal with revolts on both sides of the sea, with revolts both of Englishmen and of his own followers.  But in England his power was never shaken; in England he never knew defeat.  His English enemies he had subdued; the Danes were allowed to remain and in some sort to help in his work by plundering during