Hereford then and part of its shire formed an isolated part of William's dominions, while the lands around remained unsubdued.
William Fitz-Osbern had to guard this dangerous land as earl.But during the King's absence both he and Ode received larger commissions as viceroys over the whole kingdom.Ode guarded the South and William the North and North-East.Norwich, a town dangerous from its easy communication with Denmark, was specially under his care.The nominal earls of the rest of the land, Edwin, Morkere, and Waltheof, with Edgar, King of a moment, Archbishop Stigand, and a number of other chief men, William took with him to Normandy.Nominally his cherished friends and guests, they went in truth, as one of the English Chroniclers calls them, as hostages.
William's stay in Normandy lasted about six months.It was chiefly devoted to rejoicings and religious ceremonies, but partly to Norman legislation.Rich gifts from the spoils of England were given to the churches of Normandy; gifts richer still were sent to the Church of Rome whose favour had wrought so much for William.In exchange for the banner of Saint Peter, Harold's standard of the Fighting-man was sent as an offering to the head of all churches.While William was in Normandy, Archbishop Maurilius of Rouen died.The whole duchy named Lanfranc as his successor; but he declined the post, and was himself sent to Rome to bring the pallium for the new archbishop John, a kinsman of the ducal house.Lanfranc doubtless refused the see of Rouen only because he was designed for a yet greater post in England; the subtlest diplomatist in Europe was not sent to Rome merely to ask for the pallium for Archbishop John.
Meanwhile William's choice of lieutenants bore its fruit in England.
They wrought such oppression as William himself never wrought.The inferior leaders did as they thought good, and the two earls restrained them not.The earls meanwhile were in one point there faithfully carrying out the policy of their master in the building of castles; a work, which specially when the work of Ode and William Fitz-Osbern, is always spoken of by the native writers with marked horror.The castles were the badges and the instruments of the Conquest, the special means of holding the land in bondage.
Meanwhile tumults broke forth in various parts.The slaughter of Copsige, William's earl in Northumberland, took place about the time of the King's sailing for Normandy.In independent Herefordshire the leading Englishman in those parts, Eadric, whom the Normans called the WILD, allied himself with the Welsh, harried the obedient lands, and threatened the castle of Hereford.Nothing was done on either side beyond harrying and skirmishes; but Eadric's corner of the land remained unsubdued.The men of Kent made a strange foreign alliance with Eustace of Boulogne, the brother-in-law of Edward, the man whose deeds had led to the great movement of Edward's reign, to the banishment and the return of Godwine.He had fought against England on Senlac, and was one of four who had dealt the last blow to the wounded Harold.But the oppression of Ode made the Kentishmen glad to seek any help against him.Eustace, now William's enemy, came over, and gave help in an unsuccessful attack on Dover castle.Meanwhile in the obedient shires men were making ready for revolt; in the unsubdued lands they were making ready for more active defence.Many went beyond sea to ask for foreign help, specially in the kindred lands of Denmark and Northern Germany.
Against this threatening movement William's strength lay in the incapacity of his enemies for combined action.The whole land never rose at once, and Danish help did not come at the times or in the shape when it could have done most good.
The news of these movements brought William back to England in December.He kept the Midwinter feast and assembly at Westminster;there the absent Eustace was, by a characteristic stroke of policy, arraigned as a traitor.He was a foreign prince against whom the Duke of the Normans might have led a Norman army.But he had also become an English landowner, and in that character he was accountable to the King and Witan of England.He suffered the traitor's punishment of confiscation of lands.Afterwards he contrived to win back William's favour, and he left great English possessions to his second wife and his son.Another stroke of policy was to send an embassy to Denmark, to ward off the hostile purposes of Swegen, and to choose as ambassador an English prelate who had been in high favour with both Edward and Harold, AEthelsige, Abbot of Ramsey.It came perhaps of his mission that Swegen practically did nothing for two years.The envoy's own life was a chequered one.He lost William's favour, and sought shelter in Denmark.He again regained William's favour--perhaps by some service at the Danish court--and died in possession of his abbey.
It is instructive to see how in this same assembly William bestowed several great offices.The earldom of Northumberland was vacant by the slaughter of two earls, the bishopric of Dorchester by the peaceful death of its bishop.William had no real authority in any part of Northumberland, or in more than a small part of the diocese of Dorchester.But he dealt with both earldom and bishopric as in his own power.It was now that he granted Northumberland to Gospatric.The appointment to the bishopric was the beginning of a new system.Englishmen were now to give way step by step to strangers in the highest offices and greatest estates of the land.
