William, however, appeared undismayed by the storm lowering on every side around him. Calling his army together, he marched rapidly towards the north, where the rebellion appeared the most formidable, knowing that a defeat there would strike terror into the rest of the insurgents. Joining policy with force, he made a separate treaty with the Danes, offering them, as the price of their withdrawal into Denmark, permission to plunder and ravage the sea-coasts. Cospatrick also, despairing of success, paid to the Conqueror a large sum to be received once more into favour; he was afterwards invested with the earldom of Northumberland as the price of his submission. The King of Scotland arrived too late with his succours, and found himself obliged to retire; and all the insurgents in various parts of the country either dispersed or laid down their arms, with the exception of the East Anglian noble Hereward, who still kept possession of the island of Ely. Edgar Atheling, finding himself unsupported, withdrew with his followers and friends once more into Scotland; and the kingdom, without any great battle being fought, once more submitted to the iron yoke of the Normans. Sensible of the restless disposition of the Northumbrians, William determined to incapacitate them ever after from giving 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 were compelled either to seek for subsistence in the southern parts of Scotland, or, if they lingered in England from a reluctance to abandon their ancient habitations, perished miserably in the woods from cold and hunger. The lives of 100,000 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 opulence of the nation. The subjugation of the English was completed by the conquest of Chester.
William next proceeded to replace Englishmen in the church by Normans. Amongst the English churchmen was Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man who by the greatness of his birth, the extent of his possessions, and the dignity of his office, was marked out as the first victim.