This success proved a signal to many other parts of England, and gave the people an opportunity of showing their malevolence to the Normans. Hereward, a nobleman in East Anglia, celebrated for valor, assembled his followers, and taking shelter in the Isle of Ely, made inroads on all the neighboring country.[*****] The English in the counties of Somerset and Dorset rose in arms, and assaulted Montacute, the Norman governor; while the inhabitants of Cornwall and Devon invested Exeter, which from the memory of William’s clemency still remained faithful to him.
[* Gul. Gemet. p. 290. Order. Vitalis, p. 513. Anglia Sacra, TO! I. p. 216.]
[** Order. Vitalis, p. 512. Chron. de Mailr. p. 116. Hoveden, p. 450. M. Paris, p. 5. Sim. Dunelm. p. 198.]
[**** Order. Vitalis, p. 513. Hoveden, p. 451.]
[***** Ingulph. p. 71. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 47.]
Edric the Forester, calling in the assistance of the Welsh, laid siege to Shrewsbury, and made head against Earl Brient and Fitz-Osberne, who commanded in those quarters.[*] The English, everywhere repenting their former easy submission, seemed determined to make by concert one great effort for the recovery of their liberties, and for the expulsion of their oppressors.
William, undismayed amidst this scene of confusion, assembled. his forces, and animating them with the prospect of new confiscations and forfeitures, he marched against the rebels in the north, whom he regarded as the most formidable, and whose defeat, he knew, would strike a terror into all the other malecontents. Joining policy to force, he tried, before his approach, to weaken the enemy, by detaching the Danes from them; and he engaged Osberne, by large presents, and by offering him the liberty of plundering the sea-coast, to retire without committing farther hostilities into Denmark.[**] Cospatric also, in despair of success, made his peace with the king, and paying a sum of money as an atonement for his insurrection, was received into favor, and even invested with the earldom of Northumberland. Waltheof, who long defended York with great courage, was allured with this appearance of clemency; and as William knew how to esteem valor, even in an enemy, that nobleman had no reason to repent of this confidence.[***] Even Edric, compelled by necessity, submitted to the conqueror, and received forgiveness, which was soon after followed by some degree of trust and favor. Malcolm, coming too late to support his confederates, was constrained to retire; and all the English rebels in other parts, except Hereward, who still kept in his fastnesses, dispersed themselves, and left the Normans undisputed masters of the kingdom. Edgar Atheling, with his followers, sought again a retreat in Scotland from the pursuit of his enemies.