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Ásbjörn, once an earl in England, attacked Kent and
East Anglia without success; it was not until they
entered the Humber that they met with a welcome.
They were joined by the people, and by Waltheof, son
of the famous Siward and now earl of Northampton.
At York the native townsfolk received them gladly,
and the two Norman castles, together with a great
part of the city, were destroyed after severe fighting.
But when this was done, the English dispersed and
the Danes went back to their ships. There seems to
have been no attempt to establish the independence
of Northumbria ; one is led to suppose that jealousies
left them without a leader or a programme. The one
man who had a programme was William. He
advanced slowly northward ; wasted Staffordshire,
part of the old Danelaw ; attacked the Danes in
Lindsey, forcing them into Holderness ; marched by
Pontefract to York, and then effected the great devastation
of the north. William next devastated the
county of Durham, the sacred land of St. Cuthbert,
which even the Vikings in their fiercest days had
spared. Then marching against Chester he ravaged
Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire.
In the winter he bribed Ásbjörn and his Danes to
leave, partly by allowing them to plunder Lindsey
as they pleased. Ten years later the terrible reprisals
of bishop Odo for the murder of bishop Walcher in
Durham added to the desolation ; though, after such
a tale, one may ask—what more could be added?
And when in Domesday we still find Scandinavian
names among the landholders, and later we still find
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