But howsoeuer the matter went with the Danes,
certain it is by the whole consent of writers, that king William
hauing thus subdued his enimies in the north, he tooke so great
displeasure with the inhabitants of the countrie of Yorkeshire and
Northumberland, that he wasted all the land betwixt Yorke and Durham,
[Sidenote: _Wil. Malms._] so that for the space of threescore miles,
there was left in maner no habitation for the people, by reason
whereof it laie wast and desert for the space of nine or ten yeares. ΒΆ
The goodlie cities with their towers and steeples set vp on a statelie
height, and reaching as it were into the aire: the beautifull fields
and pastures, watered with the course of sweet and pleasant riuers, if
a stranger should then haue beheld, and also knowne before they were
thus defaced, he would surely haue lamented: or if any old inhabitant
had b?ene long absent, & newly returned thither, had s?ene this
pitifull face of the countrie, he would not haue knowne it, such
destruction was made through out all those quarters, whereof Yorke it
selfe felt not the smallest portion. [Sidenote: _Simon Dun._] The
bishop of Durham Egelwinus with his cleargie fled into holy Iland with
S. Cuthberts bodie, and other iewels of the church of Durham, where
they tarried three moneths and od daies, before they returned to
Durham againe.
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