turned to England with his brother Robert in the month of August, and shortly after, set out for Scotland with a considerable fleet and an army of horse, with the object of waging war against Malcolm; on coming to Durham, he restored bishop William to his see, three years on that very day after he had left it; that is to say, on the third day before the ides of September.

But before the king had reached Scotland, a short time previous to the feast of Saint Michael, nearly the whole of his fleet was lost, and many of his horse perished through hunger and cold; after which, king Malcolm met him with his army in the province of Loidis.87 On seeing this, duke Robert sent for the Clito Edgar, whom the king had banished from Normandy, and who was then staying with the king of the Scots, and, by his assistance, made peace between the two kings, upon the understanding that Malcolm should pay homage to him, as he had paid homage to his father, and that king William should restore to Malcolm the twelve towns which he had possessed in England under his father, and pay yearly twelve golden marks. But the peace that was made between them lasted only a short time. The duke also reconciled the king to Edgar.

88

On the ides of October, being the fourth day of the week, a violent flash of lightning struck the tower of the church of Winchelcomb, and made a wide opening in the wall, close to the roof; it split asunder one of the beams, and giving a severe blow to the image of Christ, hurled the head to the ground, and broke the right thigh. The image, also, of Saint Mary, which stood near the cross, was struck by the flash, and fell to the ground; after which, there followed a great smoke, with an excessive stench, which filled the whole church and lasted until the monks of the place, chaunting psalms, had gone round the buildings of the monastery with holy water and incense, and relics of the Saints.

In addition to this, on the sixteenth day before the calends of November, being the sixth day of the week, a violent whirlwind, coming from the south, blew down more than six hundred houses in London, and a considerable number of churches. It attacked the church which is called Saint Mary at Arches, and killing two men there, lifted the roof with the rafters aloft, and after carrying it to and fro in the air, at length fixed six of

the rafters in the same order in which they had been originally inserted in the roof, so deep in the ground, that of some of them only the seventh, of some the eighth part, was visible; and yet they were seven or eight and twenty feet in length.

After this, the king returned from Northumbria through Mercia into Wessex, and kept the duke with him till nearly the Nativity of our Lord, but was not willing to fulfil the treaty that had been made between them. The duke being greatly annoyed at this, on the tenth day before the calends of January, returned to Normandy with the Clito Edgar.

was

At this period, according to the reports in England, there were two so-called popes of Rome, who, disagreeing as to their right to the title, divided the church of God into two parties; these were Urban, who was formerly called Odo, bishop of Ostia, and Clement, whose former name Wibert, archbishop of Ravenna; this matter, not to speak of other parts of the world, had so greatly occupied the attention of the church of England for many years, that from the time that Gregory, also called Hildebrand, departed this life, up to the present period, it had refused to pay obedience or make submission to any pope; Italy and France, however, acknowledged Urban as the vicar of Saint Peter.

In the year 1092, the greater part of the city of London was destroyed by fire. On the nones of April, being the second day of the week, Osmund, bishop of Salisbury, with the assistance of Valcelline, bishop of Winchester, and of John, bishop of Bath, dedicated the church which he had built within the castle of Salisbury. Bishop Remigius also, who, with the sanction of king William the Elder, had changed the seat of his bishopric from Dorchester" to Lincoln, wished to dedicate the church which he had built there, and which was well worthy of the bishop's chair, as he perceived that the day of his death was close at hand. But Thomas, the archbishop of York, firmly opposed him, and asserted that the church was built in his province. King William the Younger, however, in consideration of a sum of money which Remigius gave him, gave orders to the bishops of nearly the whole of England to meet together on the seventh day before the ides of May and consecrate the church; but, two days before the time appointed,

91 In Oxfordshire.

by the secret dispensation of God, bishop Remigius departed from this world, and the dedication of the church stood over for the present. After this, the king set out for the province of Northumbria, and rebuilt the city which in the British language is called Carleil,92 and in Latin, Lugubalia, and erected a castle there; for this city, with some others in those parts, had been destroyed two hundred years before, by the pagan Danes, and had remained desolate from that time until the present period.

In the year 1093, king William the Younger was attacked by a severe illness at a royal town which is called Alvestan, on which he repaired with all haste to Gloucester, and there lay ill throughout the whole of Lent. Thinking that he should shortly die, at the suggestion of the barons, he promised the Almighty to correct his mode of living, no longer to sell churches or put them up for sale, but to protect them with his kingly power, to destroy unrighteous laws, and to enact righteous ones. The archbishopric of Canterbury, which he had kept in his own hands, he gave to Anselm, the abbat of Bec, who was then in England, and the bishopric of Lincoln to his chancellor, Robert, surnamed Bloet.

A new church was commenced to be built at Durham, on the third day before the calends of August, being the fifth day of the week, bishop William, and Malcolm, the king of the Scots, and the prior Turgot, on that day laying the first stone of the foundation. On the day of the feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle, Malcolm, the king of the Scots, came to Gloucester, to meet king William the Younger, as had been previously arranged between their ambassadors, in order that, according

93

92 Carlisle. Holinshed has the following remark upon a passage in Matthew of Westminster, "Here have I thought good to advertise you of an error in Matthew of Westminster, crept in either through misplacing the matter by means of some exemplifier, either else by the author's mistaking his account of years, as 1072 for 1092, referring the repairing of Carlisle unto William the Conqueror, at what time he made a journey against the Scots in the said year 1072. And yet not thus contented; to bewray the error more manifestly, he affirmeth that the king exchanged the earldom of Chester with Rafe or Ranulf de Micenis, alias Meschines, for the earldom of Carlisle, which the said Meschines held before, and had begun then to build and fortify that town; whereas it is certain that Ranulf de Meschines came to enjoy the earldom of Chester by way of inheritance." 93 V. r. The ides.

to the wish of some of the chief men of England, peace might be renewed and there might exist a lasting friendship between them; they separated, however, without coming to terms. For William, in his excessive haughtiness and pride, contemptuously refused to see Malcolm or to treat with him. In addition to this, he also wished to force him to make redress in his own court solely according to the judgment of his own barons, but Malcolm utterly declined to do so, unless the conference were held upon the confines of the two kingdoms, where the kings of the Scots had been in the habit of making redress to the kings of England, and in conformity with the opinion of the nobles of both kingdoms. Shortly after these events, a very wonderful sign appeared in the sun.

In the same year, Roger, earl of Shrewsbury, Guido, abbat of Saint Augustine's, and Paulinus, abbat of the church of Saint Alban, departed this life. This Paulinus, having by means of the violent conduct of earl Robert,94 effected an entrance into the church of Tynemouth, in spite of the prohibition of the monks of Durham, who had been the possessors of it, was there attacked with an illness, and died on his way home at Seteringtun.9* On the day of the feast of Saint Brice, Malcolm king of the Scots, and Edward, his eldest son, were slain in Northumbria with their men, by the soldiers of Robert earl of Northumbria; in whose death the judgment of God is distinctly visible, from the fact that he and his men perished in the same province which he had been in the habit, at the dictation of avarice, of laying waste.

95

For, on five occasions he had afflicted it with dreadful ravages, and had carried off its wretched inhabitants in slavery; the first time in the reign of king Edward, when Egelwin was bishop of Durham, at the period when Tosti, the earl of Northumbria, had gone to Rome; the second time in the reign of king William, the above-named Egelwin being still bishop, on which occasion, Cleveland was laid waste; the third time, in the reign of the same king William, when Walcher was bishop of Durham, at which period he proceeded as far as the river Tyne, and after having slaughtered multitudes of men and burned many places, returned with a large amount of booty;

94 De Mowbray.

94* Called Colewich by Roger of Wendover, who calls the abbat Paul. 95 Thirteenth of November.

VOL. I.

N

96

the fourth time, in the reign of king William the Younger, when William was bishop of Durham, on which occasion, with an innumerable army, he came as far as Chester, with the full intention of proceeding further; but a small body of troops uniting against him, he returned with all speed from very fear.

98

97

The fifth time, having collected all the troops he possibly could, he invaded Northumbria, with the intention of reducing it to utter desolation, but was slain near the river Alne," by Morell, a most valiant knight, together with his eldest son, Edward, whom he had appointed his successor in the kingdom. A portion of his army died by the sword of the enemy, and those who escaped the sword were drowned in the inundations of the rivers, which were at that time unusually swollen by the winter rains. The body of this king and most blood-thirsty butcher, there being none of his own people to cover it with earth, two of the country-people placed in a cart, and buried it at Tynemouth; and thus it came to pass that in the very place where he had deprived multitudes of life, liberty, and possessions, by the judgment of God, he himself lost his life and possessions.

On hearing of his death, Margaret, queen of the Scots, was affected with such violent grief, that she suddenly fell extremely ill; immediately upon which, sending for the priests, she entered a church, and having confessed to them her sins, caused herself to be anointed with oil, and to be provided with the heavenly viaticum, entreating the Lord with most urgent and repeated prayers, that he would not allow her any longer to remain in this world of misery. Her prayers were heard, for on the third day after the king's death, she was released from the bonds of the flesh, and, as we have reason to believe, passed to the joys of everlasting salvation. For, during her life, she shewed herself a most devoted follower of piety, justice, peace, and charity; assiduous in her prayers, she mortified her body by watching and fasting, enriched churches and monasteries, and loved and honored the servants and handmaids of God; she broke bread to the hungry, clothed the naked, gave lodging,

96 Chester-le-street, in Durham.

97 In the vicinity of Alnwick, in Northumberland.

93 V. r. Merkell. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that he was steward to earl Robert.