33o HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CIIAT.

IV.i or©.

New rigorsof the go-vernment.

But the seeming clemency of William towardsthe English leaders proceeded only from artifice,or from his esteem of individuals: His heart washardened against all compassion towards thepeople; and he scrupled no measure, howeverviolent or severe, which seemed rejuifite tosupport his plan of tyrannical administration.Sensible of the restless dispolition of the North-umbrians, he determined to incapacitate themever after from giving him disturbance, and heissued orders for laying entirely waste that fertilecountry, which, for the extent of sixty miles,lies between the Humber and the Tees ". Thehouses were reduced to ashes by the mercilessNormans; the cattle seized and driven away; theinstruments ot luistiandry destroyed; and the inha-bitants compelled either to seek for a subsistencein the southern parts of Scotland, or if theylingered in England , from a reluctance to abandontheir ancient habitations, they perished miserablyin the woods from cold and hunger. The livesof a hundred thousand persons are computed tohave been sacrificed to this stroke of barbarouspolicy ", which, by seeking a remedy for a tem-porary evil, thus indicted a lasting wound on thepower and populousness of the nation.

" Chron. Sax. p. 174. Ingulf, p. 79. Malrnef. p. 103.Hoveden, p. 451. Chron. Abb. St Petri de Burgo, p. 47.M. Paris, p. 5. Sim. Dun. p. 119. Brompton, p. 966.Knyghton, p. 2344. Anglia Sacra. vol. 1. p. 702.

" Order. Vital. p. 515.