was he whom I
had lately seen triumphing near Shrewsbury in the final battle of
the Roses, where the Red was so bloodily set above the White; and
it was his poetic fancy to have Northumberland, when he bade him
come to York, pass through the gateway on which the head of his
son, Hotspur Harry, was festering. No wonder the earl led a
rising against his liege, who had first mercifully meant to
imprison him for life, and then more mercifully pardoned him. But
there seems to have been fighting up and down the centuries from
the beginning, in York, interspersed with praying and wedding and
feasting. After the citizens drove out Conqueror William's
garrison, and Earl Waltheof provided against the Normans' return
by standing at the castle gate and chopping their heads off with
his battle-axe as they came forth, William efficaciously
devastated the city and the country as far as Durham. His son
William gave it a church, and that "worthy peer," King Stephen, a
hospital. In his time the archbishop and barons of York beat the
Scotch hard by, and the next Scotch king had to do homage to
Henry II.
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