But that wind which kept William in port brought another enemy of Harold's to England with some three hundred galleys, Hardrada of Norway, who came to support the claims of Tostig, now his man, King Harold's exiled brother, to Northumbria; for the Northumbrians had rebelled against him, and Harold had acquiesced in their choice of Morkere for lord.

But this attempt, although grounded upon the oath which David had sworn to Henry, was regarded by the Northumbrians as a national hostility which demanded a national resistance.

[b], who claimed a descent, as did the other princes of that nation, from Woden, brought over a reinforcement from Germany, and enabled the Northumbrians to carry on their conquests over the Britons.

The event did not disappoint his expectations: the Northumbrians declared for him [

In order to restore England to such a state of tranquillity as it was then capable of attaining, nought was wanting but the subjection of the Northumbrians, who, assisted by the scattered Danes in Mercia, continually infested the bowels of the kingdom.

But the Northumbrians were less anxious to secure their own property, than greedy to commit spoil on their enemy; and concluding, that the chief strength of the English was embarked on board the fleet, they thought the opportunity favourable, and entered Edward’s territories with all their forces.

All the rest of Edward’s reign was a scene of continued and successful action against the Northumbrians, the East Angles, the Five-burgers, and the foreign Danes who invaded him from Normandy and Britany.

[MN Edmund 941.] Edmund, on his accession, met with disturbance from the restless Northumbrians, who lay in wait for every opportunity of breaking into rebellion.

He maintained a body of disciplined troops; which he quartered in the north, in order to keep the mutinous Northumbrians in subjection, and to repel the inroads of the Scots.

; Banbury was destroyed; and all the Northumbrians, though mostly of Danish descent, were constrained either to join the invaders, or to suffer under their depredations.

Morcar and Edwin, two brothers, who possessed great power in those parts, and who were grandsons of the great Duke Leofric, concurred in the insurrection; and the former, being elected duke, advanced with an army to oppose Harold, who was commissioned by the king to reduce and chastise the Northumbrians.

This vigorous remonstrance was accompanied with such a detail of facts, so well supported, that Harold found it prudent to abandon his brother’s cause; and returning to Edward, he persuaded him to pardon the Northumbrians, and to confirm Morcar in the government.

He had in his conduct towards the Northumbrians, given such a specimen of his moderation as had gained him the affections of his countrymen.

The more impatient of the Northumbrians had attacked Robert de Comyn, who was appointed governor of Durham; and gaining the advantage over him from his negligence, they put him to death in that city, with seven hundred of his followers [m].

Edgar Atheling appeared from Scotland, and brought along with him Cospatric, Waltheof, Siward, Bearne, Merleswain, Adelin, and other leaders, who, partly from the hopes which they gave of Scottish succours, partly from their authority in those parts, easily persuaded the warlike and discontented Northumbrians to join the insurrection.

Sensible of the restless disposition of the Northumbrians, he determined to incapacitate them ever after from giving him disturbance, and he issued orders for laying entirely waste that fertile country which, for the extent of sixty miles, lies between the Humber and the Tees [t].

This year the moon was eclipsed on the Kalends of September; and Eardulf, King of the Northumbrians.

Tosti, Count of Northumberland, who, as everyone knows, was brother of the Harold who fought at Senlac Hill, had brought about an insurrection of the Northumbrians, and having been dispossessed by his brother, he revenged himself by inviting the help of Haralld Hadrada, King of Norway.

Northumbrians have always been interested in the records of their own county, and are now-a-days not less so than when, some three-and-a-half centuries ago, Roger North found them "great antiquarians within their own bounds."

It was given to him, but little cared the Northumbrians for that.

So much was this the case, that Charles the Great, at whose court the learned Northumbrian, Alcuin, was secretary, said that the Northumbrians were worse than the invading heathen Danes, who, by this time, had begun their ravages in the land.

The Mitfords of Mitford can boast, if ever family could, of being Northumbrian of the Northumbrians, as they were seated here before the days of the Conqueror, who made such a general upsetting amongst the Saxon landowners.

It is a matter of great pride to all Northumbrians that perhaps the only instance of its having been bestowed on any except a peer of the realm or a foreign Sovereign, has occurred recently in the bestowal of the coveted decoration on Sir Edward Grey, a member of the ancient and important Northumbrian house of that name.

A comet had been seen in the sky for some weeks and the fears inspired by this dread visitant seem to have had more effect upon the Northumbrians than upon the Scots.

They were utterly routed, and most of the leading Northumbrians as well as eighteen priests were slainthus curiously repeating the experience of the earlier battle of Carham.