For over three centuries Eboracum was a great Roman city. Here came the emperor Severus and died in 211, his body being cremated and the ashes conveyed to Rome. When the empire was divided, Britain fell to the share of Constantius Chlorus, and he made Eboracum his home, dying there in 305. Constantine the Great, his son, was first proclaimed emperor at Eboracum. When the Romans departed evil days fell upon York; the barbarians destroyed it, and it was not till 627 that it reappeared in history, when Eadwine, King of Northumbria, was baptized there by St. Paulinus on Easter Day, a little wooden church being built for the purpose. Then began its ecclesiastical eminence, for Paulinus was the first Archbishop of York, beginning a line of prelates that has continued unbroken since. In the eighth century the Northmen began their incursions, and from spoilers ultimately became settlers. York prospered, being thronged with Danish merchants, and in the tenth century had thirty thousand population. In King Harold's reign the Northmen attacked and captured the town, when Harold surprised and defeated them, killing their leader Tostig, but no sooner had he won the victory than he had to hasten southward to meet William the Norman, and be in turn vanquished and slain. York resisted William, but he ultimately conquered the city and built a castle there, but being rebellious the people attacked the castle. He returned and chastised them and built a second castle on the Ouse; but the discontent deepened, and a Danish fleet appearing in the Humber there was another rebellion, and the Norman garrison firing the houses around the castle to clear the ground for its better defence, the greater part of the city was consumed. While this was going on the Danes arrived, attacked and captured both castles, slaughtered their entire garrisons of three thousand men, and were practically unopposed by the discontented people. Then it was that the stalwart Norman William swore "by the splendor of God" to avenge himself on Northumbria, and, keeping his pledge, he devastated the entire country north of the Humber.