[MN 1070. New rigours of the government.] But the seeming clemency of William towards the English leaders proceeded only from artifice, or from his esteem of individuals: his heart was hardened against all compassion towards the people; and he scrupled no measure, however violent or severe, which seemed requisite to support his plan of tyrannical administration. 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]. The houses were reduced to ashes by the merciless Normans; the cattle seized and driven away; the instruments of husbandry destroyed; and the inhabitants compelled either to seek for a subsistence in the southern parts of Scotland, or if they lingered in England, from a reluctance to abandon their ancient habitations, they perished miserably in the woods from cold and hunger. The lives of a hundred thousand persons are computed to have been sacrificed to this stroke of barbarous policy [u], which, by seeking a remedy for a temporary evil, thus inflicted a lasting wound on the power and populousness of the nation. [FN [t] Chron. Sax. p. 174. Ingulph. p. 79. Malmes. p. 103. Hoveden, p. 451. Chron. Abb. St. Petri de Burgo, p. 47. M. Paris, p. 5. Sim. Dun. p. 199. Brompton, p. 966. Knyghton, p. 2344. Anglia Sacra, vol. i. p. 702. [u] Order. Vital. p. 515.]