Ancient_and_modern_York_a_guide

MODERN YORK. 13
Shakspere, in his tragedy of Macbeth ; the chief inci
dent in which wonderous performance, is the murder
of Duncan, king of Scotland, who had married Earl
Siward's daughter. Siward, accompanied by his gallant
son, left York at the head of 10,000 men, marched into
Scotland to revenge the death of Duncan, and dethrone
Macbeth. He defeated the usurper, but lost his son.
The death of the veteran Siward, was in keeping with
the sternness of his military character. Finding his
death approaching, in this city, he ordered his servants
to clothe him in a complete suit of armour ; and sitting
erect on the couch, with a spear in his hand, declared
that in such a posture, the only one worthy of a warrior,
he would patiently await the moment of dissolution.
The second son of Siward, Waltheof, appearing. too
young to be entrusted with the earldom, Tostig, son of
Earl Godwin, brother of Harold, and, consequently,
brother-in-law of King Edward the Confessor, was created
eaxl ; but Tostig behaving with cruelty and injustice, the
citizens of York and their fellow-subjects rose against him,
and obliged him to take shelter in Flanders. They elected
Morcar, a son of Algar, as their earl ; and the king was
obliged to sanction the election.
Edward the Confessor, about the year 1050, divided
the north into shires, after the example of Alfred the
Great, who had divided the rest of England in this man
ner. "And now," to quote the eloquent lament of Drake,
" the capital of the Roman province in Britain, the Saxon
kingdom, and the earldom of Northumberland, which
last anciently contained all from the German to the Irish
sea in breadth, and from the Humber to the Tweed in
length, was split into six or seven shires,* or counties ;
with each a city or chief town at the head of it. So that
York, from a command of the whole, was now in civil
* Shire comes from a Saxon word, which means to divide.
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