And while they travailed thus on the south side of the Isle of Ely under the watchful and severe eye of Duke William, other Normans and other Saxon serfs (poor slaves constrained to this unpalatable task) laboured in the north under the eyes of various chiefs who had been promised in fiefs all the lands which they should conquer. With such of the ships and barks of the fleet as were first ready, a host was sent up the Wash and up the fen waters as high as Wisbech; and these ships carried with them good store of timber and other materials, and, besides the soldiers, many good builders, who began forthwith to build a causeway and a castle at Wisbech.[[209]] Thus threatened on both faces of the Fen-country, Lord Hereward had much to do: but he flew from side to side as the occasion called for his presence; and, with the aid of Girolamo, that cunning man, and the willing and ready labour of the fen people, he speedily built up another castle, partly of wood and partly of earth and turves, to face the Norman’s castle at Wisbech, and to render their causeway there of none avail: and is not the ruin of this castle seen even in our day? And is it not called Castle Hereward? And do not the now happy and peaceful fenners relate how many assaults, and bickerings, and battles took place on the spot?
When his own preparations were well advanced on the side of the river Cam, Duke William sent his half-brother Robert, whom he had made Earl of Moreton, to take more ships and men, and go from the river Thamesis to the Wash and the new castle at Wisbech, and there tarry quietly until the day next after the Festival of Saint John the Baptist, when he was to attack Castle Hereward with all his force, and press into the Isle of Ely from the north, while he, the Duke, should be preparing to invade the island from the south. But this Count Robert, being but a gross and dull-witted man, did not comprehend all the meaning of his orders, and because he reached Wisbech Castle sooner than had been expected, and got all ready to fight two days before Saint John’s Day, he needs must fall on at once. Now the Lord of Brunn, with one eye upon Count Robert and one upon Duke William, gathered great force to a head at Castle Hereward, beat the dull-witted man, slew with the edge of the sword or drove into the fens more than half his knights and men-at-arms, set the new castle at Wisbech in a blaze, and burned a good part of it, and was back at Ely and with the Saxon army in the great camp before Count Robert had recovered from his amaze, and long before Duke William could learn anything of the matter. And so it chanced that when, on the day next after Saint John’s Day, Duke William moved with his mighty host and machines of war from the castle at Cam-Bridge towards the Camp of Refuge, in the full belief that the attention of the Saxons would be all distracted, and that Hereward, their great leader, would be away on the shores of the Wash and hotly engaged with Count Robert, the bold Lord of Brunn had his eye solely upon him, and with men elate with victory was watching his approach, even as he had long been watching and preparing for it. The broken old road[[210]] was repaired, and the now diminished streams were made passable by means of the wooden bridges which the Norman soldiers carried or caused to be carried with them, and by throwing down stones, and timber, and bricks, and dry earth in strong wooden frames, Duke William, after three days of cruel labour and toils which killed many of his people, got within sight of the deep waters of Ely, and caught a distant view of the Witchford, where his Norman witch had crossed over. But the ford was now guarded by a double castle, or double fort; the one on this side of the stream, and the other on that; and the farther bank and the plain beyond it seemed, as the duke approached a little nearer, to be covered with a Saxon army, and with trophies taken from the Normans. Onward, however, he went until he saw the banner of his half-brother Count Robert held out over the wooden walls of the Saxons; but then he understood full well what had befallen his people at Wisbech; and so, like the persevering and prudent commander that he was, he ordered an immediate retreat. But it passed his skill and his might to conduct this retreat in a safe and orderly manner; the Normans got confused, and Hereward, crossing at the ford, charged through thick and thin, through bog and dry ground, and along the temporary causeway which had been made: the bridges of wood broke down under excess of weight; Duke William himself fell into deep water and was nearly drowned, and many of his people were wholly drowned or smothered, while many more were slain by the sword or taken prisoners. And still the bold Saxons, as they followed, shouted “Hereward for England! Stop, thou Bastard William! Thou art running as fast as thy brother Robert ran from Castle Hereward!”
After this misadventure Duke William judged more favourably of the conduct of his many commanders who had failed in the same enterprise; and seeing all the difficulties of the war, and the inexhaustible resources of that cunning captain, the Lord of Brunn, he called a council in the castle at Cam-Bridge, and there determined to try no more battles and assaults, but to rely solely upon a close blockade of the Isle of Ely. Forthwith orders were sent to all the commanders of posts round the Fen-country (the dull-witted Count Robert was recalled from Wisbech, and an abler captain sent to that vicinage) to strengthen themselves in their several positions by building towers and walls, and digging trenches, and by increasing the numbers of their men-at-arms; but at the same time they were strictly commanded to make no movement beyond the limits of their defensive works, however great the temptation to attack the Saxons might be. The great fleet so long collecting in the river Thamesis, and which was in good part composed of English vessels which the Danes had captured and then sold to Duke William, was sent round the coast well filled with fighting men, and piloted by some of those Danish mariners and sea rovers who knew so well all the bays and rivers on this eastern coast; and by the end of the month of July, or a little before the Feast of Saint Ethelwold, every station on the coast, from the mouth of the Orwell to the broader mouth of the river Humber, was watched and guarded, and every estuary, river, or creek that gave egress from the Fen-country was blocked up by ships and barks, in such sort that the Saxons in the Camp of Refuge could no longer have any communication with the sea, or with the countries beyond the sea, from whence they had been wont to draw arms and munitions of war, and corn, wines, and oil, and other supplies. By the same means all aid and friendly intercourse were completely cut off; the good Saxons dwelling in a sort of independence on the northern shores of England, and the good Englishmen that had fled into Scotland, could no longer send their barks up the Wash and the Ouse with provisions and comfort for the house of Ely and the Camp; and thus the whole Isle of Ely was cut off, by land and by water, from all the rest of the world, and was girded by a mighty chain, the links of which seemed every day to grow stronger.
Many were the bold essays which the Lord of Brunn made to break up this blockade. Twice, descending the Ouse, or the Welland, with the barks he had stationed at Ely, and near to Spalding, he defeated and drove away the enemy’s ships, and burned some of them with that unquenchable fire which the Salernitan knew how to make; but after these actions the Normans and their shipmen became more watchful and cautious, keeping outside of the mouths of the rivers, and continuing to increase their force; for other ships and barques, both great and small, came over from Normandie, and others were hired for this service among the sea-dwelling Netherlanders, who seemed evermore disposed to serve whatever faction could pay them best. And alas! the Normans had now their hands in the great and ever-filling treasury of broad England, and the true sons of England, whether at Ely or in the Camp, had no longer any gold or silver! or any means of sending forth that which can bring back money or the money’s worth. Horned cattle had they still in some abundance, nor was there, as yet, any scarcity in sheep, or in wool, or in hides; but of corn to make the bread, which is the staff of life, and of wine, which maketh glad the heart of man, was there little or none left in this part of the land; forasmuch as that the Fen-country did not grow much corn at any season, and the last season had been one of dearth, and only a few butts of wine had been brought over since the departure of the Danes, owing to the lack of money above mentioned. Those sea-rovers, having drunk almost the last drop of wine as well as carried off the last treasures of the house, had greatly disheartened and troubled many of the monks of Ely, and murmurs, and censures, and base thoughts now began to rise among several of the cloister-monks who, down to this evil time, had been the steadiest friends of the Lord Abbat, Thurstan. Truly, truly, their trial was hard, and difficult for true Saxon stomachs to bear! The octaves of Saint John had come and passed without anything that could be called a feast: on the day of Saint Joseph of Arimathea they had no wine to drink, and on the day of that high Saxon saint, Osevald, king and martyr, they had no bread to eat with their roast meats. These were sad things to a brotherhood that had been wont to fare so well, and whose feasts, it hath been said by our old poet (a monk of the house), were as superior to the feasts of all the other monasteries of England as day is superior to night:—
Prævisis aliis, Eliensia festa videre
Est, quasi prævisâ nocte, videre diem.
Yet the bountiful Abbat Thurstan, who had given the best feasts of all that the house had ever known, and who loved as much as any man to see the drinking-horn go round, kept up his good spirit without wine—it was sustained by his generous love of country and liberty!—and he reasoned well with those he heard murmur, and yet held out to them the prospect of better times when corn should come in from the upland country in abundance, and good wine from beyond-sea.
If want began to be felt among the monks of Ely, it is not to be believed but that it was felt still more sharply among the Saxon fighting men collected in the Camp of Refuge. But the stomachs of these warriors were not so dainty as the stomachs of the monks, and the commonalty of them, being accustomed to fare hard before now, made no complaint. Alas, no! It was not through the malecontent of these rude men, nor through these lay stomachs, but through the malice and gluttony of cloister-monks, that the sanctuary was violated.
The Lord of Brunn having emptied his own granaries and cellars for the behoof of the house at Ely, made sundry very desperate forays, breaking through the Norman chain of posts, and going far in the upland country in search of supplies, and risking his noble life, more than once, for nought but a sack of wheat, or a cask of ale, or a firkin of mead. While the blockade was as yet young, a few devout pilgrims, who would not be shut out from the shrines of the Saxon saints at Ely, nor fail to offer up their little annual offerings, and a few sturdy friends who knew the straits to which the monks were about to be reduced, eluded the vigilance of the Normans, and found their way, through those mazes of waters and labyrinths of woods, to the abbey, and carried with them some small supplies: but as time went on and the force of the Normans increased as well by land as by water, these hazardous journeys were stopped, and divers of the poor Saxons were caught, and were then pitilessly hanged as rebels and traitors; and then a law was banded that every man, woman, or child, that attempted to go through the Fen-country, either to Ely Abbey or the Camp of Refuge, would be hanged or crucified. But, alack! real traitors to their country were afterwards allowed to pass the Norman posts, and go on to Ely Abbey, and it was through their agency and the representations of some of the Normans that were taken prisoners in war and carried to the monastery, that the envious prior, and the chamberlain, and the cellarer, and the rest of that foul faction were emboldened to raise their voice publicly against the good Abbat, and to lay snares in the path of the Lord of Brunn. Now the same troubles arose out of the same causes in Crowland Abbey, where sundry of the cloister monks began to say that since they could get no bread and wine it were best to make terms with the Norman Abbat of Peterborough (that Torauld of Fescamp who had been released upon ransom, and was again making himself terrible), give up the cause of Lord Hereward, who had restored them to their house, and had given up wealth and honours abroad to come and serve his country, and submit like peaceable subjects to King William, whose power was too great to be any longer disputed. But here, at Crowland, these things were for a long time said in great secrecy, and whispered in the dormitories by night. It was the same in the succursal cell at Spalding; and the coming danger was the greater from the secrecy and mystery of the traitorous part of these communities. Father Adhelm, the good prior of Spalding, knew of no danger, and could believe in no treachery until the Philistines were upon him; and it was mainly owing to this his security, and to his representations of the safety of that corner of the fens, that the Lord of Brunn sent his wife and infant son,[[211]] with maid Mildred and other women, to dwell in the strong manor-house at Spalding, which belonged to the Ladie Lucia, wife of Ivo Taille-Bois, and cousin to the Ladie Alftrude. The Camp of Refuge and the town of Ely had not, for some time past, been fitting abiding-places for ladies and delicate children; but now the Normans were closing in their line of blockade on that side, and, although they meant it not, they seemed to be on the eve of making a desperate assault on the Camp, having, with incredible labour, laid down under the eyes and with the direction of Duke William, another causeway, which was far broader and more solid than any of the others, and which ran across the fens towards the waters of Ely for the distance of two well-measured miles. It was Elfric that commanded the party which gave convoy to the Ladie Alftrude; and well we wot he wished the journey had been a longer one: yet when his duty was done, and the whole party safely lodged in the battlemented and moated house at Spalding, he quitted maid Mildred, though with something of a heavy heart, and hastened back to join his toil-oppressed master. And careworn and toil-oppressed indeed was now that joyous and frank-hearted Lord of Brunn, for he had to think of everything, and to provide for everything; and save in Girolamo the Salernitan, and Elfric his armour-bearer, he had but few ready-witted men to aid him in his increasing difficulties. Nevertheless, the defences at the Witchford were strengthened, numerous trenches and canals were dug to render the Witch plain impassable, even if the river should be crossed, and bands of Saxons, armed with bows, bills, pole-axes, swords, and clubs, or long fen-poles, were kept on the alert by night as well as by day, to march to any point which the Normans might attack.
Now, we have said it, William the Norman was a great and cunning commander (ye might have searched through the world at that time, and have found none greater!), and being thus skilled, and having a fearless heart withal, and a sort of lion magnanimity, he was proper to judge of the skill of other captains, and not incapable of admiring and lauding that skill even in an enemy. And as from his causeway (even as from a ship in the midst of the waters) he watched the defences which Hereward raised, and all the rapid and wise movements he made, he ofttimes exclaimed, “By the splendour! this Saxon is a right cunning captain! It were worth half a realm could I win him over to my service. But, O Hereward, since thou wilt not submit, thou must perish in thy pride through hunger, or in the meshes which I am spreading for thee.”