This burly Englishman, with his long, flowing locks, his mighty thews and sinews, his undaunted heart, his craft and skill in warfare, needs no introduction. His name and fame are enshrined in every English heart, thanks to the splendid romance which Charles Kingsley has woven about his heroisms. Legend and tradition, song and story, have cast their spell about him, and none can read his thrilling adventures without a tribute of admiration and esteem. Wild and wayward he ever was, but mingled with the ferocity and craftiness of his nature was a childlike simplicity which endeared him to all. As a guerilla leader he was the keenest thorn in William’s side. “Were there but three men in England such as he,” said a chronicler, “William would never have won the land.”
The old stories describe him as a self-willed, boisterous lad, who caused his mother many a heartache and his father many an embarrassment, until at length he was outlawed and driven across the seas, where his mighty deeds of daring won him great renown. He may have been present at Hastings, though the chroniclers are silent on this point; but soon after the battle he was in Flanders, and only returned home when he learnt that his ancestral lands at Bourne in Lincolnshire had been granted to one Taillebois, who was even then in possession of them. Taillebois, by his insolence and cruelty, had made himself bitterly hated, and the men of the Fens were only waiting for a leader to rise in rebellion and thrust him out. Hereward suddenly arrived amongst them, and, so the story goes, swept his home clean of Frenchmen with his single sword. Eagerly the Fen men flocked to him, and acclaimed him as their leader. Soon the terror of his name spread far and wide, and the wild Fenland became a camp of refuge for those who would not bow the neck to the Norman yoke.
No part of England was better adapted for the purpose. It was a vast, low-lying wilderness of slow-moving rivers, spreading meres, and treacherous swamps, whose secret paths were known only to the natives. Here and there “islands” of firmer ground arose, and on these the towns and abbeys of Fenland were built. One of these “islands” was Ely, a matchless place of refuge, engirdled by waters and morasses. Here Hereward made his camp, and defied the Normans. Daily his forces grew, and daily he swooped down on his foes, appearing so suddenly and disappearing so magically into his reedy recesses that none could stay him or follow him. William soon perceived that he would never be master of England while the bold and watchful Hereward was at large.
Hereward had allied himself with the Danes, who swarmed into Fenland, and having burnt the “golden borough” of Peterborough, retired across the North Sea laden with its wondrous treasures—the gold crucifixes, the jewelled vessels, the costly vestments—which were the pride and glory of the abbey. Now that Hereward had rid himself of his troublesome allies, William determined to strike his blow.
Forthwith he marched an army to Cambridge, and invested the island of Ely on every side. The besieged built a great fortress of turf, collected food, and prepared to resist to the death. William determined to storm the island from Aldreth, between which place and Ely lay half a mile of reedy swamp. Collecting all the peasants of the countryside, he busied them in making a floating bridge, over which his army might pass to the capture of the beleaguered isle. Tradition tells us that Hereward, with his golden locks shorn and his beard shaved, laboured at the task, and that every night before he departed he set fire to the day’s work. At length, however, the bridge was finished, and William’s army began to march across it. The besieged watched the vast array crowd upon the frail bridge. Suddenly they saw it give way, and thousands were hurled into the thick slime, which speedily engulfed them. The first attack had hopelessly failed, and William himself had barely escaped destruction.
He was not daunted. With that wonderful perseverance and dogged determination which bore down every obstacle in his path, he built his bridge anew, profiting by his former experience. A huge floating sow protected the Ely end of the bridge, and was pushed forward as the work proceeded. Slowly but surely it grew until the sow was but fifty yards from Hereward’s fortress. A high wooden tower was erected at the farther end of the great work, and on this William planted a witch, who yelled and gibbered foul curses at the English as the Normans advanced.
The bridge was speedily covered with armed men. The front of the sow was let down, and gave footing to within a dozen yards of the wall of Hereward’s fort. As the Normans swarmed out with their scaling-ladders, the besieged hurled heavy stones upon them, and shot them down by scores, until the ditch was full of dead bodies. The besiegers planted their ladders on the corpses of the slain, and proceeded to mount them, but only one knight ever entered the fort.
Afar off a puff of smoke and a thin wisp of yellow flame were seen. Hereward had fired the reeds. “On came the flame, leaping and crackling, laughing and shrieking like a live fiend. The archers and slingers in the boats cowered before it, and fell, scorched corpses, as it swept on. It reached the causeway, surged up, recoiled from the mass of human beings, then sprang over their heads and passed onwards, girding them with flame. The reeds were burning around them; the timbers of the bridge caught fire; the peat and fagots smouldered beneath their feet. They sprang from the burning footway, and plunged into the fathomless bog, covering their faces and eyes with scorched hands, and then sank in the black, gurgling slime.”
Taillebois dragged William back, regardless of curses and prayers from his soldiery; and they reached the shore just in time to see between them and the water a long black, smouldering, writhing line; the morass to right and left, which had been a minute before deep reed, an open smutty pool, dotted with boats full of shrieking and cursing men; and at the causeway end, the tower with the flame climbing up its posts, and the witch of Brandon throwing herself desperately from the top, and falling dead upon the embers, a motionless heap of rags. “Fool that thou art! Fool that I was!” cried the great king, as he rolled off his horse at his tent door, cursing with rage and pain.
But he was not yet beaten. The lion in William having been defeated, the fox had his day. What force could not accomplish, craft and cunning might. No longer did he attempt to capture the island. He would starve it into submission, and meanwhile test the temper of the timorous monks who trembled in their cells. With lavish promises for their own safety and the possession of their abbey and its lands, they were beguiled, and at length they revealed the secret paths that led to the isle. One by one his friends deserted him, until at length the day arrived when Hereward too was forced to come in to the king—the last Englishman in the land to submit to the Norman. William received him gladly, for his heart ever warmed to a brave foe.