> his life, indeed, we are ignorant, and tradition has surrounded this

part of his biography with tales of largely imaginary deeds; but he is a

character of history as well as of folk lore, and his true story is full

of the richest elements of romance. It is this noteworthy hero of old

England with whom we have now to deal.



No one can be sure where Hereward was born, though most probably the

county of Lincolnshire may claim the honor. We are told that he was heir

to the lordship of Bourne, in that county. Tradition--for we have not

yet reached the borders of fact--says that he was a wild and unruly

youth, disrespectful to the clergy, disobedient to his parents, and so

generally unmanageable that in the end his father banished him from his

home.



Little was the truculent lad troubled by this. He had in him the spirit

of a wanderer and outlaw, but was one fitted to make his mark wherever

his feet should fall. In Scotland, while still a boy, he killed,

single-handed, a great bear,--a feat highly considered in those days

when all battles with man and beast were hand to hand. Next we hear of

him in Cornwall, one of whose race of giants Hereward found reserved for

his prowess. This was a fellow of mighty limb and boastful tongue, vast

in strength and terrible in war, as his own tale ran. Hereward fought

him, and the giant ceased to boast. Cornwall had a giant the less. Next

he sought Ireland, and did yeoman service in the wars of that unquiet

island. Taking ship thence, he made his way to Flanders, where legend

credits him with wonderful deeds. Battle and bread were the nutriment of

his existence, the one as necessary to him as the other, and a journey

of a few hundreds of miles, with the hope of a hard fight at the end,

was to him but a holiday.



Such is the Hereward to whom tradition introduces us, an idol of popular

song and story, and doubtless a warrior of unwonted courage and skill,

agile and strong, ready for every toil and danger, and so keenly alert

and watchful that men called him the Wake. This vigorous and valiant man

was born to be the hero and champion of the English, in their final

struggle for freedom against their Norman foes.



A new passion entered Hereward's soul in Flanders, that of love. He met

and wooed there a fair lady, Torfrida by name, who became his wife. A

faithful helpmeet she proved, his good comrade in his wanderings, his

wise counseller in warfare, and ever a softening influence in the fierce

warrior's life. Hitherto the sword had been his mistress, his temper the

turbulent and hasty one of the dweller in camp. Henceforth he owed a

divided allegiance to love and the sword, and grew softer in mood,

gentler and more merciful in disposition, as life went on.



To this wandering Englishman beyond the seas came tidings of sad

disasters in his native land. Harold and his army had been overthrown at

Hastings, and Norman William was on the throne; Norman earls had

everywhere seized on English manors, Norman churls, ennobled on the

field of battle, were robbing and enslaving the old owners of the land.

The English had risen in the north, and William had harried whole

counties, leaving a desert where he had found a fertile and flourishing

land. The sufferings of the English at home touched the heart of this

genuine Englishman abroad. Hereward the Wake gathered a band of stout

warriors, took ship, and set sail for his native land.



And now, to a large extent, we leave the realm of legend, and enter the

domain of fact. Hereward henceforth is a historical character, but a

history his with shreds of romance still clinging to its skirts. First

of all, story credits him with descending on his ancestral hall of

Bourne, then in the possession of Normans, his father driven from his

domain, and now in his grave. Hereward dealt with the Normans as

Ulysses had done with the suitors, and when the hall was his there were

few of them left to tell the tale. Thence, not caring to be cooped up by

the enemy within stone walls, he marched merrily away, and sought a

safer refuge elsewhere.



This descent upon Bourne we should like to accept as fact. It has in it

the elements of righteous retribution. But we must admit that it is one

of the shreds of romance of which we have spoken, one of those

interesting stories which men believe to be true because they would like

them to be true,--possibly with a solid foundation, certainly with much

embellishment.



Where we first surely find Hereward is in the heart of the fen country

of eastern England. Here, at Ely in Cambridgeshire, a band of Englishmen

had formed what they called a "Camp of Refuge," whence they issued at

intervals in excursions against the Normans. England had no safer haven

of retreat for her patriot sons. Ely was practically an island, being

surrounded by watery marshes on all sides. Lurking behind the reeds and

rushes of these fens, and hidden by their misty exhalations, that

faithful band had long defied its foes.



Hither came Hereward with his warlike followers, and quickly found

himself at the head of the band of patriot refugees. History was

repeating itself. Centuries before King Alfred had sought just such a

shelter against the Danes, and had troubled his enemies as Hereward now

began to trouble his.



The exiles of the Camp of Refuge found new blood in their organization

when Hereward became their leader. Their feeble forays were quickly

replaced by bold and daring ones. Issuing like hornets from their nests,

Hereward and his valiant followers sharply stung the Norman invaders,

hesitating not to attack them wherever found, cutting off armed bands,

wresting from them the spoils of which they had robbed the Saxons, and

flying back to their reedy shelter before their foes could gather in

force.



Of the exploits of this band of active warriors but one is told in full,

and that one is worth repeating. The Abbey of Peterborough, not far

removed from Ely, had submitted to Norman rule and gained a Norman

abbot, Turold by name. This angered the English at Ely, and they made a

descent upon the settlement. No great harm was intended. Food and some

minor spoil would have satisfied the raiders. But the frightened monks,

instead of throwing themselves on the clemency of their

fellow-countrymen, sent word in haste to Turold. This incensed the

raiding band, composed in part of English, in part of Danes who had

little regard for church privileges. Provoked to fury, they set fire to

the monks' house and the town, and only one house escaped the flames.

Then they assailed the monastery, the monks flying for their lives. The

whole band of outlaws burst like wolves into the minster, which they

rapidly cleared of its treasures. Here some climbed to the great rood,

and carried off its golden ornaments. There others made their way to

the steeple, where had been hidden the gold and silver pastoral staff.

Shrines, roods, books, vestments, money, treasures of all sorts

vanished, and when Abbot Turold appeared with a party of armed Normans,

he found but the bare walls of the church and the ashes of the town,

with only a sick monk to represent the lately prosperous monastery.

Whether or not Hereward took part in this affair, history does not say.



King William had hitherto disregarded this patriot refuge, and the bold

deeds of the valiant Hereward. All England besides had submitted to his

authority, and he was too busy in the work of making a feudal kingdom of

free England to trouble himself about one small centre of insurrection.

But an event occurred that caused him to look upon Hereward with more

hostile eyes.



Among those who had early sworn fealty to him, after the defeat of

Harold at Hastings, were Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and

Northumberland. They were confirmed in the possession of their estates

and dignities, and remained faithful to William during the general

insurrection of northern England. As time went on, however, their

position became unbearable. The king failed to give them his confidence,

the courtiers envied them their wealth and titles, and maligned them to

the king. Their dignity of position was lost at the court; their safety

even was endangered; they resolved, when too late, to emulate their

braver countryman, and strike a blow for home and liberty. Edwin sought

his domain in the north, bent on insurrection. Morcar made his way to

the Isle of Ely, where he took service with his followers, and with

other noble Englishmen, under the brave Hereward, glad to find one spot

on which a man of true English blood could still set foot in freedom.



His adhesion brought ruin instead of strength to Hereward. If William

could afford to neglect a band of outlaws in the fens, he could not rest

with these two great earls in arms against him. There were forces in the

north to attend to Edwin; Morcar and Hereward must be looked after.






Gathering an army, William marched to the fen country and prepared to

attack the last of the English in their almost inaccessible Camp of

Refuge. He had already built himself a castle at Cambridge, and here he

dwelt while directing his attack against the outlaws of the fens.



The task before him was not a light one, in the face of an opponent so

skilful and vigilant as Hereward the Wake. The Normans of that region

had found him so ubiquitous and so constantly victorious that they

ascribed his success to enchantment; and even William, who was not free

from the superstitions of his day, seemed to imagine that he had an

enchanter for a foe. Enchanter or not, however, he must be dealt with as

a soldier, and there was but one way in which he could be reached. The

heavily-armed Norman soldiers could not cross the marsh. From one side

the Isle of Ely could be approached by vessels, but it was here so

strongly defended that the king's ships failed to make progress against

Hereward's works. Finding his attack by water a failure, William began

the building of a causeway, two miles long, across the morasses from the

dry land to the island.



This was no trifling labor. There was a considerable depth of mud and

water to fill, and stones and trunks of trees were brought for the

purpose from all the surrounding country, the trees being covered with

hides as a protection against fire. The work did not proceed in peace.

Hereward and his men contested its progress at every point, attacked the

workmen with darts and arrows from the light boats in which they

navigated the waters of the fens, and, despite the hides, succeeded in

setting fire to the woodwork of the causeway. More than once it had to

be rebuilt; more than once it broke down under the weight of the Norman

knights and men-at-arms, who crowded upon it in their efforts to reach

the island, and many of these eager warriors, weighed down by the burden

of their armor, met a dismal death in the mud and water of the marshes.



Hereward fought with his accustomed courage, warlike skill, and

incessant vigilance, and gave King William no easy task, despite the

strength of his army and the abundance of his resources. But such a

contest, against so skilled an enemy as William the Conqueror, and with

such disparity of numbers, could have but one termination. Hereward

struck so valiant a last blow for England that he won the admiration of

his great opponent; but William was not the man to rest content with

aught short of victory, and every successful act of defence on the part

of the English was met by a new movement of assault. Despite all

Hereward's efforts, the causeway slowly but surely moved forward across

the fens.



But Hereward's chief danger lay behind rather than before; in the island

rather than on the mainland. His accessions of nobles and commons had

placed a strong body of men under his command, with whom he might have

been able to meet William's approaches by ship and causeway, had not

treason laid intrenched in the island itself. With war in his front and

treachery in his rear the gallant Wake had a double danger to contend

with.



This brings us to a picturesque scene, deftly painted by the old

chroniclers. Ely had its abbey, a counterpart of that of Peterborough.

Thurston, the abbot, was English-born, as were the monks under his

pastoral charge; and long the cowled inmates of the abbey and the armed

patriots of the Camp of Refuge dwelt in sweet accord. In the refectory

of the abbey monks and warriors sat side by side at table, their

converse at meals being doubtless divided between affairs spiritual and

affairs temporal, while from walls and roof hung the arms of the

warriors, harmoniously mingled with the emblems of the church. It was a

picture of the marriage of church and state well worthy of reproduction

on canvas.



Yet King William knew how to deal with Abbot Thurston. Lands belonging

to the monastery lay beyond the fens, and on these the king laid the

rough hand of royal right, as an earnest of what would happen when the

monastery itself should fall into his hands. A flutter of terror shook

the hearts of the abbot and his family of monks. To them it seemed that

the skies were about to fall, and that they would be wise to stand from

under.



While the monks of Ely were revolving this threat of disaster in their

souls, the tide of assault and defence rolled on. William's causeway

pushed its slow length forward through the fens. Hereward assailed it

with fire and sword, and harried the king's lands outside by sudden

raids. It is said that, like King Alfred before him, he more than once

visited the camp of the Normans in disguise, and spied out their ways

and means of warfare.



There is a story connected with this warlike enterprise so significant

of the times that it must be told. Whether or not William believed

Hereward to be an enchanter, he took steps to defeat enchantment, if any

existed. An old woman, who had the reputation of being a sorceress, was

brought to the royal camp, and her services engaged in the king's cause.

A wooden tower was built, and pushed along the causeway in front of the

troops, the old woman within it actively dispensing her incantations and

calling down the powers of witch-craft upon Hereward's head.

Unfortunately for her, Hereward tried against her sorcery of the

broomstick the enchantment of the brand, setting fire to the tower and

burning it and the sorceress within it. We could scarcely go back to a

later date than the eleventh century to find such an absurdity as this

possible, but in those days of superstition even such a man as William

the Conqueror was capable of it.



How the contest would have ended had treason been absent it is not easy

to say. As it was, Abbot Thurston and his monks brought the siege to a

sudden and disastrous end. They showed the king a secret way of approach

to the island, and William's warriors took the camp of Hereward by

surprise. What followed scarcely needs the telling. A fierce and sharp

struggle, men falling and dying in scores, William's heavy-armed

warriors pressing heavily upon the ranks of the more lightly clad

Englishmen, and final defeat and surrender, complete the story of the

assault upon Ely.



William had won, but Hereward still defied him. Striking his last blow

in defence, the gallant leader, with a small band of chosen followers,

cut a lane of blood through the Norman ranks and made his way to a small

fleet of ships which he had kept armed and guarded for such an

emergency. Sail was set, and down the stream they sped to the open sea,

still setting at defiance the power of Norman William.



We have two further lines of story to follow, one of history, the other

of romance; one that of the reward of the monks for their treachery, the

other that of the later story of Hereward the Wake. Abbot Thurston

hastened to make his submission to the king. He and the inmates of the

monastery sought the court, then at Warwick, and humbly begged the royal

favor and protection. The story goes that William repaid their visit by

a journey to Ely, where he entered the minster while the monks, all

unconscious of the royal visit, were at their meal in the refectory. The

king stood humbly at a distance from the shrine, as not worthy to

approach it, but sent a mark of gold to be offered as his tribute upon

the altar.



Meanwhile, one Gilbert of Clare entered the refectory, and asked the

feasting monks whether they could not dine at some other time, and if it

were not wise to repress their hunger while King William was in the

church. Like a flock of startled pigeons the monks rose, their appetites

quite gone, and flocked tumultuously towards the church. They were too

late. William was gone. But in his short visit he had left them a most

unwelcome legacy by marking out the site of a castle within the

precincts of the monastery, and giving orders for its immediate building

by forced labor.



Abbot Thurston finally purchased peace from the king at a high rate,

paying him three hundred marks of silver for his one mark of gold. Nor

was this the end. The silver marks proved to be light in weight. To

appease the king's anger at this, another three hundred silver marks

were offered, and King William graciously suffered them to say their

prayers thenceforward in peace. Their treachery to Hereward had not

proved profitable to the traitors.



If now we return to the story of Hereward the Wake, we must once more

leave the realm of history for that of legend, for what further is told

of him, though doubtless based on fact, is strictly legendary in

structure. Landing on the coast of Lincolnshire, the fugitives abandoned

their light ships for the widespreading forests of that region, and long

lived the life of outlaws in the dense woodland adjoining Hereward's

ancestral home of Bourne. Like an earlier Robin Hood, the valiant Wake

made the greenwood his home and the Normans his prey, covering nine

shires in his bold excursions, which extended as far as the distant town

of Warwick. The Abbey of Peterborough, with its Norman abbot, was an

object of his special detestation, and more than once Turold and his

monks were put to flight, while the abbey yielded up a share of its

treasures to the bold assailants.



How long Hereward and his men dwelt in the greenwood we are not able to

say. They defied there the utmost efforts of their foes, and King

William, whose admiration for his defiant enemy had not decreased,

despairing of reducing him by force, made him overtures of peace.

Hereward was ready for them. He saw clearly by this time that the Norman

yoke was fastened too firmly on England's neck to be thrown off. He had

fought as long as fighting was of use. Surrender only remained. A day

came at length in which he rode from the forest with forty stout

warriors at his back, made his way to the royal seat of Winchester, and

knocked at the city gates, bidding the guards to carry the news to the

conqueror that Hereward the Wake had come.



William gladly received him. He knew the value of a valiant soul, and

was thereafter a warm friend of Hereward, who, on his part, remained as

loyal and true to the king as he had been strong and earnest against

him. And so years passed on, Hereward in favor at court, and he and

Torfrida, his Flemish wife, living happily in the castle which William's

bounty had provided them.



There is more than one story of Hereward's final fate. One account says

that he ended his days in peace. The other, more in accordance with the

spirit of the times and the hatred and jealousy felt by many of the

Norman nobles against this English protege of the king, is so stirring

in its details that it serves as a fitting termination to the Hereward

romance.



The story goes that he kept close watch and ward in his house against

his many enemies. But on one occasion his chaplain, Ethelward, then on

lookout duty, fell asleep on his post. A band of Normans was

approaching, who broke into the house without warning being given, and

attacked Hereward alone in his hall.



He had barely time to throw on his armor when his enemies burst in upon

him and assailed him with sword and spear. The fight that ensued was one

that would have gladdened the soul of a Viking of old. Hereward laid

about him with such savage energy that the floor was soon strewn with

the dead bodies of his foes, and crimsoned with their blood. Finally the

spear broke in the hero's hand. Next he grasped his sword and did with

it mighty deeds of valor. This, too, was broken in the stress of fight.

His shield was the only weapon left him, and this he used with such

vigor and skill that before he had done fifteen Normans lay dead upon

the floor.



Four of his enemies now got behind him and smote him in the back. The

great warrior was brought to his knees. A Breton knight, Ralph of Dol,

rushed upon him, but found the wounded lion dangerous still. With a last

desperate effort Hereward struck him a deadly blow with his buckler, and

Breton and Saxon fell dead together to the floor. Another of the

assailants, Asselin by name, now cut off the head of this last defender

of Saxon England, and holding it in the air, swore by God and his might

that he had never before seen a man of such valor and strength, and that

if there had been three more like him in the land the French would have

been driven out of England, or been slain on its soil.



And so ends the stirring story of Hereward the Wake, that mighty man of

old.