over the still hot ashes of his new domain,
just as proud Hereward retired to the fort
at Ely, and the Dane's black sails were fast
fading away towards the Baltic.

Poor Turold, he had a wolf to trap, and
he went out as if he were looking for a
rabbit. What did he do, good man, but
go to Tailbois, a neighbour of his, the new
Norman lord of Hoyland, who brought him
cavalry to surprise Hereward and his
Saxon outlaws. One day, while Tailbois
and his vanguard were riding gallantly
along a dangerous part of the fen land,
close to the side of a forest, dark and
impenetrable by cavalry, Hereward and his
woodmen sprang out on the rear, where
Turold ambled, singing his Ave Marias,
and bore him off to a damp corner of the
wooden fort, from which he emerged after
many days, rheumatic, soured, and poorer
by two thousand pounds. William, at
this, roused like a lion from sleep, for
many Scotch exiles had now joined
Hereward, who grew daily more confident,
and more dangerous. He slowly closed
in on Hereward, Norman ships barricaded
the outlets from the west, spearmen
gathered closer and closer upon the fortress of
the fens. William built solid roads across the
fens, and bridged the rushing channels, all
the while harassed and tormented by
Hereward's swooping forays. Heavy fell the
Saxon axes, time after time, on the
Norman hewers and delvers. "Satan helps
the Saxon boors!" cried the wounded
diggers; so William, to please them, had a
wooden tower built, in which a Norman
sorceress was placed to exorcise Hereward
and his guerillas; but one day, when the
wind blew right, the Saxons set fire to half
a mile of reeds, and tower, witch, and Norman
workmen passed away in a gust of
flame. But neither steel nor fire could
turn the Conqueror. Faster grew the solid
roads, faster sprang the arches of fresh
bridges, till nearly all Ely was his. Then
Hereward, refusing to surrender, escaped
over the marshes into the forest, and from
there renewed his forays; but the rest lost
heart, and laid down their arms before the
Normans. Morcar and the Bishop of
Durham were thrown into prison for life, and
other leaders lost eyes, hands, or feet,
according to William's cruel caprices over
his wine; but the brave man fared after all
better than the colder-hearted, for William
respected his courage, and restored him the
lands of Baurn, on his taking an oath of
allegiance. Hereward was the last Saxon
to sheath the sword against the Norman.

Great monasteries arose of old time
among the fens and marshes of this
amphibious part of England. The old rhyming
proverb sums them up graphically:

    Romsey, the rich of gold and fee,
    Thorney, the flower of many fair tree,
    Crowland, the courteous of their meat and drink,
    Spalding, the gluttons as all men do think,
    PETERBOROUGH THE PROUD.
    Santrey, by the way, that old abbey
    Gave more alms in one day than all they.

Peterborough has had to bear its rubs
and was burnt by the howling Danes in
870, when all the monks were butchered
in the flames; again in 1069, according to
a prophecy of Egelric, a Bishop of Durham,
who had turned hermit; again in 1116, for
the sins of Abbot de Leez and his brother,
who had invoked the devil of fire; lastly it
was in danger in 1264, when the Abbot of
Peterborough, having joined the rebellious
barons, down the abbey would have gone,
broken like a china jar, had not the abbot
turned away the wrath of King Henry the
Third by a heavy ransom.

Cromwell's Ironsides laid their hands
very heavily on Peterborough, whose old
ill-luck broke out again with great severity
during the civil wars. The Calvinists,
with musket and sword, and pick and axe,
destroyed the reredos, the chapter house,
cloisters, and palace, shattering the
emblazoned glass, "red with the blood of
martyrs and of saints" with cruel
carefulness. They stripped off all the lead of
the roofs and sent it for sale to Holland,
but a storm waited for the sacrilegious bark
and sunk it. They finally pulled down the
Lady Chapel to save the expense of repairs,
and turned the old house of God into a
workshop.

Some great people lie under Peterborough
pavement. Poor Queen Katherine came
here from Kimbolton, as our readers know;
and in the nave lies old Scarlet (ninety-eight
years old), the sexton, who buried Katherine
and Mary Queen of Scots, too, and, for the
matter of that, all the population of
Peterborough twice over. "A king of spades,"
indeed, as his last chronicler pithily observes.
Queen Katherine lies on the north side of
the choir, and under a doorway out of the
choir on the south side once reposed Mary.
It brings a moisture into most eyes to
think of the last hour of the unhappy
Queen of Scots. We seem to see her
now, as she rises from the altar in her
oratory, and, taking down the ivory
crucifix, passes into the ante-chamber where
the four hard-faced earls await her. She
wears a gown of black satin, with a long