Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely

CHAPTER XIII

Island of Ely.—Haddenham.—Aldreth, Conqueror's Causeway, Belsars Hill.—Wilburton.—Sutton.—Wentworth.—Via Devana.—Girton, College.—Oakington, Holdsworth.—Elsworth.—Conington, Ancient Bells.—Long Stanton, Queen Elizabeth.—Willingham, Stone Chamber.—Over, Gurgoyles.—Swavesey, Finials.—Ely Road.—Chesterton.—Fen Ditton.—Milton, Altar Rails.—Horningsea.—Bait's Bite, Start of Race.—Clayhithe.—Waterbeach.—Car Dyke.—Denny.—Stretham.—Upware.—Wicken Fen.

From the bridge over the Ouse by the Earith sluice we see the sea-board (for that and nothing less is the word which its appearance irresistibly suggests) of the Island of Ely, rising before us, with a couple of miles of level fen between. We may reach it, if we will, by the main road, which leads eastward to Haddenham, the southernmost of the island villages. Haddenham stands on a projecting peninsula of high ground, the highest in the island, rising to nearly 150 feet, almost cut off from the rest by two inlets of fen (Grunty Fen on the north-east and North Fen on the north-west), and nearer than any other part to the mainland on the south. This quasi-insulation has left a curious mark on the Ecclesiastical map of Cambridgeshire. Throughout the whole Isle of Ely—the old Fenland Archipelago—the Bishop acts as his own Archdeacon. An Archdeacon of Ely there is; but his jurisdiction is confined to Cambridgeshire proper, Cambridgeshire south of the Isle. It extends, however, over Haddenham and the neighbouring village of Wilburton, the two parishes in this peninsula.

Haddenham has a fine Decorated church; the tower showing the first development of that style from Early English (1275), and the transepts its transition into Perpendicular (1375). The fifteenth century font is richly panelled, with roses and shields supported by lions and angels. This church was founded by Owen, the "Over-alderman" who governed the Island of Ely under St. Etheldreda, the Foundress of the Cathedral, and Queen of the Isle as the childless widow of its last native ruler, King Tonbert.[190] Owen's name is interesting as testifying to the Celtic survival in the fenland, already spoken of.[191] The broken cross bearing his name, now in the south aisle of Ely Cathedral, was originally set up at Haddenham; and, after being for ages an object of veneration, was, at the Reformation, mutilated and degraded into a horsing-block. At length the revived decency of the eighteenth century removed it to Ely.

The village of Haddenham lies chiefly along the road running southward to the hamlet of Aldreth, on the very verge of the Island. The nearest point of the low-lying mainland is only half a mile away; the "Old River" of the Ouse (now, since the construction of the Bedford Rivers, become quite a scanty watercourse) flowing between. This was the point selected by William the Conqueror for the famous Causeway, whereby, after being once and again baffled by the valour of Hereward, he ultimately succeeded in forcing his way into the Island.[192] For centuries afterwards this continued to be the chief entrance from the Cambridge district, till superseded by the present road viâ Stretham. A small barrow at the southern end of this causeway, which is now a mere field-track, still bears the name of Belsar's Hill, after the knight who, in this campaign, acted as the Conqueror's Commander-in-Chief.

Wilburton, a mile to the east, was given to Ely by St. Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, the prelate who aided in King Edgar's restoration of the Monastery of Ely, after its destruction by the Danes, in 870, had laid it waste for upwards of a century. The church has some fine woodwork in stalls, screen, and roof, adorned on the spandrills and bosses with the three cocks of Bishop Alcock, the founder of Jesus College. While Archdeacon of Ely he here entertained Henry the Eighth, when, as Prince of Wales, he accompanied his father on the last Royal Pilgrimage ever made to the shrine of St. Etheldreda at Ely, which he himself was so soon to despoil and destroy. A good brass (now affixed to the wall) commemorates Alcock's predecessor in the archidiaconate, Richard Bole (1477). And yet another Archdeacon, Wetheringset, is also here buried. Some curious metal-work hangs from the roof, and on the north wall of the nave are ancient frescoes, representing not only St. Christopher, the usual subject, but the much less known St. Blaise and St. Leodegar. The former was Bishop of Sebaste, and was martyred in 316 A.D. He became the patron saint of wool-combers, and was specially venerated in Leeds and Bradford. The latter was Bishop of Autun in Gaul, during the seventh century. There is here a fine old red-brick manor-house, called the Burgh-stead (or Bury-stead), built in 1600 by a London alderman to whom Queen Elizabeth sold the Manor,—after filching it from the Bishop of Ely, according to her usual practice.

The whole peninsula is specially rich in memorials of long past ages. In the peat of the old Ouse channel by Wilburton was found a great hoard of bronze weapons, lying in a promiscuous heap, "in such a manner as to suggest that a canoe with a cargo of bronze scrap had been upset there," as Professor and Mrs. Hughes picturesquely put it, in their "Geography of Cambridgeshire." Grunty Fen has produced a bronze sickle, and two splendid ornaments of twisted gold; while, a mile east of Wilburton, a British urn was discovered, associated with the bones of the urus, or gigantic wild ox of the Neolithic Age. And between Earith and Wilburton there has been dug out gold ring-money.

But a yet more striking approach to the Island of Ely may be made by taking at Earith the road through the toll-gate which leads northward immediately alongside the great embankment of the New River, and lies some few feet below the level of its waters. For three miles this association continues; then road and river part company, and the former drives straight across the fen to climb the western shore of the island. The change of scenery when you reach that shore is striking in its suddenness. You have been travelling for miles through the bare, treeless, dead level of the fen, with its immense width of view; then, almost in a moment, you find yourself ascending a steepish hill through a tree-shaded hedge-bordered cutting which might be in Kent or even Devonshire.

At the top of this brow you look down on the fen behind you and on either hand, your southern horizon being bounded by the near uplands of Haddenham, with the flat bay of North Fen between. And very shortly you come to the undulating village street of Sutton, with its highest point crowned by the truly glorious church. This church is all in one style, Decorated, on the verge of developing into Perpendicular, having been built by Barnet, Bishop of Ely 1366 to 1373. The splendid tower is crowned by an octagonal steeple, and that again by a second, richly pinnacled, and is a landmark for many miles along the valleys of the Ouse and Cam.

From Sutton we reach Ely by way of Wentworth and Witchford. The former name is supposed to be a corruption of Owensworth, and to commemorate that the place was of old the property of St. Owen. The little church has a Saxon porch, with twisted pillars, and contains a remarkable carving of the same date, representing an ecclesiastic wearing the pall of a Primate. His left hand supports an open book, while in his right he holds, not a cross or pastoral staff, but something more suggestive of an aspersory for holy water. The corbel in Ely Cathedral depicting the burial of St. Etheldreda shows us a figure similarly equipped.

In looking southward from Sutton Church, three steeples are specially conspicuous in the Ouse valley. They are those of Over, Swavesey, and Willingham. All are churches of the first class, and all are best reached from Cambridge by way of the Via Devana, which, after crossing the "Great Bridge" and climbing the ascent past the Castle, continues its straight course to the north-west under the designation of the Huntingdon Road. Just as it leaves the town a branch-road on the right leads to the village of Histon, which the jam factories of Messrs. Chivers have made one of the most flourishing in the county. The church here has some good Early English work, and a remarkable "Rood" (much defaced) on the gable of the S. transept. This is an almost unique example of the early "Majestas" type of crucifix (p. 339). Christ, with outspread arms, wears, not the Crown of Thorns, but the Old English "king-helm," and is fully robed. About 1200 this ideal type gave place to the later "realistic" crucifix.

A mile beyond the last houses of Cambridge the Via Devana comes to the huge red-brick mass of Girton College, which has been already spoken of.[193] Its spacious grounds and never-ending corridors impress the mind with admiration for the enthusiasm and energy which has thus materialised Tennyson's vision of University education for women. At this point another northward turn takes us to Girton Church, where there are good brasses to two successive fifteenth century parsons. In their day the living belonged to Ramsey Abbey, by the gift of Eric, Bishop of Dorchester (1016). We next come to Oakington, the Mecca of Cambridgeshire Free Churchmen. For here, in the quiet little Nonconformist Cemetery, rest, side by side, the three men to whom the chief sects of the county trace their spiritual ancestry—Francis Holcroft, Joseph Oddy, and Henry Oasland.

The first named was a Fellow of Clare College where he had for his "chum" (i.e. chamber-mate, as we find the word used in "Pickwick") Tillotson, the future Archbishop of Canterbury. He began his ministerial career by taking on himself to supply the place of a brother collegian, the Puritan minister in charge of Littlington, near Royston, who, most un-Puritanically, was often incapacitated by drink from performing his duties. Later, in 1655, when still only twenty-two, he himself became pastor of the adjoining parish of Bassingbourn. When the "Black Bartholomew" of 1662 deprived him of this charge under the Act of Uniformity, he preached, at the risk of fine and imprisonment, throughout the neighbourhood, binding together his adherents in a loosely-knit organisation, whose members were admitted on subscribing the following Profession of Faith:

"We do in the presence of the Lord Jesus, the awful crowned King of Sion, and in the presence of his holy angels and people and all besides here present, solemnly give up ourselves to the Lord and to one another, by the will of God, solemnly promising and engaging in the aforesaid presence to walk with the Lord and with one another in the observation of all Gospel ordinances, and the discharge of all relative duties in this church of God and elsewhere, as the Lord shall enlighten us and enable us."[194]

His efforts were vigorously seconded by Oddy and Oasland, whose consciences, like his own, would not permit them to use the Anglican Prayer Book; and the units of this embryo Church, who were often spoken of at the time as "Mr. Holcroft's disciples," became widely spread throughout the county. Already, before the end of 1662, they had regular meetings at Barrington, Eversden, Waterbeach, and Guyhirn, as well as Cambridge; and when, ten years later, they became licensed by the King's Proclamation of Indulgence, we find the number increased fourfold. So far Nonconformity had been the only bond between these scattered bands of worshippers; but they now began to differentiate themselves into Baptist, Independent, and Presbyterian Congregations, though the lines were not as yet sharply drawn, and, indeed, are not even now sharply drawn in the country villages, where a man is "Church" or "Chapel," caring little what may be the precise denomination of his chapel. The strength of the Dissenting spirit thus implanted at Oakington may be measured by that of the language employed by the zealous Archdeacon of Ely, who, in 1685, declares this to be "the most scandalous parish and the worst in the diocese. The people most vile. A Fanatic Schoolmaster."

From Oakington the lane leads on to Long Stanton, where the two churches of St. Michael and All Saints are both noteworthy. The former is a simple Early English building with a thatched roof (till lately made of reeds from the fen, a far more durable material than straw, but now unobtainable), a rich double piscina, and an oak chest dating from the twelfth century. The latter, at the other end of the "long" village street, is a Decorated cruciform structure, the south transept having become the mortuary chapel of the Hatton family, who bought the lordship of the manor from Queen Elizabeth.

That rapacious monarch, her father's worthy daughter in ecclesiastical spoliation, had seized upon it amongst the surrenders which she exacted from Bishop Cox, the first Protestant to be Bishop of Ely. On his accession she confiscated a full half of his episcopal property, and was constantly insisting on further denudations, including Ely House, Holborn. On this final act of despotism goading him into remonstrance, she is reported (in Strype's History of the Reformation) to have made the well-known reply, "Proud priest! I made you. And I will unmake you. Obey my pleasure, or I will forthwith unfrock you." Only his speedy death (in 1581) prevented her from actually carrying out this threat. After it she kept the whole property of the See in her own hands for no less than nineteen years, when she handed it over to Bishop Heton, shorn of yet another moiety, which included the Manor of Longstanton with its ancient episcopal palace.

This palace had a further connection with Elizabeth; for in it she was entertained by Bishop Cox after that visit to Cambridge in 1564, when her erudition so thrilled the University.[195] And it was here that she was disgusted by the blasphemous entertainment got up for her benefit by the Protestant undergraduates, in which a performing dog danced with a consecrated Host in his mouth. King's College Chapel was the scene originally intended for this outrage; but the graver academic programme there lasted so long that the Queen could not stay for the afterpiece. The disappointed students begged leave to follow her and give an evening performance at Long Stanton. Mutual disgust was the result. As soon as Elizabeth understood what was going on she indignantly swept from the room, ordering every light to be instantly extinguished, leaving the wretched boys to grope for their properties and get back to Cambridge as best they could.

Following the road to Long Stanton station (six and a half miles), we there cross the G. E. R. (St. Ives Branch) and proceed, along a somewhat dreary stretch, to Willingham (nine miles), where an exceptionally fine church (All Saints) rewards our toil. After lingering in neglect and decay for years beyond the neighbouring churches, it has now become an ideal example of judicious restoration, very different from the drastic process too often known by that name. Every ancient feature and development has been preserved, including the beautiful roof,[196] with its elaborate carving, its tiers of angels and its double hammer beams, the fine parclose screens, and the Perpendicular pulpit. Beneath the clerestory may be seen traces of no fewer than four successive layers of frescoes, which, from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, each in turn adorned the walls. But the most striking feature of the church is the small Decorated "treasury" adjoining the north wall of the chancel. It is wholly of stone, even to the roof with its richly wrought "beams"; an almost unique example of this method of treatment. Dowsing here destroyed, on 16 March, 1643, "forty superstitious pictures, a crucifix, and two superstitious inscriptions, also two pictures of the Holy Ghost and one of the Virgin Mary in brass."

From Willingham a field road will take us, if desired, to Belsar's Hill,[197] which, besides its historical associations, is rich in the pretty crystals of selenite or gypsum. And though, as has been said, the track is now all but disused, it is still possible to follow the Conqueror's causeway to the Ouse and get ferried over to Aldreth.

The next turn on the Via Devana is the southward lane to Madingley, already described. Southward also lie Lolworth, Boxworth and Elsworth. The last has an exceptionally fine church, Decorated throughout, and displaying the almost unique feature of small lockers for books in the fourteenth century stalls. Conington, near the road on the same side, has a stone-ribbed spire containing three mediæval bells—a rare survival. They bear the following inscriptions:

• ASSVMPTA · EST · MARIA · IN · CELIS · GAVDENT · ANGELI
  LAVDANTES · BENEDICVNT · DOMINVM.
  Mary is taken up to Heaven. The Angels are glad.
  They praise and bless the Lord.
• SANCTA · MARIA · ORA · PRO · NOBIS
  Holy Mary pray for us.
• VIRGO · CORONATA · DVC · NOS · AD · REGNA · BEATA ·
  O crownèd Maid lead us to realms of bliss.

Northward we find the magnificent churches of Swavesey and Over already mentioned. The former is one of the noblest in Cambridgeshire. The nave is Perpendicular, but the large windows in the south aisle are really Early English lancets, the Perpendicular tracery being inserted—a most unusual development. The finials of the fourteenth century benches are to be noticed, especially in the north aisle, where they take the form of grotesque animals. The small size of these seats suggests that they were meant for children. The little ones would be charmed with these delightful finials, representing a fox and a goose, a fox and a stork, a bear and a dog, a wolf and a hound, an eagle and a snake, a wild boar, a lion, a pelican, a cherub, St. Peter, and an angel playing upon a dulcimer.

At Over every feature of the church is noteworthy. It is entirely built of Barnack stone, richly ornamented externally with running ball-flower patterns. The southern porch is beautifully proportioned, and the gargoyles extraordinary specimens of birds and beasts, apparently under the same inspiration as the Swavesey finials. Over the west door is a sculpture (almost weathered out of knowledge) of Our Lady in Glory, a very rare subject; also the arms of Ramsey Abbey, to which the benefice was presented by Ednoth, Bishop of Dorchester, who lies buried in Bishop West's chapel at Ely.[198] The tracery in general is Decorated, but the spire rises from an Early English tower, and the chancel is also Early English, with inserted Perpendicular windows. The Sanctus Bell[199] still hangs over the eastern gable of the nave. The interior woodwork is of the best, the roof is Decorated, and there is an exceptionally good sixteenth century pulpit. The arcading above the windows of the south aisle, with its banded Early English shafts, is another beautiful feature here. On some of the churchyard tombstones wall-rue may be found growing, a rare sight in this neighbourhood. From Over a lane leads on, crossing the Hundred Foot Bank to Overcote, that fascinating Ferry Inn upon the Ouse whose charms have already been dwelt upon.

Formerly, as we have said, the regular road from Cambridge to Ely was by way of the Causeway at Aldreth. But this roundabout route of over twenty miles compared unfavourably with the shorter line taken by the Cam, which was accordingly the favourite for such as could afford boat-hire. In the eighteenth century regular packet-boats ran daily between the two places, drawn by horses. To-day the only passengers on the river are pleasure-seekers, and the ordinary way to Ely from Cambridge is by the road supposed to represent the hypothetical Akeman Street of Roman days.[200] This road turns northwards round Magdalene College, and runs through the suburb of New Chesterton. Old Chesterton stands on the river, east of the road, and has a finely-proportioned steeple, with particularly melodious bells, and a slender spire. At this point is the winning-post of the College boat races.[201] On the opposite bank, a mile lower down the stream, is Fen Ditton, the "Ditch End" where the Fleam Dyke strikes the river.[202] Ditton Corner, just beneath the parish church, is the favourite spot for seeing these races, as it commands a view of two long reaches, and is also (as a bend in the stream must needs be) a highly probable spot for bumps.

Leaving these to the right, we reach Milton, whence the poet's family name is said to be derived, and where the church has seventeenth century altar rails, a very rare possession. Just opposite, with a ferry between, is Horningsea, where there is another good church. Between this and Fen Ditton is an ancient building, now used for farm purposes, which the Ordnance Map marks as "Biggin Abbey." An abbey, however, it never was, being only one (and the smallest) of the many scattered mansions of the Abbot and Bishop of Ely. On the stream beside it is Baitsbite Lock, the starting-point of the boat races. Here along the towing path may be seen the posts, set at regular intervals on the brink of the stream, to which each boat is moored by the "starting cord" held in the coxswain's[203] hand. He must not let it go till the gun is fired. Thrilling moments pass while he counts aloud the last seconds—"five ... four ... three ... two ... one," and the muscles of the crew grow ever tenser, till, at the signal, he flings the cord into the water, and every oar strains its utmost in the first stroke.

The next lock is Clayhithe, two miles further down the river, with an inn beside it in special favour for Cambridge boating pic-nics. Here, too, is the lowest bridge over the Cam, indeed the only one below Cambridge. It belongs to a private company, and is rigorously tolled. A pretty shady lane leads to it from Horningsea. Hard by, on the left bank, are the villages of Waterbeach and Landbeach. They are respectively four and twelve furlongs from the stream, and mark successive boundaries of the fenland waters. Between them runs an ancient earthwork, the Car Dyke (probably of Roman date), which of old kept those waters in flood time from drowning the meadows to the south. Starting from the Cam at Clayhithe it runs along the whole western limit of the fenland. It reaches the Ouse near the large village of Cottenham (where the east window of the fourteenth century church is copied from one in Prior Crauden's Chapel at Ely) with over 2,000 inhabitants, and goes on past the tiny and picturesque Rampton, with under 200, to Willingham and Earith, Ramsey and Peterborough, Deeping and Sleaford; finally ending its long course on the banks of the far off Witham, hard by Lincoln.

Two miles further we cross the old bed of the Ouse (containing now only such scanty waters as the Bedford rivers have left to it) at Elford, and enter the Isle of Ely. The ramp of the Island, however, lies two miles further on yet. We climb it by the village street of Stretham, where the ancient Town Cross still exists, an interesting and rare feature. It stands hard by the church, which contains various ancient tombstones, one to Nicholas de Ryngestone, rector under Edward the First, and a late fifteenth century brass to Dame Joan Rippingham, mother of two other rectors. A later rector was ejected in 1644 "for having made new steps to the altar, himself bowing twice as he went up, and as often while he came down." The church was an ancient possession of Ely, but was reft from the See by Elizabeth. Stretham lies at the extreme end of the little peninsular ridge on which Wilburton and Haddenham stand.[204] Beyond it we sink to the enclosed inlet of Grunty Fen, passing the hamlet of Little Thetford, and rise again to the higher ground where the towers of Ely greet our eyes, a little over a mile away.

After leaving Waterbeach our road has diverged widely from the Cam. Those who have followed the river course, either by boat or by the towing-path, will be rewarded by finding themselves, in course of time, at Upware, the tiniest and most sequestered of hamlets, where the wide Fens spread all around, bare, treeless, houseless, open to the sweep of every breeze, and giving the same delicious sense of space as a sea view. The whole atmosphere breathes remoteness, the very inn calls itself "Five Miles from Anywhere." But, though wide, the view is not like a sea view, boundless. The Island of Ely limits it to the north-west, and to the south-east the nearer uplands of East Anglia. For here is the nearest point on the Cam to Reach, the little hamlet once so important an emporium, where the Devil's Dyke runs down to the Fen.[205] To Upware, accordingly, there was cut through the sedge and peat, at some time beyond memory, the long straight waterway of Reach Lode, whereby even sea-going ships were able to discharge their cargoes on Reach Hithe. At a later date, but as early as the twelfth century, Burwell Lode was led to the same outlet. Those to Swaffham and Bottisham come in somewhat higher up the river.

A mile to the east of Upware we can see how mighty a task those men of old undertook who cut these lodes through the primæval jungle. For here is that Wicken Fen, which we have already spoken of,[206] where a square mile of that jungle is preserved in its primæval condition, and where (in all but the old bird life) the fauna and flora of the old Fenland may still be studied in their old environment; where the peat is still spongy under your foot, and the tall crests of the reeds rise high above your head. To dig out masses of that spongy peat, to cut through miles of those tall reeds would be no light business even with our own modern means of excavation. What must it have been to the rude implements of the ancients?

CHAPTER XIV

Ely.—Island and Isle.—St. Augustine.—St. Etheldreda, Life, Death, Burial, St. Audrey's Fair.—Danish Sack of Ely.—Alfred's College.—Abbey restored.—Brithnoth, Song of Maldon.—Battle of Assandun.—Canute at Ely.—Edward the Confessor.—Alfred the Etheling.—Camp of Refuge, Hereward, Norman Conquest, Tabula Eliensis, Nomenclature, Norman Minster.—Bishops of Ely, Rule over Isle.—Ely Place, Ely House.

The tourist through Cambridgeshire should now turn his attention to Ely, a place second only in interest, if indeed second, to Cambridge itself. The central point of note in Ely is the Cathedral; known to us ever since our schooldays through Macaulay's picture-giving pen, which sets it before us as "Ely's stately fane." We hope soon to learn something of the history of this great church, of her growth, of her decay, of her restoration, of those men and women who have made her what she is, of the tumults and storms she has over-lived. Truly we may say, with Stirling the poet that the Minster at Ely

"Still ship-like on for ages fares,
And holds its course, so smooth so true,
For all the madness of the crew;
It must have better rule than theirs."

Before we actually visit the place itself let us make ourselves familiar with the outline of its chequered history.

The city of Ely has a population approaching 8,000, and stands on the western edge of the Island of Ely, once truly an island, being an area of dry land rising from the midst of the fens, and, till their drainage, accessible only by boat or causeway. This Island, a true bit of natural terra firma, measures about eight miles by six, and lies at the southern end of a much more extensive fenland archipelago, of irregular shape, measuring approximately thirty miles by twenty, known from of old as the Isle of Ely. The waters of the Fen, which, so lately as a century ago, made this wide area an archipelago indeed, have now given place to a "boundless plain" of fertile corn-land, so rich in harvests as to be often called "The Golden Plain of England."

A twelfth century chronicler, the writer of the "Liber Eliensis," asserts that, within the first years of the seventh century A.D., Ethelbert, King of Kent, newly converted to Christianity, founded a monastery at Cratendune, about a mile south of Ely, and that Saint Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, consecrated it. But we cannot say that the authentic history of Ely begins till seventy years later, when we see an Anglo-Saxon lady founding a monastery on this rising ground in the midst of the Fens. The lady is Etheldreda, once Queen of Northumbria; her monastery is known to us as Ely. She is the daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia, who had reigned at Exning, almost within sight of Ely.

King Anna was a devout man, who himself died a hero's death, fighting for the Cross and for his country against the overwhelming onset of Penda, the heathen King of Mercia, who made it the object of his life to stamp out English Christianity. But, though Anna fell, his cause triumphed. Penda shortly died, and his work perished with him. Not so Anna's. After his death the tide of Christian progress ran the stronger; and all over England it was through members of his family that it was specially championed.

Married to the King of Northumbria, his daughter Queen Etheldreda had renounced her husband and her northern kingdom, and had returned to her native Fenland, there to found a monastery for both monks and nuns. In taking this step she had been influenced by two persons of note; by St. Hilda, her aunt, the foundress and first Abbess of Whitby, and by St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York. Hilda had in early life gained a firm hold on the heart of her niece, who had become fired with the wish to follow her example and herself to found a monastery. In spite of this resolve, of which she made no secret, she had been forced (while strongly protesting) into a nominal marriage with Egfrid, the youthful King of Northumbria. After twelve years of unhappy life, she had been induced by St. Wilfrid to quit her husband; from St. Wilfrid's hand she had received the veil, before him she had taken the vows that bound her to a monastic life. It is a strange, unnatural tale, that cannot claim our approval; but there it is, and its truth is not questioned.

Queen Etheldreda, accompanied by certain attendants had then fled southward, with her deeply wronged husband in chase. She had been sheltered on one occasion from his pursuit by a tide of unprecedented height, which protected her on a rocky hiding-place while the King passed by, all unaware that he was close to her. At length she had reached her own fenland country; and here, still following Hilda's example, she set herself to build a monastery, choosing the highest ground available. She was a well dowered lady, for her first husband, Tonbert, was a Prince of the Girvii, a Celtic tribe descended from those refugee Britons who had sought safety in the fens when all else was conquered by the English invaders two centuries earlier. This prince had bequeathed to his childless widow all his wide fenland domains; so Etheldreda had no need to seek further for an endowment for her monastery; while her brother Adwulf, now King of East Anglia, defrayed the cost of the new buildings. These ere long became the home of both monks and nuns, who lived in separate houses and met only for their common worship in the Abbey church. No Abbot was appointed, but Etheldreda herself was their Abbess, ruling both sexes alike.

It is probable that from its foundation the monastery at Ely was under the influence of the rule of St. Benedict, for St. Wilfrid during Etheldreda's life-time was a frequent resident there, and he was in close touch with St. Botolph, that most influential, though half legendary saint, who, from his hermitage at Ickenhoe in Suffolk, was introducing throughout East Anglia the rule of the monks of St. Benedict, those great preservers of civilisation, which, but for them, must in many lands have perished, when the strong hand of the Roman Empire lost its grip.

Little is recorded of Etheldreda's life as abbess; and, after a rule of seven years, she died at the age of forty-nine, in the year 679, her death being due to an epidemic then prevalent, combined with a tumour in the neck. The death-bed scene is sculptured on one of the corbels of the Octagon Towers at Ely, where the more picturesque events of her life are quaintly set before us in stone. The saintly lady died after much suffering, which the ministrations of her devoted physician Cynifrid failed to allay; though he did for her all that the surgery of those days allowed. She bore her sickness with composure of mind, and when she knew that the end was at hand, she (as others have done before and since) summoned her whole household to her chamber to take her last farewell of them all. She told them that the time of her departure was at hand; she spoke to them of the vanity of this world's enjoyments, and recommended them to keep Heaven always in view, whereby they might in some measure have a foretaste of its joys. After this she received the Communion in both kinds from the hands of Huna, a priest devoted to her service; then, while praying for the inhabitants of the monastery, she passed from earth. It may be of interest to remember that throughout the seven years of her rule at Ely, Theodore, the great organiser of the Anglican Church, "the first Archbishop whom the whole Church of England obeyed," filled the See of Canterbury.

It was Etheldreda's wish to be buried with all simplicity in the cemetery set apart for the nuns of Ely; so we are glad to learn that this her last desire was respected by her followers, and that she was laid to rest among the nuns in a wooden coffin. Her elder sister, St. Sexburga, widow of the King of Kent, took her place as Abbess, and ruled at Ely till another generation was arising. After sixteen years had gone by, those who still remembered and loved Etheldreda wished that her body should be with them at their devotions in the church, and they resolved to translate her remains from the cemetery to the Abbey.

No common coffin was held to be a fitting casket for those precious relics; but in a waste place named Armeswerke,[207] fifteen miles up the River Cam (which may be identified as now forming part of the Fellows' garden at Magdalene College, Cambridge, between the terrace and the river), there was found a marble sarcophagus of Roman workmanship.[208] This was brought to Ely; and with careful and simple ceremony the body of the first Abbess was lifted from the wooden and laid in the marble coffin, all being carried out under the superintendence of Sexburga. On beholding the uncorrupted body of the dear sister who had died in so much pain, Sexburga was heard to exclaim, "Glory to the name of the Lord most high!" All the look of suffering had gone, and the Saint appeared as if asleep on her bed. Gently removed from the wooden to the stone coffin, the body was carried into the Abbey Church, and placed behind the high altar; and for eight centuries the shrine of St. Etheldreda was visited by troops of pilgrims, who came from far and near to worship, to leave their offerings, and to seek healing from disease and infirmity. Sexburga was followed as Abbess by her sister, Ermenilda, Queen of Mercia. Thus Ely had three sister queens as her first three Abbesses; and hence perhaps the three crowns that still form the arms of the Bishopric.

St. Etheldreda was long remembered with affection, and was commonly spoken of as St. Audrey. The popular Pilgrims' Fair held at Ely was known at St. Audrey's Fair; and the cheap fairings bought and sold there (especially the coloured necklets of fine silk known as "St. Audrey's chains") were called, from her name, "tawdry"; and thus a new word was coined for us with a strange story of its own, a word hardly worthy of the great Abbess of the Fenland to whom it owes its origin. Centuries later, St. Audrey's Fair, held in October, had grown to be one of the most important in the land, lasting for a fortnight. By the year 1248 it had become such a centre of merchandise as to interfere with the traffic of the Fair which Henry the Third had lately established at Westminster in honour of St. Edward the Confessor; the King therefore issued a warrant interdicting the fair at Ely. This suspension meant serious loss to the Bishop, Hugh de Northwold, "who made a heavy complaint to the King concerning the matter, but he gained from him nothing except words of soothing promises of future consolation," says the chronicler.

For two hundred years after the death of the foundress, the abbey of monks and nuns went on with its pious works and ways. Then, in 870, appeared the Danes, still pagans; and after working their way through Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, where they "wasted with fire and sword all that ever they came to, they brake down all the abbeys of the fens; nor did Ely, so famous of old, escape." Having laid waste Peterborough, then known as Medhampsted, they came across the fens to Ely. The abbey and all the buildings pertaining to it were burnt; the monks and nuns put to the sword. Before setting fire to the buildings the Danes had secured for themselves all they contained of value, and great was the store, for the people of the neighbourhood had brought their goods into the monastery as to a place of safety. All was seized by the invaders, and what they could not carry away they destroyed. Thus Etheldreda's Abbey, after lasting 200 years, was left a deserted ruin; but her coffin of stone escaped without injury. One of the depredators, indeed, is said to have made an attempt to break into it, with the result that his eyes started from his head, and then and there he died, as the chronicler relates. The ancient sarcophagus had proved worthy of its trust.

The hour was one of direst need; for all England lay spent and gasping beneath the bloodstained feet of the heathen pirates. But, with the need, there arose the deliverer. In 871, the year after the sack of Ely, Alfred the Great, "England's darling," succeeded to the kingship of the exhausted realm; and the life and death struggle entered on its last and most desperate phase. For one moment even he seemed to go under, and was driven to an outlaw life in the marshes of Athelney; the next, we see him shattering the invaders by his miraculous victory of Ethandune, and, with incomparable state-craft, negotiating that Peace of Wedmore, whereby the Danes had to acknowledge him as their Overlord.

As such, he shortly established a College of Priests at Ely. Eight of the clerics who had witnessed the sack of the monastery came back to their old home, and rebuilt a part of the church that it might serve again as a place of worship. These priests were not monks, and are said to have had wives and children. They lived in poverty; for all the endowments of the Abbey had been seized by Burgraed, the last King of Mercia. But gradually, as the children of Alfred won back the kingdom, the endowment of Ely began afresh. Here a fishery, and there a wood, and again a mill with adjoining pastures, was bestowed on the little College—a term which still clings to the Cathedral precincts of Ely, called to this day the College, not the Close as in most Cathedral cities.

With the accession, in 958, of the great Edgar, the first English King to be Emperor of all Britain, the monarch who, nearly a thousand years ago, gained for himself, as but one of our kings has done since, the title of "Peacemaker," brighter days dawned. Then, as now, the Catholic Church might have been well called "Cette éternelle recommenceuse," able to rise from her ashes with life renewed. From the havoc wrought by the Danes, the Abbey of Ely, as a Benedictine House, arose once more, rebuilt, refounded, and re-endowed by King Edgar, who restored to it by Royal Charter all that Etheldreda had originally bestowed; adding thereto several demesnes and sundry privileges. The re-constitution of the Abbey was carried out under the guidance of Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester.

The monks were thus restored; but the nuns of Ely have disappeared from view. As for those secular priests who were in possession and had maintained the sacred character of the spot for well-nigh a hundred years, ever since its devastation by the Danes, they were allowed to stay on if they submitted to the Benedictine Rule, otherwise they were dismissed.

In the year 970, on the Feast of the Purification, a day that we shall again find eventful in the annals of Ely, the new and restored monastic buildings were consecrated by Dunstan, who now, as Archbishop of Canterbury, filled the highest office in the Church of the land. The chronicler, Roger of Wendover, tells us how, by Dunstan's counsel, King Edgar "everywhere restrained the rashness of the wicked, cherished the just and modest, restored and enriched the desolate churches of God, gathered multitudes of monks and nuns to praise and glorify the Great Creator, and built more than forty monasteries." This shews us that, the events taking place at Ely were in no sense isolated, but were part of a great revival going on throughout the whole country.

In the year 991 the restored Abbey becomes connected with one of the most stirring poems of the English language, the "Song of Maldon." The Danish invasions, which had been checked for a century by the glorious line of monarchs who inherited King Alfred's blood and energy, were beginning again. One of these pirate hordes had landed in East Anglia, now no longer a separate principality but merely a district of the United Kingdom of England, governed by an "Alderman" named Brithnoth. Ethelred, surnamed the Unready, was on the throne—a King who for his lack of good judgment well deserved this contemptuous sobriquet—and his want of energy and capacity threw on to the shoulders of his subordinates the burden of the defence of his realm.

Brithnoth rose to the emergency, as a true Christian hero. At the head of his retainers he hurried to meet the foe, calling out the local levies to join his march. At Ely, as he hastened past, he, with his men, was royally entertained. The day before, when he was passing Ramsey Abbey, the Abbot had offered him hospitality, but only for himself and half a dozen picked friends. This niggardly invitation drew from Brithnoth a scornful answer: "Tell my Lord Abbot," he replied, "that I cannot fight without my men, neither will I feed without them." At Ely meat and drink were placed before leader and followers without distinction, and well were the monks rewarded, for Brithnoth requited their hospitality by the gift of no fewer than nine manors, all lying near Cambridge—Trumpington, Fulbourn, and others—stipulating only that, if slain in battle, his body should be brought back to their church for burial.

At Maldon in Essex on the River Panta (or Blackwater, as it is now called), he met the Danes, who began by sending a herald demanding a ransom, to be fixed by themselves, as the price of peace:

"Then back with our booty
To ship will we get us,
Fare forth on the flood,
And pass you in peace."

This degrading offer Brithnoth contemptuously refuses:

"For ransom we give you
Full freely our weapons,
Spear-edge and sword-edge
Of old renown."

The Danes at once make their way across the river and attack the English levies:

"Then drave from each hand
Full starkly the spear,
Showered the sharp arrows,
Busy were bows,
Shield met shaft,
Bitter the battle."

In the end the pirates are driven back to their ships, but at the cost of Brithnoth's own life. He is pierced by a spear, and sinks dying to the ground; to the last exhorting his soldiers to fight on, and commending his own soul to God in the following beautiful and touching lines:

"To Thee give I thanks,
Thou Lord of all living,
For all good hap
In this life here.
Sore need I now,
O Maker mild,
That Thou should'st grant
My spirit grace;
That my soul to Thee
May depart in peace,
And flee to Thy keeping,
Thou King of Angels.
To Thee do I pray
That the Gates of Hell
Prevail not against me."