But for the time these same enormities enabled the daring earl at once to increase the number of his followers and to acquire a strategical position unrivalled for his purpose. The soldiers of fortune and mercenary troopers who now swarmed throughout the land flocked in crowds to his standard, and he was soon at the head of a sufficient force to undertake offensive operations.[651] From his advanced post at Ramsey Abbey, he was within striking distance of several important points, while himself comparatively safe from attack. His front and right flank were covered by the meres and fens; his left was to some extent protected by the Ouse and its tributaries, and was further strengthened by a fortified work, erected by his son Ernulf at one of the abbey's manors, Wood Walton.[652] In his rear lay the isle of Ely, with its castles in the hands of his men, and its communications with the Eastern Counties secured by his garrison at Fordham.[653] His positions at Ely and Ramsey were themselves connected by a garrison, on the borders of the two counties, at Benwick.[654] Thus situated, the earl was enabled to indulge his thirst for vengeance, if not on Stephen himself, at least on his unfortunate subjects. From his fastness in the fenland he raided forth; his course was marked by wild havoc, and he returned laden with plunder.[655] Cambridge, as being the king's town, underwent at his hands the same fate that Nottingham had suffered in 1140, or Worcester in 1139, at the hands of the Earl of Gloucester.[656] Bursting suddenly on the town, he surprised, seized, and sacked it. As at Worcester, the townsmen had stored in the churches such property as they could; but the earl was hardened to sacrilege: the doors were soon crashing beneath the axes of his eager troopers, and when they had pillaged to their hearts' content, the town was committed to the flames.[657] The whole country round was the scene of similar deeds.[658] The humblest village church was not safe from his attack,[659] but the religious houses, from their own wealth, and from the accumulated treasures which, for safety, were then stored within their walls, offered the most alluring prize. It is only from the snatch of a popular rhyme that we learn incidentally the fact that St. Ives was treated even as the abbey of which it was a daughter-house. In a MS. of the _Historia Anglorum_ there is preserved by Mathew Paris the tradition that the earl and his lawless followers mockingly sang of their wild doings— "I ne mai a live For Benoit ne for Ive."[660] It may not have been observed that this jingle refers to St. Benedict of Ramsey and its daughter-house of St. Ives.[661]