When William had conquered at Hastings, England, as a whole, was at first disposed to accept the verdict of battle, and to acknowledge his claim to the throne, as it had acknowledged Canute's. But when the necessities of his position, as the captain of an invading army, forced him to confiscate every estate in England (except the Church lands), and to bestow it on some Norman adventurer; when every single Englishman in high office, Sheriff and Alderman, Bishop and Abbot, was turned out to make room for a Frenchman,[211] the whole nation glowed with outraged patriotism, and Ely seemed likely to become a second Athelney, whence the spark of resistance to the tyrant might spread like wildfire throughout the length and breadth of the land. [Footnote 211: See my _History of Cambridgeshire_.] And had there been a second Alfred this might well have actually come to pass. As it was, many of the magnates who could not brook submission retired to the "Camp of Refuge," as the Island of Ely now got to be called. This fastness, being surrounded on all sides by deep fens "as by a strong wall," promised them a sure retreat, and for a while enabled them to baffle all the efforts even of the mighty Conqueror to subdue them. Thither came Archbishop Stigand (deposed by the Conqueror to make way for the great Lanfranc); thither came the Abbot of St. Albans, thither came the valiant Ethelnoth, Bishop of Durham; thither came Morcar, the last Earl of Northumbria, "with many a hundred more," both clergy and laity. Here they received shelter and hospitality from Thurstan, the last of the English Abbots of Ely. By the general voice Hereward was chosen as their captain, and fortified the island against the Conqueror. William, on hearing of this, hastened to Cambridge with his whole army, and invested the place (so far as it was possible to invest it) both by land and water, building a castle at Wisbech on the north, and at Reach on the south. At Aldreth, where scarcely a mile of fen parted the Island from the mainland at Willingham, he made a floating bridge of trees and faggots, fastened underneath with cow-hides; but when his men attempted to cross it, the unsteady structure capsized, and that portion of the army engaged in the attempt was drowned. Perplexed and almost daunted, William, with his court and army, retired for a time to Brandon in Suffolk; while the refugees at Ely spent stirring days. The knights and churchmen were hospitably entertained in the refectory of the abbey, every man with his shield and lance hanging near him, to be ready in case of sudden alarm. Their days were diversified by raids into the surrounding country beyond the fens, to snatch what provisions they could for their fastness; and these raids of the islanders were so dreaded throughout the district, that its inhabitants were thankful for the protection of William's soldiery.