The Abbot of Thorney was also "mitred," and the House ranked as second only to Ely in the county. William of Malmesbury (A.D. 1135) describes it as "a little paradise, delightsome as heaven itself may be deemed, fen-circled, yet rich in loftiest trees, where water-meadows delight the eye with rich green, where streamlets glide unchecked through each field. Scarce a spot of ground lies there waste; here are orchards, there vineyards. Nature vies with culture, and what is unknown to the one is produced by the other. And what of the glorious buildings, whose very size it is a wonder that the ground can support amid such marshes? A vast solitude is here the monks' lot, that they may the more closely cling to things above. If a woman is there seen, she is counted a monster, but strangers, if men, are greeted as angels unawares. Yet there none speaketh, save for the moment; all is holy silence.... Truly I may call that island a hostel of chastity, a tavern of honesty, a gymnasium of divine philosophy. From its dense thickets it is called Thorney." At the draining of the Fens, in the seventeenth century, Thorney was assigned to the Earls (now Dukes) of Bedford, who, during the nineteenth century alone, have expended on their Thorney estates nearly L2,000,000. Yet the Thorney property does not even pay its way. The noble owners have, however, their reward in the genuine success which has crowned the experiment from a philanthropic point of view. Thanks to their efforts, Thorney is again, as in the old days of the Benedictines, a smiling, well-wooded oasis amid the dreary Fenland; where the welfare of the tenantry is, as of old, the chief object of the landlord, and where, in consequence, pauperism, drunkenness, and crime are alike practically unknown. The remains of the Abbey Church are still used for parochial worship, but only 117 of its original 290 feet of length have survived Henry the Eighth's demolitions. CHAPTER XIX Draining of Fens.--Monastic Works, Morton's Leam.--Diversion of Ouse.--Local Government, Jurats, Discontent.--Jacobean polemics.--First Drainage Company.--Rising of Fen-men.--Second Company, Huguenot Labourers.--Third Company, Earl of Bedford, Vermuyden.--Old River.--Cromwell.--Fourth Company, Prisoner Slaves, New River, Denver Sluice.--Later Developments.