Note C. Ovin’s Cross at Ely 481 Note D. Spalding Priory 481 Note E. Archbishop Parker’s Salt Vat 481 Note F. Abbey of S. Alban 482 Note G. Crowland Abbey 482 Note H. Ramsey Abbey 483 Note I. Thorney Abbey 483 Note J. King’s Lynn in the 18th Century 484 Note K. Camp of Refuge Surrendered 485 Note L. Peterborough Abbey 486 Note M. The Gift of Brand 487 Note N. Knut’s Visit to Ely 487 Fenland Bibliography 487 Maps—The Isle of Ely (_Frontispiece._) The Fen District. Ground Plan of the Spalding Monastery and Boundaries, _from Dugdale’s Monasticon_ (_to face page 481._) THE FEN DISTRICT. [Illustration: _Horace E. Miller, del._ MAP _to_ “CAMP OF REFUGE.”] THE CAMP OF REFUGE. CHAPTER I. THE MESSENGER. It was long ago; it was in the year of grace one thousand and seventy, or four years after the battle of Hastings, which decided the right of power between the English and Norman nations, and left the old Saxon race exposed to the goadings of the sharp Norman lance, that a novice went on his way from the grand abbey of Crowland to the dependent house or succursal cell of Spalding,[1] in the midst of the Lincolnshire fens. The young man carried a long staff or pole in his hand, with which he aided himself in leaping across the numerous ditches and rivulets that intersected his path, and in trying the boggy ground before he ventured to set his feet upon it. The upper end of his staff was fashioned like unto the staff of a pilgrim, but the lower end was armed with a heavy iron ferrule, from which projected sundry long steel nails or spikes. It was a fen-pole,[2] such, I wist, as our fenners yet use in Holland, Lindsey, and Kesteven. In a strong and bold hand this staff might be a good war-weapon; and as the young man raised the skirts of his black garment it might have been seen that he had a short broad hunting-knife fastened to his girdle. He was a fair-haired, blue-eyed, and full-lipped youth, with an open countenance and a ruddy complexion: the face seemed made to express none but joyous feelings, so that the grief and anxiety which now clouded it appeared to be quite out of place. Nor was that cloud always there, for whensoever the autumn sun shone out brightly, and some opening in the monotonous