should not pass without seeing the Abbey of Ely in flames, the Camp of Refuge broken into and scattered, the rule of the Normans established over the whole land, and the refractory Saxons exterminated. “Now,” said my Lord Abbat, “it behoves us to devise how we shall withstand this storm, and to select some fitting and experienced captain that shall have authority over all the fighting men of our league, and that shall be able to measure swords with these vaunted leaders from foreign parts. Our brave Saxon chiefs in the camp, or in this house, and now present among us, are weary of their jealousies of one another, and have wisely agreed to obey, one and all, one single leader of experience and fame and good fortune, if such a leader can anywhere be found, having a true Saxon heart within him, and being one that hath never submitted to or negociated with the invader. Let us then cast about and try and find such a chief. Let every one speak his mind freely, and then we can compare and choose.” Some named one chief, and some another: many brave and expert men were named successively and with much applause, and with many expressions of hope and confidence; but when Father Adhelm, the expelled prior of the succursal cell at Spalding, stood up in his turn, and with the briefest preamble named Hereward the son of Leofric, the late Lord of Brunn, Hereward the truest of Saxons, the other chiefs seemed to be all forgotten, even by those who had severally proposed them, and the assembly listened in silence, or with a silence interrupted only by shouts of triumph, while this good prior and whilom neighbour of Hereward related the chief events of that warrior’s life, and pointed out the hereditary and the personal claims he had to the consideration of his countrymen. Ever since the earliest days in which the Saxons gained a footing on the land, the Lords of Brunn, the ancestors of Hereward, had been famed for their valour in the field, famed for their prudence in the Witan and in all other councils, had been famed above all their neighbours for their hospitality! And when the Saxons embraced the Gospel as preached by Saint Augustine and his disciples, who had been so devout as the Lords of Brunn? who so bountiful to the shrines of saints and religious houses? who so ready to fight unto death in defence of the church? Notable it was, and known unto all that dwelt in the land of fens, that the house of Crowland, and the house of Ely, and the shrine of Saint Etheldreda, had been served in the hour of need by many of Hereward’s forefathers. When the unconverted, heathenish Danes were ravaging the country, and burning all the monasteries, and tethering their horses in the chapels of royal palaces, one Lord of Brunn fought in the ranks by the side of Friar Tolli,[91] from sunrise to sunset, for the defence of the Abbey of Crowland, nor ceased fighting until three of the Danish sea-kings had been slain, and the monks had had time to remove their relics, and