It took a week and a half for all the new arrivals to be added to the Roll of Honour. When it was done, the Brotherhood had well over 3,000 members.
They all knew that there was little or no chance of inflicting any kind of significant military defeat on King William. Even so, they had chosen to stand on principle. Although 3,000 men was not an army strong enough to defeat the King, it was more than sufficient to make a din so loud it would be heard the length and breadth of the land and across Europe. At long last, the spirit of England, those proud traditions of Saxon, Celt and Dane, had emerged from the humiliation of defeat. William was attempting to make a people cower by butchering anyone who dared utter a sound in opposition. Now, a few good men were speaking out, despite the price they knew they would eventually have to pay.
When the warmer days arrived, Hereward ordered that the causeway, Ely’s lifeline, be destroyed. Ely would, like England itself, become an island again.
Once more, as he had in 1066, William would confront a military challenge across an expanse of water.
Throughout the early summer of 1071, the Norman army gathered around Ely and William’s newly commissioned ships sailed into fenland waters.
The fleet consisted of standard longships carrying butescarls, smaller, flat-bottomed boats to navigate shallow waterways, and vessels adapted to carry catapults and ballisti. There was also a flotilla stationed in the Wash to act as supply ships and to prevent any naval ambush by Danish or Scottish allies of the Brotherhood.
On land, William ordered permanent camps to be prepared on the solid ground around the Isle of Ely and assembled a formidable show of strength. There were 4,000 infantry, 40 squadrons of cavalry, 500 archers and crossbowmen, and an array of blacksmiths, sappers and shipwrights. He had thought carefully about the assault; his planning, as always, was scrupulous. He intended to use catapults on any surrounding hillocks and islands that were within range of Ely and build tall towers for ballisti that could hurl stones, fire and boiling oil at the defenders. Finally, and most significantly, he intended to use pontoons to construct a new causeway for a final assault on the island.
When all the King’s forces were in position, the Brotherhood was heavily outnumbered. Just 3,000 defenders faced an amphibious Norman assault force of almost 8,000. Crucially, William was able to bring in more men, equipment and materiel to an all but limitless extent.
The first assault would come from ground to the south-east of the island. While archers and crossbowmen loosed hails of arrows, and catapults launched their projectiles on to the Isle, Norman sappers would build a new causeway to the island. It would be a floating pontoon to span a stretch of water almost 800 yards across. The causeway would have to fall short of the island by about 200 yards because of the threat from the arrows of the defenders, but William estimated that his horses could cope with the shallow water at that point and reach the island. When it was completed, William planned to mount a cavalry attack with infantry in support.
Hereward’s defence on the landfall side was a high peat bank and ditch. However, to prevent him massing too many defenders behind the bank, William planned simultaneous amphibious attacks all around the island, thinly stretching Hereward’s forces around Ely’s twenty-mile perimeter. Communications would be vital for the defenders, and Martin Lightfoot’s messengers would have one of the most difficult tasks.
When, several weeks later, the pontoon was ready, William’s first cavalry attack, early on a clear June morning, was heralded by a single arrow shot high into the sky. Dawn had brought an amber glow to the water and the distant clouds were framed by golden sunbursts. There was silence, the meres and waterways of the Fens still, but the calm was soon interrupted by the rumble of heavy cavalry. As the riders began to cross the causeway, three abreast in tight formation, their horses’ hooves clattering on the timber of the new bridge sent a chilling echo around the Isle.
The attack was a hopeless failure.
William had to put a large body of cavalry on to the causeway for the attack to have any momentum, but the structure appeared unable to support such a volume of men and horses, especially in the middle where it crossed the much deeper course of the River Cam. The pontoon began to give way after about 250 yards, and the charge lost its discipline. The lead horses panicked and, within minutes, hundreds of men and their steeds were floundering in the murky waters and deep mud.
Few got out alive.
William ordered his senior engineer to be executed on the spot and twenty of his sappers were flogged in front of the entire army.
Although the design of the pontoon was flawed, what William did not know was that its imperfections were significantly exacerbated by Hereward’s cunning. Night after night, Alphonso and Hereward and their squads of saboteurs had slipped into the cold waters of the Great Fen to partially sever the structure’s ropes and timbers beneath the waterline. Thanks to their handy work, the pontoon was doomed.
William rarely made mistakes, so to have made two in one day was unprecedented. Not only had he built an inadequate causeway, he had also failed to realize the significance of the day chosen for the attack. If he had owned an astrolabe, he would have known that it was the twenty-third day of June.
Hereward knew the date, because he had used his precious gift from Rodrigo of Bivar to calculate it. He had made plans for a religious service, followed by the roasting of an ox, because 23 June was the feast day of St Etheldreda, the virgin martyr of Ely and patron saint of the Brotherhood. When William belatedly heard of the coincidence, his fury knew no bounds. He dismissed his seers, sending them back to Normandy bound hand and foot and dressed as harlequins complete with foolscaps. He stormed around his camp in a drunken rage, berating everyone in sight.
William ordered a new, much more substantial causeway, to be built. It would begin opposite Aldreth, on the southern tip of the island at the furthest point from the Burgh of Ely. Norman soldiers were despatched far and wide to round up hundreds of English peasants to provide the forced labour to construct it. The new structure would be much longer, almost a mile, and would be solid and permanent. It would be based on piles formed by stone gabions, topped by sheepskins of sand and covered by heavy timbers of elm and oak.
Protected by towers and sentry posts and wide enough for cavalry six abreast, it would form an important part of the fortifications being built all over England to ensure that the kingdom remained under Norman rule for generations to come.
William would not repeat his earlier mistakes.
As July and August came and went, Hereward watched the new causeway grow. He knew that he needed to buy some extra time, to allow winter to come to the aid of the Brotherhood.
He organized raiding parties, large and small, all of which he led himself, to harass the Normans. Using small boats along the hidden waterways and streams of the Fens, he ambushed Norman patrols, burned their supplies and scattered their horses and livestock. On one of these punitive raids, Edwin, Earl of Mercia, was caught trying to cross a mere by a troop of Norman cavalry and cut down. His body was later recovered and, presided over by Bishop Aethelwine, he was given a funeral befitting an earl of England. His death meant that Morcar, Earl of Northumbria, became the last English earl not under the heel of the Normans.
In the middle of September, Hereward returned to Ely from a three-day raid on one of William’s supply camps on the road to Cambridge, to face disturbing news.
Bishop Aethelwine, Siward Bjorn, Earl Morcar and Martin Lightfoot came to see him with a report that, although morale remained high, Abbot Thurstan’s monks had been fomenting dissent within the Brotherhood. Earl Morcar had discovered that Thurstan was sending messages to William and that a deal had been done between them for the end of the siege.
In return for encouraging opposition within Ely, William would grant significant new lands to Thurstan and endow Ely Abbey with a considerable sum from his treasury at Winchester. Several monks were very tempted by this and, with Thurstan’s encouragement, had
started a whispering campaign to spread doubt through the ranks. The monks were also talking seditiously to the townspeople, some of whom, especially the wealthier ones, had no real sympathy for the Brotherhood’s cause and would much prefer to trade with the wealthy Normans.
Hereward gave swift instructions to convene a court of fifty randomly-selected members of the Brotherhood in the cloisters of the abbey. Thurstan was summoned to appear before it. Earl Morcar presided and conducted an elaborate trial with witnesses and formal statements.
Thurstan spoke eloquently in his own defence, arguing that the ‘messages’ in question had all come from William and that none had gone the other way. He also claimed that it was the duty of monks to listen to all God’s children, to hear their concerns and to offer advice; that was all his clerics had been doing. Where previously there seemed to be certainty about his guilt, Thurstan’s clever arguments and subtle oratory were creating a sense of doubt within the court.
Then, a young monk, one of Thurstan’s men, rose from the back of the cloisters. ‘My Lord…’
The entire court turned to see where the faint voice came from.
The boy breathed deeply and spoke more loudly, trying to suppress his nervousness. ‘… Abbot Thurstan has been plotting for many weeks to undermine the Brotherhood and reach a settlement with the King for the future of the abbey. He cares nothing for our Oath and thinks only of himself.’ The boy sat down, relieved to have found the courage to speak, but still fearful of the consequences of his words.
Earl Morcar addressed him directly. ‘What is your name, young monk?’
‘Rahere, my Lord.’
‘Thank you, Rahere. Thank you for your faith in the Brotherhood.’
Thurstan seethed with anger at Rahere’s denunciation. He sat and rocked like a child, his face contorted in rage. ‘The boy lies! How dare he impune my name!’
Earl Morcar shouted Thurstan down and stood to address the court. ‘Members of the Brotherhood, Thurstan, Abbot of Ely and twelve of his monks stand before you. They are accused of dishonouring our Brotherhood, defaming our Oath and undermining our cause in an insidious negotiation with the King. How do you judge them? Guilty or not guilty?’
A great cry of ‘guilty’ rang around the cloisters.
The Earl then turned to Hereward. ‘Hereward of Bourne, founder of our noble Brotherhood, what would you have us do with them?’
‘Execute them!’ was the cry from many throats. ‘Execute them! Execute them!’ The cries grew louder.
Hereward rose. ‘Like you, I am sorely tempted to have them cut down here and now. Indeed, there is much history between Abbot Thurstan and me, a past so grievous it would warrant a bloody end to our relationship. We now know he did not take the Oath honestly, but out of expediency, to protect his own interests. He and his monks have wronged us, and now we are entitled to punish them. But our Oath does not mention vengeance, it talks only of justice. Our purpose here in Ely is to foster tolerance and forgiveness. Therefore, let us abide by our Oath and expel them from our midst. Let that be their punishment.’
Earl Morcar looked around. Most of the men nodded their heads in agreement, and Morcar declared that Hereward’s suggestion had been accepted.
Edmund of Kent was delegated to expel the guilty clerics. He summoned three small rowing boats and, stripped to their loincloths, the traitors were bundled into the craft.
Thurstan was a pathetic sight: hunched, disfigured and pale as a ghost, he cowered in the bottom of the last boat to leave as the disgraced monks rowed themselves to the Norman positions.
By the time the autumn gales of October arrived, King William’s second causeway was almost complete. Hereward’s subversive tactics had stalled the King’s plans, but not enough to allow winter to bring respite to the defenders of Ely. He needed just a fraction more time – a salvation that would be denied to him, as it had been to England’s stricken King on Senlac Ridge.
Now it was only a matter of days before England’s final redoubt would face the second Norman onslaught.
Under the guardianship of Bishop Aethelwine, who had become the new Chaplain to the Brotherhood, Hereward issued orders that all the non-combatants of the burgh be given refuge in the abbey. A third of his defenders would mass behind the ditch and bank at Aldreth, the landing point for the King’s causeway, while the remaining two-thirds would be dispersed around the island to repel any waterborne attacks by William’s butescarls. If any of their positions were overrun, they were to fall back inside the walls of the burgh to make a final stand.
William’s logistical task was much more complicated. Not only had he to synchronize the massed attack along the causeway with the simultaneous amphibious attacks from the Fens, he also had to manage the complex positioning of the catapults and ballisti and coordinate the supply of projectiles for them. Hereward watched for over a week as the Normans manoeuvred themselves into position and William displayed his skills as a master of the art of military planning.
In the second week of October, the bustle of Norman activity had all but ceased and they were poised to attack. Hereward was convinced that hostilities would commence the next morning.
He called the Brotherhood together to address them.
‘Tomorrow we will stand together to face the King. We do so willingly, as free men. We have sent a message to him, to all Normans and to the whole of Europe, saying that we will not be intimidated by an unjust and cruel regime. Most importantly, we have sent a message to our fellow Englishmen – a message that will live in their memories and those of generations to come – that on this October day, in the year 1071 on the Isle of Ely, three thousand Englishmen stood and fought for justice. By our Oath, we stand together for our Brotherhood and for England!’
An immense roar resounded across the Fens, heard by William and every Norman for miles around.
That evening, Hereward’s family gathered. They went over the escape plan several times to ensure that everyone knew it by heart. Hereward then walked to the walls of Ely and looked out over the Fens.
The night was black with menacing clouds, and the wind blew with a piercing chill. There was nothing left to do, other than allow the circumstances he had set in motion months earlier to come to their conclusion. In the protracted game of chess he had been playing with William, he had been put into check for the last time.
William’s demeanour had not softened; the many pleas to him to loosen the vicious grip he had on the neck of England had been to no avail. His cruelty still knew no bounds and there was no hint of compassion in his heart. Nevertheless, Hereward believed it had been worth the struggle. Even if the King remained unmoved, what was happening on the Isle of Ely had lit a powerful beacon to signal that men do have rights and that they are entitled to defend them, even against their sovereign lord. The message of the Talisman of Truth was clear: no evil is so great that it cannot be overcome, not even that of the Devil.
Hereward was about to return to try to get some sleep, when Gunnhild and Estrith appeared.
As usual, they spoke as a duet. ‘We do understand what you are trying to do, Father; it’s just that we don’t want to lose you… We have lost our mother… We don’t want to lose our father as well.’
He knelt down to look them in the eye. ‘One day you will have children of your own and will understand that sometimes things have to be done that are not concerned with the needs of the present, but the well-being of future generations. Everything that has happened here – the Brotherhood, our Oath, and the fight against the King’s cruelty – has a single aim: to make sure that those terrible things that happened in Bourne, to your grandmother and grandfather and all the others, never happen again. Our deeds are also a tribute to your mother’s memory. Torfida shared this burden with me from the very beginning, and her wisdom still guides me in my thoughts and helps me in my moments of doubt.’
‘We know, Father.’ They held him tightly.
After a while, he carried them back to their tent and p
ut them to bed. As they kissed him goodnight, he could see the anxiety in their eyes; if ever there was a moment to abandon his cause, this was it.
Just then, in unison, they smiled at him. ‘We love you.’
‘I love you too.’
They closed their eyes and he bent down to kiss them. With tears rolling down his cheeks, he sat with them until long after they had fallen asleep.
It was the most difficult thing he had ever had to do.
30. Denouement
Everyone was in position long before dawn – defenders and attackers alike. Edmund proudly unfurled Hereward’s standard, the Great Axe of Göteborg, and those who had fought with him in the North flew his gold, crimson and black pennons.
Hereward checked his astrolabe; the date was 14 October 1071, five years to the day from the momentous events of Senlac Ridge.
Earl Morcar was in command to the north, Siward Bjorn to the west, Thorkill of Harringworth to the east, while Hereward took charge of the all-important southern defences at Aldreth. Everything was ready, all preparations made, every detail attended to.
Now it was time to fight.
The sky was threatening and the wind howling, drowning any sounds except, carried from afar, the snorting and stomping of the Norman destriers. Hereward grasped the Talisman just as William gave the signal to attack.
This time, the causeway held as a relentless stream of Norman cavalry hurtled towards Aldreth. The defenders launched a fusillade of arrows and javelins, inflicting heavy casualties on the front ranks of the Norman squadrons. When the cavalry reached the end of the causeway, they were able to fan out across the shallow water. Some became trapped in the cloying mud, lost to a lingering death, but most got a firm footing and started to assail the Brotherhood’s bank and ditch. The defenders at the top adopted the tactics of the shield wall of the English army, placing their shields on the parapet and using their spears above and swords between. A cacophony of yells and screams, clanging armour and straining horses filled the air.
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