Hereward the Wake and The Danes sack Peterborough Abbey 1070

[Valin]

English Monarchs

The legendary Hereward the Wake, the guerrilla leader who headed Anglo- Saxon resistance to William the Conqueror for five years has been called one of history's "greatest Englishmen".

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Hereward, by all accounts, a hot-headed young man, was exiled from England at the age of eighteen for disobedience to his father, and was declared an outlaw by the Saxon King Edward the Confessor. After spending some time in military activity on the continent as a mercenary for the Count of Flanders, Hereward returned to England following the Norman conquest, either in late 1069 or 1070 to discover his family's lands had been confiscated and given to the Norman Ivo de Taillebuis and his father and brother killed, his brother's decapitated head was placed on a spike at the entrance to his house.

Overhearing Normans ridiculing his countrymen at a drunken feast, Hereward exacted a bloody revenge for his family, with the aid of only one follower, he is said to have killed fourteen of them. The next day fourteen Norman heads had replaced that of his brother at the gate. He then went to Peterborough Abbey where he was knighted by his uncle Abbot Brand. After returning briefly to the continent while the heated situation cooled, he returned again to England.

 

 

In 1070, Hereward took part in a rebellion against Norman rule which centred on the Isle of Ely. The Danish king Sweyn Estrithson sent a small army to try to establish a camp on the Isle of Ely, where Hereward joined them. Brand had been replaced at Peterborough Abbey by a Norman abbot, Turold of Fecamp. With the aid of the Danes, ‘Hereward and his crew’ stormed and sacked Peterborough Abbey, claiming that he wished to save the Abbey's treasures from the rapacious Normans.

 

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Several conflicting accounts exist as to Hereward's fate thereafter, the Gesta Herewardi states that while in attempt to negotiate with William he was provoked into a fight which led to his capture and imprisonment, however, he was later liberated by his friends while in the course of being transferred from one castle to another. Hereward's former gaoler persuaded the king to negotiate again, and he was eventually pardoned by William. The Estoire des Engleis, written by Geoffrey Gaimar claims Hereward lived for some time as an outlaw in the Fens, but that as he was on the verge of making peace with William, he was set upon and killed by a group of Norman knights. Even after his death, people still visited a wooden castle in the Fens that was known to the peasants as Hereward's Castle.

 

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We're talking about some really serious Hard Cases....both Hereward and William. Note men to be trifled with.

[Valin]

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