year 1071, under the leadership of Hereward, a noble of East Anglia. His name was long afterwards held in loving memory by his countrymen ; he is spoken of in their traditions and poetry as 'England's darling,' and a saying was commonly reported, 'that if there had been half-a-dozen men like Hereward, William and his followers would have been driven back to Normandy.'

Hereward was the son of an East Anglian chief named Leofric. His early childhood gave promise of a healthy, brave, vigorous man. His bringing up was not of the daintiest kind; his food was coarse, and in everything else he fared much as did the boys on his father's estate. Strange pastimes had they in those days, and strange ideas of a boy's true worth. A lad was only valued as he displayed physical strength, dexterity, and courage. Such were taken care of and trained; the weak, the timid, and the cowardly were despised, and soon told that they had better leave the district and seek their fortunes elsewhere.

In all the sports and rough play of his native home young Hereward excelled. He had, however, one trait in his character that brought him into great trouble; he had a very violent temper. In these fits of anger he was often a terror to all the neighbourhood. This turbulence of spirit increased so much, that his father was obliged to obtain an order for his banishment from Edward the Confessor. Hereward was thus made an outlaw and driven into exile, that is, forbidden to return to his own country on pain of death.

For a time he wandered about the country, then into Ireland, and lastly on the Continent. There he engaged in the wars, and earned for himself such a name by his bravery that his fame spread to

England. Gladly would his father have welcomed him back, but his adventurous spirit preferred a more exciting life.

He was in Flanders when William succeeded to the English throne. A few years more brought about great changes. He heard that his father was dead, and that his mother had been dispossessed of her estates, and a Norman installed in them. He came over to England at once, and raising a band of devoted Saxon followers, succeeded for a time in driving out the foreigners from his paternal estates. But he could not maintain his position long, opposed as he was by all the force of the ruling power.

Determined to avenge himself on his Norman foes, he watched his opportunity. Building a wooden fortress in the Isle of Ely, amid the bogs and fens of North Cambridgeshire, he ensconced himself and his followers. Hither flocked hundreds of discontented Saxons and lawless spirits, ready to join Hereward in any attempt against their hated rulers. In order to strengthen his authority over these men, he persuaded his uncle, the Abbot of Peterborough, to confer on him the dignity of knighthood. From his stronghold he would sally out and inflict injury, from time to time, upon his Norman enemies.

When his uncle, the abbot, died, the abbey was given by King William to a Norman monk. Before he could obtain possession of it, Hereward and his followers plundered the monastery, and carried off the treasures to their hiding-place in the morasses. The new abbot obtained considerable help from Norman troops, and an attempt was made to dislodge Hereward. For months the Saxons set them at defiance, and in one of their

sorties captured the abbot. They confined him in a damp dungeon, until a ransom of two thousand pounds was paid for his release.

Things were now looking so serious that William himself came to the scene. He saw at once that his only hope of success lay in constructing a good solid road, along which troops could be marched against the outlaw and his followers. First of all, he stationed his fleet in the Wash, and caused all the streams and rivulets that surrounded the 'Camp of Refuge' to be lined with flat-bottomed boats, on which he placed his troops at proper intervals. It thus seemed impossible for the rebels to escape. He next made a road through the morass, two miles long; but in this he had the greatest difficulty from the continued attacks of the Saxon band.

In that age of superstition it was no difficult thing to believe that Hereward was in league with evil spirits. The Normans believed that his successes were brought about by the power of Satan ; so to counteract this influence they employed a witch, or sorceress, to defeat the spells of the Saxons. They placed her in a wooden tower, and always set it at the head of the new road. One night the Saxons set fire to the dry reeds of the neighbourhood, and the tower was consumed, witch. and all.

Just as the Normans were getting disheartened, and almost despairing, the whole camp was taken by treachery. Not far from the spot was the monastery of Ely; and the monks, fearing, no doubt, that William in his vengeance would waste the district, as he had done that of Northumbria a little while before, offered to show him a secret path to the camp, on condition that their convent was

spared. Quietly stole the Norman troops, rendered desperate by frequent defeats, along this secret way into the very heart of the camp. So fierce was the struggle that a thousand Saxons were slain. Hereward and a few of his companions escaped across the marshes, and hid themselves in the woods.

An old tradition says that he and his men came across some Saxon fishermen who were about to dispose of their fish to some Norman knights not far off. They got into the bottom of the boats, and were covered with straw and fishing-nets. The fishermen rowed to the place of appointment with the knights, and were soon engaged in bargaining with them as to the price of the fish. In the midst of the talk, out leaped Hereward and the rest from the boats, and attacked the knights with their fierce battle-axes. The horses of the Normans were then seized, and the Saxons were soon out of sight. What became of Hereward after this is only matter of conjecture; history has no very certain record. Two stories are told.

The first says that he was reconciled to the king, who was not slow to respect his bravery; that he took the oath of allegiance to William; that he married a rich Saxon lady, and died in peace.

The other story gives him a more tragic end. One day, as he was sleeping under a tree, he was seized by twenty Norman knights, who were in search of him, and who were bound by oath to take him. In a desperate struggle, he killed sixteen of them before he was slain himself.

D

In the early days of the Plantagenet kings a large portion of France belonged to the King of England. It included the provinces of Anjou, Touraine, Normandy, Poitou, Maine, and Acquitaine. This explains why the English sovereigns were so often in that country, and also accounts for the numerous French wars of that period.

When Richard I. died, the rightful heir to the crown was Prince Arthur, his nephew, son of Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, Richard's next brother. But, as you know, the throne was seized by John, a still younger brother of Richard, as Arthur was at that time only a boy of eleven years of age. When John laid claim to his French territories, only Normandy, Poitou, and Acquitaine acknowledged his authority; the rest of the provinces declared in favour of Prince Arthur, who was (being son of an elder brother), according to Norman law, the rightful king.

For a time the French king, Philip, took the side of the young prince; but as he did this from selfish