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Hereward the Wake (c. 1035 – 1072), known in his own times as Hereward the Outlaw or Hereward the Exile, was an 11th-century leader of local resistance to the Norman conquest of England.

Hereward's base was in the Isle of Ely, and according to legend he roamed The Fens, covering North Cambridgeshire, Southern Lincolnshire and West Norfolk, leading popular opposition to William the Conqueror. The name Hereward is composed of Old English roots here = army, and weard = guard,[1] and is cognate with Old High German Heriwart and modern German Heerwart. The title "the Wake" (meaning "watcher") was popularly assigned to him many years after his death.

There is a wide variety of secondary sources of information, but the complexity of his story, as it has come down to us, has led to flights of fancy on the one hand and deep scepticism on the other. One of the difficulties is that most of the people who know the story have learned it from fictionalized versions, usually that of Charles Kingsley.[2] Another is the fact that the early writers were living in a culture which was, in many respects, very different from ours. In some instances, by applying modern rules of living to things described more than nine hundred years ago, modern writers baffle themselves. For example, in the part of England in which Hereward originated, the old Danish Law then applicable permitted bigamy.

Primary sources exist but are either brief or a little enigmatic. They are the version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written at Peterborough Abbey (ASC), the Domesday Book (DB), the Liber Eliensis (Book of Ely), and, much the most detailed, the Gesta Herwardi (Gesta). To a small extent, they are sometimes mutually contradictory.[3] This probably indicates, as the preface to the Gesta suggests, that conflicting oral legends about Hereward were already current in the Fenland in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. In addition, there is some partisan bias in the early writers: the notice of Hereward in the Peterborough Chronicle, for instance, was written in a monastery which he was said to have sacked, some fifty years after the date of the raid.[4] On the other hand, the original version of the Gesta was written explicitly in praise of Hereward,[5]; much of its information was provided by men who knew him personally, principally, if the preface is to be believed, a former colleague in arms and member of his father's former household named Leofric the Deacon.[6]

These primary sources have each been published more than once, with one form or another of commentary. The form in which they are generally available is therefore a secondary source. This has to be taken with care especially where they are published as a translation of the original Latin or Old English into modern language, without a transcription of the original. The further one gets from the original texts, the greater is the chance of mistakes and misunderstandings.

ereward's birth is conventionally dated as 1035/6 because the Gesta Herwardi indicates that he was first exiled in 1054 in his 18th year. However, since the account in the Gesta of the early part of his exile (in Scotland, Cornwall and Ireland) contains fantastic elements which suggest it is largely fictitious, it is hard to know if we can trust this.[7] Peter Rex, in his 2005 biography of Hereward, points out that the campaigns he is reported to have fought in the neighbourhood of Flanders seem to have begun around 1063, and suggests that Hereward in fact went to Flanders - meaning that, if he was 18 at the time of his exile, he was born in 1044/5.[8] But this would be based on the assumption that the early part of the story is largely fictitious.

Partly because of the sketchiness of evidence for his existence, his life has become a magnet for speculators and amateur scholars. The earliest references to his parentage, in the Gesta, make him the son of Edith, a descendent of Oslac of York, and Leofric of Bourne, nephew of Ralph the Staller. Alternatively, it has also been argued that Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva were Hereward's real parents. There is no evidence for this, and Abbot Brand of Peterborough, stated to have been Hereward's uncle, does not appear to have been related to either Leofric or Godiva. It is improbable that if Hereward were a member of this prominent family, his parentage would not be a matter of record.[9] Some modern research suggests him to have been Anglo-Danish with a Danish father, Asketil: since Brand is also a Danish name it makes sense that the Abbot may have been Asketil's brother. Hereward's apparent ability to call on Danish support may also support this theory.[10]

His place of birth is supposed to be in or near Bourne in Lincolnshire. Domesday Book shows that a man named Hereward held lands in the parishes of Witham on the Hill and Barholm with Stow in the south-western corner of Lincolnshire as a tenant of Peterborough Abbey; prior to his exile, Hereward had also held lands as a tenant of Croyland Abbey at Crowland, eight miles east of Market Deeping in the neighbouring fenland. In those times it used to be a boggy and marshy area. Since the holdings of abbeys could be widely dispersed across parishes, the precise location of his personal holdings are uncertain, but were certainly somewhere in south Lincolnshire.

According to the Gesta Herwardi, Hereward was exiled at the age of eighteen for disobedience to his father and disruptive behaviour, and he was declared an outlaw by Edward the Confessor. It has been suggested that, at the time of the Norman invasion of England, he was in exile in Europe, working as a successful mercenary for the Count of Flanders, Baldwin V, and that he then returned to England.
old yellowing map of east Cambridgeshire showing Isle of Ely surrounded by water
Map showing Isle of Ely surrounded by water
Joan Blaeu (1648) Regiones Inundatae

In 1069 or 1070 the Danish king Sweyn Estrithson sent a small army to try to establish a camp on the Isle of Ely. They were joined by many, including Hereward. His first act was to storm and sack Peterborough Abbey in 1070, in company with local men and Swein's Danes:[11] his justification is said to have been that he wished to save the Abbey's treasures and relics from the Normans.

In 1071 Hereward and many others made a desperate stand on the Isle of Ely against the Conqueror's rule. Both the Gesta Herwardi and the Liber Eliensis claim that the Normans made a frontal assault, aided by a huge mile-long timber causeway, but that this sank under the weight of armour and horses. It is said that the Normans, probably led by one of William's knights named Belasius (Belsar), then bribed the monks of the island to reveal a safe route across the marshes, resulting in Ely's capture. Hereward is said to have escaped with some of his followers into the wild fenland, and to have continued his resistance.

There is extant evidence for an ancient earthwork south of Aldreth at the junction of the old fen causeway and Iram Drove. This circular feature, known as Belsar's Hill,[12] is a potential site for a fort built by William to attack Ely and Hereward. There were possibly as few as four causeways onto the Isle itself with this being the southerly route from London, and the likely route of William's army. In Kingsley's 1865 work Hereward the Wake the name of the knight who bribed the monks to gain access to the isle is given as Belasius, and the feature is noted in Lysons' Magna Britannia (1808 vol2, pt1, Cambridgeshire).

There are conflicting accounts about Hereward's life after the fall of Ely. The 12th century Gesta Herewardi, (of unknown authorship: first published by Thomas Wright in 1839 and translated by W. Sweeting for the 1895 edition) says Hereward was eventually pardoned by William and lived the rest of his life in relative peace. Geoffrey Gaimar, in his Estoire des Engleis, says instead that Hereward lived for some time as an outlaw in the Fens, but as he was on the verge of making peace with William, he was set upon and killed by a group of Norman knights.[13] The other possibility is Hereward received no such pardon and went into exile never to be heard from again. As this was the fate of a lot of prominent English men after the Conquest it is a distinct possibility.[14]
[edit] Epithet "the Wake"

The epithet "the Wake" is first attested in the late fourteenth-century Chronicon Angliae Petriburgense, ascribed by its first editor Joseph Sparke to the otherwise unknown John of Peterborough.[15] There are two main theories as to the origin of the tag. Popular legend interprets it as meaning "the watchful", and supposes that Hereward acquired it when, with the help of his servant Martin Lightfoot, he foiled an assassination attempt during a hunting party by a group of knights jealous of his popularity.[16] However, it appears more likely that the name was given to him by the Wake family, the Norman landowners who gained Hereward's land in Bourne (Lincolnshire) after his death, in order to imply a family connection and therefore legitimise their claim to the land.[17]
[edit] Legacy

HMS Hereward was an H-class destroyer of the Royal Navy commissioned on 9 December 1936.
"Hereward" is the motto of No. 2 Squadron RAF. They are based at RAF Marham in Norfolk and their crest contains a Wake knot.
BR standard class 7 (otherwise known as the "Britannia Class") locomotive No 70037 carried the name "Hereward the Wake".
There is a long-distance footpath through the Cambridgeshire fenland from Peterborough to Ely, called the Hereward Way.
From 1980 to 2009, a local radio station broadcasting from Peterborough was called Hereward FM, before being relaunched as Heart Peterborough.
Hampstead has a preparatory school for boys called Hereward House School.

[edit] In popular culture

Folktales and fiction

Some of the legends about Hereward were incorporated into later legends about Robin Hood.
Thomas Bulfinch wrote about Hereward the Wake in his work: The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855) .
Charles Kingsley's novel, Hereward (1865) is a highly romanticised account of Hereward's exploits, and makes him the son of Earl Leofric of Mercia and the ancestor of the family of Wake.
Jack Trevor Story wrote a long dramatised life of Hereward for one of Tom Boardman's boys' annuals.
Cold Heart, Cruel Hand: a novel of Hereward the Wake (2004) is a novel by Laurence J. Brown.
An Endless Exile (2004), by Mary Lancaster, is a historical novel based on Hereward's life.
Hereward is portrayed as a prototype Robin Hood, but a drug-taking, psychopathic arsonist to boot, in Mike Ripley's novel The Legend of Hereward the Wake
Henry Treece's children's novel Man with a Sword was published by the Bodley Head, London, in 1962: Hereward is the hero of the story, in the first episode he is the champion of the Empress Gunhilda of Germany and at the end his life extends past the death of William I.
Hereward: Sons of the White Dragon (2008) and Hereward: The Fury of the Northmen (2009) are the first two volumes of a projected trilogy by Marcus Pitcaithly, incorporating legendary figures from the same region such as Tom Hickathrift, the Toadmen of Wisbech, and the phantom knight of Wandlebury.
Conquest by Stewart Binns (2011) is a historical novel covering the whole of Hereward's life in dramatic and bloody detail.

Film and television

The BBC made a 16-episode TV series in 1965 entitled Hereward the Wake, based on Kingsley's novel: Hereward was portrayed by actor Alfred Lynch. However, not one episode of this BBC series has survived, according to the archive records.
Hancock's Half Hour - Sid James claims Hereward stayed at Hancock's house as a ploy to get the house renovated by the National Trust.
Brian Blessed portrayed Hereward in the TV drama Blood Royal: William the Conqueror (1990).

Music

Progressive rock band Pink Floyd referred to Hereward in the track "Let There Be More Light" (1968), in which a psychedelic vision at Mildenhall reveals the 'living soul of Hereward the Wake'. Lyrics by Roger Waters.
He appears in the lyrics of the 1970 track "Darkness" by progressive group Van der Graaf Generator from their album The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other. Lyrics by Peter Hammill.
Hereward is the subject of the track "Rebel of the Marshlands" by metal band Forefather, in their 2005 album Ours Is the Kingdom.