The history and antiquities of Boston, and the villages of Skirbeck, Fishtoft, Freiston, Butterwick, Benington, Leverton, Leake, and Wrangle; comprising the hundred of Skirbeck, in the county of Lincoln. Including also a history of the East, West, and Wildmore fens, and copious notices of the Holland or Haut-Huntre fen ... sketches of the geology, natural history, botany, and agriculture of the district; a very extensive collection of archaisms and provincial words, local dialect, phrases, proverbs, omens, superstitions, etc. By Pishey Thompson. Illustrated with one hundred engravings.

34 HE REWARD DE BRUNNE.
several years immediately succeeding the battle of Hastings, were assembled for
protection many of the principal Saxon nobility and ecclesiastics, particularly
the brothers of the slain King Harold, and the Earls Edwinl and Morcar;2 and
there was also found the heroic HEREWARD, son of Leofric, Lord of Bourn, who
for a long time, by his sagacity, bravery, and self-devotedness, baffled all the
attempts of the Normans to obtain possession of this stronghold. HEEREWAnD,
however, was finally driven out by the force of numbers, and the Isle of Ely
conquered; but its brave defender was not only spared all personal indignity,
but allowed to enjoy his inheritance. The deeds of HEREWARD long lived in the
traditions of the people, and have come down to our day in the narratives of the
ancient chronicles.3 His only daughter and heiress, TURFIIDA, was married to
HUIGu DE EVERMONT, Lord of Deeping. Hereward's death took place about the
end of 1072, when he was traitorously attacked by a troop of armed Normans,
in defiance of the King's oath; HEREWARD having accepted " the King's peace,"
as it was called.
But the Isle of Ely was not the only portion of the Fens which resisted the
army of the Conqueror. The more immediate neighbourhood of BOSTON furnished
some brave men, who successfully opposed the invaders; we find it recorded
that,"The country of HOLLAND, being, at the Conquest, very strong by abundance of water:
the HOLLANDS, the WELLES, and the Lords of KYME, being confederate together (as by old
men, from man to man, I have been credibly reported), kept out the Conqueror by force, till at
length he had it by composition and agreement, that they should keep their lands still; and
so the grant to the HOLLANDE'S at that time from the Conqueror, passed in this sorte,' Notiscat omnibus Anglis, Francis, et Alienigenis, nos Willum: Regem redidisse iRADULPHo
Milite de HOLAND totum dominium suum de Esteveninge, tam libere, honorifice, quiete
et in pace, sicut aliqui alio de Baronibus nostris de nobis tenent, teste, &c.'" 4
These estates of the HOLLANDS, the WELLS, and the KYmEns, were probably held
by what was then known as allodial tenure, which signified an hereditary and
perpetual estate, free, and in the power of the possessor to dispose of by gift or
sale, but subject to the common and constant tax of hidage. The king was, on
the death of an allodial tenant, entitled to relief.5
The families of HOLLAND and I(KYM were for a long time closely connected
with this neighbourhood, and we shall give an account of them in a subsequent
section.
Besides the resistance and the insubordination of the inhabitants of the
country, WILLIAM had to attend to the incursions of the Danes, who entered the
HIumber in considerable force in 1069, 1074, and again in 1085: they were,
however, repulsed. In 1080 the invaluable record, Domesday Survey, was
commenced by order of WILLIAMI; it was completed in 1086. In this Survey
Lincolnshire is divided into thirty Wapentakes or Hundreds, of which only
nineteen at the present day bear a name anything approaching to that given
Earl of Mercia. was 201. per annum, and his relief was one-fourth
2Earl of Northumberland. (51. or 100s.) Sir Edward Coke says, a baron's
3 See THIERRY'S History of the Norman Con- relief was loo marks, or 661. 13s. 4d., being thirteen
quest, BENTHAM'S Isle of Ely, SPEED, DUGDALE, knights' fees and a third. An earl's estate was 4001.
ROBERT OF BRUNNE'S Chronicle, &c. per annum, and his relief was one-fourth thereof, or
4 BLOMEFIELD'S Nosfolk, vol. i. p. 232; quoting 1001. These reliefs were not abolished until the
the words of George Holland, one of the family, who reign of Charles II.-THOMSON'S Magna Charta,
lived in 1563. pp. 67, 164, and 165.
5 By Magna Charta, when any earl or baron died, The tenure of allodium in Domesday refers to the
who held of the king iln capite, his heir, if of full tenants and possessors chiefly before the Conquest.
age, entered upon his inheritance by the ancient -KELHAM ou Domesday, p. 154.
relief; earls and barons paying 100., and knights Allodian lands are free lands which pay no fines or
100s., for a whole knight's fee. The sum which was service.-CowELL'S Law Dictionary.
anciently thought sufficient to maintain a knight