among whom were the chief justice, chief bailiff, deputy bailiff and two coroners. The bishop is still custos rotulorum of the Isle. Cambridgeshire has always been remarkable for its lack of county families, and for the frequent changes in the ownership of estates. No Englishmen retained lands of any importance after the Conquest, and at the time of the Domesday Survey the chief lay proprietors were Alan, earl of Brittany, whose descendants the Zouches retained estates in the county until the 15th century; Picot the sheriff, whose estates passed to the families of Peverell and Peche; Aubrey de Vere, whose descendants retained their estates till the 16th century; and Hardwinus de Scalariis, ancestor of the Scales of Whaddon.
From the time of Hereward’s famous resistance to the Conqueror in the fen-district, the Isle of Ely was intimately concerned with the great political struggles of the country. It was defended against Stephen by Bishop Nigellus of Ely, who fortified Ely and Aldreth, and the latter in 1144 was held for the empress Maud by Geoffrey de Mandeville. During the struggles between John and his barons, Faukes de Breauté was made governor of Cambridge Castle, which, however, surrendered to the barons in the same year. The Isle of Ely was seized by the followers of Simon de Montfort in 1266, but in 1267 was taken by Prince Edward. At the Reformation period the county showed much sympathy with the Reformers, and in 1642 the knights, gentry and commoners of Cambridgeshire petitioned for the removal of all unwarrantable orders and dignities, and the banishment of popish clergy. In the civil war of the 17th century Cambridgeshire was one of the associated counties in which the king had no visible party, though the university assisted him with contributions of plate and money.
Cambridgeshire has always been mainly an agricultural county. The Domesday Survey mentions over ninety mills and numerous valuable fisheries, especially eel-fisheries, and contains frequent references to wheat, malt and honey. The county had a flourishing wool-industry in the 14th century, and became noted for its worsted cloths. The Black Death of 1349 and the ravages committed during the Wars of the Roses were followed by periods of severe depression, and in 1439 several Cambridgeshire towns obtained a remission of taxation on the plea of poverty. In the 16th century barley for malt was grown in large quantities in the south, and the manufacture of willow-baskets was carried on in the fen-districts. Saffron was extensively cultivated in the 18th century, and paper was manufactured near Sturbridge. Sturbridge fair was at this period reckoned the largest in Europe, the chief articles of merchandise being wool, hops and leather; and the Newmarket races and horse-trade were already famous. Large waste areas were brought under cultivation in the 17th century through the drainage of the fen-district, which was brought to completion about 1652 through the labours of Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutchman. The coprolite industry was very profitable for a short period from 1850 to 1880, and its decline was accompanied by a general industrial and agricultural depression. Cambridgeshire returned three members to parliament in 1290, and in 1295 the county returned two members, the borough of Cambridge two members, and the city of Ely two members, this being the sole return for Ely. The university was summoned to return members in 1300 and again in 1603, but no returns are recorded before 1614, after which it continued to return two members. Under the Reform Act of 1832 the county returned three members.
Antiquities.—In ecclesiastical architecture Cambridgeshire would be rich only in the possession of the magnificent cathedral at Ely and the round church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jesus College and King’s College chapels, and many other examples in Cambridge. But there are many fine churches elsewhere. At Thorney, a small town in the north of the county, which owes much in appearance to the 8th duke of Bedford (d. 1872), the parish church is actually a portion of the church of an abbey said to date originally from the 7th century, and refounded in 972 by Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, as a Benedictine monastery. The church is partly fine Norman. Another Norman building of special interest is Sturbridge chapel near Cambridge, which belonged to a lepers’ hospital. To this foundation King John granted a fair, which became, and continued until the 18th century, one of the most important in England. It is still held in September. At Swaffham Prior there are remains of two churches in one churchyard, the tower of one being good Transitional Norman, while that of the other is Perpendicular, the upper part octagonal. Among many Early English examples the church of Cherry Hinton near Cambridge may be mentioned. The churches of Trumpington and Bottisham are fine specimens of the Decorated style; in the first is a famous brass to Sir Roger de Trumpington (1289). As Perpendicular examples the tower and spire of St Mary’s, Whittlesey, and the rich wooden roof of Outwell church, may be selected. Monastic remains are scanty. Excluding the town of Cambridge there are no domestic buildings, either ancient or modern, of special note, with the exception of Sawston Hall, in the south of the county, a quadrangular mansion dated 1557–1584.
Authorities.—See D. and S. Lysons, Magna Britannia, vol. ii. part i. (London, 1808); C. C. Babington, Ancient Cambridgeshire (Cambridge, 1883); R. Bowes, Catalogue of Books printed at or relating to Cambridge (Cambridge, 1891 et seq.); E. Conybeare, History of Cambridgeshire (London, 1897); Victoria County History, Cambridgeshire.
CAMBUSLANG, a town of Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is situated near the Clyde, 412 m. S.E. of Glasgow (of which it is a residential suburb) by the Caledonian railway. Pop. (1891) 8323; (1901) 12,252. Its leading industries include coal-mining, turkey-red dyeing and brick-making. It contains one of the largest steel works in the United Kingdom. Among the chief edifices are a public hall, institute and library. It was the birthplace of John Claudius London (1783–1843), the landscape gardener and writer on horticulture, whose Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum still ranks as an authority.
CAMBYSES (Pers. Kambujiya), the name borne by the father and the son of Cyrus the Great. When Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 he was employed in leading religious ceremonies (Chronicle of Nabonidus), and in the cylinder which contains Cyrus’s proclamation to the Babylonians his name is joined to that of his father in the prayers to Marduk. On a tablet dated from the first year of Cyrus, Cambyses is called king of Babel. But his authority seems to have been quite ephemeral; it was only in 530, when Cyrus set out on his last expedition into the East, that he associated Cambyses on the throne, and numerous Babylonian tablets of this time are dated from the accession and the first year of Cambyses, when Cyrus was “king of the countries” (i.e. of the world). After the death of his father in the spring of 528 Cambyses became sole king. The tablets dated from his reign in Babylonia go down to the end of his eighth year, i.e. March 521 B.C.[1] Herodotus (iii. 66), who dates his reign from the death of Cyrus, gives him seven years five months, i.e. from 528 to the summer of 521. For these dates cf. Ed. Meyer, Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, ii. 470 ff.
The traditions about Cambyses, preserved by the Greek authors, come from two different sources. The first, which forms the main part of the account of Herodotus (iii. 2; 4; 10-37), is of Egyptian origin. Here Cambyses is made the legitimate son of Cyrus and a daughter of Apries (Herod. iii. 2, Dinon fr. 11, Polyaen. viii. 29), whose death he avenges on the successor of the usurper Amasis. (In Herod. iii. 1 and Ctesias ap. Athen. xiii. 560 D, this tradition is corrected by the Persians: Cambyses wants to marry a daughter of Amasis, who sends him a daughter of Apries instead of his own daughter, and by her Cambyses is induced to begin the war.) His great crime is the killing of the Apis, for which he is punished by madness, in which he commits many other crimes, kills his brother and his sister, and at last loses his empire and dies from a wound in the hip, at the same place where he had wounded the sacred animal. Intermingled are some stories derived from the Greek mercenaries, especially about their leader Phanes of Halicarnassus, who
- ↑ On the much discussed tablet, which is said to date from his 11th year, the writer had at first written “10th year of Cyrus,” and then corrected this date into “1st year of Cambyses”; see Strassmaier, Inschriften von Cambyses, No. 97.
