Isle of Ely. Until the year 1857 the Isle of Ely was practically a county palatine, like the county palatine of Chester and the bishopric of Durham, a distinct enclosure within the county. The liberty of the Isle of Ely has its court of quarter sessions, a separate commission of the peace, and its own county rate. The county, which is purely agri cultural, and for the most part arable, presents a vast land expanse, with little that is picturesque and with no claims to fine scenery, but imposing to the summer tourist by the frequent pollarded watercourses, the heavy crops of grain,
and the immense dome of sky.Cambridgeshire evidently once formed part of the country of the Iceni. The Icenhilde, always a British way, and never a via strata, was most probably derived from the same root. The country is rich in lloman roads and other remains, and some of the Roman roads were doubtless formed on old British tracks. (For the ancient roads con sult Professor Babington s Monograph.) Cambridgeshire became a dependency of the kingdom of East Anglia. It was included in the Danelagh, though how far it was colonized by Northmen is uncertain. According to Henry of Huntingdon, in the war against the Danes, when the English fled the men of Cambridgeshire resisted most manfully. During the period of the Conquest, the siege and capture of the Isle of Ely is the most remarkable event ; the sea country was the last that yielded to the Conqueror, and the half-legendary Hereward is the last English hero of the conflict. In the time of Stephen, in the time of John, and in the time of the Barons War in the reign of Henry III., the Isle of Ely emerges repeatedly into notice. The splendid foundations of Etheldreda and her sister, with the rising colleges of the university of Cambridge, drew pilgrims to the district from all parts of the country. In the Civil War Cambridgeshire belonged to the associated counties, and had no actual share in the conflict. Cromwell possessed a considerable estate in the Isle of Ely, and lived in the rectory house of Ely till elected member for Cambridge. He became governor of Ely, and his son Henry died in the neighbour hood (Carlyle s Cromwell). King Charles, after his seizure at Holdenby, was brought to Childerly near Cambridge, and was taken thence to Newmarket, near which the Parliamentary army was encamped under Fairfax and Cromwell.
The drainage of the Cambridgeshire fens forms one of the most remarkable chapters of the industrial history of the country. All the northern portion of the county, at the junction of the counties of Lincoln, Huntingdon, Cam bridge, and Norfolk, is part of the vast district known as the Great Level of the Fens. A large province of 680,000 acres of the richest land in England has been reclaimed from the sea and preserved by continual watchfulness, as completely as is the case in the opposite kingdom of Holland. The great works which have reclaimed the land were mainly due to Cornelius Vermuyden, the Dutchman, knighted by Charles I., and the Dutch and Flemings he employed, and in more recent times to James Rennie, the eminent engineer. The chief promoters were five successive earls of Bedford, who have given their name to the great Bedford Level. From the earliest times, however, there had been conflicts between the encroaching waters and the inhabitants of the invaded shores. The Romans, who left few great works unatternpted, reclaimed much of the rich silt and soil deposited on the shores of the Wash, and con structed the immense drainage work known as the Carr (Fen) Dyke. They also carried causeways over the fen country. Much of the Roman work seems to have lapsed into the " great dismal swamp," caused by the silting up of the outfalls of rivers, and the mingling of the tides with the upland waters. The submerged territory seems originally to have been rich meadow and forest land, and it receives the river deposits of soil from eight counties, the causes of the great and abiding fertility. All this region then formed an immense estuary, the Wash, or rather a large lake, communicating by shifting channels with the sea. The more elevated grounds were called islands, whose isolation sometimes invited the founders of religious edifices, and sometimes those without the pale of the law. The whole country from Cambridge to Lincoln was a morass abounding with fish and fowl, and all the scattered habitations of the fenmen were liable to be swept away by sudden storms.
The monasteries and the bishops of Ely did good work in the reclamation of lands. Morton s Learn was a canal made by Bishop Morton of forty miles from Peterborough to the sea, which drained the North Level. After the dissolution of the monasteries the work fell into abeyance until renewed by Cornelius Vermuyden. The fenmen vehemently opposed his plans, and Oliver Cromwell, the member for Cambridge, put himself at their head and succeeded in stopping all the operations. When he became protector, however, he sanctioned Vermuyden s plans, and Scotch prisoners taken at Dunbar, and Dutch prisoners taken by Blake in his victory over Van Tromp, were employed as the workers. Much valuable land was reclaimed, and the fen country altogether improved. There remained, however, very much to be done. Ver muyden s system was exclusively Dutch ; and while perfectly suited to Holland it did not meet all the necessities of East Anglia. He confined his attention almost exclusively to the inland draining and embank ments, and did not provide sufficient out-let for the waters themselves into the sea. So late as 1810 there were districts in which people reaped their harvest, and gathered their orchard fruits, and went to church, in boats. Rennie pointed out the true scientific principle that a thorough drainage could only be effected by cutting down the outfalls to low water at spring tides, and so facilitating the escape of the waters. He projected a great system of drainage and provided a more effectual outfall of the Ouse into the Wash. His work was improved and extended by Telford.
Throughout the present century great improvements of all kinds have been carried on. The surplus waters were formerly pumped into the rivers and canals by windmills ; but this could not be counted on as an invariable force, and steam- mills are generally substituted. Dykes, cause ways, sluices, and drains were now cut in every direction. All the rivers of Cambridgeshire which formerly found their outlet at Wisbeach, before the channel was choked up, now mainly by cuts and straightenings, have forsaken their old beds and are poured into the sea by artificial streams, like the Bedford rivers into the German Ocean.
of the streams ; it is not always easy to decipher the natural channels. The chief rivers are the Nene and the Ouse, with its tributary streams. The Nene on arriving at Peterborough turned to the right, and making a circuit of several meres passed by March to Wisbeach. It is now made to flow into three channels. One arm is the Cats- water or Shire Drain, which meets Morton Learn and flows into the Wash ; the second arm is Whittlesey Dyke, or the old Nene river ; the third is Morton s Learn. The Great Ouse enters the Fens near Earith, where it formerly forked; one branch ultimately joined the Nene; the other branch was called the West Water, and iiltimately joined the main channel of the Nene. Both the channels are now nearly closed to the waters of the Ouse, and are carried by the Bedford rivers in a direct line to Denver,
where they meet the channel of the Little Ouse, and so