In 1107 the eleventh and last abbot, Richard, employed all his interest
with Henry I. and gained the royal sanction to the establishment of an
episcopal see at Ely. To this the monarch granted, for a diocese, the
county of Cambridge, which had till then been under the jurisdiction of
the Bishop of Lincoln. The isle was also invested with sovereign powers.
Richard, however, did not live to become the first bishop, an honour
which was conferred in 1109 on his successor, Hervey.
By this arrangement the Abbot was superseded by the Bishop, and an
entire distribution of the property belonging to the abbey was effected
between them. As the abbey became the church of the See, the Abbot was
obliged to alter his dignity to that of a prior. A fair, to continue for
seven days, commencing from June 20, to commemorate the anniversary of
the death of Ethelreda, was instituted by the Bishop. The prelate Nigel,
in the reign of Stephen, built a castle here, of which no remains exist,
and whose site is now conjectural. The year 1216 witnessed dreadful
scenes of spoliation of churches and large sums of money exacted from
the inhabitants under the guise of ransom.
The cause of all this devastation being visited upon Ely was John's idea
of revenging himself upon the barons. At their hands he had, the year
previously, been compelled to undergo the mortification of signing the
Magna Charta at Runnymede, a field between Windsor and Staines. Ever
since that time the irresolute and mean king had been devising schemes
of vengeance against his opponents. Three months spent in the Isle of
Wight had enabled him, through agents and the promise of the estates of
the barons as plunder, to raise a considerable army of the Brabanters.
At their head he suddenly emerged from concealment, and surprised the
barons by appearing before Rochester Castle and defeating them.
In the meantime John was well supported at Ely by his general, William
Bunk, or rather an unexpected incident hurried on its doom. The elements
unkindly betrayed the city into the hands of the Brabanters. At a
critical time, the treacherous swamps--the isle's hitherto great natural
fortifications--became the city's undoing; for a sharp frost set in and
rendered a ready glacial access to the city. The enemy lost no time in
reducing the barons to submission and the wretched inhabitants to great
misery. The barons, thus reduced to dire extremities, invited Louis, the
eldest son of the King of France, to aid them, promising him through his
wife the crown of England.
[Illustration: ELY