| sirnamed De Wake in the Life of Hereward.
+------------------
Goda = Walt. Mant.
|
[9]Ralph E. of Hereford, +--------+
sirnamed Scalre. | |
| [10]Morcar, Lord of Brun, second son of Algar earl
+---------+ of Leicester. V. Peck, A. S. iii. f. 28.[11]
| |
+---------+---+ +---+
| | |
Roger, Lord } Leofric = Edina, great grand-daughter of Oslac. Vita Hereward.
of Brun 1060. } | Ingulf. p. 67.
|
+----------------+
|
[12]Hereward the } = Thurfrida, vit. Hereward. This Hereward was the hero of his
famous outlaw } | time, and did many notable exploits. He was nephew to
| Brando, abbot of Peterburgh. Vid. Dugdale’s Imbanking.
+-------+
|
Hugh Evermue, lord } = Thurfrida heiress. Ingulph. p. 67.
of Deping and Brun. } |
+-----+
|
Richard de Rulos = only daughter. Ingulph. anno 1114. and Petr. Blesens.
|
+-----------------------------------------+
Baldwin Fitz-Gilbert, earl of Glomery, founder of } |
Deping priory, ob. 1171, _Monast. Anglican._ Vol. I. } = Adheldis anno 1138.
p. 469. Vol. II. p. 23. York’s Heraldry, 191. } |
|
+--------------------------------------+-----------------+
| |
Hugh de Wac = Emma, daughter and heir of Baldwin earl of Glocester. Rogerus.
| _Monast. Angl._ Vol. I. p. 462. Vol. II. 236.
|
Baldwin lord Wake =
|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
he founded the abbey of Brun, 1140. He gave the priory of Deeping to Thorney |
abbey, ob. 1156, and was buried at Thorney abbey. Dugdale’s Baronage. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1 2
Baldwin, lord Wake and Lydel, in = Alicia = Joscelyn de Styvecle, lord of Great
Cumberland: he died the 20th of | Styvecle, com. Hunt. Inquisit. 38.
July, 1224, buried at Harombel, | H. III 2. Vincent ABC, N. 43. p. 891.
a castle in Gascoign. |
+-----------------+
|
Baldwin lord Wake: = Isabella, daughter and heir of = Beatrix de Vanne, concubine
he died 1213. | Wil. Bruer lord of Torbay, of Reginald earl
Dugdale’s Baronage.| son of Henry de Bruer. of Cornwall.
|
+----------+
| 1 2
Hugh Wake, lord of } = Johanna, heiress of Nicholas }
Wake, Lydel and } | d’Estotvil lord of Cotingham, who died } = Hugh Bigod
Brun: he died 1233.} | 1220: she died on St. Ambrose’s day } lord justice
| 1260. _Mon. Angl._ Vol. II. p. 348. } of England.
+----------+-------------------+
| |
Baldwin, lord of Wake, Brun, } Hugh Wake. Rymer’s Fœd. I. p. 493.
Lydel and Cotingham, died }
_prid. non. Feb._ 1281, mentioned } = Elinor, daughter of Sir John Montgomery.
in Rymer’s _Fœdera_ I. p. 777. } |
+-------+
| |
+---------------------------+ Sir Hugh de Wake, his father, gave him
| | the manors of Deeping and
| | Blisworth, Northamptonshire.
| +-------------------------+
| | |
John de Wake: = Johanna St. John lord St. John = Mirabella = Thomas Aspal. |
he died 4 Ap. | -|- -|- |
1304. | +-----------------------------------------+
| |
| Sir Tho. Wake, knight = Alice, daughter and coheir of Sir
| -|- John Pateshul, knight.
+---------------+-----------+
| |
Edmund Plantagenet of = Margaret, Thomas de Wake } = Blanch, daughter of
Woodstock, earl of Kent, | sister ob. 4 july 1343.} | Henry Plantagenet,
third son of king Ed. I. | and heir. he founded the | Earl of Lancaster.
+---------------+ abbey of |
| Hautemprise, in Yorkshire, then removed it to |
| Cotingham 1322. The original seal of that +----+
| abbey is in the hands of John Warburton, esq. |
| Somerset herald, and was engraven by the John L. Wake, ob. s.p.
| the Antiquarian society, London.
+--------------------+
2 | 1
Sir Thomas Holland, one } = Joan the fair { = Wil. Montacute, earl of Salisbury.
of the founders of the } maid of Kent. { 3
order of the Garter. } { = Edward the black prince.
There were other collateral branches of this family about 1244. such as
Thomas Wake, who held lands in Stoke and Irthingbure under the abbot
of Peterburgh. Wydo Wac held half a knight’s fee in Deping, Beresham
and Stow, of the heirs of Hugh Wake the same year. Hugo Wac, Roger Wac,
witnesses to a charter 1152. Rymer’s _Fœdera_, I. p. 12. From Sir Tho.
Wake, that married the daughter of Sir John Pateshul, is descended his
grace the present archbishop of Canterbury.
[Sidenote: TAB. XI.]
Not long since some British instruments of brass called celts,
arrow-heads, and bits of bridles of the same metal, were found at Aye
near the Cardike. The 19th of November, 1731, I saw four celts and a
brass spear-head found at Ege, or Aye: the celts were of the female
or recipient kind: they were bought by bishop Kennet, and are now in
the gentlemen’s society at Peterborough. The Druids buried them there,
when the Romans drove them northward: there has been some great work
of the Druids there, as I take it. At Jernham was found an old brass
seal, a man blowing a horn, the legend _John de Sodeburi_, now in the
hands of Mr. Richards of Stanford. At Edenham was a stone cross now
demolished: the inscription on it I have inserted in the Plate of
Crosses: I saw the stump of it remaining not long since: hard by has
been an old castle at Bitham. Grimsthorp, the pleasant seat of the
Duke of Ancaster: the park is very large and beautiful; in the middle
of it stood Vaudy abbey in a vale, founded by Wil. de Albemarle 1147.
some small ruins of it are left: the lawn there, whereon is an annual
horse-race, is extremely delightful.[13] In Hakunby church upon a stone
I read this inscription,
*Iste fuit Rector Thomas de Brunn vocitatus.*
Sempringham abbey founded by St. Gilbert lord of the place, and author
of the Gilbertin order, where men and women lived together in holy
community: now an old ruinous seat of the earls of Lincoln.
Trekingham, so called, as some will have it, from a fanciful story of
three Danish kings there buried: round the font in the church is this
inscription, + *Ave maria gratia p. d. t.* Upon a tombstone in the
church-yard this,
HIC INTVMVLATVR JOHANNES
QVONDAM DN̄S DE TRIKINGHAM.
St. Saviour’s chapel at the end of Brig-end causeway is still left,
turned into a mansion house, founded by George of Lincoln, endowed
with lands to maintain the causeway: a legacy highly to be commended.
At Ranceby near Sleford on a hill, many Roman antiquities found, of
which an account in Leland’s Itinerar. Hale Parva, Hale Magna, so
called from the hall or seat of the lord of the manor: in the former
is Helpringham, which I suppose no more than _Hale parva ingham_, the
termination being very common in towns hereabouts.
[Sidenote: +Holland+ _imbanked by the_ Romans.]
Having given an account of the preparation made by the Romans towards
gaining this vast tract of fen-land, the Lincolnshire levels, by
securing it from the fresh water of the high countries in that noble
cut called Cardike; we must imagine their next care was to render
it safe from the flux of the Ocean, by making a great bank all along
upon the sea coasts: this was done as to the wapentake of Elho by what
we call the Old Sea-dike, which by the people at this day is said to
be made by Julius Cæsar and his soldiers; as if they had knowledge
of its being a Roman work: at the mouths of all the rivers no doubt
they made gotes and sluices as at present, which was an invention of
Osiris, the great king of Egypt, as Diodorus Siculus tells us, I. 19.
We may well suppose it was performed after the time of Lollius Urbicus,
scarce fully accomplished before: possibly in Severus his time, which
seems not obscurely hinted at by Herodian, III. _Sed in primis curæ
habuit pontibus occupare paludes, ut stare in tuto milites possint
atque in solido præliari. Siquidem Britanniæ pleraque loca frequentibus
oceani alluvionibus paludescunt. Per eas igitur paludes barbari ipsi
natant excursantque ad ilia usque demersi._ But he had it in his
particular care to make passes over the fens, that the soldiers might
stand firm and fight upon hard ground; for many places in Britain are
marshy through the frequent overflowings of the ocean, over which the
inhabitants will swim, and walk though up to the middle in water. To
which description no place so well corresponds.
That the Romans thoroughly inhabited this fertile plain, the following
instances will sufficiently evince. About 1713, at Elm near Wisbech, an
urn full of Roman brass money was taken up, not far from a _tumulus_
of which the common people have strange notions, affirming that they
frequently see a light upon it in dark winter nights. Dr. Massey has
many of the coins; they are of the later empire. There is another piece
of high ground near it, where have been buildings. Dr. Massey says
there is a Roman altar in a wall there. At Gedney hill several Roman
coins have been found; some of Antoninus are in your collection. In the
same hamlet, about two mile north of Southea bank, is a pasture called
the High Doles, being a square doubly moted, where ancient foundations
have been dug up, and some Roman coins. Another like square so moted
is in the parish of St. Edmund’s, about the same distance from the
said bank, where the like matters have been discovered. Aswic grange
in Whaplodedrove parish is a high piece of ground, square and moted
about: in this and near it many Roman coins have been dug up, and urns,
which I have seen; some coins in your collection. This is near Catscove
corner; and it was Mr. Britain’s notion that Catus made this work among
many others as _castella_ to secure the possession of the country:
these lie as it were in a line, on the most southerly part of Elho. In
the parish of Fleet near Ravensclow, about 1698,[14] upon a piece of
high ground where buildings have been, Mr. Edward Lenton dug up a large
urn with letters round it, full of Roman coins,[15] about the quantity
of three pecks, covered with an oak board: the urn he broke in pieces:
they were of brass piled edgeways, mostly about the time of Gallienus
and the thirty tyrants as called, Tetricus, Claudius Gothicus,
Victorinus, Carausius, Alectus, &c. I have seen vast numbers of them,
and have some by me: many are in your collection. Near this place runs
a low channel, quite to Fleet haven, which probably then was the chief
outlet of the waters into the sea. Mr. Lenton found some ship-timber
upon it with rusty nails, probably of some Roman barge. None of these
coins were lower than the Tetrici, which proves the imbankation was
made before their time. In the same latitude, and in the next parish,
Holbech,[16] in a pasture called Anytofts, in my tenure, is a like
square of high ground, where rubbish of buildings and coins have been
found; it is moted likewise: not long since a labourer, scouring up a
pit in the mote, took up an urn now in my possession. At Giggleshurn,
in casting up a ditch, were many Roman coins found: we may reasonably
conjecture Moulton hall was such another place originally: and in a
Held not far from thence, called Woods, near Ravens-bank, three mile
south of Moulton church, upon plowing, several Roman urns and vessels
were found, of fine white and red earth; some of them were brought to
Mr. Hardy. At Spalding, Roman antiquities have been found, particularly
cisterns; of which some accounts in the Acts of the Royal Soc. Nᵒ 279.
and there was a Roman castle there, as I conjecture, on the north side
of the town, not far from the river on the right hand of the great road
to Bolton, the square form of the ditch yet remaining. These places,
with some other of like nature, make another line of fortresses through
the middle of the country, parallel to the present towns. I have been
told that at Theophilus Grant’s house in Whaplode, near Gorham’s holt,
aqueducts of clay, one let into another, have been dug up;[17] and
that in the seadike bank, between Fleet and Gedney, a brass sword was
lately found, which seem to be Roman. Thus far in South Holland. At
Boston, about 1716, they dug up an old Roman foundation beyond the
school-house: near it some hewn stones formed a cavity, in which was
an urn with ashes, another little pot with an ear, and an iron key of
an odd figure, in my possession. Some time before then, in Mr. Brown’s
garden at the Green poles, they dug up an urn lined with thin lead full
of red earth and bones. A like one I have seen now in Sir Hans Sloan’s
museum, unquestionably Roman.
[Sidenote: +Roman+ _roads there_.]
As the Romans had thus intirely taken in and inhabited the country, no
doubt but according to their custom they drew several roads across it:
but I fear it will be very difficult to give an exact account of them:
such is the nature of the ground, having no solid materials, that they
would be presently wore away without more constant reparations than the
inhabitants practise: yet I have little doubt in supposing one of their
ways was drawn from the northern high country about Bolingbroke by
Stickford, Stickney, Sibsey, and so to Boston river about Redstonegote,
where it passed it by a ferry. I have fancied to myself that several
parcels of it are plainly Roman, by the straitness and by the gravelly
bottom: from thence to Kirkton it is indubitably so, being laid with a
very large bed of gravel: and just a mile from the river is a stone,
now called the Mile-stone, standing in a _quadrivium_; it is a large
round stone like the _frustum_ of a pillar, and very properly a _lapis
milliaris_. From Kirkton I imagine the road went to Donington, where
it met the great and principal road of the country, which is drawn
from Ely to Sleaford in a line not much different from a strait one.
It is certain that there is such a road from Grantchester, which was a
Roman town a mile above Cambridge, to Ely by Stretham: thence another
goes across the depth of the fens by Upwell and Elme towards Wisbech;
and it was near this road that the urn with coins first mentioned
was found: and anno 1730 a Roman urn full of coins was found at the
same place; they were of silver, and very fair. Mr. Beaupre Bell, a
curious gentleman, has many Roman coins found near this Roman road by
Emney; several of Carausius undescribed. Wisbech probably was a Roman
station, and their castle founded upon an older foundation. I suppose
this road passed over Wisbech river above the town towards Guyhurn
chapel, then went to Trokenholt and Clowscross, there entering our
country: from thence that it went in a strait line to Spalding, by
which means most of those square forts we have mentioned in Elho, where
Roman antiquities were discovered, together with most of the southern
hamlets, will be found to be situate near or upon it; such as St.
Edmund’s chapel, the moted place there, Gedneyhill chapel, Highdoles
there, Holbech chapel, Whaplodedrove chapel, Aswic grange, St.
Katherine’s, and Moulton chapel: whether any traces of it can now be
found or no, I cannot say; but the villages thereabouts seem strongly
to favour the conjecture. Supposing it fact, I should not be surprised
if it now be laid perfectly level with the surface of this fenny soil,
seeing I have observed the like appearance of a Roman road when carried
across a meadow in the high countries, and which was composed of a bed
of gravel 100 foot broad, particularly at the Roman city of Alauna by
Bicester, of which I shall in a following page give an account: and
this of ours I suppose only made of the earth of the country thrown
into a bank, because it was impossible to get more durable materials.
From Spalding, according to my sentiments, this road went towards
Herring bridge (the word retaining some semblance of antiquity) upon
Surflet river, so along the division between the wapentakes of Kirton
and Aveland, near Wrigbolt and Cressy-hall, to the end of Brig-end
causeway at Donington. Here, Holland brig or Brig-end causeway has all
the requisites that can ascertain it to be a Roman work, being strait
and laid with a solid bed of stone: the present indeed is repaired
every year, but we have much reason to think the first projection of it
through this broad morass was no less than Roman. From thence it went
to Sleford; then it seems to have gone across the heath, and to have
fallen in with the great Hermen street at a remarkable place called
Biard’s leap: from thence possibly it was carried, or was designed to
be, by Stretleythorp and Brentbroughton over the Witham to Crocolana
upon the foss-way; then over the Trent into Nottinghamshire, where
it answers in a line with the road to Tuxford and Worksop; and so on
perhaps to the Irish sea, whereby it would become a great parallel
to the Watling street running across the kingdom, as it does, from
south-east to north-west. At Sleaford I am inclinable to think another
road came from Banovallum, or Horn castle, to the east of the river
Bane southward by les Yates, and so crossed the Witham by Chapelhill
and the Cardike somewhere about Kyme: or else crossed the Witham at the
Hermitage, so went by Swinshed north end to Donington: this principal
road we speak of on the other end seems to go from Ely by Soham and
Bury to the German ocean. I am not ashamed to offer my conjecture to
the curious, however slender its foundation may be, if only as a hint
for a future search: but it seems to me very probable, that if it
was not fully executed by the Romans, they intended it, and have in
part manifestly done it. I conceit it crosses the Icening street at
Ikesworth near Bury, then goes to Bretenham, the Combretonium; but with
that country of Suffolk I am at present perfectly unacquainted. Return
we to Holland.
Besides this great road, I think we need not scruple to assert that
now called Ravensbank to be another, going east and west, through the
heart of the country, from Tid St. Mary’s to Cowbit. I have rode some
miles upon it, where it is now extremely strait and broad. We have been
informed that it is actually in some old writings called Romans Bank:
it is well known the Welsh pronounced Roman _Rhuffain_, and our English
word _ruffian_ is from this fountain. Among the Welsh the letters _m_
and _v_ are equivalent, to which _f_ is perfectly alike: _maur_ and
_vaur_ is great, and many more: so that _Roman_, _raven_, and _ruffen_,
is the same word; and hence no doubt came _rambling_, _roving_, and
_roming_, as an ignominious appellative of such as thought every
country better than their own; for such to our ancestors seemed the
Romans, that scarce left any corner of the known world impervious to
their all-conquering eagles, carrying arts and arms along with them as
an impetuous torrent, with a most glorious and invincible perseverance.
Further, it is not unlikely that the upper road running east and west
nearer the sea bank, now called Old Spalding gate, is originally Roman:
in some places, as about Fleet, it retains the name of Haregate, which
is equivalent to _via militaris_ when spoken by our Saxon progenitors.
Thus the main road and these two lesser ones seem sufficiently to
answer this purpose as to Elho: it seems to me, that when the Romans
made the many forts all along the eastern shore, to guard against the
Saxons, that this bay was provided for by five, two upon the edges of
the high country, and three upon the rivers; Brancaster in Norfolk,
Burgh on Lincolnshire side; Wisbech,[18] Spalding, and Boston, upon
each river of the fenny tract.
[Sidenote: _Antediluvian trees._]
Having given you then all the authentic or conjectural memoirs that
have in general occurred to my reflection upon the most ancient state
of this country, I shall proceed to other particularities, nearer
our own times, through every parish; only first take notice in short
of a wonderful appearance in nature all over this country, and which
is common to all such like upon the globe, as far as my informations
reach: that is, the infinite quantities of subterraneous trees, lying
three or four foot deep, of vast bulk and different species, chiefly
fir and oak, exceeding hard, heavy and black: many times the branches
reach so near day as to break their ploughs, for so I have heard
them complain about Crowland: about Kyme and Billingay they have dug
up some boats or canoos made of hollowed trunks of trees.[19] Many
people will think that this is nothing but the effect of particular
floods, and that this country was once a forest, and not long since
disafforested. This country was once taken into the forest of Kesteven
by the Norman kings, (as you have told me) only with a political view
of extending their power, and disafforested soon after at the instance
of the prior of Spalding: yet it is true of Nassaburg hundred only,
in Northamptonshire. But in my apprehension, as to the matter before
us, such confine their notions to very scanty bounds: an universal
phænomenon requires a more dilated solution, and no less than that of
the Noachian deluge. But upon this I hope for an occasion to be more
copious another time: at present I remember a passage in Pausanias’s
_Attics_ toward the end; speaking of an ebeny statue of Archigetes, “I
have heard, (says he) from a man of Cyprus very skilful in medicinal
herbs, that ebeny bears no leaves, no fruit, nor has it any stock
exposed to the sun, only roots in the earth, which the Ethiopians dig
up. Some of them are particularly skilful in finding them out.” I doubt
not but our author speaks of subterranean trees, and that our people
might use this timber to better use than burning it.
Most writers, and particularly Mr. Camden, and most strangers, have an
injurious opinion of this country, and apply that to the whole which
is true but of part of it: for in the main the land is admirably good,
hard, and dry; produces excellent corn and grass; feeds innumerable
sheep and oxen of a very large size, and good flesh and wool; bears
wood extremely well, has several large woods in it, some intirely of
oak of considerable size; is full of hedge-rows and quicksets, and
in summer time looks like the garden of Eden: it is level, and most
delightful to travellers, whether on horseback, or in a coach. The air
indeed is moist, as being near the sea, and bordering upon the fens
of the isle of Ely: as to the first, it is the same upon every sea
coast; as to the latter, they are chiefly on the south side, whence
the sun for the most part draws off the vapours from this country.
Indeed this inconvenience accrues from such vicinity, the production
of gnats; to which Angelus Politianus has done so much honour in that
beautiful Greek epigram you showed me; and is well guarded against
by the gentry in the use of netted canopies hung round their beds,
which was an invention of the Ægyptians living in a like country.
Vide Brown’s Garden of Cyrus, p. 30. But all things necessary for the
comfort of life are here in great plenty; and visitants ever go away
with a better opinion of it than they bring. That great soul king
Charles I. himself undertaking the glorious talk, and others under
him, had projected and made such stately works of _sewers_, as would
have rendered this country before now, for trade and beauty, the rival
of its name-sake beyond sea; but the licentious times that succeeded,
gave the unthinking mob (incited by his avowed adversary in all things,
Cromwell) an opportunity to destroy them. I have often considered and
admired the length, breadth, and depth of their canals, the vastness of
their gotes and sluices: indeed I think they made many more than were
useful, and might have laid out the whole in a better manner. I would
not, like the Trojan Prophetess, prognosticate ill to my own country;
but it is not difficult to foresee, that unless some project be taken
in hand, like that which my friend Mr. Kinderley published some time
ago, this vast and rich tract must be abandoned to eels and wild ducks.
A thing of this nature is not to be done but by the senate of the
kingdom taking the matter intirely into their own hands; and if I have
any judgement, whatever new works are made, ought always to be carried
eastward only, for reasons I inculcated before: therefore, instead of
deriving the Welland into the Witham, as was his notion, I would have
it brought to the Nen, and both into the Ouse at Lynn, as it was in its
original and natural state.
Since the time of the Romans, beyond their first bank have been many
intakes, by successive banks, of the best ground in the world left by
the sea, which contracts its own limits by throwing up banks of sand
out of the estuary: so that, from time to time, the land-owners upon
these frontiers gain several thousands of acres. It is observed, the
land so imbanked is ever higher in level than that left behind it;
and I doubt not but some time the whole bay between Lincolnshire and
Norfolk (being one of our great sovereign’s noblest chambers in his
British dominions over the sea, vide Seld. _Mar. claus._) will become
dry land. By this means the parishes hereabouts increase to a huge
bulk. Holbech from Dovesdale bar, where it joins to Cambridgeshire,
to the limits of the salt marshes, is near twenty miles long. The
cattle bred on this ground are very large; the sheep never have horns.
Smithfield market, as now much supported, was chiefly set up by the
inhabitants here, as I have been told, particularly by Mr. William
Hobson, brother to the famous Cambridge carrier, and Mr. Cust; the
London butchers, before then, commonly going into the country to buy
cattle.