labour, without pay, and treated them very cruelly besides; for, if they did not work hard enough, these unfeeling taskmasters would urge them on with blows.
24. Then wherever the Norman soldiers stayed, they went and lived in the houses of the people, took what they pleased, and made the family wait upon them.
25. The king, himself, cruelly laid waste different parts of the country in revenge for the opposition made to his progress by some of the English earls, especially in the north, where, about three years after the battle of Hastings, such a scene of desolation was made by fire and sword, that, from York to Durham, the houses, the people, and all signs of cultivation, were utterly destroyed.
26. The last stand made against the Normans was in a little island, formed by bogs and lakes, in Cambridgeshire, and still called the Isle of Ely. There, a brave chief, named Hereward, set up a fortified camp, and was joined by other noblemen, and many of their dependents, who, with the ceorls, or tenants, belonging to the Abbey of Ely, made quite an army.
27. It was a secure place of refuge, because the only safe paths into the island were unknown to the Normans, who would most likely
