Hereward the Wake

Hereward the Wake, known in his own times as Hereward the Outlaw or Hereward the Exile, was an 11th century leader in England who led resistance to the Norman Conquest, and was consequently labelled an outlaw. He was English (probably Anglo-Danish as his name is Danish). According to legend, Hereward's base was the Isle of Ely and he roamed the surrounding fenlands of what is now Lincolnshire, leading popular opposition to William the Conqueror. It is said that the title the Wake was popularly assigned to him many years after his death and is believed to mean the watchful.

Life and legend

Partly because of the sketchiness of evidence for his existence, his life has become a magnet for speculators and amateur scholars. In legend and story he is described as the son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, but there is no evidence for this. Some modern research suggests him to have been Anglo-Danish with a Danish father, Asketil. Whatever his lineage, his fight was part of the strategic regional struggle between the Danes and Normans for control of the eastern parts of England.

His place of birth is supposed to be in or near Bourne in Lincolnshire. It is claimed that he was a tenant of Peterborough Abbey, from which he held lands in the parishes of Witham-on-the-Hill and Barholme with Stow in the south-western corner of Lincolnshire, and of Croyland Abbey near Rippingale in the neighbouring fenland. Since the holdings of abbeys could be widely dispersed across parishes, the precise location of his personal holdings are uncertain, but were certainly somewhere in south Lincolnshire.

It is thought that he had already before 1066 rebelled under Edward the Confessor, whom he saw as already aligning England with the Normans, and that he was declared an outlaw as a result. It has been suggested that, at the time of the Norman invasion of England, he was in exile in Europe, working as a successful mercenary for the Count of Flanders, and that he then returned to England to assert an Anglo-Danish vision of its future.

It is claimed that in 1069 or 1070 the Danish king Swein Estrithson sent a small army to try to establish a camp on the Isle of Ely. They were joined by many, including Hereward. His first act was to storm and sack Peterborough Abbey in 1070, in company with local men and Swein's Danes. His justification is said to have been that he wished to save the Abbey's treasures and relics from the Normans.

The next year he and many others made a desperate stand on the Isle of Ely against the Conqueror's rule. Some say that the Normans made a frontal assault, aided by a huge mile-long timber causeway, but that this sank under the weight of armour and horses. It is said that the Normans, probably led by one of William's knights named Belasius (Belsar), then bribed the monks of the island to reveal a safe route across the marshes, resulting in Ely's capture. Hereward is said to have escaped with some of his followers into the wild fenland, and to have continued his resistance.

The 15th century chronicle, Gesta Herewardi, by Ingulf of Croyland, says Hereward was eventually pardoned by William.

Tales and songs based on Hereward

Some of the legends about Hereward were incorporated into later legends about Robin Hood.
Charles Kingsley's novel of 1865 is a highly-romanticised account of Hereward's exploits, and makes him the son of Earl Leofric of Mercia.
Jack Trevor Story wrote a long dramatised life of Hereward for one of Tom Boardman's boys' annuals.
There was a 16-episode TV series made in 1965, titled Hereward the Wake.
Cold Heart, Cruel Hand: A novel of Hereward the Wake (2004) is novel by Laurence J Brown.
An Endless Exile (2004), by Mary Lancaster, is a historical novel based on Hereward's life.
The rock band Pink Floyd referred to Hereward in the track "Let There Be More Light" (1968); in which a psychedelic vision of Mildenhall reveals 'The living soul of Hereward the Wake'. He also appears in the lyrics of the 1968 track Darkness by Van der Graaf Generator. He is also the subject of the track "Rebel of the Marshlands" by rock band Forefather, in their 2005 album Ours is the Kingdom.

Hereward the Wake gives his name to the Peterborough radio station Hereward FM.

The Hereward Way

There is a long-distance footpath through the Cambridgeshire fenland from Peterborough to Ely, called the Hereward Way.

Hereward's family

Hereward is believed to be the son of Earl Leofric of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva.

The Wakes of Bourne

There is an English family with the surname of Wake and a baronetcy (hereditary knighthood). The family of Wake held Bourne in the 13th century. The heir apparent to the baronetcy is traditionally called Hereward, and is therefore known as Sir Hereward Wake when he succeeds.

It is possible that the Wake family may have created a spurious connection to Hereward, in order to retain claim to his lands, but there is no reason to think so. Hereward's great-great-granddaughter, Emma, married Hugh Wake. She was heiress to some of what had been Hereward's father's property. Thus it, including Bourne, came into the Wake family, which seems to have wished later to claim him as an ancestor, as indeed he was. Bourne itself, however, passed to the Crown in the person of Richard II after Margaret Wake married Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent.

The earlier names in the family tree are Anglo-Flemish and Anglo-Norman so they are found in several forms.

References

Hereward: The Last Englishman, by Peter Rex, Publisher: Tempus Books, ISBN 0752433180 , (2005)
The English Resistance: The Underground War Against the Normans, Peter Rex, ISBN 0752428276 - chapters 8, 9 and 10 contains new data on his family.
http://www.thepeerage.com/p7376.htm
http://www.aemyers.net/genealogy/d0019/g0000004.html
http://mariah.stonemarche.org/famfiles/fam02499.htm
http://www.worldroots.com/cgi-bin/gasteldb?@I28941@
http://home.comcast.net/~barbara7905/fam/fam05649.html
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/locreg/WAKE1.html

Fiction

An Endless Exile, by Mary Lancaster, 2004. Paperback ISBN 1843192721, eBook ISBN 1843191253
Man With a Sword, by Henry Treece (not strictly factual), 1962. This is written as a fiction book not as a factual one.

External links

Charles Kingsley, (1865).
Lincolnshire Web's Hereward page, summarising an academic article from 1994.
BBC documentary on Hereward (streaming audio).

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