History
Until the 7th Century, the area was literally an island surrounded by a large area of fenland, a type of swamp. It was coveted as an area difficult to penetrate, and was controlled in the very early medieval period by the Gyrwas, a Saxon tribe. Upon their marriage in 652, Tondbert, a prince of the Gyrwas, presented Æthelthryth (a Saxon princess and later St. Æthelthryth) with the Isle of Ely. She afterwards founded a monastery at Ely, which was destroyed by Viking raiders in 870. The Fens were ultimately drained using a network of canals designed by Dutch experts.
The area's natural defences led to it playing a role in the military history of England. Following the Norman Conquest, the Isle became a refuge for English forces under Earl Morcar, Bishop Aethelwine of Durham and Hereward the Wake in 1071. The area was taken by William the Conqueror only after a prolonged struggle. In 1139 civil war broke between the forces of King Stephen and the Empress Matilda. Bishop Nigel of Ely, a supporter of Matilda, unsuccessfully tried to hold the Isle. In 1143 Geoffrey de Mandeville rebelled against Stephen, and made his base in the Isle. Geoffrey was mortally wounded at Burwell in 1144.
In 1216, during the First Barons' War, the Isle was unsuccessfully defended against the army of King John. Ely took part in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.
Read more about this topic: Isle Of Ely
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
—Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)