CHAP. IV. SIR CORNELIUS VERMUYDEX. r,:> 



Level itself, in order to pay the debts incurred in their 

 drainage. But although he lost all, it appears that the 

 company in the end preferred heavy pecuniary claims 

 against him which he had no means of meeting; and 

 in 1656 we find him appearing before Parliament as a 

 suppliant for redress. Thenceforward he entirely dis- 

 appears from public sight; and it is supposed that, 

 very shortly after, he went abroad and died, a poor, 

 broken down old man, the extensive lands which he 

 had reclaimed and owned having been conveyed to 

 strangers. 1 



The drainage of the Fens, however, was not yet com- 

 plete. The district was no longer a boggy wilderness, 

 but much of it in fine seasons was covered with waving 

 crops of corn. As the swamps were drained, farm 

 buildings, villages, and towns gradually sprang up, and 

 the toil of the labourer was repaid by abundant har- 

 vests. The anticipation held forth in the original charter 

 granted by Charles I. 2 to the reclaimers of the Bedford 

 Level was more than fulfilled. " In those places which 

 lately presented nothing to the eyes of the beholders 

 but great waters and a few reeds thinly scattered here 

 and there, under the Divine mercy might be seen plea- 

 sant pastures of cattle and kine, and many houses be- 

 longing to the inhabitants." But the tenure by which 

 the land continued to be held was unremitting vigilance 

 and industry ; the difficulties interposed by nature tending 

 to discipline the skill, to stimulate the enterprise, and 

 evoke the best energies of the people who had rescued the 

 fields from the watery waste. There was still the ten- 



1 Yermnydcn's second daughter, 

 Catherine, married Thomas Babington, 

 Msij., of Somersham, Buntmgdonshire, 



son and heir of Thomas J'al.in-ton, 

 KS<I.,O|' I Jot 1 1 ley Temple, Leicestershire. 

 It may l>e ivim-mln Ted that Xachary 

 Macaulay married into the I'abinxtoii 

 family, and that (he late Thomas 



Macaulay was Wii at 

 VOL. I. 



Hothli-y Temple. There is a tradition 

 at Hat field that Verniuyden died in the 

 ]xx>r-house at Belton, but Dr. Hunter, 

 in his ' Deanery of Doncaster,' says this 

 is incorrect. 



2 The Charter, commonly known as 

 "The Lynn Law," was granted in lo 

 Car. I. 



