oil 
much opposition from the inhabitants, as well as almost insur- 
mountable engineering difllculties, the people clinging most perti- 
naciously to their half-drowned swamps, and even resorting to 
l)hysical force to retard the onward march of improvement. 
This strong conservative feeling was no new development. From 
the time of the Roman Conquest, all through the troubles of the 
Sa.Kon and Norman periods, the Fen-men were the last to change ; 
and, almost to the present day, the inhabitants of this isolated 
district have maintained their deeply-rooted aversion to innovation. 
There is every reason to believe that the impenetrable fastness of 
the Fens sheltered a remnant of the Celtic inhabitants of Eastern 
England for ages after the Saxons had established themselves as 
masters of the country; and ^Ir. Freeman* believes it possible 
that hero and there an outlying settlement may have lingered on 
even to the days of William. In like manner, the Isle of Ely was 
one of the last spots of Fnglish soil which yielded to the Norman’s 
con(piering sword ; and yet, again, two hundred years after, “ the 
land which had thus sheltered the last relics alike of British and 
English independence, sheltered the last relics of the party which 
had fought for the freedom of England by the side of Simon of 
Montford.” 
I propose, however, in this paper, to treat of what is known of 
the physical aspect of the Fens, and of the condition of its inhabitants 
in days gone by, rather than of the part they took in the stirring 
events of the past, restricting myself to only a passing reference 
to tho process by which this watery wilderness has been gradually 
reclaimed. 
The early attempts at reclamation attributed to the Romans 
appear to have been chiefly directed to keeping back the tidal 
waters of the Wash, and preventing the overflow of the rivers by 
means of embankments along their courses; but it was probably 
the occupants of the religious houses who made the first real 
advances in drainage. Peterborough and Ely, from very early 
times, each had their monasteries, the former on the borders of 
the Fens, and the latter on a site elevated above the reach of the 
waters ; but as yet the fastness of the impenetrable Fen itself 
had never been invaded. However, about the commencement of 
tho eighth century, in the days of Conrad King of Mercia, 
• ‘ History of the Norman Conquest of England,’ vol. iv. p. 470. 
