Hereward the Wake raids Peterborough

1070

The Anglo-Saxon outlaw, joined by a Danish raiding fleet, sacked the wealthy monastery of Peterborough before the arrival of its new Norman abbot. He retreated to the fenland marshes around Ely, where he would hold out for another year against William's army in the last real Anglo-Saxon resistance. His exploits passed quickly into legend, and medieval chroniclers transformed him into a Robin Hood figure of native defiance.