Section VII

Of the Fens from the time of Henry VIII, or rather that of Elizabeth, to the Revolution; giving an account of the different projects of improvement proposed and carried on during that period.

During the successive reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I, little attention appears to have been paid to the state or improvement of the fens. For most of that time, and ever after the dissolution of the abbeys, to which a very great part of these fens belonged, they were, it seems, almost entirely neglected, and soon reduced to a very wretched condition: so little care having been taken by the new possessors to keep the drains open and the banks in repair, compared with what had been done by their wiser predecessors, the abbots and the monks.

In Elizabeth’s time, however, things were gotten to such a pass as not to admit of being any longer overlooked or neglected. The reign of that queen (as Mr Gough observes in his edition of Camden) “may be properly fixed on as the period when the Great Level began to become immediately a public care.” In her 20th. year a commission was granted to Sir Thomas Cecil, Sir William Fitz-Williams, and others, to drain the fens about Clow’s Cross; but the inutility of such a partial design appears to have been early foreseen, as there is no account of the plan ever being acted upon. In her 43rd year, an act of parliament was passed on a general plan, which not only included the draining of the great level, but likewise all the marshes and drowned lands in the kingdom. This scheme, for which resources equal to the extent of the undertaking are said to have been provided, was frustrated by the queen’s death.

“In the beginning of the reign of James I, Sir John Popham, the Lord Chief Justice, procured an act for draining the fens in the Isle of Ely, and the lands in the adjacent counties. The work was commenced with great spirit, but was soon retarded by the death of Popham, and afterwards entirely dropt, through the opposition of some land-owners, who conceived themselves injured.

“The persons who next attempted to proceed with this important undertaking, were the Earl of Arundel, Sir William Ayloff, bart. and Anthony Thomas, Esq. but their proposals not being agreeable to those who acted as commissioners on behalf of the proprietors, and much time being lost by the meetings held to determine the contested points, the king himself resolved to become an adventurer, and actually undertook the herculean labour of draining the fens, on condition of his receiving 120,000 acres, as a remuneration, when the work was completed. This agreement was carried into a law, and there the design terminated; for the political embarrassments, which attended the remainder of the reign of the fickle James, prevented a single step being taken to carry it into execution.”

In the 6th year of Charles I. Sir C. Vermuiden, a Hollander, in a contract with the Commissioners of Sewers, engaged to drain the fens, on condition, that 90,000 acres of land, when drained, should be transferred to him. But when he had again surveyed the Level, and made drawings of the works that were necessary, he appears to have thought the reward insufficient, and demanded an additional allotment of 5000 acres. This proposal was rejected; more from the prejudices that prevailed against him as a foreigner (and a disgust, probably, for not standing to his first bargain) than from any supposition that his demands were extravagant: for soon after, the commissioners with the consent of the land-holders, engaged on the same terms of 95,000 acres with Francis Earl of Bedford, who had large possessions in the fens, through the grant to his ancestors of Thorney Abbey and its appurtenances.

Before the commencement of the work, thirteen gentlemen, of high rank and respectability offered to become joint adventurers with the earl, and their proposals being accepted, the undertaking commenced. In the year 1634, the king granted the adventurers a charter of incorporation; and three years and a half from that period, the Commissioners adjudged the Level drained, and, accompanied by his Majesty’s surveyor, attended to set out the earl’s allotment.

From this time the favourable disposition of Charles toward the adventurers began to change; and early in the ensuing year, 1638, a meeting was held at Huntingdon, of people devoted to the will of the crown, who were empowered to examine into the utility of the measures executed by the Earl. The new Commissioners declared that the works were incomplete; and accepted the king’s proposals to drain the fens, for which he was to receive not only 95,000 acres, but also 57,000 additional! Every hope of advantage which Charles expected to reap from this undertaking was entirely dissipated by the ensuing troubles, which prevented every further prosecution of the work till the year 1649, when William earl of Bedford, Son and successor of Francis, was restored by the Parliament to all the rights of his father.

The Act obtained at this period, settled the boundaries of the Level, and gave fresh vigour to the undertaking. The works which had fallen to decay, were repaired, and new channels made, with so much propriety in the opinion of the Commissioners, that on the 25th. of March, 1653, the Level was adjudged to be fully drained, and the 95,000 acres awarded to the Earl and his participants; the latter of whom were nearly ruined by the expence of draining, which amounted to upwards of £400,000.

In the 15th. of Charles II, the former act was confirmed in its most essential clauses; and a corporation, consisting of a governor, six bailiffs, and twelve conservators and commonality, was established, under the title of “Conservators of the Great Level of the Fens,” for its better government. These commissioners were empowered to levy taxes on the 95,000 acres, to defray whatever expences might arise in their preservation; but only 83,000 acres were vested in the corporation, in trust for the Earl of Bedford and his associates. The remaining 12,000 having been allotted to Charles I, in pursuance of the agreement made by the persons who met at Huntingdon, were now assigned to the king, with the exception of 2000 acres, which had been granted to the Earl of Portland.

Though the Corporation were invested with power by the above act to levy taxes generally on the adventurers land, yet as the form and manner in which that power was to be exercised was not prescribed, they could only levy a specific sum on every acre; a proceeding manifestly unjust; as the lands varied so much in value, that an equal tax nearly amounted to the whole sum the inferior lands were worth. Application was therefore made to the Legislature for power to remedy this inconvenience, by granting authority to substitute a gradual acre tax; and commissioners were appointed by the Parliament to survey and rate the land according to its value. Under this commission it was sorted into eleven degrees, and that with so much impartiality, that the proportional values as then ascertained, have ever since been regarded as a standard. Nothing very material, or remarkable, in regard to the fens, appears to have been done afterwards during the remainder of Charles’ reign, or that of his brother and successor James.