Description
NOTE: This is a used, great condition, paperback. The book has been carefully looked after, and has a shop sticker on the barcode on the back cover.
Blurb:
Historical background: The Napoleonic Wars were at an end. England was in a poor economic state; wages for agricultural workers of the Fens of Cambridgeshire were poor and the costs of essentials such as flour and bread rising out of reach. This decline in the independent Fenmen’s life was brought to a head at the monthly ‘benefit’ meeting at the Globe Inn, Littleport.
Henry Martin a beer house orator spouted loudly about getting things sorted out, which only served to ferment the angry labourers. The ensuing ‘shindig’ was seen by the wealthy as a severe threat to their lives and so began the rounding up by hated soldiers of those believed to be guilty of rioting. All this was seen through the eyes of Clem Legge, a Fen ‘tiger’ who frequented Littleport and the Globe, he later wrote down the rightful aftermath of the ‘riots’.
There can be no real heroes, no real villains but I have tried to capture the heavy atmosphere that did much to wean the poor fenfolk from the Big Church and the Bishop of Ely. The Bishop and the wealthy, seemingly uncaring land owners being the cause of the poverty that went a long way into ‘stirring the hornet’s nest’. Clem Legge observed a flight of five swans, a symbol of hope as they flew over the five empty gallows to end the story.
