Note 742 — Chapter XI · —The Anthropo-Geography Of Rivers

The spirit of the marshlands is the spirit of freedom. Therefore these small and scarcely habitable portions of the land assume an historical dignity and generate stirring historical events out of all proportion to their size and population. Their content is ethical rather than economic. They attract to their fastnesses the vigorous souls protesting against conquest or oppression, and then by their natural protection sustain and nourish the spirit of liberty. It was the water-soaked lowlands of the Rhine that enabled the early Batavians,742 Ditmarscher and Frieslanders to assert and to maintain their independence, generated the love of Independence among the Dutch and helped them defend their liberty against the Spanish743 and French. So the Fenland of England was the center of resistance to the despotism of King John, who therefore fixed his headquarters for the suppression of the revolt at Lincoln and his military depôt at Lynn. Later in the conflict of the barons with Henry III, Simon de Montfort and other disaffected nobles entrenched themselves in the islands of Ely and Axholm, till the Provisions of Oxford in 1267 secured them some degree of constitutional rights.744 Four centuries later the same spirit sent many Fenlanders to the support of Cromwell.