The sturdy old 'Girvii,' 'Gyrwas,' men of the 'gyras' or marshes, who
in Hereward's time sang their three-man glees, 'More Girviorum
tripliciter canentes,' had been crossed with the blood of
Scandinavian Vikings in Canute's conquest; crossed again with English
refugees from all quarters during the French conquest under William.
After the St. Bartholomew they received a fresh cross of Huguenot,
fleeing from France--dark-haired, fiery, earnest folk, whose names
and physiognomies are said still to remain about Wisbeach,
Whittlesea, and Thorney. Then came Vermuyden's Dutchmen, leaving
some of their blood behind them. After the battle of Dunbar another
cross came among them, of Scotch prisoners, who, employed by
Cromwell's Government on the dykes, settled down among the fen-men to
this day. Within the memory of man, Scotchmen used to come down into
the fens every year, not merely for harvest, but to visit their
expatriated kinsmen.
To these successive immigrations of strong Puritan blood, more than
even the influence of the Cromwells and other Puritan gentlemen, we
may attribute that strong Calvinist element which has endured for now
nigh three centuries in the fen; and attribute, too, that sturdy
independence and self-help which drove them of old out of Boston
town, to seek their fortunes first in Holland, then in Massachusetts
over sea.
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