HEREWARD, styled "THE WAKE" (an addition of later days), an Englishman famous for his resistance to William the Conqueror. An account of his possessions given in the Domesday book proves that he was a tenant of Peterborough abbey, from which he held lands at Witham-on-the-Hill and Barholme-with Stow in the south-west of Lincolnshire, and of Crowland abbey at Rippingale in the neighbouring fenland. In 107o he joined the Danes, with whom William had signed a treaty allowing them to pass the winter in England, in an attack on Peterborough abbey (June 2) which they sacked. Driven back by Turold, they re tired to Ely, which Hereward and his company of outlaws appear to have held, in spite of the desertion of the Danes, until the next year. He was joined there by Morkere and Siward Barn, and Ely became so notorious as a refuge for rebels that the king was forced to organise an attack on it from Cambridge. The outlaws were overcome by the superior strength of the king's force, and most of them, including Morkere, surrendered. Hereward escaped through the marshes with a few of his men. The references to Herevvard in the chronicles, where the only authentic information about his life appears, end with this incident, but according to popular legend he lived to carry out further attacks on the Normans, but finally obtained a pardon from William.
See E. A. Freeman, "The Legend of Hereward" in History of the Norman Conquest, vol. iv. ; J. H. Round, Feudal England; H. W. C. Davies, England under the Normans and Angevins; and C. Kingsley's romance Hereward the Wake.