Hereward the Wake (lived 11th century)

Legendary Saxon hero of the English resistance to the Normans in 1070. Helped by a Danish army, the rebels attacked and sacked Peterborough Abbey. William bribed the Danes to return home, but Hereward continued the revolt. His stronghold in the Isle of Ely was captured in 1071 by William (I) the Conqueror during the Siege of Ely. Although his actual fate is unkown, legends grew up about him, and he has remained a hero of fiction.

Hereward had been outlawed by Edward the Confessor in 1062, and returned home after 1066 to find his father dead, his brother murdered, and the Norman lord Peter de Bourne in possession. Hereward killed him in revenge and led 40 men to the last English strongpoint at the abbey of Ely. When William the Conqueror took the island in 1071, Hereward retreated into the forest.

His deeds were later celebrated in a 13th century poem and a novel by English writer Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) which draws on the legend.