# vermuyden400.org.uk

> 24th May 1626 - Cornelius Vermuyden & Charles I sign a contract to drain the Isle of AXholme & Hatfield Chase.


## Posts

- [The Dutch Connection: Vermuyden and the investors in the draining of Hatfield Chase 1626-1656 - Piet van Cruyningen, Wageningen University, Netherlands](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/the-dutch-connection-vermuyden-and-the-investors-in-the-draining-of-hatfield-chase-1626-1656-piet-van-cruyningen-wageningen-university-netherlands/): The draining of Hatfield Chase was a Dutch enterprise. The engineer Cornelius Vermuyden and all but two of his 45 backers were Dutch, and they applied Dutch technology. They aimed at changing the wetlands into valuable farmland – not realising that those ‘wastelands’ provided resources that were cherished by the local population. The paper will focus on Vermuyden’s background and expertise, the ways in which he mobilised a group of investors in London and the Netherlands and the methods applied to drain the level. The outcome was a partial failure due to resistance of the commoners of the Isle of Axholme […]
- [Where Land & Waters Meet - Talk by Nicki Whitehouse](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/where-land-waters-meet-talk-by-nicki-whitehouse/)
- [Where did Vermuyden Live whilst the drainage works were going on?](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/where-did-vermuyden-live-whilst-the-drainage-works-were-going-on/): Several places have claimed to be the residence of Cornelius Vermuyden during his work on the draining of the Isle of Axholme & Hatfield Chase. There do not appear to be any contemporary sources providing details on where Cornelius Vermuyden lived whilst working in the area. Most sources are secondary and written a significant time after the event. This post attempts to describe the various locations that have been described as being the residence of Cornelius Vermuyden. Old Hall, Thorne Old Yorkshire by William Smith printed in 1881 states; Another noted building- there was known as the Old Hall. This was […]
- [Evening Talks - from September](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/evening-talks-from-september/)
- [Thirty-One Battles: Nathaniel Reading and the Long Reckoning](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/thirty-one-battles-nathaniel-reading-and-the-long-reckoning/): The Isle of Axholme, 1651–1719 By the summer of 1651 the Sandtoft settlement lay in ruins, the Participants’ tenants had fled, and the commoners of the Isle of Axholme held the land they believed had always been theirs. They had won, for now. What followed was not peace. It was six more decades of conflict. The Restoration and Reading’s Return The Interregnum years, the 1650s, brought relative quiet to the Isle. With the Participants unable to call upon military or legal support strong enough to dislodge the commoners from the 7,400 acres, and with Cromwell’s government preoccupied with larger concerns, the […]
- ['They Would Stay Till the Whole Level Were Drowned'](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/they-would-stay-till-the-whole-level-were-drowned/): The Civil War, the Snow Sewer, and the Fall of Sandtoft, 1642–1651 After the Star Chamber proceedings of 1631 and the Exchequer Award of 1636, a tense and uneasy quiet settled over the Isle of Axholme. The commoners had not accepted the settlement. They had been compelled, temporarily, to live with it. They were waiting. In 1642, their moment came. The Isle Chooses Its Side When civil war broke out, the Isle of Axholme sided with Parliament. The reasons were not complicated. The drainage had been a royal project from the outset, concluded by royal contract with Vermuyden in 1626, backed […]
- ['Only to Maintaine Their Right'](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/only-to-maintaine-their-right/): The Crown’s Legal Counterstroke and the Star Chamber, 1628–1631 Robert Coggan was shot dead on 15 August 1628. The Crown did not investigate his killing. Instead, it moved swiftly to secure the drainage works, silence the opposition, and settle the legal question of the Epworth commons in terms that favoured the Participants. What followed over the next three years was a co-ordinated deployment of every instrument of royal power — warrant, proclamation, attorney general, Exchequer, Star Chamber — against the commoners who had dared to resist. It did not entirely succeed. The commoners fought back at every stage. And when they […]
- [Spirit of the Waters - a play with music about the turbulent history of the Isle of Axholme.](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/spirit-of-the-waters-a-play-with-music-about-the-turbulent-history-of-the-isle-of-axholme/)
- [The Killing of Robert Coggan](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/the-killing-of-robert-coggan/): Friday, 15 August 1628: Armed Men at Haxey Carr Two days after the stoning of John Kitchen, and the wider violence of Wednesday 13 August, the situation at Haxey Carr had not calmed. It had hardened. Vermuyden’s work crew had spent Thursday recovering, regrouping — and rearming. When they returned to the carr on Friday morning to resume the damming of the River Idle, they did not come unarmed. They came with three muskets, one firelock, two pistols, a quarter-pike staff, two pitchforks, and seven swords between them. The muskets, it later emerged, had been brought from Yorkshire to the drainers’ […]
- [The Women of Haxey](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/the-women-of-haxey/): Wednesday, 13 August 1628: The First Day of Riots on the Isle of Axholme In the early afternoon of Wednesday, 13 August 1628, an English labourer named John Kitchen was walking along the road to the village of Haxey. Kitchen worked for Cornelius Vermuyden, the Dutch engineer commissioned two years earlier by King Charles I to drain the great fenlands of Hatfield Chase and the Isle of Axholme. The drainage had never been popular among the local inhabitants. As Kitchen approached Haxey, he met an acquaintance named Vincent Taylor, who gave him a stark warning: if he dared to go any […]
- [A Church for the Strangers: The Chapel at Sandtoft](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/a-church-for-the-strangers-the-chapel-at-sandtoft/): A Congregation of Refugees The settlers who gathered at Sandtoft were not a single homogeneous group. The first wave, arriving around 1628, comprised some eighty families from Walloon Flanders — Dutch and French-speaking Protestants who had fled the religious persecution of the Spanish Netherlands. They were followed in 1635 by a further substantial influx, mostly artisans and tenant farmers from Normandy and the Walloon country, drawn by the promise of allotments on the newly-drained levels. Many came as Participants, shareholders in Vermuyden’s undertaking. or as tenants of those investors. Together they formed a close-knit Protestant community, worshipping in two languages: services […]
- [Cornelius Vermuyden’s Fortified Camp at Sandtoft](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/cornelius-vermuydens-fortified-camp-at-sandtoft/): When Cornelius Vermuyden arrived in the Isle of Axholme in the 1620s, he brought with him workers from across the North Sea. The transformation of Hatfield Chase and the surrounding marshlands required skilled labourers, surveyors, craftsmen, and administrators, many of them Dutch, many of them strangers to the landscape they were about to reshape. Their base of operations became Sandtoft, a small rise of ground on the north-western edge of the Isle. Sandtoft was not chosen by accident. It stood in a loop in the River Idle, close to the new drainage cuts, and the River Torne, giving Vermuyden’s team direct […]
- [Vermuyden' Subsidiary Works - The Dutch River](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/vermuyden-subsidiary-works-the-dutch-river/): Flooding at Fishlake & Sykehouse — The Price of Imperfection Even as these new works were rising, serious problems were emerging elsewhere in the drainage system. The diversion of the River Don northward into the Aire had unintended consequences for the settlements along its banks, and the villages of Fishlake and Sykehouse suffered severe flooding as a direct result of Vermuyden’s works — inundations from waters that had never previously troubled them. The complaints of the inhabitants were not merely petitions to distant authorities. They took direct action. In May 1630, the inhabitants of Fishlake and Sykehouse reached an agreement with Vermuyden, paying him […]
- [Vermuyden's Subsidiary Drainage Works - sasses and sluices.](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/vemuydens-subsidiary-drainage-works-sasses-and-sluices/): 1629 – Court of Sewers appointed In 1629, the Crown appointed a new Court of Sewers to oversee the “Level of Hatfield Chase,” a move intended to mark the completion of Cornelius Vermuyden’s great drainage project. This court was charged with maintaining the new network of drains, banks, and sluices that had reshaped the wetlands and opened large areas to arable farming. Its creation signalled a shift from engineering works to long‑term management of the altered landscape. Yet the appointment also revealed the deep tensions the drainage had created. Many local people felt their ancient rights to turbary, fishing, and grazing […]
- [Vermuyden's Drainage Scheme - Phase 2](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/vermuydens-drainage-scheme-phase-2/): Draining the Levels – Vermuyden’s Second Phase (1628-1631) By 1627, just two years after Cornelius Vermuyden and King Charles I had signed their fateful contract, Vermuyden reported that the first phase of drainage works was completed so that a commission could be appointed to allot the land and commence its work. The 1627 Commission was appointed to begin the process of allotting the drained land. Under the original contract, the newly drained land was to be divided into three parts — one third each for the Crown, Vermuyden and his investors (the Participants), and the local commoners who held existing rights […]
- [Vermuyden's Drainage Scheme - The River Torne](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/vermuydens-drainage-scheme-the-river-torne/): The River Torne presented a significant challenge to the drainage of the Isle of Axholme. Its original course ran from the west, around Wroot, to the River Idle at Ben Intake (a location now known as Tunnel Pits). Unlike the Don and the Idle, it was not possible to divert the Torne along an existing watercourse, meaning it had to cross the drained area of Hatfield Chase. The common assumption is that the River Torne was routed more or less as it flows today, crossing the former course of the River Idle at Tunnel Pits and heading north-east to join Vermuyden’s […]
- [Vermuyden's Drainage Scheme - Phase 1 - Drainage of Hatfield Chase - 1626-1628](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/vermuydens-drainage-scheme-phase-1-drainage-of-hatfield-chase-1626-1628/): The first phase of Cornelius Vermuyden’s works took place between 1626 and 1628
- [Crowle - Fisheries 1372](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/crowle-fisheries-1372/): Axholme before Vermuyden The fisheries on the River Don at Crowle were an important feature of the landscape as evidenced in the Domesday Book, which reported 31 fisheries in Crowle, more than any other town in Lincolnshire. The Coucher Book of Selby is a fourteenth-century cartulary — a register of charters and deeds — that chronicles the history of Selby Abbey from its founding under William the Conqueror in 1069 through to the mid-fifteenth century. This remarkable manuscript offers an invaluable window into the legal, spiritual, and administrative life of one of Yorkshire’s great Benedictine monasteries. Transcriptions of the Latin charters, […]
- [Vermuyden’s'General Rule of Drayning‘](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/vermuydensgeneral-rule-of-drayning/): Cornelius Vermuyden’s “General Rule of Draining,” is detailed in his 1642 work A Discourse Touching the Drayning of the Great Fennes, was a foundational approach to large-scale land reclamation in 17th-century England.  Although this paper was written after Vermuyden had left Hatfield Chase and the Isle of Axholme and was focused on the Great Level in Cambridgeshire, it shows Vermuyden’s approach to land reclamation.Although the agreement with Charles I explicitly allowed up to 3,000 acres of land to be used for flood management, the use of large washlands like those subsequently created at Welney in the Great Level, is not apparent. His […]
- [How Vermuyden Financed the Hatfield Chase Drainage](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/how-vermuyden-financed-the-hatfield-chase-drainage/): After agreeing with Charles I to drain the Isle of Axholme & Hatfield Chase, Cornelius Vermuyden had to work out how to finance his drainage scheme. The drainage scheme was funded by the sale of Vermuyden’s land to a number of partners, known as Participants. Most of the earliest Participants were Dutch. Among Vermuyden’s associates, three networks can be discerned: Jacob Cats as Real Estate Agent One particularly interesting investor recruitment method involved the Dutch poet and statesman Jacob Cats: Jacob Cats bought 9,472 acres of land with the intent of selling most of it to investors in the Netherlands. From […]
- [1626 Agreement between Charles I and Cornelius Vermuyden to Drain the Isle of Axholme and Hatfield Chase](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/1626-agreement-between-charles-i-and-cornelius-vermuyden-to-drain-the-isle-of-axholme-and-hatfield-chase/): The full agreement may be read here After the James I, commission of 1622, Vermuyden obviously investigated the feasibility of draining the Isle of Axholme and Hatfield Chase and declared himself prepared to undertake the drainage. However, in 1625, James I died and Charles I succeeded to the throne. On 24th May 1626, the second year of Charles’ reign, an agreement was made between Charles I and Cornelius Vermuyden to drain the Isle of Axholme and Hatfield Chase. Key Terms: Vermuyden’s Obligations: The King’s Compensation: Additional Provisions: The agreement essentially privatises land reclamation, with Vermuyden funding the massive engineering project in […]
- [The Royal Commission on Hatfield Chase in 1622](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/the-royal-commission-on-hatfield-chase-in-1622/): In 1622 James I appointed a royal commission to inquire into the condition and governance of Hatfield Chase, then a flooded and largely unproductive royal hunting ground. The commissioners were instructed to survey the Chase, examine the causes of its persistent inundation, and report on the feasibility and profitability of large‑scale drainage and improvement. The Commission described the Isle of Axholme and the bogs as places that “nourish beggars and idle persons” and noted that inhabitants were abusing their common rights by taking the king’s game, overgrazing, taking standing wood without permission, and working land for crops they had no legal […]
- [Before Vermuyden: Drainage and River Management in the Isle of Axholme](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/before-vermuyden-drainage-and-river-management-in-the-isle-of-axholme/): Long before Cornelius Vermuyden arrived in the 1620s with his grand Dutch-engineered drainage scheme, the Isle of Axholme was already a landscape shaped by centuries of human effort to manage water. The Isle’s rivers, meres, and artificial channels were central to life, economy, and identity — and the people who lived here developed sophisticated systems of communal and manorial governance to keep the land usable. Roman canals, medieval dykes, and the local institutions that held it all together. Inclesmoor Map 1407 – Showing the area around Thorne Moor. National Archives MPC 1/56 A Landscape Defined by Water The Isle of Axholme […]
- [Axholme Before Vermuyden – The Land and Its Lords - Manor of Crowle](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/axholme-before-vermuyden-the-land-and-its-lords-manor-of-crowle/): Manor of Crowle The Domesday Record At the time of the Conquest, Crowle was the most populous and valuable manor in the Isle of Axholme. The Domesday Book recorded impressive resources: fifteen villagers and nineteen bordars working seven ploughs, thirty-one fisheries valued at thirty-one shillings, thirty acres of meadow, and woodland and pasture measuring one mile in each direction. The manor’s value had decreased from £12 in King Edward’s time to £8 by 1086 Geoffrey de Wirce received the manor at the Conquest as the first Norman Lord of the Isle of Axholme. Shortly thereafter, he granted a hundred of land […]
- [Axholme Before Vermuyden – The Land and Its Lords - Manor of Epworth](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/axholme-before-vermuyden-the-land-and-its-lords-manor-of-epworth/): Before the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden arrived in the 1620s, the Isle of Axholme was a patchwork of manors, commons, and ancient rights. The main manors in the Isle of Axholme were Epworth, in the centre, and Crowle in the North. Lords of manors held sway over land and law, but when titles lapsed or estates were forfeited, ownership reverted to the monarch—an important mechanism that shaped royal interest in the region. Manorial structures were the backbone of medieval rural life: the lord held legal authority, tenants owed customary services, and the manor court regulated everything from grazing rights to agricultural […]
- [Rights and Protections for Isle of Axholme Tenants - Summary of the Mowbray Charter of 1360.](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/rights-and-protections-for-isle-of-axholme-tenants-summary-of-the-mowbray-charter-of-1360/): The tenants of the Isle of Axholme petitioned their lord, Sir John Mowbray, to resolve disputes caused by his officials. In response, Mowbray granted a series of rights and protections to all tenants and residents of the Isle, to apply permanently to them and their heirs. Key points granted: The charter was sealed by both parties at Epworth on 1 May, 33 Edward III (1360). The full text of the charter as quoted by Peck, in his ‘Topographical Account of the Isle of Axholme’, can be found here
- [Mowbray Deed of 1360 - from Peck's Isle of Axholme (1815)](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/mowbray-deed-of-1360-from-pecks-isle-of-axholme-1815/): A true copy of the ancient deed of JOHN DE MOWBRAY, some time Lord of the ISLE of AXHOLME, and the Honour of BREMBER, made to the Freeholders there, after he had made an approvement to himself of some of the Wastes within the Manor of EPWORTH in the said Isle; and is now translated out of French into English by WILLIAM RYLEY, keeper of the records, in the Tower of LONDON. The said MOWBRAY and his predecessors, and also successors, Dukes of NORFOLK, were a long time lords of the said manor. THIS INDENTURE, between their thrice honoured lord SIR […]
- [Axholme before Vermuyden – Agriculture Before the Dutch Drainage](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/axholme-before-vermuyden-agriculture-before-the-dutch-drainage/): Life in Axholme before the drains was shaped by water. Islanders were not impoverished peasants—they were skilled pastoralists, fishers, and peat cutters. Cattle were the backbone of the economy, with thousands overwintered on the commons. Fishing rights were lucrative, and peat from the moors provided essential fuel. Villagers navigated the landscape by boat, using dykes and rivers to reach markets like Bawtry. They lived on higher ground, in settlements like Crowle, Belton, and Epworth, and adapted their lives to the rhythms of flood and thaw. Their economy was sustainable, resilient, and well-suited to the land. Though pastoralism dominated, Axholme also supported […]
- [Axholme Before Vermuyden: Life, Land and Lords in a Very Different Isle](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/axholme-before-vermuyden-life-land-and-lords-in-a-very-different-isle/): Long before Cornelius Vermuyden arrived with his Dutch engineers and radical drainage plans, the Isle of Axholme was already a distinctive, self‑contained world. Its landscape, economy, and governance had evolved over centuries in response to the challenges—and opportunities—of living on a wetland “island” surrounded by rivers and meres. Far from being a barren backwater, Axholme supported a thriving pastoral economy, complex manorial structures, and a way of life deeply shaped by water. Contrary to the stereotype of “miserable fen dwellers,” the people of Axholme had developed a sophisticated and sustainable economy well suited to their environment. Before Vermuyden, the Isle of […]
- [Did Cornelius Vermuyden meet Prince Henry at a hunt on Thorne Mere?](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/did-cornelius-vermuyden-meet-prince-henry-at-a-hunt-on-thorne-mere/): Did Cornelius Vermuyden meet Prince Henry at a deer hunt on Thorne Mere? Abraham de la Pryme, a 17th-century antiquarian, recounted a story that Prince Henry, the eldest son of King James I, visited the North of England in 1609 and took part in a grand hunt on Thorne Mere—a vast, marshy area on the edge of Hatfield Chase. During the hunt, hundreds of men in boats drove herds of deer through the flooded mere. It was during this royal event that Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer then gaining renown in England, is said to have met Prince Henry. De la […]
- [Portrait of Sir Philibert Vernatti, 1st Baronet (1590 - 1643) [had been thought to be portrait of Cornelius Vermuyden], after restoration, dated 1626](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/copy-of-portrait-of-sir-philibert-vernatti-1st-baronet-1590-1643-has-been-thought-to-be-portrait-of-cornelius-vermuyden-after-restoration-dated-1626/): The artwork, an oil on panel measuring 69 cm by 59.5 cm, is housed at the Valence House Museum in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham . It was previously thought to be a portrait of Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer renowned for his work on land reclamation projects in England during the 17th century. However, recent research and analysis have led to the conclusion that the painting actually portrays Philibert Vernatti . Philibert Vernatti (1590–1643) was a Dutchman who settled in London around 1628. He was involved in colonial administration and was knighted in 1631. He was also one […]
- [Cornelius Vermuyden and the Reclamation of Canvey Island - 1623](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/cornelius-vermuyden-and-the-reclamation-of-canvey-island-1623/): In the early 17th century, Canvey Island in Essex was under increasing threat from tidal flooding by the Thames and the North Sea. Despite this, the local landowners had done little to address the problem. A turning point came when Sir Henry Appleton, a principal landowner, was persuaded by Joas Croppenburg, a wealthy Dutch-born London haberdasher, of the urgent need for land reclamation. Croppenburg proposed a bold plan: if the landowners would grant him one-third of the island’s land, he would finance the reclamation of the entire area at his own expense. This plan was formalized in a legal agreement dated […]
- [Vermuyden and the Dagenham Breach - 1623](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/vermuyden-and-the-dagenham-breach-1623/): In the 1200s, large embankments were constructed along the Thames to protect the low-lying land from flooding. These fertile marshes provided excellent grazing for cattle, but maintaining the river walls was both time-consuming and labour-intensive. By 1400, maintaining the river defences had become unsustainable. For the next century, large areas of marshland were abandoned. While still used for some grazing and reed harvesting for thatched roofs, the area also gained a reputation for its oyster beds. Gradually, over the next two centuries, the river walls were restored, and the water levels behind them brought back under control. However, in 1621, a […]
- [Vermuyden's early work in England](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/vermuydens-early-work-in-england/): It is most likely that Cornelius Vermuyden travelled to England in 1621 at the invitation of his cousin Joachim Liens. The end of the Twelve Years’ Truce between the Netherlands and Spain had restricted his opportunities to work on land drainage projects in the Netherlands, and at the time, he was employed as a tax collector in Tholen. Joachim Liens had been lobbying King James I for the drainage of the Great Level (later the Bedford Level), but his efforts had little effect. The King was preoccupied with other pressing matters, and no progress was made on the proposal. As a […]
- [The early life of Cornelius Vermuyden.](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/the-early-life-of-cornelius-vermuyden/): Cornelius Vermuyden (1590–1677) Family and Training: Career Development: Van Cruyningen, Piet. “Dutch investors and the drainage of Hatfield Chase, 1626 to 1656.” Agricultural History Review, vol. 64, no. 1, June 2016, pp. 17-37
- [24th May 1626](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/1626-05-24/): On May 24th, 1626, Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch engineer, entered into a contract with King Charles I to drain the vast wetlands of Hatfield Chase and the Isle of Axholme, areas in northern England prone to frequent flooding. Vermuyden was tasked with reclaiming these lands for agricultural use by creating a network of drainage channels and improving the local waterways. This ambitious project aimed to increase arable land, boost agricultural productivity, and alleviate the persistent flooding issues that had plagued the region for centuries. The contract was part of Charles I’s broader efforts to improve the economy and strengthen his reign, […]

## Pages

- [The Stovin Manuscript](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/the-stovin-manuscript/): http://www.archive.org/stream/yorkshirearchae16socigoog#page/n9/mode/2up The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal VOL. VII. 1882 THE STOVIN MANUSCRIPT Communicated by CHARLES JACKSON, Doncaster. GEORGE STOVIN, the writer of the manuscript of which the following notices are presented in these pages, was the eldest son of James Stovin, esq., of Tetley, in the parish of Crowle, in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and was born about 1695 or 1696. Before the death of his father in 1735, he married Sarah, daughter and heiress of James Empson, esq., of Gowle, or Goole, in the former county. We are told¹ that he appears not to have been brought up to any […]
- [Michael Corselis](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/michael-corselis/): Michael Corselis was a prominent Anglo-Dutch merchant active in London during the early 17th century, closely connected to the Corselis family network that helped finance drainage and land reclamation schemes in England. He was part of a wider community of Protestant merchants and investors from the Low Countries. 🧾 Biographical Sketch: Michael Corselis Origins and Family Migration to England Probate 💼 Role in Anglo-Dutch Mercantile Circles 1. Executor and Legal Agent 2. Investor in Drainage and Land Reclamation 3. Protestant Mercantile Network 🧭 Legacy and Connections Name Role Connection Michael Corselis Merchant, executor London-based legal and financial agent John Corselis Investor […]
- [Sir Cornelius Vermuyden's Agreement with King Charles for Draining Hatfield Chase](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/sir-cornelius-vermuydens-agreement-with-king-charles-for-draining-hatfield-chase/): This is the full text of the agreement as included in Korthals-Altes biography of Vermuyden. This transcription is attributed to Stovin’s manuscript. ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT indented, made, and concluded upon the Four and twentieth day of May, in tke second year of the reign of our most gracious sovereign lord CHARLES, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, defender Of the faith, &c. Between our said sovereign Lord the KING’S MAJESTY, of the one part, and CORNELIUS VERMUYDEN, of London, esquire, of the other part. Whereas the king’s most excellent Majesty now is and standeth seized […]
- [References/Bbliography](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/references-bbliography/)
- [The history of imbanking and drayning of divers fenns and marshes, both in forein parts and in this kingdom. (1662) William Dugdale - Chapter 27](https://vermuyden400.org.uk/the-history-of-imbanking-and-drayning-of-divers-fenns-and-marshes-both-in-forein-parts-and-in-this-kingdom-1662-william-dugdale-chapter-27/): Being now come into Lincolnshire, I shall first begin with the Isle of Axholme, which for many ages has been a fenny tract, and for the most part covered with waters; but more anciently not so. For originally it was a woody country, and not at all annoyed with those inundations of the rivers that passed through it, as is most evident by the great numbers of oak, fir, and other trees which have been of late frequently found in the moor upon making of sundry ditches and channels for the draining thereof; the oak trees lying somewhat above three foot […]
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