outraged about the large enclosures of their common pasture and turbary fens. This threatened their commons rights and livelihoods, as they depended on the fens for pasturage and for peat for burning as fuel. From 1627, the richer members of the community challenged the project in court by lawsuits, even as large groups of commoners (not necessarily poor people, but including some substantial farmers) rioted against the works and the enclosures. Because the legal position of the commoners of Epworth was unique, the legal debate over the drainage and enclosures lasted into the eighteenth century. Vermuyden was knighted in 1629 for his work, and became a British citizen in 1633. In 1631 he built the Horseshoe Sluice on the tidal river at Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire at a cost of £8,000, by a "little Army of Articifers Venting, contriving and acting outlandish devises" The work on Hatfield Chase was only partially successful: the straightening of the river Don and outlet into the Aire caused flooding in Fishlake, Sykehouse and Snaith. As a result of a lawsuit in 1633, Vermuyden dug the Dutch River, which provided a direct route from the Don to the River Ouse at Goole. It required him to deplete most of the land that he had acquired in the Chase. The same year he bought of land in Sedgemoor on the Somerset Levels and Malvern Chase in Worcestershire; he also entered into a partnership in the lead mines in Wirksworth, which he drained by means of a sough. Contrary to popular belief, Vermuyden was not involved with the draining of the "Great Fen" in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk in the 1630s. He did not participate until the second phase of construction in the 1650s. This area of marshland was naturally drained by a labyrinth of rivers. It had been inadequately maintained since before the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1537 during the English Reformation, as the monasteries had been chiefly responsible in the region for keeping the channels clear. The initial plan for the drainage was based on a proposal by John Hunt in 1604 – 1605, to construct a new river long from Earith to Denver, shortening the length of the River Great Ouse by many miles. It was eventually named the Bedford River (subsequently Old Bedford River) after Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford, who was the chief Adventurer and financier. The project created or