of Robert of Mowbray. him the last of the elder succession of Northumbrian earls, his nephew Robert of Mowbray, tall of stature, swarthy of countenance, fierce, bold, and proud, who looked down on his peers and scorned to obey his betters, who loved better to think than to speak, and who, when he opened his lips, seldom let a smile soften his stern words.[1] With these leaders were joined a crowd of others, "mickle folk, all Frenchmen," as the Chronicler significantly marks.[2] The sons of the soil, we are to believe, had no part in the counsels of that traitorous Lent, in the deeds of that wasting Easter.
Ravages of the rebels.
Evidence against the Bishop of Durham.
The war now began, a war in which, after the example
of the chief combatants, fathers fought against sons,
brothers against brothers, friends against their former
friends.[3] The rebel leaders, each from the point where
his main strength lay, began to lay waste the land,
specially the lordships of the King and the Archbishop.
And among these evil-doers the loyal monk of Peterborough
distinctly sets down William of Saint-Calais,
meek victim as he seems in the records of his own
house. The Bishop may have argued that he was only
returning what the King had done to him; but the
witness is such as cannot be got over; "The Bishop
of Durham did to harm all that he might over all the
- [Footnote: ad bellandum quam revestitos clericos ad psallendum magis erudire noverat."]
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 672. Orderic gives his portrait along with that of his uncle; "Robertus Rogerii de Molbraio filius potentia divitiisque admodum pollebat, audacia et militari feritate superbus pares despiciebat, et superbioribus obtemperare, vana ventositate turgidus, indignum autumabat. Erat erim corpore magnus, fortis, niger et hispidus, audax et dolosus, vultu tristis et severus. Plus meditari quam loqui studebat, et vix in confabulatione ridebat."
- ↑ Chron. Petrib. 1088. "Swiðe mycel folc mid heom, ealle Frencisce men." He must mean that all the leaders were French. We shall see (see below, p. 47) that there were both Englishmen and Britons in the rebel army.
- ↑ Flor. Wig. 1088.
