Ravages of Roger Bigod;
of Hugh of Grantmesnil. north." Some others of the confederates and their doings are sketched in a few words by the same sarcastic pen; "Roger hight one of them that leapt into the castle at Norwich, and did yet the worst of all over all the land."[1] So does the English writer speak of the first Bigod who held the fortress which had arisen on the mound of the East-Anglian kings.[2] Roger had succeeded to the place, though not to the rank, of Ralph of Wader, and, as Ralph had made Norwich a centre of rebellion against the father, so Roger now made it a centre of rebellion against the son. Then we read how "Hugo eke did nothing better neither within Leicestershire nor within Northampton."[3] This was the way in which the lord of Grantmesnil, so honoured at Saint Evroul, was looked on in the scriptorium of the house which had once been the Golden Borough. In some other parts of the country we get fuller accounts than these of the doers and of what was done. Three districts in the west and in the south-east of England became the scene of events which are set down by the writers of the age in considerable detail.
Bristol and its castle. Of Bristol, the great merchant-haven on the West-Saxon and Mercian border, we last heard when the sons of Harold failed to make their way within its walls,[4] and when its greedy slave-traders cast aside, for a while at least, their darling sin at the preaching of Saint Wulfstan.[5] The borough was now beginning to
- ↑ Chron. Petrib. 1088. "Roger hét an of heom se hleop into þam castele æt Norðwic, and dyde git eallra wærst ofer eall þæt land." He is "Rogerius Bigot" in William of Malmesbury. We shall find him behaving better later in our story.
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 68, 590.
- ↑ Chron. Petrib. 1088. "Hugo eac an þe hit ne gebette nan þing, ne innan Lægreceastrescire ne innan Norðamtune." He is "Hugo de Grentemesnil" in William of Malmesbury. See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 74, 232.
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 226.
- ↑ Ib. p. 382.
