had taken to his bed on the death of the empress's mother. Himself proceeded through the hostile country to Bristol, ac- companied, as I have heard, by scarcely twelve horsemen, and was joined in the midst of his journey by Brian Fitz-Count of Wallingford. Nor was it long ere he learned that his sister had quitted Arundel; for her mother-in-law, through female inconstancy, had broken the faith she had repeatedly pledged by messages sent into Normandy. The earl, therefore, committed the empress to Henry bishop of Winchester and Waleran earl of Mellent for safe conduct, a favour never denied to the most inveterate enemy by honourable soldiers. Waleran, indeed, declined going farther than Calne, but the bishop continued his route. The earl, therefore, quickly collecting his troops, came to the boundary appointed by the king, and placed his sister in safe quarters at Bristol. She was afterwards received into Gloucester by Milo, who held the castle of that city under the earl in the time of king Henry, doing him homage and swearing fidelity to him; for this is the chief city of his county.
On the nones of October one Robert Fitz- Hubert, a savage barbarian, by night clandestinely entering the castle of Malmesbury, which bishop Rochester had inauspiciously founded, and burning the town, boasted of the deed, as though he had gained a great triumph. But, within a fortnight, his joy was at an end, being put to flight by the king. Stephen, in the meantime, commanded possession to be kept of the castle, until, on the restoration of peace, it might be destroyed. The king, moreover, before he came to Malmesbury, had occupied, and placed a garrison in a small fortress called Cerney, belonging to the aforesaid Milo. In consequence, thinking he should be equally successful elsewhere, as at that place and at Malmesbury, he assailed a castle called Trowbridge, belonging to Humphrey de Bohun, who was of the empress's party, but he departed without success.
The whole country then around Gloucester to the extremity of Wales, partly by force, and partly by favour, in the course of the remaining months of that year, gradually espoused the party of their sovereign the empress. The owners of certain castles, securing themselves within their fastnesses, waited the issue of events. The city of Hereford was taken without difficulty; and a few soldiers, who determined on resistance,
