vavassours[1] as were reputed to be possessed of money, they compelled them, by extreme torture, to promise whatever they thought fit. Plundering the houses of the wretched husbandmen, even to their very beds, they cast them into prison; nor did they liberate them, but on their giving every thing they possessed or could by any means scrape together, for their release. Many calmly expired in the midst of torments inflicted to compel them to ransom themselves, bewailing, which was all they could do, their miseries to God. And, indeed, at the instance of the earl, the legate, with the bishops, repeatedly excommunicated all violators of church-yards and plunderers of churches, and those who laid violent hands on men in holy or monastic orders, or their servants: but this his attention profited but little. It was distressing, therefore, to see England, once the fondest cherisher of peace and the single receptacle of tranquillity, reduced to such a pitch of misery, that, not even the bishops, nor monks, could pass in safety from one town to another. Under king Henry, many foreigners, who had been driven from home by the commotions of their native land, were accustomed to resort to England, and rest in quiet under his fostering protection: in Stephen's time, numbers of freebooters from Flanders and Brittany flocked to England, in expectation of rich pillage. Meanwhile, the earl of Gloucester conducted himself with caution, and his most earnest endeavours were directed to gaining conquests with the smaller loss to his adherents. Such of the English nobility as he could not prevail upon to regard the obligation of their oath, he held it sufficient if he could so restrain, that, if they did not assist, they would not injure the cause: being willing, according to the saying of the comic writer, "To do what he could, when he could not do what he would." But when he saw the opportunity present itself, he strenuously performed the duty both of soldier and of general; more especially, he valiantly subdued those strong holds, which were of signal detriment to the cause he had espoused; that is to say, Harpetrey, which king Stephen had taken from certain soldiers of the earl before he came to England, and many others; Sudley,
- ↑ The meaning of vavassour is very various: here it seems to imply what we call a yeoman.
