By John Watson-Taylor. 303 



























This Geoffrey had four sons: Ernulpb, Geoffrey, William, and 
Robert, of whom the last seems to have predeceased his brothers. 
In the struggle between King Stephen and the Empress Maud the 
father gave his allegiance alternately to both parties and from 
both received valuable considerations until at last the King lost 
patience, arrested him, and compelled him to surrender his lands 
_ and strongholds, the sources of his power. Geoffrey, however, 
managed to escape from custody, and with his eldest son, Ernulph, 
he fled to the Fen-land, where his fury against the King led him 
to every species of violence not only against the civil but even 
against the ecclesiastical power. In 1144 he was slain near Burwell 
and his son, being taken prisoner, was banished and disinherited 
_ asa punishment for the sacrilege they had committed. The earldom 
thus devolved on the second son, Geoffrey (died 1166), and later 
on the third son, William (died 1189), who both dying childless, 
the earldom became extinct.1_ The earldom was revived by King 
John in favour of Geoffrey Fitz Piers,? who had married the grand- 
daughter of Beatrice de Mandeville (sister of the first earl), and 
his son, Geoffrey, assumed the name of de Mandeville. This family 
held, in Wiltshire, Chiriell and Winterslow, the former of which 
passed to Maud de Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick, and the 
latter to the descendants of Isabel de Vipount, two of the four 
‘sisters in whom this line ended in 1298-9. 
_ Meanwile Ernulph, the eldest son of the first earl, re-appeared 
in England in the reign of Henry IL.,4and among the grants of 
land that he was permitted to retain were Bratton with Estrop in 
Highworth, held by the service of forty days’ ward at Devizes 
Jastle and 20s. yearly. He left at least two sons, Geoffrey and 
I alph, of whom the former succeeded him in the manor of Bratton. 
To Geoffrey (I.) of Bratton succeeded his son, Geoffrey II., whose 
wife was named Agnes, and one of his sons Geoffrey, but his heir 

1 Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 244. 
2 Thid, p. 39. 
5 Dugdale, Baronage, I., 707. 
* Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 228. 
