90 TAPERS, ETC. 



Robert, thc Earl of Gloucester, (natural son of Henry I, 

 by the d'- of Rhys-ap-Tudor, prince of S. Wales, and 

 therefore balf brotber of Maude) maintained himself in 

 the strongly fortlfied Castle of Bristol,* and in tbat of 

 Leeds, in Kent ; Wm. Lovell held Castle Cary ; Payne held 

 Ludlow; Wm. de Mohun,f Dunster Castle; Robt. de 

 Nichole, Wareham Castle ; Eustace Fitzjohn held Melton ; 

 and Wm. Fitzalan, Shrewsbury Castle, which the king 

 stormed." 



The author of the Gesta Stephani, or Acts of Stephen, a 

 contemporaneous writer, whose chronicles are published in 

 the same work as the extract from Henry of Huntingdon 

 above quoted, but whose name is lost, gives some further 

 account of the siege of Castle Cary; and, moreover, some 

 particulars of the habits and pursuits of the inhabitants of 

 Bristol in those days, which, as contrasted with what we 

 know of the modern Bristolians, are too curious to be 

 passed over in silence. 



After stating that thc friends of King Henry, deceased, 

 who had sworn fealty to Matilda bis daughter, (especially 

 Baldwin de Redvers, of Exeter, Robert de Badington, the 

 Earl of Gloucester, and others), kindled a great commo- 

 tion in the West, especially in the neighbourhood of Bristol 

 and ßath, he proeeeds thus: — "The Bristolians having 

 license for every sort of villainy, wherever they heard that 

 y e King (Stephen), or his adherents, had estates, or pro- 

 perty of any description, they eargerly flocked to them, 

 like hounds snatching rapidly at the Carrion thrown into 

 a kennel ; yokes of oxen, flocks of sheep, whatever their 



* See also Rapin's History of England, B. vi., A.D. 1138. 



t Connected by mairiage with the Lovells. See Barlow, p. 402, who 

 says, "Bichard, 5th son of Wm. Lovell, married the daughter of Wm. de 

 Moion, or Mohun, Lord of Dunster." 



