A HISTORY OF DORSET 



The remaining Dorset castles present almost equal difficulties. 

 Gervase, in the Mappa Mundi (about whose date, unhappily, there is some 

 obscurity),^ mentions Corfe, Sherborne, and Dorchester. But Lul worth and 

 possibly Cerne are mentioned in 1139 and 1142.^ Bow and Arrow Castle, 

 Portland, is said to have been built by Rufus.' At any rate, Portland had a 

 castle in 11 42.* There are also earthworks of the motte-and-bailey type at 

 Sturminster Newton, Shaftesbury, Chelborough, and Powerstock.^ Power- 

 stock was held, at the date of Domesday, by Roger Arundel, but may possibly 

 have been fortified by John, into whose hands it came by exchange with 

 Robert of Newburgh (to whom it had come from the Arundels) for a 

 Somerset manor. ^ It is probable that some of these are among the adulterine 

 castles of the reign of Stephen. 



Situated on the line of the empress's communications between her English 

 strongholds of Bristol, Oxford, and Devizes, and her continental base, the 

 Dorset castles became important factors in the civil war, which shared 

 with other mediaeval wars the characteristic features of absence of pitched 

 battles and importance of castles. It is impossible to ascertain the sentiment 

 of the county in the struggle between king and empress, for public feeling 

 was both dominated and voiced by the great land-holders alone. Of these 

 Robert of Gloucester, the empress's half-brother, stands above all others. His 

 Dorset lands, part of the honour of Gloucester, came to him with his 

 wife Mabel, daughter of Robert FitzHamon, who himself had married Sybil, 

 daughter of Roger of Montgomery, and sister of Robert of Belesme, who 

 suffered perpetual imprisonment in Wareham Castle. To FitzHamon Rufus, 

 probably about 1090,^ had given the inheritance called of Gloucester, which 

 had originally been held by the Saxon Brictric, then by William's Queen 

 Matilda, and which on her death had reverted to the crown. It included 

 many Dorset manors.* Among the empress's men were also Baldwin of 

 Redvers, and William of Mohun. Baldwin descended from the ' francus ' 

 who in Domesday Book held three and a half hides in Mosterton in South 

 Perrot, and not from the ' Baldwinus Vicecomes ' or Baldwin of Moeles, 

 sheriff of Devon, and constable of Rougemont Castle, Exeter. William of 

 Mohun was lord of Dunster.^ The Mohun holding in Dorset included 

 lands in Todber, Spettisbury, Winterborne Houghton, Hammoon, Chalbury, 

 Iwerne Courtney, Broadwinsor, and Mapperton in Aimer.'" Robert of 

 Bampton (co. Devon), who was in rebellion against Stephen," had succeeded, 

 by the female line, to the Domesday fief of Walter of Douai, which 

 included lands in Winterborne Clenston and Purse Caundle. William de 

 Cahaignes, who made the king prisoner at the battle of Lincoln (1141), had 



' Stubbs places it about 1 199, Intnd. to Gervase (Rolls Ser.), i, p. xxix. 



' Will. Malms. Hist. Novella (Rolls Ser.), ii, 557, 59+. 595 ; Gesta Stephani (Rolls Sen), iii, 58. The 

 latter, however, is quite as likely to be Cerney, near Cirencester. See Ramsay, Found, of Engl, ii, 388. 



» Hutchins, Dorset, ii, 816. * Will. Malms, op. cit. ii, 595. 



' Information supplied by Mrs. Armitage. See also Hutchins, op. cit. iv, 336, 339 ; ii, 655, 318 ; 

 Coker, Surv. of Dors. 100. 



« Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), 97. ' Ord. Vit. Hist. Eccl. iii, 350. 



' See Round in Genealogist (New Ser.), iv, 129-40. Hutchins, op. cit. iii, 369, and 375, 376 follows 

 Dugdale about the three FitzHamon heiresses, one of whom, he says, was abbess of Shaftesbury. But see the 

 art. ' Fitzhamon,' in Diet. Nat. Biog. 



° See H. Maxwell Lyte, Dunster and its Lords, 2, 3. 



«° Dom. Bk. i, 82. " Round, Feud. Engl. 486 ; Engl. Hist. Rev. v, 746. 



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