WILLIAM PEVERIL, AND KING STEPHEN.

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CHAPTER II.

Henry I. having no son to survive him, left the throne to Matilda, his daughter, who, at 8 years old, was affianced to the aged Henry V. emperor of Germany, and afterwards to Geofery, son of Fulk, earl of Anjou, surnamed Plantagenet, (on account of a custom he had of wearing a sprig of flowering broom in his cap like a feather), by whom she had a son, prince Henry, afterwards Henry II. But after the death of Henry I, the barons did not fail to testify their repugnance to the reign of a she king, many of them made no hesitation in breaking the oaths of fidelity Henry had caused them to take to his daughter, the ex-empress Matilda, and her infant son Henry, though in his life-time they dared not disobey his will. But when Beauclerk was dead, the barons refused to hold their feifs under the distaff, as they called it, accordingly Stephen, earl of Bolougne, a valiant and humane prince, nephew of the late king, by his sister Adela, daughter of the Conqueror, and wife of the earl of Blois; Stephen had married the daughter and heiress of Eustace, count of Bolougne, who brought him, in addition to the feudal sovereignty of Bolougne, immense estates in England. By this marriage also Stephen acquired another close connection with the royal family of England, and a new hold upon the sympathies of the English, as his wife Matilda was of the old Saxon stock, being the only child of Mary of Scotland, sister to David, the reigning king, as also of the good queen Maud, the first wife of Henry II, and mother of the empress Matilda, to whom her father had bequeathed the throne; whose right the nobility had set aside, and elected Stephen for their king, amongst whom the lord of Nottingham was one.

Matilda sent to recover the throne with an army of Scots, through the active mediation of the duke of Gloucester, a natural son of Henry II. and was himself aiming at the throne, and therefore joined interests with the empress, his half sister.

So rapid was the march of the Scots, that the Anglo-Norman armyof Stephen collected from Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire, could not come up with them till after they had crossed the Tees, therefore the army of the king drew up between that river and the Humber, choosing their own battle field, at Elfer-tun, now Northallerton, and about equal distance from Durham and York; there were four generals in command, two from Yorkshire,

Gildert de Lacy, and Walter his brother; from Nottinghamshire Walter Espec, but the commander in chief was William Peveril.

The bishop of Durham read the prayers of absolution from the standard car, the Normans and English kneeling on the ground, and when it was finished, saying Amen. The bishop then addressed the army in these words, "Illustrious chiefs of England, by blood and race Normans, before whom bold France tremblesto whom fierce England has submitted-under whom Apulla has been restored to her station-and whose names are famous in Antioch and Jerusalem, here are the Scots, who have done homage to you, undertaking to drive you from your estates."

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Before the bishop had time to finish his oration, the Scottish army flew upon the king's forces, with a maddened and resistless fury. Alban, Alban," was shouted by all the Celtic tribes from the Highlands. The desperate nature of the charge made by the brave men of Galloway, drove in the English infantry, and broke the Norman centre, as if they had only been spider webs. Almost immediately after, both flanks of the Anglo-Normans were assailed by the mountaineers and the gallant men of Tevotdale. Here the valour of Peveril and the men of Nottingham was severely tested, but they supported the charges, and the Norman horse formed an impenetrable mass round the standard car, and repulsed the Scots in a fierce charge they made to penetrate there. During this fruitless effort of the enemy, the English bowmen rallied, and took up good positions on the two wings of the Anglo-Norman army, and when the Scots renewed their attacks on the centre, harrassed them with a double flank flight of arrows, while Norman knights and men at arms, received them in front on the points of their couched lances. The long thin pikes of the men of Galloway were shivered against the armour of the Normans, or broken by their heavy swords and battle axes. The Highland clans still shouting " Alban Alban," wielded their claymores, and fighting hand to hand, tried to cut their way through the mass of iron-cased cavalry. It was the first time these Normans of England had come in contact with the claymores of the north, and they had good reason to bless the protection of their well-bound shields, their hauberks of mail, and the cuirasses of steel plate. For fulltwo hours did the Scots maintain the fight in front of the Norman host, and at one moment the gallant prince Henry had penetrated nearly to the standard, but it was not possible they could overcome, and at last, with broken spears and swords they ceased the attack--paused, retreated, and then fled in confusion; the Scottish king, however, retained near his person, and in good order, his guards and some other troops which covered the retreat, and gave several bloody checks

NOTTINGHAM BURNT.

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to the Anglo-Normans, who pursued. Some idea may be formed of the dreadful carnage on the side of the English, when it is told that the Scots in this fight, in two hours, lost 12,000 men, many a brave man, many a father and widow's son, who marched to this fight from Nottingham, were not permitted to return, but fell there and never saw it again.

1139, Matilda landed in England with her half brother, the duke of Gloucester, and 140 knights; Stephen by rapid movements of his army, surprised the queen in Arundel castle, with her mother-in-law, Alice, the queen dowager, and he, with a generosity peculiar to himself, gave Matilda liberty to go and join Gloucester. The cause of Stephen was never injured by any want of personal courage, or rapidity of movement; the duke of Gloucester and Matilda escaping from Wallingford castle, where Stephen had besieged them, seized Worcester, and then with the barons of his party came and ravaged with fire and sword the counties of Chester and Nottingham, He besieged and took the town in the absence of the military, who were now with Stephen at Lincoln; having gained possession, broke down the walls of the town, murdering all who came in his way, old or young, the tender babe, or the man of hoary hairs; when the defenceless inhabitants fled into their churches for security, like some remorseless demon, he burnt them and their churches together, and having pillaged the houses of the rich, crossed the Trent on his way to Lincoln, leaving the whole town in flames; nor do we read, with the exception of the castle, there was one dwelling undestroyed, or that there was a single inhabitant left to bemoan the death of his fellows; thus dearly were the inhabitants of Nottingham made to pay a second time for the victory of Northallerton.

In this king's time, says the Saxon chronicle, all was dissention and evil, and rapine. They had sworn oaths, but maintained no truth; they cruelly oppressed the wretched people of the land with castle work. They filled their castles with devils and evil men; they seized those that they supposed had any goods, and threw them in prison for their silver and gold, and inflicted upon them unutterable tortures, some they hung up by the feet and smoked with foul smoke; some by the thumbs, or by the beard, and hung coats of heavy mail on their feet. They threw them into dungeons with noisome reptiles,-thousands perished with hunger. They laid tribute after tribute upon towns and cities, and this they called teuserie chastisement. Thou mightest go a whole days journey and not find a man sitting in a town, nor an acre of land tilled. The poor died of hunger, and those that had

been men well to do, begged their bread; never was more mischief done by heathen invaders. Philip Gray, a relation of the duke of Gloucester, had the merit of inventing one of the most horrid instruments of torture ever used, called a sachentage.

At the time the duke of Gloucester sacked and burnt Nottingham, he had an army of 10,000 men. An anecdote is related by Dr. Deering, p 236, that the late Rev. Hardy, vicar of Melton Mowbray, told him in the course of his reading he had met with an account, that this fire commenced at the house of a rich gentleman, who then occupied a large house at the south side of St. Mary's church, on the site of that in which Mr. Wright, surgeon now resides, formerly known by the name of Mappurley-place, from a considerable merchant of the Staple, Thomas de Mappurley, who flourished in this town the latter end of the reign of Richard II. 1370. In his endeavours to escape from the general massacre that was then going on in the town, was arrested in his flight by some of the duke's soldiers, led back to his house and made to show them where his treasure lay, he bringing them into his house, led them to a low cellar, whilst they were busy breaking open the locks and coffers, conveyed himself away, shutting the door after him, set fire to his house, and so thieves, to the number of thirty, were burnt, and by this fire all the town was set on flames. But as this statement is opposed to history, and is so improbable in itself, we can hardly yield an assent to its authenticity, though in part, in may be true.

Gloucester having left Ralph Paynell (a) one of his own captains in possession of the castle, forded, or according to some authors, swam across the Trent, which incident shows at this time Edward's bridge over the Trent was destroyed, and as its platform was wood probably it had been burnt by the duke's men, at the same time as the town.

Gloucester then marched his army to Lincoln, which besieged by the king's forces, among which was William Peveril, and his brave men of Nottingham and the county. Stephen assisted by its inhabitants was prosecuting the siege at the time duke Robert appeared with his army in front of the town.

(a) He was one of the Norman barons whose grandfather came over with William the con. queror, from whom he received 45 lordships, which were augmented by his father Fulk Paganel, by adding the lands of Fitz Ansculph, he got possessed of Dudley castle, which Henry II, after his decease ordered to be pulled down, because his son Gervase Paganel, who after his father's death had manned several castles against king Stephen, turned tail, and sided with king Henry the younger, Ralph as we have seen did not hold possession of our castle long. Peerage, Vol ii. part ii. page 88.

PEVERIL RECOVERS THE CASTLE

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Gloucester thought to have taken him by surprise, but Stephen was prepared for him, had drawn out his forces in the best position, and dismounting from his war horse, put himself at the head of his infantry. But his army was unequal in numbers, and contained many traitors; the whole of the cavalry deserted to the enemy, or fled at the first onset; and after he had fought most gallantly, and broken both his sword and battle-axe, Stephen was taken prisoner, having no means of defence, and so was the faithful Peveril, fighting by his side. Matilda forgetting the generosity of Stephen to her when she fell into his hands at the castle of Arundel, caused both Stephen and Peveril to be loaded with chains, and then threw them into the dungeon of Bristol castle. 2nd February, A. D. 1141. Shortly after the duke of Gloucester fell into the hands of the Londoners, when besieging Winchester castle, and was exchanged for Stephen, 1st November 1142, who then obtained his enlargement, after a painful captivity of one year and nine months. The same event restored also the faithfu! William Peveril to his liberty, but not to his castle at Nottingham, this being still in the hands of the Gloucester party, he obtained its possession by stratagem, by which is generally understood, passing his army through the subterraneous passage, afterwards called Mortimer's Hole. Having made himself master again of his baronial dwelling, we hear not that he engaged any more in fighting, history is silent concerning him till the accession of Henry II. and this ill-fated town Nottingham, being desolate, had peace the next 15 years.

CHAPTER III.

1154. The first year of Henry II. is distinguished as that which witnessed the overthrow and entire extinction of the family of Peveril in Nottingham. The accusation brought against Peveril, lord of Nottingham, was that of combining with the wife of Ranulph, earl of Chester, who was the younger daughter of the duke of Gloucester, to poison the said earl her husband. The peculiar circumstances of the case are not now known, however there is something vague in the charge, as the said earl was not poisoned, nor attempted to be as we read of. Such a charge as this might easily be got up, and fathered upon any one the king was determined to get rid of. It may be all true but the story