Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/195

 the northern and western borders, with Hereford and Norwich as his bases of operation. He is accused by Ordericus and by the English chronicler of great severity, and especially of building castles by forced labour, but in the then precarious state of the Norman rule a stern policy was doubtless necessary. There were, however, outbursts of revolt, especially in his own Herefordshire, where Eadric ‘the Wild’ successfully defied him. We do not find that he lost favour in consequence of this with the Conqueror, for in January 1069 he was entrusted with the new castle which William built at York on the suppression of the local revolt, and shortly after he successfully crushed an attempt to renew the insurrection. From a somewhat obscure passage in Ordericus it would seem that he was despatched the following September to retake Shrewsbury, which had been captured by Eadric ‘the Wild,’ who retired before his advance. The last deed assigned to him in England is the searching of the monasteries by William, at his advice, early in 1070, and the confiscation of all the treasures of the English found therein

It was about Christmas 1070 that the earl was sent by William to Normandy to assist his queen in administering the duchy. But at the same time Baldwin, count of Flanders, died, leaving him one of the guardians to his son Arnulf. The count's widow, Richildis, attacked by her brother-in-law, offered her hand to the earl if he would come to her assistance. He did so, and was slain at the battle of Cassel, where her forces were defeated early in 1071. He was buried at Cormeilles, one of the two monasteries which he had founded in Normandy.

His estates, according to the practice of the time, were divided between his two sons; William, the elder, succeeding to the Norman fief, and Roger, the younger [see ], to the English one. Some seventy years after his death Herefordshire was granted to the Earl of Leicester as the husband of his heir, to be held as fully and freely as it had been by himself (Duchy of Lancaster, Royal Charters).

[Freeman's Hist. of the Norman Conquest gives all that is known of William Fitzosbern's life, together with the authorities, of which Ordericus Vitalis is the chief.]  FITZOSBERT, WILLIAM (d. 1196), demagogue, is first mentioned as one of the leaders of the London crusaders in 1190, who fought the Moors in Portugal (, iii. 42; ii. 116). He was a member of an eminent civic family, which was said to have been conspicuous for wearing the beard ‘as a mark of their hatred for the Normans’ (, ii. 418). William himself was known as ‘Longbeard,’ from the excess to which he carried this distinction. Of commanding stature and of great strength, an effective popular speaker, and with some knowledge of law (, iv. 5), he threw himself into the social struggles of his day with an energy and a success of which the measure is preserved in that spirit of bitter partisanship in which the chroniclers narrate his career. William of Newburgh, who, according to Dr. Stubbs, ‘treats him judicially,’ but who clearly takes the very worst view of him, has devoted to him a long chapter (lib. v. cap. 20), in which he traces William's conduct to his extravagance and lack of means, which led him, when his elder brother, Richard, refused to supply him with money, first to threaten him, and then to go to the king, whom he knew personally, and accuse him of treason. That he did bring this charge (cf., vol. ii.) is certain from the ‘Rotuli Curiæ Regis’ (p. 69), which record that (21 Nov. 1194) he accused his brother, before the justices, of speaking treason against the king and primate and denouncing their exactions. Meanwhile he appears, on the one hand, to have posed as zealous for the interest of the king, who was defrauded, he urged, by financial corruption, of the treasure that should be his; while, on the other, he accused the city magnates, who had to apportion the heavy ‘aids’ laid upon London for the king's ransom (1194), of saving their own pockets at the expense of the poorer payers. He made himself, on both these grounds, hateful to the ruling class, but succeeded in obtaining a seat on the civic council and pursued his advantage. He had clearly found a genuine grievance in the system of assessment, and ‘fired,’ says Hoveden, ‘with zeal for justice and equity, he made himself the champion of the poor’ (iv. 5). Addressing the people on every occasion, especially at their folkmoot in St. Paul's churchyard, he roused them by stinging invective against the mayor and aldermen. An abstract of one of his speeches, or rather sermons, is given by William of Newburgh (ii. 469), who tells us that ‘he conceived sorrow and brought forth iniquity.’ The craftsmen and the populace flocked to hear him, and he was said to have had a following of more than fifty thousand men. The primate, alarmed at the prospect, sided with the magnates against him, but William, crossing to France, appealed successfully to the king (, iv. 5;, ii. 468). The primate now determined to crush him, took hostages from his supporters for their good behaviour, and