Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/232

 (, ii. 24 ; Proceedings of Bath Nat. Hist, and Antiquarian Club, ii. 3, 1872 ;, William Rufus, i. 41-4). The rising collapsed, but the king did not feel strong enough to punish the earl.

Soon after Mowbray quarrelled with his neighbour, William of Saint Calais, bishop of Durham, over lands claimed by both, and he revenged himself upon the bishop by ordering the expulsion of Turchill, a Durham monk, from the church of St. Oswine, which belonged to the priory of Durham, but stood within the circuit of the earl's castle at Tynemouth (, Hist. Ecclesice Dunelmensis, p. 228 ; Gesta Regum, pp. 115-10). Moreover, in spite of the protests of the monks of Durham, Mowbray gave the church of St. Oswine to the Benedictines of Saint Albans to be a cell of their house, and it became the priory of Tynemouth (ib. ; Monasticon Anglicanum, iii. 312;, Gesta Regum, p. 116; Hist. Translations S. Cuthberti, ib. p. 180). In the opinion, however, of the St. Albans historians the earl was divinely inspired in his gift. The foundation of Tynemouth priory is dated by Roger of Wendover (ii. 39) about 1091, the year of the return from exile of Bishop William of Durham ; but according to Matthew Paris it was founded with the approval of Lanfranc, who died in 1089 (Gesta Abb. Sti. Albani, ed. Riley, i. 57). On the other hand, there are some grounds for believing that the earl and the bishop had not quarrelled by so early a date, and Simeon of Durham implies that the death of Abbot Paul of Saint Albans, which took place in 1093, was not long after the foundation (, Hist. Eccl. p. 228 ; Monasticon, i. 249; cf., Hist. Angl. i. 41, Historia Major, ii. 31, vi. 372).

Mowbray was probably prevented from taking part with the other barons of the Cotentin in the struggle between Prince Henry and his brothers in 1091 by the invasion of Malcolm, king of Scots, whom he seems to have driven back from Chester-le-Street in May of that year (, iii. 351 ; Chron. Petriburgense, 1091). When Malcolm repeated his invasion in 1093, he was surprised and slain by Mowbray near Alnwick on St. Brice's day (13 Nov.) (ib. ;, ii. 31 ; , ii. 309, 366 ; , iii. 396 ; , Hist. Angl. i. 47 ; , viii. 8; , William Rufus, ii. 595 ; cf. , i. 218, ed. Skene). The earl buried Malcolm in the priory church at Tynemouth.

Elated by this success, and by the great addition to his power which had just accrued to him by the death (2 Feb. 1093) of his uncle, Bishop Geoffrey, whose 280 manors all came to him, Mowbray seems to have become a party to the conspiracy of 1095, whose object was to transfer the crown from the Conqueror's sons to their cousin, Count Stephen of Aumale (, ii. 38 ;, p. 218 ; Epistolæ Anselmi, iii. 35-6). Orderic (iii. 406) says that Mowbray began the insurrection by seizing four Norwegian vessels in a Northumbrian haven, and by refusing to give satisfaction or to appear at court at the king's command. He certainly disobeyed a special summons to the Easter court at Winchester (25 March), and, though threatened with outlawry, absented himself from the Whitsun feast at Windsor, the king having refused his request for hostages and a safe-conduct (Chron. Petriburgense, 1095 ; cf., ii. 41-2). Rufus then took a force of mercenaries and English militia into the North against him, captured the New Castle on the Tyne, the frontier fortress of Mowbray's earldom, containing the main body of the earl's forces, and laid siege to Tynemouth castle, which guarded the entrance of the river (, ii. 38 ;, ii. 47). Tynemouth, which was defended by the earl's brother, fell after a siege of two months (July ?), and the king advanced to attack Mowbray himself in his great coast castle at Bamborough (ib.) Barnborough being virtually impregnable, Rufus built and garrisoned a tower on the land side, which he called Malveisin, or the Evil Neighbour, and went off to the Welsh war. Not long after his departure the royal garrison of the New Castle drew Mowbray into an ambush by a false promise to surrender that fortress, and took him prisoner. But in some way not explained he contrived to escape to his monastery at Tynemouth, and stood there a siege of six days, until he was wounded in the leg and dragged from the church in which he had taken refuge (, ii. 38 ; Hist. Translations S. Cuthberti, in Surtees edit, of Simeon, p. 180). The Durham writers regard this as the punishment of heaven for his having robbed Saint Cuthbert of this church (ib. pp. 115-16, 180-1). Meanwhile Bamborough was manfully defended by his newly married wife, Mathilda de Laigle, with the assistance of his nephew, Morel, and it was not until her husband was led before the walls with a threat that, unless the castle was surrendered, his eyes should be seared out in her presence, that she gave up the keys (Chron. Petriburgense, 1095;, ii. 39; , iii. 410).

Mowbray was deprived of his earldom and all his possessions, and imprisoned at Windsor (Chron. Petriburgense ;, ii. 39; , p.218). Some