Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/235

 monasteries and nunneries (Monast. Angl. vi. 320).

Roger was naturally drawn into the crusading movement. In 1146 or 1147 he had gone over to Normandy to defend his title to the castle of Bayeux, which Stephen had given him when he was knighted (ib. v. 352, but cf. p. 346), and is said to have been present in company with Odo II, duke of Burgundy, at a general chapter of the Cistercian order at Citeaux, where he was able to serve the interests of his abbey at Byland (ib. v. 352, 570). St. Bernard was just then preaching the second crusade, and Mowbray was apparently induced to accompany Louis VII (, ap. Twysden, p. 276). In one of his charters (Monast. Angl. v. 569) he alludes to a second journey to the Holy Land, which can hardly be the one he made at the very end of his life. He was probably absent from England in January 1164, for it was his son Nigel whose name was attached as a witness to the Constitutions of Clarendon ; and perhaps in 1166, when his men answered for him the king's inquiries as to the number of knights' fees on his estates (Materials for the History of Archbishop Becket, v. 72; Liber Niger Scaccarii, ed. Hearne, i. 309 ; cf., Itinerary of Henry II, p. 87). It appears from this return that in Yorkshire alone he had eighty-eight fees of the old feoffment, and eleven and three-quarters enfeoffed since the death of Henry I. Mowbray's deep interest in the crusading movement was attested by his gifts to the templars of Balshall in Warwickshire, where they placed one of their preceptories, and of Keadby-on-Trent, and other lands in Axholme and elsewhere (Monast. Angl. vi. 799, 800, 808, 834). The order gratefully conferred upon him and his heirs the privilege of releasing any templar whom they should find under sentence of public penance, no matter what the offence. The knights hospitallers, when they obtained most of the forfeited lands of the templars, solemnly renewed this privilege to Roger's descendant, John (I) de Mowbray [q. v.], and his heirs on 20 March 1335, with the addition that the Mowbrays should be treated in their convents beyond the seas as those to whom they were most obliged next the king himself (, Baronage, i. 123). At Burton, near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, Roger founded, perhaps with the assistance of a general collection, a dependency of the great Leper Hospital of St. Lazarus outside the walls of Jerusalem, 'which became the chief of all the Spittles or Lazar-houses in England' (, Monast. Angl. vi. 632 ;, History of Leicestershire, II. i. 272). To this day the village is called Burton Lazars.

In 1174 Mowbray appears in the new character of a rebel. Immediately after Easter he and his two sons Nigel and Robert joined the formidable coalition against the king, which had taken up arms in the previous summer. He hastily fortified his castle of Kinnardferry on the Trent in Axholme, which had been suffered to fall into disrepair, and strongly garrisoned his two Yorkshire strongholds of Thirsk and Kirkby Malzeard (, i. 48 ;, ii. 57 ; , i. 180 ; , i. 379 ; , i. 216).

Mowbray's defection was one of the most dangerous elements of the situation, for his three fortresses linked the rebel earls in the midlands with the king of Scots, who was reducing the border fortresses of Northumberland and Cumberland. Thirsk and Kirkby Malzeard blocked the way through Yorkshire to any royal army sent against the Scots. The king's warlike natural son, Geoffrey, the bishop-elect of Lincoln, gathered a force in Lincolnshire, crossed the Trent, and laid siege to Kinnardferry, which was defended by Roger's younger son, Robert. The 'castle of the Island,' surrounded by the waters of the fen, was almost impregnable; but lack of water within compelled the defenders to surrender in a few days (5 May). Robert had escaped, but was captured on his way to Leicester by the rustics of Clay (Clay Cross?) ( i. 49;, ii. 58; , i. 379; , iv. 364). After demolishing the castle, Bishop Geoffrey advanced into Yorkshire, and, reinforced by Archbishop Roger [q. v.] and a force from the shire, besieged the castle of Kirkby Malzeard, six miles north-east of Ripon. This also gave him little trouble, and was entrusted to the care of the archbishop, while he himself proceeded to attack Thirsk (, i. 68 ;, ii. 58 ; , iv. 366-7). The castle was closely invested, and a rival fortification erected on the Percy land at Topcliffe, two and a half miles away, with a garrison under a member of the family of the Stutevilles with whom the Mowbrays had a standing feud. Mowbray, according to William of Newburgh (i. 182), now betook himself to William, king of Scots, whom he found besieging Prudhoe-on-Tyne, and secured a promise of help on condition that he assisted William in his invasion of Yorkshire, for the fulfilment of which he gave his eldest son in pledge. But, on hearing that Yorkshire was rallying round Robert Stuteville the sheriff,