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 propriating to them possessions and rents, which rightfully belonged to the crown. They were the more greedy in asking, and he the more profuse in giving, because a rumour was pervading England, that Robert earl of Gloucester, who was in Normandy, would shortly espouse the cause of his sister, after first renouncing his fealty to the king. This report was in fact well-founded: for shortly after Pentecost, despatching some of his people to Stephen from Normandy, he, according to ancient usage, renounced his fealty and friendship, and disannulled his homage; assigning as a just reason for so doing, that the king had illegally aspired to the kingdom, and neglected his plighted faith to him, not to say absolutely belied it: and, moreover, that he himself had acted contrary to law; who, after the oath sworn to his sister, had not blushed to do homage to another, during her lifetime. Doubtless also his mind was biassed by the answers of many ecclesiastics, whom he had consulted upon the subject; who declared that he could by no means pass the present life without ignominy, nor deserve the happiness of the next, if he violated the oath made to paternal affection. In addition to this, he contemplated the tenor of the papal decree, commanding obedience to the oath taken in the presence of his father: a copy of which decree I shall be careful to give in my next book. Robert, who had imbibed knowledge by a copious draught from the fount of science, was aware that these things would be of great advantage to him hereafter. But the king, indignant at the spirit of the earl, deprived him, as far as he was able, of all his possessions in England; and levelled some of his castles to the ground. Bristol alone remained, which not only expelled the enemy, but even harassed the king by frequent incursions. But as it may suffice to have brought the first book of modern history, from the return of the empress to her father after the death of her husband, to this period, I shall now begin the second, from the year in which this heroine came to England, to assert her right against Stephen.