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Another crafty baron, John Fitz-Gilbert, held the castle of Marlborough; and Robert Fitz-Herbert, having an anxious desire to be lord of that castle also, endeavoring to cajole Fitz-Gilbert into the admission of his followers, went there as a guest, but was detained as a prisoner.
Villeinage, which began at the Norman Conquest, according to Fitz-Herbert, "because the Conqueror gave lordships with all the inhabitants to do with them at their pleasure to his principal followers, and they, needing servants, pardoned the inhabitants of their lives, and caused them to do all manner of service" was now abolished by compensation in a money wage payment.
Robert Fitz-Herbert varies the atrocities of his fellow-barons, by rubbing his prisoners with honey, and exposing them naked to the sun. But Robert, having obtained Devizes, refused to admit the Earl of Gloucester to any advantage of its possession, and commenced the subjection of the neighborhood on his own account.
The marches and sieges, the revolts and treacheries, of this evil time are occasionally varied by incidents which illustrate the state of society. Robert Fitz-Herbert, with a detachment of the Earl of Gloucester's soldiers, surprised the castle of Devizes, which the King had taken from the Bishop of Salisbury.
Upon this the Earl of Gloucester came in force for revenge against his treacherous ally, Fitz-Herbert, and, conducting him to Devizes, there hanged him. The surprise of Lincoln Castle, upon which the events of 1141 mainly turned, is equally characteristic of the age. Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and William de Roumare, his half-brother, were avowed friends of King Stephen.
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