i. 347 ; 'Comitatus de Cardiff,' ib. ; Liber Landavensis, pp. 27-8, speaks of 'Vicecomes de Cardiff' when Robert of Gloucester was still alive). Except perhaps in name, Fitzhamon founded in Wales a county palatine as completely organised as the earldom of Pembroke.
Fitzhamon was a liberal benefactor to the church. He so increased the wealth and importance of Tewkesbury Abbey that he was regarded as its second founder. Hitherto Tewkesbury had been a cell of Cranborne in Dorsetshire, but in the reign of William Rufus (Ord. Vit. iii. 15), or in 1102 (Ann. Theok. in Ann. Mon. i. 44), the abbot Giraldus transferred himself, with the greater part of the fraternity, to the grand new minster that was now rising under Robert's fostering care on the banks of the Severn. William of Malmesbury can hardly find words to express the splendour of the buildings and the charity of the monks (Gesta Regum, bk. v. p. 625 ; cf. Gesta Pont. p. 295). The major part of the endowments was taken from Robert's Welsh conquest. Among the churches Fitzhamon handed over to Tewkesbury were the parish church of St. Mary's, Cardiff, the chapel of Cardiff Castle, and the famous British monastery at Lantwit. He also granted the monks of Tewkesbury tithes of all his domain revenues in Cardiff, and of all the territories of himself and his barons throughout Wales (Dugdale, Monasticon, ii. 66, 81). He was only less liberal to the great abbey of St. Peter's, Gloucester, to which he granted the church of Llancarvan with some adjoining lands, and for which he witnessed a grant of Henry I of the tithe of venison in the Forest of Dean and the lands beyond the Severn (Hist. Glouc. i. 93, 122, 223, 334, ii. 50, 51, 177, 301). Traces of Fitzhamon's concessions still remain in the patronage of many Glamorganshire churches belonging to the chapter of Gloucester.
Little reference is made to Fitzhamon by chroniclers of the time of William Rufus, but he was in the close confidence of the king until his death. Before William's fatal bunting expedition on 2 Aug. 1100, Fitzhamon, then in attendance at Winchester, had reported to him the ominous dream of the foreign monk, and his representations at least postponed William's hunting until after dinner (Will. Malm. bk. iv. p. 507). When William's corpse was discovered Fitzhamon was one of the barons who stood around it in tears. Fitzhamon's new mantle covered the corpse on its last journey to the cathedral at Winchester (Geoffry Gaimar, ed. Wright, ll. 6357-96, Caxton Soc. The details are perhaps mythical, some others are certainly false ; the whole account shows the impossibility of Pezet's notion that Fitzhamon was away on crusade with Robert). But no former differences about the lands of Queen Matilda prevented Fitzhamon and his brother Hamon the steward from immediately attaching themselves with an equal zeal to Henry I. Both are among the witnesses of the letter despatched by Henry imploring Anselm to return from exile (Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 103). Fitzhamon was among the few magnates who strenuously adhered to Henry when the mass of the baronage openly or secretly favoured the cause of Robert of Normandy (Will. Malm. bk. v. p. 620). When in 1101 Robert landed in Hampshire and approached Henry's army at Alton, Fitzhamon and other barons who held estates both of the king and the duke procured by their mediation peace between the brothers (Wace, l. 10432 sq. ed. Andresen; cf. Ord. Vit. iv. 199). In March 1103 he was one of Henry's representatives in negotiating an alliance with Robert, count of Flanders (Fœdera, i. 7, Record ed.) He also witnessed the Christmas charter of Henry, which assigned punishment to the false managers (ib. i. 12). When war again broke out, Fitzhamon still adhered to Henry, and busied himself in Normandy in a partisan warfare against the friends of Robert. Early in 1105 he was surprised by Robert's troops from Bayeux and Caen, and forced to take refuge in the tower of the church of Secqueville-en-Bessin. The church was set on fire, and he was compelled to descend a prisoner. For some time he was imprisoned at Bayeux, where the governor, Gontier d'Aulnay, protected him from the fury of the mob, which regarded him as a traitor to the duke (Wace, ll. 11125-60, ed. Andresen; cf. Chronique de Normandie in Bouquet, xiii. 250-1). This news at once brought Henry to Normandy, where he landed at Barfleur just before Easter (Ord. Vit. iv. 204), and at once besieged Bayeux to rescue his faithful follower. Gontier sought to win the king's favour by surrendering Fitzhamon (ib. iv. 219), but valiantly defended the town, which Henry finally reduced to ashes, not sparing even the cathedral. The guilt of this sacrilege was, it was believed, shared by Henry and Fitzhamon (Will. Malm. bk. v. p. 625 ; Wace, l. 11161 sq. ; cf. De Toustain, Essai historique sur la prise et l'iincendie de Bayeux, Caen, 1861, who satisfactorily establishes the date as May 1105 ; cf. Le Prévost's note to Ord. VIt. iv. 219). So detested did the house of Fitzhamon become in Bayeux, that a generation later a long resistance was made to the appointment of his son-in-law's bastard
