first usual mark of discontent in a nobleman; and was often charged by princes as a formal accusation. The earl having disobeyed the king's summons, and concerted matters with other accomplices, broke out into open rebellion, with intentions to depose king William, and set up Stephen earl of Albemarle, son of a sister to William the Conqueror: but all was prevented by the celerity of this active prince; who, knowing that insurrections are best quelled in their beginnings, marched with incredible speed, and surprised the rebels at Newcastle, took the castles of Tinmouth and Bamburgh; where the obstinacy of the defendants provoked him, contrary to his nature, to commit cruelties upon their persons, by cutting off their hands and ears, and other the like inhumanities. The earl himself was taken prisoner as he endeavoured to make his escape; but suffered no other punishment than to be confined for the rest of his life[1].
About this time began the Holy War for the recovering of Palestine; which having not been the enterprise of any one prince or state, but that wherein most in Christendom had a share, it cannot with justice be silently passed over in the history of any nation.
Pope Urban the second, in a council at Clermont, made a pathetick exhortation, showing with what danger and indignity to Christendom, the Turks and Saracens had, for some ages, not only overrun all Asia and Africa, where Christianity had long flourished; but had also made encroachments into Europe, where they had entirely subdued Spain, and some other parts; that Jerusalem, the holy city, where our Sa-
- ↑ Which was thirty years.
