Matters were made worse by his relations with Earl Robert of Gloucester. As son of the late king and half-brother of the Empress; as one of the greatest and wealthiest landowners in England--earl of Gloucester by his father’s grant, lord of Bristol and of Glamorgan by his marriage with the heiress of Robert Fitz-Hamon--all-powerful throughout the western shires and on the Welsh march--Robert was the one man who above all others could most influence the policy of the barons, and whom it was most important for Stephen to conciliate at any cost. Robert had followed the king back to Normandy in 1137; throughout their stay there William of Ypres strove, only too successfully, to set them at variance; a formal reconciliation took place, but it was a mere form;[753] and a few months after Stephen’s return to England he was rash enough to order the confiscation of the earl’s English and Welsh estates, and actually to raze some of his castles.[754] The consequence was that soon after Whitsuntide Robert sent to the king a formal renunciation of his allegiance, and to his vassals in England instructions to prepare for war.[755] This message proved the signal for a general rising. Geoffrey Talbot had already seized Hereford castle;[756] in the north Eustace Fitz-John, as we have seen, joined hands with the Scot king; while throughout the south and west the barons shewed at once that they had been merely waiting for Robert’s decision. Bristol under Robert’s own son;[757] Harptree under William Fitz-John;[758] Castle Cary under Ralf Lovel; Dunster under William of Mohun; Shrewsbury under William Fitz-Alan;[759] Dudley under Ralf Paganel;[760] Burne, Ellesmere, Whittington and Overton under William Peverel;[761] on the south coast, Wareham, another castle of Earl Robert’s, held by Ralf of Lincoln, and Dover, held by Walkelyn Maminot[762]:--all these fortresses, and many more, were openly made ready for defence or defiance; and Stephen’s own constable Miles, who as sheriff of Gloucester had only a few weeks before welcomed him into that city with regal honours,[763] now followed the earl’s example and formally renounced his allegiance.[764] [753] _Ib._ (p. 710). [754] _Ib._ c. 18 (p. 713). [755] _Ib._ p. 712; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 104. The grounds of the defiance were--1, the unlawfulness of Stephen’s accession; 2, his breach of his engagements towards Robert; 3, the unlawfulness of Robert’s own oath to him as being invalidated, like Stephen’s claim to the crown, by the previous oath to Matilda. (Will. Malm. as above.)