[506] See the dazzling description of his power given by the author of the _Gesta_, who speaks of him as one "qui omnes regni primates et divitiarum potentiâ et dignitatis excedebat opulentiâ; turrim quoque Londoniarum in manu, sed et castella inexpugnabilis fortitudinis circa civitatem constructa habebat, omnemque regni partem, quæ se regi subdiderat, ut ubique per regnum regis vices adimplens, et, in rebus agendis, rege avidius exaudiretur, et in præceptis injungendis, plus ei quam regi obtemperaretur" (p. 101). William of Newburgh, in the same spirit, speaks of him as "regi terribilis" (i. 44). [507] See p. 160. [508] "In totâ propemodum Angliâ sicut mortuus conclamaretur" (_ibid._). [509] William of Malmesbury (_ut supra_) is the authority for 1142, and Henry of Huntingdon for 1136: "Ad Rogationes vero divulgatum est regem mortuum esse" (p. 259). [510] "Jam ergo cœpit rabies prædicta Normannorum, perjurio et proditione pullulare" (_ibid._). [511] It would seem to have been entered immediately after that charter to Miles of Gloucester which I have printed on p. 11, and which precedes it in the transcripts. [512] _Lansdowne MS._ 259, fol. 66. [513] "Archiepiscopis, etc." (Dug.). [514] "suus" omitted (Dug.). [515] "ejus" (Dug.). [516] "tenuerunt" (Dug., Dods.). [517] "subjectum" (Dods.). [518] "Lundoniæ et Middlesexiæ" (Dug.). [519] "Et ... tenuit" (Essex shrievalty) omitted by Dugdale (and, consequently, in his _Baronage_ also). [520] Dodsworth transcript closes here. [521] "illi" omitted by Dugdale. [522] "quæ fuit" omitted by Dugdale. [523] "per servicium militare" (wrongly, Dug.). [524] "et" omitted by Dugdale. [525] "centum libratas" (Dug.). [526] Chreshall, _alias_ Christhall, Essex. Part of the honour of Boulogne. Was held by Count Eustace, at the Survey, in demesne. Stephen granted it to his own son William, who gave it to Richard de Luci. [527] Bendish Hall, in Radwinter, Essex. Part of the honour of Boulogne. It was given by Stephen's son William to Faversham Abbey, Kent. [528] This word is illegible. It baffled the transcriber in _Lansd. MS._ 259. Dugdale has "wiam." The right reading is "luiam," the river Lea being meant, as is proved by the Pipe-Roll of 14 Hen. II. [529] William fitz Otwel, Earl Geoffrey's "brother," is referred to by Earl William (Geoffrey's son) as his uncle ("avunculus") in a charter confirming his grant of lands (thirty-three acres) in "Abi et Toresbi" to Greenfield Nunnery, Lincolnshire (_Harl. Cart._, 53, C, 50). He is also a witness, as "patruus meus," to a charter of Earl Geoffrey the younger (_Sloane Cart._, xxxii. 64), early in the reign of Henry II. He was clearly a "uterine" brother of Earl Geoffrey the elder, so that his father must have married William de Mandeville's widow—a fact unknown to genealogists.