earldom would eventually be known, and "Sussex," under Henry II., seemed likely to prevail. The eventual adoption of Arundel was, no doubt, largely due to the importance of that "honour" and of the castle which formed its "head." Having now established that the earldom of "Arundel" was from the first the earldom of a county, and thus similar to every other, one is led to inquire on what ground there is claimed for it an absolutely unique and wholly anomalous origin. I reply: on none whatever. There is nothing to rebut the legitimate assumption that William de Albini was created an earl in the ordinary course of things. Here, again, the facts of the case, few and simple though they are, have been so overlaid by assumption and by theory that it is necessary to state them anew. All that has been hitherto really known is that Queen Adeliza married William de Albini between King Henry's death (December, 1135) and the landing of the Empress in the autumn of 1139, and that her husband subsequently appears as an earl. The assertion that he became an earl on his marriage, in virtue of his possession of Arundel Castle, is pure assumption and nothing else.[934] I have already dwelt on the value of the Canterbury charter to Geoffrey as evidence not only that William was Earl "of Sussex," but also that he was already an earl at Christmas, 1141. In that charter I claim to have discovered the earliest contemporary record mention of this famous earldom.[935] William, therefore, became an earl between Christmas, 1135, and Christmas, 1141. This much is certain. The key to the problem, however, is found in another quarter. The curious and valuable _Chronicle of the Holy Cross of Waltham_ (_Harl. MS._, 3776) was the work of one who was acquainted—indeed, too well acquainted—with the persons and the doings of those two nobles, Geoffrey de Mandeville and William de Albini. His own neighbourhood became their battleground, and when William harried Geoffrey's manors, and Geoffrey, in revenge, fired Waltham, he was among the sufferers himself.[936] The pictures he draws of these rival magnates are, therefore, of peculiar interest, and his admiration for Geoffrey is so remarkable, in the face of the earl's wild deeds, that no apology is needed for quoting the description in full:—