At the Doomsday survey, 1086, Shrewsbury is styled a city, and the Abbey
is said to have been founded where the parish church of the city stood.
This book also contains a summary of several municipal laws, customs, and
usages, for the internal regulation of the place, and for increasing the
king’s revenues. The amount of taxes at this period was £20, of which
the king had two-thirds and the sheriff one, Hugh de Montgomery, who had
succeeded his father Roger in the earldom of Shrewsbury, having been shot
by an arrow from the skilful hand of Magnus, King of Norway, was
succeeded by his brother, Robert de Belesme. Earl Robert united with the
party who opposed the pretensions of Prince Henry, son of William Rufus,
and espoused the claims of Robert, Duke of Normandy. He afterwards broke
out into open rebellion, strengthened his castles in Shropshire, and at
Shrewsbury built and fortified a flank wall, from each side of the castle
across the isthmus, down to the side of the Severn. Upon this, the earl
was publicly declared a traitor, and King Henry marched against him with
a considerable force. The surrender of Bridgnorth to Henry induced the
earl to quit Shrewsbury, and to commit its defence to three generals and
eighty soldiers hired expressly for the purpose. With the assistance of
a few Welsh, with whom he had made peace, he frequently disturbed the
royal forces, till, being much harassed, he was compelled to return to
Shrewsbury. Soon afterwards, the town was surrounded with an army of
60,000 men; and Robert de Belesme had scarcely seated himself in the
castle, when the king demanded the immediate surrender of the place,
threatening, in case of refusal, in three days to besiege the town, and
hang every one found in the castle. The earl, perceiving that he had no
forces to withstand the attack of the king, confessed his treason,
implored the royal clemency, and sent the keys of the castle by the hands
of Ralph, Abbot of Seez, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, which the
king accepted, and banished the restless earl to Normandy. The spirit of
revenge and ambition, however, rekindled in his breast, and he contrived
once more to appear in arms against Henry; but was at length taken
prisoner, and ignominously conveyed in chains to England, where he ended
a miserable life a close prisoner at Wareham.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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