The “battle of the Standard,” A.D. 1138, was fought in the open field, under the leadership of D’Aumâle; but it was also named from North Allerton, where, intersected by the railway, are still seen formidable earthworks far older than Bishop Puiset’s castle which surmounted them, and which was afterwards entirely razed by Henry II. The victory of North Allerton was enhanced by the capture of Dover by Stephen’s Queen. The castle of Carlisle still remained in the possession of King David, and thence he renewed the war, and in the following year obtained for his son Henry the earldom of Northumberland; with the exception, however, of the castles of Newcastle and Bamburgh. When, in 1139, Stephen’s change of policy lost him the support of the clergy, led by his ambitious brother the Bishop of Winchester, his first blow was struck at the episcopal castles. Of these, the Devizes, Sherborne, and Malmesbury belonged to Bishop Roger of Sarum. Malmesbury, an episcopal encroachment upon the adjacent Abbey, was wholly the Bishop’s work, and is now utterly destroyed. Sherborne, a very ancient episcopal seat, still retains its early earthworks, and a keep and gatehouse, the work of Bishop Roger; and although of the Devizes there remain but a few fragments of its circular keep, the earthworks (the grandest in England) show that it may well have deserved its great reputation. These Stephen seized upon, and he also took Newark-upon-Trent, still admired for its lofty and extended front, and for its magnificent Norman entrance. With Newark fell Sleaford, both built by Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, nephew of Bishop Roger, and also a great builder of castles. Sleaford is utterly demolished, and being entirely post-conquestal, had scarcely any earthworks to preserve its memory.