To this powerful Baron the whole of the Norman work now remaining in the Castle of Carisbrooke may be attributed. In Domesday Book he is called William Fitz-Osborne, Earl of Hereford--a name familiar in the pages of our early history. But his enterprising career was cut short by the casualties of war, when he had been scarcely four years in possession of the island; for, being sent by the Queen to support Ernulf, Count of Hainault, who was then enforcing his family claim to the earldom of Flanders, both she and the count were slain in battle. Dugdale is of opinion that he adopted this quarrel from the relationship which subsisted between that nobleman and himself--he having married for his second wife Rechildis, the mother of Count Ernulf, the Queen’s nephew. His remains were interred with great ceremony in the Abbey of Cormeilles, which he had founded, and in which one of his sons had previously become a monk. Bequeathing his Norman possessions to his second son, those of England, including the earldom of Hereford and lordship of the Isle of Wight, descended to his eldest son, <g>Roger de Bretteville</g>--so named from the place of his birth.--Taking part with the turbulent spirits of his day, and highly irritated by the King’s refusal to sanction the marriage of his sister Emma with Ralph de Waer, or Ralph de Guader, Earl of Norfolk, he took advantage of the King’s absence in Normandy to have the union solemnized by a grand public festival, at which were present many of the great military tenants of the crown, who, readily entering into the rash views of Hereford, concerted measures for dethroning the King. The conspiracy, however, was divulged by Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland, who was nevertheless beheaded for his participation therein at Winchester. They were routed by the King’s forces at a place called Fagadune; and the wreck of the insurgents escaping to Norwich, fortified themselves in the castle for a time, but were soon forced to surrender. Earl Roger made his escape to Hereford; but being apprehended and brought to trial, he was found guilty of levying war against his sovereign, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment and the loss of his estates. The rigours of confinement and confiscation, however, do not appear to have subdued his haughty spirit; for at the feast of Easter, when the King sent him a gracious present of certain costly robes--consisting of a royal mantle, an inner surcoat of silk, and an upper garment lined with precious furs, in remembrance of the station he once held in the King’s favour--Earl Roger caused a fire to be lighted in his prison, and, throwing the royal present into it, stood by with a look of complaisance, and chafing his hands at the blaze, till the whole present was consumed. This insane and insolent act being immediately reported to the King, he swore his usual oath--“per splendorem Dei”--by the glory of God--that in future Earl