In the year 1139 after the Incarnation of our Lord, the venom of malice, which king Stephen’s heart had long been fostering, at length burst forth openly. Rumours were spreading about England that earl Robert was on the eve of coming from Normandy with his sister;[37] and in expectation thereof many were disaffected towards the king, not only in will but in deed, whereupon he repaired his losses by wronging others. Many were seized at court against the king’s honour, on mere suspicion of supporting the opposite party, and forced to surrender their castles and submit to whatsoever conditions he chose. There were at that time in England two exceeding powerful bishops, Roger of Salisbury, and his brother’s son, Alexander of Lincoln. Alexander had built the castle of Newark, for the defence and honour of the bishopric, as he said. Roger, who wished to display magnificence in the building of castles, had erected more imposing fortifications at Sherborne and Devizes, covering a large area of ground with his buildings. He had begun a castle at Malmesbury in the churchyard itself, hardly a stone’s throw from the principal church. The castle of Salisbury, though it was the king’s own property, had passed into his keeping by grant of king Henry, and had been surrounded with a wall. Some of the powerful laity, stirred to envy that they should be surpassed by clerks in their wealth of heaped-up treasure and the size of their towns, cherished in their hearts a sullen jealousy. So they poured their discontents into the king’s ear, urging that it would all unquestionably turn to the king’s destruction, since, as soon as the empress came, they would welcome their lady by surrendering their castles, drawn to her by the memory of her father’s favours; they must therefore be at once forestalled and constrained to yield up their fortresses.... The king, though too favourably inclined to these advisers, for some time pretended not to listen to their attractive proposals, easing the bitterness of postponement either by his regard for the holy office of the bishops, or, as I incline to think, by his fear of the odium involved. In the end he only put off the execution of the policy thus urged upon him until the first favourable opportunity. That arose in the following manner.