There was trouble also in the days of Earl Hugh, Ranulf's successor.
He joined in the great feudal rising of 1173, when all England was a
scene of strange confusion, and only the energy and promptitude of
Henry II. and a few faithful followers saved the King's throne. Henry's
sons were arrayed against him, supported by the arch-enemy, the King of
France, the Scotch, the Flemings, and many nobles both in England and
Normandy, whose power and lawless ways the King had sought continually
to restrain. Such were the Earls Ferrars, Bigod of Norfolk, Robert of
Leicester, and Hugh. The men of Coventry lent the Earl of Chester aid
in this rebellion, as the men of Leicester did to their lord, Robert
Blanchmains, for those tenants who held land by military service were
bound to follow their feudal superior to battle. But one by one the
King's enemies were defeated. Earl Hugh was taken prisoner at the siege
of Dol in Britanny quite early in the struggle, and suffered a short
imprisonment in the Castle of Falaise.[66] Swift destruction--siege
and fire--came upon Leicester for the share the townsfolk had taken in
this rebellion, and the inhabitants for a time forsook the place.[67]
Coventry, as a place of less note, suffered less; but what liberties
the townsmen possessed were confiscated, not to be redeemed until
after Hugh's death, eight years later, by a payment of twenty marks.
The men of Norwich had also cause to regret the part they took in the
celebrated rising, but it was Bigod who dealt them their punishment,
burning the city out of revenge because his men had declared for the
King's party.
The men of Coventry had, it is true, one reason to dwell with gratitude
on the memory of Earl Hugh. Dugdale tells us that among this lord's
following was a leper. And it may have been for the sake of this man
that Hugh built the lazar-house and chapel of S. Mary Magdelene at
Spon in the fields on the western side of the city.[68] All traces of
this chapel have now disappeared, but the name Chapel Fields still
serves to commemorate the place, with which the chapel of S. James
and S. Christopher,[69] whereof there are remains in Spon Street, is
sometimes--but quite erroneously--identified. Leprosy, brought from
the East by the Crusades, took terrible hold on the people of western
Europe, and few towns of any note in those days were without their
lazar-houses or hospitals for these sorely afflicted folk. The chief of
these leper hospitals was at Burton Lazars in Leicestershire, but the
one that is best remembered nowadays is that of S. Giles, once "in the
Fields," now in the heart of London.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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