Geoffrey de Mandeville: A study of the Anarchy

by John Horace Round

[210] English History, I. 83.

[211] Will. Malms.

[212] Cont. Flor. Wig.

[213] "Aliis quoque sponte, nulloque cogente, ad comitissæ imperium conversis (ut Robertus de Oli, civitatis Oxenefordiæ sub rege præceptor, et comes ille de Warwic, viri molles, et deliciis magis quam animi fortitudine affluentes)" (p. 74).

[214] Cont. Flor. Wig. (ut supra).

[215] Journ. B. A. A., xxxi. 388, 389. It will also be found in the Monasticon (iii. 87).

[216] Journ. B. A. A., xxxi. p. 379.

[217] Addl. MSS., 31,943, fol. 118.

[218] Ang. Sax. Chron., A.D. 1100.

[219] Relying on the explicit statement of the chronicler (Will. Malms., p. 732), that the Earl of Gloucester "fratrem etiam suum Reinaldum in tanta difficultate temporis comitem Cornubiæ creavit," historians and antiquaries have assigned this creation to 1140 (see Stubbs' Const. Hist., i. 362, n.; Courthope's Historic Peerage; Doyle's Official Baronage). In the version of Reginald's success given by the author of the Gesta, there is no mention of this creation, but that may, of course, be rejected as merely negative evidence. The above charter, however, certainly raises the question whether he had indeed been created earl at the time when he thus attested it. The point may be deemed of some importance as involving the question whether the Empress did really create an earl before the triumph of her cause.