After the Conquest the convent retained their estate, receiving a gracious charter of confirmation from William, who, no doubt, was willing to link his name with that of his kinsman, the Confessor, as patron of this famed foundation.[61] The Earl's-half, however, passed to other masters. Probably Godiva held it during her lifetime; but at her death the Conqueror took it, as the lady's grandchildren and direct heirs were, as rebels, naturally shut out from the inheritance. How it was that the estate passed into the hands of Ranulf Meschines, Earl of Chester, we can only conjecture. He had probably deserved well at the King's hand and had his reward. Though not, it is true, so disturbing an element in the burghers' lives as his continental brethren, an English feudal lord had much power for good or evil over his dependents. His castle—with its fortifications, often breaking into the line of the city wall, as Rougement did at Exeter, or the Tower, built by the Conqueror to overawe the men of London—was a perpetual menace to the citizens. His officers or deputies could annoy and terrify the tenants in various ways. Thus one Simon le Maudit, who held in farm the reeveship of Leicester, went on to collect gravel-pennies, which he said were due to the lord from the townsfolk, long after these payments had been remitted by charter. But this document having been destroyed by fire, the burghers had no evidence wherewith to support their claim, and Simon "the Accursed" had his will.[62] Instances of feudal oppression seem, however, to have been comparatively rare, though warlike lords by involving their tenants in their quarrels frequently brought trouble upon them.
CHEYLESMORE MANOR HOUSE
Earl Ranulf came of a strong race. The founder of the family—whom the Welsh called Hugh "the Fat" by reason of his great girth, but the Normans "the Wolf" by reason of his fierceness—held manors of the Conqueror in twenty shires of England. Lord of the county palatine of Chester, the special privileges granted to him for the purpose of strengthening his hand against the Welsh made him almost independent of royal authority.[63] Meschines himself is an obscure figure, but the fame of his successor, Ranulf Gernons, whose doings were accounted terrible even in Stephen's time, when every man's hand was against his fellow, spread far and wide. In 1143 Coventry became the battle-ground of this earl and Marmion of Tamworth, King Stephen's ally. That was an evil time for the monks, as Marmion seized and fortified the priory, and for the townsfolk, as they were between Marmion and Ranulf, the hammer and the anvil. The Tamworth lord died early in the struggle, for falling into one of the trenches he had made to enclose the monastery, he was killed by a common soldier. No doubt the monks reminded one another that their sacrilegious oppressor, who so justly came to this evil end, was of an impious stock. Did not his ancestor, one Robert Marmion, expel the nuns of Polesworth from their dwelling, until, warned in a vision by S. Edith, their foundress, and sorely smitten by the staff of the saint, he repented and caused the sisterhood to return?[64]
Ranulf lived on to find a reverse of fortune at Coventry. Four years after the fight with Marmion, the earl, finding the King's forces were possessed of the castle there, laid siege to the stronghold, but Stephen appearing, Ranulf's army was put to flight. It was a fitting end to this lawless life that he should die by poison and excommunicate; and his widow gave to Walter, Bishop of Coventry, under whose curse her husband lay, the hamlet of Stivichall, so that his soul might have peace.[65]
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.