Revolt of the Nobles
The Rev. R. W. Eyton, in his key to the Domesday Dorset Survey (1878, pp. 76, 1 20 note), has pointed out that the rebel William seems to have succeeded his mother and Ralph de Limesi in the ownership of about seventy-seven manors in the western and south-western districts of England, which had mostly belonged to Alestan of Boscombe (in Wiltshire) in the time of King Eadward. William of Eu and Robert of Mobray were among the chief confederates of Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances, at Bristol, harrying the land in that district. William occupied the Castle of Montacute by Ilchester, plundered Gloucestershire, and the royal town of Berkeley, and did great mischief everywhere with fire and sword (Flor. Wig. 1088). William Rufus, now disowned by the majority of his Norman Barons, summoned an assembly of his English subjects, promising them freedom of the chase, and a restitution of their laws. " But this lasted nowhile " (Sax. Chronicle). William, Earl of Warren, who remained faithful to the King, received a wound in his leg by an arrow at the siege of Pevensey, from which he soon afterwards died. He was buried at Lewes.
Rufus caused a proclamation to be issued that all those who did not join his banner should be branded with the hateful name of " Nithing " (William of Malmesbury, 1088). The English, overjoyed at the thought of shaking off the yoke of the Norman lords, readily flocked to his standard. Tunbridge submitted to him, and he then besieged Bishop Odo in the Castle of Pevensey, the Roman walls of which were then almost washed by an arm of the sea.
Duke Robert, who was preparing a powerful army in Normandy for the invasion of England, sent on a vanguard to the support of Odo at Pevensey. But the English who guarded the sea, among the chief of whom we may reckon the Hastings Buscarls, attacked the fleet of this advanced force, and an immense number of the enemy were either put to the sword or drowned (Henry of Huntingdon, 1088).
Roger of Wendover says : " But William the younger had now taken measures of defence by sea with his cruisers, which slew many of them on their passage to England, and sank others at sea, so much so that no one can tell the number that perished." William of Malmesbury's account is specially interesting : " During the interval of the siege the King's fleet destroyed a party which the Duke of Normandy had sent to assist the traitors, partly by slaughter, and partly by shipwreck ; the remainder, intent on escaping, endeavoured to make sail, but being soon after disappointed byits falling calm, they became a matter of derision to our people, but to their own destruction, for that they might not be taken alive, they leaped from their vessels into the sea."
