was subsequently the wife of William Duke of Normandy, the
conqueror of England. When the lady became Queen of England she had
Britric's manors confiscated, and he died in prison at Winchester.
Thus Tewkesbury passed into the hands of the Normans.

At the time of the Domesday Survey the priory was possessed of 24-1/2
hides (or 3,000 acres) of land, which in Edward the Confessor's reign
had been valued at L1 per hide.

In 1087 William Rufus bestowed the honour of Gloucester, together with
the patronage of the Priory of Tewkesbury, upon his second cousin once
removed, Robert Fitz-Hamon, or, to give him his full titles as
recorded in the Charters, "Sir Robert Fitz-Hamon, Earl of Corboile,
Baron of Thorigny and Granville, Lord of Gloucester, Bristol,
Tewkesbury and Cardiff, Conqueror of Wales, near kinsman of the King,
and General of his Highness' army in France."

Robert Fitz-Hamon is the reputed founder of the present structure, but
the credit of the founding, or rather refounding, is due to Giraldus,
Abbot of Cranbourn. Like Abbot Serlo of Gloucester fame, he had
originally come over from De Brienne, in Normandy, the ancestral home
of the De Clare family, and a town closely connected with Tewkesbury
at a later date. Giraldus had been chaplain to Hugh Lupus, Earl of
Chester, and subsequently to Walkelyn, Bishop of Winchester. He was
appointed Abbot of Cranbourn by William Rufus, who acted on the advice
of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, and St. Osmund, Bishop of
Salisbury. Giraldus then secured the assistance of Fitz-Hamon, and the
munificent endowments of the latter supplied the means for building
the noble foundation at Tewkesbury. Fitz-Hamon is said to have been
inspired by a wish to make atonement for the wanton destruction of
Bayeux Cathedral by Henry I.

By the year 1102 Giraldus and the members of St. Bartholomew's Abbey
at Cranbourn removed to Tewkesbury, which was by that time ready to
receive them; and the establishment at Cranbourn, under the rule of a
Prior and two monks, became in its turn (after 120 years) a cell
dependent on the new Abbey of Tewkesbury. After a few years Giraldus,
"having neither the inclination nor the ability to satiate the King's
avarice (Henry I.) with gifts," was obliged to leave Tewkesbury and
returned to Winchester, where he died in 1110.

Fitz-Hamon had died in 1107 from the effects of a wound received at
the siege of Falaise, and was buried temporarily in the Chapter Hous