as looked on as the first usual mark of
discontent in a nobleman; and was often charged by princes as a formal
accusation. The earl having disobeyed the King's summons, and concerted
matters with other accomplices, broke out into open rebellion, with
intentions to depose King William, and set up Stephen Earl of Albemarle,
son of a sister to William the Conqueror: but all was prevented by the
celerity of this active prince; who, knowing that insurrections are best
quelled in their beginnings, marched with incredible speed, and
surprised the rebels at Newcastle, took the castles of Tynemouth and
Bamburgh; where the obstinacy of the defendants provoked him, contrary
to his nature, to commit cruelties upon their persons, by cutting off
their hands and ears, and other the like inhumanities. The earl himself
was taken prisoner as he endeavoured to make his escape; but suffered no
other punishment than to be confined for the rest of his life.[11]

[Footnote 11: Which was thirty years. [D.S.]]

About this time began the Holy War for recovering of Palestine; which
having not been the enterprise of any one prince or state, but that
wherein most in Christendom had a share, it cannot with justice be
silently passed over in the history of any nation.

Pope Urban the Second, in a council at Clermont, made a pathetic
exhortation, shewing with what danger and indignity to Christendom the
Turks and Saracens had, for some ages, not only overrun all Asia and
Africa, where Christianity had long flourished; but had also made
encroachments into Europe, where they had entirely subdued Spain, and
some other parts; that Jerusalem, the holy city, where our Saviour did
so many miracles, and where His sepulchre still remained, to the scandal
of the Christian name, lay groaning under the tyranny of infidels; that
the swords which Christian princes had drawn against each other, ought
to be turned against the common enemy of their name and religion; that
this should be reckoned an ample satisfaction for all their past sins;
that those who died in this expedition should immediately go to Heaven,
and the survivors would be blessed with the sight of our Lord's
sepulchre.

Moved by these arguments, and the influence of the person who delivered
them, several nobles and prelates immediately took upon them the cross;
and the council dissolving in this high fit of zeal, the clergy, upon
their return home, prevailed so far in their several countries, that