A.D. 1088.] BISHOP ODO A PRISONER. 357 brought into faithful subjection to him ; and, with the like cunning, he imposed upon Roger de Montgomery, who was one day riding in his company, saying that he would willingly leave the kingdom if Roger, and the others whom his father had made his guardians, wished it, and, if they chose, they might take money or lands and arrange things in the kingdom entirely at their own discretion, if they would only take care not to call in question the judgment of his father, who, if he had erred about his son, might have erred about them also ; for the same authority which had made him king made them earls. By these words Rogerwas brought over^ and he who was the first after Odo to subscribe himself to this conspiracy was the first of all who repented of it, and deserted from it. The king then advanced against the rebels, and destroyed the forts of his uncle Odo the bishop at Tunbridge and Pevensey ; and having intercepted the bishop himself, he made him prisoner, and the king's troops, taking him with them to the castle of Rochester, demanded entrance from the inhabitants of the castle ; they moreover told them that their lord wished it, and that the king, though absent, ordered it. There were at that time in this same castle almost all the youthful nobility of England and of Normandy, and amongst them three sons of earl Roger, and Eustace the younger, count of Boulogne, with many others whom I omit to mention individually by name. But those inside, looking out from the walls, thought that the appearance of the bishop did not agree with the words of the royal troops ; they therefore quickly opened the gates, and all sallying out, they made prisoners of the soldiers, and brought them together with the bishop into the castle. The report of this transaction soon came to the king's ears, and he, hesitating between the dictates of anger and of his conscience, assembled all the English who were in his pay, and ordered them all to come to the siege, unless they wished to be called "Nithings," i. e., in English, "base fellow." The English, who held nothing to be worse than to be made notorious by the disgrace of this name, flocked in crowds to the king, and thus a large army was assembled ; and those within the castle, being unable to endure a long siege, surrendered it to the king. Bishop Odo, being thus for the second time taken prisoner, ab