Like
vultures to the feast they came, with little heed to the rights of the
rival claimants and the wrongs of the people, with much heed to their
own private needs and ambitions.
In England such anarchy ruled as that land of much intestine war has
rarely witnessed. The Norman nobles prepared in haste for the civil war,
and in doing so made the English their prey. To raise the necessary
funds, many of them sold their domains, townships, and villages, with
the inhabitants thereof and all their goods. Others of them made forays
on the lands of those of the opposite faction, and seized cattle,
horses, sheep, and men alike carrying off the English in chains, that
they might force them by torture to yield what wealth they possessed.
Terror ruled supreme. The realm was in a panic of dread. So great was
the alarm, that the inhabitants of city and town alike took to flight if
they saw a distant group of horsemen approaching. Three or four armed
men were enough to empty a town of its inhabitants. It was in Bristol,
where Maud and her foreign troops lay, that the most extreme terror
prevailed. All day long men were being brought into the city bound and
gagged. The citizens had no immunity. Soldiers mingled among them in
disguise, their arms concealed, their talk in the English tongue,
strolling through markets and streets, listening to the popular chat,
and then suddenly seizing any one who seemed to be in easy
circumstances.
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