He loved war and the chase:
he despised industry, he cared not for religion; he was a man of
strong passions, but he was generous, and he respected worth of
character. One of his followers, Robert, had all his vices and few
of his virtues. It was he who extended the dominions of the Earl of
Chester along the north coast to the Clwyd, where he built a castle
at Rhuddlan; and thence on to the valley of the Conway, where he
built a castle at Deganwy. The cruelty of Robert shocked even the
Normans of his time. He even set foot in Anglesey, which looked
temptingly near from Deganwy, and built a castle at Aberlleiniog.
At Shrewsbury, where the Severn, after leaving the mountains of
Wales, turns to the south, Roger of Montgomery was placed, with his
wife Mabel, an energetic little woman, hated and feared by all.
Roger himself, while ever ready to fight, preferred to get what he
wanted by persuasion; he was not less cruel than Hugh of Chester, but
he was less fond of war. He and his sons pushed their way up the
Severn, and built a castle at Montgomery.
To Hereford, on the Wye, William Fitz-Osbern came. He was the
ablest, perhaps, of all the followers of the Conqueror. He entered
Wales; he saw it from the Wye to the sea, and he thought it was not
large enough, and that it was too far from the political life of the
time.
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