of Stephen's reign – Hereford Castle and Weobley castle were held against the king, but were captured in 1138. Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I, was imprisoned in Hereford Castle, and famously escaped from there in 1265. In 1326 the parliament assembled at Hereford deposed Edward II. In the 14th and 15th centuries the forest of Deerfold gave refuge to some of the most noted followers of Wycliffe. During the Wars of the Roses the influence of the Mortimers led the county to support the Yorkist cause, and Edward, afterwards Edward IV, raised 23,000 men in this neighbourhood. The Battle of Mortimer's Cross was fought in 1461 near Wigmore. Before the outbreak of the civil war of the 17th century, complaints of illegal taxation were rife in Herefordshire, but a strong anti-Puritan feeling induced the county to favour the royalist cause. Hereford, Goodrich and Ledbury all endured sieges. Earls of Hereford The earldom of Hereford was granted by William I to William FitzOsbern, about 1067, but on the outlawry of his son Roger in 1074 the title lapsed until conferred on Henry de Bohun about 1199. It remained in the possession of the de Bohuns until the death of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford in 1373; in 1397 Henry, Earl of Derby, afterwards King Henry IV, who had married Mary de Bohun, was created Duke of Hereford. Edward VI created Walter Devereux, a descendant of the de Bohun family, Viscount Hereford, in 1550, and his grandson, the famous earl of Essex, was born in this county. Since this date the viscounty has been held by the Devereux family, and the holder ranks as the premier viscount of England. The families of Clifford, Giffard and Mortimer figured prominently in the warfare on the Welsh border, and the Talbots, Lacys, Crofts and Scudamores all had important seats in the county, Sir James Scudamore of Holme Lacy being the original of the Sir Scudamore of Spenser's Faerie Queene. Sir John Oldcastle, the leader of the Lollards, was sheriff of Herefordshire in 1406, before arrest and execution for treason by Henry V. Diocese Herefordshire has been included in the diocese of Hereford since its foundation in 676. In 1291 it comprised the Deaneries of Hereford, Weston, Leominster, Weobley, Frome, Archenfield and Ross in the Archdeaconry of Hereford, and the Deaneries of Burford, Stottesdon, Ludlow, Pontesbury, Clun and Wenlock, in the Archdeaconry of Shropshire.