Gloucester is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, 19 miles east of Monmouth, and 17 miles east of the border with Wales. Including suburban areas, Gloucester has a population of around 150,000. It is a port, linked via the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal to the Severn Estuary.
Gloucester was founded by the Romans and became an important city and colony in AD 97 under Emperor Nerva as Colonia Glevum Nervensis.
It was granted its first charter in 1155 by Henry II. In 1216 Henry III, aged only nine years, was crowned with a gilded iron ring in the Chapter House of Gloucester Cathedral. Gloucester's significance in the Middle Ages is underlined by the fact that it had a number of monastic establishments, including St Peter's Abbey founded in 679, the nearby St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester founded in the 880s or 890s, and Llanthony Secunda Priory, founded 1136. The town is also the site of the siege of Gloucester in 1643, during which the city held out against Royalist forces in the First English Civil War.