[Illustration: 095.jpg STEPHEN]
STEPHEN.
_Contemporary Monarchs._
EMP. OF GERM K. OF SCOTLAND. K. OF FRANCE K. OF SPAIN.
Lothaire II. 1138 David I. 1143 Louis VI. 1137 Alphonse VIII.
Conrad III. 1152 Malcolm IV. Louis VII.
Frederic I. Lucius II.1145
POPES
Innocent II. 1142
Celestin II. 1144
Eugenius III. 1153
Anastasius IV.
{1135.} IN the progress and settlement of the feudal law, the male
succession to fiefs had taken place some time before the female was
admitted; and estates, being considered as military benefices, not as
property, were transmitted to such only as could serve in the armies,
and perform in person the conditions upon which they were originally
granted. But when the continuance of rights, during some generations,
in the same family, had, in a great measure, obliterated the primitive
idea, the females were gradually admitted to the possession of feudal
property; and the same revolution of principles which procured them the
inheritance of private estates, naturally introduced their succession to
government and authority. The failure, therefore, of male heirs to the
kingdom of England and duchy of Normandy, seemed to leave the succession
open, without a rival, to the empress Matilda; and as Henry had made all
his vassals in both states swear fealty to her, he presumed that they
would not easily be induced to depart at once from her hereditary right,
and from their own reiterated oaths and engagements. But the irregular
manner in which he himself had acquired the crown might have instructed
him, that neither his Norman nor English subjects were as yet capable of
adhering to a strict rule of government; and as every precedent of this
kind seems to give authority to new usurpations, he had reason to dread,
even from his own family, some invasion of his daughter’s title, which
he had taken such pains to establish.
Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, had been married to Stephen,
count of Blois, and had brought him several sons; among whom Stephen and
Henry, the two youngest, had been invited over to England by the late
king and had received great honors, riches, and preferment, from the
zealous friendship which that prince bore to every one that had been
so fortunate as to acquire his favor and good opinion. Henry, who had
betaken himself to the ecclesiastical profession, was created abbot of
Glastonbury and bishop of Winchester; and though these dignities
were considerable, Stephen had, from his uncle’s liberality, attained
establishments still more solid and durable.[*] The king had married him
to Matilda, who was daughter and heir of Eustace, count of Boulogne, and
who brought him, besides that feudal sovereignty in France, an immense
property in England, which, in the distribution of lands, had been
conferred by the Conqueror on the family of Boulogne. Stephen also
by this marriage acquired a new connection with the royal family of
England, as Mary, his wife’s mother, was sister to David, the reigning
king of Scotland, and to Matilda, the first wife of Henry, and mother
of the empress. The king, still imagining that he strengthened the
interests of his family by the aggrandizement of Stephen, took pleasure
in enriching him by the grant of new possessions; and he conferred on
him the great estate forfeited by Robert Mallet in England, and that
forfeited by the earl of Mortaigne in Normandy. Stephen, in return,
professed great attachment to his uncle, and appeared so zealous for
the succession of Matilda, that, when the barons swore fealty to that
princess, he contended with Robert, earl of Glocester, the king’s
natural son, who should first be admitted to give her this testimony of
devoted zeal and fidelity.[**] Meanwhile he continued to cultivate, by
every art of popularity, the friendship of the English nation; and many
virtues with which he seemed to be endowed, favored the success of his
intentions. By his bravery, activity, and vigor, he acquired the
esteem of the barons; by his generosity, and by an affable and familiar
address, unusual in that age among men of his high quality, he obtained
the affections of the people, particularly of the Londoners.[***] And
though he dared not to take any steps towards his further grandeur, lest
he should expose himself to the jealousy of so penetrating a prince as
Henry, he still hoped that, by accumulating riches and power, and by
acquiring popularity, he might in time be able to open his way to the
throne.
[* Gul. Neubr. p. 360. Brompton, p. 1023.]
[** W. Malms, p. 192.]
[*** W. Malms, p. 179. Gest. Steph. p. 925.]
No sooner had Henry breathed his last, than Stephen, insensible to all
the ties of gratitude and fidelity, and blind to danger, gave full reins
to his criminal ambition; and trusted that, even without any previous
intrigue, the celerity of his enterprise, and the boldness of his
attempt, might overcome the weak attachment which the English and
Normans in that age bore to the laws and to the rights of their
sovereign. He hastened over to England, and though the citizens of
Dover and those of Canterbury, apprised of his purpose, shut their gates
against him, he stopped not till he arrived at London, where some of
the lower rank, instigated by his emissaries, as well as moved by his
general popularity, immediately saluted him king. His next point was to
acquire the good will of the clergy; and by performing the ceremony of
his coronation, to put himself in possession of the throne, from which
he was confident it would not be easy afterwards to expel him. His
brother, the bishop of Winchester, was useful to him in these capital
articles; having gained Roger, bishop of Salisbury, who, though he owed
a great fortune and advancement to the favor of the late king,
preserved no sense of gratitude to that prince’s family, he applied, in
conjunction with that prelate, to William, archbishop of Canterbury,
and required him, in virtue of his office, to give the royal unction
to Stephen. The primate, who, as all the others, had sworn fealty
to Matilda, refused to perform this ceremony; but his opposition was
overcome by an expedient equally dishonorable with the other steps
by which this revolution was effected. Hugh Bigod, steward of the
household, made oath before the primate, that the late king, on his
death-bed, had shown a dissatisfaction with his daughter Matilda, and
had expressed his intention of leaving the count of Boulogne heir to
all his dominions.[*] William, either believing or feigning to believe
Bigod’s testimony, anointed Stephen, and put the crown upon his head;
and from this religious ceremony, that prince, without any shadow,
either of hereditary title or consent of the nobility or people, was
allowed to proceed to the exercise of sovereign authority. Very few
barons attended his coronation;[**] but none opposed his usurpation,
however unjust or flagrant.
[* M. Paris, p. 51. Diccto, p. 505 Chron. Durst.
p. 23.]
[* Brompton, p. 1023.]
The sentiment of religion which, if corrupted into superstition, has
often little efficacy in fortifying the duties of civil society, was
not affected by the multiplied oaths taken in favor of Matilda, and only
rendered the people obedient to a prince who was countenanced by the
clergy, and who had received from the primate the rite of royal unction
and consecration.[*]
Stephen, that he might further secure his tottering throne passed a
charter, in which he made liberal promises to all orders of men; to
the clergy, that he would speedily fill all vacant benefices, and would
never levy the rents of any of them during the vacancy; to the nobility,
that he would reduce the royal forests to their ancient boundaries, and
correct all encroachments; and to the people, that he would remit the
tax of danegelt, and restore the laws of King Edward.[**] The late king
had a great treasure at Winchester, amounting to a hundred thousand
pounds; and Stephen, by seizing this money, immediately turned against
Henry’s family the precaution which that prince had employed for their
grandeur and security; an event which naturally attends the policy of
amassing treasures. By means of this money, the usurper insured the
compliance, though not the attachment, of the principal clergy and
nobility; but not trusting to this frail security, he invited over from
the continent, particularly from Brittany and Flanders, great numbers
of those bravoes, or disorderly soldiers, with whom every country in
Europe, by reason of the general ill police and turbulent government,
extremely abounded.[***] These mercenary troops guarded his throne by
the terrors of the sword; and Stephen, that he might also overawe all
malecontents by new and additional terrors of religion, procured a bull
from Rome, which ratified his title, and which the pope, seeing this
prince in possession of the throne, and pleased with an appeal to his
authority in secular controversies, very readily granted him.[****]
[* Such stress was formerly laid on the right of
coronation, that the monkish, writers never give any prince
the title of king till he is crowned, though he had for some
time been in possession of the crown, and exercised all the
powers of sovereignty.]
[** W. Malms, p. 179. Hoveden, p. 482.]
[*** W. Malms, p. 179.]
[**** Hagulstadt, p. 259, 313.]
{1136.} Matilda and her husband Geoffrey were as unfortunate in Normandy
as they had been in England. The Norman nobility, moved by an hereditary
animosity against the Angevins, first applied to Theobold, count of
Blois, Stephen’s elder brother for protection and assistance; but
hearing afterwards that Stephen had got possession of the English crown,
and having, many of them, the same reasons as formerly for desiring a
continuance of their union with that kingdom, they transferred their
allegiance to Stephen, and put him in possession of their government.
Lewis the younger, the reigning king of France, accepted the homage
of Eustace, Stephen’s eldest son, for the duchy; and the more to
corroborate his connections with that family, he betrothed his sister
Constantia to the young prince. The count of Blois assigned all his
pretensions, and received in lieu of them an annual pension of two
thousand marks; and Geoffrey himself was obliged to conclude a truce for
two years with Stephen, on condition of the king’s paying him, during
that time, a pension of five thousand.[*] Stephen, who had taken a
journey to Normandy, finished all these transactions in person, and soon
after returned to England.
Robert, earl of Glocester, natural son of the late king, was a man of
honor and abilities; and as he was much attached to the interests of his
sister Matilda, and zealous for the lineal succession, it was chiefly
from his intrigues and resistance that the king had reason to dread a
new revolution of government. This nobleman, who was in Normandy when
he received intelligence of Stephen’s accession, found himself much
embarrassed concerning the measures which he should pursue in that
difficult emergency. To swear allegiance to the usurper appeared to him
dishonorable, and a breach of his oath to Matilda: to refuse giving
this pledge of his fidelity was to banish himself from England, and be
totally incapacitated from serving the royal family, or contributing to
their restoration.[**] He offered Stephen to do him homage, and to take
the oath of fealty; but with an express condition, that the king should
maintain all his stipulations, and should never invade any of Robert’s
rights or dignities; and Stephen, though sensible that this reserve, so
unusual in itself, and so unbefitting the duty of a subject, was meant
only to afford Robert a pretence for a revolt on the first favorable
opportunity, was obliged by the numerous friends and retainers of that
nobleman, to receive him on those terms.[***]
[* M. Paris, p. 52.]
[** W. Malms, p. 170.]
[*** W. Malms, p. 179. M Paris, p. 51.]
The clergy, who could scarcely at this time be deemed subjects to the
crown, imitated that dangerous example: they annexed to their oaths of
allegiance this condition, that they were only bound so long as the king
defended the ecclesiastical liberties, and supported the discipline of
the church.[*] The barons, in return for their submission, exacted terms
still more destructive of public peace, as well as of royal authority.
Many of them required the right of fortifying their castles, and of
putting themselves in a posture of defence; and the king found himself
totally unable to refuse his consent to this exorbitant demand.[**] All
England was immediately filled with those fortresses, which the noblemen
garrisoned either with their vassals, or with licentious soldiers, who
flocked to them from all quarters. Unbounded rapine was exercised upon
the people for the maintenance of these troops; and private animosities,
which had with difficulty been restrained by law, now breaking out
without control, rendered England a scene of uninterrupted violence and
devastation. Wars between the nobles were carried on with the utmost
fury in every quarter; the barons even assumed the right of coining
money, and of exercising, without appeal, every act of jurisdiction;
[***] and the inferior gentry, as well as the people, finding no defence
from the laws during this total dissolution of sovereign authority, were
obliged, for their immediate safety, to pay court to some neighboring
chieftain, and to purchase his protection, both by submitting to his
exactions, and by assisting him in his rapine upon others. The erection
of one castle proved the immediate cause of building many others; and
even those who obtained not the king’s permission, thought that they
were entitled, by the great principle of self-preservation, to put
themselves on an equal footing with their neighbors, who commonly
were also their enemies and rivals. The aristocratical power, which is
usually so oppressive in the Feudal governments, had now risen to its
utmost height, during the reign of a prince who, though endowed with
vigor and abilities, had usurped the throne without the pretence of a
title, and who was necessitated to tolerate in others the same violence
to which he himself had been holden for his sovereignty.
[* W. Malms, p. 179.]
[** W. Malms, p, 180]
[*** Trivet, p, 19 Gul Neub. p. 372. W. Heming. p.
487. Brompton, p. 1035.]
But Stephen was not of a disposition to submit long to these
usurpations, without making some effort for the recovery of royal
authority. Finding that the legal prerogatives of the crown were
resisted and abridged, he was also tempted to make his power the sole
measure of his conduct, and to violate all those concessions which he
himself had made on his accession,[*] as well as the ancient privileges
of his subjects. The mercenary soldiers, who chiefly supported
his authority, having exhausted the royal treasure, subsisted by
depredations; and every place was filled with the best grounded
complaints against the government. The earl of Glocester, having now
settled with his friends the plan of an insurrection, retired beyond
sea, sent the king a defiance, solemnly renounced his allegiance, and
upbraided him with the breach of those conditions which had been annexed
to the oath of fealty sworn by that nobleman.[**]
[* W. Malms, p. 180. M. Paris, p. 5 ]
[** W. Malms, p. 180.]
{1137.} David, king of Scotland, appeared at the head of an army in
defence of his niece’s title, and penetrating into Yorkshire, committed
the most barbarous devastations on that country. {1138.} The fury of his
massacres and ravages enraged the northern nobility, who might otherwise
have been inclined to join him; and William, earl of Albemarle, Robert
de Ferrers, William Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger Moubray, Ilbert Lacy,
Walter l’Espee, powerful barons in those parts, assembled an army, with
which they encamped at North Allerton, and awaited the arrival of
the enemy. A great battle was here fought, called the battle of the
Standard, from a high crucifix, erected by the English on a wagon, and
carried along with the army as a military ensign. The king of Scots was
defeated; and he himself, as well as his son Henry, narrowly escaped
falling into the hands of the English. This success overawed the
malecontents in England, and might have given some stability to
Stephen’s throne, had he not been so elated with prosperity as to engage
in a controversy with the clergy, who were at that time an overmatch for
any monarch.
Though the great power of the church, in ancient times, weakened the
authority of the crown, and interrupted the course of the laws, it may
be doubted whether, in ages of such violence and outrage, it was not
rather advantageous that some limits were set to the power of the sword,
both in the hands of the prince and nobles, and that men were taught
to pay regard to some principles and privileges. {1139.} The chief
misfortune was, that the prelates, on some occasions, acted entirely
as barons, employed military power against their sovereign or their
neighbors, and thereby often increased those disorders which it was
their duty to repress. The bishop of Salisbury, in imitation of the
nobility, had built two strong castles, one at Sherborne, another at
the Devizes, and had laid the foundations of a third at Malmsbury: his
nephew; Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, had erected a fortress at Newark;
and Stephen, who was now sensible from experience of the mischiefs
attending these multiplied; citadels, resolved to begin with destroying
those of the clergy, who by their function seemed less entitled than the
barons to such military securities.[*] Making pretence of a fray, which
had arisen in court between the retinue of the bishop of Salisbury and
that of the earl of Brittany, he seized both that prelate and the bishop
of Lincoln, threw them into prison, and obliged them by menaces to
deliver up those places of strength which they had lately erected.[**]
Henry, bishop of Winchester, the king’s brother, being armed with a
legantine commission, now conceived himself to be an ecclesiastical
sovereign no less powerful than the civil; and forgetting the ties of
blood which connected him with the king, he resolved to vindicate the
clerical privileges which, he pretended, were here openly violated. He
assembled a synod at Westminster, and there complained of the impiety
of Stephen’s measures, who had employed violence against the dignitaries
of the church, and had not awaited the sentence of a spiritual court, by
which alone, he affirmed, they could lawfully be tried and condemned, if
their conduct had anywise merited censure or punishment.[***] The synod,
ventured to send a summons to the king, charging him to appear before
them, and to justify his measures;[****] and Stephen, instead of
resenting this indignity, sent Aubrey de Vere to plead his cause
before that assembly. De Vere accused; the two prelates of treason and
sedition; but the synod refused, to try the cause, or examine their
conduct, till those castles of which they had been dispossessed, were
previously restored to them.[*****] The bishop of Salisbury declared,
that he would appeal to the pope; and had not Stephen and his partisans
employed menaces, and even shown a disposition of executing violence
by the hands of the soldiery, affairs had instantly come to extremity
between the crown and the mitre.[******]
[* Gul. Neub. p. 362.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 238. W. Malms, p. 181]
[*** W. Malms p. 182.]
[**** W. Malms, p. 182. M. Paris, p. 53,]
[***** W. Malms, p 183.]
[****** W. Malms p 183.]
While this quarrel, joined to so many other grievances, increased the
discontents among the people, the empress, invited by the opportunity,
and secretly encouraged by the legate himself, landed in England, with
Robert, earl of Glocester, and a retinue of a hundred and forty knights.
She fixed her residence at Arundel Castle, whose gates were opened to
her by Adelais, the queen dowager, now married to William de Albini,
earl of Sussex; and she excited, by messengers, her partisans to take
arms in every county of England. Adelais, who had expected that her
daughter-in-law would have invaded the kingdom with a much greater
force, became apprehensive of danger; and Matilda, to ease her of her
fears, removed first to Bristol, which belonged to her brother Robert,
thence to Glocester, where she remained under the protection of Milo, a
gallant nobleman in those parts, who had embraced her cause. Soon after,
Geoffrey Talbot, William Mohun, Ralph Lovell, William Fitz-John, William
Fitz-Alan, Paganell, and many other barons, declared for her; and her
party, which was generally favored in the kingdom, seemed every day to
gain ground upon that of her antagonist.
Were we to relate all the military events transmitted to us by
contemporary and authentic historians, it would be easy to swell our
accounts of this reign into a large volume; but those incidents, so
little memorable in themselves, and so confused both in time and place,
could afford neither instruction nor entertainment to the reader. It
suffices to say, that the war was spread into every quarter; and that
those turbulent barons, who had already shaken off, in a great measure,
the restraint of government, having now obtained the pretence of
a public cause, carried on their devastations with redoubled fury,
exercised implacable vengeance on each other, and set no bounds to their
oppressions over the people. The castles of the nobility were become
receptacles of licensed robbers, who, sallying forth day and night,
committed spoil on the open country, on the villages, and even on the
cities; put the captives to torture, in order to make them reveal their
treasures; sold their persons to slavery; and set fire to their houses,
after they had pillaged them of every thing valuable. The fierceness of
their disposition, leading them to commit wanton destruction, frustrated
their rapacity of its purpose; and the property and persons even of the
ecclesiastics, generally so much revered, were at last, from necessity,
exposed to the same outrage which had laid waste the rest of the
kingdom. The land was left untilled; the instruments of husbandry were
destroyed or abandoned; and a grievous famine, the natural result
of those disorders, affected equally both parties, and reduced the
spoilers, as well as the defenceless people, to the most extreme want
and indigence.[*]
[* Chron. Sax, p. 238. W. Malms, p. 185. Gest.
Steph. p. 961.]
{1140.} After several fruitless negotiations and treaties of peace,
which never interrupted these destructive hostilities, there happened at
last an event which seemed to promise some end of the public calamities.
Ralph, earl of Chester, and his half-brother, William de Roumara,
partisans of Matilda, had surprised the Castle of Lincoln; but the
citizens, who were better affected to Stephen, having invited him to
their aid, that prince laid close siege to the castle, in hopes of soon
rendering himself master of the place, either by assault or by famine.
The earl of Glocester hastened with an army to the relief of his
friends; and Stephen, informed of his approach, took the field with a
resolution of giving him battle. {1141.} After a violent shock, the
two wings of the royalists were put to flight; and Stephen himself,
surrounded by the enemy, was at last, after exerting great efforts of
valor, borne down by numbers and taken prisoner. He was conducted to
Glocester; and though at first treated with humanity, was soon after, on
some suspicion, thrown into prison, and loaded with irons.
Stephen’s party was entirely broken by the captivity of their leader,
and the barons came in daily from all quarters, and did homage to
Matilda. The princess, however, amidst all her prosperity, knew that she
was not secure of success, unless she could gain the confidence of
the clergy; and as the conduct of the legate had been of late very
ambiguous, and showed his intentions to have rather aimed at humbling
his brother, than totally ruining him, she employed every endeavor to
fix him in her interests. She held a conference with him in an open
plain near Winchester; where she promised upon oath, that if he would
acknowledge her for sovereign, would recognize her title as the sole
descendant of the late king, and would again submit to the allegiance
which he, as well as the rest of the kingdom, had sworn to her,
he should in return be entire master of the administration, and in
particular should, at his pleasure, dispose of all vacant bishoprics and
abbeys. Earl Robert, her brother, Brian Fitz-Count, Milo of Glocester,
and other great men, became guaranties for her observing these
engagements;[*] and the prelate was at last induced to promise her
allegiance, but that still burdened with the express condition, that
she should on her part fulfil her promises. He then conducted her to
Winchester, led her in procession to the cathedral, and with great
solemnity, in the presence of many bishops and abbots, denounced curses
against all those who cursed her, poured out blessings on those who
blessed her granted absolution to such as were obedient to her, and
excommunicated such as were rebellious.[**] Theobald, archbishop of
Canterbury, soon after came also to court, and swore allegiance to the
empress.[***]
[* W. Malms, p. 187.]
[** Chron. Sax. p 242. Contin. Flor. Wigorn. p.
676]
[*** W. Malms, p. 187.]
Matilda, that she might further insure the attachment of the clergy, was
willing to receive the crown from their hands; and instead of assembling
the states of the kingdom, the measure which the constitution, had it
been either fixed or regarded, seemed necessarily to require, she was
content that the legate should summon an ecclesiastical synod, and
that her title to the throne should there be acknowledged. The legate,
addressing himself to the assembly, told them, that in the absence of
the empress, Stephen, his brother, had been permitted to reign, and,
previously to his ascending the throne, had seduced them by many fair
promises, of honoring and exalting the church, of maintaining the laws,
and of reforming all abuses; that it grieved him to observe how much
that prince had in every particular been wanting to his engagements;
public peace was interrupted, crimes were daily committed with
impunity, bishops were thrown into prison and forced to surrender their
possessions, abbeys were put to sale, churches were pillaged and
the most enormous disorders prevailed in the administration; that he
himself, in order to procure a redress of these grievances, had formerly
summoned the king before a council of bishops; but instead of inducing
him to amend his conduct, had rather offended him by that expedient;
that, how much soever misguided, that prince was still his brother,
and the object of his affections; but his interests, however, must be
regarded as subordinate to those of their heavenly Father, who had now
rejected him, and thrown him into the hands of his enemies; that it
principally belonged to the clergy to elect and ordain kings; he had
summoned them together for that purpose; and having invoked the divine
assistance, he now pronounced Matilda, the only descendant of Henry,
their late sovereign, queen of England. The whole assembly, by their
acclamations or silence, gave or seemed to give, their assent to this
declaration.[*]
The only laymen summoned to this council, which decided the fate of
the crown, were the Londoners; and even these were required not to give
their opinion, but to submit to the decrees of the synod. The deputies
of London, however, were not so passive; they insisted that their king
should be delivered from prison; but were told by the legate, that it
became not the Londoners, who were regarded as noblemen in England,
to take part with those barons who had basely forsaken their lord in
battle, and who had treated holy church with contumely. It is with
reason that the citizens of London assumed so much authority, if it be
true, what is related by Fitz-Stephen, a contemporary author, that
that city should at this time bring into the field no less than eighty
thousand combatants.[**]
[* W. Malms, p. 188. This author, a judicious man,
was present, and says that he was very attentive to what
passed. This speech therefore, may be regarded as entirely
genuine.]
[** Were this account to be depended on, London
must at that time have contained near four hundred thousand
inhabitants, which is above double the number it contained
at the death of Queen Elizabeth. But these loose
calculations, or rather guesses, deserve very little
credit. Peter of Blois, a contemporary writer, and a man of
sense, says there were then only forty thousand inhabitants
in London, which is much more likely. See epist. 151. What
Fitz-Stephen says of the prodigious riches, splendor, and
commerce of London, proves only the great poverty of the
other towns of the kingdoms and indeed of all the northern
parts of Europe.]
London, notwithstanding its great power, and its attachment to Stephen,
was at length obliged to submit to Matilda; and her authority, by the
prudent conduct of Earl Robert, seemed to be established over the whole
kingdom; but affairs remained not long in this situation. That princess,
besides the disadvantages of her sex, which weakened her influence over
a turbulent and martial people, was of a passionate, imperious spirit,
and knew not how to temper with affability the harshness of a refusal.
Stephen’s queen, seconded by many of the nobility, petitioned for the
liberty of her husband; and offered, that, on this condition, he should
renounce the crown, and retire into a convent. The legate desired
that Prince Eustace, his nephew, might inherit Boulogne and the other
patrimonial estates of his father.[*] The Londoners applied for the
establishment of King Edward’s laws, instead of those of King Henry,
which, they said, were grievous and oppressive.[**] All these petitions
were rejected in the most haughty and peremptory manner.
[* Brompton, p. 1031.]
[** Contin. Flor. Wigorn. p. 677. Gervase, p.1855]
The legate, who had probably never been sincere in his compliance with
Matilda’s government, availed himself of the ill humor excited by this
imperious conduct, and secretly instigated the Londoners to a revolt. A
conspiracy was entered into to seize the person of the empress, and
she saved herself from the danger by a precipitate retreat. She fled to
Oxford: soon after she went to Winchester, whither the legate, desirous
to save appearances, and watching the opportunity to ruin her cause, had
retired. But having assembled all his retainers, he openly joined his
force to that of the Londoners, and to Stephen’s mercenary troops,
who had not yet evacuated the kingdom; and he besieged Matilda in
Winchester. The princess, being hard pressed by famine, made her escape;
but in the flight, Earl Robert, her brother, fell into the hands of the
enemy. This nobleman, though a subject, was as much the life and soul of
his own party, as Stephen was of the other: and the empress, sensible of
his merit and importance, consented to exchange the prisoners on equal
terms. The civil war was again kindled with greater fury than ever.
{1142.} Earl Robert, finding the successes on both sides nearly
balanced, went over to Normandy, which, during Stephen’s captivity, had
submitted to the earl of Anjou; and he persuaded Geoffrey to allow his
eldest son, Henry, a young prince of great hopes, to take a journey
into England, and appear at the head of his partisans. {1143.} This
expedient, however, produced nothing decisive. Stephen took Oxford after
a long siege: he was defeated by Earl Robert at Wilton; and the empress,
though of a masculine spirit, yet being harassed with a variety of good
and bad fortune, and alarmed with continual dangers to her person and
family, at last retired into Normandy, {1146.} whither she had sent her
son some time before. The death of her brother, which happened nearly
about the same time, would have proved fatal to her interests, hail
not some incidents occurred which checked the course of Stephen’s
prosperity. This prince, finding that the castles built by the noblemen
of his own party encouraged the spirit of independence, and were little
less dangerous than those which remained in the hands of the enemy,
endeavored to extort from them a surrender of those fortresses and he
alienated the affections of many of them by this equitable demand. The
artillery, also, of the church, which his brother had brought over to
his side, had, after some interval, joined the other party. Eugenius
III. had mounted the papal throne; the bishop of Winchester was deprived
of the legantine commission, which was conferred on Theobald, archbishop
of Canterbury, the enemy and rival of the former legate. That pontiff,
also, having summoned a general council at Rheims, in Champagne, instead
of allowing the church of England, as had been usual, to elect its own
deputies, nominated five English bishops to represent that church, and
required their attendance in the council. Stephen, who, notwithstanding
his present difficulties, was jealous of the rights of his crown,
refused them permission to attend;[*] and the pope, sensible of his
advantage in contending with a prince who reigned by a disputed title,
took revenge by laying all Stephen’s party under an interdict.[**]
{1147.} The discontents of the royalists at being thrown into this
situation, were augmented by a comparison with Matilda’s party, who
enjoyed all the benefits of the sacred ordinances; and Stephen was at
last obliged, by making proper submissions to the see of Rome, to remove
the reproach from his party.[***]
{1148.} The weakness of both sides, rather than any decrease of mutual
animosity, having produced a tacit cessation of arms in England, many of
the nobility, Roger de Moubray, William de Warrenne, and others,
finding no opportunity to exert their military ardor at home, enlisted
themselves in a new crusade, which, with surprising success after former
disappointments and misfortunes, was now preached by St. Barnard.[****]
But an event soon after happened which threatened a revival of
hostilities in England. Prince Henry, who had reached his sixteenth
year, was desirous of receiving the honor of knighthood; a ceremony
which every gentleman in that age passed through before he was admitted
to the use of arms, and which was even deemed requisite for the greatest
princes.
[* Epist. St. Thom, p. 225.]
[** Chron. W. Thom, p. 1807.]
[*** Epist. St. Thom, p. 226.]
[**** Hagulstadt, p. 275, 276.]
He intended to receive his admission from his great-uncle, David, king
of Scotland; and for that purpose he passed through England with a great
retinue, and was attended by the most considerable of his partisans.
He remained some time with the king of Scotland, made incursions into
England, and by his dexterity and vigor in all manly exercises, by his
valor in war, and his prudent conduct in every occurrence, he roused the
hopes of his party, and gave symptoms of those great qualities which he
afterwards displayed when he mounted the throne of England. {1150.} Soon
after his return to Normandy, he was, by Matilda’s consent, invested in
that duchy, and upon the death of his father Geoffrey, which happened
in the subsequent year, he took possession both of Anjou and Maine, and
concluded a marriage which brought him a great accession of power, and
rendered him extremely formidable to his rival. Eleanor, the daughter
and heir of William, duke of Guienne, and earl of Poictou, had been
married sixteen years to Lewis VII., king of France, and had attended
him in a crusade which that monarch conducted against the infidels; but
having there lost the affections of her husband, and even fallen
under some suspicion of gallantry with a handsome Saracen, Lewis, more
delicate than politic, procured a divorce from her, and restored her
those rich provinces, which, by her marriage, she had annexed to the
crown of France. Young Henry, neither discouraged by the inequality
of years, nor by the reports of Eleanor’s gallantries, made successful
courtship to that princess, and espousing her six weeks after her
divorce, got possession of all her dominions as her dowry. {1152.} The
lustre which he received from this acquisition, and the prospect of
his rising fortune, had such an elect in England, that when Stephen,
desirous to insure the crown to his son Eustace, required the archbishop
of Canterbury to anoint that prince as his successor, the primate
refused compliance, and made his escape beyond sea, to avoid the
violence and resentment of Stephen.
{1153.} Henry, informed of these dispositions in the people, made
an invasion on England: having gained some advantage over Stephen at
Malmsbury, and having taken that place, he proceeded thence to throw
succors into Wallingford, which the king had advanced with a superior
army to besiege. A decisive action was every day expected, when the
great men of both sides, terrified at the prospect of further bloodshed
and confusion, interposed with their good offices, and set on foot a
negotiation between the rival princes, The death of Eustace, during the
course of the treaty, facilitated its conclusion: an accommodation was
settled, by which it was agreed that Stephen should possess the crown
during his lifetime, that justice should be administered in his name,
even in the provinces which had submitted to Henry, and that this latter
prince should, on Stephen’s demise, succeed to the kingdom, and William,
Stephen’s son, to Boulogne and his patrimonial estate. After all the
barons had sworn to the observance of this treaty, and done homage to
Henry, as to the heir of the crown, that prince evacuated the kingdom;
and the death of Stephen which happened next year, [October 25, 1154,]
after a short illness, prevented all those quarrels and jealousies which
were likely to have ensued in so delicate a situation.
England suffered great miseries during the reign of this prince: but
his personal character, allowing for the temerity and injustice of his
usurpation, appears not liable to any great exception; and he seems
to have been well qualified, had he succeeded by a just title, to
have promoted the happiness and prosperity of his subjects.[*] He was
possessed of industry, activity, and courage, to a great degree; though
not endowed with a sound judgment, he was not deficient in abilities;
he had the talent of gaining men’s affections, and notwithstanding his
precarious situation, he never indulged himself in the exercise of any
cruelty or revenge. His advancement to the throne procured him neither
tranquillity nor happiness; and though the situation of England
prevented the neighboring states from taking any durable advantage of
her confusions, her intestine disorders were to the last degree ruinous
and destructive. The court of Rome was also permitted, during those
civil wars, to make further advances in her usurpations; and appeals to
the pope, which had always been strictly prohibited by the English laws,
became now common in every ecclesiastical controversy.
[* W. Malms, p. 180., M. Paris, p. 51 Hagul, p. 312., H.
Hunting. p. 395.]