FEUDALISM UNDER A WEAK KING
The year 1138, which began with the siege of Bedford castle, has to be
reckoned as belonging to the time when Stephen's power was still to all
appearance unshaken. But it is the beginning of the long period of
continuous civil warfare which ended only a few months before his death.
Judgment had already been passed upon him as a king. It is clear that
certain opinions about him, of the utmost importance as bearing on the
future, had by this time fixed themselves in the minds of those most
interested--that severe punishment for rebellion was not to be feared
from him; that he was not able to carry through his will against strong
opposition, or to force obedience; and that lavish grants of money and
lands were to be extorted from him as a condition of support. The
attractive qualities of Stephen's personality were not obscured by his
faults or overlooked in passing this judgment upon him, for chroniclers
unfavourable to him show the influence of them in recording their opinion
of his weakness; but the general verdict is plainly that which was stated
by the Saxon Chronicle under the year 1137, in saying that "he was a mild
man, and soft, and good, and did no justice." Such traits of character in
the sovereign created conditions which the feudal barons of any land
would be quick to use to their own advantage.
The period which follows must not be looked upon as merely the strife
between two parties for the possession of the crown. It was so to the
candidates themselves; it was so to the most faithful of their
supporters. But to a large number of the barons most favourably situated,
or of those who were most unprincipled in pursuit of their own gain, it
was a time when almost anything they saw fit to demand might be won from
one side or the other, or from both alternately by well-timed treason. It
was the time in the history of England when the continental feudal
principality most nearly came into existence,--the only time after the
Conquest when several great dominions within the state, firmly united
round a local chief, obtained a virtual, or even it may be a formal,
independence of the sovereign's control. These facts are quite as
characteristic of the age as the struggle for the crown, and they account
for the continuance of the conflict more than does the natural balance of
the parties. No triumph for either side was possible, and the war ended
only when the two parties agreed to unite and to make common cause
against those who in reality belonged to neither of them.
From the siege of Bedford castle, Stephen had been called to march to the
north by the Scottish invasion, which early in January followed the
failure of David's embassy. All Scottish armies were mixed bodies, but
those of this period were so not merely because the population of
Scotland was mixed, but because of the presence of foreign soldiers and
English exiles, and many of them were practically impossible to control.
Portions of Northumberland down to the Tyne were ravaged with the usual
barbarities of Scottish warfare before the arrival of Stephen. On his
coming David fell back across the border, and Stephen made reprisals on a
small district of southern Scotland. But his army would not support him
in a vigorous pushing of the campaign. The barons did not want to fight
in Lent, it seemed. Evidences of more open treason appear also to have
been discovered, and Stephen, angry but helpless, was obliged to abandon
further operations.
Shortly after Easter David began a new invasion, and at about the same
time rebellion broke out in the south-west of England, in a way that
makes the suspicion natural that the two events were parts of a concerted
movement in favour of Matilda. This second Scottish invasion was hardly
more than a border foray, though it penetrated further into the country
than the first, and laid waste parts of Durham and Yorkshire. Lack of
discipline in the Scottish army prevented any wider success. The movement
in the south-west, however, proved more serious, and from it may be dated
the beginning of continuous civil war. Geoffrey Talbot, who had accepted
Stephen two years before, revolted and held Hereford castle against him.
From Gloucester, where he was well received, the king advanced against
Hereford about the middle of May, and took the castle after a month's
blockade, letting the garrison off without punishment, Talbot himself
having escaped the siege. But by the time this success had been gained,
or soon after, the rebellion had spread much wider.
Whether the insurrection in the south and west had become somewhat
general before, or was encouraged by it to begin, the chief event
connected with it was the formal notice which Robert of Gloucester served
on the king, by messengers from Normandy, who reached Stephen about the
middle of June, that his allegiance was broken off. A beginning of
rebellion, at least, as in England, had occurred somewhat earlier across
the channel. In May Count Waleran of Meulan and William of Ypres had gone
back to Normandy to put down the disturbances there. In June, Geoffrey of
Anjou entered the duchy again with an armed force, and is said to have
persuaded Robert to take the side of his sister. Probably Robert had
quite as much as Geoffrey to do with the concerted action which seems to
have been adopted, and himself saw that the time had come for an open
stand. He had been taking counsel of the Church on the ethics of the
case. Numerous churchmen had informed him that he was endangering his
chances of eternal life by not keeping his original oath. He had even
applied to the pope, and had been told, in a written and formal reply,
that he was under obligation to keep the oath which he had sworn in the
presence of his father. Whether Innocent II was deciding an abstract
question of morals in this answer, or was moved by some temporary change
of policy, it is impossible to say. Robert's conscience was not troubled
by the oath he had taken to Stephen except because it was in violation of
the earlier one. That had been a conditional oath, and Robert declared
that Stephen had not kept the terms of the agreement; besides he had no
right to be king and therefore no right to demand allegiance. Robert's
possessions in England were so wide, including the strong castles of
Bristol and Dover, and his influence over the baronage was so great, that
his defection, though Stephen must have known for some time that it was
probable, was a challenge to a struggle for the crown more desperate than
the king had yet experienced.
It is natural to suppose that the many barons who now declared against
the king, and fortified their castles, were influenced by a knowledge of
Robert's action, or at least by a knowledge that it was coming. No one of
these was of the rank of earl. William Peverel, Ralph Lovel, and Robert
of Lincoln, William Fitz John, William of Mohun, Ralph Paganel, and
William Fitz Alan, are mentioned by name as holding castles against the
king, besides a son of Robert's and Geoffrey Talbot who were at Bristol,
and Walkelin Maminot who held Dover. The movement was confined to the
southwest, but as a beginning it was not to be neglected. Stephen acted
with energy. He seized Robert's lands and destroyed his castles wherever
he could get at them. A large military force was summoned. The queen was
sent to besiege Dover castle, and she drew from her county of Boulogne a
number of ships sufficient to keep up the blockade of the harbour. The
king himself advanced from London, where he had apparently gone from
Hereford to collect his army and arrange his plans, against Bristol which
was the headquarters of Robert's party.
Bristol was strong by nature, protected by two rivers and open to the
sea, and it had been strongly fortified and prepared for resistance.
There collected the main force of the rebels, vassals of Robert, or men
who, like Geoffrey Talbot, had been dispossessed by Stephen, and many
mercenaries and adventurers. Their resources were evidently much less
than their numbers, and probably to supply their needs as well as to
weaken their enemies they began the ravaging of the country and those
cruel barbarities quickly imitated by the other side, and by many barons
who rejoiced in the dissolution of public authority--the plundering of
the weak by all parties--from which England suffered so much during the
war. The lands of the king and of his supporters were systematically laid
waste. Cattle were driven off, movable property carried away, and men
subjected to ingenious tortures to force them to give up the valuables
they had concealed. Robert's son, Philip Gai, acquired the reputation of
a skilful inventor of new cruelties. These plundering raids were carried
to a distance from the city, and men of wealth were decoyed or kidnapped
into Bristol and forced to give up their property. The one attempt of
these marauders which was more of the nature of regular warfare, before
the king's approach, illustrates their methods as well. Geoffrey Talbot
led an attack on Bath, hoping to capture the city, but was himself taken
and held a prisoner. On the news of this a plot was formed in Bristol for
his release. A party was sent to Bath, who besought the bishop to come
out and negotiate with them, promising under oath his safe return; but
when he complied they seized him and threatened to hang him unless
Geoffrey were released. To this the bishop, in terror of his life, at
last agreed. Stephen shortly after came to Bath on his march against
Bristol, and was with difficulty persuaded not to punish the bishop by
depriving him of his office.
Stephen found a difficult task before him at Bristol. Its capture by
assault was impracticable. A siege would have to be a blockade, and this
it would be very hard to make effective because of the difficulty of
cutting off the water communication. Stephen's failure to command the
hearty and honest support of his own barons is also evident here as in
almost every other important undertaking of his life. All sorts of
conflicting advice were given him, some of it intentionally misleading we
are told.[38] Finally he was persuaded that it would be better policy to
give up the attempt on Bristol for the present, and to capture as many as
possible of the smaller castles held by the rebels. In this he was fairly
successful. He took Castle Gary and Harptree, and, after somewhat more
prolonged resistance, Shrewsbury, which was held by William Fitz Alan,
whose wife was Earl Robert's niece. In this last case Stephen departed
from his usual practice and hanged the garrison and its commander. The
effect of this severity was seen at once. Many surrenders and submissions
took place, including, probably at this time, the important landing places
of Dover and Wareham.
In the meantime, at almost exactly the date of the surrender of
Shrewsbury, affairs in the north had turned even more decidedly in the
king's favour. About the end of July, King David of Scotland, very likely
as a part of the general plan of attack on Stephen, had crossed the
borders into England, for the third time this year, with a large army
gathered from all his dominions and even from beyond. Treason to Stephen,
which had before been suspected, now in one case at least openly declared
itself. Eustace Fitz John, brother of Payne Fitz John, and like him one
of Henry I's new men who had been given important trusts in the north,
but who had earlier in the year been deprived by Stephen of the custody
of Bamborough Castle on suspicion, joined King David with his forces, and
arranged to give up his other castles to him. David with his motley host
came on through Northumberland and Durham, laying waste the land and
attacking the strongholds in his usual manner. On their side the barons
of the north gathered in York at the news of this invasion, the greatest
danger of the summer, but found themselves almost in despair at the
prospect. Stephen, occupied with the insurrection in the south, could
give them no aid, and their own forces seemed unequal to the task. Again
the aged Archbishop Thurstan came forward as the real leader in the
crisis. He pictured the sacred duty of defence, and under his influence
barons and common men alike were roused to a holy enthusiasm, and the war
became a crusade. He promised the levies of the parishes under the parish
priests, and was with difficulty dissuaded, though he was ill, from
encouraging in person the warriors on the battlefield itself. A sacred
banner was given them under which to fight--the standard from which this
most famous battle of Stephen's reign gets its name--a mast erected on a
wagon, carrying the banners of St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverly,
and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, and with a pyx at the top containing the Host,
that, "present in his body with them, Christ might be their leader in the
battle." The army was full of priests and higher clergy, who moved
through the ranks before the fighting began, stimulating the high
religious spirit with which all were filled.
The list of the barons who gathered to resist this invasion contains an
unusual number of names famous in the later history of England. The
leader, from his age and experience and the general respect in which he
was held, was Walter Espec; the highest in rank was William of Aumale.
Others were Robert of Bruce, William of Percy, Ilbert of Lacy, Richard of
Courcy, Robert of Stuteville, William Fossard, Walter of Ghent, and Roger
of Mowbray, who was too young, men thought, to be in battle. Stephen had
sent a small reinforcement under Bernard of Balliol, and Robert of
Ferrers was there from Derbyshire, and William Peverel even, though his
castles were at the time defying the king in the further south. As the
armies were drawing near each other, Bruce and Balliol went together to
remind the Scottish king of all that his family owed to the kings of
England, and to persuade him to turn back, but they were hailed as
traitors because they owed a partial allegiance to Scotland, and their
mission came to nothing.
The battle was fought early in the day on August 22 near Northallerton.
The English were drawn up in a dense mass round their standard, all on
foot, with a line of the best-armed men on the outside, standing "shield
to shield and shoulder to shoulder," locked together in a solid ring, and
behind them the archers and parish levies. Against this "wedge" King
David would have sent his men-at-arms, but the half-naked men of Galloway
demanded their right to lead the attack. "No one of these in armour will
go further to-day than I will," cried a chieftain of the highlands, and
the king yielded. But their fierce attack was in vain against the "iron
wall"; they only shattered themselves. David's son Henry made a gallant
though badly executed attempt to turn the fortunes of the day, but this
failed also, and the Scottish army was obliged to withdraw defeated to
Carlisle. There was little pursuit, but the Scottish loss was heavy, and
great spoil of baggage and armour abandoned in their hasty retreat was
gathered by the English. David did not at once give up the war, but the
capture of Wark and a few border forays of subordinates were of no
influence on the result. The great danger of a Scottish conquest of the
north or invasion of central England was for the present over.
In a general balance of the whole year we must say that the outcome was
in favour of Stephen. The rebellion had not been entirely subdued.
Bristol still remained a threatening source of future danger. Stephen
himself had given the impression of restless but inefficient energy, of
rushing about with great vigour from one place to another, to besiege one
castle or another, but of accomplishing very little. As compared with the
beginning of the year he was not so strong or so secure as he had been;
yet still there was no serious falling off of power. There was nothing in
the situation which threatened his fall, or which would hold out to his
enemies any good hope of success. In Normandy the result of the year was
but little less satisfactory. Geoffrey's invasion in June had been
checked and driven back by Count Waleran and William of Ypres. In the
autumn the attempt was renewed, and with no better result, though
Argentan remained in Geoffrey's hands. The people of the duchy had
suffered as much as those of England from private war and unlicensed
pillage, but while such things indicated the weakness of authority they
accomplished little towards its overthrow.
During this year, 1138, Stephen adopted a method of strengthening himself
which was imitated by his rival and by later kings, and which had a most
important influence on the social and constitutional history of England.
We have noticed already his habit of lavish gifts. Now he began to
include the title of earl among the things to be given away to secure
fidelity. Down to this time the policy of William the Conqueror had been
followed by his successors, and the title had been very sparingly
granted. Stephen's first creation was the one already mentioned, that of
Hugh "the Poor," of Beaumont, as Earl of Bedford, probably just at the
end of 1137. In the midst of the insurrection of the south-west, Gilbert
of Clare, husband of the sister of the three Beaumont earls, was made
Earl of Pembroke. As a reward for their services in defeating King David
at the battle of the standard, Robert of Ferrers was made Earl of Derby,
and William of Aumale Earl of Yorkshire. Here were four creations in less
than a year, only a trifle fewer than the whole number of earls in
England in the last years of Henry I. In the end Stephen created nine
earls. Matilda followed him with six others, and most of these new titles
survived the period in the families on which they were conferred. It is
from Stephen's action that we may date the entry of this title into
English history as a mark of rank in the baronage, more and more freely
bestowed, a title of honour to which a family of great possessions or
influence might confidently aspire. But it must be remembered that the
earldoms thus created are quite different from those of the Anglo-Saxon
state or from the countships of France. They carried with them increase
of social consideration and rank, usually some increase of wealth in
grants from crown domains accompanying the creation, and very probably
increased influence in state and local affairs, but they did not of
themselves, without special grant, carry political functions or power, or
any independence of position. They meant rank and title simply, not
office.
Just at the close of the year the archbishopric of Canterbury was filled,
after being a twelvemonth in the king's hands. During the vacancy the pope
had sent the Bishop of Ostia as legate to England. He had been received
without objection, had made a visitation of England, and at Carlisle had
been received by the Scottish king as if that city were a part of his
kingdom. The ambition of Henry of Winchester to become primate of Britain
was disappointed. He had made sure of the succession, and seems actually
to have exercised some metropolitan authority; perhaps he had even been
elected to the see during the time when his brother's position was in
danger. But now Stephen declared himself firmly against his preferment,
and the necessary papal sanction for his translation from one see to
another was not granted. Theobald, Abbot of Bec, was elected by a process
which was in exact accordance with that afterwards described in the
Constitutions of Clarendon, following probably the lines of the compromise
between Henry and Anselm;[39] and he departed with the legate to receive
his pallium, and to attend with other bishops from England the council
which had been called by the pope. If Stephen's refusal to allow his
brother's advancement had been a part of a systematic policy, carefully
planned and firmly executed, of weakening and finally overthrowing the
great ecclesiastics and barons of England who were so strong as to be
dangerous to the crown, it would have been a wise act and a step towards
final success. But an isolated case of the sort, or two or three, badly
connected and not plainly parts of a progressive policy, could only be
exasperating and in truth weakening to himself. We are told that Henry's
anger inclined him to favour the Empress against his brother, and though
it may not have been an actual moving cause, the incident was probably not
forgotten when the question of supporting Matilda became a pressing one.
The year 1139, which was destined to see the king destroy by his own act
all prospect of a secure and complete possession of the throne, opened
and ran one-half its course with no change of importance in the
situation. In April, Queen Matilda, who was in character and abilities
better fitted to rule over England than her husband, succeeded in making
peace with King David of Scotland, who stood in the same relation to her
as to the other Matilda, the Empress, since she was the daughter of his
sister Mary. The earldom of Northumberland was at last granted to Henry,
except the two strong castles of Newcastle and Barnborough, and under
certain restrictions, and the Scots gave hostages for the keeping of the
peace. At the same date, in the great Lateran council at Rome, to which
the English bishops had gone with the legate, the pope seems to have put
his earlier decision in favour of Stephen into formal and public shape.
In Stephen's mind this favour of the pope's was very likely balanced by
another act of his which had just preceded it, by which Henry of
Winchester had been created papal legate in England. By this appointment
he was given supreme power over the English Church, and gained nearly all
that he had hoped to get by becoming Archbishop of Canterbury. Personally
Stephen was occupied during the early months of the year, as he had been
the year before, in attacking the castles which were held against him;
but in the most important case, the siege of Ludlow castle, he met with
no success.
At the end of June the great council of the kingdom came together at
Oxford, and there it was that Stephen committed the fatal mistake which
turned the tide of affairs against him. Of all the men who had been
raised to power in the service of Henry I, none occupied so commanding a
position as Roger, Bishop of Salisbury. As a priest he had attracted the
attention of Henry before he became king by the quickness with which he
got through the morning mass; he was taken into his service, and steadily
rose higher and higher until he became the head of the whole
administrative system, standing next to the king when he was in England,
and exercising the royal authority, as justiciar, when he was absent. In
his rise he had carried his family with him. His nephew Alexander was
Bishop of Lincoln. Another nephew Nigel was Bishop of Ely. His son Roger
was chancellor of the kingdom. The administrative and financial system
was still in the hands of the family. The opportunities which they had
enjoyed for so many years to enrich themselves from the public revenues,
very likely as a tacitly recognized part of the payment of their
services, they had not neglected. But they had gone further than this.
Evidently with some ulterior object in view, but with precisely what we
can only guess, they had been strengthening royal castles in their hands,
and even building new ones. That bishops should fortify castles of their
own, like barons, was not in accordance with the theory of the Church,
nor was it in accordance with the custom in England and Normandy. The
example had been followed apparently by Henry of Winchester, who had
under his control half a dozen strongholds. The situation would in
itself, and in any circumstances, be a dangerous one. In the present
circumstances the suspicion would be natural that a family which owed so
much to King Henry was secretly preparing to aid his daughter in an
attempt to gain the throne, and this suspicion was generally held by the
king's party. To this may be added the fact that, in the blow which he
now struck, we very possibly have an attempt on Stephen's part to carry
further the policy of weakening, in the interest of the crown, the too
strong ecclesiastical and baronial element in the state, which he had
begun in refusing the archbishopric of Canterbury to his brother. The
wealth of the family may have been an additional incentive, and intrigues
against these bishops by the powerful house of Beaumont are mentioned.
There is no reason to suppose, however, that the Beaumonts were not
acting, as they had so often done, in the real interests of the king,
which plainly demanded the breaking up of this threatening power. There
was nothing to indicate that the present was not a favourable time to
undertake it, and the best accounts of these events give us the
impression that Stephen was acting throughout with much confidence and a
feeling of strength and security.
Whatever may have been his motive, Stephen's first move at the beginning
of the Oxford meeting was the extreme one of ordering the arrest of
bishops Roger and Alexander. The pretext for this was a street brawl
between some of their men and followers of the Beaumonts, and their
subsequent refusal to surrender to the king the keys of their castles. A
step of this kind would need clear reasons to justify it and much real
strength to make it in the end successful. Taken on what looked like a
mere pretext arranged for the purpose, it was certain to excite the alarm
and opposition of the Church. Stephen himself hesitated, as perhaps he
would have in any circumstances. The historian most in sympathy with his
cause expresses his disapproval.[40] The familiar point was urged that the
bishops were arrested, not as bishops, but as the king's ministers; and
this would have been sufficient under a king like the first two Williams.
But the arrest was not all. The bishops were treated with much indignity,
and were compelled to deliver up their castles by fear of something worse.
In Roger's splendid castle of Devizes were his nephew, the Bishop of Ely,
who had escaped arrest at Oxford, and Maud of Ramsbury, the mother of his
son Roger the Chancellor. William of Ypres forced its surrender by making
ready to hang the younger Roger before the walls, and Newark castle was
driven to yield by threatening to starve Bishop Alexander.
The indignation of the clergy is expressed by every writer of the time.
It was probably especially bitter because Stephen was so deeply indebted
to them for his success and had recently made them such extensive
promises. Henry of Winchester, who may have had personal reasons for
alarm, was not disposed to play the part of Lanfranc and defend the king
for arresting bishops. He evidently believed that the king was not strong
enough to carry through his purpose, and that the Church was in a
position to force the issue upon him. Acting for the first time under his
commission as legate which he had received in the spring of the year, he
called a council to meet at Winchester, and summoned his brother to
answer before it for his conduct. The council met on August 30. The
Church was well represented. The legate's commission was read, and he
then opened the subject in a Latin speech in which he denounced his
brother's acts. The king was represented by Aubrey de Vere and the
Archbishop of Rouen, the baron defending the king's action point by
point, and the ecclesiastic denying the right of the bishops to hold
castles, and maintaining the right of the king to call for them. The
attempt of Henry did not succeed. His demand that the castles should be
given back to the bishops until the question should be settled was
refused, and the bishops were threatened with exile if they carried the
case to Rome. The council ended without taking any action against the
king. Some general decrees were adopted against those who laid hands on
the clergy or seized their goods, but it was also declared, if we are
right in attributing the action to this body, that the castles of the
kingdom belonged to the king and to his barons to hold, and that the
duties of the clergy lay in another direction. Stephen retained the
bishops' castles and the treasures which he had found in them; and when
Bishop Roger died, three months later, his personal property was seized
into the king's hands.
While these events were going on, the Empress and her brother had decided
that the time was favourable for a descent on England. In advance of
their coming, Baldwin of Redvers landed with some force at Wareham and
intrenched himself in Corfe castle against the king. Matilda and Robert
landed at Arundel on the last day of September with only one hundred and
forty men. Stephen had abandoned the siege of Corfe castle on the news
that they were about to cross, and had taken measures to prevent their
landing; but he had again turned away to something else, and their
landing was unopposed. Arundel castle was in possession of Adelaide, the
widowed queen of Henry I, now the wife of William of Albini. It is not
possible to suppose that this place was selected for the invasion without
a previous understanding; and there, in the keeping of her stepmother,
Robert left his sister and set out immediately on his landing for
Bristol, taking with him only twelve men. On hearing of this Stephen
pursued, but failed to overtake him, and turned back to besiege Arundel
castle. Then occurred one of the most astonishing events of Stephen's
career--astonishing alike to his contemporaries and to us, but typical in
a peculiar degree of the man.
Queen Adelaide became alarmed on the approach of Stephen, and began to
take thought of what she had to lose if the king should prove successful,
as there was every reason to suppose he would; and she proposed to
abandon Matilda's cause and to hand her over at once to Stephen. Here was
an opportunity to gain a most decided advantage--perhaps to end the whole
strife. With Matilda in his hands, Stephen would have been master of the
situation. He could have sent her back to Normandy and so have ended the
attempt at invasion. He could have kept her in royal captivity, or have
demanded the surrender of her claims as the price of her release. Instead
of seizing the occasion, as a Henry or a William would certainly have
done, he was filled with chivalrous pity for his cousin's strait, and
sent her with an escort under Henry of Winchester and Waleran of Meulan
to join her brother at Bristol. The writers of the time explain his
conduct by his own chivalrous spirit, and by the treasonable persuasions
of his brother Henry, who, we may believe, had now reasons for
disloyalty. The chivalrous ideals of the age certainly had great power
over Stephen, as they would have over any one with his popular traits of
mind and manners; and his strange throwing away of this advantage was
undoubtedly due to this fact, together with the readiness with which he
yielded to the persuasions of a stronger spirit. The judgment of Orderic
Vitalis, who was still writing in Normandy, is the final judgment of
history on the act: "Surely in this permission is to be seen the great
simplicity of the king or his great stupidity, and he is to be pitied by
all prudent men because he was unmindful of his own safety and of the
security of his kingdom."
This was the turning-point in Stephen's history. Within the brief space
of two months, by two acts surprisingly ill-judged and even of folly, he
had turned a position of great strength, which might easily have been
made permanently secure, into one of great weakness; and so long as the
struggle lasted he was never able to recover what he had lost. By his
treatment of the bishops he had turned against himself the party in the
state whose support had once been indispensable, and whose power to
injure him he was soon to feel. By allowing Matilda and her brother to
enter Bristol, he had given to all the diverse elements of opposition in
England the only thing they still needed; a natural leadership, and from
an impregnable position. Either of these mistakes alone might not have
been fatal. Their coming together as they did made then irretrievable
blunders.
No sudden falling off of strength marks the beginning of Stephen's
decline. Two barons of the west who had been very closely connected with
Henry I and with Robert, but who had both accepted Stephen, declared now
for Matilda, Brian Fitz Count of Wallingford, and Miles of Gloucester.
Other minor accessions in the neighbourhood seem to have followed. About
the middle of October the Empress went on to Gloucester, where her
followers terrorized city and country as they had at Bristol. Stephen
conducted his counter-campaign in his usual manner, attacking place after
place without waiting to finish any enterprise. The recovery of
Malmesbury castle, which he had lost in October, was his only success,
and this was won by persuasion rather than by arms. Hereford and
Worcester suffered severely from attacks of Matilda's forces, and
Hereford was captured. The occupation of Gloucester and Hereford was the
most important success of the Empress's party, and with Bristol they mark
the boundaries of the territory she may be said to have gained, with some
outlying points like Wallingford, which the king had not been able to
recover. On December 11, Bishop Roger of Salisbury died, probably never
having recovered from the blow struck by Stephen in August. He had
occupied a great place in the history of England, but it had been in
political and constitutional, not in religious history. It may very
likely have seemed to him, in the last three months of his life, that the
work to which he had given himself, in the organization of the
administrative and financial machinery of the government, was about to be
destroyed in the ruin of his family and the anarchy of civil war; but
such forebodings, if he felt them, did not prove entirely true.
The year 1140 is one of the most dreary in the slow and wearing conflict
which had now begun. No event of special interest tempts us to linger
upon details. The year opens with a successful attack by the king on
Nigel, Bishop of Ely, who had escaped at the time of his uncle's arrest,
and who was now preparing for revolt in his bishopric. Again the bishop
himself escaped, and joined Matilda's party, but Stephen took possession
of the Isle of Ely. An effort to add Cornwall to the revolted districts
was equally unsuccessful. Reginald of Dunstanville, a natural son of
Henry I, appeared there in the interest of his sister, who, imitating the
methods of Stephen, created him, at this time or a little later, Earl of
Cornwall; but his rule was unwise, and Stephen advancing in person had no
difficulty in recovering the country. The character which the war was
rapidly assuming is shown by the attempt of Robert Fitz Hubert, a Flemish
mercenary, to hold the strong castle of Devizes, which he had seized by
surprise, in his own interest and in despite of both parties. He fell a
victim to his own methods employed against himself, and was hanged by
Robert of Gloucester. In the spring a decided difference of opinion arose
between the king and his brother Henry about the appointment of a
successor to Roger of Salisbury, which ended in the rejection of both
their candidates and a long vacancy in the bishopric. Henry of Winchester
was, however, not yet ready openly to abandon the cause of his brother,
and he busied himself later in the year with efforts to bring about an
understanding between the opposing parties, which proved unavailing. A
meeting of representatives of both sides near Bath led to no result, and
a journey of Henry's to France, perhaps to bring the influence of his
brother Theobald and of the king of France to bear in favour of peace,
was also fruitless. During the summer Stephen gained an advantage in
securing the hand of Constance, the sister of Louis VII of France, for
his son Eustace, it was believed at the time by a liberal use of the
treasures of Bishop Roger.
At Whitsuntide and again in August the restlessness of Hugh Bigod in East
Anglia had forced Stephen to march against him. Perhaps he felt that he
had not received a large enough reward for the doubtful oath which he had
sworn to secure the king his crown. Stephen at any rate was now in a
situation where he could not withhold rewards, or even refuse demands in
critical cases; and it was probably at this time, certainly not long
after, that, following the policy he had now definitely adopted, he
created Hugh Earl of Norfolk. A still more important and typical case,
which probably occurred in the same year, is that of Geoffrey de
Mandeville. Grandson of a baron of the Conquest, he was in succession to
his father, constable of the Tower in London, and so held a position of
great strategic importance in turbulent times. Early in the strife for
the crown he seems to have seen very clearly the opportunity for
self-aggrandizement which was offered by the uncertainty of Stephen's
power, and to have resolved to make the most of it for his own gain
without scruple of conscience. His demand was for the earldom of Essex,
and this was granted him by the king. Apparently about the same time
occurred a third case of the sort which completes the evidence that the
weakness of Stephen's character was generally recognized, and that in the
resulting attitude of many of the greater barons we have the key to his
reign. One of the virtually independent feudal principalities created in
England by the Conqueror and surviving to this time was the palatine
earldom of Chester. The then earl was Ralph II, in succession to his
father Ralph Meschin, who had succeeded on the death of Earl Richard in
the sinking of the White Ship. It had been a grievance of the first
Ralph that he had been obliged by King Henry to give up his lordship of
Carlisle on taking the earldom, and this grievance had been made more
bitter for the second Ralph when the lordship had been transferred to the
Scots. There was trouble also about the inheritance of his mother Lucy,
in Lincolnshire, in which another son of hers, Ralph's half-brother,
William of Roumare, was interested. We infer that toward the end of the
year 1140 their attitude seemed threatening to the king, for he seems to
have visited them and purchased their adherence with large gifts,
granting to William the earldom of Lincoln.
Then follows rapidly the series of events which led to the crisis of the
war. The brothers evidently were not yet satisfied. Stephen had retained
in his hands the castle of Lincoln and this Ralph and William seized by a
stratagem. Stephen, informed of what had happened by a messenger from the
citizens, acted with his characteristic energy at the beginning of any
enterprise, broke up his Christmas court at London, and suddenly, to the
great surprise of the earls, appeared in Lincoln with a besieging army.
Ralph managed to escape to raise in Chester a relieving army, and at once
took a step which becomes from this time not infrequent among the barons
of his stamp. He applied for help to Robert of Gloucester, whose
son-in-law he was, and offered to go over to Matilda with all that he
held. He was received, of course, with a warm welcome. Robert recognized
the opportunity which the circumstances probably offered to strike a
decisive blow, and, gathering the strongest force he could, he advanced
from Gloucester against the king. On the way he was joined by the Earl of
Chester, whose forces included many Welsh ready to fight in an English
quarrel but badly armed. The attacking army skirted Lincoln and appeared
on the high road leading to it from the north, where was the best
prospect of forcing an entrance to the city.
The approach of the enemy led, as usual in Stephen's armies, to divided
counsels. Some were in favour of retreating and collecting a larger army,
others of fighting at once. To fight at once would be Stephen's natural
inclination, and he determined to risk a battle, which he must have known
would have decisive consequences. His army he drew up in three bodies
across the way of approach. Six earls were with the king, reckoning the
Count of Meulan, but they had not brought strong forces and there were
few horsemen. Five of these earls formed the first line. The second was
under William of Ypres and William of Aumale, and was probably made up
of the king's foreign troops. Stephen himself, with a strong band of
men all on foot, was posted in the rear. The enemy's formation was
similar. The Earl of Chester claimed the right to lead the attack,
because the quarrel was his, but the men upon whom Robert most depended
were the "disinherited," of whom he had collected many,--men raised up
by Matilda's father and cast down by Stephen, and now ready to stake all
on the hope of revenge and of restoration; and these he placed in the
first line. Earl Ralph led the second, and himself the third. The battle
was soon over, except the struggle round the king. His first and second
lines were quickly swept away by the determined charge of Robert's men
and took to flight, but Stephen and his men beat off several attacks
before he was finally overpowered and forced to yield. He surrendered
to Robert of Gloucester. Many minor barons were taken prisoners with
him, but the six earls all escaped. The citizens of Lincoln were punished
for their adhesion to the king's side by a sacking of the city, in which
many of them were slain. Stephen was taken to Gloucester by Robert, and
then sent to imprisonment in the castle of Bristol, the most secure place
which Matilda possessed.
[38] Gesta Stephani, 42.
[39] Gervase of Canterbury, i. 109. But see Ralph de Diceto, i. 252,
n. 2, and Böhmer, Kirche und Staat, 375.
[40] Gesta Stephani, 47.