ENGLAND AND THE BARONS.
1139–1147.
On the last day of September 1139 Matilda sailed in company with her
brother Robert and a hundred and forty knights;[831] they landed at
Arundel, and were received into the castle by its owner, the ex-queen
Adeliza.[832] Stephen hurried to besiege them there, but before he
could reach the spot one of the travellers had left it. Earl Robert
only stayed to place his sister in safety beneath her step-mother’s
roof,[833] and then set off to arouse her friends in England with the
tidings of her arrival. Stephen flew after him, but in vain. With an
escort of only twelve knights he rode right across southern England,
met Brian of Wallingford and told him the news, carried it on to Miles
at Gloucester, and got safe to his journey’s end at Bristol.[834] The
baffled king threw all his energies into the siege of Arundel, till his
brother joined him and suggested another scheme. Bishop Henry argued
that it was useless to besiege the Empress at one end of England while
her brother was stirring up the other, and that it would be far wiser
to get all the enemies collected in one spot by letting her follow
him to Bristol.[835] That Stephen, having once made up his mind to
this course, should not only give his rival a safe-conduct but should
commission the count of Meulan and the bishop of Winchester himself
to escort her till she reached her brother’s care,[836] was only what
might have been expected from his chivalrous character. Of the wisdom
of the proceeding it is difficult to judge. We can hardly imagine
either of Stephen’s predecessors giving a safe-conduct to a competitor
for his crown; but neither Rufus nor Henry had had to deal at once
with a lady-rival and with her brother; and both had been, materially,
politically and morally, in a much stronger position than Stephen.
As matters then stood with him, what in itself looks like a piece of
Quixotism may have been the best means of cutting an awkward knot; and
both he and Matilda played their game so badly from beginning to end
that it is hardly worth while to criticize single moves on either side.
[831] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 29 (Hardy, p.
724). The _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 56, and Rob. Torigni,
a. 1139, also name Arundel as the landing-place, but give
no date. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 11 (Arnold, p. 266), says
merely “statim,”--_i.e._ immediately after the council at
Winchester. Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. pp. 116,
117, says first “in October,” and afterwards “before S.
Peter-in-chains,”--_i.e._ August 1; but he is clearly wrong in
this as well as in saying they landed at Portsmouth.
[832] Will. Malm. as above (p. 725).
[833] Rob. Torigni, a. 1139, says he left her there “cum uxore
suâ et aliis impedimentis.”
[834] Will. Malm. as above. _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 56.
Rob. Torigni, a. 1139.
[835] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 56, 57.
[836] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 29 (Hardy, p. 725).
Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 117. Hen. Hunt., l.
viii. c. 11 (Arnold, p. 266).
The next seven years were a time such as England never saw before or
since. For want of a better name, we call them the years of civil
war and count them as part of the reign of Stephen; but the struggle
was not worthy of the name of war, and the authority of the Crown,
whether vested in Stephen or in Matilda, was a mockery and a shadow.
The whole system of government established by King Henry had fallen
with his ministers; the death of Bishop Roger in December 1139[837] was
typical of the extinction of all law and order throughout the kingdom,
nearly half of which had already slipped from Stephen’s grasp. While
he kept his Christmas feast in Roger’s episcopal city,[838] Matilda
was doing the like in regal state at Gloucester, receiving homage
from the western shires, and distributing lands and honours at her
will.[839] Of the Easter assembly there is no notice at all,[840]
and by Whitsuntide matters had reached such a pass that Stephen held
his court not at Westminster as usual but in the Tower, and only one
bishop, and that one a foreigner, could be got to attend it.[841] “In
those days,” wrote one who lived through them, “there was no king in
the land, and every man did not only, as once in Israel of old, that
which was right in his own eyes, but that which he knew and felt to
be wrong.”[842] For the first and last time in English history, the
feudal principle had full play, uncontrolled by any check either from
above or from below, from regal supremacy or popular influence. England
was at the mercy of the body of feudal nobles whose aim throughout
the last seventy years had been to break through the checks placed
upon their action by the Conqueror and his sons, and to master the
power of the Crown and the control of the state for their own private
interests, as the French feudataries had striven in an earlier time to
master the Crown of France. This was the condition into which Normandy
fell whenever its ducal coronet passed to a weak man or a child, and
from which it had had to be forcibly rescued by almost every duke in
succession, from Richard the Fearless to Henry the First. By their
sternly repressive policy, by their careful adoption and dexterous
use of all those safeguards and checks upon the power of the baronage
which could be drawn from old English constitutional practice, by their
political alliance with the nation against the disruptive tendencies
of feudalism, and by their strict administrative routine, the
Conqueror and his sons had hitherto managed to save England from such
a catastrophe. The break-down of their system under Stephen revealed
its radical defect: it rested, in the last resort, on a purely personal
foundation--on the strong hand of the king himself. The “nineteen
winters” that England “suffered for her sins” under the nominal reign
of Stephen were a time of discipline which taught the people, the
sovereign, and at last even the barons themselves, to seek a wider
and more lasting basis for the organization and administration of the
state. The discipline was a very bitter one. The English chronicler’s
picture of it has been copied times out of number, yet whoever would
paint that terrible scene can but copy it once again. “Every rich man
made his castles and held them against the king, and filled the land
with castles. They greatly oppressed the wretched men of the land with
castle-work; and when the castles were made, they filled them with
devils and evil men. They took the men who they weened had any goods,
both by night and by day, men and women, and put them in prison for
gold and silver, and tortured them with unspeakable torture; never
were martyrs so tortured as they were.... When the wretched men had
no more to give, they reaved and burned all the townships; and well
thou mightest fare all a day’s journey and shouldst never find a man
sitting in a township, or land tilled. Corn and cheese and butter were
dear, for there was none in the land. Wretched men starved of hunger;
some went about asking alms who once were rich men; some fled out of
the land. Never was more wretchedness in a land, and never did heathen
men worse than these did, for they forbore neither for church nor
churchyard, but took all the goods that were therein and then burned
church and all.... If two or three men came riding to a township, all
fled from them, thinking they were reavers. The bishops and clerks
were ever cursing them; but that was nought to them; for they were all
accursed, and forsworn, and lost. Even if it was tilled, the earth bare
no corn, for it was all undone with their deeds; and they said openly
that Christ slept, and His holy ones. Such things, and more than we can
say, did we thole nineteen winters for our sins.”[843]
[837] Will. Malm. (as above), c. 32 (Hardy, p. 727). Flor.
Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 113, under a wrong year.
[838] Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 122.
[839] _Ib._ p. 118. Will. Malm. (as above), cc. 29, 31 (pp.
725, 726).
[840] The only allusion to it is in Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 12
(Arnold, p. 267); “Ubi autem ad Natale vel ad Pascha fuerit
[sc. rex], dicere non attinet.” As to Christmas, however, see
above, p. 310.
[841] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 37 (Hardy, p. 734).
The bishop was John of Séez.
[842] Will. Newb., l. i. c. 22 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 69).
[843] Eng. Chron. a. 1137.
The military history of the struggle is scarcely worth following out
in detail; for the most part it is but a dreary tale of raid and
counter-raid, of useless marches and unfinished sieges, of towns
and castles taken and retaken, plundered and burned, without any
settled plan of campaign on either side.[844] By the close of the
year 1140 the geographical position of the two parties may be roughly
marked off by a line drawn from the Peak of Derbyshire to Wareham on
the Dorset coast. Owing to the influence of Robert of Gloucester,
Matilda was generally acknowledged throughout the western shires; but
she was almost imprisoned in them, for the great highway of central
England, the valley of the Thames, from Oxford to the sea, was still
in Stephen’s hands; London was loyal to him, and so was Kent, although
the archbishop as yet stood aloof from both parties, as did also the
legate-bishop of Winchester and the bishops and clergy in general.
North of Thames, the midland shires served as a wide battle-field where
each of the combatants in turn gained and lost ground, without any
decisive advantage on either side. In East-Anglia, Hugh Bigod was for
the moment again professing obedience to Stephen, but he was simply
watching the political tide to take it at the flood and use it for
his own interest; and so were the chief men of central and northern
England, the earls of Northampton, Derby and York, the lords of the
Peak, of Holderness and of Richmond. In the north-west, between the
Welsh march and the southern border of Cumberland, lay a district ruled
by an almost independent chieftain whose action brought about the first
crisis in the war.
[844] The details of the first year’s fighting are in _Gesta
Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 58–69; Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol.
ii. pp. 118–128; and Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. cc. 30,
31, 34–37 (Hardy, pp. 726, 730–735).
Of all the great nobles, the one whom both parties were most anxious
to win to their own interest was the earl of Chester. His earldom
was no empty title, no mushroom creation of the last few years, but
a great palatine jurisdiction inherited in regular succession from
Hugh of Avranches, on whom it had been conferred by the Conqueror, and
comprising the sole government and ownership of the whole of Cheshire.
Within its limits the earl ruled supreme; every acre of land, save
what belonged to the Church, was held under him; every man owed him
suit and service; the king himself had no direct authority within the
little realm of Chester, and could claim from its sovereign nothing
but the homage due from vassal to overlord. The earl, in fact, as has
been often said, “held Chester by the sword as freely as the king
held England by the crown;” and as things now stood the earl’s tenure
was by far the more secure of the two. The present ruler of this
miniature kingdom, Ralf by name, had been married almost in his boyhood
to a daughter of Robert of Gloucester.[845] All his father-in-law’s
persuasions, however, had as yet failed to draw him to Matilda’s
side. Stephen on the other hand was equally alive to the importance
of securing Ralf’s adherence, and lavished upon him all the honours
he could desire,[846] with one exception. That one was the earldom
of Carlisle, which his father had held for a few years and then
surrendered in exchange for that of his cousin Richard of Chester,
who perished in the White Ship.[847] Ralf accordingly quarrelled for
the possession of Carlisle with Henry of Scotland, of whose Cumbrian
earldom it now formed a part. Henry appealed to Stephen, who could not
but take his side,[848] yet for his own sake was anxious to satisfy
Ralf. The mother of Ralf and of his elder half-brother William of
Roumare was a great Lincolnshire heiress, daughter of Ivo Taillebois
by his marriage with a lady of Old-English race whose family held
considerable estates in that county, of which one of them had been
sheriff under the Conqueror.[849] In consequence, no doubt, of this old
connexion, Stephen at the close of the year 1140 contrived a meeting
with the two brothers somewhere in Lincolnshire, and there bestowed
great honour upon them both,[850] including, as it seems, a grant of
the earldom of Lincoln to William of Roumare.[851] A mere empty title,
however, satisfied neither of the brother-earls. Rather, as the English
chronicler says of them and of all the rest, “the more he gave them the
worse they were to him.”[852] His back was no sooner turned than they
planned a trick, which their wives helped them to execute, for gaining
possession of Lincoln castle.[853] There Ralf set himself up as lord
and master of the city and the neighbourhood;[854] and we can want no
more speaking witness to the character of such feudal tyranny as was
represented in his person than the fact that not only the citizens, but
Stephen’s late victim Bishop Alexander himself, sent the king an urgent
appeal to come and deliver them from the intruder.[855]
[845] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 38 (Hardy, p. 739).
[846] “Noht forthi thæt he ne iaf him al thæt he cuthe axan
him, alse he dide alle othre.” Eng. Chron. a. 1140.
[847] On the earldoms of Carlisle and Chester, see Mr. Hodgson
Hinde’s _Introd. to Pipe Rolls of Cumberland_, and his paper on
the “Early History of Cumberland,” in _Archæological Journal_,
vol. xvi. pp. 229, 230.
[848] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), pp. 131, 132.
[849] On the person, pedigree and connexions of Ralf’s mother,
Countess Lucy, see Appendix P.P. to Mr. Freeman’s _Norm.
Conq._, vol. iii. pp. 778, 779; and Mr. J. G. Nichols’s paper
on the “Earldom of Lincoln,” in _Proceedings of Archæological
Institute_, Lincoln, 1849, pp. 254–257.
[850] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 38 (Hardy, p. 739).
[851] See Nichols, “Earldom of Lincoln” (_Proc. Archæol.
Inst._, Lincoln, 1849), p. 260.
[852] Eng. Chron. a. 1140.
[853] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 921.
[854] “Cumque civibus et affinibus dira injungeret.” _Gesta
Steph._ (Sewell), p. 70.
[855] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 38 (Hardy, p. 739).
_Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 70. Ord. Vit. as above. The last
alone mentions the bishop.
The news reached Stephen as he was keeping Christmas in London, and the
peaceful gathering of the court changed into the muster of an armed
host which set off at once for Lincoln, and, actively supported by
the citizens and the bishop, sat down to besiege the castle.[856] The
present polygonal keep of Lincoln castle appears to have been built by
Ralf of Chester in the last years of Stephen’s reign. That which he now
occupied stood on the same spot, on the south side of the enclosure,
and was the original round shell built by the Conqueror upon a mound
of still earlier date. Its base was surrounded by ditches, the outer
fortifications on that side being on a lower level, and probably still
consisting of nothing more than the old English rampart-mound and
palisade; the other three sides of the enclosure, where there was no
such steep natural incline, were protected by a curtain-wall raised
upon the old mounds, and encircled by ditches wide and deep, but
dry, for there was no means of contriving a moat on the top of that
limestone crag. The brother-earls were not prepared for Stephen’s
prompt and vigorous attack: their force was small, and they had their
wives and children to protect. Ralf slipped out alone,[857] made his
way to Chester to raise his followers there, and sent a message to his
father-in-law offering his allegiance to the Empress if Robert would
help the besieged at Lincoln out of their strait.[858] Even had his
own daughter not been among them, Earl Robert was not the man to miss
such a chance. At the head of the entire force of his party he answered
Ralf’s appeal; but so keenly did he feel the importance of the crisis
that he kept the real object of his expedition a secret from all but
his own nearest friends; and the bulk of his host followed him all the
way from Gloucester without any idea whither he was leading them, till
they found themselves actually in sight of the foe.[859]
[856] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 13 (Arnold, p. 268). Ord. Vit. as
above. According to Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 38,
39 (Hardy, pp. 739, 740), the castle was closely invested all
round, and a chief base of operations seems to have been the
minster.
[857] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 38 (Hardy, p. 740).
Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 921.
[858] Ord. Vit. as above.
[859] Will. Malm. (as above), c. 39 (p. 741).
The two earls probably met at Claybrook in Leicestershire. At that
point Ralf, coming down from Chester by the Watling Street, and Robert,
marching up by a branch road from Gloucester, would both strike into
the Foss-Way, and thence would follow its north-eastward course along
the eastern side of the Trent valley. Between the road, the river
and the promontory of Lincoln stretched a tract of low-lying marshy
ground across which the Foss-Dyke ran from the Trent at Torksey into
the Witham just above the bridge of Lincoln, thus connecting the two
rivers and forming an outlet for the superfluous waters of the Trent,
which in rainy seasons was only too apt, as it is even now, to overflow
its banks and flood all the surrounding country. Against the storms
of the winter of 1140 all precautions had failed; the surging stream
had risen far above the level of the dyke, and the greater part of the
ground between it and the south-western slope of the Lincoln hill was
drowned in one vast sheet of water. The Foss-Way entered the city by
a bridge over the Witham; the two earls, however, could not venture to
take this route, and made instead for an ancient ford which crossed
the river a little farther westward, nearer to its junction with the
Foss-Dyke. Stephen was evidently expecting them and had anticipated
their course, for he had posted a detachment of troops to guard the
site of this ford.[860] All trace of the ford itself, however, was lost
in the flood. “Even so would I have it,” cried the earl of Gloucester
to his son-in-law, as in the dawn of Candlemas-day they reached the
southern margin of the water; “once across, retreat will be impossible;
we must conquer or die.” The two leaders plunged in, swam boldly across
the fordless stream, and their whole host followed their example.[861]
Stephen’s outpost fled or was overcome, and the earls apparently wound
their way round the foot of the hill till they reached a tract of
comparatively high and dry ground on its south-western side. On the
eastern border of this tract, close under shelter of the ridge, a dark
moving shadow might tell them that swift and secret as their march had
been, Stephen was aware of it and had drawn out all his forces to meet
them;[862] while on the height above there loomed out dimly, through
the chill grey mist of the February morning, the outlines of the
fortress which they had come to deliver.
[860] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 71. See note at end of
chapter.
[861] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 40 (Hardy, p. 741).
Cf. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 15 (Arnold, p. 268).
[862] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 71. See note at end of
chapter.
As they drew up in battle array on the marshy meadows there arose a
momentary dispute for precedence. The fiery young earl of Chester
pleaded that as the quarrel was his, so the foremost place of danger
and of honour should be his likewise. But the quarrel was no longer
Ralf’s alone. The flower of the army which had come to aid him
consisted of the “Disinherited,” the men whom Stephen had deprived
of their lands and honours to bestow them on his own favourites--the
men whom Henry had raised up and whom Stephen had cast down[863]--and
for them Earl Robert claimed the right of striking the first blow to
avenge at once their own wrongs and those of King Henry’s heiress.
While his eloquence was winding up their feelings to the highest pitch
of excitement,[864] all was astir in the royal camp. There, too, crown
and kingdom were felt to be at stake, and many of Stephen’s friends
besought him not to risk everything in a pitched battle till he should
have gathered a larger force--above all, not on that holy day, for it
was Sexagesima Sunday as well as the feast of the Purification.[865]
Sinister omens at the early mass--the breaking of the lighted taper
in the king’s hand, the falling of the pyx upon the altar[866]--lent
additional force to their entreaties; but Stephen was impatient for
the crisis and would hear of no delay.[867] He drew up his host in
three divisions; two on horseback, commanded respectively by Alan of
Richmond and William of Ypres;[868] the third on foot around the royal
standard, with the king himself in their midst.[869] In the opposing
army the van was taken by the “Disinherited”; the men of Chester,
who had first occupied it, now stood in the second line, under the
command of their own earl, and on foot.[870] The third line was headed
by Robert of Gloucester, and on the wings of the host was a crowd of
half-savage Welshmen, drawn from the Welsh dependencies of the earldoms
of Gloucester and Chester, and “better furnished with daring than with
arms.”[871]
[863] “Quos magnus rex Henricus erexit, iste dejecit--ille
instruxit, iste destruxit.” Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 15 (Arnold,
p. 270).
[864] See Robert’s speech in Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 15
(Arnold, pp. 268–271); and cf. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist.
Norm. Scriptt._), p. 922. What does Orderic mean by “Bassiani”?
[865] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 921.
[866] _Ib._ p. 922. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 16 (Arnold, p.
271). There is another version of the story about the taper in
_Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 70, 71.
[867] Ord. Vit. as above.
[868] “Tres nimirum cohortes sibi Rex constituit.... In primâ
fronte regalis exercitûs Flandritæ et Britones erant.” _Ibid._
Compared with the account of the actual battle in Hen. Hunt.,
l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, pp. 273, 274), the meaning seems to be
as given above.
[869] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 16 (Arnold, p. 271).
[870] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 922. Cf. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c.
13 (Arnold, p. 268), and c. 18 (p. 273).
[871] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 13 (Arnold, p. 268). Cf. Ord.
Vit. as above.
In the midst of a spirited harangue addressed to the royal troops by
Baldwin of Clare--for among all Stephen’s popular gifts, that of
eloquence was lacking[872]--Earl Robert sounded his trumpets for the
attack. The Disinherited charged the first line of the royal cavalry
under the earls of Richmond, Meulan, Norfolk, Northampton and Surrey,
with such vigour that it was scattered almost in a moment. The second
line of Stephen’s cavalry--the Flemings under William of Ypres and the
count of Aumale--were attacked in flank by the Welsh, whom they put
to flight, but a charge of the men of Chester dispersed them in their
turn, and the whole body of horsemen on the king’s side turned tail at
once.[873] Even William of Ypres for once forsook his royal friend; and
the hasty flight of the other leaders, with Alan of Richmond at their
head, shewed how half-hearted was their attachment to the king.[874]
Stephen and his foot-soldiers were left alone in the midst of the foe,
who closed round them on all sides and set to work to assault them
as if besieging a fortress. Again and again the horsemen dashed upon
that living wall, each time leaving a ghastly breach, but each time
driven back from the central point[875] where the king stood like a
lion at bay,[876] cutting down every one who came within reach of his
sword. The sword broke; but a citizen of Lincoln who stood at his side
replaced it by a yet more terrible weapon--one of those two-handed
Danish battle-axes which it seems had not yet gone quite out of use in
the Danelaw.[877] Almost all his followers were taken or slain, yet
still he fought on, with the rage of a wild beast[878] and the courage
of a hero, alone against an army. At last Chester charged with all
his forces straight at the king. Down upon his helmet came the axe,
and Ralf, on his knees in the mire, learned that he was even yet no
match for his deserted and outraged sovereign.[879] Most likely it was
that blow, dealt at the traitor with all Stephen’s remaining strength,
which broke the axe in his hands.[880] Then a stone, hurled no one knew
whence, struck him on the head and he fell.[881] A knight, William of
Kahaines, seized him by the helmet, shouting “Hither, hither! I have
the king!”[882] Yet even then Stephen shook him off, and it was only
to Robert of Gloucester in person that he deigned to surrender at
last.[883] Baldwin of Clare and three other faithful ones were captured
with him; all the rest of the gallant little band were already taken
or slain.[884] The triumphant host marched into Lincoln and sacked
the town under the royal captive’s eyes.[885] He was then conveyed to
Gloucester and there presented, as a great prize, by Earl Robert to his
sister, who straightway sent him to prison in Bristol castle.[886]
[872] “Tunc quia rex Stephanus festivâ carebat voce.” Hen.
Hunt., l. viii. c. 16 (Arnold, p. 271).
[873] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, pp. 273, 274).
[874] “His men him suyken and flugæn.” Eng. Chron. a. 1140.
Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 134, says Alan deserted before the
battle began, but Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, p. 273),
and Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 922, both
name him as receiving the first charge. Orderic (as above) is
loud in his denunciations of the traitors. He says that some
of them had adopted a practice not unknown in the civil war of
the seventeenth century, and still more largely followed in
the Jacobite risings of the eighteenth--that of joining the
king with a part of their men, and sending the remainder to his
enemies.
[875] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, p. 274).
[876] “Stetit autem rex in acie quasi leo.” Joh. Hexh. (Raine),
p. 135.
[877] _Ibid._ Hen. Hunt. (as above) says the axe was the first
weapon, and the sword replaced it when broken, but John’s is
far the more likely version. See also Ord. Vit. (as above) and
Rob. Torigni, a. 1141.
[878] “Rugiens ut leo ... stridens dentibus, spumans ore, apri
more.” Rob. Torigni, a. 1141.
[879] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 135.
[880] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold, p. 274), says that
both sword and axe broke.
[881] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 40 (Hardy, p. 742).
[882] Hen. Hunt. as above.
[883] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._) p. 922. Joh.
Hexh. as above. For other accounts see Will. Malm. as above;
_Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 71; and Will. Newb., l. i. c. 8
(Howlett, vol. i. pp. 39, 40). All agree in praise of Stephen’s
valour.
[884] Ord. Vit. as above. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 18 (Arnold,
pp. 274, 275).
[885] Will. Malm., Hen. Hunt. and Will. Newb. as above.
[886] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 41 (Hardy, p. 742).
Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 19 (Arnold, p. 275). Will. Newb., l. i.
c. 8 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 40). _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 72.
Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 129, giving the date,
February 9 [1141].
Matilda’s day had come now. Within three weeks after the battle of
Lincoln one of her adherents, Miles Beauchamp, regained Bedford castle
from its titular earl Hugh the Poor;[887] William Peverel was forced
to surrender Nottingham;[888] Hervey of Lions, Stephen’s son-in-law,
was driven out of Devizes;[889] and Alan of Richmond, repenting of
his treason and vainly striving to atone for it, was caught in a trap
which he himself had laid for Ralf of Chester, flung into a dungeon,
and compelled to make submission to the earl and the Empress both at
once;[890] while voluntary offers of service and homage came flowing
in to Gloucester from all quarters.[891] Still the clergy held aloof.
The outrage of Midsummer 1139 had made it impossible for them to
support the king; but he was still the Lord’s anointed, to whom their
faith was pledged; and their leader, Henry of Winchester, was his own
brother. Matilda, anxious above all things to gain Henry’s adhesion,
bluntly sent him word that if he would join her, she would honour him
as the chief among her counsellors; if not, she would lead “all the
armies of England” against him at once. The legate, thus driven into
a corner--for, at the moment, her words were by no means an empty
threat--felt that even for his brother’s interest, let alone the
interest of the Church, which was really dearer to him than all beside,
his best course was to make terms with the victorious party.[892] The
terms were arranged between him and his imperial cousin in person, on
a rainy March morning in the plain before Winchester. Next day the old
West-Saxon capital opened its gates to the Empress, and the legate
himself, with a long train of bishops and abbots, clergy and people,
led her in triumphal procession to the “Old Minster” where so many of
her forefathers had been crowned and buried.[893]
[887] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 74. Cf. _ib._ p. 32.
[888] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 136.
[889] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 74. Cf. _ib._ p. 69. Hervey,
it must be noticed, was actually expelled not by Matilda’s
partizans, but by the poor country folk whom his oppressions
had exasperated. But it was Matilda who got the benefit of his
expulsion.
[890] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 136.
[891] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 74.
[892] _Ib._ p. 75.
[893] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 42 (Hardy, pp. 743,
744). In Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 130, this
entry into Winchester on March 3 is confused with Matilda’s
formal election there in April. So it is also in _Gesta Steph._
(Sewell), p. 75.
In a few days the archbishop of Canterbury followed the legate’s
example and swore fealty to the Empress at Wilton.[894] She next
advanced to her father’s burial-place, Reading, and thence summoned
Robert of Oilly, who had been her father’s constable, to surrender
Oxford castle; the summons was obeyed,[895] and she held her Easter
court at Oxford.[896] The key of the upper valley of the Thames being
thus in her hands, she set herself to win its lower valley by advancing
to S. Alban’s and thence opening negotiations with London.[897] A
deputation of its citizens were at the same time invited by the
legate-bishop to a great council at Winchester on the second Monday
after Easter. The first day of the council was spent in a succession
of private conferences; on the second Henry spoke out publicly. He set
forth how, as vicar of the Apostolic see, he had summoned this assembly
to consider of the best means of restoring order in the land; he
contrasted its present wretched state with the good peace which it had
enjoyed under King Henry; he recited how the crown had been promised
to Matilda;--how, in consequence of her absence at her father’s
death, it had seemed wiser to secure a king at once in the person of
Stephen;--how he, the speaker, had stood surety for the maintenance
of the new king’s promises to the Church and the nation:--and how
shamefully those promises had been broken. He had tried to bring his
brother to reason, but in vain; and now the matter had been decided
by a higher Power. The judgment of the God of battles had delivered
Stephen into the hand of his rival, and cast him down from his throne;
the speaker’s duty was to see that throne filled at once. He had
spent the previous day in consultation with the bishops and clergy to
whom the right of election chiefly belonged; their choice had fallen
upon the candidate to whom their faith had been plighted long ago;
he called upon them now publicly to confirm their choice, and swear
fealty to King Henry’s heiress as Lady of England and Normandy.
[894] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 42 (Hardy, p. 744).
Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 130.
[895] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above.
[896] Will. Malm. as above. The Contin. Flor. Worc. says she
spent Easter at Wilton, and places the visits to Reading and
Oxford between Easter and Rogation-tide; but his chronology is
very confused, while that of Will. Malm. is especially careful
just here. William’s account of all these matters is by far the
best. The _Gesta Steph._ cuts them very short.
[897] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 131.
Not a dissentient voice was raised save that of a clerk of the queen’s
household, who ventured to read out a letter from his mistress to
the legate, passionately entreating for her husband’s restoration.
The deputation from London, who seem to have been the only laymen in
the assembly, did not exactly oppose the decision of the majority;
they merely pleaded for Stephen’s release, and carried back a report
of the proceedings to their fellow-citizens, with a view to gaining
their assent. It was not till just before midsummer that the Londoners
were finally persuaded to forsake their own chosen king;[898] then,
indeed, they opened their gates with the utmost humility;[899] and thus
the Lady entered her capital and took up her abode at Westminster in
triumph.[900]
[898] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 43–48 (Hardy, pp.
744–749).
[899] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 76, 77.
[900] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 131.
The triumph did not last long. Matilda fell, just as her rival had
fallen, by her own fault; only the faults of the two cousins were
of a directly opposite nature. The Lady’s habitual temper was that
of her grandfather the Conqueror--“very stern to all who withstood
her will”; and her will was not, like his, kept under the control of
sound policy and reason. Where Stephen had erred through his fatal
readiness to listen to the most worthless counsellors, Matilda erred
through her obstinate refusal to listen to any counsellors at all. She
was no sooner in London than she began confiscating lands and honours
and disposing of Church property more ruthlessly than ever Stephen
had done; and neither the brother to whom she owed her victory, nor
the legate to whom she owed her throne, nor the old king of Scots who
came to share his niece’s triumph and give her the benefit of his
mature wisdom, could succeed in bringing her to reason. Not a word of
conciliation would she hear from any one. The queen appealed to her
in behalf of her captive husband; some of the great nobles did the
like; but she was deaf to their prayers. The bishop of Winchester
besought her at least to secure to Stephen’s children the possessions
which he had held before he became king; but she would not hear him
either. The citizens of London besought her to give them back “the
Laws of King Eadward”;[901] and that, too, she refused. She did worse;
she summoned the richest burghers to her presence, demanded from them
instant payment of a large sum of money, and when they respectfully
remonstrated, drove them away with a torrent of abuse, utterly refusing
all abatement or delay.[902] She was soon punished. All through
the spring Matilda of Boulogne had been busy in Kent with the help
of William of Ypres, rallying her husband’s scattered partizans,
and gathering an army which she now led up, wasting, plundering,
slaughtering all before them, almost to the gates of London. Her
vigorous action determined that of the citizens. One day, as the
Empress was quietly sitting down to dinner, the bells began to ring,
the people came swarming out of their houses “like bees out of a hive”;
the whole city flew to arms; and she and her friends were driven to
flee, some one way, some another, as fast as their horses could carry
them.[903] Earl Robert accompanied his sister as far as Oxford;[904]
thence she hurried on to Gloucester to consult with her favourite
Miles, the only person who seems to have had any real influence over
her, and brought him back with her to Oxford to help in rallying her
scattered forces.[905] Her cousin the queen meanwhile was in London at
the head of an enthusiastic city, eager for the restoration of Stephen;
from one end of England to the other the heroic wife was leaving no
stone unturned in her husband’s interest, and her zeal was speedily
rewarded by the re-conversion of the legate. Utterly disgusted at
the result of his second attempt at king-making for the good of the
Church, after one last warning to the Empress he met his sister-in-law
at Guildford, reversed all the excommunications issued against
Stephen’s party by the council of Winchester, and pledged himself to
do henceforth all that in him lay for the restoration of the captive
king.[906] Robert of Gloucester vainly sought to win him back;[907]
then the Lady resolved to try her own powers of persuasion, and without
a word of notice even to her brother, at the head of a strong body of
troops she set off for Winchester.[908]
[901] “Ut leges eis Regis Edwardi observari liceret, quia
optimæ erant, non patris sui Henrici, quia graves erant.” Flor.
Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 132.
[902] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 77.
[903] _Ib._ pp. 78, 79. Cf. Flor. Worc. Contin. as above, and
Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 48 (Hardy, p. 749).
[904] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 79.
[905] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above.
[906] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 49 (Hardy, p. 750).
[907] _Ib._ c. 50 (p. 751).
[908] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._ as above. _Gesta Steph._
(Sewell), p. 80. Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 133)
says this was just before August 1.
Of the two royal dwelling-places founded at Winchester by the
Conqueror, only one now remained. He and his sons apparently found the
castle at the western end of the city a more agreeable residence than
the palace whose inconvenient proximity drove the monks of the New
Minster to remove to Hyde. This palace was almost as great a nuisance
to the Old Minster as to the New, and three years after King Henry’s
death his nephew and namesake the bishop determined to get rid of
it. Amid the gathering storms of the year 1138 Bishop Henry, in his
turn, grew dissatisfied with his episcopal abode hard by the cathedral
church, and resolved that he too would have a castle of his own.
With an audacity characteristic alike of the man and of the time, he
carried the stones of his grandfather’s deserted palace down to a clear
space within the “soke” or “liberty” of the church, just within the
eastern boundary of the city, and there set them up again in the shape
of a mighty fortress[909] afterwards known as Wolvesey-house, some
fragments of whose walls still stand, broken and overhung with ivy, in
a green enclosure between the river-bank and the long, dark pile of
the cathedral. As the Lady rode into Winchester by one gate the bishop
rode out by another, to shut himself up in Wolvesey.[910] Matilda
established herself without opposition in the castle,[911] and thence
sent him a civil message requesting him to come and speak with her. He
answered, “I will make me ready”;[912] and he did so, by despatching
an urgent summons to all the partizans of the king.[913] The Empress,
too, called up her friends; they hurried to her support, quartered
themselves in the city with the goodwill of the inhabitants, and beset
both the bishop’s palace and his fortress with all the troops they
could muster.[914] But his summons was no less effectual than hers. It
brought up all the barons who still held with Stephen; it brought up a
troop of mercenaries;[915] best of all, it brought up, not only William
of Ypres with his terrible Flemings,[916] but a thousand valiant
citizens of London with Stephen’s own Matilda at their head.[917] The
besiegers of Wolvesey found themselves beset in their turn by “the
king’s queen with all her strength”;[918] the bishop himself ordered
the town to be fired, and the wind, which saved the cathedral, carried
the flames northward as far as Hyde abbey.[919] While he thus made
a desert for the besiegers within the city, the queen was doing the
like without. Under her directions the London contingent were guarding
every approach from the west, whence alone the Lady’s troops could
look for supplies: the convoys were intercepted, their escorts slain;
and while eastward the roads were lined all the way to London with
parties bringing provision for the bishop and his little garrison, his
besiegers already saw famine staring them in the face.[920] At last
they sent out a body of knights, three hundred strong, to Wherwell,
intending there to build a castle as a cover for their convoys.[921]
They had no sooner reached the spot than William of Ypres pounced upon
them and captured the whole party.[922]
[909] “Hoc anno fecit Henricus episcopus ædificare domum quasi
palatium cum turri fortissimâ in Wintoniâ.” Ann. Winton. a.
1138 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 51). The story of the
pulling down of the royal palace is in Girald. Cambr., _Vita S.
Remigii_, c. 27 (_Opera_, ed. Dimock, vol. vii. p. 46).
[910] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 80. Flor. Worc. Contin.
(Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 133.
[911] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 133. Will.
Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 50 (Hardy, p. 751).
[912] “Ego parabo me.” Will. Malm. as above.
[913] _Ibid._
[914] “Castellumque episcopi, quod venustissimo constructum
schemate in civitatis medio locârat, sed et domum illius quam
ad instar castelli fortiter et inexpugnabiliter firmârat,
validissimâ obsidione claudere præcepit” [sc. comitissa].
_Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 80. The first-named “castellum” is
clearly the old palace of the bishops; the “domus” is Wolvesey,
where Henry now was. The list of Matilda’s followers is given
in _Gesta Steph._, p. 81, and in Will. Malm. as above.
[915] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 82.
[916] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 19 (Arnold, p. 275).
[917] _Gesta Steph._ as above.
[918] “Tha com the kings cuen mid all hire strengthe and besæt
heom.” Eng. Chron. a. 1140.
[919] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 50 (Hardy, p. 752).
Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 133. The latter gives the
date--August 2.
[920] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 50 (Hardy, pp. 751,
752). _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 83.
[921] _Gesta Steph._ as above. Joh. Hexh. (Raine, p. 138) says
two hundred knights, commanded by John the Marshal and Robert,
son of King Henry and Eda (_i.e._ Edith who married Robert of
Oilly).
[922] _Gesta Steph._ and Joh. Hexh. as above.
Then Robert of Gloucester felt that the case was hopeless, and that,
cost what it might, he must get his sister out. Suddenly, as he was
marshalling his host to cut their way through at all risks,[923] on
the evening of September 13, the city gates were opened, and peace was
proclaimed in the bishop’s name.[924] Robert hereupon decided to march
quietly out next morning. He took, however, the precaution of sending
his sister out first of all, while he brought up the rear with a small
band of men as dauntless as himself.[925] He did wisely. Matilda had
but just ridden through the west gate when the bishop, doubtless from
his tower at Wolvesey, gave the signal for attack. The whole host of
the queen’s partizans rushed upon those of the Lady and routed them
completely. Earl Robert succeeded in covering his sister’s retreat,
and cut his own way out in another direction, but was overtaken at
Stockbridge by William of Ypres and his Flemings, who surrounded and
took him prisoner.[926] Miles of Gloucester (whom the Empress had made
earl of Hereford), surrounded in like manner, threw down his arms and
fled for his life, reaching Gloucester in disgrace, weary, alone, and
almost naked.[927] King David, it is said, was thrice made prisoner,
but each time bribed his captors to let him go,[928] and was hidden
in safety at last by a certain David Holcfard, who happened to be his
godson.[929] The archbishop of Canterbury and several other bishops who
had accompanied the Empress were despoiled of their horses and even
of their clothes. The Lady herself had escaped in company with the
Breton lord of Wallingford, Brian Fitz-Count, who had long been her
devoted friend and who never forsook her.[930] Their first halt was
at Luggershall; urged by her friends, still in terror of pursuit, she
mounted another horse and spurred on to Devizes; there, half dead with
fatigue, she laid herself on a bier, and bound to it with ropes as if
she had been a corpse, she was carried at last safe into Gloucester.
[923] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 51 (Hardy, p. 753).
Cf. _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 84.
[924] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 134.
[925] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 51 (Hardy, p. 753).
[926] Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 135. Cf. _Gesta
Steph._, Will. Malm., and Joh. Hexh. (as above). The _Geneal.
Com. Flandr._ (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xiii. p. 413)
declares that this was the service for which Stephen rewarded
William with the earldom of Kent.
[927] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 135.
[928] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 85.
[929] Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 138.
[930] _Gesta Steph._ as above. Brian was a son of Alan Fergant,
duke of Britanny (Eng. Chron. a. 1127). Together with Robert
of Gloucester, he escorted Matilda over sea when she went to
be married to Geoffrey, and he is said to have been one of
the three persons with whom alone Henry consulted about the
marriage. Eng. Chron. a. 1127; Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. i.
c. 3 (Hardy, p. 693). He was, all his life, a most loyal and
useful member of the Angevin party. His father’s first wife
was the Conqueror’s daughter Constance; the second was Fulk
Rechin’s daughter Hermengard; Brian, however, had no kindred
with the house which he served so well.
Earl Robert was brought back to Winchester to the feet of the queen,
who sent him, under his captor’s charge, into honourable confinement in
Rochester castle.[931] The next six weeks were spent in negotiations
for his release and that of Stephen; for the party of the Empress
found themselves helpless without Robert, and the chief aim of Matilda
of Boulogne was to get her husband free. She proposed to Countess
Mabel of Gloucester--for the Empress held sullenly aloof--that the
two illustrious captives should simply be exchanged, and to this
Mabel eagerly assented. Robert, however, protested that an earl was
no equivalent for a king, and insisted that all those who had been
captured with him should be thrown in to balance the crown. To this
their various captors naturally demurred, and the project failed.[932]
It was next proposed to settle the whole dispute by restoring Stephen
to his throne and making Robert governor of England in his name;[933]
but the earl would agree to nothing without his sister’s consent, and
the Empress refused to modify her claims in any way.[934] The queen
threatened that if Robert did not yield, she would send him over to
Boulogne and keep him there in chains for the rest of his life; but he
knew that if a hair of his head was touched his countess, whom he had
left in command at Bristol, would at once ship off her royal captive to
Ireland, and the threat produced no effect. Meanwhile the party of the
Empress was falling to pieces so rapidly that her few genuine adherents
grew alarmed for her personal safety, and besought Robert to accept
freedom on any terms, as the sole chance of averting her ruin. The
original proposition of a simple exchange was therefore revived, and
accepted in the first days of November.[935]
[931] Flor. Worc. Contin. (as above), p. 134.
[932] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 58 (Hardy, pp. 759,
760).
[933] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 136. Will.
Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 59 (Hardy, p. 760).
[934] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above. At this point we lose him.
[935] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 51, 60–64 (Hardy,
pp. 754, 760–762). Cf. Eng. Chron. a. 1140; Hen. Hunt., l.
viii. c. 19 (Arnold, p. 275); and _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp.
85, 86.
The earl rejoined his sister at Oxford;[936] the king re-entered his
capital amid general rejoicings.[937] His misfortunes, the heroism of
his queen, the overbearing conduct of the Empress, all helped to turn
the tide of popular feeling in his favour once more. Early in December
the legate, with such daring indifference to the awkwardness of his
own position as can surely have been due to nothing but conscious
integrity of purpose, called a council at Westminster and formally
undid the work which he had done at Winchester in the spring. After a
solemn complaint had been lodged by Stephen against the vassals who
had betrayed and captured him--the counterpart of the charge once
made in a similar assembly against Stephen himself, of having been
false to his duty as king--Henry rose and made his apology. He had
acquiesced in the rule of the Empress, believing it a necessary evil;
the evil had proved intolerable, and he was thankful to be delivered
from its necessity. In the name of Heaven and its Roman representative
he therefore once more proclaimed his brother as the lawfully-elected
and apostolically-anointed sovereign to whom obedience was due, and
denounced as excommunicate all who upheld the claims of the Angevin
countess. The clergy sat in puzzled silence; but their very silence
gave consent.[938]
[936] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 51 (Hardy, p. 754).
[937] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 85. Hen. Hunt. as above.
[938] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 52–53 (Hardy, pp.
755, 756). The council met on December 7.
Throughout the winter both parties remained quiet, Stephen in London,
Matilda in Oxford; both, in the present exhausted state of their
forces, had enough to do in simply standing their ground, without
risking any attack upon each other. In the spring Matilda removed to
Devizes; there, at Mid-Lent, she held with her partizans a secret
council which resulted in an embassy to Anjou, calling upon Geoffrey to
come and help in regaining the English heritage of his wife and son.
At Pentecost the answer came. Geoffrey, before he would accede to the
summons, required to be certified of its reasonableness, and he would
accept no assurance save that of the earl of Gloucester in person.
Robert, knowing how closely his sister’s interest and even her personal
safety was bound up with his presence at her side, was very unwilling
to undertake the mission. A scheme was however contrived to satisfy
him. Matilda returned to her old quarters at Oxford; the chief men of
her party bound themselves by oath to keep within a certain distance
of the city, and to guard her against all danger until her brother’s
return. On this understanding he sailed from Wareham shortly before
Midsummer. He was but just gone when Stephen, who since Easter had
been lying sick at Northampton, swooped down upon Wareham so suddenly
that the garrison, taken by surprise, yielded to him at once.[939]
The king marched up to Cirencester, surprised and destroyed a castle
lately built there by the Empress,[940] and thence turned westward to
try conclusions with Matilda herself by attacking her headquarters at
Oxford.
[939] _Ib._ cc. 66–71 (pp. 763–766).
[940] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 87, 88.
Oxford was, from its geographical situation, one of the most important
strategical posts in England. It stood at the very centre and
crowning-point of the valley of the Thames, the great high-way which
led from the eastern sea and the capital into the western shires,
through the very heart of the land. So long as it remained loyal to
Stephen, he was master of the whole Thames valley, and the Angevins,
however complete might be their triumph in the west, were cut off
from all direct communication with eastern England and even with the
capital itself. The surrender of Oxford castle to Matilda in the summer
of 1141 had reversed this position of affairs. It probably helped
to determine--it was at any rate soon followed by--the surrender
of London; and even when London was again lost to the Empress, her
possession of Oxford still gave her command over the upper part of
the river-valley and thus secured her main line of communication with
her brother’s territories in the west, while Stephen in his turn was
almost prisoned in the eastern half of his realm. For nearly eleven
months he had seen her defying him from her father’s palace of Beaumont
or from the impregnable stronghold of the castle, where the first
Robert of Oilly, not content with raising a shell-keep on the old
English mound, had built another tall square tower which still stands,
on the western side of the enclosure, directly above the river.[941]
Not until her brother had left her did the king venture to take up
the challenge which her very presence there implied; then indeed he
felt that the hour had come. Matilda, as if in expectation of his
attack, had been employing her followers on the construction of a
chain of forts intended to protect and keep open her communications
with the west.[942] One by one Stephen broke the links of the
chain--Cirencester, Bampton, Ratcot[943]--and from this last place, a
little village in the midst of a marsh, half-way between Bampton and
Farringdon, he led his host across the Isis and round by the meadows
on its southern shore to the ford below S. Frideswide’s from which
the city took its name. Matilda’s partizans no sooner discovered his
approach--three days before Michaelmas[944]--than they streamed down
to the bank of the river, across which they greeted him first with a
torrent of abuse and then with a flight of arrows. The vanguard of
the royal host, with Stephen himself at their head, sprang into the
water, swam rather than waded across the well-known and time-honoured
ford,[945] and by the fury of their onset drove their insulting
enemies back to the city gates. The rest of the army quickly followed;
Matilda’s adherents fled through the open gate, their pursuers rushed
in after them, entered the town without difficulty, set it on fire,
captured and slew all on whom they could lay their hands, and drove the
rest to take shelter in the castle with their Lady.[946]
[941] See above, p. 42, note 2{113}.
[942] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 87, 88.
[943] _Ib._ p. 88. “Apud viculum Ratrotam fluctibus inaccesse
et paludibus obseptum.” _Ib._ p. 87. _Ratcot_ is Anthony Wood’s
rendering.
[944] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 71 (Hardy, p. 766).
[945] “Præmonstrato antiquo sed eximiæ profunditatis vado.”
_Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 89.
[946] _Ibid._
Stephen had doubtless not braved S. Frideswide’s wrath by entering
Oxford, so to say, under her very eyes. His troops had won the city;
his task was to win the castle, and that task he vowed never to abandon
till both fortress and Empress should be in his hands. For nearly
three months he blockaded the place, till its inhabitants were on the
verge of starvation. The barons who had sworn to protect Matilda,
bitterly ashamed of their failure, gathered at Wallingford ready to
meet Stephen if he should chance to offer them battle; but he had no
such intention, and they dared not attack him where he was.[947]
At last a gleam of hope came with Earl Robert’s return, quickened,
it seems, by tidings of his sister’s danger. Landing at Wareham with
a force of some three or four hundred Normans, he regained the port
and the village without difficulty, and as his force was too small to
effect Matilda’s relief directly, he laid siege to the castle, hoping
by this means to make a diversion in her favour.[948] The garrison
of Wareham did in fact send a message to Stephen beseeching him to
come and relieve them before a certain day, as if he did not, they
must give up the place.[949] But the king was not to be drawn from
his prey; he left Wareham to its fate, and after a three weeks’ siege
it surrendered. Robert went on to Portland and Lulworth, took them
both, and then summoned all the friends of the Empress to meet him at
Cirencester, thence to set out with their united forces for the rescue
of Matilda herself.[950] In Oxford castle the provisions were all but
exhausted; the Lady despaired of succour.[951] Her faithful friend
the lord of the castle, Robert of Oilly, had died a fortnight before
the siege began.[952] Christmas was close at hand; the snow lay thick
on the ground; the river was frozen fast. From the top of D’Oilly’s
tall tower nothing was to be seen but one vast sheet of cold, dead
white, broken only by the dark masses of Stephen’s host encamped round
about upon the frozen meadows:--a dreary outlook, but the prospect
within was drearier still. Matilda had gone through too many adventures
to shrink from the risk of one more. One night four white-robed
figures[953] dropped down by a rope[954] over the castle-wall upon
the frozen river at its foot; they crossed dry-shod over the stream
whose waters, a little lower down, had been almost over the heads of
their enemies three months before; their footsteps fell noiseless upon
the fresh snow, their white garments reflected its gleams and deceived
the eyes of Stephen’s sentinels; in the stillness of the night, broken
only by the bugle-call and the watchman’s cry, they stole through
the besieging lines and across the very sleeping-quarters of the
king--never caught, never discovered save by one man in all the host;
and he, whether taking them for ghosts, or in chivalrous sympathy for
their desperate venture, let them pass unchallenged and kept his story
till the morrow.[955] Five miles they fled on foot “over snow and
ice, over ditch and dale”; at Abingdon they took horse, and before
the morning broke the Empress Matilda and her faithful comrades were
safe under the protection of Brian Fitz-Count in his great fortress of
Wallingford.[956]
[947] Will. Malm. as above.
[948] _Ib._ cc. 72, 73 (Hardy, pp. 767, 768). _Gesta Steph._
(Sewell), p. 91. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 124.
[949] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 73 (Hardy, p. 768).
[950] _Ib._ c. 74 (p. 768). Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp.
124, 125.
[951] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 90.
[952] Ann. Osen. a. 1142 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. iv. p.
24).
[953] _Gesta Steph._ as above. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p.
124, makes them six.
[954] Eng. Chron. a. 1140. Gerv. Cant. (as above) says “per
posticium.”
[955] _Gesta Steph._ as above.
[956] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 90. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs),
vol. i. pp. 124, 125. Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 20 (Arnold, p.
276). Will. Newb., l. i. c. 10 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 43).
At Wallingford her brother came to meet her, accompanied not by her
husband but by her son, a child nine years old whom Geoffrey, now
absorbed in the conquest of Normandy, had sent to England in his
stead.[957] The escape from Oxford was Matilda’s last exploit. The
castle surrendered to Stephen as soon as she had left it;[958] she
returned to her old quarters at Bristol or Gloucester; and thenceforth
she ceased to figure prominently in the war which dragged languidly
on for five more years. A battle between Stephen and Earl Robert near
Wilton, on July 1st, 1143, in which the king was utterly routed and
only escaped being made prisoner a second time by taking to headlong
flight,[959] was the last real success of the Angevin party. The year
closed with a severe blow to the Empress, in the death of her trusted
friend Miles of Hereford, who was slain on Christmas Eve, not in fight,
but by a chance shot in hunting.[960] Early in the next year Ralf of
Chester again seized Lincoln castle;[961] but Ralf fought for his own
hand rather than for the Empress; and so, too, did Hugh Bigod, Turgis
of Avranches and Geoffrey of Mandeville, who kept all eastern England
in ceaseless commotion.[962] Stephen’s energies were absorbed in a vain
endeavour to reduce them to order, while Robert struggled almost as
vainly against the anarchy of the western shires; in the north Ralf of
Chester now ruled supreme from the Witham to the Dee; and the upper
valley of the Thames was at the mercy of William of Dover, who had
built a castle at Cricklade, from which he ravaged the whole country
between Oxford and Malmesbury.[963]
[957] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 70 (Hardy, p. 765).
Rob. Torigni, a. 1142. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 125.
[958] Will. Malm. as above, c. 74 (p. 769. At this point he
ends). _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 91. Hen. Hunt. as above.
[959] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 92. Gerv. Cant. (as above),
pp. 125, 126. Will. Newb. as above (p. 42).
[960] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 101. Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p.
146.
[961] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 22 (Arnold, p. 277).
[962] On Hugh Bigod and Turgis see _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell),
pp. 109–111; on Geoffrey of Mandeville, _ib._ pp. 101–104;
Will. Newb., l. i. c. 11 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 44–46); and Hen.
Hunt., l. viii. c. 21 (Arnold, pp. 276, 277).
[963] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 106, 107, 111.
Suddenly, after capturing the commandant of Malmesbury and sending him
as a great prize to the Empress, the lord of Cricklade threw aside his
evil work and went off to die for a nobler cause in Palestine.[964]
Geoffrey de Mandeville, the worst of all the troublers of the land, who
had accepted titles and honours from both the rival sovereigns and had
never for one moment been true to either, met his death in the same
summer of 1144 in a skirmish with the king’s troops; his fellow-sinner
Robert of Marmion was soon afterwards slain by the earl of Chester’s
men at the gates of the abbey of Bath which he had desecrated.[965]
For a moment it seemed as if the cry which had long been going up from
all the desolated sanctuaries of England--“Up, Lord, why sleepest
Thou?”--had been heard and answered at last.[966] Philip of Gloucester,
Earl Robert’s son, who had taken William of Dover’s place at Cricklade,
was so hard pressed by the garrison of Oxford[967] that he called his
father to his aid; Robert built a great castle at Farringdon, but the
king besieged it with such vigour that its defenders were compelled
to surrender.[968] From that moment the Angevin party fell rapidly to
pieces. Young Philip of Gloucester himself went over to Stephen and
turned his arms against his own father.[969] The earl of Chester came
to meet the king at Stamford,[970] humbly apologized for his rebellion,
and sought to prove the sincerity of his repentance by regaining
Bedford for Stephen, by constantly accompanying him with a band of
three hundred picked knights, and by helping him to build a fortress
at Crowmarsh to keep the garrison of Wallingford in check.[971] As,
however, he still refused to give up the castles which he had seized
and to pay his dues to the royal treasury, he was naturally regarded
with suspicion by the other barons and by the king himself.[972] In the
summer of 1146 their mutual distrust came to a crisis at Northampton.
Ralf besought Stephen’s help against the Welsh; the barons persuaded
Stephen to let them answer in his name that he would not give it unless
Ralf surrendered his castles and gave hostages for his fidelity; he
refused indignantly; they accused him of plotting treason, laid hands
upon him with one accord, and gave him in charge to the royal guards,
by whom he was flung into prison.[973] As in the case of the seizure of
the bishops, it is difficult to say how far Stephen was responsible,
and how much justification he had, for this arrest. We can hardly get
nearer to the truth than the English chronicler: “The king took him
in Hamton through wicked rede, and did him in prison; and soon after
he let him out again through worse rede, with the precaution that
he swore on the halidom and found hostages that he should give up
all his castles; some he gave up and some gave he not, and did then
worse than before.”[974] But among the castles which Ralf did give up
for the sake of regaining his freedom was that which Stephen valued
most--Lincoln.[975] Then at last the king felt that his enemies were
at his feet; and he resolved that the city which had beheld his worst
overthrow should also behold his highest triumph. In defiance of an old
superstition which forbade any English king to appear in regal state
within the walls of Lincoln, he kept his midwinter feast there with a
splendour which had been unknown for years, and wore his crown at high
mass in the minster on Christmas-day.[976]
[964] _Ib._ p. 111.
[965] Will. Newb., l. i. cc. 11, 12 (Howlett, vol. i. pp.
46–48). _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 104. Hen. Hunt., l. viii.
c. 22 (Arnold, p. 277).
[966] “Dicebaturque a laborantibus piis ‘Exsurge, quare
obdormis, Domine?’ At postquam ... ‘excitatus est,’ ut ait
propheta, ‘tanquam dormiens Dominus, et percussit inimicos Suos
in posteriora.’” Will. Newb., l. i. c. 11 (Howlett, vol. i.
p. 45). “Quia igitur improbi dixerunt Deum dormire, excitatus
est Deus.” Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 22 (Arnold, p. 227)--two
different interpretations of the Chronicler’s phrase, “men said
openly that Christ slept, and His hallows.”
[967] Under William of Chamai, “civitatis Oxenefordiæ præses,
regalisque militiæ dux et assignator.” _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell),
p. 112. This seems to mean that he was the king’s constable--an
office which had apparently gone with the command of Oxford
castle ever since the Norman conquest.
[968] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 112–114. Hen. Hunt.,
l. viii. c. 23 (Arnold, p. 278). Will. Newb., l. i. c. 13
(Howlett, vol. i. p. 48).
[969] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 116.
[970] Eng. Chron. a. 1140. The real date must be 1146, as given
by Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 24 (Arnold, p. 279).
[971] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 115. Hen. Hunt. as above.
Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 129, 130.
[972] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 115, 116.
[973] _Ib._ pp. 121–123. Cf. Hen. Hunt. as above.
[974] Eng. Chron. a. 1140.
[975] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 123, 124. Hen. Hunt. as
above. Will. Newb., l. i. c. 13 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 49).
[976] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 25 (Arnold, p. 279). Will. Newb.,
l. i. c. 18 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 57). Compare the different
tone of the two writers.
The hour of Stephen’s exultation over Matilda in England was the hour
of her husband’s complete triumph on the other side of the Channel.
In the seven years which had gone by since they parted, the count of
Anjou had really achieved far more than his wife. As soon as he heard
of Stephen’s capture, early in 1141, Geoffrey again summoned the Norman
barons to give up their castles and submit to his authority in peace.
They held a meeting at Mortagne in the middle of Lent to consider their
answer; despairing of Stephen, yet still unwilling to accept Geoffrey,
they fell back upon their original scheme and once more besought
Theobald of Blois to come and take possession of both duchy and
kingdom. Theobald refused the impossible task; but, thinking like every
one else that all was over with Stephen, he undertook to arrange terms
with Geoffrey for the pacification of both countries. Stephen’s claims,
as king and duke, were to be given up to the Angevins on condition
that they should set him at liberty and secure to him and his heirs
the honours which he had held during his uncle’s lifetime; while to
Theobald, as the price of his services in negotiating this settlement,
Geoffrey was to restore the county of Tours.[977] The treaty however
remained a dead letter; for one of the contracting parties had reckoned
without his brother and the other without his wife, both of whom
refused their consent. But it served Geoffrey’s purpose nevertheless.
The twin earls of Meulan and Leicester, hitherto Stephen’s most active
partizans, and the former of whom was after Robert of Gloucester the
most influential man in Normandy, at once accepted the proposed terms
as final and made their peace with Anjou.[978] Nearly a third part
of the duchy followed their example. Mortagne had submitted already;
Verneuil and Nonancourt soon did the like; in the last week of Lent
Lisieux was surrendered by its bishop;[979] Falaise yielded shortly
after;[980] and in a few weeks more the whole Roumois--that is, the
district between the Seine and the Rille--except the capital itself,
acknowledged Geoffrey as its master.[981]
[977] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 923.
[978] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 923. Cf.
Rob. Torigni, a. 1141.
[979] Ord. Vit. as above. At this point we lose him.
[980] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1141 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, pp. 34, 145).
[981] Rob. Torigni, a. 1141.
All this happened while the Empress was in full career of success in
England. There, however, as we have seen, summer and autumn undid the
work of spring; the news of Matilda’s triumph were quickly followed by
those of her fall, of her brother’s capture, of his release in exchange
for Stephen, and finally, at Whitsuntide 1142, by the visit of Earl
Robert himself to entreat that Geoffrey would come and help his wife
to reconquer her father’s kingdom. Geoffrey’s views of statecraft were
perhaps neither very wide nor very lofty; but his political instinct
was quicker and more practical than that of either his wife or her
brother. He saw that they had lost their hold upon England; he knew
that he had at last secured a hold upon Normandy; and he resolved that
no temptation from over sea should induce him to let it go. Instead of
helping Robert to conquer the kingdom, he determined to make Robert
help him to conquer the duchy. He represented that it was impossible
for him to leave matters there in their present unsatisfactory
condition; if the earl really wanted him in England, he must first
help him in bringing Normandy to order. Thereupon Robert, finding that
he could get no other answer, agreed to join his brother-in-law in
a campaign which occupied them both until the end of the year.[982]
The central part of Normandy, from Nonancourt and Lisieux on the east
to a line marked by the course of the Orne on the west, and from
the Cenomannian border up to Caen, was already in Geoffrey’s power;
he had in fact inserted a big wedge into the middle of the duchy. To
gain its western side was the object of the present expedition. The
brothers-in-law seem to have started from Robert’s native Caen, and
their first success was probably the taking of Bastebourg--Bastebourg
above the ford of Varaville, whose name recalls an earlier time and
another Geoffrey of Anjou. Then the expedition moved south-westward
from Caen through the diocese of Bayeux and up the left bank of the
Orne to Villers, Aunay, Plessis and Vire, till it reached and won the
already historic site of Tinchebray, on the north-eastern frontier
of Stephen’s old county of Mortain.[983] The town and castle of
Mortain, and the whole county, with the fortresses of Le Teilleul and
St.-Hilaire, were speedily won.[984] Geoffrey marched on to Pontorson,
the south-western outpost of the Norman duchy, close upon the Breton
frontier, at the bottom of a sandy bay guarded by the Mont-St.-Michel;
warned by the general experience, the whole population, men and women,
townsfolk and garrison, streamed out to welcome the conqueror as
soon as he made his appearance. Thence he turned northward again, to
Cérences in the Avranchin; and this place, too, surrendered without
striking a blow.[985]
[982] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 70 (Hardy, p. 765).
[983] The story of this campaign, as told by the historians of
the time, is little more than a list of the places taken, put
together evidently at random, just as the names happened to
come into the writer’s mind. Its real order must however have
been somewhat as suggested above. The fullest list is in Will.
Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. iii. c. 70 (Hardy, p. 765): Tinchebray,
St. Hilaire, “Brichesart,” Aunay, Bastebourg, “Trivères,”
Vire, “Plaiseiz,” Villers, Mortain. Bastebourg lies quite
apart from all the rest, and must have been the object of a
distinct expedition from Caen. The other places would follow in
geographical order. “Plaiseiz” may be either Plessis-Grimoult
or Placy; “Brichesart” and “Trivères” are still to be accounted
for. There is a Trévières about half-way between Bayeux and
Isigny, but this is even farther away from all the other
places than Bastebourg, and in an opposite direction. From
Rob. Torigni (a. 1142) we get another list: Aunay, Mortain,
Tinchebray, Cérences, Le Teilleul, all in the county of
Mortain. The _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p.
295) names only Mortain and St. Hilaire. The Chronn. S. Albin.
and S. Serg., a. 1142 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 35, 145), say
Geoffrey won “castella plurima,” but specify only Mortain.
[984] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 295, 296.
Rob. Torigni, a. 1142.
[985] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), pp. 296–298. The
last-named place appears in Rob. Torigni, a. 1142, as
“Cerences.” In the _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_, as printed by M.
Marchegay (p. 298), it is “Cerentias”; in the old editions it
was “Carentias,” which the editors of _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._
rendered “Carentan.” “Cérences” is the rendering of M.
Delisle (_Rob. Torigni_, vol. i. p. 226, note 2). It lies
about half-way between Avranches and Coutances. There is a
“Chérencé-le-Roussel” a few miles north-west of Mortain.
At this point the campaign of the count and the earl seems to have
been interrupted by tidings of Stephen’s success and Matilda’s danger
at Oxford. That Robert must go at once was clear; but that it would be
wise for Geoffrey to accompany him was even more doubtful now than it
had been six months ago. A substitute was found in the person of little
Henry Fitz-Empress, who, if he could do nothing practically to help
his mother’s cause and his own, at least ran no risk of damaging it
by raising such a storm of ill-feeling as would probably have greeted
the count of Anjou himself. While Robert and Henry sailed for England
together, Geoffrey remained to finish his work in Normandy. Avranches,
the next place which he threatened, made a ready submission; he took up
his abode in the castle, and summoned the lords of all the fortresses
in the Avranchin to come and do him homage, one after another. When
they had all obeyed, he set himself to win the Cotentin. St.-Lô, which
had been strongly fortified by the bishop of the diocese, surrendered
after a three days’ siege. The victor advanced straight upon Coutances;
the bishop was absent; no one else dared to offer resistance; Geoffrey
simply marched into the city and took it. Thither, as at Avranches, he
summoned the barons of the county to perform their homage, and they
all obeyed except two brothers, Ralf and Richard of La Haye. Ralf was
soon brought to submission; Richard flung himself with some two hundred
knights into Cherbourg, a mighty fortress on a foundation of solid
rock, guarded on one side by a belt of woodland full of wild beasts,
and on the other by a bay whose advantages as a naval station have only
been put to their full use in much later times. A siege of Cherbourg
was likely to be a lengthy, troublesome and costly undertaking. But
such a siege was of all military operations that in which Geoffrey
most excelled and most delighted. He had little sympathy with the
downright hand-to-hand fighting by which Fulk Nerra had won his spurs
at Conquereux, or Fulk V. had repulsed Theobald and Stephen before
Alençon, or Stephen had put his very captors to shame beneath the
walls of Lincoln. Engineering was Geoffrey’s favourite science; in its
developement he spared neither labour nor expense; and he now brought
up against Cherbourg such a formidable array of machines that Richard
thought it prudent to slip away by sea, intending to go to England
and ask help of King Stephen. He was however overtaken by pirates
and carried away “among strange peoples”; and a rumour of his fate
reaching the garrison whom he had left behind, they lost heart and
made submission to the Angevin.[986] The whole duchy south and west of
the Seine was now his,[987] except the one town of Vaudreuil; before
the close of the year this, too, was won, and the Angevin power even
advanced beyond the river, for “Walter Giffard and all the people of
the _Pays de Caux_ made agreement with Count Geoffrey.”[988] The Norman
capital now stood out alone against the Angevin conqueror of Normandy,
as Tours had once stood out alone against the conqueror of Touraine.
In January 1144 Geoffrey crossed the Seine at Vernon and pitched his
camp at La Trinité-du-Mont, close to the walls of Rouen.[989] Next day
the citizens opened their gates, and conducted him in solemn procession
to the cathedral church.[990] The castle was still held against him
by some followers of the earl of Warren;[991] the barons, headed by
Waleran of Meulan, came to help him in besieging it, but neither their
valour nor his machines were of any avail, and it was not till a three
months’ blockade had reduced the garrison to the last straits of
hunger that the citadel of Rouen was given up on S. George’s day.[992]
[986] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 298–301.
The year, 1143, is given by Rob. Torigni.
[987] Chronn. S. Serg. and S. Albin. a. 1143 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, pp. 35, 146). The Chron. S. Flor. Salm. (_ib._ p.
191) ventures to say in 1142: “Goffredus Comes totam Normanniam
adquirit hoc anno, iii. octabarum Paschæ, x. kalendas maii.”
This is the true date for the Wednesday in Easter week, 1142,
but the fact is placed two years too early.
[988] Rob. Torigni, a. 1143.
[989] _Ib._ a. 1144.
[990] Chron. Rotom. a. 1144 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii.
p. 785); Rob. Torigni, a. 1144. The former makes the day
January 19; the latter, January 20.
[991] Rob. Torigni, as above.
[992] Chron. Rotom. a. 1144 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii.
p. 785); Rob. Torigni, a. 1144.
Allies offered themselves readily now to help in the little that
remained to be done; foremost among them was the overlord of Normandy,
the young King Louis VII. of France. All was changed since the days
when his father, Louis VI., had granted the investiture of Normandy
to Stephen’s little son. The inveterate enmity between the house of
Blois and the French Crown had broken out afresh, in a new and most
disastrous form, between Count Theobald and the young king; Louis fell
back upon the traditional policy of his forefathers and gladly embraced
the Angevin alliance against all the branches of the house of Blois on
both sides of the sea. Thus when Geoffrey, after composing matters as
well as he could at Rouen, mustered his forces to subdue the few still
outstanding castles, he was joined at once by his own brother-in-law
Theodoric of Flanders and by the king of France. Driencourt was the
first place won by their united hosts; then Lions-la-Forêt--the old
hunting-seat where King Henry had died--was given up by Hugh of
Gournay;[993] the rest of the castles beyond Seine were quickly won,
and then Geoffrey was master of the whole Norman duchy,[994] save one
fortress, Arques, which a Fleming called William the Monk held so
pertinaciously for Stephen that the Angevin was obliged to leave a
body of troops before the place and go home without waiting to finish
the siege in person.[995] Next summer the “monk” was shot dead by a
chance arrow, and the surrender of Arques completed Geoffrey’s conquest
of Normandy.[996] He made no pretence of holding it in the name of
either his wife or his son; it was his own by right of conquest, and
that right was formally acknowledged by the king of France. Before
they parted in 1144 Louis granted to Geoffrey the investiture of the
whole Norman duchy, save one spot which he claimed as the price of his
favour:--the old bone of contention, Gisors.[997]
[993] Rob. Torigni, a. 1144. Driencourt is now known as
Neufchâtel-en-Bray.
[994] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1144 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, pp. 35, 146); Chronn. S. Michael. and S. Steph.
Cadom. a. 1144 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. pp. 773, 780).
[995] Rob. Torigni, a. 1144. “Willermus Monachus
Flandrensis”--can he have been really a monk?
[996] Rob. Torigni, a. 1145.
[997] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 282.
The Angevin conqueror had been called home by a revolt among his own
barons.[998] The leader was, as before, Robert of Sablé;[999] but there
was worse to come. Geoffrey’s brother Elias was persuaded by the rebels
to put forth a claim to the county of Maine and uphold his pretension
by force of arms. Geoffrey defeated him, took him prisoner, and put
him in ward at Tours,[1000] where he remained five years, and whence
he was released only to die of the effects of his imprisonment.[1001]
The revolt failed as all previous revolts against Geoffrey had
failed; the count swooped down upon Robert and his accomplices with
such irresistible energy that they were utterly confounded and made
submission at once.[1002] Undisputed master from the Poitevin border to
the English Channel, Geoffrey once more cast his eyes across the sea,
not with any thought of joining his wife in her desperate venture, but
with an uneasy longing to get his heir safe out of the entanglement
of a losing cause and bring him home to share in his own triumph. He
therefore sent envoys to Earl Robert, begging that Henry might be
allowed to come and see him, if only for a short time. The request was
at once granted, and by Ascension-tide 1147 the boy was again at his
father’s side.[1003] His uncle the earl of Gloucester had escorted him
as far as Wareham;[1004] there they parted, as it turned out, for the
last time. Robert caught a fever and died at Bristol early in the
following November.[1005] Then at last the Empress herself felt that all
was lost. Her last faint chance had expired with the wise and valiant
brother whose patient devotion she had never fully appreciated until it
was too late. In the early spring of 1148 she gave up the struggle and
followed her son back to Normandy, to live thenceforth in peace by her
husband’s side;[1006] while the knot which the sword had failed to cut
was left to be slowly disentangled by more skilful hands which had long
been preparing for their task.
[998] Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1145 (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, pp. 35, 146).
[999] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), p. 269.
[1000] _Ibid._ _Gesta Cons._ (_ibid._), p. 155.
[1001] _Gesta Cons._ as above. The Chron. Vindoc. (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 173), gives the date, 1150. Cf. Chron. Tur. Magn.
a. 1110 (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, p. 131).
[1002] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp.
270–272. It is here that the writer places the building of
Châteauneuf-sur-Sarthe (see above, p. 267). In connexion with
this affair he gives an amusing reason for the warlike habits
of the Angevins: “Antiquitus nempe Andegavenses præliandi
consuetudinem habebant, forsan, ut puto, a Deo sibi permissum,
ne per otium pejoribus inimicis expugnarentur, moribus scilicet
vitiosis.” _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (as above), pp. 270, 271.
[1003] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 131. Rob. Torigni, a.
1147.
[1004] Gerv. Cant. as above.
[1005] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 131. Gervase is not
clear about the year, which we learn from Ann. Tewkesb. a. 1147
(Luard, _Ann. Monast._ vol. i. p. 47), and from Ann. Cantuar.
a. 1147 (Liebermann, _Geschichtsquellen_, p. 6). The place is
given in _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), p. 132.
[1006] Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 133--dated a year too early.
NOTE.
THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE BATTLE OF LINCOLN.
The topography of the battle of Lincoln is a very puzzling matter. We
have two sources of information, and it seems impossible to make them
agree. The questions to be solved are two: 1. Which way did Robert and
Ralf approach the city? 2. Where was the battle actually fought?
1. The first question lies between William of Malmesbury and Henry of
Huntingdon. William (_Hist. Nov._, l. iii. cc. 39, 40; Hardy, p. 741)
says distinctly that the main army started from Gloucester; that Ralf
and his troops joined them somewhere on the road; that Stephen, hearing
of their approach, left off besieging the castle and went forth to meet
them; and that on Candlemas day they arrived “ad flumen quod inter duos
exercitus præterfluebat, Trenta nomine, quod et ortu suo et pluviarum
profluvio tam magnum fuerat ut nullatenus vado transitum præberet.” He
then gives the story of the crossing. Henry of Huntingdon (l. viii. c.
13; Arnold, p. 268) describes the crossing much in the same way, except
that the “consul audacissimus” to whom he attributes the first plunge
seems to be Ralf, whereas in William’s version Robert is the hero. But
Henry makes no mention of the Trent; in his story the plunge is into
“paludem pœne intransibilem.”
For both these versions there is something to be said. The authority
of the two witnesses is very evenly balanced. Chronologically, both
are equally near to their subject. Geographically, the archdeacon of
Huntingdon is nearer than the librarian of Malmesbury; but he is not
a whit more likely to have been personally present; and if Henry may
have got his information from Bishop Alexander, William may just as
probably have got his from Earl Robert himself. The question therefore
becomes one of the intrinsic probability of the two stories. Here
again there is something to be said for William; for although the most
direct and obvious road from Gloucester to Lincoln would undoubtedly
be the Foss-Way, along the eastern side of the Trent valley, yet it is
possible that the earls might have chosen a more unusual route along
its western side, just because it would seem less likely to their
enemies. Yet we can hardly accept William’s version; for the fording
of the Trent, especially in winter, and when its waters were--as he
himself tells us--swollen with heavy rains, would be little short of
a physical impossibility. At the origin of his mistake (or of Earl
Robert’s, for it must surely have been Robert who told him the story)
we may perhaps be able to guess. The writer of the _Gesta Stephani_
(Sewell, p. 71) says nothing of either river or marsh; the only
thing which he mentions is a ford, of whose whereabouts he gives no
indication whatever. “Cumque fortissimam ... [Stephanus] præmississet
cohortem in exitu cujusdam vadi eis ad obsistendum, illi ... cum
violentiâ in ipsos irruentes vadum occupaverunt.” Now, if the earls had
followed the Foss-Way quite up to Lincoln, it would have brought them
not to any ford, but to the bridge over the Witham, leading directly
into the city by the south gate. But the city was bitterly hostile to
them; had they attempted to pass through it to reach the castle, they
must have cut their way through a crowd of enemies. There was however
another and a much more practicable route open to them. Some little
distance to westward of the bridge, the Witham at its junction with
the Foss-Dyke expands into a broad sheet of water known by the name of
Brayford. The kindness of the Rev. Precentor Venables has enabled me to
ascertain that half way between the bridge and Brayford Head (_i.e._
the eastern end of this sheet of water) there still exists in the bed
of the river a well-paved ford road, probably of Roman origin. By this
ford the army could cross the river and advance towards the castle
without entering the town at all; and I feel little doubt that this was
the ford at which Stephen posted the guard mentioned by his biographer,
and across which the two earls swam with their followers. In that case
William of Malmesbury’s mistake as to the name of the river is not
surprising. The Foss-Dyke unites the Witham and the Trent; a medieval
geographer could hardly be expected to know accurately where the one
ended and the other began. Out of the three names so closely connected,
he not unnaturally chose the one most generally known, and concluded
the whole water-way under the comprehensive name of Trent; while on the
other hand, the overflowing of dyke and river may quite sufficiently
account for Henry of Huntingdon having described them and the flooded
ground on each side of them all together as an “almost impassable
marsh.”
2. Local tradition persists in asserting that the battle was fought
to the north of the city, somewhere beyond the New Port. If this was
so, Stephen must have led his troops out of the city by the old Roman
way--the Ermine Street--through the New Port, and drawn them up on
the plateau formed by the top of the range of hills whose southern
extremity is occupied by the city itself; and his enemies, after
crossing the water, must have marched all round the south-western foot
of the hill, below the castle, and then climbed the western slope to
meet Stephen on the top. Such a manœuvre is doubtless possible; but
it hardly seems to agree with the indications--provokingly few and
slight though they are--given us by the historians. None of them indeed
tells us which way Stephen went forth; the nearest approach to a clear
statement is that of his own biographer, who says “extra civitatem
obvius eis audacter occurrit” (_Gesta Steph._ as above). Now marching
up northward can hardly be called “going forth boldly to meet” an
enemy who was coming from the south-west. The tradition in fact is in
itself very improbable, and has no evidence to support it. In 1881 I
made two attempts at a personal examination of the topography, with
the help of indications kindly furnished me by Precentor Venables.
The result was as follows: The western wall of the castle-enclosure
does not stretch to the extreme edge of the hill; beyond it lies a
part of the plateau, now occupied by the County Asylum, and marked by
Stukeley as the site of Stephen’s encampment. Stukeley was probably
misled by the circumstance that an adjoining bit of ground was called
“Battle-piece”--a name which is now known to have been derived not from
any battle fought there, but from the place having been set apart for
trials by battle. But farther to the west there lies at the foot of
the ridge a tract of comparatively level ground, rising slightly on
the one side to join the slope of the hill, and on the other gradually
sinking into the lower land which spreads to the bank of the Trent.
This tract--part of it is now a race-course--seems to be really the
only place in which it is possible for the two armies to have met. The
ground immediately south of the castle, between its outer wall and the
northern bank of the Foss-Dyke, is too steep to allow of anything like
a pitched battle between two formally-arrayed armies. The earls after
crossing the ford could hardly do anything but lead their troops round
the foot of the hill, to draw them up at last on the western side of
the level tract above described. Stephen, on the other hand, could
hardly have chosen a better post for defence than its eastern side,
with the ridge of the hill at his back.