STEPHEN (OP ENGLAND). 



STEPHEN (OF ENGLAND). 



694 



such lands as had been made forest by his predecessor; 3, That he would 

 abolish the tax called Dauegelt, which, after having been given up by 

 the Confessor, had been restored by the Norman kings. On the other 

 hand, the bishops tendered their allegiance only for so long as the 

 king should maintain the privileges of the church ; and the lay barons 

 appear to have also qualified their oath by a similar condition as to 

 hia preservation of their estates and honours. Nothing like this had 

 taken place at the commencement of any previous reign since the 

 Conquest. 



In January of the following year, 1136, after seeing the body of the 

 late king interred at Reading, Stephen convened a great council of the 

 bishops and the nobility at Oxford, and there signed a charter of the 

 liberties of the church and state, in which he styled himself "Stephen, 

 by the grace of God, elected king of the English by assent of the 

 clergy and the people, consecrated by William, archbishop of Canter- 

 bury and legate of the holy Roman Church, and confirmed by Innocent 

 the Pontifex of the holy Roman see." He had shortly before this 

 obtained a bull from Pope Innocent, confirming his election. In this 

 charter he repeated more distinctly the engagements under which he 

 had come at his coronation, declaring besides that he would cause to 

 be observed all the ancient and just laws of the kingdom. There is 

 also a shorter charter of Stephen's, dated at London, which seems to 

 have preceded this, and which was probably granted at or immediately 

 after his coronation. In that he expressly grants to his French and 

 English subjects all the good laws and good customs which they had 

 in the time of the Confessor, a clause which ia not found in the larger 

 charter. The confirming clause of the latter also has the qualification, 

 ' salva regia et justa dignitate mea" saving my royal and just 

 dignity, which the other is without. 



Meanwhile a feeble attempt had been made by Matilda and her 

 husband to take possession of Normandy; but the Normans them- 

 selves, without any assistance from Stephen, soon drove out the army 

 of Angevins which had entered their country. In England at this 

 moment not a hand or voice was lifted up for the daughter of the late 

 king. Even the Earl of Gloucester came forward with the other 

 barons, and did homage, and took the oath of fealty, to Stephen. 

 After a short while however opposition arose in various quarters. 

 In the spring of the year 1136, King David of Scotland, Matilda's 

 uncle, advancing at the head of an army, overran the northern 

 counties, acd compelled the barons of those parts to swear fealty to 

 Matilda, and to give hostages for the performance of their oath ; and 

 although he agreed to a peace when Stephen marched against him, 

 and rt-stored the lands and castles he had taken, he refused to do 

 homage to the king of England for his possessions in that country. 

 He suffered his eldest son Prince Henry however to do homage for the 

 honour of Huntingdon, which, with the towns of Carlis-le and Doncas- 

 ter, was conferred upon him by Stephen. Meanwhile, during Stephen's 

 detention on the northern border, an insurrection in Matilda's favour 

 broke out in Wales, which he could never effectually suppress, but was 

 obliged to satisfy himself with merely endeavouring to prevent it from 

 extending itself beyond that quarter of the kingdom. Then, although 

 ho had obtained the investiture of tbe duchy of Normandy from the 

 French king Louis, it soon appeared that his possession of the country 

 was only to be retained by force of arms, and that while he had to 

 keep back with the one hand the persevering attacks of the Angevins, 

 he had an almost equally troublesome enemy to keep down with the 

 other in the native chiefs, a large proportion of whom, sometimes 

 arraying themselves on his side, sometimes on that of Matilda, 

 evidently aimed at taking advantage of the contest between the two 

 rivals, to throw off the yoke of the one as well as of the other, and to 

 secure, if not the national independence, at least their individual 

 emancipation from all superiority.- And the game spirit quickly 

 began to show and spread itself in England. In some districts the 

 standard of Matilda was raised by the Earl of Gloucester, and various 

 places of strength were seized upon and garrisoned in her name ; else- 

 where the barons fortified their castles on their own account, and set 

 up each as an independent chieftain. Stephen had his hands full of 

 work with all this disorder and rebellion in the south, when the king 

 of Scotland again appeared on the northern borders. After having 

 ravaged Northumberland with unusual ferocity in the winter of 1137, 

 David and his half-barbarian host retired to Roxburgh, ou the approach 

 of the English king in the beginning of the following year ; but as 

 soon as Stephen was recalled to the south, the Scots again crossed the 

 border in the end of March 1138. They had taken the castle of 

 Norham, and laid siege to other fortresses, when they were met by 

 Thurstin, archbishop of York, at the head of an army composed of the 

 retainers of the northern English barons, and defeated by him in the 

 famous battle of the Standard, fought on the 22nd of August, 1138, on 

 Cutton Moor, in the neighbourhood of Northallerton. Peace however 

 was not concluded with the Scots till the 9th of April in the following 

 year, when Stephen found himself under the necessity of yielding up 

 to Prince Henry the earldom of Northumberland, with the exception 

 of the forts of Newcastle and Bamborough, for which he engaged to 

 make over to him estates of equivalent value in the south of England. 



But by this time the unfortunate English king had found another, 

 and, as it turned out, by far his most formidable enemy. He had 

 quarrelled with the Church. Resolved to reduce the inordinate 

 power of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, and his two nephews, Alexander 



and Nigel, bishops of Lincoln and Ely, he had at a council held at 

 Oxford, in June 1138, arrested Roger and Alexander; and although 

 Nigel made his escape, he was eventually compelled to surrender his 

 castle of Devizes, as his brother and his uncle had been to give up theirs 

 of Newark, Salisbury, Sherburn, and Malmesbury. The inflammation 

 excited in the whole ecclesiastical body by this attack was terrific. 

 Even the king's brother, the Bishop of Winchester, who had been 

 lately made papal legate, was either carried away by the general feeling 

 of his order, or, if he did not share in that feeling, found it would be in 

 vain for him to resist it. He summoned his brother to answer for 

 what he had done before a synod of bishops, which met at Winchester. 

 Stephen complied so far as to send one of his ministers to plead for 

 him, who, when a decision upon a preliminary question had been given 

 against the king, appealed to Rome ; on which the legate dissolved the 

 synod, on the 1st of September 1139. On the last day of the same 

 month Matilda landed on the coast of Suffolk, and immediately after 

 tbe Earl of Gloucester unfurled his standard in the west The war 

 spread rapidly over the whole kingdom. At length, on the 23rd of 

 February 1141, Stephen, while besieging the castle of Lincoln, which 

 was held by Ranulph, Earl of Chester, was attacked by the Earl of 

 Gloucester, and being taken prisoner, was immediately, by Matilda'a 

 order, consigned in chains to the castle of Bristol. 



On that day month Matilda and her brother, attended by a numerous 

 body of barons of their party, met the legate on the open downs in the 

 neighbourhood of Winchester, when it was solemnly agreed that 

 Henry and the church should acknowledge her as their sovereign, on 

 condition that he should be made her first minister, and especially 

 that all vacant bishoprics and abbacies should be filled up on his 

 nomination. Soon after this the Archbishop of Canterbury and all 

 the other bishops gave in their adherence. In the beginning of April 

 the heads of the church met on the summons of the legate at his 

 episcopal city of Winchester ; and there he addressed them in a long 

 speech, which Malmesbury, who heard it, has preserved ; and in the 

 end the meeting unanimously agreed to confirm his treaty with 

 Matilda. A remarkable circumstance mentioned in the account of 

 this meeting is the appearance of certain deputies from the citizens 

 of London, who, it is stated, on account of the greatness of their city 

 were considered as nobles in England, and who had been summoned 

 to give their attendance by the legate, although the assembly was 

 otherwise composed only of ecclesiastics. They at first stood up for 

 Stephen, but were ultimately persuaded to concur with the rest of the 

 meeting. 



But the folly, rapacity, and insolence which Matilda now displayed 

 in her triumph, were soon found to be insupportable by all parties. 

 Taking advantage of the strong popular feeling of disgust, Stephen's 

 queen Matilda, who had remained in arms for her husband in the 

 county of Kent, made her appearance before London while the empress 

 lay there waiting her coronation ; and she barely contrived, by springing 

 from table and mounting her horse, to effect her escape to Oxford. 

 The legate now joined his sister-in-law and the Londoners ; the em- 

 press, with the King of Scots, the Earl of Gloucester, and others of 

 her principal adherents, besieged in the castle of Winchester, fled 

 from that stronghold on the morning of Sunday, the 14th of September, 

 when, being immediately pursued, many of the party were killed ; 

 most of the rest, including the Earl of Gloucester, were taken prisoners, 

 and Matilda herself with difficulty escaped to the castle of Devizes. 

 Negociations were now opened, the result of which was that in the 

 beginning of November Gloucester was exchanged for Stephen. When 

 his brother was thus again at liberty, the legate once more summoned 

 a clerical synod at Westminster, on the 7th of December, at which he 

 defended his abandonment of the cause of Matilda, and as usual carried 

 his brethren along with him in his new course of politics. Stephen 

 himself, having appeared among them, addressed them with pathetic 

 eloquence on the wrongs and indignities he had sustained ; and they 

 ended by resolving unanimously to excommunicate all who should 

 adhere to the " Countess of Anjou." 



The war now recommenced after Stephen had recovered from an 

 illness which confined him for some months, and Gloucester had 

 returned from the Continent, whither he had gone to endeavour to 

 persuade Matilda's husband to come over to her assistance, an attempt 

 in which he met with no success, although Geoffrey consented to 

 entrust his eldest son Henry to the earl's care. In the end of Septem- 

 ber 1142 Stephen laid siege to the castle of Oxford, in which Matilda 

 resided ; but when the garrison, from want of provisions, could hold 

 I out no longer, the empress, on the 20th of December, in a severe 

 ! frost, and while the ground was covered with snow, slipped out at an 

 early hour in the morning attended by three knights, made her way 

 through the posts, crossed the Thames on the ice, walked to Abingdon, 

 and thence rode to Wallingford. Other sieges, battles, and skirmishes 

 followed, and the kingdom remained subject generally in the eastern 

 counties to Stephen, in the western to Matilda, till the death of the 

 Earl of Gloucester, the main support of the latter, in 1146, upon which 

 she retired to Normandy. But her absence brought little more quiet 

 to Stephen. The next two or three years of his reign were disturbed 

 by a formidable rebellion of a confederacy of the barons headed by 

 Ranulf, earl of Chester, and also by another quarrel with the clergy, 

 whose hostility Stephen brought upon himself this time by his support 

 of their old leader his brother Henry, when that intriguing and 



