Chapter V (3)

[805] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 107. (This
writer puts the event a year too early, but afterwards corrects
himself, _ib._ p. 116). Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 20
(Hardy, p. 717), says that he himself heard Roger’s expression
of reluctance: “Per dominam meam S. Mariam (nescio quo
pacto) reluctatur mens mea huic itineri! Hoc scio, quod ejus
utilitatis ero in curiâ, cujus est equinus pullus in pugnâ.”
This really seems to imply nothing more than that he was
conscious of having lost all power to control or guide the king.

[806] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 10 (Arnold, p. 265). Flor. Worc.
Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 107.

[807] “In castro Oxenfordiæ.” Ann. Oseney, a. 1139 (Luard,
_Ann. Monast._, vol. iv. p. 23).

[808] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 20 (Hardy, p. 717),
lays the blame on the men of Alan of Richmond (or Britanny);
the _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell, p. 49) on Waleran of Meulan. Flor.
Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 108, gives no name.

[809] Will. Malm. as above. Cf. Joh. Hexh. (Raine), p. 124.

[810] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 919.

[811] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 108. _Gesta
Steph._ (Sewell), p. 50.

The town of Devizes stands on a steep escarpment of greensand penetrated by two deep ravines which give it the form of a semicircle with a tongue projecting in the middle. On this tongue of rocky ground, five hundred feet above the level of the sea, the bishop of Salisbury had reared a castle unsurpassed in strength and splendour by any fortress in Europe.[812] At its gates Stephen soon appeared, bringing the two Rogers with him as captives. The elder he lodged in a cowshed, the younger he threatened to hang if the place was not surrendered at once. Its unhappy owner, in terror for his son’s life, vowed neither to eat nor drink till the castle was in the hands of Stephen;[813] but neither his uncle’s fasting nor his cousin’s danger moved Nigel to yield. The keep, however, was held by the chancellor’s mother, Matilda of Ramsbury, and the sight of a rope actually round her son’s neck overcame her resistance. She offered her own life in exchange for his, and the offer being refused, she surrendered. Nigel could only follow her example.[814] Roger’s other castles, Sherborne and Malmesbury, soon fell likewise into the king’s hands, and with them the enormous treasure collected by their owner.[815] Alexander of Lincoln was dragged to the gates of Newark and there kept starving till he induced his people to give up the place; and his other castle, Sleaford, was gained by the same means.[816]

[812] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 10 (Arnold, p. 265).

[813] Flor. Worc. Contin. as above. In Ord. Vit. (Duchesne,
_Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 920, it is the king who vows to
starve the bishop till the castle is won. Cf. Hen. Hunt. (as
above) and Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 20 (Hardy, p.
718).

[814] Ord. Vit. as above.

[815] Hen. Hunt. and Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._ as above. The
Eng. Chron. tells the whole tale briefly under a wrong year (a.
1137).

[816] Hen. Hunt., l. viii. c. 11 (Arnold, p. 266).

Such an outrage as Stephen had committed could not pass unchallenged. His victims indeed were unpopular enough; but two of them were bishops, and the whole English Church was up in arms at once. And the English Church was no longer without a fully qualified spokesman and leader. That leader, however, was not the new-made primate. The legatine commission held by William of Corbeil was not renewed to his successor in the archbishopric: it was sent instead to the man who had long been the most influential member of the English episcopate--Henry, bishop of Winchester. For nearly four months Henry kept this all-powerful weapon lying idly in the scabbard;[817] now, at the call of duty, neither fear nor love hindered him from drawing it against his own brother. Having vainly dinned into Stephen’s ears, both privately and publicly, his entreaties for the restoration of the two bishops, he fell back upon his legatine powers and cited the king to answer for his conduct before a council at Winchester on August 29.[818]

[817] Innocent’s commission bore date March 1, 1139. Will.
Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 22 (Hardy, p. 719).

[818] _Ib._ c. 21 (p. 719).

The council sat for three days, and the case was argued out between Stephen’s advocate Aubrey de Vere, the bishop of Salisbury and the legate. Henry formally charged his brother with sacrilege, in having laid violent hands upon bishops, and appropriated their lands and goods to his own use. Stephen met the charge with the plea which had been used by the Conqueror against Odo of Bayeux--he had arrested the culprits not as bishops, but as unfaithful ministers and disloyal subjects; and the property which he had taken from them they had acquired as private men, in defiance of the canons of the Church. Roger retorted that all these accusations were false; both parties threatened an appeal to Rome, and swords were drawn almost in the council-chamber.[819] The legate and the primate intervened as peacemakers, and a compromise was arranged. It was decreed by the council that all prelates who held fortresses other than those which belonged to their sees should place them under the king’s control, and confine themselves henceforth to their canonical duties and rights.[820] On the other hand, Stephen’s act was solemnly condemned, and he had to lay aside his royal robes and come as an humble penitent to receive the censure of the Church.[821] This humiliation saved him from the ecclesiastical penalties of his misdeed; from its political consequences nothing could save him now. He had filled up the measure of his follies. When the obedience of the barons had been forfeited--when the trust of the people had been shaken--two forces still remained by whose help he might have recovered all that he had lost: the administration and the clergy. At a single blow he had destroyed the one and thrown the other into opposition.

[819] _Ib._ cc. 22–28 (pp. 719–724).

[820] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 116. _Gesta
Steph._ (Sewell), p. 51.

[821] _Gesta Steph._ (Sewell), pp. 51, 52.

His rivals saw that the hour for which they were vainly waiting in Normandy had struck at last in England. All Geoffrey’s attempts on Normandy had failed. At the expiration of his truce with Theobald of Blois in 1136 the barons of Anjou were again in revolt,[822] and it was not till the end of September that Geoffrey was free to invade the duchy. Its internal confusion was such that the twin earls of Meulan and Leicester (sons of King Henry’s friend Robert), who were trying to govern it for Stephen, had been obliged again to call Count Theobald to their aid; but at sight of the hated “Guirribecs,” as the Angevins were derisively called, the Normans forgot their differences and rose as one man against the common foe. On October 1 Geoffrey was wounded in the right foot while besieging the castle of Le Sap near Lisieux; that night his wife joined him with reinforcements; but the morning had scarcely dawned when, like another Geoffrey of Anjou ninety years earlier, he fled with all his host[823]--not, however, before the military fame of the Norman duke, but before the vengeance of the Norman people. Next spring he again ventured to attack the Hiesmois.[824] Stephen, who was now in Normandy and had just won its investiture from King Louis, prepared to meet the invader; but the jealousies between his Norman and his Flemish troops compelled him to abandon the attempt and make another truce for two years.[825] In April next the Angevins broke the truce;[826] in June Robert of Gloucester openly declared for them, and under his influence Bayeux and Caen surrendered to Geoffrey. The count of Anjou retired, however, before a threatened attack from Stephen’s cousin Ralf of Vermandois, in conjunction with Waleran of Meulan and William of Ypres.[827] Early in October he made an unsuccessful attempt upon Falaise.[828] In November he marched upon Toucques, then one of the most flourishing seaport towns of Normandy. The burghers were taken captive “seated in their own arm-chairs,” and in their comfortable houses the Angevins, after feasting to their heart’s content, settled themselves carelessly for the night. But their presence was known to William Trussebut, the governor of the neighbouring castle of Bonneville; and at dead of night a band of desperate characters, purposely chosen for a desperate deed, came by his orders from Bonneville to Toucques, dispersed silently throughout the town, and fired it in forty-five places. The Angevins, wakened by the cries of the watchmen and the roaring of the flames, fled headlong, leaving their arms, horses and baggage behind them. William Trussebut had come forth at the head of his men to intercept their flight, but the smoke and the darkness were such that neither party could distinguish friends from foes. Geoffrey, bewildered as he was, managed to bring some of his men to a stand in a cemetery; there the rest of the Angevin force gradually collected, and waited, in shame and trembling, for the day. At the first gleam of morning they fled, and never stopped till they had buried themselves and their disgrace safe within the walls of Argentan.[829] This time the Normans had taught Geoffrey a lesson which he did not soon forget; he did not venture to meddle with them again for more than two years. Neither he nor his wife made any movement at all till late in the following summer, when a prospect was opened for them beyond the sea by Stephen’s arrest of the two bishops. The council of Winchester broke up on the first of September;[830] on the thirtieth the Empress was in England.

[822] _Hist. Gaufr. Ducis_ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), pp. 268, 269.
Cf. Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 903.

[823] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 903–908. Rob. Torigni, a. 1136.

[824] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 909, says he was “stipendiarius
conjugi suæ factus.”

[825] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 910.
Rob. Torigni, a. 1137, makes it three years. Stephen also
promised an annual payment of two thousand marks of silver.

[826] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 916.

[827] Ord. Vit. as above.

[828] Ord. Vit. (as above), p. 918. Chronn. S. Albin. and S.
Serg. a. 1138 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 34, 145).

[829] Ord. Vit. (as above), pp. 918, 919.

[830] Will. Malm. _Hist. Nov._, l. ii. c. 29 (Hardy, p. 724).