Chapter VI: England and the Barons (1)

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.