STEPHEN. 1135.
In the progress and settlement of the feudal law,
the male succession to fiefs had taken place some time before the female was admitted; and estates, being considered
as military benefices, not as property, were transmitted to such only as could serve in the armies, and perform
in person the conditions upon which they were originally granted. But when the continuance of rights, during some
generations, in the same family, had, in a great measure, obliterated the primitive idea, the females were gradually
admitted to the possession of feudal property; and the same revolution of principles which procured them the inheritance
of private estates, naturally introduced their succession to government and authority. The failure, therefore,
of male heirs to the kingdom of England and dutchy of Normandy, seemed to leave the succession open, without a
rival, to the empress Matilda; and as Henry had made all his vassals in both states swear fealty to her, he presumed
that they would not easily be induced to depart at once from her hereditary right, and from their own reiterated
oaths and engagements. But the irregular manner in which he himself had acquired the crown, might have instructed
him, that neither his Norman nor English subjects were as yet capable of adhering to a strict rule of government;
and as every precedent of this kind seems to give authority to new usurpation's, he had reason to dread, even from
his own family, some invasion of his daughter's title, which he had taken such pains to establish.
Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, had been married to Stephen, count of Blois, and had brought him several
sons, among whom Stephen and Henry, the two youngest, had been invited over to England by the late king, and had
received great honours, riches, and preferment, from the zealous friendship which that prince bore to every one
that had been so fortunate as to acquire his favour and good opinion. Henry, who had betaken himself to the ecclesiastical
profession, was created abbot of Glastonbury and bishop of Winchester; and though these dignities were considerable,
Stephen had, from his uncle's liberality, attained establishments still more solid and durable. The king had married
him to Matilda, who was daughter and heir of Eustace, count of Boulogne, and who brought him, besides that feudal
sovereignty in France, an immense property in England, which in the distribution of lands had been conferred by
the Conqueror on the family of Boulogne. Stephen also by this marriage acquired a new connexion with the royal
family of England; as Mary, his wife's mother, was sister to David, the reigning king of Scotland, and to Matilda,
the first wife of Henry, and mother of the empress. The king, still imagining that he strengthened the interests
of his family by the aggrandizement of Stephen, took pleasure in enriching him by the grant of new possessions;
and he conferred on him the great estate forfeited by Robert Mallet in England, and that forfeited by the earl
of Mortaigne in Normandy. Stephen, in return, professed great attachment to his uncle and appeared so zealous for
the succession of Matilda, that, when the barons swore fealty to that princess, he contended with Robert, earl
of Gloucester, the king's natural son, who should first be admitted to give her this testimony of devoted zeal
and fidelity. Meanwhile he continued to cultivate, by every art of popularity, the friendship of the English nation;
and many virtues with which he seemed to be endowed favoured the success of his intentions. By his bravery, activity,
and vigour he acquired the esteem of the barons: by his generosity, and by an affable and familiar address, unusual
in that age among men of his high quality, he obtained the affections of the people, particularly of he Londoners.
And though he dared not to take any steps towards his further grandeur, lest he should expose himself to the jealousy
of so penetrating a prince as Henry, he still hoped that, by accumulating riches and power, and by acquiring popularity,
he might in time be able to open his way to the throne.
No sooner had Henry breathed his last than Stephen, insensible to all the ties of gratitude and fidelity, and blind
to danger, gave full reins to his criminal ambition, and trusted that, even without any previous intrigue, the
celerity of his enterprise, and the boldness of his attempt, might overcome the weak attachment which the English
and Norman's in that age bore to the laws and to the rights of their sovereign. He hastened over to England; and
though the citizens of Dover and those of Canterbury, apprised of his purpose, shut their gates against him, he
stopped not till he arrived at London, where some of the lower rank, instigated by his emissaries, as well as moved
by his general popularity, immediately saluted him king. His next point was to acquire the good-will of the clergy;
and by performing the ceremony of his coronation, to put himself in possession of the throne, from which he was
confident it would not be easy afterwards to expel him. His brother, the bishop of Winchester, was useful to him
in these capital articles: having gained Roger, bishop of Salisbury, who, though he owed a great fortune and advancement
to the favour of the late king, preserved no sense of gratitude to that prince's family; he applied, in conjunction
with that prelate, to William, archbishop of Canterbury, and required him, in virtue of his office, to give the
royal unction to Stephen. The primate, who, as all the others, had sworn fealty to Matilda, refused to perform
this ceremony; but his opposition was overcome by an expedient equally dishonourable with the other steps by which
this revolution was effected. Hugh Bigod, steward of the household, made oath before the primate, that the late
king on his death-bed had shown a dissatisfaction with his daughter Matilda, and had expressed his intention of
leaving the count of Boulogne heir to all his dominions. William, either believing, or feigning to believe Bigod's
testimony, anointed Stephen, and put the crown upon his head time 22nd of December; and from this religious ceremony
that prince, without any shadow either of hereditary title or consent of the nobility or people, was allowed to
proceed to the exercise of sovereign authority. Very few barons attended his coronation; but none opposed his usurpation,
however unjust or flagrant. The sentiment of religion, which if corrupted into superstition, has often little efficacy
in fortifying the duties of civil society, was not affected by the multiplied oaths taken in favour of Matilda,
and only rendered the people obedient to a prince who was countenanced by the clergy, and who had received from
the primate the rite of royal unction and consecration. (Such stress was formerly laid on the rite of coronation
that the monkish writers never gave any prince the title of king till he is crowned though he had for some time
been in possession of the crown, and exercised all the powers of sovereignty.)
Stephen, that he might further secure his tottering
throne, passed a charter, in which he made liberal promises to all orders of men: to the clergy, that he would
speedily fill all vacant benefices, and would never levy the rents of any of them during the vacancy; to the nobility,
that he would reduce the royal forests to their ancient boundaries, and correct all encroachments; and to the people,
that he would remit the tax of Danegelt, and restore the laws of king Edward. The late king had a great treasure
at Winchester, amounting to a hundred thousand pounds; and Stephen, by seizing this money, immediately turned against
Henry's family the precaution which that prince had employed for their grandeur and security: an event which naturally
attends the policy of amassing treasures. By means of this money the usurper insured the compliance, though not
the attachment, of the principal clergy and nobility; but not trusting to this frail security, he invited over
from the continent, particularly from Brittany and Flanders, great numbers of those bravos or disorderly soldiers,
with whom every country in Europe, by reason of the general ill police and turbulent government, extremely abounded.
These mercenary troops guarded his throne by the terrors of the sword; and Stephen, that he might also overawe
all malcontents by new and additional terrors of religion, procured a bull from Rome, which ratified his title,
and which the pope, seeing this prince in possession of the throne, and pleased with an appeal to his authority
in secular controversies, very readily granted him.
1136. Matilda and her husband Geoffrey were as unfortunate in Normandy as they had been in England. The Norman
nobility, moved by an hereditary animosity against the Angevins, first applied to Theobald, Count of Blois, Stephen's
elder brother, for protection and assistance; but hearing afterwards that Stephen had got possession of the English
crown, and having many of them the same reasons as formerly for desiring a continuance of their union with that
kingdom, they transferred their allegiance to Stephen, and put him in possession of their government. Louis the
Younger, the reigning king of France, accepted the homage of Eustace, Stephen's eldest son, for the dutchy; and
the more to corroborate his connexions with that family, he betrothed his sister Constantia to the young prince.
The count of Blois resigned all his pretensions, and received in lieu of them an annual pension of two thousand
marks; and Geoffrey himself was obliged to conclude a truce for two years with Stephen, on condition of the king's
paying him, during that time, a pension of five thousand. Stephen, who had taken a journey to Normandy, finished
all these transactions in person, and soon after returned to England.
Robert, earl of Gloucester, natural son of the late king, was a man of honour and abilities; and as he was much
attached to the interests of his sister Matilda and zealous for the lineal succession, it was chiefly from his
intrigues and resistance that the king had reason to dread a new revolution of government. This nobleman, who was
in Normandy when he received intelligence of Stephen's accession, found himself much embarrassed concerning the
measures which he should pursue in that difficult emergency. To swear allegiance to the usurper appeared to him
dishonourable, and a breach of his oath to Matilda: to refuse giving this pledge of his fidelity, was to banish
himself from England, and be totally incapacitated from serving the royal family, or contributing to their restoration.
He offered Stephen to do him homage, and to take the oath of fealty; but with an express condition that the king
should maintain all his stipulations, and should never invade any of Robert's rights or dignities: and Stephen,
though sensible that this reserve, so unusual in itself, and so unbefitting the duty of a subject, was meant only
to afford Robert a pretence for a revolt on the first favourable opportunity, was obliged, by the numerous friends
and retainers of that nobleman, to receive him on those terms. The clergy, who could scarcely at this time be deemed
subjects to the crown, imitated that dangerous example: they annexed to their oaths of allegiance this condition,
that they were only bound so long as the king defended the ecclesiastical liberties, and supported the discipline
of the church. The barons, in return for their submission, exacted terms still more destructive of public peace,
as well as of royal authority: many of them required the right of fortifying their castles, and of putting themselves
in a posture of defence; and the king found himself totally unable to refuse his consent to this exorbitant demand.
All England was immediately filled with those fortresses, which the noblemen garrisoned either with their vassals,
or with licentious soldiers, who flocked to them from all quarters. Unbounded rapine was exercised upon the people
for the maintenance of these troops; and private animosities, which had with difficulty been restrained by law,
now breaking out without control, rendered England a scene of uninterrupted violence and devastation. Wars between
the nobles were carried on with the utmost fury in every quarter; the barons even assumed the right of coining
money, and of exercising, without appeal, every act of jurisdiction; and the inferior gentry, as well as the people,
finding no defence from the laws during this total dissolution of sovereign authority, were obliged, for their
immediate safety, to pay court to some neighbouring chieftain, and to purchase his protection, both by submitting
to his exactions, and by assisting him in his rapine upon others. The erection of one castle proved the immediate
cause or building many others; and even those who obtained not the king's permission, thought that they were entitled,
by the great principle of self-preservation, to put themselves on an equal footing with their neighbours, who commonly
were also their enemies and rivals. The aristocratical power, which is usually so oppressive in the feudal governments,
had now risen to its utmost height during the reign of a prince who, though endowed with vigour and abilities,
had usurped the throne without the pretence of a title, and who was necessitated to tolerate in others the same
violence to which he himself had been beholden for his sovereignty.
But Stephen was not of a disposition to submit long to these usurpation's without making some effort for the recovery
of royal authority. Finding that the legal prerogatives of the crown were resisted and abridged, he was also tempted
to make his power the sole measure of his conduct; and to violate all those concessions which he himself had made
on his accession, as well as the ancient, privileges of his subjects. The mercenary soldiers, who chiefly supported
his authority, having exhausted the royal treasure, subsisted by depredations; and every place was filled with
the best grounded complaints against the government. The earl of Gloucester, having now settled with his friends
[1137] the plan of an insurrection, retired beyond sea, sent the king a defiance, solemnly renounced his allegiance,
and upbraided him with the breach of those conditions which had been annexed to the oath of fealty sworn by that
nobleman.
David, king of Scotland, appeared at the head of
am army in defence of his niece's title, and penetrating into Yorkshire, committed the most barbarous devastation's
on that country. The fury of his massacres and ravages enraged the northern nobility, who might otherwise have
been inclined to join him; and William, earl of Albemarle, Robert de Ferrers, William Piercy, Robert de Brus, Roger
Moubray, Ilbert Lacey, Walter I'Espec, powerful barons in those parts, assembled an army, with which they encamped
at North-Allerton, and awaited the arrival of the enemy. A great battle was here fought, on the 22nd of August,
called the battle of the Standard, from a high crucifix, erected by the English on a waggon, and carried along
with the army as a military ensign. The king of Scots was defeated, and he himself as well as his son Henry, narrowly
escaped falling into the hands of the English. This success overawed the malcontents in England, and might have
given some stability to Stephen's throne, had he not been so elated with prosperity as to engage in a controversy
with the clergy, who were at that time an overmatch for any monarch.
Though the great power of the church in ancient times weakened the authority of the crown, and interrupted the
course of the laws, it may be doubted whether, in ages of such violence and outrage, it was not rather advantageous
that some limits were set to the power of the sword, both in the hands of the prince and nobles, and that men were
taught to pay regard to some principles and privileges. The chief misfortune was, that the prelates on some occasions
acted entirely as barons, employed military power against their sovereign or their neighbours, and thereby often
increased those disorders which it was their duty to repress. The bishop of Salisbury, in imitation of the nobility,
had built two strong castles, one at Sherborne, another at the Devizes, and had laid the foundations of a third
at Malmesbury: his nephew Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, had erected a fortress at Newark; and Stephen, who was
now sensible from experience of the mischief's attending these multiplied citadels, resolved to begin with destroying
those of he clergy, who by their function seemed less entitled than the barons to such military securities. Making
pretence of a fray which had arisen in court between he retinue of the bishop of Salisbury and that of the earl
of Brittany, he seized both that prelate and the bishop of Lincoln, threw them into prison, and obliged them by
menaces to deliver up those places of strength which they had lately erected.
Henry, bishop of Winchester, the king's brother, being armed with a legantine commission, now conceived himself
to be an ecclesiastical sovereign no less powerful than the civil; and forgetting the ties of blood which connected
him with the king, he resolved to vindicate the clerical privileges, which he pretended were here openly violated.
He assembled a synod at Westminster, the 30th of August, and there complained of the impiety of Stephen's measures,
who had employed violence against the dignitaries of the church, and had not awaited the sentence of a spiritual
court, by which alone, he affirmed, they could lawfully be tried and condemned, if their conduct had anywise merited
censure or punishment. The synod ventured to send a summons to the king, charging him to appear before them, and
to justify his measures; and Stephen, instead of resenting this indignity, sent Aubrey de Vere to plead his cause
before that assembly. De Vere accused the two prelates of treason and sedition; but the synod refused to try the
cause, or examine their conduct, till those castles, of which they had been dispossessed, were previously restored
to them. The bishop of Salisbury declared that he would appeal to the pope; and had not Stephen and his partisans
employed menaces, and even shown a disposition of executing violence by the hands of the soldiery, affairs had
instantly come to extremity between the crown and the mitre.
INSURRECTION
IN FAVOUR OF MATILDA.
September 22.
While this quarrel, joined to so many other grievances,
increased the discontents among the people, the empress, invited by the opportunity, and secretly encouraged by
the legate himself, landed in England, with Robert, earl of Gloucester, and a retinue of a hundred and forty knights.
She fixed her residence at Arundel castle, whose gates were opened to her by Adelais the queen-dowager, now married
to William de Albini, earl of Sussex; and she excited by messengers her partisans to take arms in every county
of England. Adelais, who had expected that her daughter-in-law would have invaded the kingdom with a much greater
force, became apprehensive of danger and Matilda, to ease her of her fears, removed first to Bristol which belonged
to her brother Robert, thence to Gloucester, where she remained under the protection of Milo, a gallant nobleman
in those parts, who had embraced her cause. Soon after Geoffrey Talbot, William Mohun, Ralph Lovel, William Fitz-John,
William Fitz-Alan, Paganell, and many other barons, declared for her; and her party, which was generally favoured
in the kingdom, seemed every day to gain ground upon that of her antagonist.
Were we to relate all the military events transmitted to us by contemporary and authentic historians, it would
be easy to swell our accounts of this reign into a large volume: but those incidents, so little memorable in themselves,
and so confused both in time and place, could afford neither instruction nor entertainment to the reader. It suffices
to say that the war was spread into every quarter; and that those turbulent barons, who had already shaken off,
in a great measure, the restraint of government, having now obtained the pretence of a public cause, carried on
their devastations with redoubled fury, exercised implacable vengeance on each other, arid set no bounds to their
oppressions over the people. The castles of the nobility were become receptacles of licensed robbers; who, sallying
forth day and night, committed spoil on the open country, on the villages, and even on the cities; put the captives
to torture, in order to make them reveal their treasures; sold their persons to slavery; and set fire to their
houses, after they had pillaged them of everything valuable. The fierceness of their disposition, leading them
to commit wanton destruction, frustrated their rapacity of its purpose: and the property and persons even of the
ecclesiastics, generally so much revered, were at last, from necessity, exposed to the same outrage which had laid
waste the rest of the kingdom. The land was left untilled; the instruments of husbandry were destroyed or abandoned;
and a grievous famine, the natural result of those disorders, affected equally both parties, and reduced the spoilers,
as well as the defenseless people, to the most extreme want and indigence.
After several fruitless negociations and treaties of peace, which never interrupted these destructive hostilities,
there happened at last an event which seemed to promise some end of the public calamities. Ralph, earl of Chester,
and his half-brother William de Roumara, partisans of Matilda, had surprised the castle of Lincoln; but the Citizens,
who were better affected to Stephen, having invited him to their aid, that prince laid close siege to the castle,
in hopes of soon rendering himself master of the place, either by assault or by famine.
STEPHEN TAKEN PRISONER. February 2, 1141.
The earl of Gloucester hastened with an army to
the relief of his friends; and Stephen, informed of his approach, took the field with a resolution of giving him
battle. After a violent shock, the two wings of the royalists were put to flight; and Stephen himself, surrounded
by the enemy, was at last, after exerting great efforts of valour, borne down by numbers, and taken prisoner. He
was conducted to Gloucester; and though at first treated with humanity, was soon after, on some suspicion, thrown
into prison, and loaded with irons.
Stephen's party was entirely broken by the captivity of their leader, and the barons came in daily from all quarters,
and did homage to Matilda. The princess, however, amidst all her prosperity, knew that she was not secure of success,
unless she could gain the confidence of the clergy; and as the conduct of the legate had been of late very ambiguous,
and showed his intentions to have rather aimed at humbling his brother, than totally ruining him, she employed
every endeavour to fix him in her interests. She held a conference with him (2d of March) in an open plain near
Winchester; where she promised upon oath, that if he would acknowledge her for sovereign, would recognise her title
as the sole descendant of the late king, and would again submit to the allegiance which he, as well as the rest
of the kingdom, had sworn to her, he should in return be entire master of the administration, and in particular
should, at his pleasure, dispose of all vacant bishoprics and abbeys. Earl Robert, her brother, Brian Fitz-Count,
Milo of Gloucester, and other great men, became guarantees for her observing these engagements; and the prelate
was at last induced to promise her allegiance, but that still burdened with the express condition, that she should
on her part fulfill her promises. He then conducted her to Winchester, led her in procession to the cathedral,
and with great solemnity, in the presence of many bishops and abbots, denounced curses against all those who cursed
her, poured out blessings on those who blessed her, granted absolution to such as were obedient to her, and excommunicated
such as were rebellious. Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, soon after came also to court, and swore allegiance
to the empress.
Matilda, that she might further ensure the attachment
of the clergy, was willing to receive the crown from heir hands; and instead of assembling the states of the kingdom,
the measure which the constitution, had it been either fixed or regarded, seemed necessarily to require, she was
content that the legate should summon an ecclesiastical synod, and that her title to the throne should there be
acknowledged. The legate, addressing himself to the assembly, told them, that in the absence of the empress, Stephen,
his brother, had been permitted to reign, and, previously to his ascending the throne, had seduced them by many
fair promises of honouring and exalting the church, of maintaining the laws, and of reforming all abuses: that
it grieved him to observe how much that prince had in every particular been wanting to his engagements; public
peace was interrupted, crimes were daily committed with impunity, bishops were thrown into prison and forced to
surrender their possessions, abbeys were put to sale, churches were pillaged, and the most enormous disorders prevailed
in the administration: that he himself, in order to procure a redress of these grievances, had formerly summoned
the king before a council of bishops; but instead of inducing him to amend his conduct, had rather offended him
by that expedient: that, how much so ever misguided, that prince was still his brother, and the object of his affections:
but his interests, however, must. be regarded as subordinate to those of their heavenly Father, who had now rejected
him, and thrown him into the hands of his enemies: that it principally belonged to the clergy to elect and ordain
kings ; he had summoned them together for that purpose, and having invoked the divine assistance, he now pronounced
Matilda, the only descendant of Henry, their late sovereign, queen of England. The whole assembly, by their acclamations
or silence, gave, or seemed to give, their assent to this declaration; (Wm. Malmes. p. 188. This author, a judicious
man. was present, and says, that he, was very attentive to what passed. This speech, therefore, may be regarded
as entirely genuine.)
The only laymen summoned to this council, which decided the fate of the crown, were the Londoners; and even these
were required not to give their opinion, but to submit to the decrees of the synod. The deputies of London, however,
were not so passive: they insisted that their king should be delivered from prison; but were told by the legate,
that it became not the Londoners, who were regarded as noblemen in England, to take part with those barons who
had basely forsaken their lord in battle, and had treated holy church with contumely. It is with reason that the
citizens of London assumed so much authority, if it be true, what is related by Fitz-Stephen, a contemporary author,
that that city could at this time bring into the field no less than eighty thousand combatants. (Were this account
to he depended on, London must at this time have contained near 400,000 inhabitants, which is above double the
number it contained at the death of queen Elizabeth. But those calculations. or rather guesses, deserve very little
credit. Peter of Blois, a contemporary writer, and a man of sense, says, these were then only forty thousand inhabitants
in London, which is much more likely. What Fitz-Stephen's says of the prodigious riches, splendour, and commerce
of London, proves only the great poverty of the other towns of the kingdom and indeed of all the northern parts
of Europe.)
London, notwithstanding its great power, and its attachment to Stephen, was at length obliged to submit to Matilda;
and her authority, by the prudent conduct of earl Robert, seemed to he established over the whole kingdom: but
affairs remained not long in this situation. That princess, besides the disadvantages of her sex, which weakened
her influence over a turbulent and martial people, was of a passionate, imperious spirit, and knew not how to temper
with affability the harshness of a refusal. Stephen's queen, seconded by many of the nobility, petitioned for the
liberty of her husband; and offered that, on this condition, he should renounce the crown, and retire into a convent.
The legate desired that prince Eustace, his nephew, might inherit Boulogne and the other patrimonial estates of
his father: the Londoners applied for the establishment of king Edward's laws, instead of those of king Henry,
which, they said, were grievous and oppressive. All these petitions were rejected in the most haughty and peremptory
manner.
This legate, who had probably never been sincere in his compliance with Matilda's government, availed himself of
the ill-humour excited by this imperious conduct, and secretly instigated the Londoners to a revolt. A. conspiracy
was entered into to seize the person of the empress; and she saved herself from the danger by a precipitate retreat.
She fled to Oxford:. soon after she went to Winchester; whither the legate, desirous to save appearances, and watching
the opportunity to ruin her cause, had retired. But having assembled all his retainers, he openly joined his force
to that of the Londoners, and to Stephen's mercenary troops, who had not yet evacuated the kingdom; and he besieged
Matilda in Winchester. The princess, being hard pressed by famine, made her escape; but in the flight, earl Robert,
her brother, fell into the hands of the enemy. This nobleman, though a subject, was as much the life and soul of
his own party, as Stephen was of the other; and the empress, sensible of his merit and importance, consented to
exchange the prisoners on equal terms. The civil war was again kindled with greater fury than ever.
1142. Earl Robert, finding the successes on both
sides nearly balanced, went over to Normandy, which, during Stephen's captivity, had submitted to the earl of Anjou;
and he persuaded Geoffrey to allow his eldest son Henry, a young prince of great hopes, to take a journey into
England, and appear at the head of his partisans. This expedient, however, produced nothing decisive. Stephen took
Oxford, after a long siege: [1143:] he was defeated by earl Robert at Wilton : and the empress, though of a masculine
spirit, yet being harassed with a variety of good and bad fortune, and alarmed with continual dangers to her person
and family, at last [1146] retired into Normandy, whither she had sent her son some time before. The death of her
brother, which happened nearly about. the same time, would have proved fatal to her interest, had not some incidents
occurred which checked the course of Stephen's prosperity. This prince, finding that the castles built by the noblemen
of his own party encouraged the spirit of independence, and were little less dangerous than those which remained
in the hands of the enemy, endeavoured to extort from them a surrender of those fortresses; and he alienated the
affections of many of them by this equitable demand. The artillery also of the church, which his brother had brought
over to his side, had, after some interval, joined the other party. Eugenius III. had mounted the papal throne;
the bishop of Winchester was deprived of the legantine commission, which was conferred on Theobald, archbishop
of Canterbury, the enemy and rival of the former legate. That pontiff also, having summoned a general council at
Rheims in Champagne, instead of allowing the church of England, as had been usual, to elect its own deputies, nominated
five English bishops to represent that church, and required their attendance in the council. Stephen, who, notwithstanding
his present difficulties, was jealous of the rights of his crown, refused them permission to attend; [1147;] and
the pope, sensible of his advantage in contending with a prince who reigned by a disputed title, took revenge by
laying all Stephen's party under an interdict. The discontents if the royalists, at being thrown into this Situation,
were augmented by a comparison with Matilda's party, who enjoyed all the benefits of the sacred ordinances; and
Stephen was at last obliged, by making proper submissions to the see of Rome, to remove the reproach from his party.
1148. The weakness of both sides, rather than any decrease of mutual animosity, having produced a tacit cessation
of arms in England, many of the nobility, Roger de Moubray, William de Warrenne, and others, finding no opportunity
to exert their military ardour at home, enlisted themselves in a new crusade, which, with surprising success, after
former disappointments and misfortunes, was now preached by St. Bernard. But an event soon after happened which
threatened a revival of hostilities in England. Prince Henry, who had reached his sixteenth year, was desirous
of receiving the honour of knighthood; a ceremony which every gentleman in that age passed through before he was
admitted to the use of arms, and which was even deemed requisite for the greatest princes. He intended to receive
his admission from his great-uncle, David, king of Scotland; and for that purpose he passed through England with
a great retinue, and was attended by the most considerable of his partisans. He remained some time with the king
of Scotland; made incursions into England; and by his dexterity and vigour in all manly exercises, by his valour
in war, and his prudent conduct in every occurrence, he roused the hopes of his party, and gave symptoms of those
great qualities which he afterwards displayed when he mounted the throne of England. Soon after his return to Normandy,
[1150,] he was, by Matilda's consent, invested in that dutchy; and upon the death of his father Geoffrey, which
happened in the subsequent year, he took possession both of Anjou and Maine and concluded a marriage, which brought
him a great accession of power, and rendered him extremely formidable to his rival. Eleanor, the daughter and heir
of William, duke of Guienne and earl of Poictou, had been married sixteen years to Louis VII., king of France,
and had attended him in a crusade, which that monarch conducted against the infidels but having there lost the
affections of her husband, and even fallen under some suspicion of gallantry with a handsome Saracen, Louis, more
delicate than polite, procured a divorce from her, and restored her those rich provinces which by her marriage
she had annexed the crown of France. Young Henry, neither discouraged by the inequality of years, nor by the reports
of Eleanor's gallantries, made successful courtship to that princess, [1152,] and espousing her six weeks after
her divorce, got possession of all her dominions as her dowry. The lustre which he received from this acquisition,
and the prospect of his rising fortune, had such an effect in England, that when Stephen, desirous to ensure the
crown to his son Eustace, required the archbishop of Canterbury to anoint that prince as his successor, the primate
refused compliance, and made his escape beyond sea, to avoid the violence and resentment of Stephen.
COMPROMISE BETWEEN THE KING AND PRINCE HENRY. 1153.
Henry, informed of these dispositions in the people, made an invasion on England: having gained some advantage over Stephen at Malmesbury, and having taken that place, he proceeded thence to throw succours into Wallingford, which the king had advanced with a superior army to besiege. A decisive action was every day expected : when the great men of both sides, terrified at the prospect of further bloodshed and confusion, interposed with their good offices, and set on foot a negociation between the rival princes. The death of Eustace during the course of the treaty facilitated its conclusion: an accommodation was settled, by which it was agreed, that Stephen should possess the crown during his lifetime, that justice should be administered in his name, even in the provinces which had submitted to Henry, and that this latter prince should, on Stephen's demise, succeed to the kingdom, and William, Stephen's son, to Boulogne and his patrimonial estate.
DEATH OF THE KING. October 25, 1 1d4.
After all the barons had sworn to the observance
of this treaty, and done homage to Henry, as to the heir of the crown, that prince evacuated the kingdom; and the
death of Stephen, which happened the next year, after a short illness, prevented all those quarrels and jealousies
which were likely to have ensued in so delicate a situation.
England suffered great miseries during the reign of this prince: but his personal character, allowing for the temerity
and injustice of his usurpation, appears not liable to any great exception; and he seems to have been well qualified,
had he succeeded by a just title, to have promoted the happiness and prosperity of his subjects. He was possessed
of industry, activity, and courage, to a great degree; though not endowed with a sound judgment, he was not deficient
in abilities; he had the talent of gaining men's affections; and notwithstanding his precarious situation, he never
indulged himself in the exercise of any cruelty or revenge. His advancement to the throne procured him neither
tranquility nor happiness; and though the situation of England prevented the neighbouring states from taking any
durable advantage of her confusions, her intestine disorders were to the last degree ruinous and destructive. The
court of Rome was also permitted, during those civil wars, to make further advances in her usurpation's; and appeals
to the pope, which had always been strictly prohibited by the English laws, became now common in every ecclesiastical
controversy.