The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 16/The Reign of Stephen

by Jonathan Swift

THE REIGN OF

STEPHEN.

THE veneration which people are supposed naturally to pay to a right line, and a lawful title in their kings, must be upheld by a long uninterrupted succession, otherwise it quickly loses opinion, upon which the strength of it, although not the justice, is entirely founded: and where breaches have been already made in the lineal descent, there is little security in a good title (though confirmed by promises and oaths) where the lawful heir is absent, and a popular aspiring pretender near at hand. This, I think, may pass for a maxim, if any consequences drawn from history can pretend to be called so, having been verified successively three times in this kingdom, I mean by the two preceding kings, and by the prince whose reign we are now writing. Neither can this observation be justly controlled by any instances brought of future princes, who being absent at their predecessor's death, have peaceably succeeded, the circumstances being very different in every case, either by the weakness or justice of pretenders, or else by the long establishment of lineal succession.

1135. ⁠ Stephen earl of Boulogne, whose descent has been already shown in the foregoing reign, was the second of three brothers, whereof the eldest was Theobald earl of Blois, a sovereign prince, and Henry the youngest was bishop of Winchester, and the pope's legate in England. At the time of king Henry's death, his daughter the empress was with her husband the earl of Anjou, a grave and cautious prince, altogether unqualified for sudden enterprises: but earl Stephen, who had attended the king in his last expedition, made so great dispatch for England^[1], that the council had not time to meet and make any declaration about a successor. When the lords were assembled, the legate had already, by his credit and influence among them, brought over a great party to his brother's interests; and the earl himself, knowing with what success the like methods were used by his two last predecessors, was very liberal of his promises to amend the laws, support the church, and redress grievances: for all which the bishop undertook to be guarantee. And thus was Stephen elected by those very persons who had so lately, and in so solemn a manner, more than once sworn fealty to another.

The motives whereby the nobility was swayed to proceed after this manner, were obvious enough. There had been a perpetual struggle between them and their former kings in the defence of their liberties; for the security whereof, they thought a king elected without other title, would be readier to enter into any obligations, and being held in constant dependance, would be less tempted to break them: therefore, as at his coronation they obtained full security by his taking new and additional oaths in favour of their liberties, their oath of fealty to him was but conditional, to be of force no longer than he should be true to those stipulations.

But other reasons were contrived and given out to satisfy the people: they were told it was an indignity for so noble a nation to be governed by a woman; that the late king had promised to marry his daughter within the realm, and by consent of parliament, neither of which was observed: and lastly, Hugh Bigod, steward to king Henry, took a voluntary oath, before the archbishop of Canterbury, that his master, in his last sickness, had, upon some displeasure, disinherited his daughter.

He received the crown with one great advantage that could best enable him to preserve it: this was the possession of his uncle's treasures, amounting to one hundred thousand pounds, and reckoned as a prodigious sum in those days; by the help of which, without ever raising one tax upon the people, he defended an unjust title against the lawful heir during a perpetual contest of almost twenty years.

In order to defend himself against any sudden invasion, which he had cause enough to expect, he gave all men licence to build castles upon their lands; which proved a very mistaken piece of politicks, although grounded upon some appearance of reason. The king supposed that no invader would venture to advance into the heart of his country, without reducing every castle in his way; which must be a work of much time and difficulty, nor would be able to afford men to block them up, and secure his retreat: which way of arguing may be good enough to a prince of an undisputed title, and entirely in the hearts of his subjects: but, numerous castles are ill defenders of an usurpation, being the common retreat of malecontents, where they can fly with security, and discover their affections as they please: by which means, the enemy, although beaten in the field, may still preserve his footing in the bowels of a country; may wait supplies from abroad, and prolong a war for many years: nor, while he is master of any castles, can he ever be at mercy by any sudden misfortune; but may be always in a condition of demanding terms for himself. These, and many other effects of so pernicious a counsel, the king found through the whole course of his reign; which was entirely spent in sieges, revolts, surprises, and surrenders, with very few battles, but no decisive action: a period of much misery and confusion, which affords little that is memorable for events, or useful for the instruction of posterity.

1136. ⁠ The first considerable enemy that appeared against him was David king of Scots; who having taken the oath of fealty to Maude and her issue, being farther engaged by the ties of blood, and stirred up through the persuasions of several English nobles, began to take up arms in her cause; and invading the northern parts, took Carlisle and Newcastle; but, upon the king's speedy approach with his forces, a peace was presently made, and the towns restored. However, the Scottish prince would, by no means, renounce his fidelity to the empress, by paying homage to Stephen; so that an expedient was found to have it performed by his eldest son: in consideration of which, the king gave, or rather restored to him, the earldom of Huntington.

Upon his return to London from this expedition, he happened to fall sick of a lethargy, and it was confidently given out that he was dead. This report was, with great industry and artifice, dispersed by his enemies; which quickly discovered the ill inclination of several lords; who, although they never believed the thing, yet made use of it for an occasion or pretext to fortify their castles, which they refused to surrender to the king himself; but Stephen was resolved, as he said, to convince them that he was alive and well; for, coming against them before he was expected, he recovered Exeter, Norwich, and other fortified places, although not without much difficulty.

It is obvious enough to wonder how a prince of so much valour, and other excellent endowments, elected by the church and state, after a compliance with all conditions they could impose on him, and in an age when so little regard was had to the lineal descent, lastly confirmed by the pope himself, should be soon deserted and opposed by those very persons who had been the most instrumental to promote him. But, beside his defective title, and the undistinguished liberty of building castles, there were three circumstances which very much contributed to those perpetual revolts of the nobles against him: first, that upon his coming to the crown he was very liberal in distributing lands and honours to several young gentlemen of noble birth, who came to make their court, whereby he hoped to get the reputation of a generous prince, and to strengthen his party against the empress: but, by this encouragement, the number of pretenders quickly grew too fast upon him; and when he had granted all he was able, he was forced to dismiss the rest with promises and excuses; who, either out of envy or discontent, or else to mend their fortunes, never failed to become his enemies upon the first occasion that offered. Secondly, when he had reduced several castles and towns which had given the first example of defection from him, he hardly inflicted the least punishment on the authors; which unseasonable mercy, that in another prince, and another age, would have been called greatness of spirit, passed in him for pusillanimity and fear, and is reckoned, by the writers of those times, to have been the cause of many succeeding revolts. The third circumstance was of a different kind: for, observing how little good effect he had found by his liberality and indulgence, he would needs try the other extreme, which was not his talent. He began to infringe the articles of his charter; to recall or disown the promises he had made; and to repulse petitioners with rough treatment; which was the more unacceptable, by being new and unexpected.

1137. ⁠ Mean time the earl of Anjou, who was not in a condition to assert his wife's title to England, hearing Stephen was employed at home, entered Normandy with small force, and found it no difficult matter to seize several towns. The Normans, in the present distraction of affairs, not well knowing what prince to obey, at last sent an invitation to Theobald earl of Blois, king Stephen's eldest brother, to accept their dukedom, upon the condition of protecting them from the present insults of the earl of Anjou. But, before this matter could come to an issue, Stephen, who upon reduction of the towns already mentioned, had found a short interval of quiet from his English subjects, arrived with unexpected speed in Normandy; where Geoffry of Anjou soon fled before him, and the whole duchy came over to his obedience; for the farther settlement whereof, he made peace with the king of France; constituted his son Eustace duke of Normandy, and made him swear fealty to that prince, and do him homage. His brother Theobald, who began to expostulate upon this disappointment, he pacified with a pension of two thousand marks^[2]: and even the earl of Anjou himself, who, in right of his wife, made demands of Stephen for the kingdom of England, finding he was no equal match at present, was persuaded to become his pensioner for five thousand more^[3].

Stephen, upon his return to England, met with an account of new troubles from the north; for the king of Scots, under pretence of observing his oath of fealty to the empress, infested the borders, and frequently making cruel inroads, plundered and laid waste all before him.

1138. ⁠ In order to revenge this base and perfidious treatment, the king, in his march northward, sat down before Bedford, and took it after a siege of twenty days. This town was part of the earldom of Huntington, given by Stephen in the late peace to the eldest son of the Scottish king, for which the young prince did homage to him; and it was upon that account defended by a garrison of Scots. Upon intelligence of this surrender, king David, overcome with fury, entered Northumberland; where, letting loose the rage of his soldiers, he permitted and encouraged them to commit all manner of inhumanities; which they performed in so execrable a manner as would scarce be credible, if it were not attested by almost the universal consent of writers: they ripped up women with child, drew out the infants, and tossed them upon the points of their lances: they murdered priests before the altars; then cutting the heads from off the crucifixes, in their stead put on the heads of those they had murdered: with many other instances of monstrous barbarity too foul to relate^[4]: but cruelty being usually attended with cowardice, this perfidious prince upon the approach of king Stephen fled into places of security. The king of England, finding no enemy on whom to employ his revenge, marched forward into the country, destroying with fire and sword all the southern parts; and would, in all probability, have made terrible impressions into the heart of Scotland, if he had not been suddenly recalled by a more dangerous fire at home, which had been kindled in his absence, and was now broken out into a flame.

Robert earl of Glocester, natural son of the late king, came into England some time after the advancement of Stephen to the crown; and yielding to the necessity of the time, took the oath of fealty upon the same condition used by the other nobles, to be of force so long as the king should keep his faith with him, and preserve his dignity inviolate: but, being in his heart wholly devoted to the interests of the empress his sister, and moved by the persuasions of several religious men, he had, with great secrecy and application, so far practised upon the levity or discontent of several lords, as to gain them to his party: for, the king had, of late, very much alienated the nobles against him; first, by seizing several of their persons, and dispossessing them of their lands; and secondly, by taking into his favour William D'Ypres, a Flemish commander, of noble birth, but banished by his prince. This man, with many of his followers, the king employed chiefly both in his councils and his armies, and made him earl of Kent, to the great envy and displeasure of his English subjects. The earl of Glocester, therefore, and his accomplices, having prepared all things necessary for an insurrection, it was agreed among them, that while the king was engaged against the Scots, each of them should secure what towns and castles they could, and openly declare for the empress. Accordingly earl Robert suddenly fortified himself in Bristol; the rest followed his example; Hereford, Shrewsbury, Ludlow, Dover, and many other places, were seized by several lords; and the defection grew so formidable, that the king, to his great grief, was forced to leave his Scottish expedition unfinished, and return with all possible speed to suppress the rebellion begun by his subjects; having first left the care of the north to Thurstan archbishop of York, with orders carefully to observe the motions of the Scots.

Whilst the king was employed in the south in reducing his discontented lords, and their castles, to his obedience; David, presuming upon the distance between them, reentered England with more numerous forces, and greater designs, than before: for, without losing more time than what was necessary to pillage and destroy the country as he marched, he resolved to besiege York; which, if he could force to surrender, would serve as a convenient frontier against the English. To this end, advancing near the city, and having pitched his tents, he sat down before it with his whole army. In the mean time archbishop Thurstan, having already summoned the nobles and gentry of the shire and parts adjacent, had, by powerful persuasions, incited them to defend their country against a treacherous, bloody, and restless enemy: so that before the king of Scotland could make any progress in the siege, the whole power of the north was united against him, under the earl of Albemarle, and several other nobles. Archbishop Thurstan happening to fall sick, could not go in person to the army, but sent the bishop of Durham in his stead; by whose encouragements the English, although in number far inferiour, advanced boldly toward the enemy, and offered them battle; which was as readily accepted by the Scots: who, sending out a party of horse to secure the rising ground, were immediately attacked by the English, and after a sharp dispute entirely defeated. In the heat of the battle, the king of Scots, and his son Henry earl of Huntington, gave many proofs of great personal valour. The young prince fell with such fierceness upon a body of the English, that he utterly broke and dispersed them; and was pursuing his victory, when a certain man, bearing aloft the head of an enemy he had cut off, cried out, It was the head of the Scottish king; which being heard and believed on both sides, the English, who had lately fled, rallied again, assaulting their enemies with new vigour; the Scots, on the other side, discouraged by the supposed death of their prince, began to turn their backs: the king and his son used all endeavours to stop their flight, and made several brave stands against the enemy; but the greatest part of their army being fled, and themselves almost encompassed, they were forced to give way to fortune, and with much difficulty made their escape.

The loss on the English side was inconsiderable; but of Scots, by general consent of writers, ten thousand were slain. And thus ended the war of the standard, as it was usually called by the authors of that age; because the English, upon a certain engine, raised the mast of a ship, on the top whereof, in a silver box, they put the consecrated wafer, and fastened the standards of St. Peter and other saints; this gave them courage, by remembering they were to fight in the presence of God: and served likewise for a mark where to reassemble when they should happen to be dispersed by any accident or misfortune.

1139. ⁠ Mean time the king was equally successful against his rebellious lords at home, having taken most of their castles and strong holds; and the earl of Gloucester himself, no longer able to make any resitance, withdrew into Normandy, to concert new measures with the empress his sister. Thus the king had leisure and opportunity for another expedition into Scotland, to pursue and improve his victory, where he met with no opposition: however, he was at length persuaded with much difficulty to accept his own conditions of a peace, and David delivered up to him his eldest son Henry, as hostage for performance of articles between them.

The king, in his return homeward, laid siege to Ludlow castle, which had not been reduced with the rest: here prince Henry of Scotland, boiling with youth and valour, and exposing his person upon all occasions, was lifted from his horse by an iron grapple let down from the wall, and would have been hoisted up into the castle, if the king had not immediately flown to his assistance, and brought him off with his own hands by main force from the enemy, whom he soon compelled to surrender the castle.

1140. ⁠ Stephen having thus subdued his inveterate enemies the Scots, and reduced his rebellious nobles, began to entertain hopes of enjoying a little case. But he was destined to the possession of a crown with perpetual disturbance; for he was hardly returned from his northern expedition, when he received intelligence that the empress, accompanied by her brother the earl of Gloucester, was preparing to come for England, in order to dispute her title to the kingdom. The king, who knew by experience what a powerful party she already had to espouse her interests, very reasonably concluded, the defection from him would be much greater, when she appeared in person to countenance and reward it; he therefore began again to repent of the licence he had granted for building castles, which were now likely to prove so many places of security for his enemies, and fortifications against himself; for he knew not whom to trust, vehemently suspecting his nobles ever since their last revolt. He therefore cast about for some artifice to get into his hands as many of their castles as he could: in the strength and magnificence of which kind of structures, the bishops had far outdone the rest, and were upon that, as well as other accounts, very much maligned and envied by the temporal lords, who were extremely jealous of the church's increasing power, and glad upon all occasions to see the prelates humbled. The king, therefore, having formed his project, resolved to make trial where it would be least invidious, and where he could foresee least danger in the consequences. At a parliament or assembly of nobles at Oxford, it was contrived to raise a quarrel between the servants of some bishops, and those of Alan count of Dinan in Bretagne, upon a contention of rooms in their inns. Stephen took hold of this advantage, sent for the bishops, taxed them with breaking his peace, and demanded the keys of their castles, adding threats of imprisonment if they dared to disobey. Those whom the king chiefly suspected, or rather who had built the most and strongest castles, were Roger bishop of Salisbury, with his nephew and natural son the bishops of Ely and Lincoln; whom the king, by many circumstances of rigour, compelled to surrender, going himself in person to seize the Devizes, then esteemed the noblest structure of Europe, and built by the forementioned bishop Roger; whose treasure, to the value of forty thousand marks^[5], there likewise deposited, fell, at the same time, into the king's hand, which in a few days broke the bishop's heart, already worn with age and infirmity.

It may, perhaps, not be thought a digression to say something of the fortunes of this prelate, who, from the lowest beginnings, came to be, without dispute, the greatest churchman of any subject in his age. It happened that the late king Henry, in the reign of his brother, being at a village in Normandy, wanted a priest to say mass before him and his train; when this man, who was a poor curate thereabouts, offered his service, and performed it with so much dexterity and speed, that the soldiers who attended the prince recommended him to their master, upon that account, as a very proper chaplain for military men. But it seems he had other talents; for having gotten into the prince's service, he soon discovered great application and address, much older and economy in the management of his master's fortunes, which were wholly left to his care. After Henry's advancement to the crown, this chaplain grew chief in his favour and confidence; was made bishop of Salisbury, chancellor of England, employed in all his most weighty affairs, and usually left vicegerent of the realm while the king was absent in Normandy. He was among the first that swore fealty to Maude and her issue; and among the first that revolted from her to Stephen; offering such reasons in council for setting her aside, as, by the credit and opinion of his wisdom, were very prevalent. But the king, in a few years, forgot all obligations, and the bishop fell a sacrifice in his old age to those treasures he had been so heaping up for its support. A just reward for his ingratitude toward the prince that raised him, to be ruined by the ingratitude of another, whom he had been so very instrumental to raise.

But Henry bishop of Winchester, the pope's legate, not able to endure this violation of the church, called a council of all the prelates to meet at Winchester, where the king being summoned, appeared by his advocate, who pleaded his cause with much learning; and the archbishop of Rouen coming to the council, declared his opinion, that although the canons did allow the bishops to possess castles, yet in dangerous times they ought to deliver them up to the king. This opinion Stephen followed very steadily, not yielding a tittle, although the legate his brother used all means, both rough and gentle, to work upon him.

The council of bishops broke up without other effect than that of leaving in their minds an implacable hatred to the king, in a very opportune juncture for the interests of Maude, who, about this time, landed at Portsmouth with her brother Robert earl of Gloucester. The whole force she brought over for this expedition consisted but of one hundred and forty knights; for she trusted altogether in her cause and her friends. With this slender attendance she went to Arundel, and was there received into the castle by the widow of the late king; while earl Robert, accompanied only by twenty men marched boldly to his own city of Gloucester, in order to raise forces for the empress, where the townsmen turned out the king's garrison as soon as they heard of his approach.

King Stephen was not surprised at the news of the empress's arrival, being a thing he had always counted upon, and was long preparing himself against. He was glad to hear how ill she was provided, and resolved to use the opportunity of her brother's absence; for, hasting down to Arundel with a sufficient strength, he laid siege to the castle, in hopes, by securing her person, to put a speedy end to the war.

But there wanted not some very near about the king, who, favouring the party of Maude, had credit enough to prevail with him not to venture time and reputation against an impregnable fortress; but rather, by withdrawing his forces, permit her to retire to some less fortified place, where she might more easily fall into his hands. This advice the king took against his own opinion; the empress fled out of Arundel by night; and, after frequent shifting her stages through several towns, which had already declared in her favour, fixed herself at last at Lincoln; where, having all things provided necessary for her defence, she resolved to continue, and expect either a general revolt of the English to her side, or the decision of war between the king and her brother.

1141. ⁠ But Stephen, who had pursued the empress from place to place, hearing she had shut herself up in Lincoln, resolved to give her no rest; and to help on his design, it fell out that the citizens, in hatred to the earl of Chester, who commanded there for the empress, sent a private invitation to the king, with promise to deliver the town and their governor into his hands. The king came accordingly, and possessed himself of the town; but Maude and the earl made their escape a few days before. However, many great persons of Maude's party remained prisoners to the king, and among the rest the earl of Chester's wife, who was daughter to the earl of Gloucester. These two earls resolving to attempt the relief of their friends, marched with all their forces near Lincoln, where they found the enemy drawn up and ready to receive them. The next morning, after battle offered by the lords, and accepted by the king, both sides made ready to engage. The king having disposed his cavalry on each wing, placed himself at the head of his foot, in whom he reposed most confidence. The army of the lords was divided in three bodies; those whom king Stephen had banished were placed in the middle, the earl of Chester led the van, and the earl of Gloucester commanded the rear. The battle was fought at first with equal advantage;, and great obstinacy on both sides: at length the right wing of the king's horse, pressed by the earl of Chester, gallopped away, not without suspicion of treachery; the left followed the example. The king beheld their flight, and encouraging those about him, fell with undaunted valour upon the enemy; and being for some time bravely seconded by his foot, did great execution. At length overpowered by numbers, his men began to disperse, and Stephen was left almost alone with his sword in his hand, wherewith he opposed his person against a whole victorious army, nor durst any be so hardy to approach him; the sword breaking, a citizen of Lincoln put into his hands a Danish battle-axe, with which he struck to the ground the earl of Chester^[6], who presumed to come within his reach. But this weapon likewise flying in pieces with the force of those furious blows he dealt on all sides, a bold knight of the empress's party, named William de Keynes, laid hold on his helmet, and immediately cried out to his fellows, "I have got the king." Then the rest ran in, and he was taken prisoner.

The king being thus secured, was presented to the empress, then at Gloucester, and by her orders conveyed to Bristol; where he continued in strict custody nine months, although with honourable treatment for some time, until either upon endeavouring to make his escape, or in malice to the Londoners, who had a great affection for their king, he was, by express command from the empress, laid in irons, and used with other circumstances of severity.

This victory was followed by a general defection of almost the whole kingdom; and the earl of Anjou, husband to the empress, upon the fame of the king's defeat and imprisonment, reduced without any difficulty the whole duchy of Normandy to his obedience.

The legate himself, although brother to king Stephen, received her at Winchester with great solemnity, accepted her oath for governing with justice, redressing grievances, and supporting the rights of the Church, and took the old conditional one of fealty to her, then in an assembly of bishops and clergy convoked for the purpose, he displayed the miscarriages of his brother, and declared his approbation of the empress to be queen; to which they unanimously agreed. To complete all, he prevailed by his credit with the Londoners, who stood out the last of any, to acknowledge and receive her into the city, where she arrived at length in great pomp, and with general satisfaction.

But it was the misfortune of this princess to possess many weaknesses that are charged to the sex, and very few of its commendable qualities: she was now in peaceable possession of the whole kingdom, except the county of Kent, where William D'Ypres pretended to keep up a small party for the king; when by her pride, wilfulness, indiscretion, and a disobliging behaviour, she soon turned the hearts of all men against her, and in a short time lost the fruits of that victory and success, which had been so hardly gained by the prudence and valour of her excellent brother. The first occasion she took to discover the perverseness of her nature, was in the treatment of Maude, the wife of king Stephen, a lady of great virtue and courage above her sex; who, coming to the empress an humble suitor in behalf of her husband, offered, as a price of his liberty, that he should resign all pretensions to the crown, and pass the rest of his life in exile, or in a convent: but this request was rejected with scorn and reproaches; and the queen, finding all entreaties to no purpose, writ to her son Eustace to let him understand the ill success of her negotiation, that no relief was to be otherwise hoped for than by arms; and therefore advised him to raise immediately what forces he could for the relief of his father.

Her next miscarriage was toward the Londoners, who presented her a petition for redressing certain rigorous laws of her father, and restoring those of Edward the Confessor. The empress put them off for a time with excuses, but at last discovered some displeasure at their importunity. The citizens, who had with much difficulty been persuaded to receive her against their inclinations, which stood wholly for the king, were moved with indignation at her unreasonable refusal of their just demands, and entered into a conspiracy to seize her person. But she had timely notice of their design, and leaving the city by night in disguise fled to Oxford.

A third false step the empress made, was, in refusing her new powerful friend the legate a favour he desired in behalf of Eustace, the king's son, to grant him the lands and honours held by his father before he came to the crown. She had made large promises to this prelate, that she would be directed in all things by his advice; and to be refused upon his first application a small favour for his own nephew, stung him to the quick, however, he governed his resentments a while, but began at the same time to resume his affection for his brother. These thoughts were cultivated with great address by queen Maude; who prevailed at last so far upon the legate, that private measures were agreed between them for restoring Stephen to his liberty and crown. The bishop took leave of the empress, upon some plausible pretence, and retired to Winchester; where he gave directions for supplying with men and provision several strong castles he had built in his diocese, while the queen with her son Eustace prevailed with the Londoners and men of Kent to rise in great numbers for the king; and a powerful army was quickly on foot, under the command of William D'Ypres earl of Kent.

In the mean time the empress began to be sensible of the errours she had committed; and in hope either to retrieve the friendship of the legate, or take him prisoner, marched with her army to Winchester; where being received and lodged in the castle, she sent immediately for the legate, spoke much in excuse of what was past, and used all endeavours to regain him to her interests. Bishop Henry, on the other side, amused her with dubious answers, and kept her in suspense for some days; but sent privately at the same time to the king's army, desiring them to advance with all possible speed; which was executed with so much diligence, that the empress and her brother had only time with their troops to march a back-way out of the town. They were pursued by the enemy so close in the rear, that the empress had hardly time, by counterfeiting herself dead, to make her escape; in which posture she was carried as a corpse to Gloucester; but the earl her brother, while he made what opposition he could, with design to stop her pursuers, was himself taken prisoner, with great slaughter of his men. After the battle, the earl was in his turn presented to queen Maude, and by her command sent to Rochester, to be treated in the same manner with the king.

Thus the heads of both parties were each in the power of his enemy, and Fortune seemed to have dealt with great equality between them. Two factions divided the whole kingdom, and as it usually happens, private animosities were inflamed by the quarrel of the publick; which introduced a miserable face of things throughout the land, whereof the writers of our English story give melancholy descriptions, not to be repeated in this history; since the usual effects of civil war are obvious to^[7] conceive, and tiresome as well as useless to^[7] relate. However, as the quarrel between the king and empress was grounded upon a cause, that in its own nature little concerned the interests of the people, this was thought a convenient juncture for transacting a peace, to which there appeared a universal disposition. Several expedients were proposed; but earl Robert would consent upon no other terms than the deposing of Stephen, and immediate delivery of the crown to his sister. These debates lasted for some months, until the two prisoners, weary of their long constraint, by mutual consent were exchanged for each other, and all thoughts of agreement laid aside.

The king, upon recovery of his freedom, hastened to London, to get supplies of men and money for renewing the war. He there found that his brother of Winchester had, in a council of bishops and abbots, renounced all obedience to the empress, and persuaded the assembly to follow his example. The legate, in excuse for this proceeding, loaded her with infamy, produced several instances wherein she had broken the oath she took when he received her as queen, and upon which his obedience was grounded; said, he had received information that she had a design upon his life.

It must be confessed, that oaths of fealty in this prince's reign were feeble ties for binding the subject to any reasonable degree of obedience; and the warmest advocates for liberty cannot but allow, from those examples here produced, that it is very possible for people to run upon great extremes in this matter; that a monarch may be too much limited, and a subject too little; whereof the consequences have been fully as pernicious, for the time, as the worst that can be apprehended from arbitrary power in all its heights, although not perhaps so lasting or so hard to be remedied; since all the miseries of this kingdom, during the period we are treating of, were manifestly owing to that continual violation of such oaths of allegiance, as appear to have been contrived on purpose by ambitious men to be broken at pleasure, without the least apprehension of perjury; and in the mean time keep the prince in a continual slavish dependance.

The earl of Gloucester, soon after his release, went over into Normandy; where he found the earl of Anjou employed in completing the conquest of that duchy; there he delivered him the sons of several English noblemen, to be kept as hostages for their father's fidelity to the empress; and used many arguments for persuading him to come over in person with an army to her assistance: but Geoffry excused himself by the importance of other affairs, and the danger of exposing the dominions he had newly acquired to rebellions in his absence. However, he lent the earl of Gloucester a supply of four hundred men, and sent along with him his eldest son Henry to comfort his mother, and be shown to the people.

During the short absence of the earl of Gloucester, the empress was closely besieged in Oxford by the king; and provision beginning to fail, she was in cruel apprehensions of falling into his hands. This gave her occasion to put in practice the only talent wherein she seemed to excel, which was, that of contriving some little shift or expedient to secure her person upon any sudden emergency. A long season of frost had made the Thames passable upon the ice, and much snow lay on the ground; Maude, with some few attendants clad all in white, to avoid being discovered from the king's camp, crossed the river at midnight on foot, and travelling all night, got safe to Wallingford castle, where her brother and young son Henry, newly returned from France, arrived soon after, to her great satisfaction: but Oxford, immediately upon the news of her flight, surrendered to the king.

However, this disgrace was fully compensated soon after by another of the same kind, which happened to king Stephen; for while he and his brother of Winchester were fortifying a nunnery at Wilton, to bridle his enemies at Salisbury, who very much harrassed those parts by their frequent excursions; the earl of Gloucester, who watched all opportunities, came unaware with a strong body of men, and set fire to the nunnery while the king himself was in it. Stephen, upon the sudden surprise of the thing, wholly lost or forgot his usual courage, and fled shamefully away, leaving his soldiers to be cut in pieces by the earl.

During the rest of the war, although it lasted nine years longer, there is little memorable recorded by any writer; whether the parties being pretty equal, and both sufficiently tired with so long a contention, wanted vigour and spirit to make a thorough conquest, and only endeavoured to keep what they had; or whether the multitude of strong castles, whose number daily increased, made it very difficult to end a war between two contending powers almost in balance; let the cause be what it will, the whole time passed in mutual sieges, surprises, revolts, surrenders of fortified places, without any decisive action, or other event of importance to be related. By which at length the very genius of the people became wholly bent upon a life of spoil, robbery, and plunder; many of the nobles, although pretending to hold their castles for the king or the empress, lived like petty independant princes in a perpetual state of war against their neighbours; the fields lay uncultivated, all the arts of civil life were banished, no veneration left for sacred persons or things; in short, no law, truth, or religion, among men, but a scene of universal misery, attended with all the consequences of an embroiled and distracted state.

About the eleventh year of the king's reign, young Henry, now growing toward a man, was sent for to France by a message from his father, who was desirous to see him; but left a considerable party in England, to adhere to his interests; and in a short time after (as some write) the empress herself grown weary of contending any longer in a cause where she had met with nothing but misfortunes of her own procuring, left the kingdom likewise, and retired to her husband. Nor was this the only good fortune that befel Stephen; for, before the year ended, the main prop and pillar of his enemies was taken away by death; this was Robert earl of Gloucester, than whom there have been few private persons known in the world that deserve a fairer place and character in the registers of time, for his inviolable faith, disinterested friendship, indefatigable zeal, firm constancy to the cause he espoused, and unparallelled generosity in the conduct thereof: he adhered to his sister in all her fortunes, to the ruin of his own; he placed a crown on her head; and when she had lost it by her folly and perverseness, refused the greatest offers from a victorious enemy, who had him in his power, and chose to continue a prisoner rather than recover his liberty by any hazard to her pretensions: he bore up her sinking title in spite of her own frequent miscarriages, and at last died in her cause by a fever contracted with perpetual toils for her service. An example fit to be shown the world, although few perhaps are likely to follow it; but however, a small tribute of praise, justly due to extraordinary virtue, may prove no ill expedient to encourage imitation.

But the death of this lord, together with the absence of the empress and her son in France, added very little to the quiet or security of the king. For the earl of Gloucester suspecting the fidelity of the lords, had, with great sagacity, delivered their sons to the earl of Anjou, to be kept as pledges for their fathers' fidelity, as we have before related: by which means a powerful party was still kept up against Stephen, too strong to be suddenly broken. Besides, he had, by an unusual strain of his conduct, lately lost much good-will, as well as reputation, in committing an act of violence and fraud on the person of the earl of Chester, a principal adherent of the empress. This nobleman of great power and possessions, had newly reconciled himself to Stephen, and came to his court at Northampton; where, against all laws of hospitality, as well as common faith and justice, he was committed to prison, and forced to buy his liberty with the surrender of Lincoln, and all his other places, into the king's hands.

Affairs continued in this turbulent posture about two years, the nobles neither trusting the king, nor each other. The number of castles still increased, which every man who had any possessions was forced to build, or else become a prey to his powerful neighbours.

1149 ⁠ This was thought a convenient juncture, by the empress and her friends, for sending young prince Henry to try his fortune in England; where he landed at the head of a considerable number of horse and foot, although he was then but sixteen years old. Immediately after his arrival he went to Carlisle, where he met his cousin David king of Scots, by whom he was made a knight, after the usual custom of young princes and noblemen in that age. The king of England, who had soon intelligence of Henry's landing and motions, marched down to secure York, against which he expected the first attempt of his enemy was designed. But, whatever the cause might be (wherein the writers of those ages are either silent or unsatisfactory) both armies remained at that secure distance for three months;

1150 ⁠ after which Henry returned back to Normandy, leaving the kingdom in the state of confusion he found it at his coming.

The fortunes of this young prince Henry Fitzempress now began to advance by great and sudden steps, whereof it will be no digression to inform the reader, as well upon the connexion they have with the affairs at home about this time, as because they concern the immediate successor to the crown.

1151. ⁠ Prince Henry's voyage to France was soon followed by the death of his father Geoffry earl of Anjou, whereby the son became possessed of that earldom, together with the duchy of Normandy;

1152 ⁠ but in a short time after he very much enlarged his dominions by a marriage, in which he consulted his reputation less than his advantage. For, Lewis the Young, king of France, was lately divorced from his wife Eleanor; who, as the French writers relate, bore a great contempt and hatred to her husband, and had long desired such a separation. Other authors give her not so fair a character: but whatever might be the real cause, the pretext was consanguinity in the fourth degree. Henry was content to accept this lady with all her faults, and in her right became duke of Aquitain, and earl of Poitou, very considerable provinces, added to his other dominions.

But the two kings of France and England began to apprehend much danger from the sudden greatness of a young ambitious prince; and their interests were jointly concerned to check his growth. Duke Henry was now ready to sail for England, in a condition to assert his title upon more equal terms; when the king of France, in conjunction with Eustace, king Stephen's son, and Geoffry, the duke's own brother, suddenly entered into his dominions with a mighty army; took the castle of Neumarchè by storm, and laid siege to that of Angers. The duke, by this incident, was forced to lay aside his thoughts of England, and marching boldly toward the enemy, resolved to relieve the besieged; but finding they had already taken the castle, he thought it best to make a diversion, by carrying the war into the enemy's country; where he left all to the mercy of his soldiers, surprised and burnt several castles, and made great devastations wherever he came. This proceeding answered the end for which it was designed; the king of France thought he had already done enough for his honour, and began to grow weary of a ruinous war, which was likely to be protracted. The conditions of a peace, by the intervention of some religious men, were soon agreed. The duke, after some time spent in settling his affairs, and preparing all things necessary for his intended expedition, set sail for England, where he landed the same year in the depth of winter, with a hundred and forty knights, and three thousand foot.

Some time before Henry landed, the king had conceived a project to disappoint his designs, by confirming the crown upon himself and his own posterity. He sent for the archbishop of Canterbury, with several other prelates, and proposed that his son Eustace should be crowned king with all the usual solemnity; but the bishops absolutely refused to perform the office, by express orders from the pope, who was the enemy to Stephen, partly upon account of his unjust or declining cause, but chiefly for his strict alliance with the king of France, who was then engaged in a quarrel against that see, upon a very tender point relating to the revenues of vacant churches. The king and his son were both enraged at the bishops' refusal, and kept them prisoners in the chamber where they assembled, with many threats to force them to a compliance, and some other circumstances of rigour; but all to no purpose, so that he was at length forced to desist. But the archbishop, to avoid farther vexation, fled the realm.

This contrivance of crowning the son during the life and reign of the father, which appears so absurd in speculation, was actually performed in the succeeding reign; and seems to have been taken up by those two princes of French birth and extraction, in imitation of the like practice in their native country, where it was usual for kings grown old and infirm, or swayed by paternal indulgence, to receive their eldest son into a share of the administration, with the title of king; a custom borrowed, no doubt, from the later emperors of Rome, who adopted their Cæsars after the like manner.

1153. ⁠ The king was employed in his usual exercise of besieging castles, when the news was brought of Henry's arrival. He left the work he was about, and marched directly against the duke, who was then sat down before Malmesbury. But Stephen forced him to raise the siege, and immediately offered him battle. The duke, although his army was much increased by continual revolts, thought it best to gain time, being still in number far inferiour to the king, and therefore kept himself strongly intrenched. There is some difference among writers about the particulars of this war: however, it is generally agreed, that in a short time after, the two armies met, and were prepared for battle; when the nobles on both sides, either dreading the consequences, or weary of a tedious war, prevailed with the king and duke to agree to a truce for some days in order to a peace; which was violently opposed by Eustace the king's son, a youth of great spirit and courage, because he knew very well it could not be built but upon the ruin of his interests; and therefore finding he could not prevail, he left the army in a rage, and attended by some followers, endeavoured to satiate his fury, by destroying the country in his march: but in a few days, as he sat at dinner in a castle of his own, he fell suddenly dead, either through grief, madness, or poison.

The truce was now expired, and the duke began to renew the war with fresh vigour; but the king was wholly dispirited upon this fatal accident, and now first began to entertain real thoughts of a peace. He had lost a son whom he dearly loved, and with him he likewise lost the alliance of the French king, to whose sister the young prince was married. He had indeed another son left, but little esteemed by the nobles and people; nor, as it appears, much regarded by his father. He was now in the decline of his age, decayed in his health, forsaken by his friends, who, since the death of Eustace, fell daily from him; and having no farther care at heart for his posterity, he thought it high time to seek repose for his person. The nobles soon observed this disposition in their king, which was so agreeable to their own; therefore by general consent, Theobald archbishop of Canterbury was appointed mediator between both princes. All matters were soon agreed; an assembly of lords was convened at Winchester, where the king received the duke with great marks of courtesy and kindness. There the peace was confirmed by the king's charter, wherein are expressed the terms of agreement. But I shall relate only the principal.

The king, by this charter, acknowledged Henry for lawful successor to the crown; in which capacity all the nobles paid him homage: and Henry himself, with his party, paid homage to Stephen. There is likewise a reservation for William, the king's son, of all the honours possessed by his father before he came to the crown. The king likewise acknowledges the obedience of his subjects to be no longer due to him than he shall observe the conditions of this charter. And for the performance of these articles, the archbishops and bishops were appointed guarantees. There were some other articles agreed on, which are not mentioned in the charter; as, a general pardon; a restitution, to the right owners, of those lands and possessions, which had been usurped in the time of the troubles; that all castles built during the war should be razed to the ground, which are said to have been above eleven hundred; that the rights of the church should be preserved, with other matters of less moment.

Thus, by the prudence of archbishop Theobald, the moderation of the two princes engaged, and the universal inclination of the people, a happy period was put to this tedious and troublesome war men began to have the prospect of a long peace: nor was it easy to foresee what could possibly arise to disturb it; when discovery was made, by accident, of a most horrible peace of treachery, which, if it had met with success, would have once more set the whole nation in a flame. The duke, after the peace, attended the king to London, to be shown to the people as the undoubted successor to the crown; and having made a progress together through some other parts of the kingdom, they came to Canterbury; where Henry received private notice of a design upon his life. It has been already observed, that the king employed in his wars a body of Flemings, to the great discontent of his own subjects, with whom they were very ungracious. These foreigners were much discontented at the peace, whereby they were likely to become useless and burdensome to the present king, and hateful to the successor. To prevent which, the commanders among them began to practise upon the levity and ambition of William the king's son. They urged the indignity he had received in being deprived of his birthright; offered to support his title by their valour, as they had done that of his father; and as an earnest of their intentions, to remove the chief impediment by dispatching his rival out of the world. The young prince was easily wrought upon to be at the head of this conspiracy: time and place were fixed; when, upon the day appointed, William broke his leg by a fall from his horse; and the conspirators wanting their leader immediately dispersed. This disappointment and delay, as it usually happens among conspirators, were soon followed by a discovery of the whole plot; whereof the duke, with great discretion, made no other use than to consult his own safety; therefore, without any show of suspicion or displeasure, he took leave of the king, and returned to Normandy.

1154. ⁠ Stephen lived not above a year to share the happiness of this peace with his people; in which time he made a progress through most parts of the kingdom, where he gained universal love and veneration, by a most affable and courteous behaviour to all men. A few months after his return he went to Dover, to have an interview with the earl of Flanders; where, after a short sickness, he died of the iliac passion, together with his old distemper the hemorrhoids, upon the twenty-fifth day of October, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the nineteenth of his reign.

He was a prince of wonderful endowments, both in body and mind: in his person tall and graceful, of great strength as well as vigour: he had a large portion of most virtues that can be useful in a king toward the happiness of his subjects or himself; courtesy and valour, liberality and clemency, in an eminent degree; especially the last, which he carried to an extreme, though very pardonable, yet hardly consisting with prudence, or his own safety. If we except his usurpation of the crown, he must be allowed a prince of great justice; which most writers affirm to have been always unblemished, except in that single instance: for, as to his treatment of the bishops and the earl of Chester, it seems very excusable by the necessity of the time; and it was the general opinion, if he had not used that proceeding with the latter, it would have cost him his crown. Perhaps his injustice to the empress might likewise admit a little extenuation. Four kings successively had sat on the throne without any regard to lineal descent; a period beyond the memory of most men then alive; whereby the people had lost much of that devotion they were used to bear toward an established succession: besides, the government of a woman was then a thing unknown, and for that reason disliked by all who professed to hate innovations.

But the wisdom of this prince was by no means equal to the rest of his virtues. He came to the crown upon as fair a title as his predecessor, being elected by the general consent of the nobles, through the credit of his brother, and his own personal merit. He had no disturbance for some time, which he might easily have employed in settling the kingdom, and acquiring the love of his people. He had treasure enough to raise and pay armies, without burdening the subject. His competitor was a woman, whose sex was the least of her infirmities, and with whom he had already compounded for his quiet by a considerable pension: yet with all these advantages he seldom was master of above half the kingdom at once, and that by the force of perpetual struggling, and with frequent danger of losing the whole. The principal difficulties he had to encounter, appear to have been manifest consequences of several most imprudent steps in his conduct, whereof many instances have been produced in the history of his reign; such as the unlimited permission of building castles; his raising the siege of a weak place where the empress was shut up, and must, in a few days, have fallen into his hands; his employing the Flemings in his wars, and favouring them above his own subjects; and lastly, that abortive project of crowning his son, which procured him at once the hatred and contempt of the clergy, by discovering an inclination to violence and injustice that he durst not pursue: whereas, it was nothing else but an effect of that hasty and sudden disposition usually ascribed to those of his country, and in a peculiar manner charged to this prince: for, authors give it as a part of his diaracter, to be hot and violent in the beginning of an enterprise, but to slacken and grow cold in the prosecution.

He had a just sense of religion, and was frequent in attending the service of the church, yet reported to be no great friend of the clergy; which, however, is a general imputation upon all the kings of this realm in that and some succeeding reigns, and by no means personal to this prince, who deserved it as little as any.

I do not find any alterations during this reign in the meetings of general assemblies, farther than that the commons do not seem to have been represented in any of them; for which I can assign no other reason than the will of the king, or the disturbance of the time. I observed the word Parliament is used promiscuously among authors, for a general assembly of nobles, and for a council of bishops, or synod of the clergy; which renders this matter too perplexed to ascertain any thing about it.

As for affairs of the church, that deserve particular mention, I have not met with any; unless it should be worth relating, that Henry bishop of Winchester, the pope's legate, who held frequent synods during this reign, was the first introducer of appeals to Rome, in this kingdom; for which he is blamed by all the monkish historians who give us the account.

1. Stephen was at Boulogne when he received the news of Henry's death.
2. The mark of Normandy is to be understood here. Such a pension in that age was equivalent to one of £.31000 sterling in the present.
3. Five thousand marks of silver coin was, in this reign, of the same value as the sum of £.77500, modern currency, is now. Here again the Normanic mark seems to be used.
4. It should be — 'too foul to be related.'
5. This prelate's treasure is doubtless computed by the smaller or Saxon mark; the use of which still prevailed in England: and even thus computed, it amounts to a vast sum equal to about 116,350l. of modern money.
6. The earl of Chester lived nevertheless to fight other battles, and died twelve years afterward by poison.
7. This should be — 'are obvious to be conceived, and tiresome as well as useless to be related.'