Eventually, however, feeling probably that Robert was his more dangerous opponent, Stephen allowed Matilda to join her brother. The personal contest between Stephen and Matilda was almost confined to the years 1139-1143. After Matilda joined her brother, Stephen made no attempt to penetrate into the west-midland shires, where the influence of Robert of Gloucester and Miles of Hereford was supreme, but contented himself with holding the shires that lay east of a line drawn from the Peak to Wareham, with securing the waterway of the Thames, and endeavouring to prevent other barons from going over to the side of the empress. Stephen Lincoln. In the winter of 1140 the earl of Chester, the one English earl whose position approached that of Continental feudalism, and whom Stephen had done all in his power to win, seized Lincoln castle. The citizens and Bishop Alexander appealed to Stephen to aid them against the tyrant. On arriving at Lincoln, Stephen found that Randolf, captured at or Ralf, of Chester had left the castle to be defended by his wife, and had himself gone to Chester to raise forces. The castle of Lincoln, which with the cathedral is situated on a high rock on the north side of a gap in the wolds, through which the Witham, rising near Grantham, makes its way round to the sea at Boston, is an extremely strong place; and before Stephen could take it, the earl, who had been joined on the Fosseway by Robert of Gloucester, arrived to relieve it. Swimming their horses across the ford of the Witham, they attacked Stephen's forces in the early morning on the low ground between the river and the castle height. The followers of the two earls vied with each other in the energy of their attack. Stephen's Flemings, under William of Ypres, were put to the rout; and he himself, after a terrible conflict on foot, in which he broke a battle-axe over the helmet of the earl of Chester, was taken prisoner. The city was then sacked to punish the citizens for their appeal to the king. This happened in February 1141, and for a short time Matilda carried all before her. Robert d'Oilly, the constable of Oxford castle, put that important fortress into her hands. Henry of Winchester, disgusted at his brother's failure, and alarmed for the interests of the church, used his authority as papal legate to bring the clergy over to her side; the recognised submission of London followed, and Matilda was formally recognised as Lady of the English. No sooner, however, was Matilda in power than, like Stephen, she began to show how unfit she was to govern. If he listened only too readily to foolish counsellors, she would give heed to no counsel at all-not even to that of the old king of Scots or of Henry of Matilda as Lady of the English. Her Unpopularity. Winchester. She confiscated wholesale the lands of her opponents, disposed as she pleased of church property, refused to give to the citizens of London the laws of Edward the Confessor, and browbeat the most influential citizens in order to exact money. Meanwhile, Stephen's queen, Matilda of Boulogne, had been showing herself a worthy great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside. With the aid of William of Ypres she had landed in Kent, and her London approach to London determined the citizens to revolt. As declares for Stephen. one man they rose against the empress, and an ignominious flight to Oxford brought her brief success to a close. Again Henry of Winchester changed sides; and Matilda, furious at his want of faith, at once besieged him in a new castle which he had just built at Winchester. To aid the bishop, Matilda of Boulogne and William of Ypres marched with the Londoners and Flemings. Matilda Stephen was again compelled to fly, and in trying to cover her retreat released. her brother, Robert of Gloucester, was captured. In November he was exchanged for Stephen. Oxford. In 1142 Robert of Gloucester went to the Continent to persuade Geoffrey to come to his wife's assistance; and in his absence Stephen besieged the empress in Oxford castle. The importance of Matilda Oxford lay in its commanding the navigation of the upper besieged in Thames; its strength in its situation on a spit of land between the Thames and the Cherwell, surrounded on all sides but one by marshes. With great difficulty Stephen forded the river and formed the siege; but before long a frost set in, the marshes and rivers were frozen hard, and the castle could be strictly blockaded. Before Robert could relieve her, the case of the garrison was desperate; but with four chosen knights all dressed in white the empress escaped across ice and snow to Wallingford, where she was welcomed by Brian Fitz-Count, one of her stoutest supporters. Oxford immediately surrendered, and shortly afterwards the forward movement of the empress's party Returns to came to an end. The empress herself remained in England Normandy. till the death of Earl Robert in 1147, soon after which she returned to Normandy. Meanwhile, her husband Geoffrey had been far more successful. When his wife set off for England he had begun a campaign against Normandy. Here his engineering skill stood him in good stead. Castle Geoffrey's after castle fell before his machines, and by 1144 the whole success in Normandy. of the duchy was in his hands. Till 1147 Geoffrey kept it under his own control; but, his son Henry being then fifteen years of age, Normandy was given over to him. Young Henry had received an excellent education, partly conducted under the eye of his scholarly father, partly under the no less competent Robert of Gloucester; and he was now expected to take his part in active life. In 1149 he visited England, and was knighted by his great-uncle David of Scotland; but he soon returned, and till 1152 was busied in the affairs of his duchy, which he had to defend against the attacks of Louis VII. Early life of In 1151 the differences between the house of Anjou and the king of France were arranged by the mediation of St. Bernard. In the same year Geoffrey died, leaving his son count of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, besides being duke of Normandy; and in the spring of the next year Henry made himself the mightiest uncrowned head in the west by accepting an offer of marriage made to him by Eleanor, Eleanor of duchess of Aquitaine and countess of Poitou, Saintonge, and Limousin, the divorced wife of Louis VIL Another war with the French king followed, in which Henry had decidedly the better; and in the spring of 1153 he found himself strong enough to leave the Continent and renew the contest with Stephen. He marries Aquitaine. Horrors Since the siege of Oxford, the war in England had ceased to be carried on in any regular way; but that brought no diminution of its horrors to the wretched inhabitants of the country. All the lawless spirits of the time took advantage of it to work their own will. Castles sprang up in all directions, and the garrisons lived on the plunder of their neighbours. For the only time in English history men built castles when and where they listed; and no less than twelve hundred of those dens of iniquity, giving an average of thirty a county, sprang up during Stephen's reign. Barbarism was rapidly returning. If three men came riding into a town,' wrote the chronicler, 'all the inhabitants fled.' You could ride a day's journey without seeing a man cultivating the ground. Trade and agriculture were alike ruined; and it was said that God and his saints were asleep.' Some barons made horrible things called 'rachentages,' or neckties, so devised that when one was put on a man he could neither 'sleep, nor stand, nor lie, but had to bear all the iron'; others threw their prisoners into noisome dungeons with rats and toads; others hung them up and caused smoke to blow over them, so that they were all but choked. Such things were the everyday life of France and Germany, but in England, happily, they were new; and the experience of Stephen's reign taught Englishmen, once for all, that without a strong central administration the barons could not be kept in check. Since the death of Robert of Gloucester, however, Stephen had been Henry arrives in England. gradually gaining ground; and in the winter of 1152 he besieged Brian Fitz-Count in his castle of Wallingford. To save him an appeal was made to Henry of Anjou, and he came over in person. The two armies met at Malmesbury, but the retreat of Stephen prevented a battle. The barons of neither side were anxious for a complete victory, but wished to prolong the war for their own interests. At this critical moment, however, Stephen lost his eldest son Eustace, for whose interests as well as his own he was now fighting. Archbishop Theobald took advantage of the occasion to propose a compromise; and in November 1153 it was agreed at Walling- Treaty of ford that Stephen should hold the crown for the remainder Wallingford. of his life, and that ilenry should be his adopted son and successor. The treaty of Wallingford brought the long contest to a close. As recognised successor, and, according to one account, with the actual office of justiciar, Henry took into his own hands the restoration of order; and so well did he do his work that it was said that, during the two last years of his reign, Stephen had more of the reality of sovereignty than he had ever possessed before. So much progress, indeed, Stephen's was made that Henry was able to revisit his Continental Death. dominions, and was there in 1154 when Stephen's death made him the recognised king of England. Ecclesias gress. In spite of all the horrors of Stephen's reign, perhaps aided by them, the monastic revival had made much progress. The military knights of St. John and of the Temple had established many of their depôts in the country. The Premonstratensian order of tical Procanons had also been founded; and a peculiarly English order of convents for monks and nuns had been founded by Gilbert of Sempringham. The church, too, had gained strength. The only element of consistency to be found in the policy of Henry of Winchester is his attachment to the interest of the church; and his aims were more rationally pursued by Archbishop Theobald, whom the pope was persuaded to recognise as the 'born legate' of the pope in England. Theobald collected round him a number of the ablest young men of the time, among whom was Thomas of London, afterwards the famous archbishop of Canterbury. |