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of one another, and travelled about from place to place for the purpose of redressing grievances. This order of knight-errantry was of infinite service in softening the ferocious manners of the times. The spirit of chivalry seemed to belong wholly to the Norman character, no traces of it having been found amongst the plain and rustic Saxons.

Females in that age had not the liberty they enjoy in our time, but they were beloved and cherished by their families, and honored extravagantly by the knights-The daughters of noblemen were commonly educated in nunneries till they married: they then lived in their husband's castles, and were very often besieged, and taken prisoners, according to the chances of war. One of their occupations was that of surgery; and it was their office to make salves, and attend on the wounded; but their principal employment was embroidery and needle-work; and they used to sit in the great hall, surrounded by their damsels, working with them, and setting them their tasks.

When these ladies made a visit, they were furnished with a guard to protect them, lest they should be killed or carried off. But they had no want of society at home; for, besides the menials belonging to the castle, every lady had a number of damsels attendant on herself, who were the daughters of inferior knights and barons, or perhaps her own relations. And every castle was a sort of school fot young nobles, where, first in quality of pages, and as they grew older, in that of squires, they learned the arts of war and hunting, which were the chief requisites for a gentle

man.

What were the occupations of ladies in the middle ages?
Who were the companions and attendants of ladies?

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All the precautions which Henry had taken to secure the crown to his daughter were but vain. An usurper sprang up where he would least have expected one, in his favor ite nephew Stephen, who was the second son of his sister Adela and the count de Blois, and to whom he had invariably shown the utmost kindness, and a preference above all his other relations. He had given him a large estate in Normandy; and had married him to the heiress of Boulogne, whose mother was Mary of Scotland, sister to his own queen, Matilda. But all these kindnesses could not inspire Stephen with gratitude. As soon as he heard of the king's death, he hastened to England; and though he met with a little opposition at first, yet he soon procured himself to be crowned at Westminster.

Stephen's deportment was praticularly popular and engaging, and he had much pleasantry in his conversation. He was already a great favorite with the people; and to this, more than to any other cause, is attributed the success of his attempt on the crown. This usurpation had been so

Who succeeded Henry I.?

What immediate effect had Stephen's usurpation?

totally unexpected, that no preparations had been made to guard against it; and the empress Maude, as she is commonly called, and her friends, were so unprepared for the event, that they knew not what to do. This gave Stephen time to strengthen himself, before any attempts were made to shake his power.

The first person who took up arms against him was David, king of Scotland, who marched an army into England to vindicate the rights of his niece. But Stephen contrived to win him over by ceding to him the greater part of the four northern counties of England, and giving to his son the earldom of Huntingdon. The wisest and most powerful baron then in England was the earl of Gloucester, a son of the late king. He was warmly attached to his sister; but as the other nobles acknowledged Stephen, he also was obliged to submit. For the next three years Maude appears to have made no direct attempt; but to have been lying in wait for an opportunity to assert her rights. A. D. 1139. Stephen, raised great discontents by his severity to some of his barons. This encouraged Maude and the earl of Gloucester, who had joined his sister in Normandy, to come to England. They were received in an evil hour into Arundel Castle by the dowager queen Adelais: and from this time, for several years, England was desolated by one of the most calamitous wars it has ever known. The barons sided with the two contending parties, as their feelings, or rather as their interests, prompted them.

But, instead of an open war, it was a miserable vexatious kind of hostility, and displayed all the worst evils of the feudal system. Each baron, shut up in his own castle with his own retainers, kept up a sort of petty war with his nearest neighbour of the opposite party, to the destruction of all domestic comfort and civil order. All England," according to an old historian, "wore a face of desolation and misery; multitudes abandoned their beloved country, and went into voluntary exile: others, forsaking their own houses, built wretched huts in churchyards, hoping

Who vindicated Matilda's rights?

Why did Matilda come to England?

66

What sort of war was carried on in England in Stephen's reign?

for protection from the sacredness of the place. Whole families, after sustaining life as long as they could by eating herbs, roots, and the flesh of dogs and horses, at last died of hunger; and you might see many pleasant villages without a single inhabitant."

A. D. 1141.

After this contest had gone on for some time, without any decided advantage to either party, the earl of Gloucester, who commanded the empress's army, appeared before Lincoln, where a fierce battle took place on the 2d of February, 1141, Stephen was taken, and carried prisoner to Bristol Castle.

Upon this great victory, Maude was acknowledged queen, and on the 1st of June entered London in triumph. But instead of acting with prudence, or even with gratitude, despising the counsels of her uncle, the king of Scotland, and of her brother, the earl of Gloucester, to whom she owed so much, she treated her friends ungraciously, and her enemies insolently. She insulted the citizens of London, instead of granting any of their requests; and disgusted all orders of people so entirely, that, even while she was making preparations for her coronation, she found herself compelled to leave London, and fly to Winches

ter.

Here she was soon besieged by Stephen's youngest brother, Henry, bishop of Winchester. With the utmost difficulty she escaped on a swift horse, to Devizes; but the earl of Gloucester, in indeavoring to follow her, was taken prisoner, and carried to Rochester Castle. He, however, was soon after exchanged for Stephen. Thus, by both being taken prisoners, they both regained their liberty.

Stephen, about this time, was seized with a fit of illness, and was disabled, for a time, from taking advantage of this turn of fortune in his favor. As soon, however, as he regained his health, he pursued the empress. She escaped, borne in a litter, like a corpse to Oxford; and took refuge there in the castle, during the absence of the earl of

Was Stephen defeated?

How did Matilda conduct herself after the battle of Lincoln?
How did Stephen obtain his liberty?

How did Matilda escape from Stephen?

Gloucester, who had gone into Normandy to bring prince Henry, Maude's eldest son, to England.

Stephen continued before Oxford for three months, having sworn not to raise the siege till he had taken the empress prisoner. At last the garrison was reduced to extremity by_famine; but still Maude was too proud to surrender. The ground, it being now the middle of winter, was covered with snow. The empress, and three of her trusty knights, attiring themselves wholly in white, that they might be the less easily distinguished, opened by night a postern door, and got out of the castle; and after crossing the frozen river, and walking six miles, they reached Abingdon in safety, where they procured horses to convey them to Wallingford. At Wallingford, Maude was met by the earl of Gloucester, on his return from Normandy with prince Henry, a fine promising boy of eleven years of age; and she soon forgot all her late fatigues and alarms in the joy of that happy meeting.

The fatal and ruinous warfare between Maude and Stephen continued for some years longer, but in the year 1147 the empress had a severe loss, in the death of her faithful friend the earl of Gloucester. On his death, feeling her self, at length, wearied out with the struggle, she resigned her claims to her son Henry, who went into Normandy to collect an army which might enable him to renew the war. To that country, Maude also retired, and spent there the remainder of her life; never interfering in public affairs.

The flames of civil war had latterly been

A. D. 1153. subsiding, but they blazed up again on the ar rival of prince Henry from Normandy. Stephen and he met at Wallingford. The two armies faced each other for several days without coming to an engagement. Some of the barons, who deplored the miseries of the country, had thus an opportunity of proposing an accommodation, to which Stephen the more willingly consented from having a short time before lost his eldest son, Eustace.

Did Matilda surrender to Stephen at Oxford ?
Did Matilda ever make peace with Stephen?

Was civil war revived in England during Stephen's reign?

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