death announced than Stephen left Normandy, and embarked for Dover, leaving the last rites of his deceased uncle to the care of Robert, Earl of Gloucester.
He hastened on to London in the midst of a terrible thunder-storm, and convened an assembly of barons, before whom the steward of King Henry's household swore that the late sovereign had disinherited the Empress Matilda on his deathbed, and named Stephen as his heir. Thereupon the Archbishop of Canterbury absolved the nobles from the oath of fealty they had twice sworn to the daughter of their dead king, and Stephen was crowned without opposition.
This was easily managed, because the Empress Matilda, being the wife of a foreign prince, was residing on the continent, and therefore out of the way. Besides, at the time of her father's death, her husband was dangerously ill, and she had no thought for anything but the care he required. When he recovered she determined to remain quiet for awhile to watch the condition of affairs in England.
A.D. 1136. Meanwhile Queen Matilda had given birth to a son, who was named Eustace, and three months after her husband had claimed the crown, her own coronation took place on Easter Sunday, 1136.
Stephen began his reign by making some wise and popular laws, but he permitted his nobles to build or fortify over a thousand castles. This was a grave mistake, because the owners of these strongholds could shut themselves up in them and defy the crown when they chose.
The first sad experience Stephen had in this respect was when the Earl of Devonshire refused to obey him, or to acknowledge his right as king. Stephen proceeded to chastise him, when the King of Scotland, taking advantage of this disturbance, invaded the northern counties under pretence of revenging the wrongs of his niece, the Empress Matilda, though Queen Matilda stood in the same degree of relationship to him as the empress did.
Stephen met the King of Scotland with a large army, but Queen Matilda interposed between the two sovereigns, and settled all differences without any bloodshed.
A.D. 1137. This happy termination of the storm that had been gathering was celebrated by a series of rejoicings, but in the midst of them Stephen was seized with an illness so serious that it resulted in a stupor closely resembling death. It was reported in Normandy that he really had died.
Thereupon the party of the Empress Matilda immediately began to take measures to place her on the throne, her husband, the Count of Anjou, entering Normandy at the head of an army to assert her right. Then Stephen's elder brother, Theobold, put in his claim. Meanwhile Stephen recovered, and no sooner did he see the danger that threatened him, than, leaving his wife to look out for his interests in England, he hastened with his little son to France, and by means of a large bribe induced King Louis VII. to acknowledge the child's claim to the earldom of Boulogne, which Queen Matilda had bestowed on the child.
During King Stephen's absence some enormous fires occurred in different parts of England which seemed to be the work of discontented subjects; conspiracies were formed in favor of the Empress Matilda, and, what was worst of all, the King of Scotland made another invasion into Northumberland. But Queen Matilda showed herself a woman of courage and determination, for she actually went in person to fight the insurgents, and kept them at bay until her husband arrived and drove the Scottish army back into their own country.