[* Gul. Neub. p. 362.]
[** Chron. Sax. p. 238. W. Malms, p. 181]
[*** W. Malms p. 182.]
[**** W. Malms, p. 182. M. Paris, p. 53,]
[****** W. Malms p 183.]
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 Glocester, 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 Glocester, 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 Lovell, William Fitz-John, William Fitz-Alan, Paganell, and many other barons, declared for her; and her party, which was generally favored 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, and 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 every thing 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 defenceless people, to the most extreme want and indigence.[*]
[* Chron. Sax, p. 238. W. Malms, p. 185. Gest.
Steph. p. 961.]
1140.
After several fruitless negotiations 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. The earl of Glocester 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.
1141.
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 valor, borne down by numbers and taken prisoner. He was conducted to Glocester; 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 endeavor to fix him in her interests. She held a conference with him in an open plain near Winchester; where she promised upon oath, that if he would acknowledge her for sovereign, would recognize 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 Glocester, and other great men, became guaranties 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 fulfil 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.[***]
[* W. Malms, p. 187.]
[** Chron. Sax. p 242. Contin. Flor. Wigorn. p.
676]
[*** W. Malms, p. 187.]