A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria; Vol. I

by François Guizot

That day had apparently arrived, for Roger of Salisbury and his two nephews, Bishops of Lincoln and Ely, were suddenly arrested. The Bishop of Ely succeeded in escaping and taking refuge in a fortress. He defended himself valiantly; but they threatened to starve to death his uncle and his brother if he did not yield. The manners of the time were such that there was reason to fear the execution of the threat. The Bishop of Ely surrendered, and the king took possession of the property of the three prelates; but he had irritated a dangerous enemy. His own brother, the Bishop of Winchester, and the Legate of the Pope in England, summoned him to appear before a Synod of bishops to answer for this breach of the privileges of the Church. It was necessary to appeal to the Pope against the prelates, and to disperse the Synod by force. The Bishop of Salisbury died shortly afterwards—"of chagrin," say the Chronicles. His nephews embraced the cause of the Empress, and a great part of the clergy followed their example. The Synod had just been dispersed (September, 1139) when Maud at length disembarked in England with one hundred knights only. Some Normans went to meet her, but finding her so ill attended they kept back. King Stephen swept down upon Arundel Castle, where resided Queen Adelais, widow of Henry I. He found her engaged in assisting her daughter-in-law, who had just arrived. A chivalrous sentiment restrained Stephen from insulting the two princesses. He left Adelais in peaceable possession of the castle, and the empress was able to proceed and meet her brother the Earl of Gloucester, who was endeavoring to revive the discontent in the counties of the West. Her partisans soon rallied round her, and raising her standard she attacked the king. Sometimes she was defeated, sometimes victorious; and for eighteen months England was afflicted by the horrors of civil war. At last a decisive combat near Lincoln resulted in King Stephen falling into the hands of the Earl of Gloucester. He was cast into confinement in Bristol Castle. The barons who had followed him hastened to the empress, made peace with her, and acknowledged her right to the crown, the Legate and the Bishop of Winchester being foremost. On the 7th of April a meeting of bishops, again presided over by the Legate, ratified the accession of Maud, absolving all the barons and the prelates from their oath towards Stephen; but the empress was obliged to allow some months to elapse before her coronation at Westminster, so attached were the citizens of London to the cause of the vanquished king.

Maud was haughty, and she lacked the tact and prudence so necessary to sovereigns whose throne is insecure. She harshly refused to give to the Bishop of Winchester the patrimonial lands of King Stephen, which he claimed on behalf of his nephew, Prince Eustace; and thus she mortally offended that proud prelate. On arriving in London she demanded immediately an enormous tollage. "The king has left us nothing," said the citizens piteously. "I understand," replied the new queen, "you have given everything to my adversary, and you desire me to spare you." London ended the dispute by promising to pay, presenting at the same time an humble petition. "Restore to us (they implored) the good laws of King Edward, thy great uncle, in the place of those of thy father. King Henry I., which are bad and too harsh towards us." The queen rudely repulsed the petitioners, and she was awaiting the arrival of the promised gold when the bells of the city suddenly sounded the alarum. From each house issued a combatant armed with an axe, a bar of iron, or a bow, "like bees issuing from a hive," says the chronicle; all took the direction of the palace. At the same time a troop of armed men, carrying the banner of Queen Matilda wife of Stephen, presented themselves on the bank of the Thames upon the Surrey side. The empress was at table; she sprang upon her horse and fled by the western gate, accompanied only by some servants, while the multitude pillaged the hall which she had just quitted. She was destined never to return to London.

The empress took refuge at Oxford. She had conceived some doubts with regard to the fidelity of the Bishop of Winchester, whom she sent for. "Say that I am preparing," replied the prelate. The queen had conceived the design of surprising him in his episcopal city; but at the moment when she entered by one gate she saw him go forth by another, on his way to place himself at the head of the partisans of his brother. The queen gathered her adherents about her; but the bishop had returned, and he laid siege to Winchester, where the King of Scotland and the Earl of Gloucester had joined Queen Matilda. All military operations had been suspended for the festival of the Holy Cross (14th September, 1141), when at daybreak Maud mounted her horse, accompanied by a good escort, and silently departed from the royal castle. She passed without serious difficulties through the camp of the besiegers, who were occupied in the ceremonies of the day. When the pursuit commenced Maud was already drawing near to the castle of Devizes; but she did not feel herself to be safe here, thoroughly as that place had been fortified by the Bishop of Salisbury, and she continued her course. The Earl of Hereford alone accompanied her as far as Gloucester. The King of Scotland had set out for his kingdom, but the Earl of Gloucester was taken prisoner. A great number of his adherents were disguised as peasants, but their Norman accent betrayed them, and the English hinds seizing this occasion to wreak vengeance on their oppressors arrested them, and whip in hand conducted them into the enemy's camp.

The two parties were without leaders, for Matilda could do nothing without her brother. It was resolved to exchange the Earl of Gloucester for King Stephen, and in a grand council of bishops convened on the 7th of December by the Legate, the latter hurled all the thunders of the Church against the partisans of the Countess of Anjou (by which name he described Maud), as he had done on the 7th of April against the adherents of the Count of Blois. The war continued in England and in Normandy: the Count of Anjou had subjected that great province, but he refused to cross the sea to join his wife, and contented himself with sending his eldest son Henry into England with his uncle, the Earl of Gloucester. At the moment when the young prince landed in the country where he was destined to establish his race, his mother was besieged in Oxford by King Stephen. The winter was one of great severity, and the sufferings of the nation were unparalleled. The barons fortified themselves each in his castle, "and even in the churches," say the chronicles, adding, that "they dug trenches in the churchyards, exposing to the daylight the bones of the dead. From thence armed men pillaged the towns and villages, the passers-by, and the lonely cottages. It was possible to walk all day without meeting a man upon the road, or seeing an acre of land in cultivation—for to till the earth was like tilling the sands of the sea-shore. Never had the pagan pirates inflicted worse evils."

The siege of Oxford lasted three months; the snow covered the ground. Maud found herself on the point of perishing by famine. She attired herself in white, as did three knights of her suite, and the four issued by a little postern, and traversed the deserted country as far as the town of Abingdon, where they obtained horses. The castle of Oxford surrendered on the morrow: but Stephen was soon afterwards defeated before Wilton by the Earl of Gloucester.

In the midst of these alternate successes and disasters, the burden of which weighed equally and constantly on the people, the Earl of Gloucester died (1147). His nephew, whom he had kept in Bristol Castle, in order to protect him against his enemies, returned into Normandy, and shortly afterwards the empress herself, deprived of all support, relinquished the part she had played with so much fortitude for eight years in order to return to France. King Stephen was now master of the situation; but his throne, shaken under him, was not destined to become firm again.

Escape Of The Empress Maud From Oxford.

Pope Innocent II., the protector of the Bishop of Winchester, had just died: Celestine II. and Lucius II. had enjoyed the pontifical throne only for the briefest space. Anastasius II. withdrew the title of legate from the king's brother, and granted it to his adversary Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury. Stephen had taken a part in the quarrel of his brother with the archbishop, whom he had exiled; and a part of the kingdom had been placed under an interdict. The Church was too strong for a sovereign so feeble: Stephen was compelled to cede great estates to the clergy, and to be reconciled with Theobald. But in vain he sought to obtain the recognition of his eldest son Eustace as his successor; the archbishop constantly refused his countenance; the quarrels broke out afresh, and the episcopal domains were confiscated in several places.