The loss on the English side was inconsiderable; but of Scots, by general consent of writers, ten thousand were slain. And thus ended the War of the Standard, as it was usually called by the authors of that age, because the English, upon a certain engine, raised the mast of a ship, on the top whereof, in a silver box, they put the consecrated wafer, and fastened the standards of St. Peter and other saints: this gave them courage, by remembering they were to fight in the presence of God; and served likewise for a mark where to reassemble when they should happen to be dispersed by any accident or misfortune.
1139
Mean time the King was equally successful against his rebellious lords at home, having taken most of their castles and strong-holds; and the Earl of Gloucester himself, no longer able to make any resistance, withdrew into Normandy, to concert new measures with the Empress his sister. Thus the King had leisure and opportunity for another expedition into Scotland, to pursue and improve his victory, where he met with no opposition: however, he was at length persuaded with much difficulty to accept his own conditions of a peace; and David delivered up to him his eldest son Henry, as hostage for performance of articles between them.
The King, in his return homeward, laid siege to Ludlow Castle, which had not been reduced with the rest: here Prince Henry of Scotland, boiling with youth and valour, and exposing his person upon all occasions, was lifted from his horse by an iron grapple let down from the wall, and would have been hoisted up into the castle, if the King had not immediately flown to his assistance, and brought him off with his own hands by main force from the enemy, whom he soon compelled to surrender the castle.
1140
Stephen having thus subdued his inveterate enemies the Scots, and reduced his rebellious nobles, began to entertain hopes of enjoying a little ease. But he was destined to the possession of a crown with perpetual disturbance; for he was hardly returned from his northern expedition, when he received intelligence that the Empress, accompanied by her brother the Earl of Gloucester, was preparing to come for England, in order to dispute her title to the kingdom. The King, who knew by experience what a powerful party she already had to espouse her interests, very reasonably concluded, the defection from him would be much greater, when she appeared in person to countenance and reward it; he therefore began again to repent of the licence he had granted for building castles, which were now like to prove so many places of security for his enemies, and fortifications against himself; for he knew not whom to trust, vehemently suspecting his nobles ever since their last revolt. He therefore cast about for some artifice to get into his hands as many of their castles as he could: in the strength and magnificence of which kind of structures, the bishops had far outdone the rest, and were upon that, as well as other accounts, very much maligned and envied by the temporal lords, who were extreme jealous of the Church's increasing power, and glad upon all occasions to see the prelates humbled. The King, therefore, having formed his project, resolved to make trial where it would be least invidious, and where he could foresee least danger in the consequences. At a Parliament or assembly of nobles at Oxford, it was contrived to raise a quarrel between the servants of some bishops and those of Alan Count of Dinan in Bretagne, upon a contention of rooms in their inns. Stephen took hold of this advantage, sent for the bishops, taxed them with breaking his peace, and demanded the keys of their castles, adding threats of imprisonment if they dared to disobey. Those whom the King chiefly suspected, or rather who had built the most and strongest castles, were Roger Bishop of Salisbury, with his nephew and natural son the Bishops of Ely and Lincoln, whom the King, by many circumstances of rigour, compelled to surrender, going himself in person to seize the Devizes, then esteemed the noblest structure of Europe, and built by the forementioned Bishop Roger, whose treasure, to the value of forty thousand marks,[31] there likewise deposited, fell, at the same time, into the King's hand, which in a few days broke the bishop's heart, already worn with age and infirmity.
[Footnote 31: This prelate's treasure is doubtless computed by the smaller or Saxon mark; the use of which still prevailed in England: and even thus computed, it amounts to a vast sum, equal to about £116,350 of modern money. [D.S.]
It may, perhaps, not be thought a digression to say something of the fortunes of this prelate, who, from the lowest beginnings, came to be, without dispute, the greatest churchman of any subject in his age. It happened that the late King Henry, in the reign of his brother, being at a village in Normandy, wanted a priest to say mass before him and his train, when this man, who was a poor curate thereabouts, offered his service, and performed it with so much dexterity and speed, that the soldiers who attended the prince recommended him to their master, upon that account, as a very proper chaplain for military men; but it seems he had other talents; for having gotten into the prince's service, he soon discovered great application and address, much order and economy in the management of his master's fortunes, which were wholly left to his care. After Henry's advancement to the crown, this chaplain grew chief in his favour and confidence; was made Bishop of Salisbury, Chancellor of England, employed in all his most weighty affairs, and usually left vicegerent of the realm while the King was absent in Normandy. He was among the first that swore fealty to Maud and her issue; and among the first that revolted from her to Stephen, offering such reasons in council for setting her aside, as, by the credit and opinion of his wisdom, were very prevalent. But the King, in a few years, forgot all obligations, and the bishop fell a sacrifice in his old age to those treasures he had been so long heaping up for its support. A just reward for his ingratitude towards the Prince that raised him, to be ruined by the ingratitude of another, whom he had been so very instrumental to raise.
But Henry Bishop of Winchester, the Pope's legate, not able to endure this violation of the Church, called a council of all the prelates to meet at Winchester, where the King being summoned, appeared by his advocate, who pleaded his cause with much learning; and the Archbishop of Rouen coming to the council, declared his opinion, That although the canons did allow the bishops to possess castles, yet in dangerous times they ought to deliver them up to the King. This opinion Stephen followed very steadily, not yielding a tittle, although the legate his brother used all means, both rough and gentle, to work upon him.
The council of bishops broke up without other effect than that of leaving in their minds an implacable hatred to the King, in a very opportune juncture for the interests of Maud, who, about this time, landed at Portsmouth with her brother Robert Earl of Gloucester. The whole force she brought over for this expedition consisted but of one hundred and forty knights;[32] for she trusted altogether in her cause and her friends. With this slender attendance she went to Arundel, and was there received into the castle by the widow of the late King; while Earl Robert, accompanied only by twenty men, marched boldly to his own city of Gloucester, in order to raise forces for the Empress, where the townsmen turned out the King's garrison as soon as they heard of his approach.