The legate himself, although brother to King Stephen, received her at Winchester with great solemnity, accepted her oath for governing with justice, redressing grievances, and supporting the rights of the Church, and took the old conditional one of fealty to her; then in an assembly of bishops and clergy convoked for the purpose, he displayed the miscarriages of his brother, and declared his approbation of the Empress to be Queen; to which they unanimously agreed. To complete all, he prevailed by his credit with the Londoners, who stood out the last of any, to acknowledge and receive her into the city, where she arrived at length in great pomp, and with general satisfaction.
But it was the misfortune of this Princess to possess many weaknesses that are charged to the sex, and very few of its commendable qualities: she was now in peaceable possession of the whole kingdom, except the county of Kent, where William d'Ypres pretended to keep up a small party for the King; when by her pride, wilfulness, indiscretion, and a disobliging behaviour, she soon turned the hearts of all men against her, and in a short time lost the fruits of that victory and success which had been so hardly gained by the prudence and valour of her excellent brother. The first occasion she took to discover the perverseness of her nature, was in the treatment of Maud, the wife of King Stephen, a lady of great virtue, and courage above her sex, who, coming to the Empress an humble suitor in behalf of her husband, offered, as a price of his liberty, that he should resign all pretensions to the crown, and pass the rest of his life in exile, or in a convent: but this request was rejected with scorn and reproaches; and the Queen finding all entreaties to no purpose, writ to her son Eustace to let him understand the ill success of her negotiation, that no relief was to be otherwise hoped for than by arms, and therefore advised him to raise immediately what forces he could for the relief of his father.
Her next miscarriage was towards the Londoners, who presented her a petition for redressing certain rigorous laws of her father, and restoring those of Edward the Confessor. The Empress put them off for a time with excuses, but at last discovered some displeasure at their importunity. The citizens, who had with much difficulty been persuaded to receive her against their inclinations, which stood wholly for the King, were moved with indignation at her unreasonable refusal of their just demands, and entered into a conspiracy to seize her person. But she had timely notice of their design, and leaving the city by night in disguise, fled to Oxford.
A third false step the Empress made,[36] was in refusing her new powerful friend the legate a favour he desired in behalf of Eustace, the King's son, to grant him the lands and honours held by his father before he came to the crown. She had made large promises to this prelate, that she would be directed in all things by his advice, and to be refused upon his first application a small favour for his own nephew, stung him to the quick; however, he governed his resentments a while, but began at the same time to resume his affection for his brother. These thoughts were cultivated with great address by Queen Maud, who prevailed at last so far upon the legate, that private measures were agreed between them for restoring Stephen to his liberty and crown. The bishop took leave of the Empress, upon some plausible pretence, and retired to Winchester, where he gave directions for supplying with men and provisions several strong castles he had built in his diocese, while the Queen with her son Eustace prevailed with the Londoners and men of Kent to rise in great numbers for the King; and a powerful army was quickly on foot, under the command of William d'Ypres Earl of Kent.
[Footnote 36: William of Malmesbury. [D.S.]
In the mean time the Empress began to be sensible of the errors she had committed; and in hope either to retrieve the friendship of the legate, or take him prisoner, marched with her army to Winchester, where being received and lodged in the castle, she sent immediately for the legate, spoke much in excuse of what was past, and used all endeavours to regain him to her interests. Bishop Henry, on the other side, amused her with dubious answers, and kept her in suspense for some days; but sent privately at the same time to the King's army, desiring them to advance with all possible speed; which was executed with so much diligence, that the Empress and her brother had only time with their troops to march a back way out of the town. They were pursued by the enemy so close in the rear, that the Empress had hardly time, by counterfeiting herself dead, to make her escape; in which posture she was carried as a corpse to Gloucester; but the Earl her brother, while he made what opposition he could, with design to stop her pursuers, was himself taken prisoner, with great slaughter of his men. After the battle, the Earl was in his turn presented to Queen Maud, and by her command sent to Rochester to be treated in the same manner with the King.
Thus the heads of both parties were each in the power of his enemy, and Fortune seemed to have dealt with great equality between them. Two factions divided the whole kingdom, and, as it usually happens, private animosities were inflamed by the quarrel of the public; which introduced a miserable face of things throughout the land, whereof the writers of our English story give melancholy descriptions, not to be repeated in this history; since the usual effects of civil war are obvious to conceive, and tiresome as well as useless to relate. However, as the quarrel between the King and Empress was grounded upon a cause that in its own nature little concerned the interests of the people, this was thought a convenient juncture for transacting a peace, to which there appeared an universal disposition. Several expedients were proposed; but Earl Robert would consent upon no other terms than the deposing of Stephen, and immediate delivery of the crown to his sister. These debates lasted for some months, until the two prisoners, weary of their long constraint, by mutual consent were exchanged for each other, and all thoughts of agreement laid aside.
The King, upon recovery of his freedom, hastened to London, to get supplies of men and money for renewing the war. He there found that his brother of Winchester had, in a council of bishops and abbots, renounced all obedience to the Empress, and persuaded the assembly to follow his example. The legate, in excuse for this proceeding, loaded her with infamy, produced several instances wherein she had broken the oath she took when he received her as Queen, and upon which his obedience was grounded; said, he had received information that she had a design upon his life.[37]
[Footnote 37: William of Malmesbury. [D.S.]
It must be confessed that oaths of fealty in this Prince's reign were feeble ties for binding the subject to any reasonable degree of obedience; and the warmest advocates for liberty cannot but allow, from those examples here produced, that it is very possible for people to run upon great extremes in this matter, that a monarch may be too much limited, and a subject too little; whereof the consequences have been fully as pernicious for the time as the worst that can be apprehended from arbitrary power in all its heights, although not perhaps so lasting or so hard to be remedied; since all the miseries of this kingdom, during the period we are treating of, were manifestly owing to that continual violation of such oaths of allegiance, as appear to have been contrived on purpose by ambitious men to be broken at pleasure, without the least apprehension of perjury, and in the mean time keep the prince in a continual slavish dependence.