Page 93 of 155

     [* 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.]

Matilda, that she might further insure the attachment of the clergy, was willing to receive the crown from their hands; and instead of assembling the states of the kingdom, the measure which the constitution, had it been either fixed or regarded, seemed necessarily to require, she was content that the legate should summon an ecclesiastical synod, and that her title to the throne should there be acknowledged. The legate, addressing himself to the assembly, told them, that in the absence of the empress, Stephen, his brother, had been permitted to reign, and, previously to his ascending the throne, had seduced them by many fair promises, of honoring and exalting the church, of maintaining the laws, and of reforming all abuses; that it grieved him to observe how much that prince had in every particular been wanting to his engagements; public peace was interrupted, crimes were daily committed with impunity, bishops were thrown into prison and forced to surrender their possessions, abbeys were put to sale, churches were pillaged and the most enormous disorders prevailed in the administration; that he himself, in order to procure a redress of these grievances, had formerly summoned the king before a council of bishops; but instead of inducing him to amend his conduct, had rather offended him by that expedient; that, how much soever misguided, that prince was still his brother, and the object of his affections; but his interests, however, must be regarded as subordinate to those of their heavenly Father, who had now rejected him, and thrown him into the hands of his enemies; that it principally belonged to the clergy to elect and ordain kings; he had summoned them together for that purpose; and having invoked the divine assistance, he now pronounced Matilda, the only descendant of Henry, their late sovereign, queen of England. The whole assembly, by their acclamations or silence, gave or seemed to give, their assent to this declaration.[*]

The only laymen summoned to this council, which decided the fate of the crown, were the Londoners; and even these were required not to give their opinion, but to submit to the decrees of the synod. The deputies of London, however, were not so passive; they insisted that their king should be delivered from prison; but were told by the legate, that it became not the Londoners, who were regarded as noblemen in England, to take part with those barons who had basely forsaken their lord in battle, and who had treated holy church with contumely. It is with reason that the citizens of London assumed so much authority, if it be true, what is related by Fitz-Stephen, a contemporary author, that that city should at this time bring into the field no less than eighty thousand combatants.[**]

     [* W. Malms, p. 188. This author, a judicious man,
     was present, and says that he was very attentive to what
     passed. This speech therefore, may be regarded as entirely
     genuine.]

     [** Were this account to be depended on, London
     must at that time have contained near four hundred thousand
     inhabitants, which is above double the number it contained
     at the death of Queen Elizabeth. But these loose
     calculations, or rather guesses, deserve very little
     credit. Peter of Blois, a contemporary writer, and a man of
     sense, says there were then only forty thousand inhabitants
     in London, which is much more likely. See epist. 151. What
     Fitz-Stephen says of the prodigious riches, splendor, and
     commerce of London, proves only the great poverty of the
     other towns of the kingdoms and indeed of all the northern
     parts of Europe.]

London, notwithstanding its great power, and its attachment to Stephen, was at length obliged to submit to Matilda; and her authority, by the prudent conduct of Earl Robert, seemed to be established over the whole kingdom; but affairs remained not long in this situation. That princess, besides the disadvantages of her sex, which weakened her influence over a turbulent and martial people, was of a passionate, imperious spirit, and knew not how to temper with affability the harshness of a refusal. Stephen’s queen, seconded by many of the nobility, petitioned for the liberty of her husband; and offered, that, on this condition, he should renounce the crown, and retire into a convent. The legate desired that Prince Eustace, his nephew, might inherit Boulogne and the other patrimonial estates of his father.[*] The Londoners applied for the establishment of King Edward’s laws, instead of those of King Henry, which, they said, were grievous and oppressive.[**] All these petitions were rejected in the most haughty and peremptory manner.