Thomas Becket. Father John S. Hogan

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      Stephen reigned in relative peace for three years, but they were revealing years. While he had been quick off the mark, he lacked the ability to reign effectively. His leadership skills were tenuous, and though he seemed capable, generous, and gregarious, he was in reality mistrustful of others, weak, and manipulative. He relied on a small group of barons for advice; these were his personal friends on whom he lavished favors while alienating the other barons, freezing them out of the life of the court. Stephen made enemies of powerful men who could have supported him and lent legitimacy to his reign. He was a man who nurtured appearances — protocol was strictly enforced — but he was deficient in many areas of the craft of statesmanship. His divisive reign had a destabilizing effect on England, and as Normandy appeared to be lost to him, he seemed to forget this major territory of his supposed realm. For the first fifteen months of his reign, he did nothing with Normandy; when he did return there with an army of mercenaries to stake his claim, he discovered he had lost any chance of a foothold.

      One of those he alienated was Robert, Earl of Gloucester, Matilda’s half-brother. Interestingly, though Robert took an oath to his father King Henry to support his sister’s claim to the throne, when the king died, he initially wavered rather than publicly stand by his half-sister. He had made the homage to Stephen, albeit reluctantly.⁸ Robert was one of the most important peers in England and would have been an ideal ally, but Stephen’s botched attempt to assassinate him, according to Robert, finally pushed the earl over to Matilda.⁹ Penitent for his disloyalty, he would prove to be her chief and fiercest supporter in England, as she would have expected all along.

      The only party to benefit from Stephen’s reign was the Church, which was able to gain liberties and properly enforce the reforms of Pope Saint Gregory VII, who had tried to limit the role of monarchs in the governance of the Church.¹⁰ In 1136, Stephen granted the Church a charter in which he ceded into the hands of the bishops all judgment and power over ecclesiastical persons and their possessions and all ecclesiastical appointments.¹¹ This was an extraordinary concession from the perceived royal prerogative, one that would prove problematic for Stephen’s successors, but it fulfilled the requirements of Pope Gregory’s reforms. The charter further decreed that candidates for the episcopacy were to be chosen without royal interference; that no act of fealty to the monarch was required from new bishops, not even for their lands and estates; and that there were to be no restrictions on appeals to the pope. Bishops were also free to travel to Rome to meet the pope, where previously such journeys were restricted. Finally, Church councils could be called without royal consent. The bishops could not believe their luck when he promul gated this charter. Perhaps some were saying to themselves that his reign could not last; they would be proved correct in that.

      Another who held such sentiments regarding Stephen’s reign was the Empress Matilda. She was wise to wait; her patience and continued insistence on her claim won her allies among the barons. When Robert of Gloucester came to her cause in 1138, she knew it was time to strike. Submitting a formal appeal to Rome, she asked the pope to intervene and ensure that Stephen be held to the solemn oath he had taken. When Stephen heard of this move, he realized he needed to consolidate support within the court, and so began a purge of officials who had served Henry and could therefore no longer be trusted. He purged barons and bishops alike, seizing their property, looting their coffers, and adding to the list of his enemies.¹² Meanwhile, on September 30, 1139, as Thomas was on his way to carefree days in Paris, Matilda, arriving from the continent with her army, set foot on a beach just south of Arundel Castle in the South Downs in England; the civil war had begun.¹³

      Matilda’s invasion truly initiated anarchy. England was already unstable and divided; her presence made things worse. A number of disaffected barons joined her cause, but they were few, and many of them wanted to unseat Stephen rather than support the legitimate candidate to the throne. England split in two. Matilda had a number of successes at first; as her army advanced up the country, Stephen’s forces were unable to hold their ground or recapture what she had taken. However, she did not have the strength to defeat Stephen and take control of England. While she had her first major victory in 1141, capturing the city and castle of Lincoln and kidnapping Stephen himself, the effort was doomed to failure.¹⁴ With her nemesis in captivity, she dubbed herself “Lady of the English” and began to make arrangements for her coronation in Westminster. Interestingly, Stephen’s brother Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester, came over to her side, as did many of the king’s barons, who may have concluded that the end had come for the usurper.

      Flush with victory, Empress Matilda did not reckon on one force that could be turned against her: Stephen’s wife, Queen Matilda,¹⁵ a woman scorned who roused what was left of Stephen’s forces and made a spirited attack on Empress Matilda’s army. Meanwhile, Empress Matilda was now arguing with the bishop of Winchester, and she did not impress her newfound allied barons with her arrogance. It was when she refused to grant the independent-minded Londoners financial concessions that things really turned sour. They chased her out of the city; she was reclining on a couch, waiting for dinner when the bells of London began to ring, announcing the attack of Londoners. She had just fled her accommodation when a mob broke into her apartment and began to loot it. She fled for the safety of Oxford.¹⁶ If that were not enough, her brother Robert tried to settle scores with the bishop of Winchester by besieging the bishop’s diocesan seat and was captured in the attempt. When a request for a prisoner exchange arrived, Empress Matilda knew her situation was unraveling. As she traded King Stephen for Robert, she likely saw that she was losing whatever grip she had on power.¹⁷ By November 1142, under siege in her castle in Oxford, she knew her campaign was in tatters.

      Her husband, Geoffrey, was faring much better. His campaign in Normandy was meeting with success as he conquered one city after another, pressing his son Henry’s claim.¹⁸ That he left devastation in his wake and rendered Normandy a wasteland seems to have been lost on him. His accomplishments allowed him to come to his wife’s rescue, and so he promised to send three hundred knights to her aid; however, she was still waiting for them at Christmas in 1142. No doubt frustrated by cabin fever and the tardiness of her husband, Matilda made a risky decision — she would slip out of the castle in Oxford and make her way to Abingdon. In the dead of night, covered in a white cloak, she managed to creep out past the guards, and, camouflaged in the snow, she traipsed the eight miles to friends who were waiting for her.¹⁹ Spirited away to the West Country, Matilda lived to fight another day and prolong England’s agony.

      Gathering fresh troops, she reengaged Stephen, but she was too weak to overcome him, and he was too weak to defeat her. England descended into a stalemate as two courts emerged with a claimant to the throne in each. Public order dissolved into chaos; the rule of law stood for nothing. England was divided three ways: those loyal to Stephen, those loyal to Matilda, and those loyal to no one but themselves. It was indeed anarchy. Taking advantage of the situation, King David I of Scotland²⁰ invaded the north of England, annexing Westmorland, Cumberland, and Northumberland. Foreign soldiers invaded various areas of England, attacking and ravaging the people, as there was no real army to defend them. Flemish mercenaries arrived and seized castles with their estates and assets. Hordes of violent ne’er-do-wells terrorized and robbed the simple folk of the country. In an attempt to safeguard their homes, possessions, and livelihoods, landowners took whatever measures were necessary to defend themselves.

      While England was falling around their ears, Stephen and Matilda tried to lend legitimacy to their administrations. Both set up official governments, issued decrees, and passed laws — to no effect. They minted their own coin, ran their own courts, and established their own systems of patronage. They even sought to establish diplomatic relations with other realms. It was all a charade, a delusion. Finally, at the beginning of 1148, Matilda decided to return to Normandy.²¹ She was not giving up on her claim, but she had had enough; it was time for someone else to take up the cause. She made her way to the priory of Notre-Dame-du-Pré, just outside Rouen, to spend her remaining years in peace and quiet. Stephen may have thought that he had won, СКАЧАТЬ