CHAPTER XI--ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN
The King was no sooner dead than all the plans and schemes he hadlaboured at so long, and lied so much for, crumbled away like a hollowheap of sand. STEPHEN, whom he had never mistrusted or suspected,started up to claim the throne.
Stephen was the son of ADELA, the Conqueror's daughter, married to theCount of Blois. To Stephen, and to his brother HENRY, the late King hadbeen liberal; making Henry Bishop of Winchester, and finding a goodmarriage for Stephen, and much enriching him. This did not preventStephen from hastily producing a false witness, a servant of the lateKing, to swear that the King had named him for his heir upon his death-bed. On this evidence the Archbishop of Canterbury crowned him. The newKing, so suddenly made, lost not a moment in seizing the Royal treasure,and hiring foreign soldiers with some of it to protect his throne.
If the dead King had even done as the false witness said, he would havehad small right to will away the English people, like so many sheep oroxen, without their consent. But he had, in fact, bequeathed all histerritory to Matilda; who, supported by ROBERT, Earl of Gloucester, soonbegan to dispute the crown. Some of the powerful barons and priests tookher side; some took Stephen's; all fortified their castles; and again themiserable English people were involved in war, from which they couldnever derive advantage whosoever was victorious, and in which all partiesplundered, tortured, starved, and ruined them.
Five years had passed since the death of Henry the First--and duringthose five years there had been two terrible invasions by the people ofScotland under their King, David, who was at last defeated with all hisarmy--when Matilda, attended by her brother Robert and a large force,appeared in England to maintain her claim. A battle was fought betweenher troops and King Stephen's at Lincoln; in which the King himself wastaken prisoner, after bravely fighting until his battle-axe and swordwere broken, and was carried into strict confinement at Gloucester.Matilda then submitted herself to the Priests, and the Priests crownedher Queen of England.
She did not long enjoy this dignity. The people of London had a greataffection for Stephen; many of the Barons considered it degrading to beruled by a woman; and the Queen's temper was so haughty that she madeinnumerable enemies. The people of London revolted; and, in alliancewith the troops of Stephen, besieged her at Winchester, where they tookher brother Robert prisoner, whom, as her best soldier and chief general,she was glad to exchange for Stephen himself, who thus regained hisliberty. Then, the long war went on afresh. Once, she was pressed sohard in the Castle of Oxford, in the winter weather when the snow laythick upon the ground, that her only chance of escape was to dressherself all in white, and, accompanied by no more than three faithfulKnights, dressed in like manner that their figures might not be seen fromStephen's camp as they passed over the snow, to steal away on foot, crossthe frozen Thames, walk a long distance, and at last gallop away onhorseback. All this she did, but to no great purpose then; for herbrother dying while the struggle was yet going on, she at last withdrewto Normandy.
In two or three years after her withdrawal her cause appeared in England,afresh, in the person of her son Henry, young Plantagenet, who, at onlyeighteen years of age, was very powerful: not only on account of hismother having resigned all Normandy to him, but also from his havingmarried ELEANOR, the divorced wife of the French King, a bad woman, whohad great possessions in France. Louis, the French King, not relishingthis arrangement, helped EUSTACE, King Stephen's son, to invade Normandy:but Henry drove their united forces out of that country, and thenreturned here, to assist his partisans, whom the King was then besiegingat Wallingford upon the Thames. Here, for two days, divided only by theriver, the two armies lay encamped opposite to one another--on the eve,as it seemed to all men, of another desperate fight, when the EARL OFARUNDEL took heart and said 'that it was not reasonable to prolong theunspeakable miseries of two kingdoms to minister to the ambition of twoprinces.'
Many other noblemen repeating and supporting this when it was onceuttered, Stephen and young Plantagenet went down, each to his own bank ofthe river, and held a conversation across it, in which they arranged atruce; very much to the dissatisfaction of Eustace, who swaggered awaywith some followers, and laid violent hands on the Abbey of St. Edmund's-Bury, where he presently died mad. The truce led to a solemn council atWinchester, in which it was agreed that Stephen should retain the crown,on condition of his declaring Henry his successor; that WILLIAM, anotherson of the King's, should inherit his father's rightful possessions; andthat all the Crown lands which Stephen had given away should be recalled,and all the Castles he had permitted to be built demolished. Thusterminated the bitter war, which had now lasted fifteen years, and hadagain laid England waste. In the next year STEPHEN died, after atroubled reign of nineteen years.
Although King Stephen was, for the time in which he lived, a humane andmoderate man, with many excellent qualities; and although nothing worseis known of him than his usurpation of the Crown, which he probablyexcused to himself by the consideration that King Henry the First was ausurper too--which was no excuse at all; the people of England sufferedmore in these dread nineteen years, than at any former period even oftheir suffering history. In the division of the nobility between the tworival claimants of the Crown, and in the growth of what is called theFeudal System (which made the peasants the born vassals and mere slavesof the Barons), every Noble had his strong Castle, where he reigned thecruel king of all the neighbouring people. Accordingly, he perpetratedwhatever cruelties he chose. And never were worse cruelties committedupon earth than in wretched England in those nineteen years.
The writers who were living then describe them fearfully. They say thatthe castles were filled with devils rather than with men; that thepeasants, men and women, were put into dungeons for their gold andsilver, were tortured with fire and smoke, were hung up by the thumbs,were hung up by the heels with great weights to their heads, were tornwith jagged irons, killed with hunger, broken to death in narrow chestsfilled with sharp-pointed stones, murdered in countless fiendish ways. InEngland there was no corn, no meat, no cheese, no butter, there were notilled lands, no harvests. Ashes of burnt towns, and dreary wastes, wereall that the traveller, fearful of the robbers who prowled abroad at allhours, would see in a long day's journey; and from sunrise until night,he would not come upon a home.
The clergy sometimes suffered, and heavily too, from pillage, but many ofthem had castles of their own, and fought in helmet and armour like thebarons, and drew lots with other fighting men for their share of booty.The Pope (or Bishop of Rome), on King Stephen's resisting his ambition,laid England under an Interdict at one period of this reign; which meansthat he allowed no service to be performed in the churches, no couples tobe married, no bells to be rung, no dead bodies to be buried. Any manhaving the power to refuse these things, no matter whether he were calleda Pope or a Poulterer, would, of course, have the power of afflictingnumbers of innocent people. That nothing might be wanting to themiseries of King Stephen's time, the Pope threw in this contribution tothe public store--not very like the widow's contribution, as I think,when Our Saviour sat in Jerusalem over-against the Treasury, 'and shethrew in two mites, which make a farthing.'