BOOK III. CHAP. V. A. D. 1135. Reign of Stephen. ALTHOUGH the authority of the Crown had been exercised with very little restraint during the three preceding reigns, the succession to it, or even the principles of the succession, were but ill ascertained; so that a doubt might justly have arisen, whether the Crown was not in a great measure elective. This uncertainty exposed the nation, at the death of every king, to all the calamities of a civil war; but it was a circumstance favourable to the designs of Stephen Earl of Bulloigne, who was son of Stephen Earl of Blois by a daughter of the Conqueror. The late king had raised him to great employments, and enriched him by the grant of several lordships. His brother had been made Bishop of Winchester; and by adding to it the place of his chief justiciary, the king gave him an opportunity of becoming one of the richest subjects in Europe, and of extending an unlimited influence over the clergy and the people. Henry trusted, by the promotion of two persons so near him in blood, and so bound by benefits, that he had formed an impenetrable V. A. D. impenetrable fence about the succession; but he CHAP. only inspired into Stephen the design of seizing on the crown by bringing him so near it. The opportunity was favourable. The king died abroad. 1138. Matilda was absent with her husband; and the Bishop of Winchester, by his universal credit, disposed the churchmen to elect his brother with the concurrence of the greatest part of the nobility; who forgot their oaths, and vainly hoped, that a bad title would necessarily produce a good government. Stephen in the flower of youth, bold, active and courageous, full of generosity and a noble affability, that seemed to reproach the state and avarice of the preceding kings, was not wanting to his fortune. He seized immediately the immense treasures of Henry, and by distributing them with a judicious profusion, removed all doubts concerning his title to them. He did not spare even the royal demean; but secured himself a vast number of adherents by involving their guilt and interest in his own. He raised a considerable army of Flemings, in order to strengthen himself against another turn of the same instability, which had raised him to the throne; and, in imitation of the measures of the late king, he concluded all by giving a charter of liberties as ample as the people at that time aspired to. This charter contained a renunciation of the forests made by his predecessor; a grant to the ecclesiasticks of a jurisdiction BOOK A. D. a jurisdiction over their own vassals; and to the people in general an immunity from unjust tallages and exactions. It is remarkable, that the oath of 1138. allegiance taken by the nobility on this occasion. was conditional; it was to be observed so long as the king observed the terms of his charter; a condition, which added no real security to the rights of the subject, but which proved a fruitful source of dissension, tumult and civil violence. The measures, which the king hitherto pursued, were dictated by sound policy; but he took another step to secure his throne, which in fact took away all its security, and at the same time brought the country to extreme misery, and to the brink of utter ruin. At the Conquest there were very few fortifications in the kingdom; William found it necessary for his security to erect several; during the struggles of the English, the Norman nobility were permitted (as in reason it could not be refused) to fortify their own houses. It was however still understood, that no new fortress could be erected without the king's special license. These private castles began very early to embarrass the government; the royal castles were scarcely less troublesome; for as every thing was then in tenure, the governour held his place by the tenure of Castleguard; and thus instead of a simple officer, subject to his pleasure, the king had to deal with a feudal V. A. D. feudal tenant, secure against him by law, if he per- CHAP. formed his services, and by force, if he was unwilling to perform them. Every resolution of government required a sort of civil war to put it 1138. in execution. The two last kings had taken and demolished several of these castles; but, when they found the reduction of any of them difficult, their custom frequently was to erect another close by it, tower against tower, ditch against ditch; these were called Malvoisins, from their purpose and situation. Thus instead of removing, they in fact doubled the mischief. Stephen perceiving the passion of the barons for these castles, among other popular acts in the beginning of his reign, gave a general license for erecting them. Then was seen to arise in every corner of the kingdom, in every petty seigniory, an inconceivable multitude of strong holds, the seats of violence, and the receptacles of murderers, felons, debasers of the coin, and all manner of desperate and abandoned villains. Eleven hundred and fifteen of these castles were built in this single reign. The barons, having thus shut out the law, made continual inroads upon each other, and spread war, rapine, burning and desolation throughout the whole kingdom. They infested the high roads, and put a stop to all trade by plundering the merchants and travellers. Those, who dwelt in the open country, they forced into their castles, and after pillaging them of all their visible III. A. D. BOOK visible substance, these tyrants held them in dungeons, and tortured them with a thousand cruel inventions to extort a discovery of their hidden 1138. wealth. The lamentable representation given by history of those barbarous times justifies the pictures in the old romances of the castles of giants and magicians. A great part of Europe was in the same deplorable condition. It was then, that some gallant spirits, struck with a generous indignation at the tyranny of these miscreants, blessed solemnly by the Bishop, and followed by the praises and vows of the people, sallied forth to vindicate the chastity of women, and to redress the wrongs of travellers and peaceable men. The adventurous humour, inspired by the Crusade, heightened and extended this spirit; and thus the idea of knight-errantry was formed. Stephen felt personally these inconveniences; but because the evil was too stubborn to be redressed at once, he resolved to proceed gradually, and to begin with the castles of the bishops; as they evidently held them, not only against the interests of the crown, but against the canons of the church. From the nobles he expected no opposition to this design; they beheld with envy the pride of these ecclesiastical fortresses, whose battlements seemed to insult the poverty of the lay-barons. This disposition, and a want of unanimity among the clergy themselves, enabled Stephen to succeed in |