Second Period of the Struggle

The great barons struggling for power now began to quarrel with one another, and feudal anarchy broke loose. The building of castles, which had begun with the Norman Conquest, went on with great rapidity. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle pictures graphically the misery of the land. Men were beaten and tortured, towns plundered and burnt, men starved with hunger, churches destroyed, monks and priests robbed. The earth bare no corn . . . and it was openly said that Christ and his saints slept." But Stephen's degradation was short. His queen was able to raise reinforcements in Kent, took Robert of Gloucester prisoner, and effected by exchange the release of the king. Matilda, who by her haughtiness had offended her followers, could gain no new support. Her old allies died, Miles of Hereford in 1143, Robert of Gloucester in 1147. Then at last she herself, despairing of further success, withdrew from the struggle and retired to the Continent. Stephen reigned for five years in comparative peace. But Matilda's cause was not lost. Her son Henry, son of her second husband, Geoffrey of Anjou, had visited England once in 1142, and remained four years. He returned in 1149 to renew the struggle for his mother, but met with little success. After his return to France in 1150 his power vastly increased. He was invested with Normandy by his mother in 1151, and soon after by the death of his father received Anjou,Touraine, and Maine. In 1152 he married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom Louis VII of France had foolishly divorced, and received as her dowry the duchy of Aquitaine. Thus he was

STEPHEN.

From Vertue's engraving, based apparently on the rude coin-portraits of his reign.

the most powerful feudal lord in France, when in 1153 he prepared to take final issue with Stephen in a struggle for the English crown.

Treaty of Wallingford

Henry landed in England in June, 1153, and civil war again seemed imminent. But the barons were unwilling to resort to arms. In the eighteen years that had passed since the struggle began a new generation of men had arisen. Normans and English had become fused into one people, and a strong desire for peace everywhere prevailed. Eustace, the son of Stephen, died in 1153, and the way was thus prepared for a peaceful settlement. At Wallingford negotiations were begun and the treaty finally signed in 1154. Stephen adopted Henry as his heir, and Henry in his turn recognized the right of Stephen to reign peacefully as long as he lived. This compact was maintained. Stephen remained king of England till his death in October, 1154, and Henry was crowned at Winchester the December following.

Results of Stephen's Reign

The reign of Stephen, though outwardly a time of war and chaos, was in some respects marked by a steady development. The two peoples, Normans and English, suffering the same miseries, fighting the same battles, Normans often leading English levies and English knights following Norman lords, were becoming one. The church in England, as on the Continent, was not only maintaining her independence, but also was advancing her claims to control the election of the king and to interfere in temporal affairs. The towns, engaging in commerce and thereby growing in wealth and power, were becoming places of refuge for the oppressed and objects of interest to future kings who desired to increase the wealth of the kingdom. Most important of all, the evils of an unrestrained feudalism, the rise to prominence of new and more lawless feudal lords, and the steady descent of the villager class into a deeper serfdom, taught men severe lessons and made them more eager to accept the rule of a strong king, despotic though he might be. On this account the English welcomed the coming of Henry II and supported loyally his projects for the elevation of monarchy and the reduction of the powers of feudalism.