262

BATTLE OF LINCOLN.

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countess and her friend. But his men-at-arms suddenly mastered the unprepared guards, and the gates were thrown open to Earl William and his numerous followers. The earls, after this stratagem, held the castle against the king, who speedily marched to Lincoln. But the earl of Chester contrived to leave the castle, and soon raised a powerful army of his own vassals. The earl of Gloucester joined him with a considerable force, and they together advanced to the relief of the besieged city. The battle of Lincoln was preceded by a trifling incident to which the chroniclers have attached importance. It was the feast of the Purification; and at the mass which was celebrated at the dawn of day, when the king was holding a lighted taper in his hand it was suddenly extinguished. "This was an omen of sorrow to the king," says Hoveden. But another chronicler, the author of the “Gesta Stephani," tells us in addition, that the wax-candle was as suddenly relighted; and he accordingly argues that this incident was "a token that for his sins he should be deprived of his crown, but on his repentance, through God's mercy, he should wonderfully and gloriously recover it." The king had been more than a month laying siege to the castle, and his army was encamped around the city of Lincoln. When it was ascertained that his enemies were at hand he was advised to raise the siege, and march out to strengthen his power by general levy. He decided upon instant battle. He was then exhorted not to fight on the solemn festival of the Purification. But his courage was greater than his prudence or his piety. He set forth to meet the insurgent earls. The best knights were in his army; but the infantry of his rivals was far more numerous. Stephen detached a strong body of horse and foot to dispute the passage of a ford of the Trent. But Gloucester by an impetuous charge obtained possession of the ford, and the battle became general. The king's horsemen fled. The desperate bravery of Stephen, and the issue of the battle, have been described by Henry of Huntingdon with singular animation:-"King Stephen, therefore, with his infantry, stood alone in the midst of the enemy. These surrounded the royal troops, attacking the columns on all sides, as if they were assaulting a castle. Then the battle raged terribly round this circle; helmets and swords gleamed as they clashed, and the fearful cries and shouts re-echoed from the neighbouring hills and city walls. The cavalry, furiously charging the royal column, slew some and trampled down others; some were made prisoners. No respite, no breathing time, was allowed; except in the quarter in which the king himself had taken his stand, where the assailants recoiled from the unmatched force of his terrible arm. The earl of Chester seeing this, and envious of the glory the king was gaining, threw himself upon him with the whole weight of his men-at-arms. Even then the king's courage did not fail, but his heavy battle-axe gleamed like lightning, striking down some, bearing back others. At length it was shattered by repeated blows. Then he drew his well-tried sword, with which he wrought wonders, until that, too, was broken. Perceiving which, William de Kaims, a brave soldier, rushed on him, and seizing him by his helmet, shouted, 'Here, here, I have taken the king!' Others came to his aid, and the king was made prisoner."† * Malmesbury's statement that the earl and his followers swam across the rapid Trent, swollen by rains, seems apocryphal.

These incidents have been dramatised by Keats, in a spirited fragment, printed in Mr. Monckton Milnes' "Life of Keats."

1141.]

STEPHEN A PRISONER-REVOLT OF THE LONDONERS.

263

After the capture of king Stephen, at this brief but decisive battle, he was kept a close prisoner at Bristol Castle. Then commenced what might be called the reign of queen Matilda, which lasted about eight months. The defeat of Stephen was the triumph of the greater ecclesiastics. On the third Sunday in Lent, 1141, there was a conference on the plain in the neighbourhood of Winchester,—a day dark and rainy, which portended disasters. The bishop of Winchester came forth from his city, with all the pomp of the Pope's legate; and there Matilda swore that in all matters of importance, and especially in the bestowal of bishoprics and abbeys, she would submit to the Church; and the bishop and his supporters pledged their faith to the empress on these conditions. After Easter, a great council was held at Winchester, which the bishop called as the Pope's vicegerent. The unscrupulous churchman boldly came forward, and denounced his brother, inviting the assembly to elect a sovereign; and, with an amount of arrogance totally unprecedented, thus asserted the notorious untruth that the right of electing a king of England principally belonged to the clergy: "The case was yesterday agitated before a part of the higher clergy of England, to whose right it principally pertains to elect the sovereign, and also to crown. him. First, then, as is fitting, invoking God's assistance, we elect the daughter of that peaceful, that glorious, that rich, that good, and in our times incomparable king, as sovereign of England and Normandy, and promise her fidelity and support." The bishop then said to the applauding assembly, "We have despatched messengers for the Londoners, who, from the importance of their city in England are almost nobles, as it were, to meet us on this business." The next day the Londoners came. They were sent, they said, by their fraternity to entreat that their lord, the king, might be liberated from captivity. The legate refused them, and repeated his oration against his brother. It was a work of great difficulty to soothe the minds of the Londoners; and Saint John's day had arrived before they would consent to acknowledge Matilda. Many parts of the kingdom had then submitted to her government; and she entered London with great state. Her nature seems to have been rash and imperious. Her first act was to demand subsidies of the citizens; and when they said that their wealth was greatly diminished by the troubled state of the kingdom, she broke forth into insufferable rage. The vigilant queen of Stephen, who kept possession of Kent, now approached the city with a numerous force; and by her envoys demanded her husband's freedom. Of course her demand was made in vain. She then put forth a front of battle. Instead of being crowned at Westminster the daughter of Henry I. fled in terror; for "the whole city flew to arms at the ringing of the bells, which was the signal for war, and all with one accord rose upon the countess [of Anjou] and her adherents, as swarms of wasps issue from their hives." +

*

William Fitzstephen, the biographer of Thomas-à-Becket, in his "Description of London," supposed to be written about the middle of the reign of Henry II., says of this city, "ennobled by her men, graced by her arms,

"Ventilata est causa, coram majori parte cleri Angliæ, ad cujus jus potissimùm spectat principem eligere, simulque ordinare."-Malmesbury (who appears to have been present at this Council), "Modern History," book iii.

+ Acta Stephani.

264

MILITARY HABITS OF LONDONERS.

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and peopled by a multitude of inhabitants," that "in the wars under King Stephen there went out to a muster of armed horsemen, esteemed fit for war, twenty thousand, and of infantry, sixty thousand." In general, the "Description of London" appears trustworthy, and in some instances is supported by other authorities. But this vast number of fighting men must, unquestionably, be exaggerated: unless, as Lyttelton conjectures, such a muster included the militia of Middlesex, Kent, and other counties adjacent to London. Peter of Blois, in the reign of Henry II., reckons the inhabitants of the city at forty thousand. That the citizens were trained to warlike exercises, and that their manly sports nurtured them in the hardihood of military habits, we may well conclude from Fitzstephen's account of this community at a little later period than that of which we are writing. To the north of the city were pasture lands, with streams on whose banks the clack of many mills was pleasing to the ear; and beyond was an immense forest, with densely wooded thickets, where stags, fallow-deer, boars, and wild bulls had their coverts. We have seen that in the Charter of Henry I., the citizens had liberty to hunt through a very extensive district, and hawking was also amongst their free recreations. Foot-ball was the favourite game; and the boys of the schools, and the various guilds of craftmen, had each their ball. The elder citizens came on horseback to see these contests of the young men. Every Sunday in Lent, a company with lances and shields went out to joust. In the Easter holidays they had river tournaments. During the summer the

Water-Tournament.

youths exercised themselves in leaping, archery, wrestling, stone-throwing, slinging javelins, and fighting with bucklers. When the great marsh which washed the walls of the city on the north was frozen over, sliding, sledging, and skating were the sports of crowds. They had sham fights on the ice, and legs and arms

were sometimes broken. "But," says Fitzstephen, "youth is an age eager for glory and desirous of victory, and so young men engage in counterfeit battles, that they may conduct themselves more valiantly in real ones." That universal love of hardy sports, which is one of the greatest characteristics of England, and from which we derive no little of that spirit which keeps our island.safe, is not of modern growth. It was one of the most important portions of the education of the people seven centuries ago.

It was this community, then, so brave, so energetic, so enriched by commerce above all the other cities of England, that resolutely abided by the fortunes of King Stephen. They had little to dread from any hostile assaults of the rival faction; for the city was strongly fortified on all sides except to the river; but on that side it was secure, after the Tower was built. The

* Life of Henry II., vol. iii. p. 275.

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LEADERS OF THE WAR.

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palace of Westminster had also a breastwork and bastions. After Matilda had taken her hasty departure, the indignant Londoners marched out, and they sustained a principal part in what has been called "the rout of Winchester," in which Robert, earl of Gloucester, was taken prisoner. The ex-empress escaped to Devizes. The capture of the earl of Gloucester led to important results. A convention was agreed to between the adherents of each party that the king should be exchanged for the earl. Stephen was once more " every inch a king." But still there was no peace in the land.

The bishop of Winchester had again changed his side. In the hour of success the empress Matilda had refused the reasonable request that Prince Eustace, the son of Stephen, should be put in possession of his father's earldom of Boulogne. Malmesbury says, "A misunderstanding arose between the legate and the empress which may be justly considered as the melancholy cause of every subsequent evil in England." The chief actors in this extraordinary drama present a curious study of human character. Matilda, resting her claim to the throne upon her legitimate descent from Henry I., who had himself usurped the throne,-possessing her father's courage and daring, with some of his cruelty,-haughty, vindictive,-furnishes one of the most striking portraits of the proud lady of the feudal period, who shrank from no danger by reason of her sex, but made the homage of chivalry to woman a powerful instrument for enforcing her absolute will. The earl of Gloucester, the illegitimate brother of Matilda, brave, steadfast, of a free and generous nature, a sagacious counsellor, a lover of literature, appears to have had few of the vices of that age, and most of its elevating qualities. Of Stephen it has been said, "He deserves no other reproach than that of having embraced the occupation of a captain of banditti." This appears rather a harsh judgment from a philosophical writer.* Bearing in mind that the principle of election prevailed in the choice of a king, whatever was the hereditary claim, and seeing how welcome was the advent of Stephen when he came, in 1135, to avert the dangers of the kingdom, he merits the title of "a captain of banditti" no more than Harold, or William the Conqueror. After the contests of six years-the victories, the defeats, the hostility of the Church, his capture and imprisonment the attachment of the people of the great towns to his person and government appears to have been unshaken. When he was defeated at Lincoln, and led captive through the city, "the surrounding multitude were moved with pity, shedding tears, and uttering cries of grief." + Ordericus says, "The king's disaster filled with grief the clergy and monks and the common people; because he was condescending and courteous to those who were good and quiet; and if his treacherous nobles had allowed it, he would have put an end to their rapacious enterprises, and been a generous protector and benevolent friend of the country." The fourth, and not least remarkable personage of this history, is Henry, the Bishop of Winchester, and the Pope's legate. At that period, when the functions of churchman and statesman were united, we find this man the chief instrument for securing the crown for his brother. He subsequently becomes the viceregent of the Papal See. Stephen, with more justice than discretion, is of opinion that bishops are not doing their duty when they build castles, ride about in armour with crowds of retainers, and are not at all scrupulous in appropriating some of the booty of * Sir James Mackintosh. + Acta Stephani.

266

MATILDA'S FLIGHT FROM OXFORD.

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a lawless time. From the day when he exhibited his hostility to fighting bishops, the Pope's legate was his brother's deadly enemy. But he found that the rival whom he had set up was by no means a pliant tool in his hands, and he then turned against Matilda. When Stephen had shaken off the chains with which he was loaded in Bristol Castle, the bishop summoned a council at Westminster, on his legatine authority; and there "by great powers of eloquence, endeavoured to extenuate the odium of his own conduct;" affirming that he had supported the empress, "not from inclination but necessity." He then "commanded on the part of God and of the Pope, that they should strenuously assist the king, appointed by the will of the people, and by the approbation of the Holy See." Malmesbury, who records these doings, adds that a layman sent from the empress affirmed that "her coming to England had been effected by the legate's frequent letters;" and that "her taking the king, and holding him in captivity, had been done principally by his connivance." The reign of Stephen is not only "the most perfect condensation of all the ills of feudality," but affords a striking picture of the ills which befall a people when an ambitious hierarchy, swayed to and fro at the will of a foreign power, regards the supremacy of the Church as the one great object to be attained, at whatever expense of treachery and falsehood, of national degradation and general suffering.

In 1142 the civil war is raging more fiercely than ever. Matilda is at Oxford, a fortified city, protected by the Thames, by a wall, and by an impreg nable castle. Stephen, with a body of veterans, wades across the river, and

enters the city. Matilda and her followers take refuge in the keep. For three months the king presses the siege, surrounding the fortress on all sides