4
The Anarchy
On December 22, 1135, Stephen of Blois, nephew of the recently deceased King Henry I, had himself crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey; a couple of weeks later he attended the burial of Henry I at Reading Abbey.1 While he was supported by many lords and barons of England, the country held its breath: How would the other person who claimed the throne react? The idea of a woman reigning was not a comfortable one for some of those concerned with political stability; to them, Empress Matilda, though daughter of King Henry, widow of the Holy Roman emperor and now wife of the Count of Anjou, did not have what it would take to govern a tetchy and often chaotic realm like England.
Son of William the Conqueror, Henry I had been an extraordinarily competent king. Though he had had his problems, he had brought stability, peace, and security to his realms, Normandy and England, and sought to establish a strong dynasty; the White Ship tragedy, though, put an end to that. No mere autocrat, he had been intelligent and a little educated, and he had tended to avoid excess (except when it came to women and cruelty), which was a major bonus among monarchs. He had taken whatever steps were necessary to safeguard what he saw as his God-given right to rule, and anyone who had opposed him in any way had been dealt with mercilessly, regardless of who they were, as Saint Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury,2 found to his cost. Henry’s running such a tight ship had augured hope for the future, but when the heir to the throne is lost and the subjects have divided loyalties over a successor, a peaceful future is not assured.
As Henry had made a point of acknowledging his daughter as his heir, he did not expect any opposition.3 Matilda was his flesh and blood, and he may also have recognized that if pushed, she could prove herself to be her father’s daughter; but England did not know that yet. However, once he was dead and sealed in his tomb at Reading Abbey, it was up to others to decide who should occupy the throne. Stephen made a dash for it and made sure that the oil of anointing was poured over him with what some regarded as unseemly haste.4 While some forces within England saw him as a stronger candidate and were happy to see him crowned, other forces — armed forces — were gathering on the continent to press Matilda’s claim. The stage was set for civil war, for what historians would later call the Anarchy, and though it was a war between potential monarchs, it would affect the lives and destinies of countless souls, both English and Norman, including Thomas, still a young boy in school in London.
Stephen’s claim, Matilda’s supporters insisted, was infamy and treachery. He had promised to uphold her right of succession and to support her should she have trouble establishing her reign. Instead, he rushed to England, called a mass meeting of the citizens of London, and, painting a picture of dire political unrest, urged them to elect him as king. He was aware that he had to have the support of London if his campaign to claim the crown was to be successful.5 They elected him king; the city’s citizens took an oath to help him with their resources and to protect him, and they would remain his loyal subjects in the years to come.6 Following a hasty coronation, Stephen issued a charter of liberties to repay his supporters, promising them that he would respect all the laws and customs of the kingdom that had been established during the reign of their beloved and saintly King Edward the Confessor, the Anglo-Saxon who reigned from 1042 to 1066. It was a wise move because Stephen needed allies. His brother, Henry of Blois, the bishop of Winchester, tried to smooth things over by attempting to convince the barons who had made oaths supporting Matilda that these oaths could, in good conscience, be set aside for the sake of the realm. Meanwhile, Stephen was preparing a charter guaranteeing the liberties of the Church in the hope of keeping the bishops onside.
At this time, Matilda was in Anjou, occupied with family life and unable to drop everything and hurry to London to stake her claim; she did not think she needed to do so since Stephen had pledged his loyalty to her. When news of Stephen’s betrayal reached her, she was furious. She was indeed Henry’s daughter, and she was not prepared to allow her cousin to usurp what she knew was hers. Her husband, Geoffrey, was as equally put out. He was a schemer, and he had hitched his ambitions to his wife’s wagon. Why be Count of Anjou alone when you could also be consort to a monarch, an influential consort — perhaps even a king consort? Stephen could not be allowed to get in the way of his hopes. However, as revenge is a dish best served cold, the scheme to overthrow the treacherous cousin would need to be carefully planned and carried out. For the time being, there was little Matilda and Geoffrey could do, so they merely moved to claim disputed dowry castles and bided their time.7 In the meantime, Geoffrey took up his eldest son’s claim to the Duchy of Normandy and thereby put the next generation on a sound footing to drive home any successes Matilda would have in her campaign. Safe in England for now, Stephen could do little to prevent Matilda from taking the Norman possessions, but he would have been a fool to think she would leave it at that.
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