Читать книгу The Conquerors: The Pageant of England - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 36

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The presence of the Empress in England roused to armed action the enmities Stephen had created. The barons, pretending a sudden uneasiness of conscience on the score of their vows, came out in large numbers for the daughter of Henry—Talbot, Fitz-Alan, Randulph of Chester, Mohun, Roumara, Lovell, Fitz-John. “They chose me King!” cried Stephen, unable to understand these defections. “Why are they deserting me?” Like all weak men, he did not see that the fault was in himself. He tried to prepare for what was coming by bringing in mercenaries from Flanders under the command of a very capable soldier named William of Ypres. This was a serious mistake because the people of England resented these hired troops bitterly and tended more and more to favor the cause of the Empress. In the meantime Queen Matilda took her youthful son Eustace to France and negotiated a marriage between the boy and the Princess Constance, sister of Louis VII, in the hope of cementing an alliance.

The war which now broke over England with full fury fell into a certain pattern. The west was for the Empress; London and the eastern counties remained loyal to Stephen. In some parts of the country the barons found themselves divided in their allegiance and so under the necessity of making war on each other. Everywhere was heard the clash of arms, the tumult of armed forays, the grim echo of sieges. All attempt at national maintenance of law and order, the goal which Henry had achieved with such effort, had ceased. What remained was the justice of the overlords and the sheriffs, or viscounts as they were called then; and judgment of this kind was cruel, sharp, and summary.

The first important victory was won by the forces of the Empress. Stephen had taken a small army of his Brabançon mercenaries to oust the other faction from the city of Lincoln. While he was about the tedious and bloody business of ferreting them out of reinforced corners, Robert of Gloucester appeared suddenly on the scene with a much larger army. It was Candlemas Day and very cold, and Stephen was taken completely by surprise when they swam the icy waters of the River Trent and came in behind him on the other side. The wisest course for the King would have been to get away as fast as he could and with as little loss as possible. Stephen, however, elected to fight it out, a decision in which his followers did not concur, a small part of them only remaining to stand behind him. It is a favorite device of the chronicles, in fact, to depict the handsome King as holding the hostile forces at bay singlehanded. Matthew Paris, who has been responsible for introducing much high-flown fiction into English annals, describes Stephen as “grinding his teeth and foaming like a furious wild boar” as he fought on alone. There can be no doubt that the King gave a good account of himself, laying about him with his battle-ax. When this was broken he resorted to his heavy two-handed sword with which he did great execution also. In the end he went down, and a common soldier, coming across him as he lay unconscious among the dead, cried, “I have found the King!”

He was taken to Gloucester, where the Empress was in residence, and shoved into one of the tiny and almost airless rooms scooped out from the thick walls of the castle. The records make no mention of a meeting between the two rivals, but it is certain that Matilda had Stephen summoned to her presence. Not sufficient for her that he was now her prisoner and that the crown was within her grasp; the proofs she gave later of a hunger to taste to the fullest the sweets of triumph and retaliation make it clear she would not send him off to the imprisonment she had arranged for him at Bristol without a single chance to vent her feelings. There was at least one meeting, of that we may be sure, and it is equally certain that Matilda heaped him with reproaches, her words lashing him as though she used a whip.

Despite the briefness of the time he was kept at Gloucester, however, Stephen succeeded in aggravating the temper of the Empress to an even more bitter ferment. One of the chronicles thinks this was due to an attempt at escape. Whatever the cause, he was heavily loaded with chains and taken to Bristol. No safe-conducts to Bristol this time! People crowded the roads and filled trees and church steeples when he passed, as indeed they might, for this was an unusual spectacle, the King of England shackled to his saddle, much like a bear on its way to a baiting.

At Bristol he found himself in the care of a very shrewd lady. She had been the heiress of Fitz-Aymon of Glamorgan and, as such, a ward of King Henry. When that monarch decided to give her in marriage to his illegitimate son Robert, Mistress Amabel had objected with great spirit. She told Henry flatly she would not take a bastard as husband. The ladies of her house were not in the habit of marrying nameless persons.

Henry had replied that this objection, which he conceded to be a fair one, could be overcome. Henceforth his son was Robert Fitz-Roy.

The heiress was still unreconciled. “A name is not everything,” she demurred. “What lands go with this name? And what lordship?”

Henry was not accustomed to parting with lands or honors easily. He regarded her sternly for several moments. Then he gave in. “I will endow my son Robert,” he said, “with the lands and honor of Gloucester, and by that name shall he be called.”

It seems highly probable that this spirited girl of sixteen had been well disposed toward Robert from the beginning. At any rate, having won both points, she gave in quickly and gracefully. She had made Robert of Gloucester a good wife.

It was into her hands that Stephen was now committed, a wise choice. The Lady Amabel knew that her husband’s chance for high honors and responsibilities in the state depended on the success of his sister’s cause. She could be relied on to see that Stephen did not escape.

In the meantime the Empress made a triumphal entry into Winchester and was met at the gate by the bishop, who was Stephen’s brother but who knew when a change of coat was advisable. She followed the usual procedure of scooping in whatever was there in the way of royal treasure. A court of nobles and bishops was invoked and a quick decision reached. Robert of Winchester announced it. “Having first, as is fit, invoked the aid of Almighty God, we elect as Lady of England and Normandy the daughter of the glorious, the rich, the good, the peaceful King Henry; and to her we promise fealty and support.”

The new Lady of England might well have thought that a somewhat unnecessary emphasis was thus laid on the merits of the deceased King and that too little was said about her. If she felt that way, she undoubtedly let them know it. Victory was not sitting well on her shoulders. She was becoming more arrogant by the hour, more determined on retaliation, less prone to listen to reason, even when reason spoke to her in the tones of her sagacious brother, to whom she owed her elevation.