June 5th, 2023

Read the first chapter, which discusses the years of roughly 1120-1137, leding up to war in England. I’ve read a bunch about this before. King Henry I has two legitimate children, William Aetheling and Empress Matilda, and lots of illegitimate children. On the way from France to England in 1120, a couple hundred French nobles party on the White Ship. Everyone was drunk, including the seamen, and the ship hits a rock and capsizes. William drowns, as do two other of Henry’s children. The story goes that William died trying to save his sister Matilda (Henry begat many Matildae), but only one man survived and how would he know? Obviously this created a crisis. With no legitimate children, Henry needed an heir. At the time illegitimate children were frowned up on inheritors, though Henry treated his kids well. One who will be very important to this tale is Robert FitzRoy, Earl of Gloucester, made earl by his father. Henry remarried to have another go at children, but the marriage produced none. Henry’s sister was married to the Count of Blois, and they had three capable sons. One son, Stephen, was sent to the English court as a child. Another, Theobald, was to be Count of Blois. A third, I forget his name, was made a bishop or something in England somewhere. Stephen seemed to be favored, that is until Matilda’s husband, Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, died.

Henry I put all his hopes on Matilda, still a young woman in her 20s. He made his barons swear oaths to support her claim several times. To stabilize things in France, Henry married her to a neighbor, Geoffrey Count of Anjou, then 15 years old. The barons were told they’d have a say in the husband and did not support marriage to a rival in France. This, many of them believed, nullified their oath. After this, 1128 or so, things were fairly quiet until Henry up and died in 1135. Without Henry and a clear succession, it was chaos. Matilda’s eldest son Henry was 2 years old and she had no experience or training from her father. Nor did she try to get the throne. The Normans invited Theobald to be duke, but Stephen, then Count of somewhere near Calais, sailed to England and claimed the crown. He seemed to be enthusiastically welcomed, for the most part, and there was little opposition. Geoffry was fighting border wars with the Normans over some dowry land claims and had little interest in his wife’s claim. Robert of Gloucester refused Stephen for a year until he reluctantly came to court. Stephen was King of England and that was that. The Normans ditched Theobald to have a united Kingdom and Dukedom, and he took it like a baby. Stephen had some external issues. He fought Scots, Welsh, Anjou, and probably elsewhere, but it was not a huge success. There is a single source for this next information, and it is heavily biased towards Robert. He and Stephen got in some sort of tiff, and an ambush by one of Stephen’s leading generals, a mediocre one, or whatever was laid for him. He escaped and declared himself for Matilda. Now Matilda had an army in England, independent from her husband. Robert, the author claims, is responsible for the civil war.

June 12th, 2023

Read most of the second chapter on a flight. It’s a long one and tries to describe the two “sides” at the beginning of the war. First, it tells about two rebellions that occurred in Stephen’s first few years, before Richard of Gloucester rebelled (the guy that ambushed him was William of Ypres, by the way). Both rebellions occurred in the west and Stephen dealt with them quickly. This may show that the western lords were unhappy with the regime. There were also some troubles from East Anglia, which also became a power base for Matilda. As mentioned earlier, Stephen fought the Welsh and Scots. Like every English king until Edward I, he could not deal with Welsh raids satisfactorily. Nothing new there. The lords of the march just did what they wanted anyway. If they wanted Welsh lands, they took them and dealt with the killings. Better for Stephen was his luck with the Scots. David, King of the Scots, invaded the north immediately. His sister was Matilda’s mother; thus, he is her uncle and was a vocal supporter. Though, his other niece was Stephen’s wife, so that is not a strong card. Regardless, he moved fairly far and his son I think had been at English court or will be after this, so he has English ties. Stephen acted quickly and sent men, while the northern lords acted quickly as well, surprising the Scots. This culminated in the Battle of Standard, which was a short battle that ended in a complete Scottish rout. They came to terms and the Scot Prince was granted some northern titles, though he swore fealty to Stephen. Either the author likes Stephen a lot, or it seems he generally dealt pretty fairly with his adversaries. Maybe one of the rebellious sieges he was too cruel, expecting unconditional surrender which was not standard, and letting men suffer under drought. But when you give some men lands, you alienate others. He built strong alliances, but pushed others away. That’s politics.

The war in Normandy had started under Henry I. Count Geoffrey wanted his allegedly promised castles. He got fairly far into Normandy before being injured and calling it off for a bit. His army apparently suffered from dysentery, but made a clean retreat regardless. The Normans were on there own with this war. It took a year or two for Stephen to get things settled in England, then he personally came to Normandy. His son swore fealty to Louis VI for the duchy and he made a deal with this brother Theobald, Count of Blois, over the lost Norman lands. The Duke of Aquitaine, allied with Geoffrey, backed out and then died. His borders were now secure except for Anjou. I don’t remember what happened from here. I guess the war continued. Stephen relied on William of Ypres and his Flemish mercenaries, but they did not get along with the Normans. Lack of cooperation led to a failure to produce a battle. William of Ypres was the main man for Stephen, but he had these Norman twins who were helpful. I think they switched sides later. Matilda had Richard of Gloucester and a couple other loyal western lords on her side. She seems to have had the better military commanders.

June 14th, 2023

The next part of the 2nd chapter discusses King Stephen arresting some bishops. Roger, bishop of Salisbury, built himself a little empire during the reign of Henry I. He was an upstart from Caen who caught Henry’s eye and moved up through the church ladder. He had acquired wealth and castles, a mistress and sons. He had a good foothold in Henry’s government, despite having little education. He got his nephews high positions in his bishopric until they got their own in Ely and Lincoln. Their real sin was conspiring to aid Matilda. Allegedly. The evidence seemed to be against them. Excluding Lincoln, they are in the west and East Anglia. They were amassing arms and provisions in their castles, which is suspicious. It’s also odd for bishops to have castles. But that’s the Waco justification and doesn’t work. Stephen didn’t arrest them for that, though. Roger and a nephew were at court and a fight broke out, possibly with one of the Beaumont twins involved. This led to deaths and Stephen was pissed. For disturbing the peace, they were arrested and the other nephew (Lincoln?) fled out west, despite not being at the scene and thus not liable for arrest. Well Stephen sieged his castle and got him too, threatening to hang Roger’s son. That’s messed up. This caused a storm because it should be canon law who determines whether a bishop gets arrested. Long story short, Stephen won and dethroned that family. He put new men in his government and kept the castles.

The chapter ends with some more rebellions before the war “really” starts. Robert of Gloucester was in Normandy during all this time, and thus did not aid the rebellion. These rebellions may have been independent, as well. Once Robert declared for Matilda, Stephen started taking all his property. All that remained was Bristol. A bunch of dudes in this area rebelled and Stephen had to take them one by one. This is why he was absent from Standard. He was ruthless and hanged 93 men from one castle. Ultimately, Stephen took all these castles and was in a good position for when Matilda landed. Possibly he got cocky.

June 15th, 2023

The war proper begins in chapter 3 with the arrival of Robert and Matilda in Arundel. It was an interesting strategy. They played the chivalry card, arriving with a small escort that could not compare with Stephen’s army. Arundel, far from a major port, had a lord loyal to Stephen, whose wife was the widow of Henry I. Matilda was simply a guest of her former step-mother. Thus, Stephen permitted it. However, Robert snuck off to Gloucester. Stephen had all the roads blocked, but he got through. Rumor had it that his brother bishop Henry had caught Robert and let him go. He also advised Stephen to allow Matilda to go to her brother. Who knows if this was a good idea, but at least it allowed him to remove his forced from Arundel. The war was mostly siege warfare. Unlike later years when property was more valued than armies, here they were razing land left and right. The war was mostly contained to the west in lands held by Robert and his allies. He gained allies in Cornwall and thus gained more territory. It seemed fairly standstill, with the rebels occasionally raiding out of their borders. In February 1141, the only real battle of the war was fought. Stephen and his men were besieging Lincoln, when Robert and a relieving force arrived. Everyone advised Stephen to abandon the siege, but he refused. Possibly he didn’t want to be seen as a coward, as people had said of his father who left the First Crusade to seek aid. They were outnumbered, though probably had the better soldiers. Stephen had the center, William of Ypres supervised a flank, someone else had a third flank. Robert of Gloucester had his center, with his allies commanding the Welsh on each flank. The Welsh were either mercenaries or relatives through marriage. The Welsh broke and ran after the first charge, but Stephen’s men could not handle Robert’s counter cavalry charge. His men deserted him, but he kept fighting. In the end he was captured and taken to Gloucester, where he was put in chains.

June 16th, 2023

With Stephen imprisoned, it would seem that all was lost for the royalist cause. One by one, his allies would accept the situation and come to the Empress Matilda. Henry of Winchester, Stephen’s brother, indeed came to accept Matilda and gave her the keys to the royal castle and treasury at Winchester, though he kept his personal castle. She made some very big promises to him to convince him. However, Stephen was not without allies. Still advocating for him was his wife, the Queen Matilda. She petitioned for Stephen’s release and their son’s property rights, which fell on deaf ears. The military arm came from William of Ypres, Earl of Kent in all but name. This clearly is more than can be expected if he were a mere mercenary. The royalist cause did not go down easy. One of their chief aids was that the Empress was a completely unlikable person who expected her word to be law. This may be from being Empress at a very young age, but regardless, she alienated a lot of people. Not yet coronated queen, her retinue came to win London. Instead of winning hearts and minds, she demanded money. Stephen had granted them commune status, which gave them certain tax rights. They also pleaded for mercy, as they were war-weary and poor. The Empress gave them no sympathy. She also did not give Bishop Henry what he felt he was due. Thus, he switched sides again and war was brought to Winchester. Robert of Gloucester and the Empress besieged his castle from the town, but it seems it was a trap. Queen Matilda and William of Ypres then surrounded the town. It was a double siege. The town was torched and the rebels retreated. Robert held the rear-guard so that the empress could escape and was captured. The Empress could not continue without him, so prisoners were exchanged. Stephen was freed from prison. It seems we are back to square one. The Empress had 8 months or so but could not complete the coup d’etat. Neither side was strong enough to conquer the other.

June 17th, 2023

The next chapter starts off a bit boring. It goes on for a while describing castles and different types, how they were built, etc. Not what I’m into. I only read half the chapter, but after the castle bit, it describes the next year or so. Initially, very little happened. Stephen was ill after his imprisonment and Matilda wasn’t sure of what to do. She asked her husband for aid, but he was pretty stubborn. Geoffrey was only interested in Normandy, especially since Stephen was so occupied with England that he could do little for Normandy. Geoffrey refused to deal with anyone other than Robert of Gloucester, who eventually and reluctantly went to Normandy. Geoffrey seems to have given a little aid, but mainly he gave his 9 year old son, Henry. The next part of the war, for who knows how long, was all about castles. Building them, taking them, destroying them, rebuilding them. A map of conflicts looks like spaghetti because the combatants are going from castle to castle. There are strongholds dotted all over the country. The next big combat was Stephen’s siege of the Empress’ new HQ, Oxford. It lasted for several months and Stephen had the rebels on the ropes. However, Matilda escaped in the snowy night over the frozen river. This was a major blow. Then Robert, or someone else, maybe Brian fitz Count from Wallingford, fought to relieve the castle. The royalists lost this fight, but this time Stephen had the wisdom to retreat.

June 18th, 2023

The rest of the chapter tells of various events through 1148. Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, owed his position to Stephen. His family had been disinherited by prior kings, but Stephen favored Geoffrey. Something broke down after Lincoln. Maybe Stephen didn’t like how Geoffrey surrendered London and the Tower so easily. We’ll never know. Regardless, Stephen didn’t keep his cool. He arrested Geoffrey at court, like the bishops, and demanded his castles. After this, Geoffrey rebelled and took Ely and East Anglia with him. It was not a good look for Stephen and does not command loyalty, but he won in the end. Geoffrey died in battle. He was not a good guy, anyway. Some major Angevins died: Miles of Hereford in 1143, Robert of Gloucester in 1147. Those are two of three Matilda’s main guys. Stephen had gotten Robert’s son Phillip to join his cause in 1145 after taking Faringdon castle. Things were going good for Stephen, though he made another error. He tried to old arrest and take castles game with Ranulf, Earl of Chester, after they made a deal that Ranulf would return to the fold for aid in Wales. This arrest had the least to stand on of the three notable ones and paints Stephen in a very bad light. After all these setbacks, Matilda left for Normandy in 1148. She did not surrender, but she would never be queen. Her war was over. Her son, however, was still in England.

June 23rd, 2023

A good chunk of the seventh chapter is about Geoffrey and Normandy. The background to Geoffrey is that his father, Fulk V, left him to be count of Anjou to go on the crusades and ended up king of Jerusalem. Geoffrey thus became count as a teenager. As described before, he was married to Matilda and was supposedly promised some castles. From the reign of Henry I until 1144 he waged careful war in Normandy. He was smart and in this decade of war there were no open battles. He took Normandy bit by bit, castle by castle. There were setbacks and failures, but he severed the duchy in two and, later with the aid of Gloucester, took the west, then went for the east. In 1144 he was acknowledged duke, after the nobles went to Theobald, who refused the duchy this time. Now Geoffrey had a good chunk of France under his control and was on good terms with the king. He rebuilt the destroyed areas and seemed to be a pretty good leader.

When he died in 1151, this was given to his son Henry. In England, Henry was not successful. He had tried to wage war several times but they were busts. It looked as if Stephen was to stay king, though there were still rebellious nobles. All of this changed in 1153, when Henry came back to England. By now he had married Elanor and had Aquitaine under his belt, thus half of France was in Plantagenet hands. It all came to a head at Malmesbury castle. It didn’t seem like a major event, but possibly due to war weariness, peace terms were agreed upon. This became the Treaty of Winchester, where Henry was adopted by Stephen and made heir, supplanting Eustace. Poor Eustace. He had been a loyal and hard fighting son. After this, there will be peace.

June 25th, 2023

The final chapter is about the peace. I jumped the gun a little in the last entry. There were several truces before the peace was agreed upon. Before the peace treaty, Eustace died. He didn’t want to give up the war and died from illness in 1153. Stephen’s wife Matilda also died the year before. If we wonder why Stephen, who had the upper hand militarily, seems to have lost out in the peace treaty, these may have been factors that drove him to terms. Maybe he approached 60 and was reflecting on his sins, his oath breaking, and was atoning. Maybe he thought he’d live 30 more years and wouldn’t have to bother with this nonsense. Nothing is certain. Henry had his own troubles back in France and he nearly died from illness in 1154. The book goes on for many pages about individual earls and barons. Overall, nobody really lost their position due to the war. Henry got luck that most of these guys he made big promises to died before the peace or within a couple years. The one man of note who was punished was William of Ypres, now blind and old. He returned to the continent to a monastery. Stephen’s other son, William, Count of Boulogne, kept the family lands and was a loyal follower of Henry. This period was known as the Anarchy, but we see there was no anarchy. All of England was under someone’s rule, whether it’s royalist, Angevin, Scottish, or an earldom. There was suffering the country, but not as widespread as the chronicles sound. Most of the surviving chronicles are from the west, were the war mainly took place. Terrible things happened there and people suffered and died. There was also famine and drought all over Europe, so bad timing. Henry’s first acts were to repair the marches, where his war was fought, Thus it sounds like Stephen had been busy repairing the previous war torn areas. In the end, Henry won and built the largest English empire until the colonial era. Maybe I should call it a French empire? It must be both. This large swath of land would create the rivalry between the crowns that would lead to John losing it all. But I will let Henry II, one of the greatest English kings, have his moment of glory.