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was not for any personal zeal for king Stephen, but in a spirit of patriotism, as a Norman, that he then served the king against the Saxons, and as soon as the Normans declared against Stephen, Lenoir joined them, and undertook to make the islands in his diocese a gathering-place for Matilda's partisans.

Stephen attacked his enemies in this camp, in the same manner that the Conqueror had formerly attacked the Saxon refugees in that place. He constructed bridges of boats, over which his cavalry passed, and completely routed the soldiers of Baldwin of Reviers, and bishop Lenoir. The bishop fled to Gloucester, where the daughter of Henry I. then was, with her principal adherents. All her party in the west, encouraged by the king's absence, repaired the breaches in their castles; or, converting the towers of the great churches into fortresses, filled them with engines of war; they dug trenches round, in the churchyards even, so that the corpses were uncovered and the bones of the dead scattered about. The Norman bishops did not scruple to take part in these military operations; nor were they less active than others in torturing the English, to extract ransom from them. They were seen, as in the first years of the conquest, mounted on war-horses, completely armed, with a lance or baton in their hands, superintending the works and the attacks, or drawing lots for a share of the booty.

The bishops of Chester and of Lincoln distinguished themselves amongst the most warlike. The latter rallied the troops dispersed at the camp of Ely, and formed another army in the eastern coast, which king Stephen attacked, but with less success than the first; his troops, victorious at Ely, were routed near Lincoln; abandoned by all around him, the king defended himself single-handed for some time, but was at last obliged to surrender; he was taken to Gloucester, the quarters of the Countess of Anjou, who, by the advice of her council of war, had him imprisoned in the dungeon of Bristol Castle. This defeat was a death-blow to the royal cause. Stephen's Norman partisans, seeing him vanquished and a captive, went over in crowds to Matilda's side. His own brother, Henry, bishop of Winchester declared for the victorious faction; and the Saxon peasants, who detested both parties equally, took advantage of the misfortunes of the conquered side to plunder and maltreat them in their rout.

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The grand-daughter of the conqueror made her triumphal entry into Winchester: bishop Henry received her at the gates, at the head of the clergy of all the churches. She took possession of the regalia, as well as the treasure belonging to Stephen, and convoked a great council of Norman prelates, counts, barons, and knights. The assembly made Matilda queen, and the bishop who presided pronounced the following form: Having first, as is our duty, invoked the assistance of Almighty God, we elect as lady of England and Normandy, the daughter of the glorious, rich, good, and pacific king Henry, and promise to render her fealty and support." But Queen Matilda's good fortune soon made her disdainful and arrogant; she ceased to take the advice of her old friends, and treated harshly such of her adversaries, who desired to be at peace with her. The authors of her elevation often met with a refusal to any request they might make, and if they bowed down before her, says an old historian, she did not rise to them. This conduct chilled the zeal of her most devoted adherents, and the greater number withdrew from her, without, however, declaring for the dethroned king, passively awaiting the final issue of events. From Winchester the new queen proceeded to London. She was the daughter of a Saxon, and the Saxon citizens, from a kind of national sympathy, regarded her presence in their city with greater favour than that of the king, who was of entirely foreign descent; but the good will of these men, enslaved by the conquest, made little impression on the proud heart of the wife of the count of Anjou, and her first notice of the people of London, was the demand of an enormous poll-tax. The

citizens, whom the devastations of war, and Stephen's exactions had reduced to such a state of distress that they were in immediate fear of a famine, implored the queen to have pity on them, and to delay the imposition of fresh taxes, until they were relieved from their present misery. "The king has left us nothing," the deputies of the citizens said to her in a submissive tone. "I understand,” replied the daughter of Henry I., with a disdainful air, "you have given all to my adversary, you have conspired with him against me, and you expect me to spare you." The citizens of London being forced to pay the tax, took this opportunity of making a humble request to the queen. "Restore to us," was their demand, "the good laws of thy great uncle, Edward, in the place of those of thy father, king Henry, which are bad and too harsh for us." But, as though she were ashamed of her maternal ancestors, and had abjured her Saxon descent, Matilda was enraged at this request, treated those who had thus dared to address as if they had been guilty of the greatest insolence, and uttered terrible menaces against them. Wounded to the depths of the heart, but dissembling their vexation, the citizens returned to their hall of council, where the Normans, less suspicious than formerly, now allowed them to assemble, to arrange between themselves, by common accord, the sharing of the taxes; for the government had adopted the custom of levying a general tax on each town, without troubling themselves as to the mode in which the demand was met by individual contributors.

Queen Matilda was awaiting in full security, either in the Conqueror's tower, or in William Rufus's palace, at Westminster, the return of the citizen's deputies, to offer her on their knees the sacks of gold that she had demanded from them, when suddenly the bells of the town sounded an alarm, and the streets and squares were filled with crowds of people. From each house sallied a man armed with the first warlike instrument on which he could lay his hand. An ancient writer compares

the multitude which tumultuously gathered together, to bees issuing from the hive. The queen and her Norman and Angevin men-at-arms, seeing themselves surrounded, and not daring to risk, in the narrow crooked streets, a conflict in which superiority of arms and military science could be of no use to them, quickly mounted horse and fled. They had scarcely passed the last houses in the suburb, when a troop of English hastened to the apartments which they had inhabited, forced open the doors, and not finding them there, plundered all that they had left. The queen galloped towards Oxford, with her barons and knights; who at intervals detached themselves, one by one, from the cortêge, to make their escape with greater safety, alone, by cross-roads, and by-ways; Matilda entered Oxford, accompanied by her brother, the Earl of Gloucester, and the small number of those who had found this road the most convenient for themselves, or who had overlooked their own safety

in consideration for hers.

In fact, there was little danger; for the inhabitants of London, satisfied with having chased the new queen of England from their walls, did not attempt to pursue her. Their insurrection, the result of an outbreak of indignation, with no previously concerted plan, and unconnected with any other movement, was not the first step of a national insurrection. The expulsion of Matilda and her adherents, did not turn to the advantage of the English people, but to that of Stephen's partisans. The latter quickly re-entered London, occupied the city, and filled it with their troops, under the pretence of an alliance with the citizens. The wife of the captive king repaired to London, and took up her quarters there; and all that the citizens then gained was the privilege of enlisting to the number of a thousand men with casques and hauberks, among the troops that assembled in the name of Stephen of Blois, and of serving as auxiliaries of the Normans under William and Roger de la Chesnage.

The bishop of Winchester, seeing his brother's party regaining some strength, deserted the opposite side, and declared again for the prisoner at Bristol; he set up Stephen's banner on Windsor Castle, and on his episcopal residence, which he had fortified and embattled like a castle. Robert of Gloucester and the partisans of Matilda came and laid siege to it. The garrison of the castle, built in the middle of the town, set fire to the houses to annoy the besiegers; and, at the same time, the army of London, attacking them unawares, obliged them to take refuge in the churches, which were then set fire to, in order to drive them out. Robert of Gloucester was taken prisoner, and his followers dispersed. Barons and knights, throwing away their arms, and marching on foot, in order not to be recognised, traversed the towns and villages under false names. But besides the partisans of the king, who pressed them closely, they encountered other enemies on their road, the Saxon peasants and serfs, who were as remorseless to them in their defeat as they had formerly been to the opposite faction. They arrested the progress of these proud Normans, who, in spite of their attempts at disguise, were betrayed by their language, and drove them along with whips. The bishop of Canterbury, some other bishops, and numbers of great lords were maltreated in this manner, and stripped of their clothing. Thus this war was to the English a cause both of misery and of joy, of that frantic joy which is experienced, in the midst of suffering, by rendering evil for evil. The grand-son of a man slain at Hastings would feel a moment's pleasure when he found the life of a Norman in his power, and the Englishwomen, who had plied the distaff in the service of the high Norman ladies, joyfully recounted the story of the sufferings of queen Matilda on her departure from Oxford: how she fled, accompanied only by three men-at-arms, in the night, on foot, through the snow, and how she had passed, in great alarm, close to the enemy's posts, hearing the voice of the sentinels, and the sound of the military signals.

59.-STEPHEN AND MAUD.

KEATS.

"As soon as Keats had finished Otho,' Mr. Brown suggested to him the character and reign of King Stephen, beginning with his defeat by the Empress Maud, and ending with the death of his son Eustace, as a fine subject for an English historical tragedy. This Keats undertook, assuming to himself, however, the whole conduct of the drama, and wrote some hundred and thirty lines." Moncton Milnes's Life of Keats.

SCENE I. Field of Battle.

Alarum. Enter King Stephen, Knights, and Soldiers.

Stephen. If shame can on a soldier's vein-swoll'n front

Spread deeper crimson than the battle's toil,

Blush in your casing helmets! for see, see!
Yonder my chivalry, my pride of war,
Wrench'd with an iron hand from firm array,
Are routed loose upon the plashy meads,
Of honour forfeit. O, that my known voice

Could reach your dastard ears, and fright you more!
Fly, cowards, fly! Glocester is at your backs!
Throw your slack bridles o'er the flurried manes,
Ply well the rowel with faint trembling heels,
Scampering to death at last!

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Second Knight. Sure of a bloody prey, seeing the fens Will swamp them girth-deep.

Stephen.

Over head and ears,

No matter! "Tis a gallant enemy;

How like a comet he goes streaming on.

But we must plague him in the flank,-hey, friends?
We are well breath'd,-follow!

Enter Earl Baldwin and Soldiers, as defeated.
De Redvers !

Stephen.
What is the monstrous bugbear that can fright
Baldwin?

Baldwin. No scare-crow, but the fortunate star
Of boisterous Chester, whose fell truncheon now
Points level to the goal of victory.

This way he comes, and if you would maintain
Your person unaffronted by vile odds,

Take horse, my lord.

Stephen.

And which way spur for life?
Now I thank Heaven I am in the toils,
That soldiers may bear witness how my arm
Can burst the meshes. Not the eagle more
Loves to beat up against a tyrannous blast,
Than I to meet the torrent of my foes.
This is a brag,-be 't so,-but if I fall
Carve it upon my scutcheon'd sepulchre.
On, fellow soldiers! Earl of Redvers, back
Not twenty Earls of Chester shall brow-beat
The diadem.

SCENE II. Another part of the Field.

[Exeunt. Alarum.

Trumpets sounding a Victory. Enter Glocester, Knights, and Forces.
Glocester. Now may we lift our bruised visors up,

And take the flattering freshness of the air,

While the wide din of battle dies away

Into times past, yet to be echoed sure

In the silent pages of our chroniclers.

First Knight. Will Stephen's death be mark'd there, my good lord, Or that we gave him lodging in yon towers?

Glocester. Fain would I know the great usurper's fate.

Enter two Captains severally.

First Captain. My lord!

Second Captain. Most noble earl !

First Captain. The king

Second Captain. The empress greets-
Glocester. What of the king?

First Captain.

He sole and lone maintains

A hopeless bustle 'mid our swarming arms,
And with a nimble savageness attacks,
Escapes, makes fiercer onset, then anew
Eludes death, giving death to most that dare
Trespass within the circuit of his sword!

He must by this have fallen. Baldwin is taken;

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From the throng'd towers of Lincoln hath look'd down,
Like Pallas from the walls of Ilion,

And seen her enemies havock'd at her feet.

She greets most noble Glocester from her heart,
Intreating him, his captains, and brave knights,
To grace a banquet. The high city gates
Are envious which shall see your triumph pass ;
The streets are full of music.

Glocester.

Enter Second Knight.
Whence come you?

Second Knight. From Stephen, my good prince,Stephen! Stephen!

Glocester. Why do you made such echoing of his name? Second Knight. Because I think, my lord, he is no man, But a fierce demon, 'nointed safe from wounds,

And misbaptised with a Christian name.

Glocester. A mighty soldier !-Does he still hold out?
Second Knight. He shames our victory. His valour still
Keeps elbow-room amid our eager swords,

And holds our bladed falchions all aloof-
His gleaming battle-axe being slaughter-sick,
Smote on the morion of a Flemish kuight,

Broke short in his hand; upon the which he flung
The heft away with such a vengeful force,

It paunch'd the Earl of Chester's horse, who then

Spleen-hearted came in full career at him.

Glocester. Did no one take him at a vantage then?
Second Knight. Three then with tiger leap upon him flew,
Whom, with his sword swift-drawn and nimbly held,

He stung away again, and stood to breathe,
Smiling. Anon upon him rush'd once more

A throng of foes, and in this renew'd strife,

My sword met his and snapp'd off at the hilt.

Glocester. Come, lead me to this man-and let us move

In silence, not insulting his sad doom

With clamorous trumpets. To the Empress bear

My salutation as befits the time.

Exeunt Glocester and Forces.

SCENE III. The Field of Battle.

Enter Stephen unarmed.

Stephen. Another sword! And what if I could seize

One from Bellona's gleaming armoury,

Or choose the fairest of her sheaved spears!

Where are my enemies? Here, close at hand,
Here come the testy brood. O, for a sword!

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