The Anarchy and Historical Revisionism

from long lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places tales of murder, power, faith and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Yarneigger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life only on history hit With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World WarI Just visit historyhit. com Forward slash, subscribe. Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval fromrom History Hit, a podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crrusades We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here F out who we really were Gone medieval Late in the evening twenty fifth of November eleven twenty A sleek, newly fitted white shit was preparing to set sail from Barfleur Harbour It was a well worn route, ever since the Norman conquest of England More than fifty years earlier The seventeen year old heir to the throne of England and Duchy of Normandy was sailing in this white ship with his young friends They've been drinking and encouraging the crew to drink too King Henry I first ship had already left. And as darkness gathered around them, the young men decided to put this new ship through its paces and race the king back to England. Chronicers tell us monks came to bless the voyage, but were turned away by the rowdy passengers as they jostled with the crew at the oars and encouraged the captain all haste into the channel just as they were about to set sail, as the wine continued to flow. darkness crept over the harbour Chilly November wind bit harder One man deccided this all seemed like a bad idea the reasons Chroniclers would only be able to guess at furiously in the future, but which are lost to us now Stephen of Blois, who was Henry I's nephew disembark Did he stand on the quayside and watch as the ship left O had he already found a warm bed? by the time the white ship hit a rock and scattered its passengers and crew into the ICC It must have seemed Providence had spared Stephven that night Did God have other plans for this young man? You may have wondered at his luck or the care the Almighty took Fifteen years after that fateful shipwreck, when Henry I died, A man who might well have been lost to the waves that night too become the next king of England By the end of his nineteen year reign, Stephven might well have wondered Why he'd been spared that night Portion, Providence, illness Whatever it had been had made him king But he would never wear the crown with his uncle's regal ease to explore the problems of Stepen's reign and his reputation I'm delighted to be joined by Professor Carl Watkins, a fellow of Magdalenine College, Cambridge and author of the Penguin mononarch sereries book on King Stephen lcome to G Miev College.' great to you with That's very good to be with you I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into King Stephen person that I think lots of people tend to overlook and right off. I think people's general impression of Stehven is often that he's a bit of a bit of a wllally, a bit of an idiot. So I'm quite keen to get to the bottom of what you think about him and see whether that's right or not Yeah, he certainly has a good press. Yeah, yeah, he did not have good PRity. To start off with, can you kind of introduce us to Stephen? Where does he sit in the Norman Royal familyam tree Right. so Stephven is one of William the Conquerors Grandchildren He's the son of Adela who is the daughter William the Cqueror So we're now moving on a generation into the Conqueror's grandchildren. We get to Stephven's reign And what do we know about his mother and father and the kind of influence they may have had on him Gring up Well, his mother is the really interesting figure here because she ends up rununning. the lands of Pois. single handed after the death of her husband on Crusade And so there's quite a strong matriarchal figure at the head of the family out of which Stephven ultimately emerges. And that strong female role model in his life is quite an interesting figure when you think of the circumstances in which his reign plays out where he has jumped in and seiz the crown at the expense of another powerful female figure. Yeah. And I think also interesting when you get to the role of his wife as well because she's obviously a significant figure in his reign as well How many siblings does Stephen have? Be he's not the oldest son either, is he? know we're going iler'sing Sthven so he's going end up on a throne, but he's not the oldest son of his family, is he? No, he's not. And an older brother is pushed aside by his mother as a prospect for running the Blois lands. Another brother Theobald, is countenced when Henry I dies as another possible successor to King Henry I And he has a younger brother Henry, who ends up as Bishop of Winchester. So it's quite a large family and there are a number of significant political actors within it And what are our main sources when we're dealing with the life and reign of Stephen? And how reliable are they? How many of them Do we need to take with a pinch of sal? Well, we probably need to take all of them with a pinch of salt. and what we have is an array of chroniclers many of them who many of them are monastic chroniclers. And the earlier part of the reign is better served by these texts than the latter part. We have some really rather significant chroniclers' writing into the early eleven forties. The monk John of Worcester, another monk, William of Malmsbury, and at a distance, a Norman chronicler called Audric Vitalis. We also have another anonymous text called the Gest of Stefani, the deeds of Stephen And these different writers split in their allegiances. Some of them are decidedly pro Stehen, such as the author of the guest Stefani, as you might guess from the name of the text Others among them are partisans for the cause of Matilda and the Angeervins. So there, an example might be the monastic chronicler William of Malmsbury. Though interestingly William of Mmsbury looks perhaps to One of Matilda's principal allies, Robert of Gloucester as the figure he really admires. and neither he nor any of the other partisans for Matilda's cause are really that keen on talking her up specifically. Yeah, interesting. So I guess in having sort of two sets of fairly polarized chronicles, some that are quite pro Stephven and some that are quite anti Stepven. We've got Ultimately a reasonable balance. And are we looking for somewhere, know are we reading between the lines of some of these chronicles to try and find a reasonable middle ground? Yeah, I think that's right. And also we can see certain points of convergence in the way that different chroniclers sum up characteristics of some of the principal actors So there are points where both Stephven's partisans and his antagonists seem to converge, the points on which they converge, about the nature of his personality, the nature of his rule. So those sort of areas where overlap can be quite interesting for our purposes. Yeah Yeah And before we make him king, I'm quite interested to understand his relationship with his uncle, Henry I because I think Stephen is quite often positioned as Henry's kind of favorite nephew. Is that a way in which we can think about him? Yeah, that's a reasonable way to think about him. I mean, he's a very major landholder in England, landed interests beyond England. He's a very significant figure at the court I don't think it's right to think that Henry imagined him as his future successor, but he's certainly in royal favour And it's interesting with Henry I first, I think that he seems someone who is very comfortable to lean quite heavily on his I guess extended family, so particularly his illegitimate children and his nephews. he's not afraid of promoting them and building them up as sort of scaffolding for his reign. But as you say, I guess he doesn't view them as necessarily a threat, but I think that's quite striking becausecause lots ofedval kings would have viewed nephews and things like that as it would be dangerous to build them up too far I think so, but I suppose we have to remember that In the eleven twenties, the early eleven thirties, Henry's been on the throne for a very long time. His position is extremely secure. and there is considerable risk associated with trying to remove A rolling ke because the larger landed elite So I don't think these figures constitute a kind of problem for Henry I himself. So I think he's willing to build them up And overly everything sort of shifts and moves quite dramatically in eleven twenty with the White ship disaster. So Henry loses his only legitimate male air and this sparks a big succession crisis. So things change quite dramatically for Henry I's reign in eleven twenty with the death of his only legitimate son. And I think that kind of changes the dynamic. He is forced to sort of rely on his daughter Matilda And then when Henry eventually dies, it's kind of fifteen years later. So you know a fair while into this in eleven thirty five do you make of Stehven's kind of Lightning move to make himself king Should we see some longstanding ambition there Or should we see someone who is making the most of an opportunity that arises I think there must have been some ambition there. That's sort of move can't come from nowhere But there is also a striking opportunity that also presents itself because Matilda and her husband, Jeffrey and Anjou have been in rebellion against Henry the first They're relatively remote partartly is a consequence of that from belieelvers of power It makes it much more difficult for Matilda to move quickly. So there's a kind of strategic problem for her But there's also a s political problem for her as well in that the fractured relationship that he has she has with her father at the point of his death creates a context in which those who previously had sworn oaths of allegiance to her and accepted her as Henry I's successor now have a reason if they wish to, to abandon her And so when Stephen steps into that sort of vacuum that is created when Henry I dies He's got certain sorts of practical and also ideological advantages that are moving in his direction. Yeah. And one of the things that Stephen and his faction will sort of lean into quite heavily is the claim that Henry had changed his mind on his deathbed that he you know, he'd fallen out with Matilda and was kind of favoring Stephen as a potential heir he wasn't getting on with Matilda And I guess, you know, there's any evidence to suggest one hundred percent whether that's true or not. But it must have felt like believable enough excuse or at least something that people were willing to accept in order to allow Stephen to take the throne. So I guess my question is, do you think people here are being kind of willfully persuaded by Stehven rather than actually believing that this is true. It's kind of way you know I can't disprove it. so and it solves so many problems to have Stephen and not Matilda that will just go along with it I mean, we can never penetrate what happened on Henry I There's bed. And that's true also for many significant political actors at the time too and and I think one could argue that's There might be significant advantages for many members of the aristocratic elite in shifting their allegiance from Matilda Stephen this juncture and that partartly bound up with questions agenda, I think But it's also connected to that bound up with Matilda's husband Jeffrey of Anjou and the bad blood which is quite long standing particularly between some members of the Norman aristocratic elite and the roolling House of Anjou So there's a kind of a problem with Matilda, which is tangled up with the identity of her husband And so when an alternative seems at this point to present itself plausible story can be told about why this alternative might be embraced legitimately You can start to see why the herd begins to move Yeah, yeah we make of the notion that is also sort of put around in the chronicles around this time that Stephven is effectively elected by London. Ag, is that allowing people to bypass those oaths of allegiance that they might have sworn to Matilda. Is this London perhaps seizing a bit of power and authority that it's lost since the Norman conquest. the elite wanting to be more involved in the Aointment, if you like, of Kings Do you think there's any element in which There is some maneuvering going on around this and Stephven's weakness allows them to make the most of it in positioning it almost as an election. I think that's right And I think the rules of succession are still relatively plastic if William Adeline had lived It seems to be veryy, very likely that he would have succeeded relatively smoothly when his father died But in the absence of a direct male heir, there is a kind of an open question about who might the throne and Stehven in seizing the opportunity that's presented in eleven thirty five is still able to capitalize on is royal blood. running back through his mother to the conqueror But then he's trying to assemble a claim to the throne that is based on a series of other factors. which include his military decisiveness, his dash, the fact that he seems to sort have some of the kind of the martial and political properties that you might expect in a king But then also he's capitalizing on the other things, other things too, like acclimation. for instance, and this is where London becomes important and this idea of election is injected And then also of course you get the attention to coronation as something that has a kind of constitutive force, not something that simply sets the seal on a reign that's already begun when the last king died, but something that actually makes a king So the fact that he's crowned quickly relatively quickly is important. And then on top of this, the sort of the cherry on the cake, if you like, you also get papal confirmation of his coronation, of his claim as well Stephen is sort of assembling claims about his legitimacy, claims about his right to rule out of a number of different component parts. Many of them we've seen before and some of them are mobilized in a new way like this sort of claim about the role of London I suppose it doesn't help to have a brother who is also the Bishop of Winchester when Winchester is still an important place, so easy to get the government on side as well. I think that's right. Yeah Henry of Winchester is really important here in the background in be able to get ducks in a row. There's a slight sense as well, perhaps that Henry of Winchester might be the brains of this outfit. Yeah ye. I was going to come on to you. we've made Kit Stephen King, and you mentioned earlier that the chronicles give us some idea about his personality. So England in eleven thirty five What might they know about Stephven? What kind of personality do you think he had? What kind of man do you think he is He's clearly somebody who has the properties of a king There are signs of military capacity that evidence of political decisiveness. The way in which he moves in eleven thirty five is very striking and also There are signs of knowing what to do at the very start of his reign. where he moves rapidly to quash violence. to Deal with the kind of disorder that often breaks out when a king dies when there's a kind of what we might call an interregnum, a space between reigns d the death of one king and the establishment of a new king firm establishment of Nuking, in which people are busy settling schools. So He displays a certain kind of sort of decisiveness there And these are the kinds of qualities that I think people have already perhaps seen in him And which seem then to play out in the very early politics of the reign So he clearly has some of the capacities of and effective king, someome of the properties that is immediate predecessors have possessed. Yeah. ye Cards on the table Listeners to Gum Medieval will probably be aware, but I like Stephven in a world that tends to hate him because he stole Matilda's throne and everybody loves Empress Matilda, and that's fine. I completely agree But I actually find Stehven quite an attractive character, a nice guy. and I guess the problem is Is he too nice to be a good medieval king in many ways. Well, I think this gets to the heart of something that we can see even in the text that is strikingly favorraable to him. the guest the Stefani We see referenced is bravery So this is a this man is a clearly is considered to be an effective soldier. He's branded as a kind of Hercules at one point. So it significant he has significant capacity as a warrior. But he's also presented as a man of gentle and modest demeanor as well And there's a sense about him that he struggles. Once he becomes king, he struggles to raise himself up above his peers And that is a problem. What was perhaps a virtue when he was in the court? becomes a difficulty for somebody now who aspires to be king. and this might be an element of his character and it might be a dimension of his transition or his failed transition from a leading nobleman into a king that helps to explain why his reign starts to fall apart. Yeah, that was one of the aspects I find really interesting in your book. You sort of position him as onlyn ever managing to conceive of himself as a first amongst equals, as a kind of a nobleman with a crown and never managing to make that step of separating himself as this kind of undisputed superior of everybody else in the way that Henry I had done, if he absolutely had said I am the one and you guys are all beneath me thought was really interesting. you said, Steven And I never manages to shake this idea that These are all his mates still and he's kind of, you know, he's now managing his mates, which is an awkward position for him to be in And you're absolutely right, Henry I first really is able to establish himself very firmly Henry I F is characterized by other chroniclers as the Raring Lion the man with this commanding voice that no one could withstand And that's a pen sketch of him Thats just something extremely important, I think about him as a king and the nature of his rule. And it's clear that he was a figure who most feared And Stephen never ever replicates that And that's important because Obviously, the king needs to be able to command men, defend the shores, deal with internal rebellion, all those sorts of things that we might expect The King also and increasingly in Norman England is becoming important as the arbiter of last Rort when it comes to disputes among the landed elite This is a competitive status conscious highly ambitious group of men arm to the teeth. and skilled in combat And they will quarrel with each other over personal matters, but also they'll quarrel with each other, particularly over property whence springs their wealth and their power. And so you need a king who has the capacity, the personal authority to hold the ring with those men And Henry I first could do that But Stephven ultimately, it seems could not And that is something that seems to me absolutely critical in understanding the political fragmentation and violence that characterizes his reign. One of the other things that you said in your book that I found very interesting as well was we've talked about, Stehven appears to be a reasonable military leader, a good soldier Early in his reign, he does have some good successes, particularly against David of Scotland. He does seem to restore peace in the way that everybody had wanted him to when he becomes king but you also point out in your book that he Soort it becomes a victim of the state of military technology. in the middle of the twelfth century that defensive capabilities are far outstripped offensive ones And so that when his reign becomes Essentially, you know, nineteen years of Castle siege warfare Is that something that we ought to hold against? Stven, should we absolve him of some responsibility for the problems of his reign because he's facing these difficulties in military technology? I think it's true generally that Stephen faces a lot of very significant challenges. He's threatened within and he's threatened without He's he's threatening without from Scotland, from Wales, where there's political disintegration and in the Norman position. And of course he's threatened on the continent too, where he's rivaled in Normandy by Jeffrey Matilda's husband But then when we think about the kind of the internal military dynamics, yes, you're quite right. know there is a problem here that Stephen confronts, which is the technical difficulties of reducing castles. they are held against you And it's not simply the kind of the balance of power between defenders of castles and those besieging them It's also the problem that during Stehven's reign, there is an awful lot of castle building going on as well And so there are more of these blockhouses, these strongholds for the king to reduce But of course, While all of that is true, there is also a sense in which Stephen is author of his own misfortunes because the way in which he rules or the way in which he fails to rule effectively, also creates conditions in which many of these castles end up being held against it kindind of get these endless stories in the Chronicles, don't you of castles and counter castles and adulteryine castles and all everybody's building a castle. Absolutely. and some of them, just can't be taken. I mean, the classic instance of this is probably Wallingford which is held by Brian Fitzcant, one of Matilda's as loyal lieut tenants and it resists attempts to take it across the range And so there is a sense in which balance of military forces between offensive and defensive technologies creates circstances in which a stalemate is likely to eventuate. And of course that's what we see through much of the eleven forties is we see a kind of military stalemate. Yeah There's a few moments in Steephven's reign that I really wanted to pick out and talk about in a bit more. detail. So one in particular before Empress Matilda sort of arrives on the scene in England is his arrest of the Bishops in eleven thirty nine. So I wonder if you could talk us through kind of Who is he arresting and why is he arresting three bishops? So so the bishops are Roger of Salisbury. Alexander of Lincoln, and Nigel of Ei. And these are key figures leftover from the old administration. Roger of Salisbury in particular was a key administrative figure during Henry I reign And so he sort of represents a species of continuity across the eleven thirty five divide But Stephven appears to be suspicious about the loyalties of these men as Matilda is preparing to makeake an intervention in England, And so preemptively he moves to arrest them And this has some significant consequences for the administration of England Because with their arrest, there is now a fracture and the really rather sophisticated machinery of royal government is dislocated as a consequence of that that probably has significant implications for Stehven's capacity. to administer the regions to raise revenue This is probably one of the moments, one of the points at which the efficient and highly sophisticated machinery of rural government that he's inherited from his predecessors begins to work less effectively. and that has long term implications for his ability to raise resources. to intervene effectively in the localities and also to wage war. Yeah. And does this reveal anything to us about Stehven's planning his strategy or the of his own position because it feels a little bit like he's moving from a position of sort of fear and weakness, which is never a good look for a king I think that's right. And I think we have to Perhaps fill in a little bit of the backstory here as well that before we get to that arrest in eleven thirty nine, been an unraveling of the Norman position in large parts of Wales. The Welshian Rebellion There have been a series of interventions in the North mounted by David King of Scots. in elevenh. initially, Stephven himself is able to be ahead resistance to those Scottish incursions in eleven thirty eight the Northern Lords are left to their own devices to try to see off a Scottish invasion, which they successfully do, a group of Northern Lords under the leadership of Archbishop Thurston of York. veryery old archbishop who is carried around a litter direct military operations. So those kinds of problems are visible there. He's had to deal with domestic rebellion, major rebellion in eleven thirty six in Southwestern England at Exeter. Eventually he lays siege to the castle at Exeter The rebels there are defeated But he lets them go in a kind of a demonstration of clemency, which is widely understood by contemporaries to have been a political misjudgment So he's under political pressure on the frontiers. His ability to intervene in the north now is constrained because he's dealing with problems elsewhere. He's also beginning to display certain sorts of political misjudgments as well So that context really, in which he's becoming suspicious of some of these actors who were significant in the old regime of Henry III And so all of that is happening as well before the But I guess we have to consider to be the main crisis of his reign arrives, which is his cousin, Empress Matilda landing in England towards the end of eleven thirty nine And one of the things that Stephven, again, seems to get this kind of almost universal criticism for in the Chronicles for making a mistake allowing Matilda to get out of Arrandal Castle where she's arrived to go and join Robert of Gloucester And I always wondered you, do you think he deserves criticism for that or is that the application? of hindsight because it's very difficult to see what else he could have reasonably done in that situation. I mean it does look like an act of misplayed chivalry. But given that there's already a challenge in Southwest England, it might have been more sensible simply to let Matilda until the go and so concentrate the problem in one place and a lengthy and difficult siege there to extract her might itself have brought problems for the king So I think it's sort of easy with hindsight to see this as another one of his political miscalculations, but it may have been a more difficult kind of decision to make than it seems to us A a civil war reggicide and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned But Britain would never be the same I'm Professor Susanna Lipskom and this month on not just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of restestoration royalty. from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on not just the Tutors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts I mean, I think so because I think As you say, you know, if you let Matilda go, you get all of your eggs into one basket, you put them all in one place. Arndall is tricky because if he lays siege to Arandall, you know, Henry the first widow is in there with one of Stephen's more significant noblemen who are're going to alienate if you start laying siege to his castle What do you A you going to risk killing Empress Matilda? Do you really want to Hail. daughter of Henry I first, all of the choices that weren't letting her go and join Robert feel like they could have had far worse consequences for him than doing what must have felt also like the chivalrous thing of allowing you know, a woman again not militarily persecuting a woman. I think that's right. I think Also, the display of the right kinds of values is important for a king this kind of honorable conduct is is a virtue can be displayed as a virtue justust as his clemency when dealing with the rebels in eleven thirty six might have been construed as a virtue too Of course early in the reign, these sorts of decisions are capable of multiple different representations and what might seem vulable or clemment can also be represented as weakness of miscalculation. and you see these different sorts of explanations being touted by different chronicles. Yeah. And I guess the the potential fear of moving against both Matilda and Henry I widow, Adelisa and also potentially the Earl of Arundal, againg, might plain to that idea that you mentioned earlier about him failing to separate himself from the rest of the nobility, you know Matilda is the daughter of a king And he's not viewing himself as a king, he's viewing himself as someone who can't upset these people too much I think that's right. There's a kind of an element of caution here as well. And that may end up being a sort of in the long view, this may end up being an unwise political decision. But trapped in the moment as you've indicated He doesn't really have good options here He knows that his predecessors rival He knows that Henry I F and William Rufus both had to contend with a brother, Robert Kurtos in Normandy claimed this room But Stehven's problem is even more becoming even more difficult than that He's rivalled in Normandy by Matilda particularly Jeffrey Anjou her husband But also now he's facing threats, significant threats in England as well, right on his own doorstep So deealing with a political problem that is of a different shape and of a different magnitude even compared to those confronted by his predecessors. his immediate predecessors. And then kind of I guess the big kind of pinnacle culmination moment of the reign or the year of the reign really is eleven forty one. There's so much that happens during that year and it begins in February with Battle of Lincoln, which is kind of the only real set piece and piece event of Stephven's reign How significant is the Battle of Lincoln in february eleven forty one, kind of what happens there And and how significant is this for the rest of Stehven's reign? The battle is a relatively rare Pace confrontation between the two sides in the Civil War These kinds of setpiece battles are high risk operations And there might sometimes be a reluctance on the part of participants to risk this sort of battle And it's a measure of the significance of Lincoln significant dces and center a significant Castle that Stephen is prepared to move there and then to engage in a set piece battle at some place outside the town We don't know exactly where the battle took place We know that Well, the Chroniclers discuss the circumstances around this battle It seems that during Mass at Lincoln Cathedral Stephven when offering a candle drops it and the candle breaks and chroniclers on both sides of the divide between the algeervins and Stephven. acknowledge this event. They interpret it in different ways. One says that the shattering of the candle is a bad portent and it indicates the kind of the disintegration of Stephen's authority. The oth suggests that the candle's broken shards are scooped up again And this is an indication that Stehen's authority will be recovered. But the chroniclers here, obviously writing with the benefit of hindsight, are capturing something quite important about this battle, which is that this is a potential turning point in the civil warar when you have a confrontation between both sides high stakes at an important defended center of authority in England. the battle see Stehven defeated But it also sees Stephven captured And again, I think the chronicles are quite ke to point out that Stephen was kind of given counsel not to engage. So lots of his nobles are encouraging him to sort of run away and not fight Robert of Gloucester againgain, much as the situation with Matilda a couple of years earlier I can't help feeling that this is an awful lot of hindsight being at play because For Stephven, he's confronted by, you know, Ranolph of Chester has has snatched Lincoln castle. So he's got a fairly significant nobleman who is making a bid for authority that isn't really his Ranolph is also Robert of Gloucester's son in laws, you know, he calls out his father in law for help when he's in a bit of trouble. For Stephven to have run away from that feels like it would have been so damaging to his authority that everything he's hinged is reign on and being this firm military leader who can restore ordder to the country bit of his authority would have utterly evaporated. So we know that he loses the battle and we know that he's captured. And for me, it often feels like criticizing his decision to engage is just allowing hindsights play out there because again, like Arndel O real option did he have in that circumstance I think that's right. And I think the context for this as well is that Stephven is increasingly in danger of losing control in the regions of England process starts quite early on in the late eleven thirties further north in Yorkshire, Northumbria, Cumbria where a combination of Scottish royal power is intruding into that space, but also one of Stephen's own earls, William of Ormal in Yorkshire. He's emerging as a autonomous ruler. and not spice And so There's sort of a risk here, which we can see coming into being that that parts of England away from the southeast Risk functioning under a kind of devolved authority And some of those actors will remain notionally loyal to the king, others will throw in their lot with Matilda and the Anjer Van Cs And so it's important for Stephen to be active in the region. so he's not simply pushed back into a core And this is also connected as well with the problems of the broader malfunctioning of royal government. which is arguably somethingomet that becomes more of an issue, more of a problem after the arrest of the bishops. Will the dislocation that that produces And so Sthven, after the Battle of Inincoln, Stehven spends kind of nine months in captivity until eventually you know Empress Matilda almost gets herself crowned but is forced to flee from London. Her half brother Robert of Gloucester is captured trying to fight a reargard to protect her And then we end up in this prisoner exchange situation. It's quite interesting in some of the chronicles that They position Robert of Gloucester as as almost insisting that he shouldn't be exchanged for Stephen because, you know, I'm an earl and he's a king. That's not a fair kind of exchange But does it point to one of the weaknesses in Matilda's cause that she is so desperate to get Robert back as the kind of military strong arm of her cause that she's forced to release Stephen, having managed to take the King of England captive Yes, that's right. Robert of Gloucester really is a significant Tka in Matilda's Enterprise, he is her sword arm if you want And so to be deprived of him as a a military strategist clearly is very significant absolutely makes sense from his point of view suggesting that it's a critical mistake to let Stephven go But from her position even if she holds on. to Stephen and keeps him in captivity she arguably needs Robert of Gloucester. And part of the point here is ye. hasn't simply gone into abbeyance when Stephen is captured. continues and it continues because Stephven's wife. His quQeen also confusingly Matilda This time Matilda of Bouloyne She keeps the political and the military show n the road, the military show with the assistant particularly of William of Epe And so Matilda is still under military threat in this interstitial period when Stehven's in captivity and then when Robert of Goucester is also captured by the other side. And so again, easasy here to think that Matilda makes a strategic mistake in letting Stephen go in return for Robert of Glcester. This is another moment where we look back on it and think why did she this time decide to do that there is a logic to the decision that she makes given the military situation in which she finds herself. And also there's a sense in which Matilda is in a kind of impasse really you know, she has been rejected by the Londoners. She's been driven out Al alsoso then there' being disaster at Winchester with her own very near cture and the loss of Robert of Gloucester. So she's in a vulnerable position herself. Both of the principal parties are in weak positions at this point. Yeah After Civil War reggicide and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned But Britain would never be the same I'm Professor Susanna Lipskom, and this month on not just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of restestoration royalty from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on not just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts And I guess from Stehven's point of view, the fact of his release, because you do get this impression that Initially, the chroniclers are thinking well, that's Stephven over and done with. you know, he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison like Robert Kurt Hoes had done And if Cture looked like some kind of divine punishment, you know, losing in battle was God's judgment on him. Th then Stephven's cause feels like it's almost revitalized by his release because that feels a bit like more divine rehabilitation. God is back on his side. He's made him king again. Yes, that's right. All of these sorts of events can be providentially coded. And clearly some of the chronicler's narration of the portence that surrounded his defeat at Lincoln It's connected with that. the idea that the passes through these vicissitudes but he ultimately prevails. So I think you're right that there's a sense in which Stephven's cause enjoys a kind of resurgence at this point But of course the political and the military realities militate against either side this juncture being able to land the decisive blow Now it's almost like they're both too strong to lose but both too weak to win as well There's an interesting to consider, I think as well on sort of the institution of the Crown, we've had a situation where the King of England has been a prisoner of his enemies for nine months and yet he emerges almost unscathed and the institution of the crown has persisted as you said, William ofve, Matilda of Bleooyne, I love Matilda Bolooyne. I think she's a fantastic figure who you know doesn't get enough credit for the things that she does during Stehven's reign. They have managed to keep his cause going and it's almost proven that the The institution of the English crrown can't be affected even by the king being a prisoner. so So the institution is becoming stronger on its own, Is that fair to say The institution of the that's the institution of the crown survives The turmoil of Stephven's reign as a whole. He's very striking. And what happens in this period seems to me striking too Both with regard to the institution, as you've just indicated, but also with regard to the person of Stephven The fact that there is not an attempt to strip Stephven of the crown. does not attempt to reverse the consequences of his coronation. And also, he's not simply killed So there's there is a respect. Stephven's person as somebody who has been crowned as a king, even if there is clearly a move now to remove him and replace him with the Lady of the English as Matilda is initially styled There is that move afoot, but he's not stripped of the dignity that he has acquired in virtue of his succession to the throne And what do you think we should make of the role of the various barons in Stephen's reign too? The chroniclers seem quite keen to paint them as perpetuators of the conflict for their own gain, that you know, they're all absolutely reveling in all of this conflict and fighting and unrest But as we get later on in the conflict, it's the barrenons that we see beginning to make peace agreements amongst themselves to kind of mitigate the effects of the war. So are they gaining from this or are they suffering from this or is there a bit of both going on So the barons U of status conscious, ambitious Heavily are men but up against each other . proty who quarrel about other things, but particularly quarrel about land. And so in a sense They are perpetuators of the violence of Stephven's reign that's in virtue of their quarrels with each other not being contained by effective royal authority. So it seems to me that the sort of the rocket fuel, if you like, that is powering the violence in Stephven's reign. a lot of it is coming from there It's coming from Dputes. within the baronage that then become entangled within the succession dispute because they find no effective resolution because of the failure of royal authority. So you get different parties in different disputes joining different sides in the succession struggle for their own advantage So that's the particular way, I think, in which the Barons are sort of implicated in the violent of Stephven's reign It feels like the parents also highlight a way in which this was tricky for Stehven because how does king, you know, even allowing that Stephen is failing to set himself as a king. How does a king rule over a nation and barons who have an alternative who you if you come down heavily on them and you upset them, they can go, well fine, we'll just go and support your rival then This is a fundamental problem. and it's a conundrum for which there is no resolution. Once you have a situation in which you have a rival poll of authority embedded in Normandy and then also in southwestern England where Matilda's cause is based, You have a fundamental problem in the functioning of royal justice, because the thing that makes royal justice work is the authority of the king, but the authority of the king is challenged. And if the king makes a decisive move in a dispute discomforted party in that adjudication and go. and seek assistance from the angeravins If he doesn't act, then he looks weak. If the king does not act, the king simply looks weak. So there's a kind of fundamental malfunctioning of royal justice at this point and that's making the violence of Stephen's reign worse. And he also explains why the violence isn't simply Violence that is coming about because you have field armies contending with each other at the top, you also have a lot of violence at lower levels as well. Yeah And it seems to be ultimately, you know Empress Matilda will eventually withdraw from England and begin to focus on the cause of her son, Henry Fitz Empress at the future Henry II who will himself later on invade England. and it's Henry who comes to this kind of compromise arrangement with Stephen that seems to be kind of helped by the fact that the Barons appear to have had enough of all of this by now they kind of want it settled. they don't want this dragging into the next generation. And I just wonder, you know, they make this agreement where effectively, you know, Stehven adopts Henry and appoints him as his heir And I wonder whether you think it's significant that that arrangement never really gets stress tested because Stephven sort of passes away within a year. of that arrangement. So it's never really put to the test is it? That's true. it's not but the I think it is the case Barons are war weary. In the eleven forties, you can see various barons who seem constantly be changing sides Some of them are held up for a prorium in the Chronicles Perhaps the most prominent is Jeoffrey D Mmanderville, powerful actor in East India But in many ways, what those barons are doing, when they seem to be operating capriciously is simply tacking this way and that in order to try to defend their interests in a world of profound political instability, where they fear the loss of property They fear the loss of their name they fear the future of their lives. So you can sort of see Barononss responding in that way to the disturbed politics of the eleven forties But you also start to see other kinds of responses. You start to see Barons engaging in private treaties. with each other in order to limit the extent to which they might come to blows if they are called upon by the sides they support to fight on the battlefield And you're also starting to see a reluctance on the part of the Barons to fight Perhaps most strikingly at the Battle of Wallingford, or the non Battle of Wallingford, where the two armies are drawn up towards the end of Stephven's reign against each other and they don't The two parties, the two aristocratic parties don't want to fight and they force the principles. Stephen on one side and Henry of Ajou on the other to negotiate with each other in a way the sort of the agreement that is eventually hammered out between Stephven and Henry of Ajoux is not likely to be stress tested Because the larger political community desperately wants a resolution to the war and they want that resolution to take the form of an agreement about the succession And it's quite striking that when Stehven dies Henry of Anjou does not hurry immediately to England So he's confident the security measures been established in the Treaty are going to work and that the succession is at this point secure And of course This is a rare instance in recent the recent history of England of the succession actually passing off smoothly I always wonder whether Henry takes a moment before he comes to England, almost to allow any enemies to show themselves so that when he arrives, he can be comfortable that, you know, you've had your chance, you had your moment. And if anyone does stick their head above the parapet, maybe he's confident enough that he can deal with them. But Henry also seems It's almost as if Henry II is as lucky in the circumstances of his accession as Stephven was unlucky in his. Stephven has facilitated this reconciliation of both sides So both sides now want Henry be the next king. There isn't really an opposition and even, you know more widely, David of Scotland gone there's a child on the throne of Scotland and Henry just sort of marches up there and says,ight, we'll have all our land back, please and they're not really in a position to stop him. So it's almost like Every bit of bad luck that Stephen had that perhaps he exacerbated as well Henry is replacing with good luck and looking incredibly strong from the very opening of his reign, which creates this really jarring contrast with Stehven, I think, doesn't it? That's true. Lock is a kind of essential constituent of the consolidation of authority at this point and Henry II has it in spades. You've already mentioned the great Scottish king King David is dead. Not only is David dead but his son and heir, Prince Henry has peceased him. and so as you indicate, the crrown in Scotland as now. evvolved to a child Malcolm also own son Eustace who gets a very bad press in many of the chronicles, but Meria an effective military operator. he's dead. And there seems to be no ambition on Stephven's part to look to a younger son, William. carry on his cause to carry on his line Yes, it is definitely the case that many of the people who might have posed problems Henry Vandrew Now Henry I second cleared by forune from the field Does doesn't mean that he doesn't face any enemies. There are some barons who are prepared to resist him fairly early in the new reign Interestingly, these tend to be figures that enjoy cononcentrated blocks of property from which they seem to think they have a chance of resisting the new king. But what's striking is that magnates that have those sorts of concentrated power bases s the exception rather than the rule and the generality of the Baronial class is really to fall in behind the new king They clearly see a better future in the reconstitution of rooyal authority rather as it stood, in eleven thirty five when Henry I first died rather than looking to a different kind of political configuration of England which for instance, saw royal authority restricted, attenuated and perhaps more power in the hands of regional magnates of the Earls This has been absolutely fascinating. and I just wanted to end with question that Yeah I don't know how reasonable it is to answer this in any kind of a quick way How anarchic was the anarchy Yeah we call it the Anarchy because we have this sense that it was nineteen years of complete and utter Chaos Do you think it really was that anctic In recent decades, there's been a certain amount of revisionism. H here among historians who've wanted to suggest that actually a store is of violence. associated with Stehven's reign are overd. And this notion of Stehen's reign as the anarchy. is the product of attaching too much. importance to the words of rich, but also ideologically interested. Ecclesiastical chroniclers Historians have looked to other sources to argue that, for instance, Aspects of royal government, at least in parts of the country continued to function quite effectively And of course, some of the most famous characterizations of the anarchy are with the benefit of hindsight spepecifically with the benefit of hindsight from Henry II's reign. where there's an obvious incentive to turn the failings of Stephven's rule into a foil for the effectiveness of Henry II's rule of England and the wider empire For all those reasons, we need to perhaps the narratives of epidemic violence with a pinch of sod. but It remains the case that the chroniclers Well? Praying in England under Stephen but they expected their audiences to recognize and in order for this rhetoric of the effective reconstitution of royal authority under Henry II to work There must be some substance. There must at least be some perception part of the audience for those chronicles and that there was a lot of violence under Stepven. there was a lot of disorder, that there was dysfunctional rule So I think we can't push this kind of revisionism that downplays the disorders of the anarchy too far. I think we have to come back to the chronicles and the way in which their reperorttage of the reign must have resonated with contemporaries Yeah. I mean I tend to think Anaky is a really hard word for what happened there because what you see is ing of England and you know, there is authority in various places. Stephen seems to maintain his authority really effectively in the southeast and up as far as York on occasions The south West is not ungoverned,s it's governed by Matilda. The North of England seems to actually relish being governed by David. They enjoy being part of Scotland and it's absolutely fine and they don't have a problem. It's not necessarily that it's an archic. and I always can't help wondering whether it's this kind of almost this whiggish British Empire view of history that looks at this period when England fractured, you know England has been an entity for two hundred years by this point and in Stehven's reign seems to be moving towards splitting again and that almost whiggish view of history that Everything needs to be this relentless move towards the G British Empire that this looks like a backward step and therefore must be something really horrible that we have to characterise as an evil moment in English history. It's certainly the case that Stephven's reign forces us to think a little bit about where England ends, particularly in the North. becausecause it's not an implausible world that circumstance might have fortuned it that David did manage to make good David's successors did manage to make good those gains that they've made in the North. in Cumbria, in North Uumbria, maybe even in parts of Yorkshire. So it sort of it reminds us that that the English kingdom was perhaps capable of being reconfigured at this particular juncture And so if just to end on, if my assessment of Stephven is that I think he's a good man who didn't make a very good king Does that seem fair to you? Was he too nice to be a good medieval king I think he's a brave man. He's a man capable of remarkable political dash It's not so clear that he's capable of strategizing a strategic vision