1140

Stephen having thus subdued his inveterate enemies the Scots, and reduced his rebellious nobles, began to entertain hopes of enjoying a little ease.  But he was destined to the possession of a crown with perpetual disturbance; for he was hardly returned from his northern expedition, when he received intelligence that the Empress, accompanied by her brother the Earl of Gloucester, was preparing to come for England, in order to dispute her title to the kingdom.  The King, who knew by experience what a powerful party she already had to espouse her interests, very reasonably concluded, the defection from him would be much greater, when she appeared in person to countenance and reward it; he therefore began again to repent of the licence he had granted for building castles, which were now like to prove so many places of security for his enemies, and fortifications against himself; for he knew not whom to trust, vehemently suspecting his nobles ever since their last revolt.  He therefore cast about for some artifice to get into his hands as many of their castles as he could:  in the strength and magnificence of which kind of structures, the bishops had far outdone the rest, and were upon that, as well as other accounts, very much maligned and envied by the temporal lords, who were extreme jealous of the Church’s increasing power, and glad upon all occasions to see the prelates humbled.  The King, therefore, having formed his project, resolved to make trial where it would be least invidious, and where he could foresee least danger in the consequences.  At a Parliament or assembly of nobles at Oxford, it was contrived to raise a quarrel between the servants of some bishops and those of Alan Count of Dinan in Bretagne, upon a contention of rooms in their inns.  Stephen took hold of this advantage, sent for the bishops, taxed them with breaking his peace, and demanded the keys of their castles, adding threats of imprisonment if they dared to disobey.  Those whom the King chiefly suspected, or rather who had built the most and strongest castles, were Roger Bishop of Salisbury, with his nephew and natural son the Bishops of Ely and Lincoln, whom the King, by many circumstances of rigour, compelled to surrender, going himself in person to seize the Devizes, then esteemed the noblest structure of Europe, and built by the forementioned Bishop Roger, whose treasure, to the value of forty thousand marks,[31] there likewise deposited, fell, at the same time, into the King’s hand, which in a few days broke the bishop’s heart, already worn with age and infirmity.

[Footnote 31:  This prelate’s treasure is doubtless computed by the smaller or Saxon mark; the use of which still prevailed in England:  and even thus computed, it amounts to a vast sum, equal to about L116,350 of modern money. [D.S.]]