and situation, were of the greatest importance.  But the affairs of this prince were so circumstanced that he could pursue no council that was not dangerous.  His breach with the clergy let in the party of his rival, Matilda.  This party was supported by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son to the late king,—­a man powerful by his vast possessions, but more formidable through his popularity, and the courage and abilities by which he had acquired it.  Several other circumstances weakened the cause of Stephen.  The charter, and the other favorable acts, the scaffolding of his ambition, when he saw the structure raised, he threw down and contemned.  In order to maintain his troops, as well as to attach men to his cause, where no principle bound them, vast and continual largesses became necessary:  all his legal revenue had been dissipated; and he was therefore obliged to have recourse to such methods of raising money as were evidently illegal.  These causes every day gave some accession of strength to the party against him; the friends of Matilda were encouraged to appear in arms; a civil war ensued, long and bloody, prosecuted as chance or a blind rage directed, by mutual acts of cruelty and treachery, by frequent surprisals and assaults of castles, and by a number of battles and skirmishes fought to no determinate end, and in which nothing of the military art appeared, but the destruction which it caused.  Various, on this occasion, were the reverses of fortune, while Stephen, though embarrassed by the weakness of his title, by the scantiness of his finances, and all the disorders which arose from both, supported his tottering throne with wonderful activity and courage; but being at length defeated and made prisoner under the walls of Lincoln, the clergy openly declare for Matilda.  The city of London, though unwillingly, follows the example of the clergy.  The defection from Stephen was growing universal.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1153.]

But Matilda, puffed up with a greatness which as yet had no solid foundation and stood merely in personal favor, shook it in the minds of all men by assuming, together with the insolence of conquest, the haughty rigor of an established dominion.  Her title appeared but too good in the resemblance she bore to the pride of the former kings.  This made the first ill success in her affairs fatal.  Her great support, the Earl of Gloucester, was in his turn made prisoner.  In exchange for his liberty that of Stephen was procured, who renewed the war with his usual vigor.  As he apprehended an attempt from Scotland in favor of Matilda, descended from the blood royal of that nation, to balance this weight, he persuaded the King of France to declare in his favor, alarmed as he was by the progress of Henry, the son of Matilda, and Geoffrey, Count of Anjou.  This prince, no more than sixteen years of age, after receiving knighthood from David, King of Scotland, began to display a courage and capacity destined to the greatest things.  Of a complexion