A dash across the Channel to seize the treasury at Winchester within weeks of an uncle's death, breaking an oath sworn twice over (1135)
He was crowned on 22 December 1135.
Monarchs · Norman & Angevin
Stephen
c. 1092/1096–1154
House of Blois — the Anarchy
In office: 1135–1154
A grandson of the Conqueror through his mother Adela, Stephen of Blois crossed the Channel on Henry I's death and had himself crowned, despite having sworn to accept Henry's daughter Matilda. The result was nineteen years of civil war remembered as the Anarchy, in which Stephen was captured at Lincoln, Matilda was driven out of London and escaped from a besieged Oxford through the snow, and barons built unlicensed castles across England. In 1153 Stephen agreed to make Matilda's son Henry of Anjou his heir, and died the following year.
How to spot them
- ▸The last Norman king and the only king of the House of Blois
- ▸The Anarchy; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's line that men said openly that Christ and his saints slept
- ▸The Empress Matilda, styled Lady of the English but never crowned; her half-brother Robert of Gloucester
- ▸Treaty of Wallingford / Winchester, 1153; buried at Faversham Abbey
In the reign
Capture in battle at Lincoln and nine months in chains at Bristol, before an exchange for the rival's half-brother (1141)
Taken on 2 February 1141 and exchanged for Robert, earl of Gloucester, in November.
An empress slipping out of a besieged castle at Oxford dressed in white and crossing the frozen Thames on foot (1142)
Matilda escaped to Wallingford in December 1142.
A reign the Chronicle summed up as nineteen long winters in which men said openly that Christ and his saints slept (1135–1154)
The Peterborough continuation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle on the Anarchy.
The arrest of the bishops of Salisbury, Lincoln and Ely, which cost him the support of the Church (1139)
Roger of Salisbury and his nephews had run Henry I's administration.
A treaty disinheriting his own surviving son in favour of a young Angevin count (1153)
The Treaty of Wallingford, confirmed at Winchester: Henry of Anjou would succeed.
Burial in the Kentish abbey he and his queen had founded, his tomb destroyed at the Dissolution (1154)
Faversham Abbey; he died on 25 October 1154.
Quick-fire facts
- •His mother Adela was a daughter of William the Conqueror; his brother Henry of Blois was bishop of Winchester and papal legate
- •He had sworn to uphold the Empress Matilda's succession, but claimed a deathbed release from the oath
- •Matilda was acknowledged Lady of the English in 1141 but alienated London and was never crowned
- •His queen, Matilda of Boulogne, raised armies in his name while he was a prisoner
- •The period saw hundreds of unlicensed 'adulterine' castles built; Henry II ordered their demolition
- •Scotland's David I exploited the war; the English won the Battle of the Standard near Northallerton in 1138
- •His elder son Eustace died in August 1153, clearing the way for the settlement; his younger son William kept the family lands
- •He died at Dover on 25 October 1154 and Henry II succeeded without opposition
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- The Royal Household — Stephen and Matilda (r. 1135–1154)
- Edmund King — King Stephen