Stephen struggled hard to secure the succession for Eustace, his elder son. But he had quarrelled with Rome respecting a vacancy in the see of York; the pope forbade the English bishops to consecrate Eustace 0150 ; and there was a general unwillingness to prolong the civil war. Worn out by incessant conflicts, the king bowed to the inevitable when Henry next appeared in Eng land (1153). Negotiations were opened; and Stephen's last hesitations disappeared when Eustace was carried off by a sudden illness. Late in 1153 the king acknowledged Henry as his heir, only stipulating that the earldom of Surrey and his private estates should be guaranteed to his surviving son, William. The king and the duke agreed to co-operate for the repression of anarchy; but Stephen died soon thereafter (Oct. 1154).
On his great seal Stephen is represented as tall and robust, bearded, and of an open countenance. He was frank and gener ous; his occasional acts of duplicity were planned reluctantly and never carried to their logical conclusion. In warfare he showed courage, but little generalship ; as a statesman he failed in his dealings with the Church, which he alternately humOured and thwarted. He was a generous patron of religious foundations;
and some pleasing anecdotes suggest that his personal character deserves more commendation than his record as a king.
See the Gesta Stephani, Richard of Hexham, Aelred of Rievaux' Relatio de Standardo, aid the chronicle of Robert de Torigni, all in R. Howlett's Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, etc. (4 vols., London, 1884-89) ; Orderic Vitalis's Historia ecclesiastzca, ed. Le Prevost (5 vols., Paris, 1838-55) ; William of Malmesbury's Historia novella, ed. W. Stubbs (London, 1889) ; John of Worcester's Continua tion of Florence, ed. J. H. Weaver (Oxford, 1908). See also Miss K. Norgate's England under the Angevin Kings, vol. i. (London, 1887) ; 0. ROssler's Kaiserin Mathilde (Berlin, 1897) ; J. H. Round's Geoffrey de Mandeville (London, 1892) ; H. W. C. Davis's "The Anarchy of Stephen's Reign" in Eng. Hist. Review for 1903. (H. W. C. D.)