STEPHEN ( c.1097-11 54 ) . King of England from 1135 to 1154. He was the third son of Stephen, Count of Blois and Chartres, by Adele, daughter of William the Conqueror, and was thus the nephew of Henry 1. of England. He was brought over to England at an early age and became a favorite with his uncle, who bestowed on him large estates and obtained for him in marriage the hand of Matilda, heiress of Count Eustace of Boulogne. Henry's only son having died in 1120, the King sought to secure the crown for his daughter Matilda, widow of Henry V. of the Holy Roman Empire, and Stephen was among the first of the great barons to take the oath of fealty to Matilda. Nevertheless, on the death of Henry- I. in 1135, Stephen hastened from Nor mandy to England, seized the royal treasure. and was crowned King at Christmastide. Revolts in the south and west occurred in 1136, and though these were speedily suppressed, they broke out anew in the following year. In 1138 David I. of Scotland invaded England in support of the claims of his niece Matilda, but he was badly beaten in the battle of Northallerton (q.v.). Robert, Earl of Gloucester, half brother of Ma tilda, also rose in rebellion, but was for the time defeated. Stephen, however, foolishly entered into conflict with the Church, whose cause was espoused by his own brother, Henry of Winches ter, the Papal legate. While the quarrel was in progress, Matilda and Robert of Gloucester landed in England, toward the end of 1139, and began a civil war which lasted for fourteen years and plunged England into utter misery. The nobles took advantage of the civil strife to make themselves virtually independent, and their castles, which Stephen had unwisely per mitted them to build up, became mere robber strongholds and places of terror for the unhappy peasantry. The writer in the
Chronicle says: "In this King's time all was dis sension and evil and rapine. . . . Thou mightest go a whole day's journey and not find a man sitting in a town or an acre of land tilled. The poor died of hunger and those who had been men well-to-do begged for bre-id To till the ground was to plow the sands of the sea." "Alen said openly that Christ and Ilis saints slept." In 1141 Stephen was taken pris oner at the battle of Lincoln, and was deposed by a Church council, Matilda being chosen Queen. She soon alienated her supporters by her harsh government, and Stephen, who had been released in exchange for Robert of Gloucester, was de clared the lawful King by a second Church coun cil and was crowned on Christmas Day. In 1143 Matilda left England; Robert of Gloucester was now dead and the struggle was henceforth car ried on by Henry, the son of Matilda and Geof frey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, who in 1151 succeeded his father and by his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the divorced wife of Louis VII. of France, became one of the richest princes in Europe. Stephen's son, Eustaee. died in 1153, and in November of the same year Stephen and Henry concluded the Treaty of Wallingford, by which the former remained King, while the suc cession was vested in Henry. Stephen died Oc tober 25, 1154. Consult: Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. i. (6th ed., Oxford, 1896) ; id., The Early Plontagenets (5th ed., London, 1886).