Wherein the Anarchy finally burns out, we bid a fond farewell to the battling Matildas and usher in the Plantagenets.
Ah, the Anarchy … nineteen years of shitty death.
Here's the Anglo Saxon Chronicle for the year 1137: "Every man built himself a castle and held it against the king; and they filled the whole land with these castles.
They sorely burdened the unhappy people of the country with forced labour on the castles; and when the castles were built they filled them with devils and wicked men.
I do not know how to, nor am I able to tell of all the atrocities nor all the cruelties they wrought upon the unhappy people of this country. It lasted throughout the nineteen years that Stephen was king and always grew worse and worse."
So much for the aristocracy. Was the king any better behaved? Was he buggery.
The Gesta Stephani relates that King Stephen with his mercenary army "… set himself to lay waste to that fair and delightful district, so full of good things; they took and plundered everything they came upon, set fire to houses and churches and, what was a more cruel and brutal sight, fired the crops that had been reaped and stacked all over the fields, consumed and brought to nothing everything edible that they found. They ravaged with bestial cruelty."
Happy days …
In the midst of all this, in 1147, Robert of Gloucester did something unheard of in these chronicles; he died of natural causes … not a lamprey nor a dribble of arse-gravy in sight.
Still the slaughter continued for another seven long years before Empress Matilda's son, Henry Plantagenet - who had been laying waste to Normandy - was persuaded by Matilda to bring his army over to England and pile into the fray.
Queen Matilda having died two years previously, Empress Matilda and Henry now sought battle with Stephen and William of Ypres. But, having nothing much left to loot or burn, all sides called it a day.
Nobody won …
Two-thirds of the country lay empty and devastated; crops, homes and churches burned, peasants and townsfolk slaughtered.
Empress Matilda and King Stephen made a deal …
Stephen was permitted to stay on as king of England but his sons were disinherited. Empress Matilda was to rule Normandy while her son Henry was declared heir to the English throne. In 1154, Stephen died of apoplexy and King Henry the Second settled his bottom onto the throne of England.
Once his dad had kicked the bucket, William of Blois was booted out of Norwich Castle and Hugh Bigod once more moved in as Earl of Norfolk.
In my next talk we shall discover the fragrant delights of Norman and early mediæval Norwich and learn more about the fate of Norwich Castle.
My next post shall be an Appendix to Part the Second, listing my guess of the post-1066 invasions of England. There are lots.
Sources:
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (various): C. Clark (ed): 1970
Historia Novella: William of Malmesbury. In translation as William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Earliest Period to the Reign of King Stephen: J. A. Giles: 2016
Historia Anglorum: Henry of Huntingdon: In translation as The History of the English People, 1000 - 1154: Diana Greenway: Oxford World Classics: 2009
The Chronicle of John of Worcester, Volume 3: 1067 - 1140: In translation by R. R. Darlington: Oxford Mediæval Texts: 1995
Gesta Stephani: In translation by K. R. Potter and R. H. C. Davis: Oxford Mediæval Texts: 1976
Feudal Documents from Bury St. Edmunds: British Academy Records of the Social and Economic History of England and Wales: Donald C. Douglas: 1932
Francis Blomefield: An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the
County of Norfolk: Volume 3: The History of the City and County of
Norwich: 1753 to 1775
The Oxford History of England: 1087-1216: From Domesday to Magna Carta: Austin L. Poole (ed): 1951
The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign: Edmund King (ed): 1994
Norwich Castle Keep: Romanesque Architecture and Social Context: T. A. Heslop: 1994
Stephen and Matilda : The Civil War of 1139 - 1153: Jim Bradbury: 2005
The Pipe Roll Society: Archive Editions (various): online resource
3 comments:
I need a chart! xoxo
Me too, Savannah!
I'll bet Breugel was one of those very talented people one would never want to meet.
Me too, Savannah! Getting my head around all the characters is confusing at the best of times, especially when so many Matildas are involved. xoxo
Breugel the Elder was a barrel of laughs, Petrea. Breugel the Younger, too. They painted Europe how they saw it.
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