The Anarchy
The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Normandy between 1138 and 1153 which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. The conflict was a war of succession precipitated by the accidental death of William Adelin—the only legitimate son of King Henry I—who drowned in the White Ship disaster of 1120. Henry then sought to leave the throne to his daughter, Empress Matilda, but was only partially successful in convincing the nobility to support her. On Henry's death in 1135, his nephew Stephen of Blois seized the throne with the help of his brother Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester. King Stephen's early reign saw fierce fighting with disloyal English barons, rebellious Welsh leaders, and Scottish invaders. Following a major rebellion in the southwest of England, Matilda invaded in 1139 with the help of her half-brother Robert of Gloucester.
In the initial years of civil war, neither side achieved a decisive advantage; Matilda came to control southwest England and much of the Thames Valley, while Stephen remained in control of the southeast. Barons who refused to support either side held much of the country. Castles were easily defended in this period, so the fighting was mostly attrition warfare: sieges, raiding and skirmishing. Armies mainly consisted of knights and infantry, many of them mercenaries. In 1141 Stephen was captured following the Battle of Lincoln, causing a collapse in his authority over most of the country. When Matilda attempted to be crowned queen, she was forced out of London by hostile crowds; shortly afterwards, Robert of Gloucester was captured by Stephen's wife, Matilda of Boulogne, at the rout of Winchester. The two sides agreed to exchange the captives Stephen and Robert. Stephen then almost captured Matilda in 1142 during the Siege of Oxford, but she escaped from Oxford Castle across the frozen Thames to safety.
The war continued for another 11 years. Matilda's husband, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, conquered Normandy in her name in 1143, but in England, neither side could achieve victory. Rebel barons began to acquire ever greater power in Northern England and in East Anglia, with widespread devastation in the regions of major fighting. In 1148 Matilda returned to Normandy, leaving the campaigning in England to her eldest son, Henry FitzEmpress. In 1152 Stephen attempted to have his eldest son, Eustace, recognised by the Catholic Church as the next king of England, but the Church refused. By the early 1150s, most barons and the Church were war-weary and favoured negotiating a long-term peace.
Henry FitzEmpress invaded England in 1153, but neither faction's forces were keen to fight. After limited campaigning, the two armies faced each other at a siege of Wallingford Castle, but the Church brokered a truce to prevent pitched battle. Stephen and Henry began peace negotiations, during which Eustace died of illness, removing Stephen's immediate heir. The resulting Treaty of Wallingford allowed Stephen to retain the throne but recognised Henry as his successor. Over the following year, Stephen began to reassert his authority over the whole kingdom, but he died of disease in 1154. Henry became the first Angevin king of England, and then began a long period of reconstruction.
The conflict was considered particularly destructive, even by the standards of medieval warfare. One chronicler states that "Christ and his saints were asleep" during the period. Victorian historians coined the term "the Anarchy" because of the widespread chaos, although modern historians have questioned its accuracy.
Origins
''White Ship''
The origins of the Anarchy lay in a succession crisis involving the Kingdom of England and the Duchy of Normandy. In the 11th and 12th centuries, north-west France was controlled by a number of dukes and counts, frequently in conflict with one another for valuable territory. In 1066 one of these men, Duke William II of Normandy, mounted an invasion to conquer England, pushing on into south Wales and northern England in the ensuing years. The division and control of these lands after William's death proved problematic, and his children fought multiple wars over the spoils. William's son Henry I seized power after the death of his elder brother William Rufus and subsequently invaded and captured Normandy, controlled by his eldest brother Robert Curthose, defeating Robert's army at the Battle of Tinchebray. Henry intended for his lands to be inherited by his only legitimate son, 17-year-old William Adelin.In 1120, the political landscape changed dramatically when the White Ship sank en route from Barfleur in Normandy to England; around 300 passengers died, including Adelin. With Adelin dead, the inheritance to the English throne was thrown into doubt. Rules of succession in western Europe at the time were uncertain; in some parts of France, male primogeniture, in which the eldest son would inherit all titles, was becoming more popular. In other parts of Europe, including Normandy and England, the tradition was for lands to be divided up, with the eldest son taking patrimonial lands – usually considered to be the most valuable – and younger sons being given smaller, or more recently acquired, partitions or estates. The problem was further complicated by the sequence of unstable Anglo-Norman successions over the previous 60 years: there had been no peaceful, uncontested successions.
Henry had only one other legitimate child, Matilda, but female rights of inheritance were unclear during this period. Despite Henry taking a second wife, Adeliza of Louvain, it became increasingly unlikely that Henry would have another legitimate son, and instead he looked to Matilda as his intended heir. Matilda had been married to Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor, from which she later claimed the title of empress. Her husband died in 1125, and she was remarried in 1128 to Geoffrey V of Anjou, whose county bordered the Duchy of Normandy. Geoffrey was unpopular with the Anglo-Norman elite: as an Angevin ruler, he was a traditional enemy of the Normans. At the same time, tensions continued to grow as a result of Henry's domestic policies, in particular the high level of revenue he was raising to pay for his various wars. Conflict was curtailed by the power of the king's personality and reputation.
Henry attempted to build up a base of political support for Matilda in both England and Normandy, demanding that his court take oaths first in 1127, and then again in 1128 and 1131, to recognise Matilda as his immediate successor and recognise her descendants as the rightful ruler after her. Stephen was among those who took this oath in 1127. Nonetheless, relations between Henry, Matilda, and Geoffrey became increasingly strained towards the end of the king's life. Matilda and Geoffrey suspected that they lacked genuine support in England and proposed to Henry in 1135 that he should hand over the royal castles in Normandy to Matilda while he was still alive and insist on the Norman nobility swearing immediate allegiance to her, thereby giving the couple a much more powerful position after Henry's death. Henry angrily declined, probably out of a concern that Geoffrey would try to seize power in Normandy somewhat earlier than intended. A fresh rebellion broke out in southern Normandy, and Geoffrey and Matilda intervened militarily on behalf of the rebels. In the middle of this confrontation, Henry unexpectedly fell ill and died near Lyons-la-Foret.
Succession
After Henry's death, the English throne was taken not by his daughter Matilda, but by Stephen of Blois, ultimately resulting in civil war. Stephen was the son of Stephen-Henry of Blois, one of the powerful counts of northern France, and Adela of Normandy, daughter of William the Conqueror. Stephen and Matilda were thus first cousins. His parents allied themselves with Henry, and Stephen, as a younger son without lands of his own, became Henry's client, travelling as part of his court and serving in his campaigns. In return he received lands and in 1125 was married to Matilda of Boulogne, the daughter and only heiress of the Count of Boulogne, who owned the important continental port of Boulogne and vast estates in the north-west and south-east of England. By 1135 Stephen was a well established figure in Anglo-Norman society, while his younger brother Henry had also risen to prominence, becoming the Bishop of Winchester and the second-richest man in England after the king. Henry of Winchester was keen to reverse what he perceived as encroachment by the Norman kings on the rights of the church.When news began to spread of Henry I's death, many of the potential claimants to the throne were not well placed to respond. Geoffrey and Matilda were in Anjou, rather awkwardly supporting the rebels in their campaign against the royal army, which included a number of Matilda's supporters such as Robert of Gloucester. Many of these barons had taken an oath to stay in Normandy until the late king was properly buried, which prevented them from returning to England. Nonetheless, Geoffrey and Matilda took the opportunity to march into southern Normandy and seize several key castles; there they stopped, unable to advance further. Stephen's elder brother Theobald, who had succeeded his father as count, was further south in Blois. Stephen was conveniently placed in Boulogne, and when news reached him of Henry's death he left for England, accompanied by his military household. Robert of Gloucester had garrisoned the ports of Dover and Canterbury, and some accounts suggest that they refused Stephen access when he first arrived. Nonetheless Stephen probably reached his own estate on the edge of London by 8 December, and over the next week he began to seize power in England.
The crowds in London traditionally claimed a right to elect the king of England, and they proclaimed Stephen the new monarch, believing that he would grant the city new rights and privileges in return. Henry of Blois delivered the support of the church to Stephen: Stephen was able to advance to Winchester, where Roger, who was both the Bishop of Salisbury and the Lord Chancellor, instructed the royal treasury to be handed over to Stephen. On 15 December, Henry delivered an agreement under which Stephen would grant extensive freedoms and liberties to the church, in exchange for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Papal Legate supporting his succession to the throne. There was the slight problem of the religious oath that Stephen had taken to support the Empress Matilda, but Henry convincingly argued that the late king had been wrong to insist that his court take the oath. Furthermore, Henry I had only insisted on that oath to protect the stability of the kingdom, and in light of the chaos that might now ensue, Stephen would be justified in ignoring it. Henry was also able to persuade Hugh Bigod, Henry I's royal steward, to swear that the king had changed his mind about the succession on his deathbed, nominating Stephen instead. Stephen's coronation was held a week later at Westminster Abbey on 26 December.
Meanwhile, the Norman nobility gathered at Le Neubourg to discuss declaring Theobald king, probably following the news that Stephen was gathering support in England. The Normans argued that the count, as the more senior grandson of William the Conqueror, had the most valid claim over the kingdom and the duchy, and was certainly preferable to Matilda. Theobald met with the Norman barons and Robert of Gloucester at Lisieux on 21 December, but their discussions were interrupted by the sudden news from England that Stephen's coronation was to occur the next day. Theobald then agreed to the Normans' proposal that he be made king, only to find that his former support immediately ebbed away: the barons were not prepared to support the division of England and Normandy by opposing Stephen. Stephen subsequently financially compensated Theobald, who in return remained in Blois and supported his brother's succession.