to the nature of winter in these countries, a terrible peal of thunder, with most dreadful lightning, so that the world seemed well-nigh about to be dissolved. He was received, however, as king, by the people of London and of Winchester, and gained over also Roger bishop of Salisbury, and William Pont de L'Arche, the keepers of the royal treasures. Yet, not to conceal the truth from posterity, all his attempts would have been vain, had not his brother, Henry bishop of Winchester, who is now legate of the papal see in England, granted him his entire support: allured indeed by the fullest expectation that Stephen would follow the example of his grandfather William in the management of the kingdom, and more especially in the strictness of ecclesiastical discipline. In consequence, when Stephen was bound by the rigorous oath which William archbishop of Canterbury required from him, concerning restoring and preserving the liberty of the church, the bishop of Winchester became his pledge and surety. The written tenor of this oath, I shall be careful hereafter to insert in its proper place.
Stephen, therefore, was crowned king of England on Sunday the eleventh[1] before the kalends of January, the twenty-second day after the decease of his uncle, anno Dom. 1135, in the presence of three bishops, that is, the archbishop, and those of Winchester and Salisbury; but there were no abbats, and scarcely any of the nobility. He was a man of activity, but imprudent: strenuous in war; of great mind in attempting works of difficulty; mild and compassionate to his enemies, and affable to all. Kind, as far as promise went; but sure to disappoint in its truth and execution. Whence he soon afterwards neglected the advice of his brother, befriended by whose assistance, as I have said, he had supplanted his adversaries and obtained the kingdom.
In the year of our Lord 1135, on the prevalence of gentler gales, the body of king Henry was, immediately after Christmas, put on ship-board, and brought to England; and, in the presence of his successor in the kingdom, was buried at the monastery of Reading, which he had liberally endowed, and filled with an order of monks of singular piety. Shortly after, a little before Lent, king Stephen went into Northum-
- ↑ "The majority of contemporary writers state that Stephen's coronation took place on the 26th December."—Hardy.
