a succession so little respected by himself, and by the violation of
which he had procured his crown. Having taken these measures in favor of
his daughter, he died in Normandy, but in a good old age, and in the
thirty-sixth year of a prosperous reign.




CHAPTER V.

REIGN OF STEPHEN.


[Sidenote: A.D. 1135.]

Although the authority of the crown had been exercised with very little
restraint during the three preceding reigns, the succession to it, or
even the principles of the succession, were but ill ascertained: so that
a doubt might justly have arisen, whether the crown was not in a great
measure elective. This uncertainty exposed the nation, at the death of
every king, to all the calamities of a civil war; but it was a
circumstance favorable to the designs of Stephen, Earl of Boulogne, who
was son of Stephen, Earl of Blois, by a daughter of the Conqueror. The
late king had raised him to great employments, and enriched him by the
grant of several lordships. His brother had been made Bishop of
Winchester; and by adding to it the place of his chief justiciary, the
king gave him an opportunity of becoming one of the richest subjects in
Europe, and of extending an unlimited influence over the clergy and the
people. Henry trusted, by the promotion of two persons so near him in
blood, and so bound by benefits, that he had formed an impenetrable