Not satisfied with that, these miscreants seized those who were
suspected of having property, and, in the words of the "Chronicle,"
"tortured them with pains unspeakable; for some they hung up by the
feet and smoked with foul smoke; others they crushed in a narrow chest
with sharp stones. About the heads of others they bound knotted cords
until they went into the brain." "Thousands died of hunger, the towns
were burned, and the soil left untilled. By such deeds the land was
ruined, and men said openly that Christ and his saints were asleep."

The sleep, however, was not always to last; for in the next reign,
Justice, in the person of Henry II, effectually vindicated her power.
The strife for the crown continued till the last year of Stephen's
reign. Then the Church came to the rescue, and through its powerful
influence the Treaty of Wallingford (in Berkshire) was made. By that
treaty it was agreed that Matilda's son Henry should succeed Stephen.

142. Summary.

Stephen was the last of the Norman kings. Their reign had covered
nearly a century. The period began in conquest and usurpation; it
ended in gloom. We are not, however, to judge it by Stephen's reign
alone, but as a whole.

This considered, it shows at least one point of advance over the
preceding period,--the triumph of the moral power of the Church over
feudal discord. But Stephen's reign was not all loss in other
respects, for out of the "war, wickedness, and waste" of his
misgovernment came a universal desire for peace through law. Thus
indirectly this weak King's inefficiency prepared the way for future