eby often increased those disorders which it was
their duty to repress. The bishop of Salisbury, in imitation of the
nobility, had built two strong castles, one at Sherborne, another at
the Devizes, and had laid the foundations of a third at Malmsbury: his
nephew; Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, had erected a fortress at Newark;
and Stephen, who was now sensible from experience of the mischiefs
attending these multiplied; citadels, resolved to begin with destroying
those of the clergy, who by their function seemed less entitled than the
barons to such military securities.[*] Making pretence of a fray, which
had arisen in court between the retinue of the bishop of Salisbury and
that of the earl of Brittany, he seized both that prelate and the bishop
of Lincoln, threw them into prison, and obliged them by menaces to
deliver up those places of strength which they had lately erected.[**]

Henry, bishop of Winchester, the king's brother, being armed with a
legantine commission, now conceived himself to be an ecclesiastical
sovereign no less powerful than the civil; and forgetting the ties of
blood which connected him with the king, he resolved to vindicate the
clerical privileges which, he pretended, were here openly violated. He
assembled a synod at Westminster, and there complained of the impiety
of Stephen's measures, who had employed violence against the dignitaries
of the church, and had not awaited the sentence of a spiritual court, by
which alone, he affirmed, they could lawfully be tried and condemned, if
their conduct had anywise merited censure or punishment.[***] The synod,
ventured to send a summons to the king, charging him to appear before
them, and to justify his measures;[****] and Stephen, instead of
resenting this indignity, sent Aubrey de Vere to plead his cause
before that assembly. De Vere accused; the two prelates of treason and
sedition; but the synod refused, to try the cause, or examine their
conduct, till those castles of which they had been dispossessed, were
previously restored to them.[*****] The bishop of Salisbury declared,
that he would appeal to the pope; and had not Stephen and his partisans
employed menaces, and even shown a disposition of executing violence
by the hands of the soldiery, affairs had instantly come to extremity
between the crown and the mitre.[******]

[* Gul. Neub. p. 362.]

[** Chron. Sax. p. 238. W. Malms, p. 181]

[*** W. Malms p. 182.]

[**** W. M