well as
to attach men to his cause, where no principle bound them, vast and
continual largesses became necessary: all his legal revenue had been
dissipated; and he was therefore obliged to have recourse to such
methods of raising money as were evidently illegal. These causes every
day gave some accession of strength to the party against him; the
friends of Matilda were encouraged to appear in arms; a civil war
ensued, long and bloody, prosecuted as chance or a blind rage directed,
by mutual acts of cruelty and treachery, by frequent surprisals and
assaults of castles, and by a number of battles and skirmishes fought to
no determinate end, and in which nothing of the military art appeared,
but the destruction which it caused. Various, on this occasion, were the
reverses of fortune, while Stephen, though embarrassed by the weakness
of his title, by the scantiness of his finances, and all the disorders
which arose from both, supported his tottering throne with wonderful
activity and courage; but being at length defeated and made prisoner
under the walls of Lincoln, the clergy openly declare for Matilda. The
city of London, though unwillingly, follows the example of the clergy.
The defection from Stephen was growing universal.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1153.]

But Matilda, puffed up with a greatness which as yet had no solid
foundation and stood merely in personal favor, shook it in the minds of
all men by assuming, together with the insolence of conquest, the
haughty rigor of an established dominion. Her title appeared but too
good in the resemblance she bore to the pride of the former kings. This
made the first ill success in her affairs fatal. Her great support, the
Earl of Gloucester, was in his turn made prisoner. In exchange for his
liberty that of Stephen was procured, who renewed the war with his usual
vigor. As he apprehended an attempt from Scotland in favor of Matilda,
descended from the blood royal of that nation, to balance this weight,
he persuaded the King of France to declare in his favor, alarmed as he
was by the progress of Henry, the son of Matilda, and Geoffrey, Count of
Anjou. This prince, no more than sixteen years of age, after receiving
knighthood from David, King of Scotland, began to display a courage and
capacity destined to the greatest things. Of a complexion which strongly
inclined to pleasure, he listened to nothing but ambition; at an age
which is usually given up to passion, he submitted delicacy to