Great Seal ofKing Stephen of England (reigned 1135 – 54).Stephen ofBoulogne was born during the 1090
Great Seal ofKing Stephen of England (reigned 1135 – 54).Stephen ofBoulogne was born during the 1090s, the son of Count Stephen of Bloisand Adela of Normandy (the latter being a daughter of William theConqueror). This made him a cousin of Empress Matilda, the sole heirof King Henry I, whom Stephen had sworn to support as queen. Butupon Henry’s death, he sailed to England and claimed the crown forhimself. This led to civil war.Stephen was byall accounts a good man, but a dreadful king. He was weak-willed,unable to carry out justice or retribution, and his barons saw thatthey could get away with anything. According to the Anglo-SaxonChronicle:They cruellyoppressed the wretched men of the land with castle-works; and whenthe castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men. Then took they those whom they supposed to have any goods, both bynight and by day, labouring men and women, and threw them into prisonfor their gold and silver, and inflicted on them unutterabletortures; for never were any martyrs so tortured as they were. Somethey hanged up by the feet, and smoked them with foul smoke; and someby the thumbs, or by the head, and hung coats of mail on their feet. They tied knotted strings about their heads, and twisted them tillthe pain went to their brains. They put them into dungeons, whereinwere adders, and snakes, and toads; and so destroyed them. Some theyplaced in a crucet-house; that is, in a chest that was short andnarrow, and not deep; wherein they put sharp stones, and so thrustthe man therein, that they broke all the limbs.His only sonEustace died in 1153. The Treaty of Wallingford was signed thatyear, ending the civil war, and ensuring that Stephen would besucceeded by Matilda’s son Henry. -- source link
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