Note 1159 — APPENDICES. (continued 3)

"Tribus diebus ante festum sancti Michaelis inopinato casu Oxeneford concremavit, et castellum, in quo, cum domesticis militibus imperatrix erat obsedit" (Will. Malms., 766).

[1160] "Consummatis itaque in obsidione plus duobus mensibus ... appropinquante Nativitatis Dominicæ solempnitate" (Gervase, i. 124).

[1161] "Fuitque comes Robertus in obsidione illâ per tres septimanas" (ibid.).

[1162] Ibid., i. 125; Will. Malms., 768.

[1163] "Non procul a Natali" (Hen. Hunt., 276).

[1164] "Tribus mensibus" (Gesta, p. 89).

[1165] Const. Hist., i. 448; Early Plantagenets, p. 33. Mr. Freeman rightly assigns his arrival to 1142, as does also Mr. Hunt (Norman Britain).

[1166] Will. Malms., p. 766.

[1167] Ibid.; Gervase, i. 125.

[1168] Will. Malms., p. 768. Compare the state of things in 1153 (Hen. Hunt., 288).

[1169] "Deinde [after obtaining possession of Oxford] pauco dilapso tempore, cum instructissimâ militantium manu civitatem Warham ... advenit" (Gesta, p. 91).

[1170] Ibid.

[1171] Gesta; Gervase, i. 125.

[1172] Gesta, p. 91.

[1173] Gervase, i. 126; Gesta, p. 92.

[1174] Gervase, i. 126, note.

[1175] This episode also gave rise to another even stranger confusion, a misreading of "Winton" for "Wilton" having led Milner and others to suppose that Stephen was the founder of the royal castle at Winchester.

[1176] "Puer autem Henricus sub tutelâ comitis Roberti apud Bristoviam degens, per quatuor annos traditus est magisterio cujusdam Mathæi litteris imbuendus et moribus honestis ut talem decebat puerum instituendus" (i. 125).

[1177] i. 140, note.

[1178] "Fuitque in partibus transmarinis annis duobus et mensibus quatuor" (i. 131).

[1179] i. 140, note.

[1180] The only point, and that a small one, that could be challenged, is that Gervase makes him land "mense Maio mediante," whereas we know him to have been at Devizes by the 13th of April (vide infra).

[1181] i. 131, note.

[1182] "Postpositisque litterarum studiis exercitia cœpit militaria frequentare."

[1183] Sarum Charters and Documents (Rolls Series), pp. 15, 16. The witnesses are Roger, Earl of Hereford, Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, John fitz Gilbert (the marshal), Gotso "Dinant," William de Beauchamp, Elyas Giffard, Roger de Berkeley, John de St. John, etc.

[1184] See his note to p. 127. Since the above passage was written, Mr. Howlett's valuable edition of the Gesta for the Rolls Series has been published, in which he advances, with great confidence, the view that we are indebted to its "careful author" for the knowledge of an invasion of England by Henry fitz Empress in 1147, "unrecorded by any other chronicler" (Chronicles: Stephen, Henry II., Richard I., III., xvi.-xx. 130; IV., xxi., xxii.). I have discussed and rejected this theory in the English Historical Review, October, 1890 (v. 747-750).

[1185] Sym. Dun., iii. 323. Henry of Huntingdon (p. 282) states that at Carlisle he appeared "cum occidentalibus Angliæ proceribus," and that Stephen, fearing his contemplated joint attack with David, marched to York, and remained there, on the watch, during all the month of August.

[1186] "Ranulfus comes promisit cum collectis agminibus suis occurrere illis. Qui, nichil eorum quæ condixerat prosecutus, avertit propositum eorum" (Sym. Dun., ii. 323).

[1187] The author of the Gesta, by a pardonable slip, speaks of the earl as Henry's uncle. The then (1149) earl was, of course, his cousin. It is on this slip that Mr. Howlett's theory was based.

[1188] "Henricus autem filius Gaufridi comitis Andegaviæ ducisque Normanniæ, et Matildis imperatricis, jam miles effectus, in Normanniam transfretavit in principio mensis Januarii" (Gervase, i. 142).