nd the whole army fled in confusion
to Carlisle.

[Sidenote: Seizure of the Bishops]

Weak indeed as Stephen was, the administrative organization of Henry
still did its work. Roger remained justiciar, his son was chancellor, his
nephew Nigel, the Bishop of Ely, was treasurer. Finance and justice were
thus concentrated in the hands of a single family which preserved amidst
the deepening misrule something of the old order and rule, and which
stood at the head of the "new men," whom Henry had raised into importance
and made the instruments of his will. These new men were still weak by
the side of the older nobles; and conscious of the jealousy and ill-will
with which they were regarded they followed in self-defence the example
which the barons were setting in building and fortifying castles on their
domains. Roger and his house, the objects from their official position of
a deeper grudge than any, were carried away by the panic. The justiciar
and his son fortified their castles, and it was only with a strong force
at their back that the prelates appeared at court. Their attitude was one
to rouse Stephen's jealousy, and the news of Matilda's purpose of
invasion lent strength to the doubts which the nobles cast on their
fidelity. All the weak violence of the king's temper suddenly broke out.
He seized Roger the Chancellor and the Bishop of Lincoln when they
appeared at Oxford in June 1139, and forced them to surrender their
strongholds. Shame broke the justiciar's heart; he died at the close of
the year, and his nephew Nigel of Ely was driven from the realm. But the
fall of this house shattered the whole system of government. The King's
Court and the Exchequer ceased to work at a moment when the landing of
Earl Robert and the Empress Matilda set Stephen face to face with a
danger greater than he had yet encountered, while the clergy, alienated
by the arrest of the Bishops and the disregard of their protests, stood
angrily aloof.

[Sidenote: Civil War]

The three bases of Henry's system of government, the subjection of the
baronage to the law, the good-will of the Church, and the organization of
justice and finance, were now utterly ruined; and for the fourteen years
which passed from this hour to the Treaty of Wallingford England was
given up to the miseries of civil war. The country was divided between
the adherents of the two rivals, the West supporting Matilda, London and
the East Stephen. A defeat at Lincoln in 1141