re than three hundred years had
passed since the Lady of Mercia, the sister of Alfred, had asserted the
courage of her race. Norman and Saxon wanted a king; for though ladies
defended castles, and showed that firmness and bravery were not the
exclusive possession of one sex, no thane or baron had yet knelt before
a queen, and sworn to be her "liege man of life and limb."

The unanimity which appeared to hail the accession of Stephen was soon
interrupted. David, King of Scotland, had advanced to Carlisle and
Newcastle, to assert the claim of Matilda which he had sworn to uphold.
But Stephen came against him with a great army, and for a time there was
peace. Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Henry I, had
done homage to Stephen; but his allegiance was very doubtful; and the
general belief that he would renounce his fealty engendered secret
hostility or open resistance among other powerful barons. Robert of
Gloucester very soon defied the King's power. Within two years of his
accession the throne of Stephen was evidently becoming an insecure seat.
To counteract the power of the great nobles, he made a lavish
distribution of crown lands to a large number of tenants-in-chief. Some
of them were called earls; but they had no official charge, as the
greater barons had, but were mere titular lords, made by the royal
bounty. All those who held direct from the Crown were called barons; and
these new barons, who were scattered over the country, had permission
from the King to build castles. Such permission was extended to many
other lay barons. The accustomed manor-house of the land proprietor, in
which he dwelt amid the churls and serfs of his demesne, was now
replaced by a stone tower, surrounded by a moat and a wall. The wooden
one-storied homestead, with its thatched roof, shaded by the "toft" of
ash and elm and maple, was pulled down, and a square fortress with
loopholes and battlement stood in solitary nakedness upon some bleak
hill, ugly and defiant. There with a band of armed men--sometimes with a
wife and children, and not unfrequently with an unhappy victim of his
licentiousness--the baron lived in gloom and gluttony, till the love of
excitement, the approach of want, or the call to battle drove him forth.
His passion for hunting was not always free to be exercised. Venison was
not everywhere to be obtained without danger even to the powerful and
lawless. But within a ride of a few miles there was generall