ggon,
and carried along with the army as a military ensign. The King of
Scots was defeated, and he himself, as well as his son Henry, narrowly
escaped falling into the hands of the English. This success overawed
the malecontents in England, and might have given some stability to
Stephen's throne, had he not been so elated with prosperity as to
engage in a controversy with the clergy, who were at that time an
overmatch for any monarch.
[FN [q] W. Malm. p. 180. M. Paris, p. 51. [r] W. Malm. p. 180.]

Though the great power of the church, in ancient times, weakened the
authority of the crown, and interrupted the course of the laws, it may
be doubted, whether, in ages of such violence and outrage, it was not
rather advantageous that some limits were set to the power of the
sword, both in the hands of the prince and nobles, and that men were
taught to pay regard to some principles and privileges. The chief
misfortune was, that the prelates on some occasions acted entirely as
barons, employed military power against their sovereign or their
neighbours, and thereby often increased those disorders which it was
their duty to repress. The Bishop of Salisbury, in imitation of the
nobility, had built two strong castles, one at Sherborne, another at
Devizes, and had laid the foundations of a third at Malmesbury: his
nephew, Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, had erected a fortress at
Newark: and Stephen, who was now sensible from experience of the
mischiefs attending these multiplied citadels, resolved to begin with
destroying those of the clergy, who, by their function, seemed less
entitled than the barons to such military securities [s]. [MN 1139.]
Making pretence of a fray which had arisen in court between the
retinue of the Bishop of Salisbury and that of the Earl of Britany, he
seized both that prelate and the Bishop of Lincoln, threw them into
prison, and obliged them by menaces to deliver up those places of
strength which they had lately erected [t].
[FN [s] Gul. Neubr. p. 362. [t] Chron. Sax. p. 238. W. Malmes. p.
181.]

Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the king's brother, being armed with a
legatine commission, now conceived himself to be an ecclesiastical
sovereign, no less powerful than the civil; and, forgetting the ties
of blood which connected him with the king, he resolved to vindicate
the clerical privileges, which, he pretended, were here openly
violated. [MN 30th Aug.] He assembled a synod at Westminster, and