there complained of the impiety of Stephen's measures, who had
employed violence against the dignitaries of the church, and had not
awaited the sentence of a spiritual court, by which alone, he
affirmed, they could lawfully be tried and condemned, if their conduct
had anywise merited censure or punishment. [u]. The synod ventured to
send a summons to the king charging him to appear before them, and to
justify his measures [w]; and Stephen, instead of resenting this
indignity, sent Aubrey de Vere to plead his cause before that
assembly. De Vere accused the two prelates of treason and sedition;
but the synod refused to try the cause, or examine their conduct, till
those castles, of which they had been dispossessed, were previously
restored to them [x]. The Bishop of Salisbury declared that he would
appeal to the pope; and had not Stephen and his partisans employed
menaces, and even shown a disposition of executing violence by the
hands of the soldiery, affairs had instantly come to extremity between
the crown and the mitre [y].
[FN [u] W. Malm. p. 182. [w] Ibid. M Paris, p. 53. [x] W. Malm. p.
183. [y] Ibid.]

While this quarrel, joined to so many other grievances, increased the
discontents among the people, the empress, invited by the opportunity,
and secretly encouraged by the legate himself, landed in England with
Robert Earl of Gloucester, and a retinue of a hundred and forty
knights. She fixed her residence at Arundel Castle, whose gates were
opened to her by Adelais, the queen-dowager, now married to William de
Albini, Earl of Sussex; and she excited, by messengers, her partisans
to take arms in every county of England. [MN 1139. 22d Sept.
Insurrection in favour of Matilda.] Adelais, who had expected that
her daughter-in-law would have invaded the kingdom with a much greater
force, became apprehensive of danger; and Matilda, to ease her of her
fears, removed, first to Bristol, which belonged to her brother
Robert, thence to Gloucester, where she remained under the protection
of Milo, a gallant nobleman in those parts, who had embraced her
cause. Soon after Geoffrey Talbot, William Mohun, Ralph Lovel,
William Fitz-John, William Fitz-Alan, Paganell, and many other barons,
declared for her; and her party, which was generally favoured in the
kingdom, seemed every day to gain ground upon that of her antagonist.

Were we to relate all the military events transmitted to us by
contemporary and authentic histor