her fixed or regarded,
seemed necessarily to require, she was content that the legate should
assemble an ecclesiastical synod, and that her title to the throne
should there be acknowledged. The legate, addressing himself to the
assembly, told them, that in the absence of the empress, Stephen, his
brother, had been permitted to reign, and, previously to his ascending
the throne, had induced them by many fair promises, of honouring and
exalting the church, of maintaining the laws, and of reforming all
abuses: that it grieved him to observe how much that prince had, in
every particular, been wanting to his engagements; public peace was
interrupted, crimes were daily committed with impunity, bishops were
thrown into prison and forced to surrender their possessions, abbeys
were put to sale, churches were pillaged, and the most enormous
disorders prevailed in the administration: that he himself, in order
to procure a redress of these grievances, had formerly summoned the
king before a council of bishops; but, instead of inducing him to
amend his conduct, had rather offended him by that expedient: that,
how much soever misguided, that prince was still his brother, and the
object of his aflections; but his interests, however, must be regarded
as subordinate to those of their heavenly Father, who had now rejected
him, and thrown him into the hands of his enemies: that it principally
belonged to the clergy to elect and ordain kings; he had summoned them
together for that purpose and having invoked the divine assistance; he
now pronounced Matilda, the only descendant of Henry, the late
sovereign, Queen of England. The whole assembly by their acclamations
or silence, gave, or seemed to give, their assent to this declaration
[d].
[FN [d] W. Malmes. p. 188. This author, a judicious man, was present,
and says, that he was very attentive to what passed. This speech,
therefore, may he regarded as entirely genuine.]

The only laymen summoned to this council, which decided the fate of
the crown, were the Londoners; and even these were required not to
give their opinion but to submit to the decrees of the synod. The
deputies of London, however, were not so passive: they insisted that
their king should be delivered from prison; but were told by the
legate, that it became not the Londoners, who were regarded as
noblemen in England, to take part with those barons, who had basely
forsaken their lord in battle, and who had treated the hol