Stephen IV King of England Count of CHAMPAGNE, BLOIS HRH

                   Stephen was the younger son of Adela, daughter of William the
Conqueror and Stephen, Count of Blois and Champagne.  The death
of Stephen's father in 1102 left the welfare of Stephen up to
his uncle and King of England, Henry I.  Henry was very good to
Stephen, granting him huge estates in both Englend and Normandy,
making Stephen one of the richest men in the kingdom.  In 1125
Henry realized he would probably die without a male heir.  He
designated his only surviving legitimate child, Matilda, as his
successor.  Stephen led the English in acknowledging Matilda,
but it was an empty lip service, for within the same month Henry
I died, Stephen declared himself king.  What followed was a
bitter civil war and not as much a reign as a fight for
succession.  The years of Stephen were described by one
chronicler as a time when Christ and his saints slept.
Initially, most English and Norman barons preferred Stephen to
Matilda.  In the areas where Matilda did gain power, her reign
was harsh and extreme, and to most the idea of a women on the
throne was unthinkable.  But, more important, the English
objected to Matilda's husband, Geoffrey of Anjou.  After years
of rule by monarchs whose prime interests were not England, they
did not want to see the succession pass to a monarch with
Angevin interests.  However, Stephen lacked ruthlessness and
failed to inspire loyalty.  Instead of definitively crushing
Matilda's coup, Stephen himself was captured in 1141 and put in
prison.  Matilda entered London and started planning her
coronation, but Stephen's long suffering wife, also named
Matilda, took up her husband's banner and drove Matilda from the
city.  The coronation never took place, and Matilda never became
Queen.  A few months later, Robert of Gloucester, the backbone
behind Matilda's campaign, was captured.  An exchange took place
and Stephen was recrowned King of England.
Matilda's husband, Geoffrey, was himself engaged in battle in
Anjou;  and when Robert Gloucester left England, Stephen
captured Matilda.  In a dramatic night escape, Matilda and four
fellow captives, dressed in white cloaks, lowered themselves
down the castle wall and made their way across the snow fields
and frozen rivers to safety.  The war continued in this see-saw
fashion until 1147 when Robert of Gloucester died.  Dishartened,
Matilda left England, never to return.  Matilda's cause was
taken up by her sixteen year old son, Henry, but his youth and
inexperience were no match for the treacherous times.  He
returned to Normandy to bide his time.
News of Stephen's earlier capture left a power vacuum in
Normandy, one soon filled by Geoffrey of Anjou.  With the
arrival of Matilda, few Normans were willing to fight for a King
who had only visited their shores once in his reign.  The long
war was at a stalemate.  Stephen's main goal then became the
succession of his first son, Eustace.  But, in 1153, Matilda's
son Henry returned to England.  He was now lord of Normandy and
Anjou and married to Eleanor of Aquitaine.  The barons of
England began to believe the only end to the hostilities would
be Stephen's recognition of Henry as a successor.  When Eustace
died in August 1153, the negotiations began.  The Treaty of
Westminster declared that Stephen would remain kinng until his
death, Henry would succeed, and Stephen's second son William,
would inferit the baronial lands of Normandy.  Finally, after
eighteen years of war, Stephen would be able to reign in peace.
But the death of his son made the whole struggle pointless to
him, and within the year Stephen died.  His reign was a dark
period in England's history, but it paved the way for one of the
longest and well-known dynasties in English history - the
Angevin-Plantagenets.