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Stephen, often referred to as Stephen of Blois, was King of England from 22 December 1135 to his death in 1154. He was Count of Boulogne jure uxoris from 1125 until 1147 and Duke of Normandy from 1135 until 1144. His reign was marked by the Anarchy, a civil war with his cousin and rival, the Empress Matilda, whose son, Henry II, succeeded Stephen as the first of the Angevin kings of England.
Empress Matilda, also known as the Empress Maude, was one of the claimants to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as a child when she married the future Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. She travelled with her husband to Italy in 1116, was controversially crowned in St Peter's Basilica, and acted as the imperial regent in Italy. Matilda and Henry V had no children, and when he died in 1125, the imperial crown was claimed by his rival Lothair of Supplinburg.
The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Normandy between 1138 and 1153, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. The conflict was a war of succession precipitated by the accidental death of William Adelin who drowned in the sinking of the White Ship in 1120. Henry sought to be succeeded by his daughter, known as Empress Matilda, but was only partially successful in convincing the nobility to support her. On Henry's death in 1135, his nephew Stephen of Blois seized the throne, with the help of Stephen's brother Henry of Blois, who was the bishop of Winchester. Stephen's early reign saw fierce fighting with disloyal English barons, rebellious Welsh leaders, and Scottish invaders. Following a major rebellion in the south-west of England, Matilda invaded in 1139 with the help of her half-brother Robert of Gloucester.
Robert FitzRoy, 1st Earl of Gloucester was an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England. He was the half-brother of the Empress Matilda, and her chief military supporter during the civil war known as The Anarchy, in which she vied with Stephen of Blois for the throne of England.
Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk (1095–1177) was the second son of Roger Bigod, sheriff of Norfolk and royal advisor, and Adeliza, daughter of Robert de Todeni.
Matilda was Countess of Boulogne in her own right from 1125 and Queen of England from the accession of her husband, Stephen, in 1136 until her death in 1152. She supported Stephen in his struggle for the English throne against their mutual cousin Empress Matilda. She played an unusually active role for a woman of the period when her husband was captured, and proved herself an effective general who managed to force the Empress to release Stephen. Under the agreement that settled the civil war, the Queen's children did not inherit the English throne; however, her three surviving children ruled Boulogne in turn as Eustace IV, William I, and Marie I.
Miles FitzWalter of Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford was a great magnate based in the west of England. He was hereditary Constable of England and Sheriff of Gloucestershire.
Robert D'Oyly was a Norman nobleman who accompanied William the Conqueror on the Norman conquest, his invasion of England. He died in 1091.
de Lacy is the surname of an old Norman family which originated from Lassy, Calvados. The family took part in the Norman Conquest of England and the later Norman invasion of Ireland. The name is first recorded for Hugh de Lacy (1020–1085). His sons, Walter and Ilbert, left Normandy and travelled to England with William the Conqueror. The awards of land by the Conqueror to the de Lacy sons led to two distinct branches of the family: the northern branch, centred on Blackburnshire and west Yorkshire was held by Ilbert's descendants; the southern branch of Marcher Lords, centred on Herefordshire and Shropshire, was held by Walter's descendants.
Nigel D'Oyly was an 11th- and 12th-century nobleman of England and, in 1120, the Lord of Oxford Castle, and briefly the Lord of Wallingford Castle.
Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford was an English noble involved in the succession conflict between King Stephen and Empress Matilda in the mid-twelfth century.
Robert I de Brus, 1st Lord of Annandale was an early-12th-century Anglo-Norman lord and the first of the Bruce dynasty to hold lands in Scotland. A monastic patron, he is remembered as the founder of Gisborough Priory in Yorkshire, England, in present-day Redcar and Cleveland, in 1119.
John FitzGilbert, the Marshal of the Horses, was a minor nobleman of supposed Anglo-Norman origin, during the reign of King Stephen, and fought in the 12th-century civil war on the side of Empress Matilda.
Events from the 1140s in England.
William de Chesney was an Anglo-Norman magnate during the reign of King Stephen of England and King Henry II of England. Chesney was part of a large family; one of his brothers became Bishop of Lincoln and another Abbot of Evesham Abbey. Stephen may have named him Sheriff of Oxfordshire. Besides his administrative offices, Chesney controlled a number of royal castles, and served Stephen during some of the king's English military campaigns. Chesney's heir was his niece, Matilda, who married Henry fitzGerold.
Edith Forne, was an English noblewoman who was the concubine of King Henry I of England and the foundress of Osney Abbey near Oxford.
Sibyl de Neufmarché, Countess of Hereford, suo jure Lady of Brecknock, was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman, heiress to one of the most substantial fiefs in the Welsh Marches. The great-granddaughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Wales, Sibyl was also connected to the nobility of England and Normandy. Sibyl inherited the titles and lands of her father, Bernard de Neufmarché, Lord of Brecon, after her mother, Nest ferch Osbern, had declared her brother Mahel to have been illegitimate. Most of these estates passed to Sibyl's husband, Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, as her dowry. Their marriage had been arranged personally by King Henry I of England in the spring of 1121. Sibyl, with her extensive lands, was central to the King's plans of consolidating Anglo-Norman power in south-east Wales by the merging of her estates with those of Miles, his loyal subject on whom he relied to implement Crown policy.
Brian fitz Count was descended from the Breton ducal house, and became an Anglo-Norman noble, holding the lordships of Wallingford and Abergavenny. He was a loyal adherent of Henry I, King of England, and a staunch supporter of his daughter, the Empress Matilda, during the Anarchy (1135–1153).
Roger de Valognes was an Anglo-Norman nobleman who held lands around Benington in Hertfordshire, a tenure that made Roger the feudal baron of Benington. In 1136 he was a supporter of King Stephen of England's seizure of the English throne from Matilda, the daughter of the previous king, Henry I. Roger built Benington Castle and gave lands to Binham Priory in the early part of Stephen's reign, but was dead by 1142. His barony passed to his first two sons in succession and his third son became a royal official in Scotland.
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