Editing Stephen, King of England (section)

=== Initial phase of the war (1139–1140) ===
[[File:Empress Matilda.png|upright=0.59|thumb|right|Contemporary depiction of the [[Empress Matilda]]]]

The Angevin invasion finally arrived in 1139. [[Baldwin de Redvers]] crossed over from Normandy to [[Wareham, Dorset|Wareham]] in August in an initial attempt to capture a port to receive the Empress Matilda's invading army, but Stephen's forces forced him to retreat into the south-west.<ref name="DavisP39">Davis, p. 39.</ref> The following month, however, Henry I's widow, Adeliza, invited the Empress to land at [[Arundel]] instead, and on 30 September the Empress and Robert of Gloucester arrived in England with 140 knights.<ref name=DavisP39/>{{#tag:ref|Edmund King disagrees that the Empress received an invitation to [[Arundel]], arguing instead that she arrived unexpectedly.<ref>King (2010), p. 116.</ref>|group="nb"}} The Empress stayed at [[Arundel Castle]], whilst Robert marched north-west to [[Wallingford Castle|Wallingford]] and Bristol, hoping to raise support for the rebellion and to link up with [[Miles of Gloucester]], a capable military leader who took the opportunity to renounce his fealty to the King.<ref>Davis, p. 40.</ref> Stephen promptly moved south, besieging Arundel and trapping Matilda inside the castle.<ref name="BradburyP78">Bradbury, p. 78.</ref>

Stephen then agreed to a truce proposed by his brother Henry; the full details of the truce are not known, but the results were that Stephen first released Matilda from the siege and then allowed her and her household of knights to be escorted to the south-west, where they were reunited with Robert.<ref name=BradburyP78/> The reasoning behind Stephen's decision to release his rival remains unclear. Contemporary chroniclers suggested that Henry argued that it would be in Stephen's own best interests to release the Empress and concentrate instead on attacking Robert, and Stephen may have seen Robert, not the Empress, as his main opponent at this point in the conflict.<ref name=BradburyP78/> He also faced a military dilemma at Arundel—the castle was considered almost impregnable, and he may have been worried that he was tying down his army in the south whilst Robert roamed freely in the west.<ref>Bradbury, p. 79.</ref> Another theory is that Stephen released Matilda out of a sense of [[chivalry]]; he was certainly known for having a generous, courteous personality and women were not normally expected to be targeted in Anglo-Norman warfare.<ref>Gillingham (1994), p. 31.</ref>{{#tag:ref|"[[Chivalry]]" was firmly established as a principle in Anglo-Norman warfare by the time of Stephen; it was not considered appropriate or normal to execute elite prisoners and, as historian John Gillingham observes, neither Stephen nor the Empress Matilda did so except where the opponent had already breached the norms of military conduct.<ref>Gillingham (1994), pp. 49–50.</ref>|group="nb"}}

Having released the Empress, Stephen focused on pacifying the south-west of England.<ref>Bradbury, p. 82; Davis, p. 47.</ref> Although there had been few new defections to the Empress, his enemies now controlled a compact block of territory stretching out from Gloucester and Bristol south-west into Devon and Cornwall, west into the Welsh Marches and east as far as Oxford and Wallingford, threatening London.<ref>Bradbury, p. 81.</ref> Stephen started by attacking [[Wallingford Castle]], held by the Empress's childhood friend [[Brien FitzCount]], only to find it too well defended.<ref>Bradbury, p. 83.</ref> He then left behind some forces to blockade the castle and continued west into Wiltshire to attack [[Trowbridge Castle]], taking the castles of [[List of castles in Gloucestershire|South Cerney]] and [[Malmesbury]] en route.<ref>Bradbury, pp. 82–83.</ref> Meanwhile, Miles of Gloucester marched east, attacking Stephen's rearguard forces at Wallingford and threatening an advance on London.<ref>Davis, p. 42.</ref> Stephen was forced to give up his western campaign, returning east to stabilise the situation and protect his capital.<ref name="DavisP43">Davis, p. 43.</ref>

[[File:Political map of England 1140.PNG|thumb|left|Political map of the Angevin and Welsh revolt in 1140; red indicates those areas under Stephen's control; blue – Angevin; grey – indigenous Welsh]]

At the start of 1140, Nigel, Bishop of Ely, whose castles Stephen had confiscated the previous year, rebelled against Stephen as well.<ref name=DavisP43/> Nigel hoped to seize [[East Anglia]] and established his base of operations in the [[Isle of Ely]], then surrounded by protective [[The Fens|fenland]].<ref name=DavisP43/> Stephen responded quickly, taking an army into the fens and using boats lashed together to form a causeway that allowed him to make a surprise attack on the isle.<ref name="BradburyP88">Bradbury, p. 88.</ref> Nigel escaped to Gloucester, but his men and castle were captured, and order was temporarily restored in the east.<ref name=BradburyP88/> Robert's men retook some of the territory that Stephen had taken in his 1139 campaign.<ref>Bradbury, p. 90.</ref> In an effort to negotiate a truce, Henry of Blois held a peace conference at [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]], to which Stephen sent his wife. The conference collapsed over the insistence by Henry and the clergy that they should set the terms of any peace deal, which Stephen found unacceptable.<ref>Bradbury, p. 91.</ref>

[[Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester|Ranulf of Chester]] remained upset over Stephen's gift of the north of England to Prince Henry.<ref name="DavisP50">Davis, p. 50.</ref> Ranulf devised a plan for dealing with the problem by ambushing Henry whilst the prince was travelling back from Stephen's court to Scotland after Christmas.<ref name=DavisP50/> Stephen responded to rumours of this plan by escorting Henry himself north, but this gesture proved the final straw for Ranulf.<ref name=DavisP50/> Ranulf had previously claimed that he had the rights to [[Lincoln Castle]], held by Stephen, and under the guise of a social visit, Ranulf seized the fortification in a surprise attack.<ref>Davis, pp. 50–51.</ref> Stephen marched north to Lincoln and agreed to a truce with Ranulf, probably to keep him from joining the Empress's faction, under which Ranulf would be allowed to keep the castle.<ref name="DavisP51">Davis, p. 51.</ref> Stephen returned to London but received news that Ranulf, his brother and their family were relaxing in Lincoln Castle with a minimal guard force, a ripe target for a surprise attack of his own.<ref name=DavisP51/> Abandoning the deal he had just made, Stephen gathered his army again and sped north, but not quite fast enough—Ranulf escaped Lincoln and declared his support for the Empress. Stephen was forced to place the castle under siege.<ref name=DavisP51/>