Editing Eustace IV, Count of Boulogne (section)

==The Anarchy==
[[File:Eust4Boul01.jpg|thumb|Coins of Eustace IV]]
In 1151, Eustace joined his brother-in-law, Louis VII, in a raid upon Normandy, also contested between Empress Matilda and King Stephen. This was short-lived, however, when Louis accepted the homage of [[Henry Plantagenet]], son of Empress Matilda, for Normandy. The following year, Eustace was in France as part of a wider coalition of Henry's enemies, but Henry's control of the duchy remained unshaken.<ref name="DNB" />

In the later stages of the Anarchy, Stephen was concerned with cementing Eustace as his heir without question. At a council held in London on 6 April 1152, Stephen induced a small number of [[baron]]s to pay homage to Eustace as their future king; but the [[archbishop of Canterbury]], [[Theobald of Bec]], and the other bishops declined to perform the [[coronation]] ceremony on the grounds that the [[Roman curia]] had declined Stephen's request<ref name="EB1911"/> to use the French custom and crown Eustace in his own lifetime, opting rather they stick to English custom, thus denying Eustace his coronation. This infuriated Stephen and Eustace to such a degree that, as recorded by [[Henry of Huntingdon]], they had the prelates confined and attempted by means of 'strong coercion' to force their acquiescence. Theobald himself was said to have escaped across the Thames and eventually into temporary exile in Flanders. While Edmund King casts doubts on this particular account he does not doubt the King's rage.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Edmund |first1=King |title=King Stephen |date=2010 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven and London |pages=370–371}}</ref> 

This clearly had not been Stephen's first attempt at crowning Eustace as [[John of Salisbury]] reports that [[Celestine II]] had written to Archbishop Theobald as early as 1143 forbidding him 'to allow any change to be made in the English kingdom in the matter of the crown', a policy that was maintained by Celestine's immediate successors.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Chibnall |editor1-first=Marjorie |title=The Historia Pontificalis of John of Salisbury |date=1986 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |pages=85–86}}</ref> Eustace's mother, [[Matilda I, Countess of Boulogne|Matilda of Boulogne]], died on 3 May 1152, making him the [[count of Boulogne]].{{cn|date=January 2023}}

After the second siege of Wallingford in July 1153, after Henry had invaded England and attracted widespread support, Stephen was persuaded to agree to terms. The agreement, known as the [[Treaty of Winchester]], established Henry as Stephen's heir. Eustace withdrew from the court as a result of this, "greatly vexed and angry, because the war, in his opinion, had not reached a proper conclusion".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Gesta Stephani|last1=Potter|first1=K. R.|last2=Davies|first2=R. H. C.|publisher=Clarendon press|year=1976|isbn=978-0198222347|pages=238–239}}</ref>