Already, it would seem, the yielding character of Stephen had been discovered. Already barons began to take advantage of it. Roger Bigot seized the Castle of Norwich, and wrested from the King the earldom of that county and of East Anglia. Robert of Bathenton and Baldwin of Redvers, in Devonshire, began to rebel. They were indeed both conquered, but such movements mark the temper of the times. In 1137 Stephen found himself strong enough to cross to Normandy, where Geoffrey of Anjou was making war upon his provinces. His success there was not great. He purchased from Geoffrey a cessation of hostilities. Meanwhile the Northern frontier of England had become a scene of war. David of Scotland, the nephew of Eadgar Ætheling, and uncle through his sister Matilda of the Empress, had himself some claims to the English throne. But these he declared that he waived, wishing to abide true to the oath he had taken to support his niece. He, however, demanded that his son Henry should be allowed to do homage to Stephen for Cumberland, and that he himself should receive the counties of Northumberland and Huntingdon, which he claimed in right of his wife, the daughter of Earl Waltheof. Though he himself declared that he had no desire for the English throne, there is mentioned by one chronicler[9] a general conspiracy of the native English with their exiled countrymen, of whom the south of Scotland was full, for the purpose of taking advantage of the condition of the country to put to death the Normans, and to place the crown upon David’s head. The plot was discovered by the Bishop of Ely, who was at once Bishop and Governor of that district, which had been formed by the last king into a modified county palatine. He told his discovery, and many of the conspirators were hanged, but many others found a refuge in Scotland. At length, in 1138, David entered England with a large army, and pushed forward as far as Northallerton in Yorkshire. He was there met by the forces of the Northern bishops and barons, gathered under the command of Walter Espec, Thurstan, the aged Archbishop of York, William of Albemarle, Roger of Mowbray, and other barons. They gathered round a tall mast borne upon a carriage, on which, above the standards of the three Northern Saints, St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfred of Ripon, was displayed a silver pyx bearing the consecrated wafer. The motley army of the Scots, some armed as the English, some in the wild dress of the Picts of Galloway, after a well-fought battle, broke against the full-clad Norman soldiers, and were killed by the arrows, which had now become the national weapon of the English; 11,000 are said to have fallen on the field. But, in spite of the victory, Stephen, conscious of his general weakness, accepted an unfavourable peace, by which Northumberland was given to Prince Henry. [Sidenote: Growth of anarchy in England.] [Sidenote: Creation of earldoms and castles.]