Two short extracts from chroniclers give a more complete view of the misery which attended this lawless period than any fresh description could do. William of Newbury says: “Wounded and drained of blood by civil misery, England lay plague-stricken. It is written of an ancient people, ‘In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes;’ but in England, under King Stephen, the case was worse. For, because at that time the King was powerless, and the law languished because the King was powerless, though some indeed did what seemed right in their own eyes, many because all fear of King and law was taken off them, did all the more greedily what by their natural instincts they knew to be wrong.... Neither King nor Empress was able to act in a masterful way, or show vigorous discipline. But each kept their own followers in good temper by refusing them nothing lest they should desert them.... And because they were worn out by daily strife, and acted less vigorously, local disturbances of hostile lords grew the more vehement. Castles too rose in great numbers in the several districts, and there were in England, so to speak, as many kings, or rather tyrants, as lords of castles. Individuals took the right of coining their private money, and of private jurisdiction.” We have here the effects of the loosened hold of the crown,--castles, private war, private coinage, private justice. The Saxon Chronicle supplies us with a picture of the effect of these feudal usurpations upon the lower ranks of the people:--