A more complete travesty of history it would not be possible to conceive. "The immemorial liberties" were no older than the charter wrung from Henry a few years before, and so far from the city being "put 'in demesne'" (whatever may be meant by this expression),[484] "for the first and last time in its history," the Empress, had she done what is here charged to her, would have merely placed Geoffrey in the shoes of his grandfather and namesake.[485] But the strange thing is that she did nothing of the kind, and that the facts, in Mr. Loftie's narrative, are turned topsy-turvey. It was not by Matilda in June, but by Stephen in December, that London and Middlesex were placed in Geoffrey's power. The Empress did not do that which she is stated to have done; and Stephen did do what he is said to have undone. The result of his return to power, so far as London was concerned, was that the Tower was _not_ surrendered, but, on the contrary, confirmed to Geoffrey, and that so far from "the dominion" (an unintelligible expression) being "removed," or London regaining its liberty, it was now deprived of its liberty by being placed, as even the Empress had refrained from placing it, beneath the yoke of Geoffrey. Thus it was certainly not due to his conduct on this occasion "that the citizens of London held loyally to Stephen during the short remainder of his life." Nor, it may be added, is it possible to understand what is meant by that "short remainder," for these events happened early in Stephen's reign, not a third of which had elapsed at the time. But the important point is this. Here was Stephen anxious on the one hand to reward the Londoners for their allegiance, and, on the other, to punish Geoffrey for his repeated offences against himself, and yet compelled by the force of circumstances actually to reward Geoffrey at the cost of the Londoners themselves. We need no more striking illustration of the commanding position and overwhelming power which the ambitious earl had now obtained by taking advantage of the rival claims, and skilfully holding the balance between the two parties, as was done by a later king-maker in the strife of Lancaster and York. Passing over for the present the remarkable expressions which illustrate my theory of the differentiation of the offices of justice and sheriff, I would invite attention to Geoffrey's claim to be placed in the shoes of his grandfather, as an instance of the tendency, in this reign, of the magnates to advance quasi-hereditary claims, often involving, as it were, the undoing of the work of Henry I. William de Beauchamp was anxious to be placed in the shoes of Robert le Despenser; the Beaumont Earl of Leicester in those of William Fitz Osbern; the Earl of Oxford in those of William of Avranches; and Geoffrey himself, we shall find, in those of "Eudo Dapifer."