But, meanwhile, where was Earl Geoffrey? We have seen that early in the year he was present with Stephen at Ipswich.[500] If we turn to the _Ely History_, printed in Wharton's _Anglia Sacra_, we shall find evidence that he was, shortly after, despatched with Earl Gilbert of Pembroke, who had been with him at Ipswich, to Ely.[501] When Stephen had successfully attacked Ely two years before (1140), the bishop had fled, with three companions, to the Empress at Gloucester. His scattered followers had now reassembled, and it was to expel them from their stronghold in the isle that Stephen despatched the two earls. Geoffrey soon put them to flight, doubtless at Aldreth, and setting his prisoners on horseback, with their feet tied together, led them in triumph to Ely.[502] To the monks, who came forth to meet him with their crosses and reliquaries, he threatened plunder and death, and their possessions were at once seized into the king's hands. But, meanwhile, their bishop's envoy to the pope, "a man skilled in the use of Latin, French, and English," had returned from Rome with letters to the primates of England and Normandy, insisting that Nigel should be restored to his see. The monks, also, had approached Stephen and obtained from him a reversal of Geoffrey's violent action. Nigel, therefore, returned to Ely, to the joy, we are told, of his monks and people; and the two earls delivered into his hands the isle and Aldreth, its key.[503] The point to insist upon, for our own purpose, is that the Earls Geoffrey and Gilbert were both concerned in this business, and that their names will again be found in conjunction in the records of that intrigue with the Empress which is the subject of the next chapter. [432b] _Ninth Report Hist. MSS._, App. i. p. 62 _b_. [433] "Regem ipsum in concilium introisse" (_Will. Malms._, 755). [434] "Ipsam quæcunque pepigerat ad ecclesiarum jus pertinentia obstinate fregisse" (_ibid._). [435] "Deum, pro sua clementia, secus quam ipsa sperasset vertisse negotia" (_ibid._). [436] Dr. Stubbs well observes of this coronation of Richard: "His second coronation was understood to have an important significance. He had by his captivity in Germany ... impaired or compromised his dignity as a crowned king. The Winchester coronation was not intended to be a reconsecration, but a solemn assertion that the royal dignity had undergone no diminution" (_Const. Hist._, i. 504). [437] "Die qua primum coronatus fui" (_Cartulary of Abingdon_, ii. 181). [438] "Cantia quam solam casus non flexerat regius" (_Will. Newburgh_, i. 41). [439] _Thirty-first Report of Deputy Keeper_, p. 3 (based on the late Sir William Hardy's register of these charters). Mr. Birch, in his learned paper on the seals of King Stephen, also assigns these limits to the charter.