We are tempted then to ask whether it was not by some such transaction as this that Stephen secured the adhesion of the citizens. We shall find the Empress securing the city in 1141, after a formal "tractatus" at St. Albans with its authorized representatives, and we know that the Conqueror himself made some terms with the citizens before he entered London. Comparing these facts with the reception at Winchester of Stephen and the Empress in turn, it may fairly be questioned whether we should accept the startling assertion in the _Gesta_ as literally correct. It would seem at least highly probable that what the Londoners really claimed in 1135 was not the right to elect a king of all England, but to choose their own lord independently of the rest of the kingdom, and to do so by a _separate negotiation_ between himself and them. They were not, in any case, prepared to receive the king as their lord unless he would first guarantee them the possession of all their liberties. This semi-independent attitude, which was virtually that assumed by Exeter when it attempted to treat with the Conqueror, was distinctly foreign to the English polity so far as our knowledge goes. There are faint hints, however, in Domesday that such towns as London, York, Winchester, and Exeter may have possessed a greater independence than it has hitherto been the custom to believe. [746] "Lo senescaut de Guiayne deu jurar en sa nabere vengude au mayre juratz et cent partz et a laut poble et comunautat de Baione ... en queste forme: Per aques sentz Job serey bon seinhor et leyau, de tort et de force vos guoarderey de mi medichs et dautruy; a mon leyau poder vostres fors vostres costumes et vostres priviledges sa en rer per los reys Dangleterre et dux de Guiayne autreyatz vos sauberey, tant quoant serey en lodit offici, sauban le fideutat de nostre seinhor lo Rey." [747] "Et losditz maire et juratz deben jurar en le maneyre seguent disent assi: Per aques sentz nos vos seram bons, fideus, leyaus, et hobediens; vite et menbres vos guarderam; bon cosseilh et leyau vos deram, a nostre leyau poder; et segretz vos thieram." APPENDIX B. THE APPEAL TO ROME IN 1136. (See p. 8.) One of the most interesting and curious discoveries that I have made in the course of my researches has been the true story of the appeal to Rome as arbiter between Stephen and Maud. Considering the exceptional importance of this episode, in many ways, it has received strangely little attention, with the result that it has been imperfectly understood and almost incredibly misdated. Mr. Freeman, working, in the _Norman Conquest_, from the _Historia Pontificalis_,[748] writes of this episode as taking place on and in consequence of Stephen's attempt to secure the coronation of Eustace in 1152.[749] Miss Norgate has gone into the matter far more fully than Mr. Freeman, but at first assigned the debate described in the _Historia Pontificalis_ to "1151."[750]