"Stephen also would have a court of great earls, but in trying to make himself friends he raised up persistent enemies. He raised new men to new earldoms, but as he had no spare domains to bestow, he endowed them with pensions charged on the Exchequer ... the new and unsubstantial earldoms provoked the real earls to further hostility; and the newly created lords demanded of the king new privileges as the reward and security for their continued services" (_Early Plants._, p. 19).[801] Now, these "pensions on the Exchequer" must, I fear, be dismissed at once as having an existence only in a misapprehension of the writer. Indeed, if the Exchequer machinery had broken down, as he holds, it is difficult to see of what value these pensions would be. But in any case, it is absolutely certain that such grants as were made were alienations of lands and rents, and not "pensions" at all.[802] The passages bearing on these grants are as follows. Robert de Torigny (_alias_ "De Monte") states that Stephen "omnia pene ad fiscum pertinentia minus caute distribuerat," and that Henry, on his accession, "cœpit revocare in jus proprium urbes, castella, villas, quæ ad coronam regni pertinebant."[803] William of Newburgh writes:— "Considerans autem Rex [Henricus] quod regii redditus breves essent, qui avito tempore uberes fuerant, eo quod regia dominica per mollitiem regis Stephani ad alia multosque dominos majori ex parte migrassent, præcepit ea cum omni integritate a quibuscunque detentioribus resignari, et in jus statumque pristinum revocari." In the vigorous words of William of Malmesbury:— "Multi siquidem ... a rege, hi prædia, hi castella, postremo quæcumque semel collibuisset, petere non verebantur; ... Denique multos etiam comites, qui ante non fuerant, instituit, applicitis possessionibus et redditibus quæ proprio jure regi competebant." It is on this last passage that Dr. Stubbs specially relies; but a careful comparison of this with the two preceding extracts will show that in none of them are "pensions" spoken of. The grants, as indeed charters prove, always consisted of actual estates.