The next point is that these alienations were, for the most part, made in favour not of "fiscal earls," but, on the contrary, in favour of those who were not created earls.[804] There is reason to believe, from such evidence as we have, that, in this matter, the Empress was a worse offender than the king, while their immaculate successor, as his Pipe-Rolls show, was perhaps the worst of the three. It is, at any rate, a remarkable fact that the only known charter by which Stephen creates an earldom—being that to Geoffrey de Mandeville (1140)—does not grant a pennyworth of land, while the largest grantee of lands known to us, namely, William d'Ypres, was never created an earl.[805] Then, again, as to "the third penny." It is not even mentioned in the above creation-charter, and there is no evidence that "the third penny of the county was given" to all Stephen's earls; indeed, as I have elsewhere shown, it was probably limited to a few (see Appendix H). The fact is that the whole view is based on the radically false assumption of the "poverty" of Stephen's earls. The idea that his earls were taken from the ranks is a most extraordinary delusion. They belonged, in the main, to that class of magnates from whom, both before and after his time, the earls were usually drawn. Dr. Stubbs's own words are in themselves destructive of his view:— "Stephen made Hugh Bigod Earl of Norfolk, Aubrey de Vere Earl of Oxford, Geoffrey de Mandeville Earl of Essex, Richard de Clare Earl of Hertford, William of Aumâle Earl of Yorkshire, Gilbert de Clare Earl of Pembroke, Robert de Ferrers Earl of Derby, and Hugh de Beaumont Earl of Bedford."[806] Were such nobles as these "new men"? Had _their_ "poverty" to be "relieved"? Why, their very names are enough; they are those of the noblest and wealthiest houses in the baronage of Stephen's realm. Even the last, Hugh de Beaumont, though not the head of his house, had two elder brothers earls at the time, nor was it proposed to create him an earl till, by possession of the Beauchamp fief, he should be qualified to take his place among the great landowners of the day. Having thus, I hope, completely disposed of this strange delusion, and shown that Stephen selected his earls from the same class as other kings, I now approach the alleged deposition of the earls created by the Empress and himself, on the accession of Henry II. I would venture, on the strength of special research, to make several alterations in the lists given by Dr. Stubbs.[807] The earldoms he assigns to Stephen are these:— NORFOLK. Hugh Bigod (before 1153). OXFORD. Aubrey de Vere (_questionable_). ESSEX. Geoffrey de Mandeville (before 1143). HERTFORD. Richard de Clare (uncertain). YORKSHIRE. William of Aumâle (1138). PEMBROKE. Gilbert de Clare (1138). DERBY. Robert de Ferrers (1138). BEDFORD. Hugh de Beaumont. KENT. William of Ypres (_questionable_).