It may have been observed that I assume throughout that each earl is the earl of a county. It would not be possible here to discuss this point in detail, so I will merely give it as my own conviction that while comital rank was at this period so far a personal dignity that men spoke of Earl Hugh, Earl Gilbert, or Earl Geoffrey, yet that an earl without a county was a conception that had not yet entered into the minds of men.[815] In this, of course, we have a relic of the earl's _official_ character. To me, therefore, the struggles of antiquaries to solve puzzles of their own creation as to the correct names of earldoms are but waste of paper and ink, and occasionally, even, of brain-power. "Earl William" might be spoken of by that style only, or he might be further distinguished by adding "of Arundel," "of Chichester," or "of Sussex." But his earldom was not affected or altered by any such distinctive addition to his style. A firm grasp of the broad principle which I have set forth above should avoid any possibility of trouble or doubt on the question. But, keeping close to the "fiscal earls," let us now see whether, as alleged, they were deposed by Henry II., and, if so, to what extent. According to Dr. Stubbs, "amongst the terms of pacification which were intended to bind both Stephen and Henry ... the new earldoms [were] to be extinguished."[816] Consequently, on his accession as king, "Henry was bound to annul the titular creations of Stephen, and it was by no means certain within what limits the promise would be construed."[817] But I cannot find in any account of the said terms of pacification any allusion whatever to the supposed "fiscal earls." Nor indeed does Dr. Stubbs himself, in his careful analysis of these terms,[818] include anything of the kind. The statement is therefore, I presume, a retrospective induction. The fact from which must have been inferred the existence of the above promise is that "cashiering of the supposititious earls" which rests, so far as I can see, on the statement of a single chronicler.[819] Yet that statement, for what it is worth, is sufficiently precise to warrant Dr. Stubbs in saying that "to abolish the 'fiscal' earldoms" was among the first of Henry's reforms.[820] The actual words of our great historian should, in justice, be here quoted:— "Another measure which must have been taken at the coronation [December 19, 1154], when all the recognized earls did their homage and paid their ceremonial services, seems to have been the degrading or cashiering of the supposititious earls created by Stephen and Matilda. Some of these may have obtained recognition by getting new grants; but those who lost endowment and dignity at once, like William of Ypres, the leader of the Flemish mercenaries, could make no terms. They sank to the rank from which they had been so incautiously raised" (_Early Plantagenets_, pp. 41, 42).