"We have no record of actual displacement; some, at least, of the fiscal earls retained their dignity: the earldoms of Bedford, Somerset, York, and perhaps a few others, drop out of the list; those of Essex and Wilts remain. Some had already made their peace with the king; some, like Aubrey de Vere, obtained a new charter for their dignity: this part of the social reconstruction was despatched without much complaint or difficulty" (_Const. Hist._, i. 451). Before examining these statements, I must deal with the assertion that William of Ypres was a fiscal earl who "lost endowment and dignity at once." That he ever obtained an English earldom I have already ventured to deny; that he lost his "endowment" at Henry's accession I shall now proceed to disprove. It is a further illustration of the danger attendant on a blind following of the chroniclers that the expulsion of the Flemings, and the fall of their leader, are events which are always confidently assigned to the earliest days of Henry's reign.[821] For though Stephen died in October, 1154, it can be absolutely proved by record evidence that William of Ypres continued to enjoy his rich "endowment" down to Easter, 1157.[822] Stephen had, indeed, provided well for his great and faithful follower, quartering him on the county of Kent, where he held ancient demesne of the Crown to the annual value of £261 "blanch," _plus_ £178 8_s._ 7_d._ "numero" of Crown escheats formerly belonging to the Bishop of Bayeux. Such a provision was enormous for the time at which it was made. Returning now to the "cashiering" of the earls, it will be noticed that Dr. Stubbs has great difficulty in producing instances in point, and can find nothing answering to any general measure of the kind. But I am prepared to take firm ground, and boldly to deny that a single man, who enjoyed comital rank at the death of Stephen, can be shown to have lost that rank under Henry II. Rash though it may seem thus to impugn the conclusions of Dr. Stubbs _in toto_, the facts are inexorably clear. Indeed, the weakness of his position is manifest when he seeks evidence for its support from a passage in the _Polycraticus_:— "The following passage of the _Polycraticus_ probably refers to the transient character of the new dignities, although some of the persons mentioned in it were not of Stephen's promoting: "Ubi sunt, ut de domesticis loquar, Gaufridus, Milo, Ranulfus, Alanus, Simon, Gillibertus, non tam comites regni quam hostes publici? Ubi Willelmus Sarisberiensis?" (_Const. Hist._, i. 451 note).