So far as Stephen is concerned the case is clear enough. But we have also to consider the Empress. On what did she base her claim? I think that, as implied in Dr. Stubbs' words, she based it on a double, not a single, ground. She claimed the kingdom as King Henry's daughter ("regis Henrici filia"), but she claimed it further because the succession had been assured to her by oath ("sibi juratum") as such.[84] It is important to observe that the oath in question can in no way be regarded in the light of an election. To understand it aright, we must go back to the precisely similar oath which had been previously sworn to her brother. As early as 1116, the king, in evident anxiety to secure the succession to his heir, had called upon a gathering of the magnates "of all England," on the historic spot of Salisbury, to swear allegiance to his son (March 19).[85] It was with reference to this event that Eadmer described him at his death (November, 1120) as "Willelmum jam olim regni hæredem designatum" (p. 290). Before leaving Normandy in November, 1120, the king similarly secured the succession of the duchy to his son by compelling its barons to swear that they would be faithful to the youth.[86] On the destruction of his plans by his son's death, he hastened to marry again in the hope of securing, once more, a male heir. Despairing of this after some years, he took advantage of the Emperor's death to insist on his daughter's return, and brought her with him to England in the autumn of 1126. He was not long in taking steps to secure her recognition as his heir (subject however, as the Continuator and Symeon are both careful to point out, to no son being born to him), by the same oath being sworn to her as, in 1116, had been sworn to his son. It was taken, not (as is always stated) in 1126, but on the 1st of January, 1127.[87] Of what took place upon that occasion, there is, happily, full evidence.[88] We have independent reports of the transaction from William of Malmesbury, Symeon of Durham, the Continuator of Florence, and Gervase of Canterbury.[89] From this last we learn (the fact is, therefore, doubtful) that the oath secured the succession, not only to the Empress, but to her heirs.[90] The Continuator's version is chiefly important as bringing out the action of the king in assigning the succession to his daughter, the oath being merely an undertaking to secure the arrangement he had made.[91] Symeon introduces the striking expression that the Empress was to succeed "hæreditario jure,"[92] but William of Malmesbury, in the speech which he places in the king's mouth, far outstrips this in his assertion of hereditary right:— "præfatus quanto incommodo patriæ fortuna Willelmum filium suum sibi surripuisset, _cui jure regnum competeret_: nunc superesse filiam, _cui soli legitima debeatur successio, ab avo, avunculo, et patre regibus_; a materno genere multis retro seculis."[93]