William of Newburgh, speaking of the arrest of Geoffrey de Mandeville, assures us that Stephen bore an old grudge against him, which he had hitherto been forced to conceal. Its cause was a gross outrage by Geoffrey, who, on the arrival of Constance of France, the bride of Eustace the heir-apparent, had forcibly detained her in the Tower.[129] We fix the date of this event as February or March, 1140, from the words of the Continuator of Florence,[130] and that date agrees well with Henry of Huntingdon's statement, that Stephen had bought his son's bride with the treasure he obtained by the death of the great Bishop of Salisbury (December 11, 1139).[131] It would seem, of course, highly improbable that this audacious insult to the royal family would have been followed by the grant of an earldom. We might consequently infer that, in all likelihood, Geoffrey had already obtained his earldom. We have, however, to examine the movements of Stephen at the time. The king returned, as we saw, to Reading, after spending his Christmas at Salisbury. He was then summoned to the Fen country by the revolt of the Bishop of Ely, and he set out thither, says Henry of Huntingdon, "post Natale" (p. 267). He _may_ have taken Westminster on his way, but there is no evidence that he did. He had, however, returned to London by the middle of March, to take part in a Mid-Lent council.[132] His movements now become more difficult to trace than ever, but it may have been after this that he marched on Hereford and Worcester.[133] Our next glimpse of him is at Whitsuntide (May 26), when he kept the festival in sorry state at the Tower.[134] It has been suggested that it was for security that he sought the shelter of its walls. But this explanation is disposed of by the fact that the citizens of London were his best friends and proved, the year after, the virtual salvation of his cause. It would seem more likely that he was anxious to reassert his impaired authority and to destroy the effect of Geoffrey's outrage, which might otherwise have been ruinous to his _prestige_.[135] It was, as I read it, at the close of Whitsuntide, that is, about the beginning of June, that the king set forth for East Anglia, and, attacking Hugh Bigod, took his castle of Bungay.[136] In August the king again set forth to attack Hugh Bigod;[137] and either to this, or to his preceding East Anglian campaign, we may safely assign his charter, granted at Norwich, to the Abbey of Reading.[138] Now, the first witness to this charter is Geoffrey de Mandeville himself, who is not styled an earl. We learn, then, that, at least as late as June, 1140, Geoffrey had not received his earldom. This would limit the date of his creation to June-December, 1140, or virtually, at the outside, a period of six months.