It is, perhaps, not surprising that our historians are here in woeful confusion. Dr. Stubbs alone is, as usual, right. Writing from the standpoint of a constitutional historian, he is only concerned with the election of the Empress, and to this he assigns its correct date.[184] In his useful and excellent _English History_, Mr. Bright, on the contrary, ignores the interval, and places the second episode "a few days after" the first.[185] Professor Pearson, whose work is that which is generally used for this period, omits altogether the earlier episode.[186] Mr. Birch, on the other hand, in his historical introduction to his valuable _fasciculus_ of the charters of the Empress, ignores altogether the later episode, though he goes into this question with special care. Indeed, he does more than this; for he transfers the election itself from the later to the earlier occasion, and assigns to the episode of March 2 and 3 the events of April 7 and 8. This cardinal error vitiates his elaborate argument,[187] and, indeed, makes confusion worse confounded. Mr. Freeman, though, of course, in a less degree, seems inclined to err in the same direction, when he assigns to the earlier of the two episodes that importance which belongs to the later.[188] Rightly to apprehend the bearing of this episode, we must glance back at the preceding reigns. Dr. Stubbs, writing of Stephen's accession, observes that "the example which Henry had set in his seizure and retention of the crown was followed in every point by his successor."[189] But on at least one main point the precedent was older than this. The Conqueror, in 1066, and his heir, in 1087, had both deemed it their first necessity to obtain possession of Winchester. Winchester first, and then London, was a rule that thus enjoyed the sanction of four successive precedents. To secure Winchester with all that it contained, and with all the _prestige_ that its possession would confer, was now, therefore, the object of the Empress. This object she attained by the _pactum_ of the 2nd of March, and with it, as we have seen, the conditional allegiance of the princely bishop of the see.