Mr. Birch's thesis would, if sound, be a discovery of such importance that I need not apologize for establishing, by demonstration, that it is opposed to the whole of the evidence which he himself so carefully collected. And when we read of Stephen's "incarceration at Bristol, which was not terminated until the battle of Winchester in A.D. 1143, when the hopes of the Empress were shattered" (p. 378), it is again necessary to point out that her flight from Winchester took place not in 1143, but in September, 1141. Mr. Birch's conclusion is thus expressed:— "We may, therefore, take it as fairly shown that until the liberation of the king from his imprisonment at Bristol (as a sequel to the battle at Winchester in A.D. 1143, so disastrous to the queen's hopes) she held her position, as queen, most probably at London," etc. (p. 380). Here, as before, it is needful to remember that the date is all wrong, and that the triumph of the Empress, so far from lasting two years or more, lasted but for a few months of the year 1141, in the course of which she was not at London for more than a few days. And now let us turn to my remaining point, "the effect of this election on the position of the Empress." To understand this, we must glance back at the precedents of the four preceding reigns. The Empress, as I have shown, had followed these precedents in making first for Winchester: she had still to follow them in securing her coronation and anointing at Westminster. It is passing strange that all historians should have lost sight of this circumstance. For the case of her own father, in whose shoes she claimed to stand, was the aptest precedent of all. As he had been elected at Winchester, and then crowned at Westminster, so would she, following in his footsteps. The growing importance of London had been recognized in successive coronations from the Conquest, and now that it was rapidly supplanting Winchester as the destined capital of the realm, it would be more essential than ever that the coronation should there take place, and secure not merely the _prestige_ of tradition, but the assent of the citizens of London.[242] It has not, however, so far as I know, occurred to any writer that it was the full intention of the Empress and her followers that she should be crowned and anointed queen, and that, like those who had gone before her, she should be so crowned at Westminster. It is because they failed to grasp this that Dr. Stubbs and Mr. Freeman are both at fault. The former writes:— "Matilda became the Lady of the English; she was not crowned, because perhaps the solemn consecration which she had received as empress sufficed, or perhaps Stephen's royalty was so far forth indefeasible."[243]