bias in favour of the elective theory, is fully justified in his main argument, namely, that Stephen 'was no usurper in the sense in which the word is vulgarly used.' He urges, apparently with perfect truth, that Stephen's offence, in the eyes of his contemporaries, lay in his breaking his solemn oath, and not in his supplanting a rightful heir. And he aptly suggests that the wretchedness of his reign may have hastened the growth of that new belief in the divine right of the heir to the throne, which first appears under Henry II., and in the pages of William of Newburgh. 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. It is important to observe that the oath in question can in no way be regarded in the light of an election. ... The Empress and her partisans must have largely, to say the least, based their claim on her right to the throne as her father's heir, and ... she and they appealed to the oath as the admission and recognition of that right, rather than as partaking in any way whatever of the character of a free election. ... The sex of the Empress was the drawback to her claim. Had her brother lived, there can be little question that he would, as a matter of course, have succeeded his father at his death. Or again, had Henry II. been old enough to succeed his grandfather, he would, we may be sure, have done so. ... Broadly speaking, to sum up the evidence here collected, it tends to the belief that the obsolescence of the right of election to the English crown presents considerable analogy to that of canonical election in the case of English bishoprics. In both cases a free election degenerated into a mere assent to a choice already made. We see the process of change already in full operation when Henry I. endeavours to extort beforehand from the magnates their assent to his daughter's succession, and when they subsequently complain of this attempt to dictate to them on the subject. We catch sight of it again when his daughter bases her claim to the crown, not on any free election, but on her rights as her father's heir, confirmed by the above assent. We see it, lastly, when Stephen, though owing his crown to election, claims to rule by Divine right ('Dei gratia'), and attempts to reduce that election to nothing more than a national 'assent' to his succession. Obviously, the whole question turned on whether the election was to be held first, or was to be a mere ratification of a choice already made. ... In comparing