Henry I. was not yet in his grave; but all promises made to him were forgotten. With what seems a sort of irony, Stephen issued as his coronation charter a simple promise to observe and compel the observance of all the good laws and good customs of his uncle. The news of the great event traveled rapidly. Count Theobald, vexed and disappointed as he was, refused to contest the crown which his brother already wore; Geoffrey and Matilda were quarrelling with their own subjects in Anjou; and Robert of Gloucester, who hated Stephen more than he loved Matilda, saw that he must bide his time. Some crisis must soon occur; he knew that Stephen would soon spend his treasure and break his promises. Meanwhile the old king must be buried like a king; and the great lords came over with the corpse to Reading where he had built his last resting-place. There Stephen met them, within the twelve days of Christmas; and after the funeral, at Oxford or somewhere in the neighborhood, he arranged terms with them; terms by which he endeavored, amplifying the words of his charter, to catch the good-will of each class of his subjects. To the clergy he promised relief from the exactions of the late reign and freedom of election; to the barons he promised a relaxation of the forest law, the execution of which had been hardened and sharpened by Henry I.; and to the people he promised the abolition of danegeld. “These things chiefly and other things besides he vowed to God,” says Henry of Huntingdon, “but he kept none of them.” The promises were perhaps not insincere at the time; anyhow they had the desired effect, and united the nation for the moment. [Sidenote: First invasion by the Scots. ] The king by this means got time to hasten into the North, where King David of Scots, the uncle of the empress, had invaded the country in her name. The two kings met at Durham. David had taken Newcastle and Carlisle; Newcastle he surrendered, Carlisle Stephen left in his hands as a bribe for neutrality. It was too much for David, who, although a good king, was a Scot. He agreed to make peace: but he had sworn fealty to his niece: he could not become Stephen’s man. His son Henry, however, might bear the burden; so Henry swore and Stephen sealed the bargain with the gift of Huntingdon, part of the inheritance of Henry’s mother, the daughter of Waltheof, the last of the English earls. Then Stephen went back to London and so to Oxford. There he published a new charter, intended to comprise the new promises of good government. [Sidenote: Second charter of Stephen. ]