=Source.=--_Gesta Stephani_, ed. Howlett, vol. iii., p. 3. (Rolls Series, Chronicles of Stephen, Henry II., and Richard I.) When king Henry, giver of peace to his country and father of his people, passed away in death, the unhappy event threw the whole country into anarchy and total confusion. The land, which during his reign had been the seat of justice and the home of law, became on his decease a sink of iniquity and a hotbed of all malice. England, formerly the abode of right, the habitation of peace, the throne of piety, the mirror of religion, became the dwelling-place of perversity, the refuge of discord, the school of disorder, and the mistress of all rebellion. The reverend bonds of sacred friendship were straightway broken among the people, the most intimate ties of mutual kinship were loosed, and those who had worn the garments of daily tranquillity were whelmed by the noise of battle and the madness of war. For every man was seized with a new passion for barbarity, to run riot against his neighbour, and to reckon his glory by the measure of his wrongs to the innocent. The established laws, that restrain an undisciplined people, were wholly neglected, nay rather annulled, and men straightway accomplished any crime which their unlawful passions inspired. To use the words of the prophet, “There was no soundness from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head,” for from the lowest to the highest their minds were sick, and either they wrought havoc or assented to the havoc which others wrought. Even the wild beasts, which were aforetime peaceably preserved in every district, as though confined by enclosures, were everywhere loosed and hunted by all and slain by all indiscriminately and without fear. This, indeed, was a lesser evil, and a matter of small complaint; none the less it was amazing how so many thousands of beasts, that before had covered the whole country in thronging herds, were now suddenly annihilated, so that out of so vast a number you would scarcely discover two together. When at length this great and indescribable plenty began so to decline that, as men say, a bird was a rarity and scarce a stag could anywhere be seen, folk turned their violence against each other and robbed their neighbours, each plundering each in turn, and plotting ambush and destruction for each other, as the prophet said, “Man rose up without mercy against man, and everyone was set against his neighbour.” Whatever crime was suggested by passion in times of peace, was now swiftly brought to an issue, when vengeance might seize its opportunity; dissembled hatred and hidden malice burst forth to light and was openly avowed.