of women and to redress the wrongs of travellers and peaceable men. The adventurous humor inspired by the Crusade heightened and extended this spirit; and thus the idea of knight-errantry was formed. [Sidenote: A.D. 1138.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1139.] [Sidenote: A.D. 1141.] Stephen felt personally these inconveniences; but because the evil was too stubborn to be redressed at once, he resolved to proceed gradually, and to begin with the castles of the bishops,--as they evidently held them, not only against the interests of the crown, but against the canons of the Church. From the nobles he expected no opposition to this design: they beheld with envy the pride of these ecclesiastical fortresses, whose battlements seemed to insult the poverty of the lay barons. This disposition, and a want of unanimity among the clergy themselves, enabled Stephen to succeed in his attempt against the Bishop of Salisbury, one of the first whom he attacked, and whose castles, from their strength and situation, were of the greatest importance. But the affairs of this prince were so circumstanced that he could pursue no council that was not dangerous. His breach with the clergy let in the party of his rival, Matilda. This party was supported by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, natural son to the late king,--a man powerful by his vast possessions, but more formidable through his popularity, and the courage and abilities by which he had acquired it. Several other circumstances weakened the cause of Stephen. The charter, and the other favorable acts, the scaffolding of his ambition, when he saw the structure raised, he threw down and contemned. In order to maintain his troops, as well as to attach men to his cause, where no principle bound them, vast and continual largesses became necessary: all his legal revenue had been dissipated; and he was therefore obliged to have recourse to such methods of raising money as were evidently illegal. These causes every day gave some accession of strength to the party against him; the friends of Matilda were encouraged to appear in arms; a civil war ensued, long and bloody, prosecuted as chance or a blind rage directed, by mutual acts of cruelty and treachery, by frequent surprisals and assaults of castles, and by a number of battles and skirmishes fought to no determinate end, and in which nothing of the military art appeared, but the destruction which it caused. Various, on this occasion, were the reverses of fortune, while Stephen, though embarrassed by the weakness of his title, by the scantiness of his finances, and all the disorders which arose from both, supported his tottering throne with wonderful activity and courage; but being at length defeated and made prisoner under the walls of Lincoln, the clergy openly declare for Matilda. The city of London, though unwillingly, follows the example of the clergy. The defection from Stephen was growing universal. [Sidenote: A.D. 1153.]