By times in the morning, the treasure, which filled six coffers of the largest, was put into boats to be floated down Thamesis unto our abbey; and some of us going by water and some by land, we all proceeded thitherward, amidst the rejoicings and blessings of all the people. Right glad were they all for the destruction of Sir Ingelric's stronghold! Had it been the fitting season they would have carried palm-branches before us, as was used at that blessed entrance into Jerusalem; but it was dead winter, and the morning, though bright and clear, was nipping cold. The first time it was I did see our hardy lord abbat muffle his chin, in a skin or fur brought from foreign parts. A glorious reception, I ween, was that which awaited us! Our brotherhood, to the number of one hundred and fifty, formed in goodly order of procession with the banners of our church displayed, and with the prior at their head bearing our richest rood, met us at the edge of the Falbury, all singing—"Beati qui veniant,"—"Blessed are those that come in the name of the Lord; blessed are those that come from the doing of good." And our good vassals of the township, and the franklins of Reading and the vicinage, were all there in their holiday clothes, and our near-dwelling serfs in their cleanest sheep-skin jackets, shouting and throwing up their caps; our abbey bells ringing out lustily and merrily the while. Needs not to say that we sang our best in the choir at that Te Deum, or that the feast which was ready by the hour of noon was sumptuous and mirthful. Nor was the joy less that evening in the castle at Caversham, whither I and some few others went with Sir Alain and the abbat; for the lord of Caversham being ever of a pleasant humour and ofttimes jocose, did say that forasmuch as I, Felix the novice, and Philip the merry lay-brother, did first carry Alice by night in the little basket unto the castle, to the scandal of some and to the amazement of all, so ought we now to carry back and present to the ladie Alfgiva the restored damsel; and hereat the young Lord Arthur had clapped his hands, and said so it ought to be.

And from this happy evening the bountiful ladie of Caversham grew well and strong, and the children grew up together in all love and loveliness. Somewhat squalid were they both when they were first brought home, but in a brief space of time they were plump and ruddy with health. The little maiden was then in her sixth year; the little lord, as hath been said, only in his tenth. Truly it is wondrous to think how soon they grew up into womanhood and manhood! And I the while was passing from blooming manhood to sober age; yet did I not grieve with Horatius—Eheu! Fugaces.

When at our leisure we did examine the great treasure brought from the evil castellum at Speen, we found much money that bore the impress of the mint of our house, and divers pieces of plate which had been stolen by the countess's people out of our church. These things, as of right, we did keep; but the rest of the plate we restored to the lawful owners thereof when we could discover them, which, sooth to say, did not happen on every occasion. Of the money which was not thought to be our own we did make two portions, and gave one to the poor and sent the other to King Stephen, who ever needed more money than he could get. But let men do ever so right and be ever so just and holy, they will still be exposed to evil constructions, and the sharp malice of evil tongues; and therefore no marvel was it that many did say we made a great profit unto ourselves out of the sacking of Sir Ingelric's castle.

And now, touching Sir Ingelric's dark wife; she was shut up for a short season in Reading Castle, and was then carried away to the eastern parts, and was there confined in a solitary and very strong house of religion that stood on the sea-shore. Of the other prisoners, some, being foreigners, were shipped and sent beyond sea, and the rest of them, being native, were sent unto King Stephen's army.

By the time we had returned unto our abbey, from Oxenford, it was hard upon the feast of the Epiphany, of the year of grace eleven hundred and forty-three. At the first coming of spring the king, who had been to London and the eastern parts to collect a great force, marched through Reading and tarried a few hours at our house, without doing any notable damage thereunto, excepting always that he did borrow from us all the coined money in our mint, which he did intend to repay so soon as the country should be settled. But it grieved us much to learn that he, too, had hired and brought into England great tumultuary companies of Flemings and Bourguignons and other half-baptized, unholy, ungodly men, who had no bowels of compassion for the people of England, no respect for our holy places, but an insatiate appetite for plunder. And these black bands, on marching away to the westward, brake open divers nunneries and burned sundry towns and churches, maugre all that the legate bishop of Winchester, who was with his brother the king, could say or do to prevent them. This sacrilege brought down vengeance and discomfiture upon the king's cause, and did drive away from his banner for that time our good Lord of Caversham. Matilda and her princely boy Henry remained in Bristowe Castle, or about that fair western country by the shores of the broad Severn, or on the banks of the Avon; but some of her partisans had made themselves formidable at Sarum; and to check the incursions of these the king turned the nunnery at Wilton into a castle, driving out the chaste sisterhood and girding their once quiet abode with bulwarks and battlements. But while he was upon this ill-judged work the great Robert, Earl of Gloucester, on the first of the kalends of July, fell suddenly upon his encamped army, and by surprise and superiority of force did gain a great victory over King Stephen. The king with his brother the bishop fled with shame, and the earl's men took the king's people and his plate and money-chest, and other things. Among the men of name that were taken at Wilton was William Martell, the great favourite and sewer to the king, who was sent to Wallingford Castle, that terrible stronghold of Brian Fitzcount, which few men could mention without turning pale. Thus sundry more years passed with variable successes, and every year heaped on each side fresh calamities, to the great ruin of the whole land. And still both parties brought over their hungry bands of adventurers, and still many of our great men, caring neither for one party nor for the other, continued their castle-building and their plundering for their own account, and still the poor and despairing people of England said that Christ and his saints were asleep. Villages and hamlets were fast disappearing, and that our towns were not all sacked and burned in these nineteen years of war, and that the substance of every man was not taken from him, was owing to the prayers of the church, and to the leagues and confederations which the franklins and free burghers did make among themselves, binding themselves by a solemn covenant each to assist the others. At first those who were men of war did laugh at these leagues, but after they had sustained many a check and defeat they were taught to respect the valour of our free men. I have known the weaver quit his shuttle and go forth to battle with sword and spear, and bring back captive from the field a knight and great lord; and when numerous deeds of the like sort had been done by the honest folk who took up arms only for the defence of their own houses and properties and lives, the great lords and powerful men did either avoid these townships, or treat them with more gentleness and justice.

It was in this year, at the fall of the leaf, that John-À-Blount died at Maple-Durham, and was buried there. After that our indulgent abbat had confessed him and shrieved him (upon penances duly performed by the said John), and had quitted and fully released him from the cucullus, the poor youth again put on the steel cap, and went to Caversham to serve as one of the garnison of that good house. Good were the lord and the happy little lordling unto John, and I ween the Ladie Alfgiva had a great care taken of him when she saw how sad he was, and how fast wasting. But neither cook nor leach, neither generous wine nor comfortable words, could restore strength, or infuse hope, or induce a composure and tranquillity of mind, or keep poor John any long season among us. His heart seemed broken within him; and there was a flush on his wasted cheek, and then a terrible coughing. So at last my whilome companion being able to do nothing, quitted Caversham and went to Maple-Durham, that he might die there among some of his kindred, and be buried under the sward by the wattled hillock which marked the grave of his father. That young Angevin Herodias was as much John's murtheress as she could have been if she had put poison in his meat, or a dagger into his heart. May his soul find peace, and her great sin forgiveness! We did most of us weep as well as pray for poor John-À-Blount.

In the year next after the battle at Wilton, King Stephen gained a great victory in the meadows which lie near to the abbey of Saint Albans, and our Lord Abbat Reginald did plant a goodly vineyard on the slopes by the side of our house at Reading, and did make an orchard a little beyond Kennet. Many other battles were there in this same year of woe; and that great partisan of the countess, Robert Marmion, was slain in a fierce fight at Coventry; and Geoffrey Mandeville, Earl of Essex, was slain at Burwell; and Ernulphus, Earl Mandeville's son, was taken after his father's death and banished the land. There seemed no end to these slayings and banishings and imprisonings in foul prisons. Verily those who made the mischief did not escape from its effects! The cup of woe they mixed for the nation was put to their own lips; turn and turn about they nearly all perished or suffered the extremities of evil fortune! None gained, all lost in the end, by this intestine and unnatural war.

In the year of grace eleven hundred and forty-five King Stephen again passed by Reading, and went and laid close siege to Wallingford Castle; but he could not prevail against that mighty robber and spoiler Brian Fitzcount; and on the feast of St. Benedict, at the close of this same year, I, with the saints' aid, having completed my noviciate, took the great vows and became a cloister-monk, with much credit and applause from the whole community, the sweetmeats and all delicate cates being furnished for that feast by the bountiful Ladie Alfgiva, and both Sir Alain de Bohun and his son Arthur being present at the feast. That night there came from the plashy margent of Thamesis a meteor of rare size and brightness, and it stopped for the space of an Ave Maria over our house, and shined in all its brightness upon the tower; as was noted by all the brotherhood, who did please to say that it was a good omen, portending that I should rise high in office, and be an ornament and shining light to the house: and truly since then I have passed through offices of trust and honour, and my name hath been made known unto some of our order in foreign parts, and I am now by the grace of our ladie sub-prior of this royal abbey of Reading. Also is it to be noted that in this important year we, the monks of Reading, were enabled to keep our great fair in the Falbury, on the day of St. Lawrence and the three days next following, according to the particular charter of privilege granted by our founder Henricus Primus, who commanded in the aforesaid charter that no people should be hindered or troubled either in their coming to the fair or in their going from it, under heavy penalties to be paid in fine silver. And the wise Beauclerc had thus ordered, for that the men of Newbury having a fair of their own about the same season, for the sale of cattle and much cheese, were likely to waylay and stop such as were coming to our fair, as in verity they afterwards did, despite of our charter and to the peril of their own souls. But the castle-builders and the robbers that were liege-men unto them, had done the Fair-wending franklins much more harm than had been done them by the wicked men of Newbury; and in this sort our fair of St. Lawrence had been thinly attended for some years, and had not brought to our house in tolls, fees, and droits, one-half so much as the value of the alms we distributed upon that saint's day.

In the year which followed upon my vows, the husband of Matilda, the Count of Anjou, much grieving for the long absence of his son Henry, and seeing that the presence of one so young did no good to his mother's cause in England, entreated that he might be sent back into Anjou, and young Henry was sent thither accordingly. It had been well for England if the count had gotten back his wife also, but he was too glad to leave Matilda where she was, for there had not been for many a year any love between them, and from the day of his marriage with her until Matilda's return to her own country to wage war in it, the count was said never to have known a day's peace. During his long abode in Bristowe Castle the boy Henry had been carefully nurtured and instructed by his uncle the Earl of Gloucester, and by some teachers gathered in England and in foreign parts; and, to speak the truth of all men, the said earl was well nigh as learned as his father the Beauclerc, and a great encourager of humanizing letters. That great earl was also much commended by his friends for his constancy to the cause of his half-sister Matilda, and for his perseverance in all manner of fortunes, and for the equanimity with which he bore defeat and calamity; but, certes, it had been better for us if his perseverance had been less, and if his equanimity had been disturbed by the woes and unutterable anguishes the people of England did suffer from his so long perseverance. But the hand of death was now upon him, and the great earl died soon after the departure of Henry Fitz-empress, and was buried at Bristowe in the choir of the church of St. James, which he had founded. And no long while after the departure of her son and the death of her valorous half-brother, the countess, to the great trouble of her husband, quitted England and went into Anjou; and King Stephen, surprising and vanquishing his enemy the Earl of Chester, who had gotten possession of Lincoln town, did triumphantly enter into that town and abide there, which no king durst do before him, for that certain wizards had prophesied evil luck to any king that went into Lincoln town. Being thus within Lincoln, and somewhat elated with the smiles of capricious fortune, King Stephen summoned the great barons and magnates of the land unto him, and at the solemnization of the Nativity of our Lord, he wore the regal crown upon his head, or, as others have it, he was re-crowned and consecrated anew in the mother church at Lincoln; and having the crown of England, to all seeming, firmly fixed on his brow, he caused the magnates all to swear allegiance to his son Prince Eustace as his lawful successor in the realm. No great man gainsayed the king, but all present made a great show of loyalty and affection as well to the son as to the father. Many there were of them who had no truth or steadiness in their hearts; but Sir Alain, our good Lord of Caversham, was there, and likewise the young Lord Arthur, and it was with a faith as pure and entire as that of a primitive Christian that the nobles twain placed their hands within the hands of Prince Eustace and vowed to be his true men for aye. And as it was now time that Arthur should enter upon a more active life, and put himself in training for the honours of knighthood, and as Prince Eustace conceived much affection for him, as did all who ever knew the hopeful youth, Arthur was left in the family of the prince to serve him as page and esquire. Yet was the young lord's absence from among us very short, for Prince Eustace came nigh unto Reading to prepare for the laying of another siege to Wallingford Castle, which still lay upon the fair bosom of the country like a hugeous and hideous nightmare, and whensoever it was not beleaguered the wicked garnison went forth to do that which for so many years they had been doing. Brian Fitzcount, the lord of Wallingford, Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, and others not a few, had gone beyond sea with the countess; but they meditated a speedy return with more bands of foreign marauders, and many of their similars and fautors shut themselves up in their home-castles, which were spread all over the country. These things prevented the entire blessing of peace; yet was England more tranquil than she had been since the Beauclerc's death, and by a succession of sieges Stephen would have gotten the men of anarchy within his power if other accidents had not happened.

As the king (who had long and grievously mourned for the license and castle-building he had permitted at the beginning of his reign, in the hopes of attaching the great lords to his interest) openly showed his resolution to curb the excessive power and fierce lawlessness of the feudal lords, a great outcry was raised against him, and divers of the lords of his own party began to plot and make league with the barons of Matilda's faction. Others fell from his side because he could give them no money or fiefs, unless he robbed other men or laid heavy tallages upon the poor people. As these selfish men deserted him. Stephen exclaimed, as he had done before, "False lords, why did ye make me king to betray me thus! But, by the glory of God, I will not live a discrowned king!" And so much was granted to him in the end, that Stephen did die with the crown upon his head. Peradventure might the king have had the better of his secular foes if in the midst of these troubles he had not quarrelled with the clergy and braved the wrath of the holy see. By the death of one pope and the election of another, the king's brother, the Bishop of Winchester, had ceased to be legatus À latere, and the legatine office had passed into the hands of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, who had ever leaned to the Angevin party. The said lord archbishop was no friend to our Lord Abbat Reginald, or to any of our community, but it becomes not me to rake up the ashes of the dead, or to disturb with a reproachful voice the grave of the primate of England; and it needs must be said that the king was over violent in his regard, and undutiful to our father the pope. For it must ever be acknowledged that the triple crown of Rome is more than the crown of England, and that the head of the holy Roman Apostolic and Catholic church hath a power supreme in spiritualities over all the kings of Christendom. Nevertheless did King Stephen in an ill hour give a doom of exile against the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, for that he had attended at the bidding of the pope, but without consent of the king, a great council of the church in the city of Rheims, in France. Instead of submitting to this sentence, the archbishop went and put himself under the protection of Hugh Bigod, the powerful Earl of Norfolk, who was of the Angevin faction, and then put forth a sentence of interdict against King Stephen, and all that part of the kingdom which obeyed the usurper. In the west country, and in some parts of the east and north, the priests shut up their churches and refused to perform any of the offices of religion. Good men went between the king and the primate, and after two years a reconciliation was brought about, Stephen agreeing to be the most bountiful king and the best friend of the church that the church had ever yet known in this land. Yet when Archbishop Theobald was called upon to recognise and anoint Prince Eustace as heir to the throne, he refused to do it, saying that he was forbidden by our lord the pope, and that Stephen, being a usurper, could not, like a legitimate sovereign, transmit his crown to his posterity. The king, unto whom the archbishop had taken the oath of allegiance, waxed wroth, and threatened the archbishop with a punishment sharper than banishment; but, when the first passion of anger was over, he did nothing. Men censured the archbishop at the time, but they afterwards thought he had taken the wisest course for putting an end to this long war. In the interim Henry Fitz-empress had been again in our island. In the year eleven hundred and forty-nine, having attained the military age of sixteen, Henry Plantagenet came over to Scotland with a splendid retinue, to be made a knight by his mother's uncle, King David. The ceremony was performed with much magnificence in the city of Carlisle, where the old Scottish king did then keep his court; and most of the nobles of Scotland and many of our great English barons were present at the celebration, and did then and there make note of the many high qualities of the truly great and ever to be remembered son of the Countess Matilda. All manner of honours and power alighted on the head of Henry Plantagenet soon after his being knighted at Carlisle. The death of his father Geoffrey left him in full possession of the dukedom of Normandie, which he had governed for him, and of the earldom of Anjou, which was his own birthright; and in that lucky year for the house of Plantagenet, the year of our redemption eleven hundred and fifty-two, by espousing Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry acquired that great dame's rights to the earldom of Poictou and the great duchy of Aquitaine. Henry was thus the greatest and richest prince in all the main land of Europe, and albeit he was only in his twentieth year, he already knew the arts of government and of war better than any of his neighbours. A great prince was he from his cradle: he was born to command.

Et interim, Eustace, the son of Stephen, being nearly of the same age as the son of Matilda, had become a very worthy soldier, and our young Lord of Caversham had grown up with him, and improved under him. They had miscarried in the siege of Wallingford Castle, because that house of the devil was so exceeding strong, and because they were called off to another more urgent enterprise; but in other quarters they had been more successful, beating divers of the castle-builders in the field, or taking them in their dens. Every castle that they took was burned and destroyed, like Sir Ingelric's castellum at Speen. They brought many offerings to our shrines, for they were much in our part of the country, to keep in check the Angevin party to the westward; and whenever he was not engaged in these duties of war, the young Lord Arthur came to his home. The winter season allowed him the longest repose, and thus it befel that the Ladie Alfgiva and that little maiden which I and Philip, the lay-brother, did first convey to Caversham, became sad instead of gay at the advance of spring. But Alice was no longer the little maiden that could lie perdue in a basket, and there had already been many discourses and conjectures as to the day when she and the young Lord Arthur would be made one by holy church; for the great love that had been between them from the days of their childhood was known to all the country side. Strange it was, but still most true, that Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe never had made any attempt to recover his fair and good daughter. Great endeavours he made to get back that dark ladie of the castle, his wicked and impenitent second wife, and he had at last, by means, it was said, of the Archbishop of Canterbury, obtained her release from the nunnery on the eastern coast; but he had never set on foot any treaty, nor, as far as could be learned, had ever made any inquiry touching the gentle Alice, who in her heart could not think without trembling and turning pale of her dark, stern step-mother, and the days she had passed with her in that foul donjon at Speen.

Though his hair had grown grey and scant under the cap of steel, and his soul panted for peace as the hunted hart doth for running waters, Sir Alain de Bohun kept the field almost as constantly as his son; and his constancy to King Stephen knew no abatement. So much virtue and steadiness could not be understood in those changeable and treacherous times; and as it was thought that he put a monstrously high price upon his services, and was true to one side because he had not been sufficiently tempted by the other, in the course of the year eleven hundred and fifty-two there came a secret emissary to offer him one of the greatest earldoms in England, and one of the richest and noblest damsels in Anjou as a bride for his son. Sir Alain bound the emissary with cords, like a felon spy, and sent him and his papers and credential signets unto King Stephen. No mind was ruffled in Caversham Castle upon this occurrence except the tender mind of Alice, who bethought her that she was but a poor portionless maiden, the daughter of a proscribed man whose estates had long been confiscated and held by the king; but Arthur saw and soon chased away these vain grievings. His father had manors and lands enow, and he wished never to be greater or richer than his father, and Alice was rich in herself, and she was his own Alice, and a greater treasure than any that dukes or kings or emperors could bestow. Let there be peace; let there only be peace in the land for the herdsman and the tiller of the soil, and the industrious vassals, and what earthly luxury or comfort would be wanting in the house at Caversham? Fools might contend for more, and barter their souls away to get it, but his father's son would never be this fool.

I was myself at Caversham at the time of these occurrences, and it was not long after that I became sub-sacrist in our abbey, and did build at mine own cost a new rood-loft in the church.

Also in this year deceased, to King Stephen's great grief, the good Queen Maud, and she was buried at Feversham in Kent.