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After multiple delays, Empress Matilda’s son Henry began his third and final attempt to depose Stephen and take the throne for himself in January 1153. This time he sailed with a much larger army than his previous attempts and had his English supporters on standby ready to join his impending invasion force consisting of 140 knights and 3,000 foot soldiers. They landed on England soil on 5 January 1153, which was well out of the campaigning season. The weather was dreadful with bone-chilling cold temperatures combined with non-stop rain and snow, making it extremely difficult to move an army around much less feed it. The reason for Henry’s unusual timing was to break Stephen’s siege of Wallingford Castle, the stronghold of Brian fitzCount. Stephen thought that by taking control of Empress Matilda’s secure bases in England, it would demoralise their supporters. However, the people holed up in Wallingford Castle sent to Henry for help and he made the bold move of sailing an invasion fleet into England in the dead of winter.1
After Henry landed in England, he travelled first to his mother’s stronghold of Devizes Castle to set up his base of operations. It was decided that he should first take his troops north and attempt to capture the royally garrisoned castle at Malmesbury. Henry laid siege to the castle and Stephen responded swiftly by mustering troops to nearby Cirencester but the confrontation never materialised. Some chroniclers say that the swollen River Avon prevented Stephen’s army from crossing it safely and so he had no other choice than to retreat. Other chroniclers say that Stephen’s magnates were so tired of the war with Duke Henry that they simply refused to fight. It was probably a combination of both these reasons that no pitched battle took place and instead Stephen offered a temporary truce, allowing him to withdraw his troops peacefully.
Despite the poor weather, Henry continued on with his quest for the crown, capturing castles and gaining more supporters from England’s most powerful men. Shortly after the siege of Malmesbury, Henry received a boon to his cause when English noble Robert of Leicester left Stephen and came to Henry’s side, bringing with him thirty castles in the Midlands of England which hugely increased Henry’s powerbase. In July 1153, Henry’s army went on the march towards Wallingford in order to break the siege set by Stephen who had brought up an ‘inexpressibly large army from every part of his kingdom’.2 Along the way to Wallingford, Henry’s army succeeded in capturing both Nottingham and Stamford. Stephen was losing more traction by the day and things got even worse when his son and heir Eustace died suddenly and unexpectedly on 17 August 1153.
At this point Stephen’s crown was hanging by a thread and he knew it. He was around 60 years old, he had lost most of his supporters in England, and his heir was dead. He had been fighting Empress Matilda and her son Henry for the entirety of his reign, nearly eighteen years. No matter what he did, he could not stop Henry’s momentum, and he was growing weary of trying. It was at this point that the two sides began to negotiate a permanent truce to bring about an end to the civil war.
Throughout the months of September and October 1153, Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury and Bishop Henry of Winchester mediated between the two parties in a series of slow, pain-staking negotiations. Finally, after two months of arbitration they agreed on the terms of the truce which would become known as the Treaty of Winchester which put an official end to the Anarchy. Per the agreement, Stephen was allowed to rule England until his death but then Henry would become king of England, essentially disinheriting Stephen’s only living son, William. In a show of solidarity, Stephen and Henry left Winchester together and set off on a slow progress to London where Henry was received ‘with splendid processions, as was fitting for so great a man’.3 Stephen could now for the first time in his reign enjoy peace in his kingdom.
Unfortunately, Stephen did not have much time left to enjoy the peace. On 25 October 1154, less than one year after the Treaty of Winchester was signed, King Stephen died after being ‘violently assailed by a pain in his guts, accompanied by a discharge of blood’.4 In all likelihood, his health had been in serious decline for quite some time, due to so many years of campaigning, not to mention the fact that he had been wounded twice in battle and held captive by Empress Matilda for nine months.
Duke Henry was with his mother Matilda in Normandy when the unexpected news of Stephen’s death reached them. Henry immediately prepared to sail to England to claim his throne, leaving the administration of his French territories to his very capable mother. After a brief delay for weather, Henry crossed the Channel on 7 December 1154. He was crowned King Henry II of England by Archbishop Theobald on 19 December 1154 at Westminster Abbey. Usually the death of a king caused great instability in a kingdom. But for the first time since the death of William the Conqueror in 1087, there was a peaceful succession in England.6