554 Earls, till this time, had apparently been official; each having charge of a county, and receiving certain emoluments therefrom: but these created by Stephen, seem to have been often merely titulary, with endowments out of the demesnes of the crown. Rob. Montensis calls these persons Pseudo-Comites, imaginary earls, and observes that Stephen had completely impoverished the crown by his liberalities to them. Henry the Second, however, on being firmly seated on the throne, recalled their grants of crown lands, and expelled them the kingdom.

555 The term “miles” is very ambiguous: sometimes it is a knight; sometimes a trooper; sometimes a soldier generally. In later times it signified almost always a knight; but in Malmesbury, it seems mostly a horseman, probably of the higher order.

556 “Roger, the chancellor of England, was the son of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, by Maud of Ramsbury, his concubine.”—Hardy.

557 The author of the “Gesta Stephani,” says, the king ordered both bishops to be kept without food, and threatened, moreover, to hang the son of bishop Roger. Gest. Stephani, 944. The continuator of Flor. Wigorn. adds, that one was confined in the crib of an ox-lodge, the other in a vile hovel, A.D. 1138.

558 It has before been related that Stephen made many earls, where there had been none before: these seem the persons intended by Malmesbury in many places, when speaking of some of the king’s adherents.

559 It would seem from this passage that he had seen Livy in a more complete state than it exists at present.

560 Horat. Epist. i. 1, 100.

561 The meaning of vavassour is very various: here it seems to imply what we call a yeoman.

562 This he effected by means of scaling ladders, made of thongs of leather. Gest. Stephani, 951.

563 Several MSS., as well as the printed copy, read 1142, but one has 1141, which is right.

564 “Ranulf, earl of Chester, and his uterine brother, William de Romare, were the sons of Lucia, countess of Lincoln.”—Hardy.

565 The joust signifies a contest between two persons on horseback, with lances: each singled out his opponent.

566 That is, as appears after, to acknowledge her publicly as their sovereign.

567 Marchio: this latterly signified marquis in the sense we now use it; but in Malmesbury’s time, and long after, it denoted a guardian of the borders: hence the lords marchers on the confines of Scotland and Wales; though it does not appear very clearly how this should apply to Wallingford, unless it was his place of birth.

568 This seems an oversight: as he had before related, more than once that Stephen preceded Robert in taking the oath to Matilda.

569 Virgil, Æn. i. 33.

570 The garrison having sallied out against him, he suddenly passed a ford which was not generally known and, repelling the enemy, entered the town with them. Gesta Regis Stephani, 958.

571 One of the MSS. omits from, “This circumstance,” to the end, and substitutes, ... “but these matters, with God’s permission, shall be more largely treated in the following volume.”