I here give in parallel columns the witnesses to (I.) Stephen's grant to Winchester; (II.) his grant of the bishopric of Bath; (III.) his great charter of liberties subsequently issued at Oxford.

There were thus assembled at the Easter court of 1136 the two primates of England and twelve of their suffragans, and the primate of Normandy, with four of his—nineteen prelates in all. Next to these, in order of precedence, were Henry, the king's nephew,[791] Henry, son of the King of Scots, and Reginald, afterwards Earl of Cornwall, whose presence, as a son of the late king, was of importance in the absence of the Earl of Gloucester. The names in all three lists repay careful study. Among them we find all those of the leading supporters of the Empress in the future, while in Robert de Ferrers, William de Aumale, and Geoffrey de Mandeville, we recognize three of those who were to receive earldoms from Stephen. The style and place of William de Aumale deserves special notice, because they prove that he did not, as is supposed, enjoy comital rank at the time.[792] This fact, further on, will have an important bearing. So, too, Simon de St. Liz ("de Silva Necta") was clearly not an earl at the time of these charters. It is believed indeed that he was Earl of Northampton, while Henry of Scotland was Earl of Huntingdon. But it is clear that when Henry received from Stephen, as he had just done, Waltheof's earldom, that grant must have comprised Northampton as well as Huntingdon; and I have seen other evidence pointing to the same conclusion. In after years, when Simon was as loyal as the Scotch court was hostile to Stephen, he may well have received the earldom of Northampton from the king he served so well. But for the present, Henry of Scotland was in high favour with Stephen, so high that the jealousy of the Earl of Chester, stirred by the alienation of Carlisle, blazed forth at this very court.[793] Their mention of Ranulf's presence, as of Henry's, confirms the authenticity of our charters.

The document with which they should be compared is the charter granted to the church of Salisbury by Henry I. at his Northampton council in 1131 (September 8).[794] Its witnesses are the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, ten bishops (Gilbert of London, Henry of Winchester, Alexander of Lincoln, John of Rochester, Seffrid of Chichester, William of Exeter, Robert of Hereford, Symon of Worcester, Roger of "Chester," and Ebrard of Norwich), seven abbots (Anscher of Reading, Ingulf of Abingdon, Walter of Gloucester, Geoffrey of St. Albans, Herbert of Westminster, Warner of Battle, and Hugh of St. Augustine's), Geoffrey the chancellor,[795] with Robert "de Sigillo,"[796] and Nigel the Bishop of Salisbury's nephew,[797] five earls (Robert of Gloucester, William of Warenne, Randulf of Chester, Robert of Leicester, and Roger of Warwick), nineteen barons (Brian fitz Count, Miles de Gloucester, Hugh Bigod, Humfrey de Bohun, Payne fitz John, Geoffrey de Clinton, William de Pont de l'Arche, Richard Basset, Aubrey de Ver, Richard fitz Gilbert, Roger fitz Richard, Walter fitz Richard, Walter de Gant, Robert de Ferrers, William Peverel of Nottingham, Baldwin de Redvers, Walter de Salisbury, William de Moion, Robert de Arundel), forty-six in all. In many ways a very noteworthy list, and not least in its likeness to the future House of Lords, with its strong clerical element. It is impossible to comment on all the magnates here assembled at Henry's court, many of whom we meet with again, but attention may be called to the significant fact that nine of the earldoms created under Stephen were bestowed on houses represented among the nineteen barons named above.[798]