And this is what Stephen appeared to be doing,
so one by one they rallied to his cause
and his triumph seemed complete
when he won the support of Robert of Gloucester,
one of the most powerful noblemen in the country.
Hundreds of miles away in France,
Matilda's cause seemed lost.
Her third son had been born safely at Argentan.
But now and she and her boys were embattled there
with little prospect of reclaiming her inheritance.
But it was Normandy
that came to her rescue.
To make his throne secure
Stephen needed to control the Anglo Norman realm
on both sides of the channel.
But while he established his rule in England,
it took him more than a year
to cross the channel to France.
By then
Normandy had collapsed into anarchy
and so did Stephen's army,
as his soldiers began to squabble among themselves.