King Stephen of England
historical figure · 2 works · 2 mentions · 6 anchored passages
King Stephen · Stephen · Stephen of Blois
in the texts
Dissertations on Early Law and Custom
English king who derived his claim to the throne through his mother, opposing Empress Matilda.
The country had been desolated by the war between the Empress Matilda and Stephen of Blois, afterwards King Stephen of England.
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John
King of England 1135-1154 whose disputed succession and expansive charters of liberties are compared with John's Charter.
Stephen’s charter, on the contrary, supplements the same phrase by definite declarations that the bishops should have sole jurisdiction over churchmen and their goods, and that all rights of wardship over church lands were renounced, thus making it a “large and dangerous promise.
The simple words, “Dei gratia rex Angliae,” may be contrasted with the laboured attempt of Stephen’s second and more formal charter of liberties (of April, 1136) to set forth a valid title to the throne;
Conscious of the claims of his cousin Matilda, Stephen here ignores the element of hereditary succession in determining the title to the Crown, and emphasizes the element of appointment or “election,” both of which were blended in the twelfth, as in earlier centuries, in proportions not easy to define with accuracy.