ABSTRACT
As we have now surveyed the problems the war between Stephen and Mathilda in England was beginning to cause, we can perhaps see how her army's victory at Lincoln in February 1141 might have been regarded with relief. The author of the Gesta knew many to whom it seemed 'the dawning of a new day' and who expected a quick return to domestic peace in England to follow, while William of Malmesbury describes England as breathing a 'sigh of relief'. 1 Indeed, the battle triggered a rapid collapse of Stephen's support in some areas. Earl Alan of Richmond escaped the battlefield, but was soon after invited to a meeting by Ranulf of Chester, then treacherously arrested and imprisoned. After this, Alan's party in Cornwall collapsed so rapidly that Earl Reginald, the empress's half-brother, was able by March to leave it secure and attend personally on her. In Wiltshire, Hervey de Léon, Stephen's earl there since 1140, was driven from his base at Devizes by a coalition of local people affronted by his attempts to exert an effective lordship over the shire. In Bedfordshire, Earl Flugh, brother of Waleran of Meulan, surrendered Bedford to his local rival, Miles de Beauchamp, and, like Hervey, left the country to avoid the complete wreck of the royalist party. 2
