ABSTRACT
Stephen of Blois was born around the year 1096; it is impossible to be sure exactly when. 1 He was named after his father, the count of Blois-Chartres and Meaux, the ruler of one of the key regional principalities of northern France. Blois-Chartres was in fact the boss-stone of the power structures of northern France: a compact principality wedged between Normandy to the north, the French king's domain around Paris to the east, and the county of Anjou to the west. From his accession in 1089 his father, Count Stephen (sometimes called Stephen-Henry), had used the natural advantages of his position well, and was a successful ruler. He had consolidated his power by military means and by an excellent political marriage - made at some time between 1080 and 1084 - to Adela, daughter of King William the Conqueror and elder sister of Kings William Rufus and Henry I of England. 2 In this way he allied with the powerful king of the Anglo-Norman realm to the north, as a means of pursuing his ambitions against his dangerous neighbours, whether Anjou to the west or the French king to the east. Count Stephen did rather less well when, in 1096, he was seduced by the nobility and glamour of the Crusade to recover Jerusalem. He became the principal leader of this great expedition as it entered Syria, but, while beseiged in Antioch in 1098, the count panicked and fled the city. This was a piece of bad judgement, for the city in the end held out against the Turks. He returned home in disgrace the same year. He died at the battle of Ramlah in May 1102 while attempting to recover his reputation in a further expedition to the Holy Land.
