Battle of Lincoln, 1141: the day King Stephen was taken prisoner

For most of King Stephen's reign England was at war with itself, as his supporters fought those of Matilda, the daughter of Henry I, who had the stronger claim to the crown in the eyes of many. The first Battle of Lincoln was the moment the war nearly ended, with the king a prisoner of his rival.²

A castle taken by a trick

Stephen had ruled since 1135. In 1139 Matilda's half brother Robert of Gloucester seized Bristol and much of the West Country for her, and in 1140 Ranulf of Gernons, Earl of Chester, and his half brother William of Roumare joined the rebellion and took Lincoln Castle.³ › The Anarchy, 1135 to 1154

The way they did it is told by the Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record and, at more length, by the chronicler Orderic Vitalis. Ranulf and William sent their wives to the castle on a friendly visit. While the countesses were laughing and talking with the wife of the knight who held it, Ranulf arrived without armor, apparently to take his wife home, with three knights. Once inside they seized crowbars and weapons, threw out the guards and let in William with a force of armed knights, and the brothers held both the castle and the city.⁴

The king's siege

The citizens and Bishop Alexander sent word to the king. Stephen came after Christmas, was let into the city by the townsmen, and laid siege to the castle with catapults and other engines. Ranulf slipped out at night with a few men, rode for Chester and appealed to his father in law, Robert of Gloucester, to Matilda, to the Welsh and to men who had lost their lands under Stephen.⁵

Robert gathered his army and, according to William of Malmesbury, kept even his own men guessing about its destination on the way from Gloucester. Stephen, Orderic writes, refused to believe that they would dare to fight, and kept preparing his assault on the castle.⁶

Candlemas

The battle came on 2 February, the feast of the Purification of the Virgin. The chroniclers remembered the omens. At Mass the king's candle broke in his hand; Henry of Huntingdon adds that the pyx above the altar fell when its chain snapped.⁷

Some of Stephen's advisers urged him to leave a garrison in the city and raise a bigger army, others to seek a truce for the holy day. He judged it dishonorable to put off the battle. The earls' army reached him across a swollen river and a marsh; William of Malmesbury says Robert's men swam the racing current, and Henry of Huntingdon has Robert warning them that there could be no retreat back across the marshes. Stephen sent a strong body of knights and foot soldiers to stop them at a ford, but the earls' men charged, took the ford and went on to attack the king's main line.⁸

The king on foot

Stephen dismounted and fought on foot in the center, with a dense body of knights whose horses had been led away, and earls on horseback on either side. His Flemish and Breton mercenaries under William of Ypres and Alan of Dinan faced the Welsh led by Maredudd and Cadwaladr. The line of the disinherited, men who had lost their lands under Stephen, struck the royal horse first and broke it almost at once.⁹

William of Ypres and Alan of Dinan withdrew from the field, and a number of other Norman and English knights, including Count Waleran of Meulan and William of Warenne, abandoned the king as well. Orderic accuses some of the magnates of bringing only a handful of men to the king while sending their main strength to his enemies. Stephen's company on foot was left surrounded. He fought on with his sword and a Norse axe given to him by a young man, Orderic writes, until he was worn out and alone, and surrendered to his kinsman Robert of Gloucester. Robert handed him over to Matilda.¹⁰

The sack of Lincoln

The heaviest losses came after the fighting. The citizens of Lincoln, who had backed the king, fled toward the River Witham. Orderic says they crowded into boats that capsized, and that about five hundred of the leading citizens drowned, more than had fallen in the battle, in which, by the estimate of those present, not more than a hundred were killed. The victors then sacked the city, and Orderic and the author of the Gesta Stephani describe slaughter and burning of houses and churches.¹¹

The continuator of John of Worcester's chronicle records that Stephen was taken under guard to Gloucester on 9 February and later to Bristol, and that many of his followers were imprisoned with him. His own brother, Bishop Henry of Winchester, went over to Matilda; Stephen's queen and a group of loyal earls kept up the fight in his name. Later, the Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record notes, Stephen's wife raised an army that defeated and captured Robert of Gloucester at Winchester, and Matilda had to release the king in exchange for her brother. The battle that seemed to have settled the war had not ended it.¹²