Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/557

 STEPHEN 533 difficulty of his pontificate was in connexion with the aggressive attitude of Aistulf, king of the Lombards. After unsuccessful embassies to Aistulf himself and appeals to the emperor Constantine, he, though in feeble health, set out to seek the aid of Pippin, by whom he was received in the neighbourhood of Vitry le Brule in the beginning of 754. He spent the greater part of that year at St Denis. The result of his negotiations was the Frankish invasion of Aistulf's territory and the famous " donation " of Pippin (see POPEDOM, vol. xix. p. 495 ; and compare FRANCE, vol. ix. p. 531). The death of Stephen took place not long after that of Aistulf. He was succeeded by Paul I. STEPHEN III., pope from August 1, 768 to January 24, 772, was a native of Sicily, and, having come to Rome during the pontificate of Gregory III., gradually rose to high office in the service of successive popes. On the deposition of Constantine II., Stephen was chosen to succeed him. Fragmentary records are preserved of the council (April 769) at which the degradation of Con- stantine was completed, certain new arrangements for papal elections made, and the practice of image-worship confirmed. ;..The politics of Stephen's reign are obscure, but he inclined to the Lombard rather than to the Frankish alliance. He was succeeded by Adrian I. STEPHEN IV., pope from June 816 to January 817, succeeded Leo III., whose policy he continued. Immedi- ately after his consecration he ordered the Roman people to swear fidelity to Louis the Pious, to whom he found it prudent to betake himself personally in the following August. After the coronation of Louis at Rheims in October he returned to Rome, Avhere he died in the beginning of the following year. His successor was Paschal I. STEPHEN V., pope from 885 to 891, succeeded Adrian III., and was in turn succeeded by Formosus. In his dealings with Constantinople in the matter of Photius, as also in his relations with the young Slavonic church, he pursued the policy of Nicholas I. His pontificate was otherwise unimportant. STEPHEN VI., pope from May 896 to July-August 897, succeeded Boniface VI., and was in turn followed by Romanus. He is remembered only in connexion with his conduct towards the remains of Formosus, his last pre- decessor but one (see FORMOSUS). It excited a tumult, which ended in his imprisonment and his death by strang- ling. STEPHEN VII. (February 929 to March 931) and STEPHEN VIII. (July 939 to October 942) were virtually nonentities, who held the pontificate during the so-called " pornocracy " of Theodora and Marozia (see ROME, vol. xx. p. 787-8). STEPHEN IX., pope from August 1057 to March 1058, succeeded Victor II. (Gebhard of Eichstadt). His baptismal name was Frederick, and he was a younger brother of Godfrey, duke of Upper Lorraine, who, as marquis of Tuscany (by his marriage with Beatrice, widow of Boniface, marquis of Tuscany), played a prominent part in the politics of the period. Frederick, who had been raised to the cardinalate by Leo IX., discharged for some time the functions of papal legate at Constantinople, and was with Leo in his unlucky expedition against the Normans. He shared the vicissitudes of his brother's fortunes, and at one time had to take refuge from Henry III. in Monte Cassino. Five days after the death of Victor II. (who had made him cardinal-priest and abbot of Monte Cassino), he was chosen to succeed him. He showed great zeal in enforcing the Hildebrandine policy as to clerical celibacy, and was planning large schemes for the expulsion of the Normans from Italy, and the eleva- tion of his brother to the imperial throne, when he was seized by a severe illness, from which he only partially and temporarily recovered. He died at Florence March 29, 1058, and was succeeded by Benedict X. STEPHEN (1105-1154), king of England, the second son of Stephen, earl of Blois, and Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, was born at Blois in 1105. He obtained the county of Mortain by the gift of his uncle Henry I. and that of Boulogne by marriage with Maud, daughter of Count Eustace. As one of the chief barons of Normandy he had sworn to aid in securing the succession to the crown of England for his cousin the empress Matilda and her infant son, afterwards Henry II. Never- theless, on the death of Henry I. in 1135, Stephen at once crossed over to England, and was welcomed by the citizens of London as king. Aided by his brother Henry, bishop of Winchester, and the justiciar, Bishop Roger of Salis- bury, he made himself master of the royal treasure, and was formally elected and crowned on St Stephen's day, December 26, 1135. In a brief charter issued at the time of his coronation he promised to observe the laws and liberties of the land. A fuller charter, the second of our great charters of liberties, was issued early in 1136. In this document, which was based on that of Henry I., each of the three estates came in for its share of promises, but the leading position of the church and the importance of the aid which it gave the king are shown by the pre- dominant attention paid to ecclesiastical privileges. So far all seemed going well, but the troubles of the reign soon began. A false report of Stephen's death in the summer of 1136 caused revolts to break out in the east and west of England. Roger Bigot seized Norwich, and Baldwin of Redvers occupied Exeter. Stephen, who possessed considerable military skill, speedily put down these rebellions, but the outbreak showed the lightness of the feudal bond and the defectiveness of Stephen's title. In 1137 he crossed over into Normandy to defend his dominions there from Geoffrey of Anjou, and was success- ful enough to make a satisfactory peace, but he returned to find England aflame. A mysterious conspiracy was hatched in the diocese of Ely, where the fenlands may have still concealed some remnants of the opposition to Stephen's grandfather. David, king of Scotland, who had already taken up arms on behalf of his niece Matilda, but had been bought off by the surrender of Carlisle, marched an army into England and advanced as far as Yorkshire. Robert, earl of Gloucester, the strongest of the English nobles, raised the standard of rebellion at Bristol. Against these numerous enemies Stephen contrived at first to make head. The conspiracy at Ely was nipped in the bud ; the Scotch invasion was checked in the battle of the Standard, near Northallerton, in 1138, and even against Robert of Gloucester Stephen won some success. But his own weakness and folly proved his ruin. In order to conciliate the barons who remained true to him, he allowed them to build castles, each of which became a centre of petty but intolerable tyranny. Instead of relying on the support of his English subjects, Stephen surrounded himself with a body of foreign mercenaries, who pillaged all alike. He granted earldoms at random, thereby splitting up the royal authority and diminishing the royal revenues. Lastly, and this was the worst mistake of all, he broke with the church, and especially with the great family of Bishop Roger, who had the administrative machinery in their hands. On the ground that they had no right to fortify their castles he arrested the bishops of Lincoln and Salisbury, together with Roger the chancellor, son of the latter. He thus enforced the surrender of the castles, but the church, with the new archbishop, Theobald, and Stephen's brother, Henry of Winchester, now legate, at its