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FROM ENGLISH CHRONICLERS 213
themselves so long as they could, unless meanwhile God should
provide them with another plan.
Therefore about the festival of St. Martin William, abbot of
Rievaulx, came to that province ; and on behalf of Walter
Espec, to whom that town belonged, as has been said above,
told them most surely that they should yield it to the king of
Scotland. For [Espec] knew well how they had been reduced
to extreme straits for lack of food.
King [David] therefore gave them twenty-four horses,
through the abbot's intervention, and allowed them to depart
with their arms ; and having received the town caused it
immediately to be destroyed. 1
RICHARD OF HEXHAM, DE GESTIS REGIS STEPHANI, IN
CHRONICLES OF STEPHEN, ETC., VOL. Ill, P.
2
176.
Now 3 while these things proceeded [Alberic] very often and
very zealously discussed with many, and especially with the
queen of England, the re-establishment of peace between the
two kings. And after he knew that the queen's mind was
strongly fired for the accomplishment of this object he frequently
solicited the king himself upon the matter, by her
mediation and by the persistence of her woman's wit and
assurance.
And they found him at first obdurate, and as it were spurning
this reconciliation. Indeed many of his barons, to whom
serious losses had resulted from their quarrel, had pressed upon
him urgently by no means to make peace with the king of
Scotland, but to avenge himself valiantly upon him.
Nevertheless her glowing woman's breast, not knowing
defeat, ceased not from prompting him, night and day, in every
way she could, until she bent the royal mind to her wish. For
she greatly loved her uncle David, king of Scotland, and Henry,
his son and her cousin ; and therefore she endeavoured the
more to make peace between them and her husband, the king
of England.
1139
HENRY OF HUNTINGDON, HISTORIA ANGLORUM, p. 26 5. 4
In his fourth year, after Christmas, king Stephen took the
1 " And in the town nothing was found left to eat except one horse alive
and another in salt." J. of H., in S. of D., ii, 292.
2 Cf. J. of H., in S. of D., ii, 299.
3 I.e. in the council begun at Westminster on the 13th December, 1138 ;
R. of H., u.s., 172-176.
* Cf. Hoved., i, 196. R. de T., in Chr. of Ste., etc., iv, 136 ; cf. Ann. of