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Replagegos Omnifurian Directory 07
Page 08
Stephen of Blois was crowned at Westminster Abbey during the Christmas festival (December 26, 1135). As a King of Misrule, he was fitly crowned at Christmastide, and it would have been a good thing for the nation if his reign had been of the ephemeral character which was customary to Lords of Misrule. The nineteen years of his reign were years of disorder unparalleled in any period of our history. On the landing of Henry the First's daughter, "the Empress Matilda," who claimed the English crown for her son Henry, a long struggle ensued, and the country was divided between the adherents of the two rivals, the West supporting Matilda, and London and the East Stephen. For a time the successes in war alternated between the two parties. A defeat at Lincoln left Stephen a prisoner in the hands of his enemies; but after his escape he laid siege to the city of Oxford, where Matilda had assembled her followers. "The Lady" of the English (as Matilda was then called) had retreated into the castle, which, though a place of great strength, proved to be insufficiently victualled. It was surrounded and cut off from all supplies without, and at Christmastide (1142), after a siege of three months, Matilda consulted her own safety by taking flight. On a cold December night, when the ground was covered with snow, she quitted the castle at midnight, attended by four knights, who as well as herself were clothed in white, in order that they might pass unobserved through the lines of their enemies. The adventurous "Lady" made good her escape, and crossing the river unnoticed on the ice, found her way to Abingdon. The long anarchy was ended by the Treaty of Wallingford (1153), Stephen being recognised as king during his life, and the succession devolving upon Matilda's son Henry. A year had hardly passed from the signing of the treaty, when Stephen's death gave Henry the crown, and his coronation took place at Christmastide, 1154, at Westminster.
"Poor old Dunman," said Tite, "he was so kind to us all, and tried so much to relieve our sufferings and make us feel contented that we all liked him, and felt his death was a severe loss to us. There was something so terrible in the story of his life that we used to talk about it at night, and fancy all sorts of strange spirits haunting the place where his money was buried. It was this that made us all impatient to get away from the dreary place. Three or four days after we had buried him, we removed the stones he said the gold was buried under, and there found, as he had told us, bags and boxes of gold and silver, in bars and coin of various kinds, heavy silver and gold ornaments that had been plundered from churches and convents, with pearls and diamonds and other precious stones, enough to fill two iron chests two feet square and two feet deep. There was the thought that it was the price of so much crime. And what good after all was this gold and silver to do us, if we were to die on the island, like old Dunman? We divided it among us, just as we would something of little value, not caring which got the biggest portion. Then, after keeping out what we thought we might want, each buried his part in separate spots, and marked the places with piles of big stones.
On October 25th we went down first the Limao rapid, and then the Burbure rapid. The river was beautiful all along, with low hills on both sides. We eventually arrived at Pimental, a fiendishly hot, steamy, unhealthy place, where across a streamlet was a station for the transhipment of rubber. The place was on low ground, which became inundated at high water. Another station was built some 200 m. off on high ground, which was used as a winter station. The second station was at the beginning of an excellent mule track which Col. Brazil had cut as far as a place lower down the river called Bella Vista, a distance of some 20 kil. He had imported at much expense a number of mules for the service. All the rubber was conveyed from that spot on mule-back, as between Pimental and Bella Vista was a dangerous rapid, on which many boats had been lost.
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