Death of King Stephen: October 25th, 1154.(Months Past)

HISTORIANS HAVE NOT given King Stephen a good press. As his biographer David Crouch pointed out, he had the misfortune to come between two of England's most dynamic and successful kings, Henry I and Henry II. Stephen was an attractive character, chivalrous and brave, cheerful and affable and a fine soldier, but for most of his reign England was dragged through a civil war between him and his rival for the throne, Henry I's daughter Matilda, later succeeded by her son Henry Plantagenet of the Devil's brood of Anjou.

Eventually Stephen and Henry met at Winchester in November 1153 and ...

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