Stephen (c. 1097–1154)

King of England from 1135. A grandson of William the Conqueror, he was elected king in 1135, although he had previously recognized Henry I's daughter Matilda as heiress to the throne. Matilda landed in England in 1139, and civil war disrupted the country until 1153, when Stephen acknowledged Matilda's son, Henry II, as his own heir.

Stephen's reign was a time of near-anarchy when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘there was nothing but strife, evil, and robbery...the land was ruined by such doings, and men said openly that Christ and the saints slept.’