Background
During The Anarchy King Stephen, a nephew of Henry I of England, contended with Henry's daughter Matilda (also called Maud) for the throne Stephen had usurped. At the Battle of Lincoln on February 2, 1141, rebel barons Robert of Gloucester and Ranulf of Chester defeated and captured Stephen. Empress Matilda went on to seize London but its residents forced her out of the city on June 24. The forces of Stephen's queen, also named Matilda (Matilda of Boulogne), soon occupied London.
Stephen's brother, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, who had earlier defected to Empress Matilda's Angevin faction, changed sides again to support Stephen's queen. With a small force Henry laid siege to the royal castle at Winchester situated at the southwest corner of the city walls. Empress Matilda sortied from Oxford in late July with a substantial army commanded by Robert of Gloucester.
Read more about this topic: Rout Of Winchester
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)