Charles Dickens

“ They say that the castles were filled with devils, rather than with men; that the peasants, men and women, were put into dungeons for their gold and silver, were tortured with fire and smoke, were hung up by the thumbs, were hung up by the heels with great weights to their heads, were torn with jagged irons, killed with hunger, broken to death in narrow chests filled with sharp-pointed stones, murdered in countless fiendish ways. In England there was no corn, no meat, no cheese, no butter, there was no tilled lands, no harvests. ”

“ Although King Stephen was, for the time in which he lived, a humane and moderate man, with many excellent qualities; and although nothing worse is known of him than his usurpation of the Crown, which he probably excused to himself by the consideration that King Henry the First was an usurper too—which was no excuse at all; the people of England suffered more in these dread nineteen years, than at any former period even of their Buffering history. ”

“ ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN.
The King was no sooner dead, than all the plans and schemes he had labored at so long, and lied so much for, crumbled away like a hollow heap of sand. Stephen, a grandson of the Conqueror, whom he had never mistrusted or suspected, started up to claim the throne.
Stephen was the son of Adela, the Conqueror's daughter, married to the Count of Blois. To Stephen, and to his brother Henry, the late King had been liberal; making Henry Bishop of Winchester, and finding a good marriage for Stephen, and much enriching him. ”