It was at this stage that an attempt was made to dispel the scruples caused by Stephen's breach of his oath to the late king. The hint, in the _Gesta_, that Henry, on his deathbed, had repented of his act in extorting that oath,[24] is amplified by Gervase into a story that he had released his barons from its bond,[25] while Ralph "de Diceto" represents the assertion as nothing less than that the late king had actually disinherited the Empress, and made Stephen his heir in her stead.[26] It should be noticed that these last two writers, in their statement that this story was proved by Hugh Bigod on oath, are confirmed by the independent evidence of the _Historia Pontificalis_.[27]
The importance of securing, as quickly as possible, the performance of the ceremony of coronation is well brought out by the author of the _Gesta_ in the arguments of Stephen's friends when combating the primate's scruples. They urged that it would _ipso facto_ put an end to all question as to the validity of his election.[28] The advantage, in short, of "snatching" a coronation was that, in the language of modern diplomacy, of securing a _fait accompli_. Election was a matter of opinion; coronation a matter of fact. Or, to employ another expression, it was the "outward and visible sign" that a king had begun his reign. Its important bearing is well seen in the case of the Conqueror himself. Dr. Stubbs observes, with his usual judgment, that "the ceremony was understood as bestowing the divine ratification on the election that had preceded it."[29] Now, the fact that the performance of this essential ceremony was, of course, wholly in the hands of the Church, in whose power, therefore, it always was to perform or to withhold it at its pleasure, appears to me to have naturally led to the growing assumption that we now meet with, the claim, based on a confusion of the ceremony with the actual election itself, that it was for the Church to elect the king. This claim, which in the case of Stephen (1136) seems to have been only inchoate,[30] appears at the time of his capture (1141) in a fully developed form,[31] the circumstances of the time having enabled the Church to increase its power in the State with perhaps unexampled rapidity.