When Empress Matilda landed in England in September 1139, Stephen arrested her at Arundel but was persuaded by his advisors -- and notoriously by the chivalric argument of Henry of Blois -- to allow her safe conduct to Bristol. She was escorted west by Stephen's own brother Henry of Blois to join Robert of Gloucester. Stephen's decision was widely criticised as fatally naive and gave Matilda the western base from which she would prosecute the entire civil war. Devizes became a key castle in the corridor between Arundel and Bristol.
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