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Stevens Genealoge. Some Descendants OF THE Fitz Stepben Famile IN ENGLAND AND NEW ENGLAND. BY C. ELLIS STEVENS, LL.D., D.C.L. F.S.A. (EDINBURGH) KNIGHT COMNANDER OF THE ORDER OF CHRIST OF PORTUGAL. NEW YORK PRIVATELY PRINTED 1904 RALPH FITZ STEPHEN, son and heir of Thomas Fitz Stephen, captain of theWhite Ship, flourished in the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I, andhad issue; I. RALPH, Baron of Wapley, of whom presently. II. William, who took Holy Orders, was a monk of the Benedictine Order atCanterbury Cathedral, a close friend of St. Thomas a'Becket, a judicial official in association withthe great Archbishop, and eventually Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of England. He was present at theCouncil of Northampton, October 13, 1164, and was sitting near Becketwhen Hubert of Bosham gave the rash advice to the Archbishop toexcommunicate his enemies if they laid hands on him. William induced theArchbishop to refuse this advice, as the latter afterwards confessed whenduring his exile he met William at St. Benedict's on the Loire.2 He waspresent in Canterbury Cathedral and an eye witness to the assassinationof Becket. And he subsequently wrote the "Life of St.Thomas"--which isthe principal historical authority for Becket's biography.1 In this work he introduced a description of the city ofLondon as it appeared at that time -- being "by far the most graphic andelaborate account of London during the twelfth century",2 and one of the earliest references to any European capital. This account has beenpublished in Stow's "Survey of London", and in Hearne's edition ofLeland's "Itinerary". The "Life of St. Thomas" was first printed inSparks' "Historicae Anglican Scriptores" 1723. The chief later editionsare those of Dr. Giles, 1845, and Rev. J. C. Robertson, 1877. William Fitz Stephen appears to have escapedmost of the disadvantages of intimacy with Becket, and has himselfpreserved a Latin poem of some ninety lines which he composed andpresented to King Henry II, in the chapel of Bruhull, in return for whichthe King granted him a pardon. In 1171-90 he was High Sheriff ofGloucestershire, part of the time in association with his brother Ralph.1In 1176 he was appointed a national judge on the establishment of CircuitCourts, and was placed by Henry II at the head of the six judicialcircuits, into which the kingdom was then divided. His circuit included Gloucestershire, and his court decisions are recorded inthat, and during four following years in fourteen other counties. His name appears as Chief JusticeItinerant so late as the first year of the reign of Richard Coeur deLion.2 The earliest known use of the seal in this family is recorded ofhim, 1131, at the chapel of Harscombe, in attesting a deed between Roger,Prior of Lathbury Abbey, and Roger Fitz Alan--his manuscript of hishistory among the Lansdowne volumes (No. 398) in the British Museum, anda fragment in the Bodlian Library at Oxford. 1 The historian Hume who relies on William Fitz Stephen mainly for hisfacts about Becket, gives a curious illnstration of the social conditions of the period, Vol.II, p. 15. "His historian and secretary, Fitz Stephens mentions among other particulars, that hisappartments were every day in winter covered with clean straw or hay, and in summer withgreen rushes and boughs, lest the gentlemen who paid court to him and who could not byreason of their great number find a place at table should soil their fine clothes by sitting ona dirty floor." He refers to a fendal provision by which the Lordship of Aylesbury was held, whichrequired on the King's visits straw for the floor in winter and "grass or herbs" in summer. -----William Lackey Stephens;http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/s/t/e/William-Lackey--Stephens/index.html
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