Stephen, King of England recognised Stephen's son Eustace as Duke of Normandy in exchange for Eustace giving fealty to the French king. Stephen was less successful, however, in regaining the Argentan province along the Normandy and Anjou border, which Geoffrey had taken at the end of 1135. Stephen formed an army to retake it, but the frictions between his Flemish mercenary forces led by William of Ypres and the local Norman barons resulted in a battle between the two halves of his army. The Norman forces then deserted the King, forcing Stephen to give up his campaign. Stephen agreed to another truce with Geoffrey,
The Bastard King of England Spain would not become a united kingdom until the 15th. Also, it would be quite impossible to drag anyone from France to England behind a horse before the Channel Tunnel was dug. According to Ed Cray, author of "Bawdy Ballads", "As the story goes, Rudyard Kipling wrote 'The Bastard King of England' (pronounced En-ga-land') and that authorship cost him his poet laureate's knighthood. It is too bad that the attribution is apparently spurious; 'The Bastard King' would undoubtedly be Kipling's most popular work" if he had actually written it. A very similar song (though with clean lyrics), called "The Phony