When Henry I died unexpectedly at Lyons-la-Forêt in 1135, Stephen of Blois dashed across the English Channel, gained control of the royal treasury, and had himself crowned king of England by the archbishop of Canterbury in Westminster abbey on 22 December. All this he was able to do despite the fact that Archbishop William of Corbeil and the other lay and ecclesiastical magnates of the realm, including Stephen himself, had sworn solemn oaths to uphold the succession of Henry's daughter, the Empress Matilda. Even more remarkably, Stephen obtained almost immediate confirmation of his accession from Pope Innocent II, a confirmation which was repeated in 1139 when the empress's adherents appeared in Rome to present her case to the pope in person. Innocent's successors seem to have been less enthusiastic about Stephen's claim, but the next three popes all ordered that there should be ‘no innovations’ with respect to the crown of England. It has usually been assumed that the sacred nature of the coronation itself made the popes reluctant to sanction the overthrow of a consecrated monarch, despite the oaths in support of Matilda's claim and subsequent conflicts such as the arrest of the bishops in 1139, the York election dispute, and Henry of Winchester's persistent and annoying attempts to become an archbishop. This view, however, overlooks the ties of friendship and co-operation, spanning two generations, which united the house of Blois with the reform papacy.