For John Horace Round the civil war of Stephen's reign was characterised by an ‘anarchic spirit’. In recent years the focus of historical research on this anarchy has shifted away from local destruction and baronial attitudes to monarchical authority, to questions concerning the nature and degree of royal control over its own administration, and the objectives and ambitions of the magnates. The work has concentrated upon the retrospective evidence for waste and exchequer activity in the early pipe rolls of Henry II, the regulation of the coinage, the competition for service, the rationale behind the creation of the new earldoms and the nature of allegiance. It is against this background that this chapter will examine the fate of royal administration and authority in Yorkshire during the nineteen long winters when Christ and his saints are supposed to have slept.

The debate concerning the considerable increase in the number of earldoms in Stephen's reign and the position of the men who held them provides a point of departure. Whereas Round saw the earldoms simply as honorific titles, for Professor Davis these titles incorporated a responsibility to govern and defend the counties to which they were attached. Taking the Davis interpretation a stage further Professor Warren argues that the new earldoms reflect a deliberate policy of decentralisation, involving an upgrading in the power of earls and a transference of executive authority from the centre to the localities.