Count Stephen was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, often writing enthusiastic letters to Adela about the crusade's progress. Stephen was the head of the army council at the Crusaders' siege of Nicaea in 1097. He returned home in 1098 during the lengthy siege of Antioch, without having fulfilled his crusading vow to forge a way to Jerusalem. He was pressured by Adela into making a second pilgrimage, and joined the minor crusade of 1101 in the company of others who had also returned home prematurely. In 1102, Stephen was killed at the Second Battle of Ramla at the age of fifty-seven. Tyerman, Christopher, God's war: a new history of the Crusades, (Harvard University Press, 2006), 87.
Davis King Stephen p. 172