he approbation of the Holy See."
Malmesbury, who records these doings, adds that a layman sent from the
Empress affirmed that "her coming to England had been effected by the
legate's frequent letters"; and that "her taking the King, and holding
him in captivity, had been done principally by his connivance." The
reign of Stephen is not only "the most perfect condensation of all the
ills of feudality," but affords a striking picture of the ills which
befall a people when an ambitious hierarchy, swayed to and fro at the
will of a foreign power, regards the supremacy of the Church as the one
great object to be attained, at whatever expense of treachery and
falsehood, of national degradation and general suffering.

In 1142 the civil war is raging more fiercely than ever. Matilda is at
Oxford, a fortified city, protected by the Thames, by a wall, and by an
impregnable castle. Stephen, with a body of veterans, wades across the
river and enters the city. Matilda and her followers take refuge in the
keep. For three months the King presses the siege, surrounding the
fortress on all sides. Famine is approaching to the helpless garrison.
It is the Christmas season. The country is covered with a deep snow. The
Thames and the tributary rivers are frozen over. With a small escort
Matilda contrives to escape, and passes undiscovered through the royal
posts, on a dark and silent night, when no sound is heard but the clang
of a trumpet or the challenge of a sentinel. In the course of the night
she went to Abingdon on foot, and afterwards reached Wallingford on
horseback. The author of the _Gesta Stephani_ expresses his wonder at
the marvellous escapes of this courageous woman. The changes of her
fortune are equally remarkable. After the flight from Oxford the arms of
the Earl of Gloucester are again successful. Stephen is beaten at
Wilton, and retreats precipitately with his military brother, the Bishop
of Winchester. There are now in the autumn of 1142 universal turmoil and
desolation. Many people emigrate. Others crowd round the sanctuary of
the churches, and dwell there in mean hovels. Famine is general. Fields
are white with ripened corn, but the cultivators have fled, and there is
none to gather the harvest. Cities are deserted and depopulated. Fierce
foreign mercenaries, for whom the barons have no pay, pillage the farms
and the monasteries. The bishops, for the most part, rest supine amid
all this storm of tyranny. When they rouse