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.At once theleaders of Stephen s cause, encouraged by recent events,gathered against them.While the Empress besieged thebishop s men from within, she was herself besieged from with-out by superior forces.At last the danger of being cut offfrom all supplies forced her to retreat, and in the retreatRobert of Gloucester, protecting his sister s flight, was himselfWilliam of STAGE WARThis was a great stroke of fortune, because itCHAP.captured.XIpractical purposes the capture of Stephen at thebattle of Lincoln, and it at once suggested an even exchange.Negotiations were not altogether easy.Robert modestly in-sisted that he was not equal to a king, but the arrangementwas too obvious to admit of failure, and the exchange waseffected at the beginning of November.Since the middle of June the course of affairs had turnedrapidly in favour of the king, but he was still far from havingrecovered the position of strength which he occupied beforethe landing of Matilda.Oxford was still in her hands, andso was a large part of the west of England.The Earl ofChester was still on her side, though he had signified hiswillingness to change sides if he were properly received.Stephen had yet before him a hard task in recovering hiskingdom, and he never accomplished it.The war dragged onits slow length for more than ten years.Its dramatic period,however, was now ended.Only the story of Matilda s flightfrom Oxford enlivens the later narrative.Siege and skirmish,treason and counter-treason, fill up the passing months, butbring the end no nearer, until the entry of the young Henryon the scene lends a new element of interest and decision tothe dull movement of events.At first after his release Stephen carried on the workof restoration rapidly and without interruption.London re-ceived him with joy.At Christmas time he wore his crownat Canterbury; he was probably, indeed, re-crowned by thearchbishop, to make good any defect which his imprisonmentAlready, on December 7, a new council, assem-bling in Westminster, had reversed the decisions of the coun-cil of Winchester, and, supported by a new declaration of thepope in a letter to the legate, had restored the allegiance ofthe Church to Stephen.At the Christmas assembly Geoffreyde Mandeville secured from the king the reward of his latestshift of sides, in a new charter which increased a poweralready dangerous and made him an almost independentprince.In the creation of two new earls a short time before,William of Albini as Earl of Sussex or and Gilbertof as Earl of Hertford, Stephen sought to confirm adoubtful, and to reward a steady, support.No event of STEPHEN RELEASEDportance marks the opening months of 1142.Lent was CHAP.spent in a royal progress through eastern England, where asyet the Empress had obtained no footing, to York.On theway, at Stamford, he seems to have recovered the allegianceof the Earl of Chester and of his brother, the Earl of Lin-coln, a sure sign of the change which had taken place sincethe battle in which they had overcome him so disastrouslya year before.In the summer Stephen again assumed the offensive andpushed the attack on his enemies with energy and skill.After a series of minor successes he advanced against theEmpress herself at Oxford, where she had made her head-quarters since the loss of London.Her brother Robert, whowas the real head of her party, was now in Normandy,whither he had gone to persuade Geoffrey to lend the sup-port of his personal presence to his wife s cause in England,but he had made sure, as he believed, of his sister s safetybefore going.The fortifications of Oxford had been strength-ened.The barons had pledged themselves to guard Matilda,and hostages had been exacted from some as a check on thefashion of free desertion.It seems to have been felt, how-ever, that Stephen would not venture to attack Oxford, andthere had been no special concentration of strength in thecity that when he suddenly appeared on the south, havingadvanced down the river from the west, he was easily able todisperse the burghers who attempted to dispute his passageof the river, and to enter one of the gates with them in theirflight.The town was sacked, and the king then sat down toa siege of the castle.The siege became a blockade, whichlasted the end of September to near Christmas time,though it was pushed with all the artillery of the age, and ablockade in which the castle was carefully watched day andnight.Stephen seems to have changed his mind since thetime when he had besieged Matilda in castle, and tohave been now determined to take his rival prisoner.Thebarons who had promised to protect the Empress gathered atWallingford, but did not venture to attempt a direct raisingof the siege.Robert of Gloucester returned from Normandyabout December I, but Stephen allowed him to win a smallsuccess or two, and kept steadily to his purpose. THE LAST STAGE OF THE WARCHAP.As it drew near to Christmas provisions became low inXIthe castle, and the necessity of surrender unpleasantly clear.Finally Matilda determined to attempt a bold escape.Itwas a severe winter and the ground was entirely covered withsnow.With only a few attendants-three and five are bothmentioned she was let down with ropes from a tower, and,clad in white, stole through the lines of the besiegers,detected only by a sentry, who raised no alarm.With deter-mined spirit and endurance she fled on foot through thewinter night and over difficult ways to Abingdon, six milesaway.There she obtained horses and rode on to Walling-ford, where she was safe.The castle of Oxford immediatelysurrendered to Stephen, but the great advantage for whichhe had striven had escaped him when almost in his hands.Robert of Gloucester, who was preparing to attempt theraising of the siege, at once joined his sister at Walling-ford, and brought with him her son, the future Henry II,sent over in place of his father, on his first visit to England
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