Page:The Queens of England.djvu/50

38 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. was exposed to new dangers and hardships. She had retired to Oxford for security, as that city, surrounded by waters and well fortified, was then considered impregnable. Stephen as- saulted the town, set fire to it, and confined Matilda in the castle, hoping to get her into his power ; but her courage and energy were not easily subdued. At the end of two months, however, and in the commencement of winter, she was reduced to the utmost distress for want of provisions ; and finding herself com- pelled to capitulate, she temporized by asking terms which she knew Stephen would not grant, and in the meantime took ad-^ vantage of the darkness, when the ground was covered with snow, to sally fcrth at midnight, on foot. She deceived the sentinels, by means of a white dress, and, attended only by three trusty knights, also habited in white, passed the Thames on the ice, and walked six miles with the snow beating in her face, to the town of Abingdon, where she mounted a horse and pro- ceeded the same night to Wallingford. Here she was joined by the Earl of Gloucester and her son, in whose society she seemed for a while to lose remembrance of her misfortunes and suffer- ings. For three years longer England was distracted by this civil warfare. Many extraordinary changes of fortune were experi- enced on both sides. Maltida recovered nearly half the king- dom, and again lost it. The young prince returned into Anjou to his father ; and the death of her best friend and champion the Earl of Gloucester, in 1146, added to other losses equally irreparable, disposed Matilda, whose masculine spirit could no longer endure such incessant fatigue, danger, and reverses, to abandon the scene of her hopes and ambition, and with them a crown so frequently assured to her, and which she had once held in her grasp. Accordingly, four months after her brother's death, she passed over into Normandy to rejoin her husband, who received her kindly. Matilda consoled herself for her many misfortunes with the hope that her son would one day avenge her wrongs and recover his inheritance. These hopes were real- ized in the person of Henry the Second, who became the suc- cessor of Stephen, and who justly evinced for his mother the utmost filial affection and respect. The Empress Matilda died of a painful and lingering disor- der at the age of sixty-five on the 10th of September, 1167, at the Abbey of Notre Dame des Pres, near Rouen. To this city, to which she was greatly attached, she had been a munificent bene-