The Duke of Gloucester fought bravely, but was compelled to surrender at last, when he was made captive and conducted before Queen Matilda. The King of Scotland escaped with the empress, and got as far as Devizes, where the queen's soldiers pursued them so closely that they would certainly have been captured but for a stratagem to which the empress was compelled to resort for safety. She had herself rolled in a winding-sheet, and placed in a coffin, and was in this manner carried on the shoulders of some of her faithful partisans to the fortress of Gloucester, which belonged to her brother. There she was deposited at last, after many hours of travel, worn out with fasting and terror.
A.D. 1141. The Duke of Gloucester was so necessary to his party, that the empress opened communication with Queen Matilda to effect his release. But the only terms
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to which the devoted wife would listen, were those that would secure the restoration of her husband. Consequently, after many propositions had been made on one side and rejected on the other, and after Queen Matilda had threatened severe measures against Gloucester, the illustrious prisoners were exchanged. This important event took place in November, 1141.
Stephen had another attack of his old malady soon after his release, but he recovered with the tender care bestowed upon him by his loving wife, and then entered the field again, determined to fight more desperately than ever.
Then the party of the empress thought they would claim the assistance of her husband, the Count of Anjou, for which purpose the Duke of Gloucester was despatched to Normandy. Before leaving England, however, he saw his sister established at the Castle of Oxford, where he felt perfectly certain of her safety.
But Stephen was so bent upon capturing the empress that he laid siege to the fortress she occupied and reduced her to such distress for want of provisions that she escaped one night with only four attendants. The fugitives dressed themselves from head to foot in white, and as the ground was all covered with snow, they moved noiselessly and unnoticed along, protected by the banks of snow and ice along the Thames, through a blinding storm that flew full in their faces. When at a safe distance from the castle, they walked faster, over hedges and ditches, until they reached a town six miles off, where they obtained horses and rode on to Wallingford the same night.