The two parties were without leaders, for Matilda could do nothing without her brother. It was resolved to exchange the Earl of Gloucester for King Stephen, and in a grand council of bishops convened on the 7th of December by the Legate, the latter hurled all the thunders of the Church against the partisans of the Countess of Anjou (by which name he described Maud), as he had done on the 7th of April against the adherents of the Count of Blois. The war continued in England and in Normandy: the Count of Anjou had subjected that great province, but he refused to cross the sea to join his wife, and contented himself with sending his eldest son Henry into England with his uncle, the Earl of Gloucester. At the moment when the young prince landed in the country where he was destined to establish his race, his mother was besieged in Oxford by King Stephen. {144} The winter was one of great severity, and the sufferings of the nation were unparalleled. The barons fortified themselves each in his castle, "and even in the churches," say the chronicles, adding, that "they dug trenches in the churchyards, exposing to the daylight the bones of the dead. From thence armed men pillaged the towns and villages, the passers-by, and the lonely cottages. It was possible to walk all day without meeting a man upon the road, or seeing an acre of land in cultivation--for to till the earth was like tilling the sands of the sea-shore. Never had the pagan pirates inflicted worse evils." The siege of Oxford lasted three months; the snow covered the ground. Maud found herself on the point of perishing by famine. She attired herself in white, as did three knights of her suite, and the four issued by a little postern, and traversed the deserted country as far as the town of Abingdon, where they obtained horses. The castle of Oxford surrendered on the morrow: but Stephen was soon afterwards defeated before Wilton by the Earl of Gloucester. In the midst of these alternate successes and disasters, the burden of which weighed equally and constantly on the people, the Earl of Gloucester died (1147). His nephew, whom he had kept in Bristol Castle, in order to protect him against his enemies, returned into Normandy, and shortly afterwards the empress herself, deprived of all support, relinquished the part she had played with so much fortitude for eight years in order to return to France. King Stephen was now master of the situation; but his throne, shaken under him, was not destined to become firm again. [Image] Escape Of The Empress Maud From Oxford. {145}