Having taken possession of the royal treasure which remained at Winchester, Matilda, after some delay, proceeded to London, where she arrived at midsummer. She was of English descent, and the unhappy citizens, ground down by taxation, hoped to obtain from her some release of the burdens with which they were oppressed. But Matilda's good fortune soon rendered her disdainful and arrogant; and it is said by an old historian that when those men to whom she owed her elevation bowed down before her, she did not rise from her throne, and their requests were frequently met by a refusal. It is, therefore, scarcely matter for surprise that, when the citizens of London entreated her to take pity on them, she answered with a frown, and one of her first acts was to impose a heavy tax, or tallage, in addition to the burdens with which they were already afflicted. The empress seems to have possessed a malignant nature, which found vent in injuries inflicted equally on friends and enemies. Henry of Winchester, who may have felt some compunction at the part he had acted towards his brother, desired that his nephew Eustace, the son of Stephen, might be put in possession of his hereditary foreign rights. Matilda, instead of trying to make a compact, replied to the request with an insulting denial. Many other acts of arrogance, as impolitic in a queen as they were disgraceful in a woman, were exhibited towards her best friends; and when Maud, the wife of Stephen, who was Matilda's own cousin, appeared in her presence and begged that her husband might be restored to liberty, the empress drove the sorrowing wife away in tears. Matilda was making ready for her coronation in perfect security, when a rising of the people, as sudden as it was unanimous, resulted in driving her from London in the utmost haste, and without even so much as a change of raiment. An alarm sounded from all the steeples of the city, and immediately every street was filled with an excited multitude of people. From the doors of every house men came forth, armed with such weapons as they could procure. The empress and her Angevins (that is, people of Anjou), startled by the suddenness of the attack, and not daring to risk a conflict where the numbers were so greatly against them, and which would have to be carried on in narrow streets, where every advantage would be on the side of their enemies--made no resistance, but hastily seized horses and galloped off at full speed. Matilda had scarcely quitted the town, when the enraged populace forced their way into her apartments, and seized or destroyed whatever they found there.