Under the escort of Brian Fitz-Count and Milo, to whom Matilda had given the Earldom of Hereford and the “Castle and Mote” of that ancient city, she fled from Winchester, Earl Robert guarding her rear. They were pursued. Matilda reached Ludgershall Castle in safety, and then went to the Devizes; but Earl Robert was taken on the way by William of Ypres, and imprisoned in Rochester Castle. Stephen was then a prisoner in Bristol Castle; and in November, 1141, the Earl and King were exchanged. A month later, at the Synod of Westminster, the pains of excommunication were denounced against all who built new castles, or offered violence to the poor,—a significant conjunction. Stephen’s illness and Earl Robert’s absence in Normandy checked for a short time active hostilities, and meantime Stephen held the Tower of London, and Matilda the castle of Oxford. Late in 1142, Stephen attacked and took Oxford, and blockaded the castle until the winter set in, and the stock of provisions fell short. The Thames was frozen, and the ground covered with snow, by the aid of which Matilda, robed in white, escaped across the river, and fled to Fitz-Count at Wallingford. The castle was then surrendered. Its grand mound is yet untouched; and below it, upon the river, is a large square tower of the eleventh century. Part of the city wall also remains. Before Reading, Stephen had taken several strong but less important fortresses, such as Bow and Arrow Castle on the Cliff of Portland, which still remains, and Carisbroke, the strength of the Isle of Wight. He took also Lulworth, in Purbeck, represented by a far later residence. Cirencester, which he burned, seems never to have been restored; and Farringdon, built in haste by the Earl of Gloucester, was also swept away. Stephen’s strength, however, lay in London and the east; and that of Matilda about Gloucester and Bristol, and in the west. Stephen also held Pevensey. The great midland barons stood aloof, biding their time. Thus Roger de Bellomont and his brother Waleran, of Meulan, held Leicester with its Roman walls and English earthworks, protected by the meads of the Soar; along the edge of which, and at the foot of the mound, is still seen the Norman Hall, and hard by the stately church of St. Mary de Castro, also in large part Norman. They also held Mount Sorrell, at that time a strong castle built upon a rock of syenite, but now quarried away, both rock and castle, to macadamise the highways of the metropolis. Saher de Quincy was strong about Hinckley, where the early mound, stripped of its masonry (if, indeed, it ever received any), still guards the eastern entrance to the town. The Earl of Chester held Lincoln as his own; and the hill of Belvoir, the cynosure of the Midland, was guarded by the grand shell-keep of Trusbut and De Ros, burned down and rebuilt after a tasteless fashion in our own days.