Irene’s mother-in-law was the first victim of her own and her son’s ambition, and of the hatred of his enemies. Cantacuzenus, who always speaks with respect, if not generosity, of Anna, tells us that the Empress was not responsible for the barbarous treatment and death of his mother. She was imprisoned in one of the palace cells as soon as the trouble began, and from her dreary room she could hear the rabble of Constantinople shouting their customary obscene abuse of her and her son, and acclaiming Anna and John V. The young prince had been crowned at once by the patriarch. It was the early winter, and the aged Theodora was treated with studied insult and severity by her jailers. Her health soon broke, and she died in the palace dungeon. Cantacuzenus relates that a royal nun who had assisted and, consoled his mother went to reprove Anna for the brutality to which she had been exposed, but he adds that Anna was ignorant of it and blameless. The close of the career of Theodora Paleologina is one of the many reminders that to the end the Byzantine Empire did not lack _strong_ men and women; what it lacked was sound moral and patriotic feeling. The stock was not “outworn” and “enfeebled,” as historical writers are apt to say of decaying civilizations. Its strength was tainted and misdirected. The royal nun, I may add, who had visited Theodora in her cell was Theodora, daughter of Andronicus the elder, and widow of Michael of Bulgaria, who here is seen for the last time. The course of the long civil war need not be followed here. It opened disastrously for Cantacuzenus. Anna, Cantacuzenus tells us, longed for peace, and proposed that he should hold the chief power in the Empire, though not wear the purple, and that his daughter Helena should marry her son, the Emperor John. It would have been the best settlement, but it did not suit the ambition of Apocaucus and the patriarch. Apocaucus urged the patriarch to live in the palace and bribed Anna’s servants to watch her day and night, in order to prevent her from communicating with Cantacuzenus. Later Cantacuzenus visited the famous monks of Mount Athos, and induced them to send a few of their community to plead with Anna to arrest this shedding of Christian blood. But the monks were intercepted by the patriarch, and converted to his view of the situation, before they reached the Empress.