Robert of Gloucester came with Maud's troops to besiege it. The garrison
set fire to the surrounding houses to annoy the besiegers. While the
town was burning, an army from London appeared, fiercely attacked the
assailants, and forced them to take refuge in the churches. These were
set on fire to drive out the fugitives. The affair ended in Robert of
Gloucester being taken prisoner and his followers dispersed.

Then once more the Saxon peasants swarmed from their huts like hornets
from their hives and assailed the fugitives as they had before assailed
those from Stephen's army. The proud Normans, whose language betrayed
them in spite of their attempts at disguise, were robbed, stripped of
their clothing, and driven along the roads by whips in the hands of
Saxon serfs, who thus repaid themselves for many an act of wrong. The
Bishop of Canterbury and other high prelates and numbers of great lords
were thus maltreated, and for once were thoroughly humbled by those
despised islanders whom their fathers had enslaved.

Thus ended the second act in this drama of conquest and re-conquest.
Maud, deprived of her brother, was helpless. She exchanged him for King
Stephen, and the war broke out afresh. Stephen laid siege to Oxford, and
pressed it so closely that once more Maud took to flight. It was
midwinter. The ground was covered with snow. Dressing herself from head
to foot in white, and accompanied by three knights similarly attired,
she slipped out of a postern in the hope of being unseen against the
whiteness of the snow-clad surface.

Stephen's camp was asleep, its sentinels alone being astir. The scared
fugitives glided on foot through the snow, passing close to the enemy's
posts, the voices of the sentinels sounding in their ears. On foot they
crossed the frozen Thames, gained horses on the opposite side, and