Stephen took Oxford after
a long siege: he was defeated by Earl Robert at Wilton; and the empress,
though of a masculine spirit, yet being harassed with a variety of good
and bad fortune, and alarmed with continual dangers to her person and
family, at last retired into Normandy, {1146.} whither she had sent her
son some time before. The death of her brother, which happened nearly
about the same time, would have proved fatal to her interests, hail
not some incidents occurred which checked the course of Stephen's
prosperity. This prince, finding that the castles built by the noblemen
of his own party encouraged the spirit of independence, and were little
less dangerous than those which remained in the hands of the enemy,
endeavored to extort from them a surrender of those fortresses and he
alienated the affections of many of them by this equitable demand. The
artillery, also, of the church, which his brother had brought over to
his side, had, after some interval, joined the other party. Eugenius
III. had mounted the papal throne; the bishop of Winchester was deprived
of the legantine commission, which was conferred on Theobald, archbishop
of Canterbury, the enemy and rival of the former legate. That pontiff,
also, having summoned a general council at Rheims, in Champagne, instead
of allowing the church of England, as had been usual, to elect its own
deputies, nominated five English bishops to represent that church, and
required their attendance in the council. Stephen, who, notwithstanding
his present difficulties, was jealous of the rights of his crown,
refused them permission to attend;[*] and the pope, sensible of his
advantage in contending with a prince who reigned by a disputed title,
took revenge by laying all Stephen's party under an interdict.[**]
{1147.} The discontents of the royalists at being thrown into this
situation, were augmented by a comparison with Matilda's party, who
enjoyed all the benefits of the sacred ordinances; and Stephen was at
last obliged, by making proper submissions to the see of Rome, to remove
the reproach from his party.[***]

{1148.} The weakness of both sides, rather than any decrease of mutual
animosity, having produced a tacit cessation of arms in England, many of
the nobility, Roger de Moubray, William de Warrenne, and others,
finding no opportunity to exert their military ardor at home, enlisted
themselves in a new crusade, which, with surprising success after former
disappointm