en place in a tree, as often
as she cam, a certain pyes used to gather to it, and ther to chattre,
and as it were to spek on to her, Edyth much mervelyng at this matter,
and was sumtyme sore ferid by it as by a wonder." Radulf, a canon of St.
Frideswide's, was consulted on the marvel, and his counsel ended in the
erection of the priory of Osney beneath the walls of the castle. The
foundation of the D'Oillys became one of the wealthiest and largest of
the English abbeys; but of its vast church and lordly abbot's house, the
great quadrangle of its cloisters, the almshouses without its gate, the
pleasant walks shaded with stately elms beside the river, not a trace
remains. Its bells alone were saved at the Dissolution by their transfer
to Christchurch.

The military strength of the castle of the D'Oillys was tested in the
struggle between Stephen and the Empress. Driven from London by a rising
of its burghers at the very moment when the crown seemed within her
grasp, Maud took refuge at Oxford. In the succeeding year Stephen found
himself strong enough to attack his rival in her stronghold; his knights
swam the river, fell hotly on the garrison which had sallied without the
walls to meet them, chased them through the gates, and rushed pell-mell
with the fugitives into the city. Houses were burnt and the Jewry
sacked; the Jews, if tradition is to be trusted, were forced to raise
against the castle the work that still bears the name of "Jews' Mount";
but the strength of its walls foiled the efforts of the besiegers, and
the attack died into a close blockade. Maud was however in Stephen's
grasp, and neither the loss of other fortresses nor the rigour of the
winter could tear the king from his prey. Despairing of relief the
Empress at last resolved to break through the enemy's lines. Every
stream was frozen and the earth covered with snow, when clad in white
and with three knights in white garments as her attendants Maud passed
unobserved through the outposts, crossed the Thames upon the ice, and
made her way to Abingdon and the fortress of Wallingford.

With the surrender which followed the military history of Oxford ceases
till the Great Rebellion. Its political history had still to attain its
highest reach in the Parliament of De Montfort. The great assemblies
held at Oxford under Cnut, Stephen, and Henry III., are each memorable
in their way. With the first closed the struggle between Englishman and
Dane, with the second