Page:The Queens of England.djvu/56

 44 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. ready related, and her brother, the Earl of Gloucester, was taken captive. He was treated with great generosity by the queen, who, however, refused to ransom him on any other terms than that of exchange for her husband, which condition was at length agreed to in November, 1141. For three years longer the struggle lasted, and then, in 1147, having the misfortune to lose her faithful adherent, the Earl of Gloucester, the empress finally withdrew to Normandy. Stephen and Matilda celebrated the following Christmas, 1 147, at Lincoln, with unusual splendor, on account of the de- parture of the empress and the restoration of peace. The public life of Matilda ends here. Her husband was again at liberty, again a king; her son the apparent successor to his dominions. The remainder of her days was devoted to acts of benificence, so numerous as to obtain for her the enviable title of "the Good." In 1148 she completed her long-cherished plan of building the Hospital and Church of St. Katherine, instituted in memory of her deceased children ; and in the same year, jointly with her husband, founded the royal abbey of Feversham, in Kent. Matilda died of a fever at Hedingham Castle, in Essex, on the 3rd day of May, 1151. Her children, besides the two who died in infancy, were, Eustace and William, Earl of Boulogne, and one daughter, Mary, Abbess of Romsey. She was fortunate in not surviving to behold her posterity deprived of the crown, and her husband consenting to the succession of the son of her rival, the empress. The loss of his beloved consort, followed soon after by that of his favorite son, Eustace, so deeply affected Stephen that he survived little more than three years. He was interred in Feversham Abbey, by the side of his wife and son. The fol- lowing lines were inscribed on the tomb of the queen : "The year one thousand one hundred and fifty-one deprived us of Matilda, the happy wife of King Stephen ; it saw her death and her monument. She not only worshiped God, but relieved the poor. Angels held out their hands to receive this queen, for deep was her humility, though great her worth."