Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/87

Rh river at midnight on foot, and travelling all night, got safe to Wallingford castle, where her brother and young son Henry, newly returned from France, arrived soon after, to her great satisfaction: but Oxford, immediately upon the news of her flight, surrendered to the king.

However, this disgrace was fully compensated soon after by another of the same kind, which happened to king Stephen; for while he and his brother of Winchester were fortifying a nunnery at Wilton, to bridle his enemies at Salisbury, who very much harrassed those parts by their frequent excursions; the earl of Gloucester, who watched all opportunities, came unaware with a strong body of men, and set fire to the nunnery while the king himself was in it. Stephen, upon the sudden surprise of the thing, wholly lost or forgot his usual courage, and fled shamefully away, leaving his soldiers to be cut in pieces by the earl.

During the rest of the war, although it lasted nine years longer, there is little memorable recorded by any writer; whether the parties being pretty equal, and both sufficiently tired with so long a contention, wanted vigour and spirit to make a thorough conquest, and only endeavoured to keep what they had; or whether the multitude of strong castles, whose number daily increased, made it very difficult to end a war between two contending powers almost in balance; let the cause be what it will, the whole time passed in mutual sieges, surprises, revolts, surrenders of fortified places, without any decisive action, or other event of importance to be related. By which at length the very genius of the people became wholly bent upon a life of spoil, robbery,