By the Rev. W. II. Awdry. 319 



brought to the castell of Vies, and from theuce to Glos'ter bound 

 in a horse litter like a dead carcase/' Another account says that 

 " she escaped on a switt horse." If this be so, she probably arrived 

 at her destination with more speed than we nineteenth century 

 people are able to make, thanks to the squabbles of rival railway 

 companies. In Agnes Strickland's lives of the Queens of England 

 I find this account of her escape : — " The Empress Matilda having 

 decided to leave Winchester, her brother the Earl of Glos'ter cut 

 a passag-e for her through the besiegers \i.e., the army of Queen 

 Matilda, wife of Stephen] at the sword's point. She and her uncle 

 David, King of Scotland, by dint of hard riding escaped to Ludgar- 

 shall, while the Earl arrested the pursuit by battling with them by 

 the way, till almost all his followers being slain, he was compelled 

 to surrender after a desperate defence. This skirmish took place 

 September 14th, 1141. The Empress, whose safe retreat to Lud- 

 gershall had been thus dearly purchased by the loss of her great 

 general's liberty, being hotly pursued by the Queen's troops to 

 Devizes, only escaped their vigilance by personating a corpse, 

 wrapped in grave clothes, and being placed in a coffin, which was 

 bound with cords, and borne on the shoulders of some of her trusty 

 partisans to Gloster, the stronghold of her valiant brother, where 

 she arrived faint and weary with long fasting and mortal terror." 



A seal belonging to her faithful adherent, Milo of Gloucester, 

 was turned up by the plough at the end of the last century, six 

 hundred years after it was lost or thrown away. It bears this in- 

 scription : — " siGiLLUM MiLONis DE GLOCESTRiA," and represents a 

 knight in chain armour, on horseback, holding a lance and shield. 

 An impression of this seal may be seen in " Archseologia," vol. xiv. 

 The seal itself — which is of silver — is, or was, in the possession of 

 the Selwyn family. As Milo Fitzwalter was with the Queen when 

 she made her escape, it is probable that, following in her track, 

 while passing through Ludgershall, he either lost the seal or threw 

 it away to avoid identification in case of being taken prisoner. 

 Robert, Earl of Gloucester, was captured. Milo, having adopted 

 the disguise of a beggai*, escaped, but with great difficulty. 



On the accession of Richard I, to the throne "the castles of 



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