day Survey gives a gloomy idea of its condition : "In the town itself, as well within the walls as without, there are two hundred and forty-three houses paying the tax; and besides these there are five hundred houses, save twenty-two, so waste and decayed that they cannot pay the tax." And withal, while other places, on account of their poverty, were rated at lower sums than in the days of Edward the Confessor (the whole Survey being made so as to state the present value with that in the Confessor's days), Oxford was amerced at nearly three times as much: "In the time of King Edward, Oxeneforde paid for toll and gable and all other customs, yearly to the king, twenty pounds; and six sextaries of honey. Now it pays sixty pounds by tale, of twenty pence in the ore.' To prevent any attempt at a revolt on the part of the inhabitants, William gave some land to Robert D'Oilli, one of his Norman followers, for the erection of a castle.

In the next reign Oxford regained much of its former prosperity. Henry I. built himself a residence in the town; and also gave a charter of incorporation to the inhabitants. This charter was

confirmed and extended by succeeding monarchs down to the reign of James II. In 1139, while Stephen was holding his court at Oxford, a tumult arose between the retainers of Roger, the powerful bishop of Salisbury, and those of the Earl of Brittany. Several persons were wounded and one knight was killed. Stephen ordered the arrest of Bishop Roger and his nephews the bishops of Lincoln and Ely. Ely escaped, but the others were seized, and treated with extreme harshness. The affair is by some suspected to have been contrived by Stephen as a pretext for obtaining possession of

Bishop Roger, whose power he feared. The effects of it were very influential on the fortunes of the king. Nearly the entire body of the prelates and clergy at once declared against him, and perhaps much of his future trouble may be traced to his conduct on this occasion. When the war between Stephen and Matilda fairly began, Oxford Castle was garrisoned for the empress queen; and hither it was that she fled when forced to make a hasty retreat from London: and at Oxford, a year or two later, she fixed her court. In 1142 Stephen marched in person against the city with all the forces he could bring together, avowing at the same time his determination not to quit the place till he had his rival in his hands. He soon took the city, but the queen escaped from him by one of those stratagems which she knew so well how to contrive and execute. The castle had held out till the queen was nearly starved, as well as the garrison. The season was winter, and the frost was of unusual severity. The ground was covered with snow, and the Thames was frozen over. In this it was she trusted. She clothed herself in white, and accompanied by three knights similarly clothed, about midnight, on the 20th of December, she quitted the castle by a postern, and gliding like a ghost over the frozen river and snow-clad fields, escaped the notice of the besiegers. She walked to Abingdon, and having procured horses there, proceeded safely to Wallingford.*

Richard I. was born at Oxford; and bestowed

* Of Oxford Castle, only a fragment remains by the county gaol, which occupies the site of the old pile. Its appearance shortly before being pulled down is shown in the opposite engraving.

many benefits on the city of his birth. During this and succeeding reigns the councils of state were frequently held at Oxford, but it is needless to mention them particularly. The city itself flourished or became depressed according to the varying prospects of the University, on which it had been chiefly dependent. In the Wars of the Roses it suffered much; and several times it was nearly depopulated by the ravages of pestilence. No very remarkable public event occurred till the reign of Mary, when, in October, 1555, Bishops Ridley and Latimer were burnt opposite the front of Balliol College, and in March, 1556, Archbishop Cranmer suffered on the same spot.

In the early part of the great Civil War, Oxford fell alternately into the hands of each party; but when the king quitted London, he made this city his head-quarters, holding his court there, and a Parliament of the Lords and members of the Lower House who still adhered to him. The city remained in possession of the Royalists until the king's cause became hopeless, when it surrendered to Fairfax. With this event all of interest apart from the University ceases. The only thing that need be mentioned is that, owing to the supposed attachment of the University to the Stuarts, troops were quartered in Oxford at the advance of the Pretender into England in 1715.

Oxford is the county-town, and the seat of a bishopric. It is a borough by prescription, and sends two Members to Parliament. With the University it contains nearly twenty-six thousand inhabitants. It stands on a slightly elevated tract of ground, almost insulated by the rivers Thames and Cherwell: and, including the suburbs, is nearly