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boundaries. Neither party gained any decided advantage; and the contention ended in a suspension of hostilities, of which both were tired.

William died in 1231, and was succeeded by his brother Richard. He was a person of a stern and uncompromising virtue: he was on this account feared by the king, and still more by his ministers.

In the mean time, Peter de Roches, bishop of Winchester, who had been obliged to fly the kingdom under the ascendancy of his rival, Hubert de Burgh, had, on the retirement of this powerful baron, again returned and succeeded to his power and unpopularity. Hubert had been stern and tyrannical, but there was in his character a lofty and uncompromising fidelity to the sense of a trust; and he was rigorous in guarding, at all hazards, the power and prerogative of a feeble king against the encroachments of the fierce and turbulent baronage. De Roches possessed the stern, exacting, and arbitrary spirit, without the virtue of De Burgh. He encouraged the king's disposition to oppress his barons, and place his entire confidence in foreigners, until at last the affections of the aristocracy became alienated, and opposition to the claims and even the rights of the throne grew into a predominant disposition which involved the king in endless contention. It was in this state of things that Richard Marshall succeeded to the possessions of his brother William. De Roches and his master were justly alarmed at such an accession to the discontented baronage. The masculine virtues, the vigour, sagacity, and unflinching firmness of Richard were known, and they resolved to prevent his taking possession of his estates. They failed; and as a next resource, he was charged with a treasonable correspondence with France, and, on pain of perpetual imprisonment, commanded to leave the realm within fifteen days.

Richard complied; but his course was bent into Ireland, where his pretensions were still higher and his power and possessions greater than in England. The descendant of Strongbow and the native princess of Leinster found numerous friends in the national feeling of the Irish; and he was quickly enabled to return to England and seize on his paternal castle of Pembroke by force. The timid monarch and his imbecile government gave way, and conceded the investiture of his title and estates. The matter might have rested here. But their fears of earl Richard were not without foundation. The feebleness of the king, and the oppressive government of his insolent favourites, provoked the opposition of the barons; and Richard, whose bold and haughty spirit placed him at the head of the remonstrants, was, ere long, by their defection, left to support alone a dangerous contest against the power of the crown. In this position, there was no alternative between submission or recourse to arms; the first would be certain and ignominious death, but it was the spirit, not the fears, of earl Richard which chose the bolder course. He retreated into Wales, and there finding allies, he declared his purpose of maintaining his castles and estates by arms. A struggle ensued, in which the king's party met with continued disgrace from repeated failures and defeats. The cause was popular, for it was in fact the cause of his peers; and Richard conciliated respect by his conduct and forbearance. He affected to respect the king's person, and treated his English adver

saries with lenity, while he denied quarter to the foreign soldiers who were employed against him. Wise and moderate men saw the progress of this contention with regret and apprehension, and strongly urged the prudence of a just and conciliatory compromise; but the imperious and violent De Roches was deaf to the remonstrances of prudence. He was not, however, deserted by the cunning which will sometimes effect by crime what wisdom pursues by fair and honest means. A royal bribe diffused treachery through the Irish baronage, and a well-concerted scheme brought the intended victim within their power.

A suspension of arms was contrived in Wales, and earl Richard was secretly apprized of a conspiracy to seize upon his Irish lands. Alarmed by the report, he availed himself of the truce to embark for Ireland with fifteen attendants. In the mean time, letters were sent to the principal Irish barons, which-in addition to some statements which gave a colour of right to the plot-suggested the course to be pursued, and offered the territories of the earl as the price of co-operation. Earl Richard arrived. He was waited upon by De Marisco, who, with well-feigned commiseration for his wrongs, urged upon him a bold course of open hostility against the king in Ireland, where he might hope to carry success to the height of his utmost ambition. The Irish barons had been directed to secure the person of earl Richard; but this they could have little hope of effecting without a protracted struggle of which the decision might be taken from their hands by either a compromise or the interference of an English force. To involve him in a perfidious alliance afforded a safer and surer prospect of securing the spoil of their victim, by some well-timed treachery. Such was the design according to which De Marisco urged him on into a course in which his success or failure might equally be the means of his ruin. The earl accordingly entered with vigour and success on a course of military operations. He seized on several of his own castles, and took possession of Limerick, after a siege which lasted four days; he subsequently seized several castles both of the king's and such barons as were not in the scheme, or whose part was opposition. Of these the enmity was as affected and insincere as the friendship: all were but acting their parts. De Burgo, the Lacies, and other hostile lords, fled before his approach with pretended fear. He was thus infatuated by the notion of an imaginary strength, and gradually deceived into a rash confidence, which brought him into the toils of his enemies.

The hostile barons desired a truce, and promised that if they were not succoured by the king before a certain time to be settled in conference, they should consider themselves free from the unwilling necessity of maintaining hostilities, and would willingly and peaceably relinquish the island to the earl. The earl's ambition was fired by this proposal, and he at once agreed to meet them; but De Marisco insidiously represented that they might only desire to gain time, and

advised him to refuse the truce.

In compliance with their desire, earl Richard met the barons on the plain of Kildare; and, according to this advice of De Marisco, sternly refused to allow of any cessation of arms. The barons were

prepared for this reply: earl Richard was astonished by the fierce declaration, that arms should then decide their differences on the spot. He had now no alternative, and prepared for this unexpected trial with his native spirit and firmness; but, when all seemed ready for the onset, his fatal adviser and perfidious ally, De Marisco, rode up to him, and, with the utmost composure of countenance and tone, advised a surrender, and declined taking any part, saying that it was impossible for him to engage against his kinsman, De Lacy; and, having uttered this cruel speech, he instantly marched away, with eighty followers whom he had prepared for his purpose, leaving the unfortunate earl with fifteen, to defend his life against an hundred and forty chosen men. Nothing now remained for the ill-starred but high-spirited victim of this singularly contrived course of deceitful tactics, but to meet his fate in the spirit of the romantic law of chivalry, which made it disgraceful to turn his back on an armed enemy. With resolute composure he turned to his younger brother, who had attended him to the field, and, taking a solemn but affectionate leave, entreated him to retire from a scene to which his tender age was not yet inured. There was no long time for preparation: the barons themselves were held back by a sense of the shameful character of the exploit in which they were engaged; but their followers rushed on against the small party, who, standing firmly, awaited the shock with the resolution of men prepared to die. It was soon perceptible that, although the resistance they met compelled them to strike at many, their efforts were solely aimed against the person of Richard. He fought long and stoutly, and, with the help of his faithful attendants, brought many to the ground; but all human power was vain against such overwhelming odds. His little array was broken through; he was surrounded, unhorsed, and struck at on every side; and at last, while defending himself with that brave composure which so long made him a match for many, he received a dagger in the back, where he was undefended by his armour, and instantly fell to the ground. The object of his enemies was gained. They raised their victim in a fainting state, and tenderly conveyed him, yet alive but mortally wounded, to a castle of his own, now in the hands of Maurice Fitz-Gerald; there, according to their expectation, he expired in a few days. His death, when the manner and circumstances of it were known, excited in England resentment and consternation. In addition to the base and cowardly scheme by which he was betrayed, a rumour went about that his recovery was prevented by bribing the surgeon who attended him. This atrocity is but too consistent with the previous facts, to be rejected on the score of improbability. An Irish agent, who had the indiscreet vanity to confess that he had a principal part in the earl's death, was assassinated. The combined clamour of the people and discontent of the English peerage, alarmed the king. With mean and cowardly hypocrisy he feigned the deepest sorrow for earl Richard; lamented the inestimable loss of so hopeful a subject, with much insincere and unavailing praise of his great worth; and ordered his chaplains to perform a solemn mass for the repose of his soul. The penetration of the nobles was not baffled by these insincere demonstrations. The shock of this base murder ran through every rank, and excited general horror and aver

sion against its known contriver. It was not allowed to subside by any prudent abstinence from tyrannical aggressions on the lives and properties of the barons. The cloud of their discontent concentrated, and became perceptibly loaded with danger; so that, when the archbishop of Canterbury took up the grievances of the barons, it was felt and understood to be an expression of the national feeling. This brave and patriotic churchman threatened excommunication as the penalty, if the king should delay to dismiss De Roches and all his foreign creatures; and the king, compelled to yield, for a time suffered the country to be governed according to law.

In Ireland, the indignation of all but those immediately concerned in the crime was not less. The descendant of MacMurrogh was regarded as the sovereign of Leinster. The citizens of Dublin made themselves heard in the English court, and Henry was fain to silence their clamours by a letter expressive of the most liberal good intentions. In the mean time, the conspiring lords hastened to profit by their crime, and divide the spoils of the murdered earl. His brother, Gilbert, had pursued the same course of opposition to Henry: who was already re-entering on the same oppressive and unpopular habits: his marriage with the daughter of the Scottish king had excited his vanity, but he wanted the qualities which made earl Richard formidable, and quickly found himself obliged to sue for the king's pardon and favour. By powerful intercession he succeeded, and was allowed to take possession of his estates. Maurice Fitz-Gerald was influenced by his fears to clear himself by a solemn oath of having had any part in the murder of the earl; and proposed to show his sincerity by founding a monastery to maintain continual masses for the good of his soul.

Hugh de Lacy.

DIED A.D. 1234

On the death of his father, of the same name, Hugh de Lacy succeeded to his possessions; and, in 1189, he was appointed deputy by king John, in place of John de Courcy. In our life of this brave warrior, we have already related the cruel wrongs he sustained by the caprice of that bad man and most unworthy prince. Of these wrongs Hugh de Lacy was the instrument and the principal instigator. In conjunction with his brother Walter, he was employed to seize on De Courcy, but, after a struggle, was defeated by him. What he failed to effect by force of arms was, however, effected by treachery. De Courcy was seized, as has been related, and sent to the tower in London.

On the death of De Courcy, Ulster was granted to De Lacy, and served to increase the already dangerous power and authority of that family. Shortly after, he was called away to England to the assistance of John, and his brother, Walter, entrusted with the government in conjunction with the archdeacon of Stafford. Meiler Fitz-Henry succeeded; but, in 1208, Hugh was once more appointed to the go

vernment.

His power had now assumed a dangerous character; and king John

was, in the midst of his perplexities at home, alarmed and irritated by accounts of the insubordination of the Lacies. At war with his barons, menaced by France, under the contempt and indignation of Europe, excommunicated by the pope,-resentment against De Braosa, and the haughty baron who, in the confidence of his power, attempted to screen him from his revenge, was the governing impulse of his actions. Hugh de Laey took the unfortunate De Braosa under his protection, and king John was not ashamed, in the keenness of his revenge, to assign the necessity of reducing this outlaw and his adherents as the reason for his expedition into Ireland.*

On his arrival in Dublin, the chiefs thronged in to do him homage, and the general aspect of submission was such as to afford no encouragement to the refractory. Hugh de Lacy, justly fearing the consequences of the resentment he had excited in the implacable breast of John, and well aware of the serious and strong charges which his oppressions and robberies were sufficient to justify, resolved not to await the blow of justice enforced by vindictive animosity, but with his brother Walter, and his protegé De Braosa, fled into France.

In

In France, their adventures and the hardships they suffered, though by no means improbable, partake of the character of romance. the hurry of their flight, and perhaps also from the imperfection of financial arrangements in that age, these great and affluent nobles were unable to secure any provision for their subsistence while abroad. They were quickly reduced to the lowest state of destitution, and driven to the necessity of supporting themselves by labour. It will occur to the reader that their names alone should have been sufficient to secure for them the commiseration and aid of the generous nobles and charitable ecclesiastics of France. But the revelation of their names and character, would also expose them to the malice of their numerous enemies, and quickly guide the keen-scented pursuit of vengeance. They found a refuge and the means of life in the service of the abbot of Saint Taurin, who retained them as gardeners.† Leland supports this relation by observing that De Comines" was witness of some of the noblest lords of England degraded by their misfortunes to the condition of lacquies, during the contests of York and Lancaster."

The attention of the abbot was, it is said, soon attracted to the demeanour of his new retainers. Low as the age was in intellectual cultivation, it was an age of manners and formalities; it was also an age of pride and lofty thoughts: the apparent difference between the knight and the menial was far wider than in the present state of society. This difference was still more apparent in the bold and haughty nature of Hugh de Lacy. The abbot quickly suspected that his menials were persons of no ordinary rank and consequence. His curiosity, or probably his better feelings were excited, and he questioned them closely; the inquiry drew from them a full confession of the truth; they told their names, and detailed the history of their misfortunes. Their narration awakened the sympathy and benevolence of the good abbot, and he exerted him earnestly in their behalf. John's peculiar position

* Rymer, Leland, i. 187. † Speed, Hanmer, Leland.

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Lel. i. 191.

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