§ IX. HIS DEATH.
On the 16th November, 1360, according to Henry of Malmesbury, Richard Fitz-Ralph slept in the Lord at Avignon. "Of whom", says Fox,[26] "a certain cardinal hearing of his death, openly protested that the same day a mighty pillar of the Church was fallen".
In Wadding's Annals, it is told that towards the end of his life, seeing it was not likely he could succeed in his struggle, he withdrew to Belgium, and there died in the mountains of Hannonia. The same account appears in the Camden Annals of Ireland. But Ware[27] tells us that the Armagh copy of these annals agrees with other histories in placing the death at Avignon. In 1370, his remains were removed by Stephanus de Valle (who from the see of Limerick was translated to that of Meath by Urban V. in 1369), and brought back to his native town of Dundalk, where they were desposited in the church of St. Nicholas. The memory of his extraordinary merits soon attracted to his tomb crowds of the faithful. The usage of styling him St. Richard of Dundalk became quite general, and many miracles were ascribed to his intercession. Moved by the report of these prodigies, Pope Boniface IX. appointed John Cotton, Archbishop of Armagh, Richard Young, Bishop-elect of Bangor, and the Abbot of Osney, near Oxford, as commissioners to institute a judicial examination of the miracles. The result of their labours is not known. Stewart, in his History of Armagh, mentions[28] that in a synod held at Drogheda in 1545, it was ordered that the feast of St. Richard of Dundalk should be celebrated in the diocese of Armagh with nine lessons, in crastino Joannis et Pauli.