Life of Sir William Wallace of Elderslie, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by John D. Carrick

I.
MEMOIR OF HENRY DE LACY, EARL OF LINCOLN. [Page 86.]

“Henry de Lacy was the eldest son of Edmund de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, by Alice, the daughter of the Marquess of Saluces in Italy. He succeeded his father in the earldom in 1257, at which time he was probably about nine years of age, his parents having been married in May 1247. The first circumstance relating to the Earl after his birth, of which we have any notice, was his marriage, in 1256, to Margaret, the eldest daughter and co-heiress of William de Longespee, the covenants of which are given by Dugdale. In 1269, the Earl became involved in a dispute about some lands with John Earl Warren, and each party prepared to establish his claim by force of arms; but their intention becoming known to the King, he commanded his Justices to hear and determine the cause, who decided it in favour of the Earl of Lincoln. William de Longespee, his wife’s father, died in the 52d Henry III.; and soon afterwards the Countess and her husband performed homage for, and obtained livery of, all the lands which had in consequence devolved upon her. In her right he is considered to have become Earl of Salisbury, the said William de Longespee having been entitled to that dignity, though he was never allowed it, as son and heir of William de Longespee, the natural son of King Henry II., by the well-known Rosamond Clifford, who obtained the Earldom of Salisbury by his marriage with Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of William d’Evereux. On the feast of St Edward, 18th March 1272, the Earl of Lincoln received the honour of knighthood, and in the same year was appointed Governor of Knaresborough Castle. In 5th Edward I. he had livery of the fee which his ancestors had usually received ‘nomine comitatûs Lincoln’ with all the arrears from the time he was invested by King Henry III. with the sword of that earldom. Upon several occasions, between the 6th and 10th Edward I., he obtained grants of fairs, markets, and free-warrens in different parts of his domains; and in the year last mentioned, he accompanied the expedition then sent into Wales. Leland asserts that the Earl built the town of Denbigh, the land of which had been granted to him “from his having married into the blood of those princes, and that he walled it, and erected a castle, on the front of which was a statue of him in long robes; and that anciently prayers were offered in Saint Hillary’s chapel in that place, for Lacy and Percy.”

“Dugdale considers, that his surrender of the castle and barony of Pontefract to the King, with all the honours thereto belonging, in the 20th Edward I., arose from his “having been long married, and doubting whether he should ever have issue, but upon condition, as it seems,” for the king, by his charter, dated at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 28th December, 21. Edward I., re-granted the same to him and to the heirs of his body, with remainder to Edmund Earl of Lancaster, the King’s brother, and to the heirs of his body, failing which, to the king and his heirs. In almost the next paragraph, however, that eminent writer says, “that in the 22d Edward I., the Earl received a grant of several manors from the King, with remainder to Thomas, the son of Edmund Earl of Lancaster, and Alice his wife, sole daughter of the Earl, and to the heirs of their two bodies lawfully begotten, and failing such issue, to the right heirs of the said Thomas” from which it would appear, that, at the time of the surrender by the Earl of Lincoln to the King, the said Alice was living; and which is further confirmed by his saying, in a subsequent page, that she was 28 years of age at the death of her father in 1312, in which case she must have been above seven at the time in question. In the 20. Edward I., the Earl was sent as ambassador to the King of France, to treat on the subject of the restraint of those pirates who robbed some French merchants; and in the 22d year of that monarch he again attended him into Wales, and was likewise in the expedition sent into Gascony. He accompanied the Earl of Lancaster, in the 24. Edward I., into Brittany, and was present at various successes of the English forces. On the death of that nobleman, he succeeded him in his command, and besieged the town of Aux with great vigour, though without success, and was forced to retreat to Bayonne; from which place he marched, with John de St John, towards Bellegard, which was then besieged by the Count d’Artois. The engagement which took place in the vicinity of that town, does not, from Dugdale’s relation of it, appear to have added to the reputation of the Earl, as he informs us, upon the authority of Walsingham, that “approaching a wood about three miles from Bellegard, he divided his army into two parts, whereof the van was led by John de St John, and the rear by himself; but having past the wood where St John, meeting the enemy, began the fight, discerning their strength, he retreated to Bayonne, leaving the rest to shift for themselves, so that St John and many others were by reason thereof taken prisoners.” Whatever stain this circumstance might have cast upon his military character, seems to have been partially removed towards the end of that year, by his having obliged the enemy to raise the siege which they had laid to St Katherine’s, in Gascony; soon after which he proceeded into Flanders, and thence returned to England. In the ensuing year, 27. Edward I., he was summoned by writ, tested 17th September, 27. Edward I., 1299, to be at York, with horse and arms, on the morrow of the Feast of St Martin, to serve against the Scots; and, in the next year, he is stated to have been sent to the Pope, with Sir Hugh Spencer, to complain of injuries received from the Scots; and about the same time he was appointed Lieutenant of Gascony. In the 29. Edward I., he was made Governor of Corfe Castle, from which year until the 31. Edward I., when he was joined in commission with the Bishop of Winchester to treat of peace between England and France, Dugdale gives no account of him.

“It was, however, on the 24th June, in the 29. Edward I., anno 1300, when the Earl must have been above 50 years of age, that he commanded the first division of the army which besieged Carlaverock Castle. The only characteristic trait recorded of him by the poet, is that of valour, which, we are told, was the principal feeling that animated his heart, and in so rude an age, this attribute was perhaps the highest and most gratifying praise that could be imagined. His name does not afterwards occur in that production, from which we may conclude, that his services at the siege and assault were not very conspicuous. In 1305, the Earl was again employed on a mission to the Pope, being deputed with the Bishops of Lichfield and Worcester to attend the inauguration of the Pontiff at Lyons, and to present him, in the name of the King, with several vessels of pure gold. After having executed this command, it appears that he was once more in the wars in Gascony, and in the ensuing year was similarly employed in Scotland. Upon the death of the King, at Burgh in Cumberland, the Earl was one of the Peers who attended him in his last moments, and received his solemn request to be faithful to his son, and not to allow Piers de Gaveston to return into England. Immediately after Edward’s demise, he joined some Earls and Barons in a solemn engagement to defend the young King, his honour and authority; and at his coronation he is recorded to have carried one of the swords borne at that ceremony; shortly after which he was appointed Governor of Skipton Castle. His conduct seems to have secured the confidence of the new monarch, for, upon his expedition towards Scotland in the 3d and 4th years of his reign, the Earl of Lincoln was constituted Governor of the realm during his absence.

“The preceding account of this personage has been almost entirely taken from Sir William Dugdale’s Baronage. The only facts which have been ascertained relating to him, not stated in that work, are, that he was one of the Mainpernors for the Earl of Gloucester in 1292; that he was a Receiver and Trier of Petitions in 1304; that he was present in the parliament held at Carlisle in February, 35th Edward I., 1307; and that he was one of the Peers appointed to regulate the King’s household in May, 3d Edward II., 1309.

“His works of piety were proportionate to his extensive possessions, and, adopting this criterion of his religious sentiments, we may conclude that he was not behind his contemporaries in superstition or devotion. Amongst his more substantial gifts to the church, was his large contribution to the “new work” at St Paul’s Cathedral in London; and three gilt crosses and a carbuncle, and a cup of silver gilt, which was said to have belonged to the shrine of St Edmund, in the abbey of Salley.

“The Earl of Lincoln closed a long and active career in 1312, at Lincoln’s Inn,[98] in the suburbs of London, being then about sixty-three or sixty-four years of age, and he is reported to have called his son-in-law, the Earl of Lancaster, to him, upon his death-bed, and, after representing how highly “it had pleased God to honor and enrich him above others,” he told him that “he was obliged to love and honor God above all things;” and then added, “See’st thou the Church of England, heretofore honourable and free, enslaved by Romish oppressions, and the King’s wicked exactions? See’st thou the common people, impoverished by tributes and taxes, and, from the condition of freemen, reduced to servitude? See’st thou the nobility, formerly venerable throughout Christendom, vilified by aliens, in their own native country? I therefore charge thee, by the name of Christ to stand up like a man for the honor of God and his church, and the redemption of thy country, associating thyself to that valiant, noble, and prudent person, Guy, Earl of Warwick, when it shall be most proper to discourse of the public affairs of the kingdom, who is so judicious in counsel, and mature in judgment. Fear not thy opposers who shall contest against thee in the truth, and if thou pursuest this my advice, thou shalt gain eternal honour!” This patriotic speech, which is attributed to him by Walsingham, who wrote in the fifteenth century, is worthy of attention, as conveying the view taken of the affairs of the period by a monk about one hundred years afterwards; for it would require extraordinary credulity to consider that it was really uttered by the dying Earl, whose whole life does not appear to present a single action indicative of the sentiments there attributed to him. His body was buried in the eastern part of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, between the chapel of our Lady and that of St Dunstan.

“The Earl of Lincoln was twice married, first to Margaret de Longespee before-mentioned, by whom he had a son, Edmond de Lacy, who was drowned in a well in a high tower, called the Red Tower, in Denbigh Castle, in his father’s lifetime; and a daughter, Alice, the wife of Thomas Earl of Lancaster, who was his sole heiress, and, at the Earl’s death, was twenty-eight years of age. His second wife was Joan, sister and heiress of William Baron Martin, who survived him, and was remarried to Nicholas Baron Audley.

“Alice, Countess of Lancaster, whose romantic life has been made the subject of a popular novel, styled herself, as sole inheritrix of the extensive possessions of her father and mother, Countess of Lincoln and Salisbury. She was thrice married; first to the Earl of Lancaster; secondly, to Eubolo le Strange; and, thirdly, to Hugh le Frenes; but died without issue on the Thursday next after the feast of St Michael, 22d Edward III., i. e. 2nd October 1348, when the representation of the powerful house of Lacy became vested in the descendants of Maud, the sister of Henry Earl of Lincoln, who married Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester.”