Having thus received that great honour, he returned[313] thence the next year after, and landed[313] at Dovor upon the day of S. Julian, where the king met him with much joy. After this, during his stay here, he made great preparation for his journey back to receive the crown of the Empire, which the pope underhand endeavoured[314] to obtain for him.
But that which I have next observed to be most memorable of him is, that upon that grand rebellion of those haughty spirited barons, then headed by Montfort Earl of Leicester and Clare Earl of Gloucester, he then adhered stoutly[315] to the king; and in 48 Henry III. marched with him to Northampton, where the chief strength of all their forces at that time were met together, and that he assisted[315] him in the siege and taking of that town, as also that, pursuing their dissipated forces into Sussex, (where the Londoners, with all their power recruited them,) he commanded[316] the body of the king’s army in that fatal battle of Lewes, where he shared with him in the unhappy
success of that day, being there taken prisoner. Lastly, that (in anno 1267, 51 Hen. III.) he went[317] again into Germany, and there married[317] Beatrix, niece to the Archbishop of Cologne. And in 55 Hen. III. was made[318] Governor of Rockingham Castle, in com. Northampton, and Warden of the Forest.
Having thus done with the chief of his secular actings and employments, I now come to his works of piety.
Besides his foundation of the Abbey of Hales (whereof I have already made mention) he likewise founded[319] that of Rewley (of the same order) in the suburbs of Oxford; and moreover granted[320] to the monks of Bec, in Normandy, that all their tenants within the precincts of the honour of Walingford should be exempted from suit of court to that honour, provided that his bailiff of Walingford should every year keep a court leet for the manor of Okebourne within the bounds of the priory there (which was a cell to Bec), to see that the king’s peace should be duly kept, and that the benefit arising by that leet should redound to those monks of Okebourne, they entertaining the bailiff of Walingford with three or four horse of his retinue at their charge for that day.
Furthermore, he gave[321] to the canons of the Holy Trinity at Knaresburgh, for the health of his soul and the souls of his ancestors, the chapel of S. Robert at Knaresburgh, with the advowson of the church at Hamstwait, confirming all those grants which King John had given thereto, with divers other lands of great extent. And to the monks of St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, gave[322] ten shillings rent due to him for St. James Fair, kept yearly near to the Mount.
Having thus acted a long part on the theatre of this world with great honour, after a tedious sickness[323] at his manor of Berkhampstead, in com. Herts, he died[324] upon the fourth of the nones of April, anno 1172 (56 Hen. III.) whereupon his heart was buried[325] in the Gray Friars at Oxford, under a sumptuous pyramid, and his body[325] in the Abbey of Hales, so founded by him as before hath been observed.
By his first wife Roese de Dovor, he had no issue, she taking another husband, as it seems, when she arrived to years of consent.
By Isabel the second (widow of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester), he had issue four sons, viz. John,[326] Henry,[326] Richard, and Nicholas,[327] (of which Henry I shall say more by and by), John and Richard departing this life in their infancy, and Nicholas, with his mother, in[328] childbed. Also a daughter, who dying[329] in her cradle, was buried[329] near unto John her brother at Reading.
By Senchia, the third wife (daughter to Raymund Earl of Provence), he had issue Richard, who died[329] young, and Edmund,[329] who succeeded him in his Earldom of Cornwall; but by Beatrix,[330] the fourth wife, (niece to the Archbishop of Cologne,) he had no issue.