[370] See his character as already given in this work.
[371] See the original, as above.—Tinterne, p. 46.
[372] Gilbert Mareschal, a principal and most potent peere of the realm, proclaimed here a Disport of running on horseback with launces, which they called Tourneaments, under the name of Fortunie, making a scorne of the King’s authority, whereby these Tourneaments were inhibited. To which place, when a great number of the nobility and gentry were assembled, it fortuned that Gilbert himselfe, as he ranne at tilt, by occasion that his flinging horse brake bridle and cast him, was trampled under foote, and so pitifully died.—Chronicle.
[373] Among his other feats “of spirit and prowess,” the following, recorded by the grave monk of St. Albans, is sufficiently “characteristic:”—About this time, William de Valence, residing at Hertfort Castle, as it is said, rode to the parke of Heathfeld, belonging to the Bishop of Ely, and there, hunting without any leave, went to the bishop’s manor-house; and there readily finding nothing to drink but ordinary beer, and, swearing and cursing the drink and those who made it, broke open the butlery doors. After all his company had drunk their fills of the best wines in the bishop’s cellars, he pulled the spigots out of the vessels, and let out the rest upon the floor; and then a servant of the house hearing the noise, and running to see what the matter was, they laughed him to scorn, and so departed.—Dugd. B. 774, Paris, 855.
[374] This Earl of Pembroke fell at the battle of Bayonne, in June, 1296, being the 23d of Edw. I., and was buried in St. Edmond’s chapel, Westminster.
[375] Scotticé, Peel, or castle.
[376] Penbrock, Penbrok, Pembrok, or Pembroke: names of the same places and persons, all variously spelt in the original deeds.
[377] These jousts and tournaments were used a long time, says the chronicle, and with such slaughter of gentlemen in all places, but in this England most of all—since that King Stephen brought them in—that by divers decrees of the Church they were forbidden, upon paine that whosoever therein were slaine should want Christian buriall in church or churchyard: and hiere with us King Henrie the Third, by advice of his sages, made an Act of Parliament, that their heires who transgressed in this kind should be disinherited. Howbeit, contrary to the said law, so good and wholesome, this naughty and wicked custome was practised a great while, and grew not quite out of use before the happie daies of Kinge Edward the Third, [Matt. Paris, 1248.] In the present instance, the Earl was a youth of but seventeen; but inspired with the manly courage of his forefathers, adventured to tilt with Syr John St. John, by an unlucky slip of whose lance young Hastings was run through the body, and suddenly died. He was a person of so noble disposition that, in bounty and courtesy, he exceeded most of his degree. But, adds the chronicle, his untimely death was then thought by many to be a judgment upon the family in regard that Aymer de Valence, his ancestor, was one of those who gave sentence of death upon Thomas, Earl of Lancaster; for it was observed, that after that judgment so given, none of the succeeding Earls ever saw his father, nor any father of them took delight in seeing his child!
[378] The reader may refer to our account of this transaction in the history of Raglan, in which, also, sketches of the Earls of Pembroke, of the house of Herbert, are given.
[379] Hywel y Fwyall, a British chieftain, is described by the Welsh bards as having commanded a body of his countrymen, as a corps of reserve, at the battle of Cressy; and by his seasonable advance, and valorous incursion upon the French lines, to have materially added to the acceleration of victory.—Ow. Glendwr, 33.