lain and steward to William, the Queen's uncle, and it was by his advice that all the preferments in the Church were given to foreigners. He accompanied the Crusade of 1250, and was the principal agent in Italy when the Sicilian crown was given to the English King's son. Being at Rome in 1256, with Robert Waleran', a knight, engaged in raising money for the payment of the King's debt to the Pope, he there devised the remarkable expedient of sending over bills of exchange, drawn upon the English clergy, to which the legate was instructed to require their signatures, each acknowledging the debt inscribed. This method of transacting business had arisen but shortly before this period in Italy, then the great mart of commerce, and Aigue-blanche derived much credit for his ingenuity in thus perverting it to the purposes of extortion. Fulk de Basset, the Bishop of London (who is boldly praised by a contemporary, as "the anchor of the whole kingdom and the shield of its safety”), strenuously resisted this base expedient, and on being threatened with the loss of his mitre, made his memorable reply that "he would then put on his helmet." Aigue-blanche continued under the patronage of the King, notwithstanding his bad character, and ignorance of the language and interests of England, although even that patronage failed when attempting to procure him the sees of Lincoln or Lichfield. On a subsequent occasion also, we shall find that he was made to suffer the effects of his personal unpopularity.

Among all the oppressions that vexed the subjects in this reign, none galled their pride or irritated their feelings more than this ostentatious preference of foreigners at court. To enrich them, the choicest gifts of the royal prerogative were willingly lavished; the most lucrative wardships of the young nobles, implying the enjoyment of their estates, the direction of their education, and the disposal of their mar

1 Waleran the Hunter-sepulchral slab at Steeple Langford, Wilts.Arch. Journal, 1858, p. 75.

2 M. Par.

3 M. Par. "infamia."

riages, fell into the ready hands of these insolent favourites. "We have nothing to do with your English laws or customs'," was their bold reply to all complaints, after acts of violence or plunder, and their impunity induced even some of the English to imitate them: "there are so many tyrants already in England (they argued) that we too may as well up for such."

set

The jealousy of foreigners thus became, by force of circumstances, the bond of union between the Normans and Saxons, once so hostile to each other; but the one party was now anxious to retain what they had, and the other dreaded the fresh swarms of oppressors. High and low were therefore eager to exclude these aliens, and it is not surprising that Queen Eleanor herself, by whom they had been introduced, should partake largely of their unpopularity. It was, indeed, to her own foreign steward, William de Tarento, "who fastened on plunder as a leech does on blood"," that she transferred the important wardship of William de Cantilupe and the Earl of Salisbury', which had been granted to her. This man, a Cistercian monk, had earned her gratitude by raising money for her on the pledge of monastic lands.

For many years her friends had enjoyed a monopoly of court bounties, and it was resented by them as an interference, when another flight of needy foreigners, from a different quarter, arrived in 1247, to bask in the same sunshine.

Isabella, the King's mother, had, four years after King John's death, married' her first affianced husband, Hugh le

1 M. Par.

M. Par." Qui quasi sanguini sanguisuga emolumentis inhiabat." He died in 1258.

3 The wardship of the lands and heirs of William, grandson of William Longespie, Earl of Salisbury, was granted in 1257 to Queen Eleanor. But according to Dugdale, whom Sir Harris Nicolas follows, the earldom did not pass beyond the first Wil

liam. P.

Queen Isabella's letter to her son Henry III. announcing her marriage with the Lord Hugh de Lusignan, who had "remained alone and without heirs in Poictou," explains that his friends would not allow of his marriage with her daughter Joanna (born 1203), affianced to him, on account of her tender age, and therefore, lest he should take a wife

Brun, Count de la Marche. This gallant troubadour, whose songs are still extant, not only avenged himself for the loss of her broken alliance by a rebellion in Poictou, but with a poetic chivalry remained unmarried until accepted by the lady in her 34th year. She retained, indeed, the undiminished charms of her English dower, and the title of Queen, which she never relinquished. By this connexion, King Henry was subsequently entangled in an inglorious war with France, which rendered the Count unpopular with the English, and on the Queen Dowager's death, in 1246, all their children' were sent to thrive under the protection of their royal half-brother. Although they arrived poor, their condition was soon altered; the most confidential offices, and the highest stations in the Church were considered due to them, and, in 1256, the King even commanded that his chancery seal should never be affixed to any deed to their detriment.

William de Valence, the third, was, in 1247, made go

in France, "which if he had done, all your land in Poictou and Gascony would be lost. We seeing the great peril that might accrue if that marriage should take place, when our counsellors could give us no advice, ourselves married the said Hugh, Earl of March, and God knows that we did this rather for your benefit than our own." M. A. E. Wood's Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, Vol. 1. p. 38, from the Latin, Royal Letter, No. 392 in Tower. King Henry does not seem to have had previous notice of his mother's marriage, yet he wrote to congratulate the court on hearing of it, May 20, 1220,"gavisi sumus et plurimum lætati."-Rymer. Particulars relating to the family of Le Brun are given in Archæol. Journal, 1853, pp. 359, 360.

11. Hugh, married Joland, daughter of Peter de Dreux, Duke of Brittany.

2. Guy, Count of Angoulême, whose daughter, Alice, married Gilbert de

Clare, Earl of Gloucester.

3. William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, died 1296, buried in Westminster Abbey, married Joan de Monchensi.

4. Geoffry de Lusignan.

5. Aymer, Bishop elect of Winchester.

Margaret, married Raymond, Count of Thoulouse.

Alicia, married, 1247, John, Earl of Warren.

Isabella, wife of Maurice de Cro

ham.

2 Arms, burelle d'argent et d'azure de 10 pieces, orle de martlets guleshis tomb in Westminster Abbey, engraved in Stothard's Monumental Effigies. An enamelled casket (see Shaw's Ancient Furniture) bearing the arms of England, Angoulême, Valence, Dreux, Duke of Brittany, Brabant Lacy, and "azure, a lion rampant purpure," is extant, was exhibited in 1862 at Archæol. Institute's Enamel Exhibition, by G. Chapman, Esq. (Arch. Journ. p. 285), and may

vernor of Goodrich Castle, and married to Joan, a great heiress of the Monchensi family, grand-daughter to the great Earl of Pembroke, a title afterwards borne by himself, in virtue of the estates at Pembroke, which he held (by grant, 1250) on the tenure of doing suit for them to his wife. On the death of her father, Warin de Monchensi, in 1255, who is said to have bequeathed more than 200,000 marcs (£133,333. 6s. 8d.), the wardship of his son, William, was granted to this foreigner.

It was on a solemn occasion, that the King conferred knighthood on his half-brother. The pious monarch had passed on foot through the muddy ard uneven streets to Westminster Abbey, himself clad in the humblest dress, though following a procession of full-robed clergy. In his uplifted hands he held a crystal vase, containing what had been sent from the Holy Land by the Templars, as the blood of our Saviour'; he had prepared himself by previous fasts and watches for this ceremony, the fatigue of which nearly overpowered him, but which he thought so important at the time, that he charged his historian, Matthew Paris, whom he invited to dinner, especially to record all the circumstances of the day. The pride of his knightly belt, thus publicly invested, led William de Valence to try his prowess too soon afterwards against some English nobles at a tournament, at Newbury, where, being yet young and not grown to his full strength, he got "egregiously cudgelled" by the tough

veterans.

His command of Hertford Castle gave him the opportunity, in a hunting-party, of first poaching in the Bishop of

have been his or his son Aymer'sthe work perhaps of the artist who has left his enamelled coats of arms on W. de V.'s tomb: the casket is 7 in. long, 3 high, 54 broad.

By the Pope's Bull, a promise of six years and 116 days of pardon from the pains of purgatory was made to all who came to reverence this relic.

On another occasion, when King Henry obtained a Papal Bull, permitting him to eat meat on a Saturday, a very sensible condition was annexed to the frivolous privilege, that he should also feed 1000 poor persons on that day.

2

"Egregie baculatus."-M. Par.

Ely's park at Hatfield, and then unceremoniously making free with his cellar. The bishop being absent, he broke down the doors, cursed the beer as sour, and pulled the spigots out of all the casks, leaving the choicest wines to run waste, after serving it out to all the grooms and huntsmen, until the whole party were drunk'. The good bishop, when told of this outrage, remarked, with a most courteous reproof, "Why plunder and spoil what I would readily have given away on a civil request"?"

His qualities as a soldier made him of importance, however unpopular; and he steadily adhered to, and fought for, the King, surviving, indeed, to share in the Welch wars of Edward I., and though killed at Bayonne in 1296, in battle, his body was brought over for burial in Westminster Abbey, where his conspicuous tomb still remains, and where his epitaph (now destroyed) praised him with the accustomed truth of such memorials, as placid, courteous and humble.

The next brother, Guy, though the object of profuse gifts in 1251 and 1253, was not personally obnoxious to the English, who remembered in his favour that he had, during the war in Poictou, given the King timely warning of some intended treachery on the part of his own father. He became a Crusader, and returned so poverty-stricken that he could not make his way up to London without borrowing some horses on his road from the Abbot of Feversham, a loan, indeed, which he forgot to restore1.

Aymer, the youngest brother, was a priest, and, in spite

1 6 Usque ad nauseam."-M. Par. 2 A similar specimen of the abrupt manner in which the clergy were liable to be plundered, is given in the Chronicles of Barnewell Monastery, in 1266. "A tall knight, Philip Champion, roused the Prior out of his bed at dawn, saying, 'I want all your wheat, all your beer, and all your larder. Give me the keys." Cart. Barn, MSS. Harl., 3601, in notes to Rish, Chr.

3 "Qui valuit validus, vincens vir

tute valorem,

Et placuit placidus sensus morumque vigore,

Dapsilis et habilis immotus prælia sectans,

Utilis ac humilis devotus præmia spectans."

Stoth. Mon. Eff.

Not far from his own tomb is that of his son and successor, Aymer, whose widow founded Pembroke College, in Cambridge.

4 M. Par.