A.D . 12.31.] D ΚΑΤ 11 OF THE EARL MARSHAL. so that lie could eat and drink, play at dice, and walk to and fro in his room. His enemies when they saw this asked him, in the name of the king ,,f Kngland, to give up all his castles and lands in Ireland, since his body was now in the power and at the mercy of the king, and he could he put to a most shameful death at tho king's pleasure, as he had been by a decision of his royal court lirst exiled and afterwards placed in a state of defiance, and now had been taken prisoner in a pitched battle against him ; "It will he to your advantage," they said to him, "to do this without opposition, and thus obtain mercy from us." They also showed hrm the king's warrant by which they were ordered, if he should happen to come to Ireland, to take him prisoner and send him before the king dead or alive. The marshal then, knowing himself to be in the power of his enemies, at once gave orders by letter for the surrender of all his castles to the king, being ignorant that they were, by the king's warrants, granted to those nobles to lie distributed amongst them, and to be by them held by hereditary right. His wounds now beginning to swell and cause him grievous pain, he asked for a physician, on which Maurice the justiciary, in whose charge he was, summoned one, rather however with a design of killing him than of giving him relief. lint the marshal, like a true Christian, before he took any bodily medicine, prepared for death by confession and the viaticum, and by making a legal testament, and then commended to the Lord the question whether he should live or die. The physician then came to him and with a long-heated instrument laid his wounds open and probed them so often and deeply with it that he drew blood from them. The marshal from his great sufferings fell into an acute fever, and on the Kith of April, which was the sixteenth day after he had been wounded in battle, he slept in the Lord, lie was buried on the following day at Kilkenny, in an oratory belonging to some of the Minorite brethren, where he had whilst living built a handsome tomb. Thus died the earl marshal, a noble knight, one skilled in learning and distinguished by his manners and virtues. lie departed this life on Palm Sunday to receive from the Lord in heaven a palm for his reward : amongst the sons of men his their system of pillage. " While these events were passing." lie says, " Itichnrd Seward and liis companions employed themselves in burning the liuildiiig.fi of the king's adherents ; they burned the Swainlmnrne, a manor belonging to Robert Piissclevve, and Ivinghoe belonging to Peter bishop o' Winchester, together with the crops and cattle ; they also laid an ambuscade and seized William llolwer sheriff of Kent, because he was related to the said ltobert, having married his sister, and compelled him to paya heavy ransom ; they also, between Heading and Wallingf'ord, seized on seven baggage-horses belonging to Stephen do Segrave and the bishop of W inelu-ster. The nobles of Ireland in the meantime took possession (if the earl marshal's castles, and divided them amongst themselves as had been c.inlinned to them by the king's charter.