Page:A History of Cawthorne.djvu/34

 the time of Robert de Laci's death in 1193, and there is record of a fine levied in the King's Court at Winchester, on April 25th, 5 Richard 1. (1194), by which Albreda makes her grandson Roger heir to all the de Laci estates, whilst he at the same time quits claim to her of all the lands of her father, Robert de Lizours.

This Roger de Lizours now assumed the name of de Laci, and became the founder of the second de Laci family, chief lords of Cawthorne, having their residence at the great fortress and place of Pontefract. When he died, in 1211, he left a son John de Laci, Count of Chester, who married Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of Robert de Quincy, son of Saher, Earl of Winchester. This Robert had married Hawys, fourth sister and co-heiress of Ranulph Blondeville, Earl of Chester and Lincoln. Immediately on this Earl of Chester's death, the Countess Hawys transferred the Earldom of Lincoln to her son-in-law John de Laci, an arrangement no doubt contemplated by his uncle, the late earl, and one which was completed and confirmed by Royal Charter, Nov. 23rd, 1232 (17 Henry III.)

John and Margaret (1230) had a son Edmund de Laci, who, as he died (1258) in the lifetime of his mother, in whom the title vested, never assumed the Earldom of Lincoln, though he was from 1240 to 1258 lord of the Honour of Pontefract. Edmund left a son Henry, "the last and greatest man of all his line." "1251: Natus est Henricus de Lacy 3 idus Januarii." (MSS. Cotton; Vesp. D. xviii. f.) He was the confidential servant and friend of Edward I., and on the death of his grandmother he became Earl of Lincoln, in 1278.

This Henry, whose name plays a conspicuous part in the history of his time—that "period of national glory," as Hunter calls it, "the "reign of Edward I."—was lord of this Honour of Pontefract for fifty-two years. He died Feb. 5, 1310, and was buried in St. Paul's; of his two sons and two daughters, his daughter Alice alone survived him. In 1294, this daughter and heiress was contracted in marriage, when only nine years old, to Thomas Plantagenet then Earl of Leicester, elder son of Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, brother of Edward I., and younger son of Henry III.