Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/242

 of the misleading statement [see ] that John sold him all the land of Philip de Worcester and Theobald Walter (Roe. Hov. iv. 152-3; ii. 179-80). He next received (23 Oct. 1202) the custody of Glamorgan Castle (Pat. 4 John, m. 8), and four months later (24 Feb. 1203) he had a grant of Gowerland, which he claimed as his inheritance (Plac. Parl. 30 Ed. I, 234). He was in close attendance on John at the time of Arthur's death, being at Rouen on 1 April (Cart. Ant. [Chancery] 20, 26), and at Falaise on 11 April 1203 (Cart. 4 John, m. 1), but he publicly refused to retain charge of the prince, suspecting that his life was in danger (, xvii. 192), and it may have been in order to silence him that he received on 8 July 1203 a grant of the city of Limerick at ferm. He was still at the king's court on 18 Nov. (Cart. 5 John, m. 18). Three years later (16 Dec. 1206) he was placed in possession of Grosmont, Llantilio (or White Castle), and Skenfrith Castles (Cart. 7 John, m. 3), but shortly after his fall began. Its causes and details have always been obscure. The chief authority on the subject is an ex-parte statement put forward by John after William's ruin (i.e. circ. 1211), entered in the ' Red Book ' of the exchequer and printed in Rymer's 'Fœdera' (i. 162-3). From this it would appear that the quarrel was pecuniary in its origin. Checking the king's assertions by the evidence of the 'Pipe Rolls,' it is clear that in 1207 (i.e. six years after obtaining the honour of Limerick), he had only paid up 700 marks in all (Pip. 8 John, rot. 6), instead of 500 a year. He was also in arrear for the ferm of Limerick itself, and Mr. Pearson (England in the Middle Ages, ii. 49), on the evidence of the Worcester Annals, holds him to have been suspected of conniving at the capture of the town in Geoffrey Marsh's rebellion: but that rebellion did not take place till later. On his becoming five years in arrear, the crown had recourse to distraint on his English estates. He had, however, removed his stock, and the king's bailiff was then ordered to distrain him in Wales. His friends, however, met the king at Gloucester (i.e. in November 1207), and on their intercession William was allowed to come to him at Hereford, and to surrender his castles of Hay, Brecknock, and Radnor in pledge for his arrears. But he still paid nothing further (Pip. 9 John, rot. 4, dors.), and upon the interdict being laid on England on 26 April 1208, his younger son Giles, bishop of Hereford (since 1200), was one of the five bishops who withdrew to France with the primate (, ii. 522; Ann. Wig. 396). John, suspecting the conduct of the family, sent to demand hostages of William, but his wife (it is said against his advice) refused them (, ii. 523-524). Thus committed to resistance, he strove to regain his three castles by surprise, and, failing in this, stormed and sacked Leominster. On the approach of the royal forces he fled with his family into Ireland (ib.; Ann. Wav. 261-2; Mon. Angl. i. 557), whereupon his estates were seized into the king's hands.

In Ireland he was harboured by William Marshall and the Lacys, who promised to surrender him within a certain time, but failed to do so till John's invasion of Ireland became imminent, when he was sent over with a safe-conduct to the court. He came, however, no nearer than Wales, where he harried the country till John's arrival at Pembroke in June 1210; he then offered 40,000 marks for peace and the restoration of his lands. But John declared he must treat with his wife, as the principal, in Ireland. William, refusing to accompany him, remained in Wales in rebellion. His wife, besieged by John in Heath (, ii.530), fled to Scotland, but was captured in Galloway, with her son and his wife, by Duncan of Carrick, and brought back to John at Carrickfergus by the end of July. John extorted from her a confirmation of her husband's offer, and took her with him to England. William met them at Bristol on 20 Sept. 1210, and finally agreed to pay the 40,000 marks; but as neither he nor his wife would pay anything, he was outlawed in default, and fled from his port of Shoreham in disguise (' quasi mendicus ') to France (Ann. Wav. 265; Ann. Osn. 54). He died at Corbeuil the following year (9 Aug. 1211), and was buried the next day in St. Victor's Abbey, Paris (, ii. 532), by Stephen Langton, the exiled primate (Ann. Marg. 31). His wife, Maud de St. Valerie, or De Haye, to whose arrogance his fall was largely attributed, was imprisoned, with her eldest son, by John in Windsor Castle, where they are said to have been starved to death (Ann. Wav. 265; Ann. Osn. 54). Matthew Paris (ii. 531) states, but erroneously, that the son's wife shared their fate, while Mr. Pearson (England in the Middle Ages, p. 53, n.} denies even the mother's death, on the ground that she appears as living in 1220 (Royal Letters, i. 136); but the Maud there mentioned was clearly her son's wife (as is proved by ''Coram rege roll Mich. 3 Hen. III,'' No. 1, m. 2, Sussex), who, with the third son Reginald, had escaped capture.

The second son, the bishop of Hereford, returned to England with the primate on 16 July 1214, and paid a fine of 9,000 marks