Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/123



Longespée as a prominent supporter of the government, throwing, like the bishops, a lighted candle to the ground at the end of the sentence. He quarrelled with Ranulph, earl of Chester, who had joined himself to the disaffected party, upheld Hubert de Burgh, and was so active in the work of administration, that he and Hubert, the chief justiciar, are coupled together, in a notice of the Earl of Chester's disaffection in 1222, as ‘rulers of the king and kingdom’ (, ii. 251). In 1223 he marched to the assistance of William the Marshal, who was making war against the Welsh. In 1224 he was appointed sheriff of Hampshire and constable of the castles of Winchester, Porchester, and Southampton, and sheriff of Staffordshire and Shropshire, and, probably in the summer, wrote to the chief justiciary urging him to call Falkes de Breauté to account for his violent conduct (Royal Letters, i. 220). Having been appointed by the king on 3 March 1225 to accompany Richard, earl of Cornwall, on his expedition to Gascony (Fœdera, i. 177), he sailed on Palm Sunday. The expedition was successful [see under ], and Gascony, which was threatened by Louis VIII, was secured. Salisbury set sail on his return home in the autumn and met with rough weather, the ship being for some days driven about by the tempest, and all his goods cast overboard. While the danger was at its height he and the seamen saw a great light and a lovely maiden standing, as it seemed, at the mast-head, whom he alone knew to be the Blessed Virgin come to succour them, for from the day of his knighthood he had ever provided a light to burn before the Virgin's altar. The ship was driven upon the isle of Ré, then held for Louis by Savaric de Mauleon, but he found shelter in the abbey of our Lady of Ré. Two of Savaric's men recognised him and warned him to escape; he gave them 20l. and again set sail, landing in Cornwall at Christmastide after a voyage of nearly three months. Meanwhile it was reported in England that he was dead, and Hubert de Burgh tried to obtain the hand of the countess Ela for his nephew [see under ]. When on reaching England the earl heard this, he was wroth, and went to Marlborough, where the king then was, to complain of Hubert's conduct. Peace having been made between them, he dined with Hubert, and on his return to his castle at Salisbury fell sick. The story that Hubert poisoned him was false; the privations that he had undergone are enough to account for his illness. Finding his end near he sent for the Bishop of Salisbury, Richard le Poore, to come to him, and when the bishop entered his chamber, rose from his bed and knelt almost naked before him with a rope round his neck, declaring that he was a traitor to God, nor would he rise until he had confessed and received the sacrament. He died on 7 March 1226, and was buried in the then unfinished cathedral of Salisbury, and it is related as a miraculous proof of his salvation, that though there was a storm of wind and rain while his body was being borne from the castle to the cathedral, the lights carried in the procession were not extinguished (, iv. 116, 117). The fine tomb attributed to him in the easternmost bay of the south arcade of the nave has his full-length recumbent effigy in chain armour, and is a remarkable work of art. His arms were azure, six lioncels rampant or.

Salisbury was a wise and valiant man, not, indeed, to be ranked with patriotic statesmen, such as William the earl-marshal and Hubert de Burgh, but far superior to most of the nobles of his day, and sincerely attached to the interests of the royal house from which he came, faithful as long as it was possible to his brother John, and a good servant to his young nephew Henry. He seems to have been hot-tempered, but, though concerned during the war between John and the barons in some cruel ravages, was religious, and has the good word of the monastic chroniclers, being described in his epitaph given by Matthew Paris as ‘Flos comitum.’ He was a benefactor to the Austin priory of Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, founded by Walter of Evreux, the great-grandfather of his countess, and in 1222 gave the manor of Hatherop, Gloucestershire, to Carthusian monks for a monastery, and left them certain bequests in his will made in his last sickness. He was commemorated at the hospital of St. Nicholas, Salisbury. After his death his countess Ela (born at Amesbury, Wiltshire, 1187, succeeded her father 1196, and married 1198 at about the age of twelve), at the request of the monks of Hatherop, removed them to her manor of Henton, or Hinton, Somerset, where she built them a house called Locus Dei, dedicated in 1232. She also, in 1232, built a monastery for nuns of the order of St. Austin at Lacock, Wiltshire, where in 1238 she took the veil, and in 1239 was elected abbess. She lived a holy life and ruled her house with diligence until in 1257, being in weak health, she resigned her offices. She died and was buried at Lacock in 1261. By her Earl William had four sons, William Longespée (1212?–1250) [q. v.], Richard, a canon of Salisbury, Stephen, appointed seneschal of Gascony in 1253 and died 1260, and Nicholas,