Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/217

 his fathers in his priory at Bisham in Berkshire (, p. 145).

Salisbury was the most famous and skilful captain on the English side ; well skilled in war, and specially, it would seem from the records of his sieges, in the use of artillery. His support of Gloucester was the result of his anger at a personal grievance ; but this, combined with his apparently headstrong determination to besiege Orleans, seems to suggest that he was less great as a politician than as a commander. Courteous, liberal, and brave, he was beloved by his followers, and was, it seems, generally popular with his countrymen. Though French writers charge him with cruelty, he seems not to have acted otherwise than in accordance with the usages of war, or than other leaders on both sides. His death was held to be an event of supreme importance in the course of the war, the French regarding it as a divine judgment on their most puissant and cruel enemy, the English, as a mark of God's anger, and the presage of many calamities (Pucelle, p. 86 ;, v. iii. 246 ; , p. 598). He married (1) Eleanor, daughter of Thomas, earl of Kent, by whom he had a daughter Alice, who married Richard Neville, afterwards Earl of Salisbury [q. v.], and (2) Alice, daughter of Thomas Chaucer [q. v.], by whom he had no issue. He left a natural son named John (, Baronage, i. 652, which see for his will). A portrait of him is given in Harl. MS. 4826, and is engraved in Strutt's 'Regal Antiquities' and Doyle's 'Official Baronage.'  MONTACUTE, WILLIAM, second (d. 1319), son of Simon de Montacute, first baron Montacute [q. v.], and his wife, Aufricia, was summoned to serve against the Scots in 1301 and in 1304. In the latter year he was imprisoned in the Tower for treason. On 22 May 1306 he was knighted at Westminster at the same time as Prince Edward, whom he accompanied into Scotland, where he remained till next year. In 1311 he was again in Scotland, and in 1313 was placed in command of the fleet at Sandwich, and accompanied the king and queen to France to be present at the coronation of Louis X. Next year he was again in Scotland, and in 1316 was a commander in the expedition against Llywelyn ab Rhys (d. 1317) [q. v.], and shortly afterwards negotiated peace (, ii. 283, 288 ; Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, ii. 217 ; Parl. Writs, . iii. 1182 ; Cal. Rot. Pat.) ; the same year he was sent to negotiate peace with Scotland, and in 1317 succeeded his father as second Baron Montacute. Edward also made him steward of his household, and the Lancastrian chronicler calls him 'fautor mendacii ipso Petro [i.e. Gaveston] nequior.' The next two years he attended parliament as one of the 'barones majores,' and served in the Scottish wars. On 20 Nov. 1318 he was made seneschal of Aquitaine and Gascony, and governor of the island of Oleron ; Edward commended him to the king of France on his departure for Gascony, where he remained until his death at the end of October 1319 (, ii. 377-8, 380, 406). He married Elizabeth, daughter of Peter de Montfort, who afterwards married Sir Thomas de Furnivall ; his eldest son, William (1301-1344), is separately noticed. His second son,, studied at Oxford, and was on 29 Nov. 1318 recommended by Edward II to the pope's favour on the plea of poverty through being a younger son (ib. ii. 380) ; he became successively arch-deacon of Canterbury, bishop of Worcester in 1334, and bishop of Ely in 1337, and died on 20 June 1345 (Rolls of Parl. ; , passim ; , De Præsulibus Angliæ, pp. 261, 443; , Collectanea, i. 606, iii. 24 ; , iii. 56, i. 334). A third son, Sir Edward Montacute, was actively the Scottish wars under Edward I.

