582 ItOUEU OK WEXDOVEK. [A . υ. 1234. Of the treachery which the king's advisers planned against the marshal. About this time the bishop of Winchester, and Peter de Kivaulx bis son, with some others of the king's evil counsellors, finding themselves everywhere defeated by the marshal, and seeing with grief their towns burned, at length devised a plan to conquer him by treachery as they could not do so in open lighting ; therefore, being frustrated in their wishes, and seeing the countless numbers of the Poictevins slain in Wales, they wrote letters containing designs of unheard-of treachery, and forced the king, although ignorant of their purport, to set his seal to them ; besides which, eleven of them alsu ailixed their seals, and then sent this bloody missive into Ireland. This treacherous letter was sent to the Irish nobles, Maurice Fitz-Uerald, who performed the functions of king's justiciary in that kingdom, Walter and Hugh de Lacy. Richard de Burgh, Geoffrey de Marisco, and others, who were sworn allies of the said marshal, although faithless to hiin ; and the purport of these letters was as follows. The king's counsellors, ii. the first place, told the said nobles that Richard, formerly marshal of the English king, had. by a decree of the said king's court, on account of open treachery, been banished from Kngland and his possessions ; that his villages and houses had been burned, his parks and fruit trees cut down, his ponds and fish destroyed, and. what was more than all this, had been for ever abjudicated iron, bis paternal inheritance ; and. notwithstanding he had been thus deprived of all his property, be still annoyed the king, and |H.Tsevered in his offences against him. " We therefore order you on your oath, as faithful subjects of our lord the king, to seize hiin if he should happen to come to Ireland, and bring him. dead or alive, before the king; and if you do this, all his inheritance and possessions in the kingdom of Ireland, which are now at the disposal of our lord the king, will be granted to you to be divided amongst you, and to be held by you by hereditary right. And for the faithful fulfilment of this promise to you by our lord the king, all of us, by whose advice the business of the king and kingdom is managed, will become securities if you brnij the above design to effect. Farewell." fiate the Irish noble* agreed la the offer of .ite king's counsellors. When the Irish nobles beard the contents of the king's letters, covetousness took possession of all their minds, and all conspiring with one another, they sent messengers with letters to the aforesaid counsellors of the king with an injunction to secrecy, tilling them that, if the promises contained in the kind's warrant would be continued to them they would endeavour to cany the plan into effect. The kings advisers then, by a royal warrant made a grant to them of all the rights of the marshal, to be divided between them, setting forth the place,-, possessions, and rights which would fall to the lot of each of them. \\ hen these traitor