WIGMORE CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE. 23 



try.* He had a cause, at that time, pending with the Earl of Sa- 

 lisbury, respecting the right to the town and castle of Denbigh ; 

 and when he had succeeded in his suit he returned to his govern- 

 ment. It was a post of as much trouble as dignity, and demanded 

 a steadier hand. " For," adds the same chronicler, " Roger, war- 

 like and renowned as he was, and fortunate in his undertakings, 

 and fair, was yet most dissolute and remiss in matters of religion." 

 Like his sovereign, he neglected the prudential representations of 

 older persons ; and his rash and resolute spirit brought him to an 

 untimely end. In a conflict, at Kinles, with the sept of O'Brien, 

 his ungovernable impetuosity hurried him foremost upon the ene- 

 my ; and, as he had advanced beyond the succour of his own sol- 

 diers, and was disguised in the habit of an Irish horseman, he was 

 slain and torn in pieces by the savage natives, whose behaviour 

 towards a fallen enemy, says Froissart,t was excessively ferocious. 



LelandJ says — " and ther, at a castel of his, he lay at that tyme, 

 and there cam on hym a greate multitude of wild Irisch men, to 

 assault hym; and he, issuyng out, fought manfully, and ther was 

 liewen to peaces." The disguise before-mentioned would but ill 

 accord with the sally thus described, but rather with Otterbourne's 

 account, II that he was riding unarmed and unattended. Yet to 

 that we can scarce give credence. Perhaps the truth lies in the 

 account of another MS.,§ which affirms that he went to the'rescu* 

 of some lands that had been left to him by his mother, which his 

 father had been obliged to reconquer before. The Irish costume 

 might be deemed useful on such an occasion, and it is much more 

 likely that the ravages of the natives would be directed against un- 

 protected lands than a fortified castle. 



His limbs were gathered together, sent to Wales, and thence 

 carried to his castle of Wigmore, whence they were taken to the 

 abbey founded by his ancestors, and, with due solemnity, interred. 



This Earl of March married, as has been said, Eleanor, eldest 

 daughter and heiress of Thomas de Holand, Earl of Kent, and his 

 wife Philippa, daughter of Richard, Earl of Arundel, who after- 



* This is one proof, among several, that the colours of the livery were not 

 always those of the blazon in the armorial bearings, as generally imagined. 



f xi., c. 24, and the Vita Regis Ricardi, ii., p. 127- 



$ Collect., voL ii., p. 481. 



11 p. 197. 



§ In the library of the Society of Antiquarians, 87 — 21. See also Dugu 

 dale's Baronage, p. 149. The MS. Titus xi., £ 6 — 6, in the Cotton Library 

 at the British Museum. 



