DUFFIELD CASTLE. 127 



arms unless the king abided by the charter pertaining to the 

 Liberties of the Forest, which he had suddenly cancelled at Ox- 

 ford. And ten years later, we find that the Earl was one of the 

 three counsellors recommended by the barons to the king for 

 reconciling their discontent with reference to the royal violation 

 of the Magna Charta.* At length the Earl succumbed to frequent 

 attacks of the gout, dying in 31st Henry III., 1247, and was fol- 

 lowed to the grave in a few months by his wife Agnes. 



He was succeeded by his eldest son, being the third Earl 

 Ferrers who bore the name of William. He inherited not only 

 the vast estates of his father and mother, but also the former's 

 tendency to gout. This disease assumed so bad a form, that, 

 when quite a youth, he was quite unable to use his feet, and was 

 conveyed about, after a very unusual way for those days, in a two- 

 wheeled chariot or horse-litter. As he was passing over the bridge 

 of St. Neot's, Huntingdonshire, through the carelessness of the 

 drivers, the carriage was upset and the earl thrown into the water. 

 The accident, though not immediately fatal, bruised him con- 

 siderably ; he never recovered the shock, but died at Evington, 

 near Leicester, on April 5th, 1254, and was buried on the nth at 

 Mirevale Abbey.t Matthew Paris speaks highly of the Count, 

 and describes him as " vir discretus et legum terra? peritus " 

 He was married twice ; firstly to Sibilla, daughter and co-heiress 

 of William Mareschall, Earl of Pembroke, by whom he had seven 

 daughters ; and secondly to Margaret, daughter and co-heiress of 

 Roger de Quinci, Earl of Winchester, by whom he had two sons, 

 Robert and William. 



Robert de Ferrers was only fifteen years old when his father 

 died. When but nine years of age, he had been betrothed at 

 Westminster to Mary, infant daughter of Hugh le Brun, Earl of 

 Angouleme, and hence niece to King Henry III. On the 15th 

 of May following his father's death, we find the Queen and Peter 

 de Savoy covenanting to pay the king 6000 marks for the custody 

 of the lands of Robert, son and heir of William de Ferrers, Earl of 



* Rymer's Fcedera, Vol. I., p. 373. 



+ Matthew Paris' Hist. Angli., p. 884 ; and Annals of Burton Abbey. 



