By the Rev. J. Wilkinson. 291 
whence it was forwarded to London, and, crowned with ivy, fixed 
onthe Tower. Matilda, John Gifford’s wife, wrote to Archbishop 
Peckham, then with the army, begging him to absolve the fallen 
enemy, and suffer the body to receive Christian burial. The Arch- 
bishop had before visited Llewellyn, and given him good advice, 
which, if followed, would have saved him his life and his kingdom. 
. Now he was dead, the Archbishop does not seem to have been in- 
vine 
7 
clined to comply with the lady’s request, without the King’s per- 
mission. Matilda was after a manner connected with Llewellyn, 
who was the son of Griffith an illegitimate son of Llewellyn, who 
married Jane natural daughter of King John by Agatha Ferrers. 
Matilda’s first husband was the great nephew of John. She died 
shortly after her intercession in behalf of the Welsh Prince. For 
in 1283 we find John Gifford, now a widower, making his peace 
with her memory by founding a cell in Oxford (afterwards Glou- 
cester Hall) for thirteen monks from the Abbey of Gloucester, who 
were to pray for the souls of himself and Matilda his late wife. 
Her story, from its connection with the future descent of the manor, 
deserves a few more words. The daughter and heir of Walter de 
Clifford, she was the great niece of Fair Rosamund Clifford, and 
‘married William Longespée the great grandson of Fair Rosamund 
by King Henry II. The two cousins were both very young. 
Three years afterwards William Longespée met with an untimely 
death in consequence of injuries received at a tournament held at 
Blyth, 1257, leaving an only daughter Margaret (who will again 
come into the narrative) the heir of his great name and vast pos- 
sessions. The seal used by Matilda Longespée during her widow- 
hood has been engraved in Bowles’ Lacock, Pl. 11. It represents her 
_ standing between two shields, the first checky with a bend for 
Clifford, the second Longespée. We next hear of her, 1271,’ four- 
teen years after her husband’s death, making complaint to the 
King that John Lord Gifford had taken her by force from her 
- Manor House at Canford in Dorset, carried her to his castle at 
i Brimsfield in Gloucester, and there married her against her will. 
1 This probably was shortly after her marriage with John Gifford, for in 1292 
her eldest child was of age, but not her second. 
