The Bovne Valley. 57 



Trim, with the Boyne flowing beneath them ; the Priory of 

 Saint John, the old bridge and its protecting tower, and the 

 great Abbey of Peter and Paul are in the foreground. In the 

 distance rises up King John's Castle, a splendid ruin ; next the 

 Yellow Steeple, rising to a height of 125 feet, close by which is 

 one of the ancient gates of Trim, known as the Sheep Gate, 

 whilst still further off stands the square and massive tower of 

 the Parish Church, built by Richard Duke of York, father of 

 Edward the Fourth, in the year I44q. In Anglo-Norman Trim 

 there was the Grey Friary of Observantines and the Black 

 Friary of the Dominicans, the latter founded by Geoffry de 

 Joinville, Lord of Meath, in a.d. 1263. There was also Saint 

 Mary's Abbey, of which the Yellow Steeple is the only surviving 

 relic. It is stated that Oliver Cromwell battered down this 

 abbey in consequence of a number of men holding it against 

 him. Henry the Second granted the entire Kingdom of Aieath 

 to Hugh de Lacy for the service of fifty knights, and he fixed 

 on Trim as his residence, and built King John's Castle. It 

 covers an area of two acres or more on the sloping bank of the 

 Boyne. The river flows on one side, and on the other has a 

 broad and deep fosse, filled with water from the river, which 

 isolated it completely, and rendered it almost impregnable before 

 the invention of artillery. King John lodged in Trim in July, 

 1210 ; Parliaments were held in it, and there was a mint for 

 coining money ; in fact it was the capital in the early Anglo- 

 Norman period. Henry the Fith, the hero of Agincourt, was 

 left here when a youth, confined in one of the towers of the 

 castle, by Richard the Second. The Duke of Wellington 

 received his early education in Trim in a school house still 

 occupied, and he represented it when he was twenty-one years 

 of age in the Irish Parliament. A monument stands in the 

 town, erected to the Iron Duke, as the hero of Waterloo. 

 About six miles further down the river from Trim are the 

 ruins of Bective Abbey, situated on the northern bank of the 

 Boyne. It was founded in 1146 by O'Melaghlin, King of 

 Meath, for monks of ihe Cistercian Order. It was richly 



