FEUDAL BARONAGE 



succour at a critical moment by coming to terms with Guy de Laval, by a 

 compact which seems to have involved the sacrifice of one-third part of 

 the honour.^ These events transpired about the year 1147, a year notable 

 in the history of this family for the foundation by Henry de Lacy of an 

 abbey of Cistercian monks brought from Fountains at Barnoldswick, in 

 Craven, a vill which he held of Hugh Bigod, earl of Norfolk,** having 

 probably been acquired by one of Lacy's predecessors by reason of its con- 

 tiguity to the hundred of Blackburn. In 1 153 the abbey was removed to a 

 more genial site in Airedale, afterwards called Kirkstall/ Amongst other 

 benefactions Henry de Lacy gave to this house half a mark yearly for altar 

 lights, and a mark yearly for the abbot's vestment, charging his farm of 

 Clitheroe with the payment.* Before 1 153—4 he gave lands in Grindleton to 

 the abbey of Salley, which William de Percy had founded in 1147.^ It is 

 difficult to arrive at the proximate date of Stephen's charter to Henry de 

 Lacy, granting to him in fee the castle of Almondbury, near Huddersfield, 

 the land of Dalton, near the same, and the castle of Barwick in Elmet.® 

 These places had belonged to the honour of Pontefract since the Conquest, 

 and had doubtless been taken into the king's hand during the civil war for 

 the sake of the castles, which may have been built during the war. The 

 restoration of these places probably took place during the lull which lasted 

 from 1 147 to 1 152. There is no evidence that Henry de Lacy actively 

 supported either side during the period of war which lasted from 1 1 4 1 to 

 1 147, perhaps by reason of his youthfulness or on account of the sickness 

 from which he at that time suffered, as we are told ; ^ but Henry, after 

 his accession to the crown, pardoned Lacy anything that the latter had 

 forfeited in the war previous to the pact made between Duke Henry and 

 Stephen.' Another royal charter of the same period testified that the king 

 and his mother, the Empress Matilda, had pardoned Henry de Lacy and 

 his heirs the anger and illwill which Henry, the king's grandfather, had 

 borne towards Robert de Lacy, the father of Henry, and whatever Henry had 

 forfeited before he did homage to the king, and further granted and con- 

 firmed to him and his heirs the honour of Pontefract, with all its appurte- 

 nances both in England and in Normandy.^ 



In 1 1 58 Henry de Lacy was pardoned the sum of £2^ ^^- ^^- i" 

 Yorkshire due towards the 'donum' assessed in 1156.^" This relief was 

 probably in respect of military service performed in the Welsh campaign of 

 1 157, in which Eustace fitz John was slain. So also in 11 65 he was 

 pardoned the scutage due upon the five knights' fees of his honour of 



1 Dugdale, Baronage, i. 99 ; Madox, Hist, of the Exch. \. 643, note h. 



^ Mon. Angl. v. 530. His charter declaring the boundaries between Barnoldswick and the forest of 

 Blackburnshire, and a letter to Henry II. praying for confirmation of the grant of Barnoldswick to the monks 

 of Kirkstall, are in the Coucher of that abbey. Thoresby Soc. viii. 1 89. The bounds of Barnoldswick were 

 perambulated at the time of the foundation of the abbey to establish the boundary between that vill and the 

 forest of Blackburnshire. Mon. Angl. v. 532 ; Co. Plac. Lane. No. 11. Coucher of Kirkstall (J^h.oTt%hy Soc), 54-1;. 



8 Surtees Soc. xlii. 90. De Lacy's confirmation of the place of Kirkstall and Barnoldswick, and other lands 

 given by his feudatories, was attested by Henry Murdac, archbishop of York, who died in October, 1 153. 

 Coucher of Kiristall {Thoresby Soc), 50«. 



* Mon. Angl. v. 5 3 5 . ^ Ibid. v. 5 1 5 ,5. 



« Duchy of Lane. Misc. Ptf. i. No. 36, m. 2 </. ; Torks. fopog Joum. xv. 118. 



7 Mon. Angl. v. 530. * Duchy of Lane. Misc. Ptf. i. No. 36, m. 3. 



9 Ibid. m. I. Apart from any consideration that Hen. II. may have had for de Lacy's possible services 

 in the past, it is obvious that he would be eager to win over to the crown the support of so potent a noble. 



10 Pi/>e R. (Rec Com.), 147. 



