he made an inroad into the territories of the Bishop of Liège, and in February 1339 negotiated an agreement with the Archbishop of Trèves and the Duke of Brabant, and was subsequently employed in various other negotiations. In 1340, induced, perhaps, by treachery within the walls, Salisbury and Suffolk with a small force made an attempt on Lille ; the attack failed, and both were taken prisoners and conveyed to Paris, when Salisbury, it is said, owed his life to the intervention of the king of Bohemia (Murimuth, p. 104; Chronicon Angliæ, ed. Maunde Thompson, p. 10; Walsingham, Ypodigma, p. 278; Hist. Angl. i. 226; Froissart, Chron. ed. Lettenhove, ii. 5; Galf. le Baker, Chron. pp. 67, 241-2 ; Barnes, pp. 168-9, and Stow, p. 369, who gives a very different account from Froissart). On 18 Oct. Edward demanded a levy of wools to secure his liberation. He was set free, on condition of never serving against Philip in France, at the peace negotiated after the siege of Tournay, in exchange for the Earl of Moray, who had been captured in the Scottish wars (Rymer, passim ; Cal. Rot. Parl. p. 138).
He returned to England in November, and took part in Edward's arrest of the treasury officials and others [see Molines, John de] ; in May 1341 he was commissioned to examine into the charges against Stratford (Murimuth, p. l20). Perhaps it was at this time that he conquered the Isle of Man from the Scots and was crowned king there; but the event has also been assigned to 1340 and 1342 (cf. Annals of England, p. 193; Lettenhove, Galf. le Baker, Stow, and Longman). In May 1343 Salisbury embarked with Robert d'Artois for Brittany (Lettenhove), captured Vannes, and proceeded to besiege Rennes (Longman, Edward III, i. 212 ; Barnes, pp. 281-5). After the death of Artois and some months' ineffectual fighting a truce was signed, and in August Salisbury was sent on an embassy to the court of Castile, and took part in the siege of Algebras, which Alfonso XI was then prosecuting against the Moors (Lettenhove; Ryemr, 11. ii. 1232 ; Dugdale antedates this occurrence by two years). He was soon recalled to England, and sent against the Scots. He died on 30 Jan. 1344 from bruises, it is said, received during a tournament held at Windsor, and was buried at Whitefriars, London. Montacute was a liberal benefactor of the church, his principal foundation being Bustleham, or Bisham, Berkshire. Walsingham says of him 'de elegantia, strenuitate, sapientia, et animositate, scribere, speciales actus requirit.' He married Catharine, daughter of Sir William Grandison, by whom he had two sons, William, second earl of Salisbury [q. v.], and John, and four daughters, one of whom, Philippa, married Roger Mortimer, second earl of March [q. v.]
The Countess of Salisbury in 1341, with her brother-in-law, Sir Edward Montacute, defended for some months the castle of Wark, Northumberland, against the Scots ; the siege was raised by Edward III, who is said on this occasion to have fallen in love with her. A similar story attributes to her a share in the origin of the order of the Garter. She is said to have dropped her garter at a court ball ; Edward, who was in love with her, picked it up, and overhearing a courtier's jest, bound it on his own knee with the remark 'Honi soit qui mal y pense,' which became the motto of the order he then resolved to establish. Both these stories confuse the countess with Joan, the 'Fair Maid of Kent' [q. v.], daughter of Edmund, earl of Kent [q. v.l who was betrothed, but never married, to William, second earl of Salisbury, and attribute Joan's youth and beauty to the Countess of Salisbury. Polydore Vergil, who visited England a hundred and fifty years later, is said to be the earliest authority for the story, which is palpably fictitious. Edward had already determined on the establishment of the order, and it is possible that some such incident, quite unconnected with the Countess of Salisbury, may have given the name to the order (cf. Froissart, ed. Lettenhove, xxiii. 105-9; Jehan le Bel, Chronique ; Aashmole, Order of the Garter ; Nicholas, Orders of Knighthood, i. 18 ; Barnes, Edward III'; and Longman, i. 295-8). She died in 1349 or 1354, and was interred in her husband's foundation at Bisham, which became the family burial-place.
[The best connected accounts of Montacute are in Lettenhove's Froissart, xxiii. 93-109, and Dugdale's Baronage and Monasticon, passim ; Cal. Rotulorum Patent. ; Rolls of Parliament ; Parliamentary Writs ; Rymer, n. i. ii. passim ; Murimuth and Robert of Avesbury, Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, Capgrave's Chronicle of England, pp. 203-4, Flores Historiamm, ii. 178, Chronicon Angliæ, ed. Maunde Thompson, pp. 5, 8, 10, Walsingham 's Hist. Anglicana and Ypodigma Neustriæ, Knighton's Chronicon Leycestrensis, p. 478, &c., all in Rolls Series; Galfridi le Baker's Chronicon, ed. Maunde Thompson, passim ; Chronique de Jehan Le Bel, passim ; Stow's Annals, passim ; Holinshed's Chronicles, iii. S48, 366 ; Barnes's History of Reign of Edward III, passim ; Weever's Funerall Monuments, p. 437 ; Ashmole's Order of the Garter, pp. 647-50 ; Collinson's Somerset, passim ; Lingard, vol. iii. ; Stubbs, vol. ii. ; Annals of England ; Longman's Edward III, passim ; Peerages by Burke and G. E. C.]
