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.[1] 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,[2] having probably been acquired by one of Lacy's predecessors by reason of its contiguity to the hundred of Blackburn. In 1153 the abbey was removed to a more genial site in Airedale, afterwards called Kirkstall.[3] 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.[4] Before 1153—4 he gave lands in Grindleton to the abbey of Salley, which William de Percy had founded in 1147.[5] 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.[6] 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 1147 to 1152. There is no evidence that Henry de Lacy actively supported either side during the period of war which lasted from 1141 to 1147, perhaps by reason of his youthfulness or on account of the sickness from which he at that time suffered, as we are told;[7] 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.[8] 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 confirmed to him and his heirs the honour of Pontefract, with all its appurtenances both in England and in Normandy.[9]
In 1158 Henry de Lacy was pardoned the sum of £38 6s. 8d. in Yorkshire due towards the 'donum' assessed in 1156.[10] This relief was probably in respect of military service performed in the Welsh campaign of 1157, in which Eustace fitz John was slain. So also in 1165 he was pardoned the scutage due upon the five knights' fees of his honour of
- ↑ Dugdale, Baronage, i. 99; Madox, Hist. of the Exch. i. 643, note b.
- ↑ 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. 189. 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. Lanc. No. 11. Coucher of Kirkstall (Thorsby Soc.), 54-5.
- ↑ 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, 1153. Coucher of Kiristall (Thoresby Soc.), 50n.
- ↑ Mon. Angl. v. 535.
- ↑ Ibid. v. 515b.
- ↑ Duchy of Lanc. Misc. Ptf. i. No. 36, m. 2d.; Yorks. Topog Journ. xv. 118.
- ↑ Mon. Angl. v. 530.
- ↑ Duchy of Lanc. Misc. Ptf. i. No. 36, m. 3.
- ↑ Ibid. m. 1. 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.
- ↑ Pipe R. (Rec Com.), 147.
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