the document, signed with the royal seal, which had been
purloined for the occasion from the Chancellor. The Anglo-Normans acted
with detestable dissimulation. Geoffrey de Marisco tried to worm himself
into the confidence of the man on whose destruction he was bent. On the
1st of April, 1232, a conference was arranged to take place on the
Curragh of Kildare. The Viceroy was accompanied by De Lacy, De Burgo,
and a large number of soldiers and mercenaries. The Earl was attended by
a few knights and the false De Marisco. He declined to comply with the
demands of the barons, who refused to restore his castles. The
treacherous De Marisco withdrew from him at this moment, and he suddenly
found himself overpowered by numbers. With the thoughtfulness of true
heroism, he ordered some of his attendants to hasten away with his young
brother, Walter. Nearly all his retainers had been bribed to forsake him
in the moment of danger; and now that the few who obeyed his last
command were gone, he had to contend single-handed with the multitude.
His personal bravery was not a little feared, and the coward barons, who
were either afraid or ashamed to attack him individually, urged on their
soldiers, until he was completely surrounded. The Earl laid prostrate
six of his foes, clove one knight to the middle, and struck off the
hands of another, before he was captured. At last the soldiers aimed at
the feet of his spirited steed, until they were cut off, and by this
piece of cruelty brought its rider to the ground. A treacherous stab
from behind, with a long knife, plunged to the haft in his back,
completed the bloody work.

The Earl was borne off, apparently lifeless, to one of his own castles,
which had been seized by the Viceroy. It is said that even his surgeon
was bribed to prevent his recovery. Before submitting his wounds to the
necessary treatment, he prepared for death, and received the last
sacraments. He died calmly and immediately, clasping a crucifix, on Palm
Sunday, the sixteenth day after his treacherous capture. And thus
expired the "flower of chivalry," and the grandson of Strongbow, the
very man to whom England owed so much of her Irish possessions.

It could not fail to be remarked by the Irish annalists, that the first
Anglo-Norman settlers had been singularly unfortunate. They can scarcely
be blamed for supposing that these misfortunes were a judgment for their
crimes. Before the middle of this century (the thirteenth) t