with three brothers, Sir Walter Lacy, Sir Robert and Aumar Lacy, John
Kermerelyn, Walter White, and about 3,000 others, writes Pembridge),
encamped, not two miles from Dundalk, with 3,000 men, there abiding the
Englishmen to fight with them if they came forward, which they did with
all convenient speed, being as desirous to give battle as the Scots were
to receive it. The Primate of Armagh, personally accompanying the
English power, and blessing the enterprise, gave them such comfortable
exhortation as he thought served the time ere they began to encounter,
and herewith buckling together, at length the Scots fully and wholly
were vanquished, and 2,000 of them slain, together with the Captain,
Edward Bruce. Maupas, that pressed into the throng to encounter with
Bruce hand to hand, was found, in the search, dead, aloft upon the slain
body of Bruce. The victory thus obtained, upon St. Calixtus' day, made
an end of the Scottish kingdom in Ireland; and Lord Bermingham, sending
the head of Bruce into England, presented it to King Edward, who, in
recompense, gave him and his heirs male the Earldom of Louth, and the
Baronies of Ardee and Athenry to him and his heirs general for ever,' as
hereafter noticed.

"'Edward Bruce,' say the Four Masters, 'a man who spoiled Ireland
generally, both English and Irish, was slain by the English, by force of
battle and bravery, at Dundalk; and MacRory, Lord of the Hebrides,
MacDonell, Lord of the Eastern Gael (in Antrim), and many others of the
Albanian or Scottish chiefs were also slain; and no event occurred in
Ireland for a long period from which so much benefit was derived as
that, for a general famine prevailed in the country during the three
years and a half he had been in it, and the people were almost reduced
to the necessity of eating each other.' Edward Bruce was, however,
unquestionably a man of great spirit, ambition, and bravery, but fiery,
rash, and impetuous, wanting that rare combination of wisdom and valour
which so conspicuously marked the character of his illustrious brother.

"During the sojourn of Edward Bruce in this kingdom, he did much to
retard the spread of English rule. Having for allies many of the
northern Irish, whose chieftain, O'Neill, invited him to be King over
the Gael in Ireland, and whose neighbourhood to the Scottish coast made
them regard his followers as their fellow-countrymen, he courted them on
all occasions, and thus the Irish customs of gossipred a