Note 359 — Chapter II · THE REGENCY OF WILLIAM THE MARSHAL 1216–1219

In the very rare cases which form an exception to this rule it is the Legate whose seal takes the place of the Marshal’s. One of these exceptional cases is so interesting as to deserve special notice. It consists of two letters patent, both dated Bristol, 2nd December, 1216, attested by the King himself, and sealed with the seals of the Legate and the Bishop of Winchester (Pat. Rolls, vol. i. pp. 9, 10). One of these letters is addressed to the Justiciar of Ireland, Geoffrey de Marsh, the other to Meiler FitzHenry; the purpose of both is to secure for the Marshal his rights in Ireland as lord of Leinster, especially the service due to him from Meiler, which the late King had (in one of his fits of suspiciousness) taken into his own hand as security for the Marshal’s fidelity. The reason why these letters were not attested by the Marshal himself is obvious; but the interesting point in the matter is that the Legate and the Bishop, or the boy-King, or all three together, seem to have seized upon the occasion as an opportunity for putting on record the estimation in which they held him. Each letter contains a sort of parenthesis, quite unnecessary to its main purport, in praise of Earl William. “Qui” writes Henry to Geoffrey “patri nostro viventi semper fideliter astitit, et nobis assistit, et cujus fidelitatem plurimum commendamus”; while in the letter to Meiler there is a yet more unconventional and emphatic outburst of feeling—“Ipse enim W. semper patri nostro viventi fideliter astitit, et devote et nobis constanter adheret et assistit, et ipsius obsequium pre cunctis regni nostri magnatibus habemus plurimum commendatum, quoniam tamquam aurum in fornace, sic se in necessitate probavit.”