The Middle Ages.

CHAPTER III.**

The Middle Ages**

It was under he Anglo-Norman settlement that the founder of tire house of St. Lawrence entered into possession of Howth. He bore as his Christian name the remarkable one of Almeric, [Miss Yonge says (”Hist. of Christian Names,” ed. 1884, pp. xxiii, 331) that “Almeric” is equivalent to the Italian ”Almerigo,” the name from which “America” is derived.] and, as has been already suggested, he had probably inherited or earned distinction before he saw the shores of Ireland. [It has been stated (Journal R.S.A.I., xxxvii, 349) that the St. Lawrcnces derived their name from a place called St. Laurent in Normandy, but no authority for the statement is given. The surname of St. Lawrence seems to have been at that period not uncommon in France and also in England (cf. D’Alton’s “Hist. of Co. Dublin,” p. 156; “Genealogist,” N.S., xvii, 27: “Topographer and Genealogist,” iii, 178). The English St. Lawrences, who were originally resident in Hampshire, appear to have had connexion with Ireland. In 1173 one of them claimed corody for the son of the King of Cork for one night, and in 1179 Cecilia, wife of Robert de St. Lawrence, accounts for two marks of gold of her promise touching Ireland. (Sweetman’s Calendar, 1171-1252, nos. 39, 55.)]

His title to Howth was no sub-infeudation, but a direct grant from the Crown, and his associates were men of the first rank. With John de Courcy, the conqueror of Ulster, either through relationship or association in arms, he was undoubtedly closely allied. About the time that he was appointed chief governor of Ireland, that notable invader selected Almeric to act as a witness of a deed, in company with the Archbishop of Dublin and other clerics and laymen of high degree; and during the conquest of Ulster he confirmed a grant of lands in the county of Down made by Almeric to the Abbey of Downpatrick.

The story of the family to which reference has been made is drawn principally from the Book of Howth, a sixteenth-century compilation of annals, historical tales, and legends, which is preserved in the Lambeth Library, and has been printed in the Carew Series of State Papers, but doubt has been thrown on its authenticity, owing to the compiler drawing inspiration from the Arthurian legend, and stating that Almeric was promised by John de Courcy half his conquests.

So far as is known Almeric possessed no** **land in Ulster, except what he gave to the Abbey of Downpatrick, and Howth can hardly have been considered a compensation for half of John de Courcy’s conquests. It is also to be observed that the compiler of the Book of Howth makes no attempt to explain the substitution of the name St. Lawrence for Tristram, the theory as to its connexion with the festival of St. Lawrence having been derived apparently from some other source.

In the Book of Howth elaborate descriptions are given of the five battles which Giraldus Cambrensis mentions as fought by John de Courcy in Ulster, and in each case the founder of the house of Howth is placed in the forefront, accomplishing wonderful deeds and uttering heroic speeches.

It is said that John de Courcy’s forces disembarked on their arrival in Ireland at Howth, and encountered there terrific resistanee, [“Book of Howth,” p. 92 Mr. Orpen (“Ireland under the Normans,” ii, 161 says that the district about Howth must have been subdued long before de Courcy landed.] and that a battle, which Giraldus Cambrensis has described as fought at the bridge of Newry, took place at the bridge of Howth.

As John de Courcy was unable from some cause or other to leave his ship, the command is represented as devolving on Almeric, who “stalworthy and knightly did use himself.” According to the Book of Howth he proved the victor in the battle, during which no less than seven of his sons, uncles, and nephews were laid low, and, “as his part of the conquest at the beginning” was given Howth, together with other property, which is not specified. By tradition the Irish name of Newry, An Iubhar, in the corrupted form Evora, has been given to a bridge near the gate of the present castle, and the rivulet which it crosses bears the name of the Bloody Stream, [Near the bridge human bones, an anvil, and horse furniture were found at the beginning of the 19th century. See Warburton, Whitelaw, and Walsh’ “History of Dublin,” ii, 1257; of. R.I.A. Proc. x, 330.], but its size discredits the idea of its having been spanned by a bridge at so early a period.

In the Book of Howth great exertions are attributed to Almeric during John de Courcy’s campaign in Ulster. On more than one occasion he was severely wounded, and his mastery of strategy enabled John de Courcy’s small force to confront successfully a force 10 or 15 times as great.

In the words of his biographer, “God and his enemies could report that amongst 1,000 knights Sir Almeric might be chosen for beauty, stout stomach-head, and stalworthness, for he was stout and sturdy to his peer, and humble and full of courtesy to his inferiors, and nothing would yield but in the way of gentleness.” Finally, his biographer tells us that Almeric met his death in Connaught while encountering 20,000 men under King O’Conor with 30 horse and 200 footmen. “They fought so that never was seen in field that fought better than they did altogether. There was none amongst those few that ever gave back one foot from the captain unless it were braving lying with the dead, and scarce then, if he had any memory of himself. There Sir Almeric and his men at length altogether were slain in a ground less than a stang in breadth; … part of them being dead and cold did stay themselves up upon their feet, standing with their spears and two-handed swords in their hands, that much did trouble their enemies in the fight to overthrow them that dead were. ”

Notwithstanding a great slaughter of his sons, uncles, and nephews, which is said to have taken place on his first landing in Ireland, the founder of the house of Howth had, according to his biographer, a phalanx of relations near him in all his subsequent engagements. [It is said in the “Book of Howth,” p.111, that two of his sons were killed when John de Courcy was taken prisoner on a Good Friday in church, but the story of John de Courcy’s capture has been pronounced to be devoid of authority.]. Amongst these, four receive special mention-a son called Nicholas, “a brave and worthy knight,” who survived no less than nine wounds received in one battle; and three nephews: Lionel St. Lawrence, who was slain while displaying extraordinary bravery in the defence of a pass; Geoffrey Montgomery, who bore his uncle’s standard, and acted as his mentor; and Roger le Poer, who is described as a great man in Ossory.

In Almeric’s time the castle of Howth did not occupy the present site, but stood further to the east, nearer to the sea, on land on which a martello tower now rests, at the head of the eastern pier of the modern harbour. That site guarded the best natural refuges for shipping, and in the eighteenth century, when the mound on which the early castle stood still remained, its situation was thus described;-

A stately mole commands each little port,

A rock its base, crowned with a conic mound;

This a stronghold appears, or Danish fort,

Its counterscarp and rampart yet are found.

As will be seen from the sketch, the remains of the mediaeval church of Howth were close to the mound, and a stream, which has disappeared, flowed between them

With mournful sound close by the hallowed walls,

A little cataract shoots forth its store;

Clear of the rock its silver torrent falls,

And foaming glides its passage to the shore.

A rampart to the north sustained the fort,

Which overhung the sea, long since withdrawn;

And there secured lay once the little port,

In time converted to a pleasant lawn.

[Howth, A Descriptive Poem, by Abraham Bosquet, Dubl., 1787]

The castle In Almeric’s time was, doubtless, of wood, like the one depicted on the Bayeux tapestry, and depended for defence on the fosse and banks by which it was surrounded. The mound on which it stood is described in the title of the sketch [It is preserved in Gabriel Beranger’s Sketch Book in the Royal Irish Academy, and is said to be from one by General Vallencey] as “a cairn or burying-place of the pagan Irish kings and nobility”; and it is possible that Almeric may have found a tumulus and raised his castle upon it, but the site is not favourable to that theory.

Nicholas, Lord of Howth, who escaped his father’s fate through being at the time in England on “business to the king,” succeeded on his father’s death to Howth. His reign was, however, a short one. His father was alive in 1186, and it was not more than a year or two after that time that Nicholas executed a deed confirming Howth and its appurtenances to his son, who was called after his grandfather, Almeric. So far as is known, this is the last occasion on which Nicholas is mentioned.

The deed confirming Howth to his son was witnessed by no less than 19 persons, including the Archbishop of Dublin, John de Courcy, and members of the families then owning Castleknock, Mullingar, Leixlip, Kinsaley, Clontarf, and Malahide. The only other reference to Nicholas is as witness to a deed conveying land to St. Thomas’s Abbey in Dublin, and some confirmation of his father’s part in the Connaught expedition may be found in the fact that the grantor had served in the army in that part of Ireland, and gave the land to the abbey in pursuance of a vow which he had made during a grievous distemper contracted there.

[“Register of St. Thomas’s Abbey,” p.38. The other witnesses to the deed are Geoffrey de Costentin, Robert the Forester, Lionel de Bromiard, and Richard de Bromiard, and persons of these names were alive in the period assigned to it. Geoffrey de Costentin was enfeoffed in Meath prior to 1286, and lived into the next century. (See Orpen’s “Song of Dermot and the Earl,” p. 229). Robert the Forester witnessed a deed during John de Courcy’s tenure of the office of justiciary, 1185-90. (See ” Chartulary of St. Mary’s Abbey,” i, 125). Lionel de Bromiard is mentioned in a confirmation of Eugenius, Bishop of Clonard, 1174-1104, as having given certain advowsons to St. Thomas’s Abbey, and his nephew Richard was one of the witnesses to the deed by which the advowsons were conveyed ( Register of St. Thomas”’ Abbey,” pp.21, 252)]

The last two witnesses to the deed by which Nicholas confirmed Howth to his son are Richard de Castello and Robert de Cornewalsh or Corr-na-waleis, “the hill of the Welshmen.” The former was, no doubt, the keeper of the primitive castle, and the latter the head of a clan of Welshmen, who guarded the approach to the peninsula from the mainland. As will be seen in the next century, the lands near the isthmus were described as the town of Cornwalsh, and the designation of Corr, now attached to the ruined castle which stands upon them, was probably the place~name long before the occupation of the Welshmen.

Almeric the second had succeeded his father as Lord of Howth before 1100, when he was granted a royal confirmation of the lands as freely and quietly as his father had held them for the service of an armed horseman. The grant was executed by the future King John, then Lord of Ireland and Earl of Mortain, at Bury St. Edmunds, and was attested by several witnesses from Ireland, including the Archbishop of Dublin and the owners of Castlcknock and Raheny. From deeds in which his name is found, either as grantor or as a witness, the second Almeric would appear to have ruled the peninsula for the next 50 years.

In one of these deeds, which are seven in number, he is described as “Lord Almeric de Howth,” and in another as “Sir Almeric de Howth, Knight.” In a grant to the Priory of All Hallows of such claim as he might have to the neighbouring lands of Baldoyle, Almeric the second mentions his wife Johanna, and accepts as compensation their admission to the fraternity of the priory church, which secured for them the prayers of the monks, and other spiritual benefits.

Another deed in which Almeric the second appears as the grantor concerns an exchange of land between him and the vicar of the church of Howth, and refers to his relations with the clergy, which appear to have been before that time far from amicable. He undertakes, as well by an oath as by the deed, and subject to a penalty of 40 shillings, that, for the future, he will not rise up against his clerics “contrary to justice,” or lay violent hands on others unless in self-defcnce. In the remaining five deeds Almeric the second appears as witness to transactions affecting the adjacent lands of Baldoyle, Kinsaley, and Donabate.

It is evident that prior or to the execution of the second of these deeds the church of Howth, which was dedicated to St. Mary and is now in ruins, was at least in part erected. It consisted eventually of a nave arid chancel, with an aisle and chantry on its southern side. In Dr. Cochrane’s paper much pains have been taken to find support for a theory that the aisle was the nave of a church erected in the early part of the 11th century by the Danish prince, Sitric, on the model of Saxon churches in Northumberland. But documentary evidence is altogether absent. and other archaeologists are not in agreement with Dr. Cochrane as to the design and stonework bearing resemblance to Saxon buildings.

The nave and chancel are in length 85 feet three inches, and in width at the east end 17 feet two inches, and at the west end 16 feet; and the aisle and chantry are in length 95 feet, and in width at the east end 17 feet two inches, and at the west end 18 feet six inches. An arcade of six arches divides the church, but it shows traces of being the work of various periods, as the arches are dissimilar, and exhibit transition from the round-headed to the pointed arch.

From marks on the gables Dr. Cochrane conjectured also that the church had in its history borne roofs of no less than four different designs. There are in all 15 windows. The east window of the chancel is debased perpendicular, but in the nave there is at the west end an Early-English window of two lights which, in Dr. Cochrane’s opinion, has not always stood in its present place.

In the chantry at the east end there are the remains of a fine window, which Dr. Cochrane assigns to the 14th century, and pronounces to be a vigorous example of tracery work; and in the aisle, at its western end, there is a window of similar design to the one in the chancel. Under it there is a porch, on which Dr. Cochrane relies for his theory as to the Saxon origin of that part of the church; and on the southern side, at the west end, there is another porch of Early-English architecture. Over the western end of the nave a belfry-gable rises with openings for three bells and a stairway approaching them.

The castle used by Almeric the first is mentioned in the agreement with the vicar, which describes the eastern boundary of the land given by Almeric the second to him as a stream flowing into the sea between the church and “the old castle.” Before that time this castle had evidently been superseded by one on the present site; and the effect of the exchange of land with the vicar was to add to the demesne to the west by reducing it to the east, where the former castle bad stood.

The land given by Almeric to the vicar is said to have comprised 25 acres of his demesne, bounded on the east by the stream just mentioned, on the south by the road from Clontarf, on the west by an artificial division, and on the north by the sea; and in return for it he received from the vicar 15 acres of land near his gate towards the town of Cornwalsh.

[In his paper Dr. Cochrane has taken a different view 115 to the situation of this land, but the site of “the old castle” was unknown to him.]

By this deed Almeric the second granted also to the vicar various privileges to augment his income, and one of these shows that the fishing industry was as important to Howth then as it is to-day, and that the owner of Howth received a great revenue from it. According to the terms of the deed, Almeric being moved thereto by piety, granted to the vicar pardon from all customs due to him in respect of one fishing-boat, and undertook that the remission should apply not only to the owner of the boat, but also to the fishermen in it, who were not to be obliged to sell to Almeric fish unless they wished to do so, and were to receive the full market value in the port without any difficulty or delay.

Another of the covenants shows that turf was then obtained for the purpose of fuel on the peninsula. It provides that the vicar’s men and tenants should be free from all servitude and exaction, and should have turf and pasture for their animals, as other men on the peninsula, and could traffic through the whole of Almeric’s land quietly and without impediment.

Lastly, Almeric promised to allow his own men to work for the vicar for hire when he did not himself require them.

Henry appears to have succeeded the second Almeric as Lord of Howth, but knowledge of him is only gained from a deed executed about 1248, in connexion with land in the parish of Castleknock belonging to the Priory of All Hallows, to which his name is appended as a witness. [Butler’s “Register of All Hallows,” p. 61. The date of this deed has been determined by the names of two of the other witnesses, Lord Radulph de Fingal and Richard de Finglas. The former is mentioned as witness of a deed of the year 1149 (Dr. Lawlor’s, Cal. of the Liber Niger of Christ Church, no.113), and the latter is found acting with Philip de Rath, who appears as a witness to a deed of the year 1247. (Butler’s ” Register of All Hallows,” p. 66 Christ Church Deeds, no.59.)]

From the middle of the 13th century to the end of the 14th century, the owners of Howth are constantly mentioned in the Irish records. They were foremost in the life of their country, and no less active in military than in civil avocations. By degrees cadets of the house, who were more generally known by the surname of Howth than by that of St. Lawrence, settled outside the peninsula; and towards the close of the 13th century they are found displaying varied activities throughout the counties that afterwards formed the English Pale. To Louth they appear to have been more particularly attracted, and in it they have left their name imprinted on one of the townlands that lie on the Meath border.

The history of the owners of Howth in the mediaeval period tends to show that their castle was one of the most important dwellings in the neighbourhood of Dublin; but alterations in later times have left little remains of it, and no certainty can he felt as to its extent or design. Similarly, their possession of the right of court leet and court baron proves that they possessed the fullest manorial jurisdiction; but of their administration of the manor, or of the life upon it, no information has come down to us.

For many generations the entrance to the peninsula continued to be held by the Cornwalsh family. During the 13th century they are mentioned as suffering from illegal exactions on the part of the owners of the adjacent lands of Raheny, and as supplying the army with cows; and in the 14th century they are seen, like the lord of the soil, engaged in legal conflict with the Priory of All Hallows respecting the manor of Baldoyle, and acting as custodians of the port of Howth.

The evidence of the importance of the port at that period arrests attention, and the number and size of the ships that found shelter in the small harbour under the first castle are not a little surprising. In 1315 it was considered necessary to appoint as many as four persons to prevent ships sailing from Howth without the permission of the Government; and eight years later as many as 10 were appointed to prevent the exportation of food, while in 1335 one of the largest class of vessels of that period, known as a cog, which was cast away on the Cornish coast while carrying hides to Normandy, is said to have hailed from Howth, and later in that century the Howth ships were used for the exportation of corn in very large quantities.

In 1348 a pestilence, that laid waste Dublin and Drogheda, is said to have been brought to Howth by some of the numerous persons landing there, and to have spread thence to the larger towns. It was then the custom for ships going to Drogheda to lie at Howth until the merchants paid for the cargo and provided a pilot to undertake the navigation to Drogheda, which was considered a dangerous port, ships from Liverpool engaged in the conveyance of Irish labourers to England, which was a contraband traffic, used sometimes to resort there.

Of the Howth port the chief governors began early to make use. In 1380 Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, and in 1389 Sir John Stanley, landed there and in 1403 the boy Lord Lieutenant, Prince Thomas of Lancaster, took ship there after his first visit to Ireland. As in later times, the reputation of the Howth fishery stood high, and towards the close of the 14th century one of those engaged in it was appointed to buy fish for the chief governor, in whatever part of Ireland he might be.

Of the inhabitants, other than the lords of the soil and the Cornwalshes, during mediaeval times, little is known. From the fact that at the close of the 13th century John de Sutton is bracketed on a jury with one of the St. Lawrences it is probable that a family named Sutton resided on the southern lands of the peninsula called by that cognomen. [In 1297, Richard de Howth appears as attorney in a plea of debt, in 1306 Simon de Estham of Howth was deprived of a cow by the purveyors of the justiciary, and in 1305 Stephen de Packer of Howth, a member of a family trading with Gascony, was charged with felony. Mills’s ”Justiciary Rolls,” 1295-1303.]

By the rectors, who were prebendaries of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, it is improbable that the peninsula was often visited; and the names of only two vicars, Walter de Suell, who held the cure when the church is supposed to have been built, and William Young, who held the cure in l327, have come down to us.

During the 14th century the Howth prebendaries are notable for the zeal with which they seek preferment in England and leave to reside out of Ireland, and in one instance a prebendary is found within four months of his appointment making arrangements to transfer into England his spoils in the shape of victuals for his household, and horses, goshawks, and falcons for his own use. Not a little remarkable also is the persistency with which the Popes tried during that century to intrude nominees of their own into the prebend, and the small success which attended their efforts.

Nicholas, Lord of Howth, is found in possession of the lands in 1264, and before that time in consideration of military service he had obtained the accolade. Notwithstanding the grant made by Almeric the second to the Priory of All Hallows only some 40 years before, Nicholas had renewed the claim to the lands of Baldoyle, and in the year 1270 extorted a sum of 40 marks from the monks in consideration of abandoning legal proceedings which he had instituted against them.

He was no less prominent in civil than in military life, and is found acting as a juror and a justice of the gaol delivery. In the former capacity he served in an inquiry regarding the erection of a church in Dublin by the Carmelite Order, and in the latter capacity he liberated an Englishman who was charged with the death of an Irishman-an exercise of judicial authority for which he was relegated to the Castle of Dublin.

Adam had before 1291 succeeded Nicholas as Lord of Howth, but his right of succession was apparently recognized not without difficulty. Between the years 1285 and 1290 Nicholas on six occasions paid a fine for trespass in an increasing amount at the suit of Adam, and in 1286 Adam paid likewise a fine on two occasions.

This dispute was also probably accountable for the appearance of Nicholas in the year 1286 before the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer to make a statement on oath in regard to his tenure of Howth. In that statement he mentioned that his ancestors had held the lands and tenements of Howth under the charter granted by King John to the second Almeric, and that they were accustomed to make suit to the county of Dublin; and he testified that both he and his ancestors had rendered service at the gate of Dublin Castle in respect of their property.

It is probable that Nicholas’s successor was an Adam de Howth, who, with his wife Mabel, was forced in 1282 to surrender 16 acres in the town of the Castle of Howth to Alice, daughter of Roger de Crumba; but the eldest son of Nicholas’s successor was not born until 1296, and his mother’s name was Isabella. She is said to have been a daughter of William Pilate, a cadet of a Hertfordshire family, who had settled in the county of Meath, and her sister is claimed by the Cusacks of Gerardstown as an ancestress.

Like his predecessor, Adam was active in civil life. During the years 1305 and 1306 he served on five juries in trials before the justiciary. Two of these were criminal trials, the charges being the receiving of stolen property, and the harbouring of a felon; and three were common pleas, namely, a suit touching the fishery at the Salmon Leap, a suit against an ex-mayor of Dublin for detaining the corporation seal, and a suit against a merchant of Dublin for evading customs on wine which he had landed at Dalkey. He is also found acting as witness in connexion with property in Finglas parish, and as surety for inhabitants of Malahide accused of unlawful possession of wreck of the sea, and serving as sheriff of Dublin and Meath.

But, unlike his predecessor, Adam does not appear to have been inspired with military ardour. In several expeditions of his time the service by which he held Howth was commuted, and there is no evidence of the honour of knighthood having fallen to his lot.

Distinction on the field of battle is, however, said to have been won by a scion of the house of Howth, another Almeric, at the close of the 13th century. According to the Book of Howth, he was one of a band of Irish knights who went then to the assistance of Edward the First in his wars with Scotland, and he proved himself not the least valorous of this company of young men, who, we are told, bore the bell everywhere they went in Scotland, and were well accepted and rewarded by their sovereign.

No less romantic than brave, Sir Almeric is said to have challenged at the north side of Edinburgh one Robert de Wallace to mortal combat for the hand of the Lady Amerus, daughter of the Earl of Rosse, and, after disposing of his rival, displayed what his panegyrist represents as marvellous constancy in never forsaking the fair lady, for whom he had, we are told, pined for no less than five years.

During Adam’s time Howth saw a remarkable exhibition of ecclesiastical rivalry. A great question of that day was as to the right of the Archbishop of Armagh to bear his cross erect in the province of Dublin, and watch appears to have been kept to prevent such a manifestation of supremacy. In the year 1313, on the day after the Annunciation, a new Archbishop of Armagh landed at Howth, and seeing, as he thought, an opportunity of stealing a march on his episcopal brother, he rose during the night, and set out towards Armagh, with his cross raised on high.

His triumphal progress suffered, however, a rude interruption at the Priory of Grace Dieu, where he encountered some of the Archbishop of Dublin’s retainers, and the chronologers tell us that his exit from Leinster was made in confusion, with the emblem of his authority laid very low.

Adam the second succeeded Adam the first in the possession of Howth as his eldest son. In the year 1325, on March 25, the lands owned by Adam de Howth, deceased, were taken into the king’s hands, and on April 3 following they were granted to his son Adam, who was stated to have been at least 28 years of age on the previous feast of All Saint. Shortly afterwards Adam the second admitted the right of his mother Isabella to a third of the manor of Howth as her dowry, and granted the vicar of Howth portion of his demesne, estimated at 30 acres, which was probablythe same land as his predecessor Almeric had granted to the vicar of his day.

[Memoranda Roll, 2 Hen. VII, 17. It is stated that this grant, which was effected on May 3, 1327, was made by an Almeric de Howth but the entry is confused, and there seems no doubt that the grant was made by Adam de Howth the second.]

The culmination of the historic feud between the Berminghams and the men of Uriel, the assassination of John Bermingham, Earl of Louth, and his kinsmen, occurred in the lifetime of the second Adam; and according to the Book of Howth, which gives a realistic account of the circumstances, a member of Adam’s family, William Howth, avenged afterwards two of those assassinated. One of these is said to have been the owner of Malahide, Richard Talbot, whose daughter William Howth had married, and the other was one of the Berminghams, called Almeric. The assassins were, according to the Book of Howth, two brothers, John Gernon and Roger Gernon; and about a week after the slaughter, when the Gernons were returning from Dublin, where they had gone to sue for pardon, they met “beneath the hills from Gormanstown to Drogheda,” William Howth with one of his brothers called Walter, and what an annotator calls “shrewd talk between gentlemen” ensued, with the result that William Howtll challenged John Gernon to single combat. William Howth is described as a young man of 23, of slight stature, and John Gernon as the strongest man in Ulster, but William Howth prevailed, and slew him, and, refusing aid from his brother, challenged subsequently Roger Gernon, and after a long fight also slew him.

Nicholas, who, on the death of Adam the second, succeeded to Howth in 1334 as his eldest son, was at the time of his father’s death only 13 years of age, and his mother, whose Christian name was Scholastica, long survived, marrying as a second husband Robert Tyrell, Lord of Castleknock, with whom, in 1370, she perished of plague. At first the care of Nicholas’s person and fortune was committed to the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Thomas Louth, but before long Louth was relieved of the trust, and “for urgent reasons touching the King” the wardship and marriage of Nicholas was entrusted to John Plunkett of Beaulieu.

A usual result followed: the ward was married to the guardian’s daughter, and Alicia Plunkett became the wife of Nicholas. For seventy years Nicholas held the estates and honours of his family. He is said to have been a man of “singular honesty,” and he attained to a high position in the State. His name appears as a member of all the great councils of his time, as one of the guardians of the peace for the county of Dublin, and as a supervisor of the rebuilding of the great bridge in Dublin over the Liffey.

Legal proceedings, which were instituted in the year 1384 at Carlow against Nicholas Howth and Margery, his wife, indicate that Nicholas married a second time. These proceedings, which concerned dower, were instituted by one of the Taaffes of Braganstown, where the Earl of Louth was murdered, and afford corroboration of the Book of Howth.

According to it, for some years after the encounter between William Howth and the Gernons, whenever the Howth family and the men of Uriel met in Dublin or Drogheda swords were drawn with disastrous consequences to the men of Uriel, until at length, in order to secure peace, the head of the Taaffe family married his daughter to one of the Howth family, and gave much land with her.

From other legal proceedings Nicholas is found to have been, in 1347, the defendant in a charge of unlawfully disseizing from a tenement in Sutton one Geoffrey Montgomery, no doubt a descendant as well as namesake of Almeric the first’s standard-bearer, and with him there was joined as defendant John Howth, who is elsewhere described as of Ballymadrought, near Swords.

The opening of the fifteenth century saw the end of Nicholas’s long life. Although, as will be seen, the house of Howth took an active part in the later dissensions of the Royal family, there is no indication that the accession of Henry the Fourth was regarded by it with any concern.

Owing to his position, Nicholas must have been brought into contact with Richard the Second during his visits to this country, but he seems to have transferred his allegiance to Henry the Fourth without scruple, and to have entertained the king’s son, Prince Thomas of Lancaster, who before embarking signed more than one patent at Howth.

To Chapter 4. Ball Index. Home.