Earl Richard had not completed his arrangements until the month of August—so that his uncle and lieutenant had to hold the post they had seized for fully three months, awaiting his arrival in the deepest anxiety. At last, leaving his castle in Pembroke, he marched with his force through North Wales, by way of St. David's to Milford Haven—"and still as he went he took up all the best chosen and picked men he could get." At Milford, just as he was about to embark, he received an order from King Henry forbidding the expedition. Wholly disregarding this missive he hastened on board with 200 knights and 1,200 infantry in his company, and on the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day (August 23rd), landed safely under the earthwork of Dundonolf, where he was joyfully received by Raymond at the head of 40 knights, and a corresponding number of men-at-arms. The next day the whole force, under the Earl, "who had all things in readiness" for such an enterprise, proceeded to lay siege to Waterford. Malachy O'Phelan, the brave lord of Desies, forgetting all ancient enmity against his Danish neighbours, had joined the townsmen to assist in the defence. Twice the besieged beat back the assailants, until Raymond perceiving at an angle of the wall the wooden props upon which a house rested, ordered them to be cut away, on which the house fell to the ground, and a breach was effected. The men-at-arms then burst in, slaughtering the inhabitants without mercy. In the tower, long known as Reginald's, or the ring tower, O'Phelan and Reginald, the Dano-Irish chief, held out until the arrival of King Dermid, whose intercession procured them such terms as led to their surrender. Then, amid the ruins of the burning city, and the muttered malediction of its surviving inhabitants, the ill-omened marriage of Eva McMurrogh with Richard de Clare was gaily celebrated, and the compact entered into at Bristol three years before was perfected.