Whilest king John was thus occupied, newes came to him, that the Irish rebels made foule worke and sore annoied the English subiects. He therefore assembling a mightie armie, imbarked at Penbroke in Wales, and so hasting towards Ireland, arriued there the twentie fiue of Maie, and brought the people in such feare immediatlie vpon his arriuall, that all those that inhabited vpon the sea coasts in the champaine countries, came in, and yéelded themselues, receiuing an oth to be true and faithfull vnto him. There were twentie of the chéefest rulers within Ireland, which came to the king at his comming to Dublin, and there did to him homage and fealtie as apperteined. The king at the same time ordeined also, that the English lawes should be vsed in that land, and appointed shiriffes and other officers to haue the order of the countrie, to rule the same according to the English ordinances. After this, he marched forward into the land, and tooke diuerse fortresses and strong holds of his enimies, which fled before him, for feare to be apprehended as Walter de Lacie and manie other. At length, comming into the countrie of Meth, he besieged a castell, wherein the wife of William de Breuse, and hir sonne named also William were inclosed, but they found means to escape before the castell was woone, though afterward they were taken in the Ile of Man, and sent by the king into England, where they were so straitlie kept within the castell of Windsor, that (as the fame went) they were famished to death. [Sidenote: A present of white kine.] [Sidenote: He himselfe escapeth.] ¶ We read in an old historie of Flanders, written by one whose name is not knowne, but printed at Lions by Guillaume Rouille, in the yeare 1562, that the said ladie, wife to the lord William de Breuse, presented vpon a time vnto the quéene of England, a gift of foure hundred kine, and one bull, of colour all white, the eares excepted, which were red. Although this tale may séeme incredible, yet if we shall consider that the said Breuse was a lord marcher, and had goodlie possessions in Wales, and on the marshes, in which countries the most part of the peoples substance consisteth in cattell, it may carrie with it the more likelihood of truth. And suerlie the same author writeth of the iournie made this yeare into Ireland, so sensiblie, and namelie touching the manners of the Irish, that he séemeth to haue had good informations, sauing that he misseth in the names of men and places, which is a fault in maner common to all forreine writers. Touching the death of the said ladie, he saith, that within eleuen daies after she was committed to prison héere in England, she was found dead, sitting betwixt hir sonnes legs, who likewise being dead, sate directlie vp against a wall of the chamber, wherein they were kept with hard pitance (as writers doo report.) William the father escaped, and got away into France. [Sidenote: The bishop of Norwich lord lieutenant of Ireland.]