Edmund his son dying before his mother, did not inherit the Earldom, though he received the tertium denarium of the county: he left issue, Henry, John, and Margaret, the former of whom succeeded to this manor and the Earldom of Lincoln; and is said to have been the most exalted nobleman of his time. He is stated to have been illustrious in counsel, undaunted in the fight, chief among the warriors of his country, and in fine, the brightest ornament of the reign. {69} His sons dying young, he bequeathed by will all his possessions to the heirs of Edmund Plantagenet, in case of failure of issue by his daughter Alice. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, son of Edmund Plantagenet, marrying Alice, held in her right, the estates of her father Henry de Laci, who, on his death bed, desirous that his son in law should be ennobled not only by the attendant riches, but also by the influence of his example, enjoined him to devote his power to secure the liberties of his country. But the proud and resolute spirit of the Earl of Lancaster needed no such injunctions to spur him on to action. Indignant that Hugh de Spenser should enjoy the favor of his sovereign, Edward the second, he after effecting the destruction of Piers Gaveston, broke out into open rebellion: defeated however at Boroughbridge, he was ignominiously put to death at his castle of Pontefract, and his estates forfeited to the crown. The inheritances which were, as has been before noticed, the right of his wife, were still reserved to her; but having borne an indifferent reputation for chastity, following the impulses of her amours in the life time of her late husband, and after his death marrying without the consent of the king to Eubold le Estrange, the king with whom but trivial pretences were sufficient for abridging the powers of any individual allied to his haughty relatives of the house of Lancaster, seized for this breach of fealty, or homage, all the inheritance which she held of the crown in chief, among which were this manor, and that of Denbigh, and conferred the whole on his favorite Hugh de Spenser. Henry, brother of Thomas the late Earl of Lancaster, procured in the first parliament after the accession of Edward the third, a remission of the forfeited estates of the family; and upon the death of the countess Alice, the wife of his late brother, her honors and splendid inheritances devolved to him, partly by the will of her father Henry de Laci, and partly by reason of a render made by him to Edward the first, and a re-grant by charter from that monarch to the heirs of Henry de Laci, with remainder to the heirs of Edmund Plantagenet.