With the colleagues thus forced upon him Meiler was soon at strife. His strife with Walter de Lacy, indeed, had recommenced already. Walter’s appointment as a commissioner of escheats in 1204 had been made in connexion with a demand which John--anxious to prepare for an attack upon France, as well as to guard against an expected French invasion of England, and scarcely daring to ask his English subjects for more money--addressed to all his vassals in Ireland, that they would furnish him with an aid.[642] They undertook to do so; on September 1 the king thanked them for their services and their promises, and desired that the latter might be fulfilled.[643] At the same time he was taking measures for the security of the March and of his own authority there; on August 31 he had ordered Meiler to build a castle at Dublin,[644] and in September he bade the citizens do every man his part in helping to fortify the city.[645] In November he decided upon taking back into his own hands the city of Limerick and its cantred, being, as he said, advised by his barons of England that this step was necessary for the security of his domains in Connaught and Cork. It appears that William de Braose had called in the help of his son-in-law, the lord of Meath, for the keeping of this important border-post; the king’s orders for its surrender to the justiciar were addressed to Walter de Lacy and the bailiffs of William de Braose.[646] Walter seemingly refused to obey the order; Meiler, however, succeeded in taking possession of the city, “on account of which there arose a great war” between him and De Lacy,[647] with the result that John, to end their strife, took away the custody of Limerick from both of them, and restored it in August 1205 to William de Braose.[648] Nineteen months later Walter de Lacy’s castle of Ludlow was seized for the Crown, {1207 March} and Walter was bidden to come and “stand to right” in the English court {1207 April}.[649] [Sidenote: 1207]