These tidings were sent at the same time to the king, who was by no means pleased with them, but characteristically changed his policy at once to meet the turn of the tide. He called the Marshal to his presence, greeted him with unusual courtesy, and asked him if he had heard anything from Ireland. “No, sire; I have no news from thence.” “Then I will tell you some good news, of which I wish you joy”--and thereupon John related the truth, which William knew already, though he had not chosen to say so. From that time forth “the king made him as good cheer as he had made him evil cheer before”; and when the Marshal soon afterwards again asked leave to go to Ireland, it was granted at once.[663] On March 7 Meiler was ordered to refrain from interfering with the lands of the Marshal, who had instructed his men to keep the peace towards Meiler in return;[664] on March 20 John informed the justiciar that “the Marshal has done our will,” and despatched to Ireland four commissioners by whose instructions Meiler was to act, and who, if he failed to do so, were empowered to act in his stead.[665] On the 28th, a new grant of Leinster, on the terms of the original grant to Richard de Clare, was made by the king to the Marshal.[666] A month later Meath was in like manner granted afresh to Walter de Lacy;[667] and at the end of the next year, 1209, Meiler was removed from his office of justiciar, and replaced by the bishop of Norwich, John de Grey.[668] [Sidenote: 1208] On one point, however, Meiler was justified by the king. In the spring of 1208 John made up his mind to bear with William de Braose no longer, and ordered a distraint upon his Welsh lands. William’s wife, Maud of Saint-Valery,[669] his nephew, Earl William of Ferrars, and his sister’s husband, Adam de Port, met the king at Gloucester and persuaded him to grant an interview to William himself at Hereford. William promised to pay his debts to the treasury within a certain time, pledged some of his castles for the payment, and gave three of his grandsons and four other persons as hostages.[670] Roger of Wendover relates that when the king’s officers went to fetch the hostages, Maud refused to deliver up her grandchildren to the king, “because,” said she, “he has murdered his captive nephew”; that her husband reproved her, and declared himself willing to answer according to law for anything in which he had offended the king; and that John, on hearing what Maud had said, was “greatly perturbed,” and ordered the whole family of De Braose to be arrested.[671] John himself, in a public statement attested by the chief justiciar of England and twelve other men of high position, among whom were De Braose’s own nephew and brother-in-law, asserted that shortly after the meeting at Hereford De Braose and his sons attempted to regain the pledged castles by force, and when they had failed in this attempt, attacked and burned Leominster.[672] Thereupon it seems that William was proclaimed a