The story of John’s vengeance on the family of De Braose appears, in slightly varied forms, in almost every chronicle of the period. Ralph of Coggeshall (p. 164), Roger of Wendover (vol. iii. p. 235) and the _Brut y Tywysogion_ (a. 1209) say the victims were “slain in Windsor castle”; the Annals of Dunstable and of Oseney (a. 1210), that they “died in prison,” without specifying where or how. The Barnwell Annalist (W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 202) and the Annals of Margan, Tewkesbury, Waverley, Winchester, and Worcester (a. 1210) say they were starved to death. The _Hist. des Ducs de Normandie_ (pp. 114–115) says they were imprisoned “el castiel del Corf,” with no food save “une garbe d’avoine e i bacon cru,” and describes with gruesome minuteness the attitudes in which, on the eleventh day, they were found dead. Ralph of Coggeshall makes the victims William de Braose’s wife and “sons” (_filii_); Roger of Wendover, his wife, eldest son, and that son’s wife; the _Ann. Winton._, wife and “younger” son; the _Ann. Tewkesb._, wife and “children” (_liberi_); while the _Ann. Dunst._ say: “Cepit [rex] Willelmum de Lacy, et Willelmum de Brause juniorem, et sororem ejus, et Matildem matrem ejus; qui in carcere post modum perierunt.” All the other writers speak only of the wife and one son, whom the _Ann. Osen._ call “Willelmus primogenitus ejus,” and the _Ann. Wigorn._ “haeres.” This latter version is undoubtedly the correct one as to the last point; of De Braose’s three sons, the eldest, William, alone was in John’s power; Giles, the second, was bishop of Hereford and safe beyond the sea, while the third, Reginald, had escaped capture, and lived to recover the greater part of the family heritage. One of the daughters--the wife of Hugh Mortimer--had been taken prisoner with her mother and eldest brother (_Foedera_, vol. i. pt. i. p. 107); but she did not share their fate, for she was set free in 1214 (_Rot. Pat._ vol. i. p. 122); and Roger of Wendover is certainly wrong about the younger William’s wife, who was still living in July 1220 (_Royal Letters_, ed. Shirley, vol. i. p. 136). The elder William died, an exile in France, about a year after this tragedy (R. Wend. vol. iii. p. 237). NOTE II EUSTACE DE VESCI AND ROBERT FITZ-WALTER Eustace de Vesci and Robert Fitz-Walter have long figured in history as typical examples of the way in which individual barons were goaded into hatred and vengeance against John by his invasions of their domestic peace, and also as foremost among the “patriots” to whom England is supposed to be indebted for her Great Charter. On both aspects of the lives of these two men--especially of the life of Fitz-Walter, whom Professor Tout has glorified as “the first champion of English liberty”--a few considerations may be offered here.