1. The earliest mention of John’s unsuccessful attempt to entrap the wife of Eustace de Vesci is in an addition made by a chronicler at Furness Abbey, writing c. 1270–1298, to the Stanley chronicler’s continuation of the history of William of Newburgh. This Furness writer (Howlett, _Chron. of Stephen_, etc., vol. ii. p. 521) merely states the bare fact, without any details, in the briefest and simplest way, and without any clue to the date. Walter of Hemingburgh, who was living in 1313, tells the story in an elaborate form which is certainly not impossible, perhaps not even very improbable, although it somewhat resembles a story in Procopius (see _Dic. Nat. Biogr._ “Vesci, Eustace de”). Walter gives it as an illustration of John’s character, of which he inserts a picture--painted in the most frightful colours--between the coming of the Franciscans in 1212 and the rising of the barons in 1215; but he connects the incident directly with the latter event, representing Eustace as inducing those of his fellow-barons whom the king had injured in a similar way to join him in a common effort for vengeance, which widens into the struggle for the Charter (Hemingburgh, vol. i. pp. 247–9). The affair would thus seem to have occurred some years after Eustace’s desertion from the king’s host and flight from England in 1212; a desertion for which, therefore, it cannot serve as an excuse. 2. The legend of Robert Fitz-Walter’s daughter which became famous in prose and verse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is based upon a passage in the Chronicle of Dunmow, printed in _Monasticon_, vol. vi. pt. i. p. 147. This chronicle, written in a monastery of which the Fitz-Walters were patrons, begins with the year 1054, but the MS. (Cott. Cleopatra C. iii.) is of the end of the fifteenth century; it ends at the year 1501. The story is placed in 1216, and is briefly this: John demands Robert’s daughter, the fair maiden Matilda; her father refuses to give her up to him; the civil war breaks out, and the city of London joins the barons; afterwards they are worsted, whereupon the king destroys Robert’s fortress in London--Castle Baynard--and causes Matilda to be poisoned at Robert’s manor of Dunmow. Meanwhile Robert has fled to France. War continues on both sides of the Channel. Presently John goes to France, and has a conference with Philip Augustus; Robert Fitz-Walter displays his prowess in a single combat in presence of both the kings; John admires his valour, they are reconciled, and remain friends from that time forth.