“Dugdale considers, that his surrender of the castle and barony of Pontefract to the King, with all the honours thereto belonging, in the 20th Edward I., arose from his “having been long married, and doubting whether he should ever have issue, but upon condition, as it seems,” for the king, by his charter, dated at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 28th December, 21. Edward I., re-granted the same to him and to the heirs of his body, with remainder to Edmund Earl of Lancaster, the King’s brother, and to the heirs of his body, failing which, to the king and his heirs. In almost the next paragraph, however, that eminent writer says, “that in the 22d Edward I., the Earl received a grant of several manors from the King, with remainder to Thomas, the son of Edmund Earl of Lancaster, and Alice his wife, sole daughter of the Earl, and to the heirs of their two bodies lawfully begotten, and failing such issue, to the right heirs of the said Thomas” from which it would appear, that, at the time of the surrender by the Earl of Lincoln to the King, the said Alice was living; and which is further confirmed by his saying, in a subsequent page, that she was 28 years of age at the death of her father in 1312, in which case she must have been above seven at the time in question. In the 20. Edward I., the Earl was sent as ambassador to the King of France, to treat on the subject of the restraint of those pirates who robbed some French merchants; and in the 22d year of that monarch he again attended him into Wales, and was likewise in the expedition sent into Gascony. He accompanied the Earl of Lancaster, in the 24. Edward I., into Brittany, and was present at various successes of the English forces. On the death of that nobleman, he succeeded him in his command, and besieged the town of Aux with great vigour, though without success, and was forced to retreat to Bayonne; from which place he marched, with John de St John, towards Bellegard, which was then besieged by the Count d’Artois. The engagement which took place in the vicinity of that town, does not, from Dugdale’s relation of it, appear to have added to the reputation of the Earl, as he informs us, upon the authority of Walsingham, that “approaching a wood about three miles from Bellegard, he divided his army into two parts, whereof the van was led by John de St John, and the rear by himself; but having past the wood where St John, meeting the enemy, began the fight, discerning their strength, he retreated to Bayonne, leaving the rest to shift for themselves, so that St John and many others were by reason thereof taken prisoners.” Whatever stain this circumstance might have cast upon his military character, seems to have been partially removed towards the end of that year, by his having obliged the enemy to raise the siege which they had laid to St Katherine’s, in Gascony; soon after which he proceeded into Flanders, and thence returned to England. In the ensuing year, 27.