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Edward wished to unite Britain in a feudal unity, and to crush all opponents. Llywelyn thought of helping the barons; he might become their leader. Eleanor, the daughter of Simon de Montfort, the old leader of the barons, was betrothed to him. War broke out. The barons Clares and Mortimers, and all joined the King.

The de Clares, Earls of Gloucester, pretended a grant from Henry II. of the whole of Thomond, as their title to invade that principality; but their real grant was bestowed by Edward I., in the year 1275. The state of the renowned patrimony of Brian had long seemed to invite such an aggression.

My landlord opened one of the sides of it, the better to learn what was going on. Then we heard a faint, cracked, tinkling bell, coming shrill upon clear and distinct from all other sounds. 'Holy Mother! exclaimed my landlord, 'the Poor Clares! He snatched up the fragments of my meal, and crammed them into my hands, bidding me follow.

The Poor Clares were in much terror, though nunneries and religious houses, and indeed non-combatants in general, were usually respected by each side in these wars; but the Prioress of Greystone was not sorry that the summons to her protegee called her party off on the way to Bedfordshire, and they all set forward together, intending to make Master Lorimer's household at Chipping Barnet their first stage, as they had engaged to do.

Richard Fitzgilbert built the keep, and ruled the "League of Tunbridge," but his castle, after a long siege by Henry III., was taken away from his successor, who assumed the name of Gilbert de Clare. From the De Clares the stronghold passed to the Audleys and Staffords, and it is now held by Lord Stafford. The gate-house is a fine structure, square in form, with round towers at each corner.

"In point of fact, their particular function is not at all to bury themselves under the accumulated dust of ages, nor even to accept in substitution the sins and woes of others as the Orders of pure mortification do the Carmelites and the Poor Clares.

My lord had gone with the Earl of Warwick to Queen Margaret in France, and had sent a messenger with a letter to meet his daughter at York, and tell her to go to the house of the Poor Clares in London instead of coming home, 'and there await him. The route that had been taken by the party accounted for their not having met the messenger and it was plain that they must go on to London.

Jinny, in recalling that journey and in dilating on the wonders of her experience abroad, by which she invariably struck awe into the souls of Aunt Sheba and Iss, would roll up her eyes, and turn outward the palms of her hands, as she exclaimed, "Good Lor', you niggers, how I make you 'prehen' Mas'r Graham's goin's on from de night he sez, sez he ter me, 'Pack up, Jinny; we'se a-gwine straight home. Iss 'clares dat Mas'r Graham's a ter'ble soger wid his long, straight sword and pistol, an' dat he's laid out more 'Federates dan he can shake a stick at.

They have a bell 'tis but a small one, as I have heard, and has yet never been rung in the memory man: when the Poor Clares have been without food for twenty-four hours, they may ring this bell, and then trust to our good people of Antwerp for rushing to the rescue of the Poor Clares, who have taken such blessed care of us in all our straits."

The most important church of the time of Dom Diniz is, or rather was, that of the convent of Poor Clares founded at Coimbra by his wife St. Isabel. Although a good king, Diniz had not been a good husband, and the queen's sorrows had been still further increased by the rebellion of