We have seen that Arnold FitzEustace Le Poer, owned Castlemartin and the neighboring townlands in 1317. Oliver FitzEustace, presumably his son, was the owner in 1330. (Perhaps Oliver was his grandson, his son having been Robert, Lord Treasurer of Ireland, 1327-30, who cannot otherwise be placed. Oliver of Castlemartin was custodian of the Barony of Narragh in 1363, and he was probably the grandfather of Sir Richard FitzOliver FitzEustace, who was alive in 1448). He was succeeded by his son, Roland FitzOliver, of Castlemartin who was living in 1383. It is probable that Thomas FitzOliver of Ballycotelan, who was appointed Constable of Ballymore Eustace in 1373, was his brother. This appointment was held by four generations of FitzEustaces, descended from Sir Maurice of Ballycotelan, High Sheriff of Kildare and of Dublin, who died about 1402. He was very probably a third brother (see Coghlanstown). The next known owner of Castlemartin was the famous Sir Edward FitzEustace, who was the son, or possibly the grandson, of Roland. If a grandson, his father was probably John FitzEustace, one of the twelve delegates chosen under Letters Patent of 1404 to control the financing and organization of the defense of the County. Thomas of Ballycotelan and John of Blackhall were also among the delegates.

Sir Edward FitzEustace of Castlemartin was High Sheriff of County Kildare in 1421, 1423, 1425, 1426 and 1430, and was appointed a Privy Councilor in 1431 when he went to report to the young King Henry VI. When the Duke of York was appointed Viceroy of Ireland in 1449, Sir Edward was well known as a knight of vigor and activity, and was made Lord Deputy during the absence of the Duke in 1452, and again in 1454 when he died in office. In 1446 Castlemartin was unsuccessfully attacked by Irish tribesmen under O’Connor Faly. From 1445 Sir Edward held from the Crown, on death of Elizabeth Calfe, Baroness of Narragh, parts of the Barony of Clane and Ladytown, Old Connell, but the grant was rescinded in favour of John Bellow." There would seem to be external evidence that the effigy in chain mail now lying in Ballymore Eustace church is that of Sir Edward, but some authorities rather surprisingly) date it somewhat later. (Further details of this effigy are given under "Kilcullen"). It was originally at Old Kilcullen, the church of Castlemartin before the chapel was built, probably by Sir Edward’s son. By his wife, Alicia, Sir Edward had at least four sons. There are now no means of telling which was the eldest, but in the opinions of the present writer the most probable order was Sir Thomas of Castlemartin; Sir Roland, later Lord Portlester;  Richard, father of the 1st Viscount Baltinglass and Oliver, High Sheriff of Kildare 1445.

Sir Thomas of Castlemartin had been knighted by 1438, but we know very little about him, and in fact for the next century the Eustaces of Castlemartin were overshadowed by those of Harristown, descended from Sir Thomas’s brother Roland Lord Portlester. Thomas was buried at Castlemartin in the centre of the little chapel on the high wooded banks of the Liffey. His effigy in armour lay on the top of an altar tomb which was surrounded by panels representing various biblical and ecclesiastical figures, and with one panel bearing his coat of arms—Or a saltire gules. The effigy now lies broken and headless on the overgrown floor, and the remains of the carved panels are piled at one end of the chapel. The vault below the tomb when opened was found to contain eleven skeletons, one of the skulls having a clean cleft made by a sword cut. They were reverently re-interred in the vault. We know that many Eustaces of Castlemartin, Harristown and Clongowes Wood were buried here, but no other Eustace tombstones now remain.

Sir Thomas had a son Edward, the father of John of Castlemartin, who in 1505 was granted the Castle of Inchcoventry; with certain lands there and at Ballyculane, to hold for the use of the son of the 8th Earl of Kildare, who had married the daughter of John’s great-uncle Lord Portlester. He had a son Maurice of Castlemartin, who at the time of the Reformation became a Protestant, as were all his descendants except a very few who will be noted as devout and active Catholics when they occur later in this history. We shall return to the House of Castlemartin, but must first consider the far more famous (at this time) House of Harristown, which remained ardently Catholic, though Harristown, itself passed to the Protestant Castlemartin branch after the Baltinglass rebellion of 1580. In 1547 Maurice had been granted Brannockstow'n, Rochestown and Boleybeg (just south of Harristown), forfeited by Christopher Eustace of Ballycotelan after the "Silken Thomas" rebellion, to be mentioned shortly (see also under Coghlanstown and Brannockstown).

Sir Roland FitzEustace of Harristown, later Roland Eustace, Baron Portlester

Roland, son of Sir Edward, the Lord Deputy, was born about 1430, and was destined soon to become one of the principal men in Ireland during the Wars of the Roses. He was trained as a barrister, and by 1454 had been appointed Chief Clerk to the King's Bench and Keeper of the Rolls. Later that year lie was chosen by the Viceroy, the Duke of York, to be Lord Treasurer, a post he held for thirty-eight years. He was knighted in 1459, and in 1462 was created by Edward IV, Baron Portlester. (Portlester was one of the first Irish peers to be so created by Letters Patent, the only peerages so granted before 1500 being those of the Earls of Ulster, Carrick, Kildare, Louth, Ormonde, Desmond and Waterford; Viscount Gormanston 1478; and Barons Trimleston 1462, Portlester 1462 and Ratowth 1468.)  In 1463, he was appointed Lord Deputy to the absent Viceroy, the Duke of Clarence. He was Lord Chancellor from 1472 to 1480 and again from 1486 to 1492. He was Captain of the Brotherhood or Guild of St. George, a body constituted by Act of Parliament in 1472 for the better defense of the Pale. It was headed by the 7th Earl of Kildare, under whom were the elected Captain and eleven other peers and knights, with 120 mounted archers, 40 horsemen and 40 pages. They had power to make laws and to arrest rebels, and were not dissolved until 1494. In 1473, Portlester became a Member of the Fraternity of Arms.

In 1467, Portlester had narrowly escaped execution. The Queen, who had been offended by the Earls of Desmond and Kildare, contrived that the Earl of Worcester should be sent to Ireland as Lord Deputy. Desmond was at once quite unjustly accused and beheaded; Kildare was attainted; and Portlester charged with treason. He offered wager by battle, but his accuser, Sir John Gilbert, fled, with the result that Portlester was completely exonerated by Parliament and Sir John attainted. Worcester himself was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1470.

The great 8th Earl of Kildare succeeded his father in 1477 and was appointed Lord Deputy. Portlester, although many years his senior, became his firm friend and later his father-in-law. The Earl so on held the famous Parliament of Naas which refused to recognize the King's representative, Lord Henry Grey. He and Portlester found themselves in serious trouble, but were eventually forgiven, although Portlester was replaced as Lord Chancellor by the Bishop of Meath. He refused however to hand over the Great Seal to his successor, and another had to be made before the affairs of State could be carried on.

Kildare and Portlester were ardent Yorkists, and after the Lancastrian victory at Bosworth in 1485 they regarded the new King Henry VII as merely an illegitimate Welsh adventurer. When, therefore, there arrived in Ireland the Yorkist claimant, Lambert Simnel, who after a thorough examination appeared to be the undoubted son of the Duke of Clarence, he was crowned at Dublin in 1487. Kildare and Portlester went to England to support the Yorkist claim, but it ended disastrously at Stoke on-Trent. Once again they received a royal pardon, Portlester being confirmed as Lord Treasurer and once more as Lord Chancellor- by the Tudor King. He seems to have previously assigned, in 1482, the office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer to his son, Oliver. In 1492, the quarrels among the Anglo-Irish at last enabled Henry to displace Kildare and his -Council, and Portlester soon found himself threatened with a hostile enquiry into the Treasury accounts. He had however run his course, and died in 1496.

Portlester was a generous benefactor of the Church. In 1455, he, added the Portlester Chapel at the east end of St. Audoen's Church, then the wealthiest parish in Dublin, and in 1486, he founded the Franciscan New Abbey of Grey Friars at Kilcullen. He was a benefactor of St. Malcolyn's, Hollywood (three miles south of Ballymore Eustace), and a co-founder of the Guild and Chantries of St. Columb, Skreen, and the Chantries at Piercetown, Laundey and Greenoge. He refounded the Guild of English Merchants Trading in Ireland.

He married three times. First, Elizabeth, daughter of John Brune; second, in about 1463, Joanna (or Joan),' widow of Christopher Plunkett, 1st Lord Killeen, and daughter of Bellew of Bellewstown ( Her young grandson, Broughton Plunkett, accompanied Kildare to England in 1487, and was killed at the Battle of Stoke); and third, in about 1467, Margaret, widow of John, the son of Sir John Dowdall of Newtown, and also the widow of Thomas Barnewall, daughter and co-heiress of Jenico D'Artois. She predeceased him, and was buried at St. Audoen's, Dublin.

His two sons, Oliver and Sir Richard, perhaps illegitimate, predeceased him Richard by only a year or so. He had four daughters, probably all by his third wife: Alison, (She was the mother of the 9th Earl, and the second of her six daughters was the famous Great Countess of Ormonde and Ossory) who married 8th Earl of Kildare; Joan, (The Complete Peerage (presumably with good reason) gives two Joans, and assigns the first and also Alison to the second wife. Neither of these assumptions seems to me to be at all likely) who married (1) her cousin Richard Plunkett, 2nd Baron of Dunsany, and (2) her second-cousin Sir Maurice Eustace of Ballycotelan ; Maud, who married (1) Thomas Marward, Baron of Skreen, Co. Meath, (d. 1504) and (2) Sir John Plunkett of Bewley, Co. Louth; and Janet (d. 1536), who married Sir Walter Delahyde of Moyglarie, Co. Meath. She, with her two sons, James and John, and Thomas Eustace her nephew, ( A younger son of her sister Joan, whose eldest son, Christopher, was executed in 1535) was accused of having incited the 10th Earl of Kildare to rebel in 1534, and was detained in Dublin Castle as " Dame Jenet Eustace, the traitor's aunt and foster mother."

Portlester presumably came into possession of Harristown as his share of his father's Castlemartin property. He built (or added to) the castle, no doubt as part of the activities of the Guild of St. George. There was at one time a second, perhaps the original, castle on the estate, but its site is unknown. Little now remains of Harristown castle, but the earthworks (just west of the railway station) show that it must have been an imposing structure. The estate probably extended slightly to the east of the present townland boundary, so as to include the little chapel of St. James in Coghlanstown, then the property of the Eustaces of Ballycotelan where stands the remains of Portlester's memorial cross. An old map of about 1645 shows that the townland boundary was in its present position by that date. Among the other castles built by Portlester was that of Balablaght, at the request of the Abbot of Baltinglass.

Portlester was buried at New Abbey, where his daughter, Alison, Countess of Kildare, had been buried the year before. She is said to have died of grief when the 8th Earl was arrested in 1495 and imprisoned in the Tower. She was not to know that he would be freed the following year and appointed by the King " to rule over all Ireland," as the result of the famous trial.

Portlester's tomb in the chapel of New Abbey must have been strikingly similar to that of his brother at Castlemartin, but it bore two effigies-himself in armour, and Margaret in a long belted and pleated costume, wearing a " horned "' head dress. One panel bore his arms-the Eustace saltire (differenced by an annulet, denoting a fifth son, which may have been intended for a crescent, denoting a second son. The carving of this panel is inaccurate in that the arms of D'Artois should be " Barry wavy of six." Note that on the death of Margaret (an heraldic heiress) he inherited and quartered her arms, but this quartering died with him), quartering D'Artois (carved as " Barry of six "). In St. Audoen's church in Dublin, and now placed for protection under the ruined tower, there is a tomb or cenotaph bearing almost identical effigies and inscription, but now without the side panels. This was probably originally placed over Margaret's grave. These three tombs and their effigies will be further considered under Kilcullen." as will the Eustace effigy at Ballymore Eustace. In the graveyard (now moved to inside the church ruins) of St. James's chapel, Coghlanstown, there are the base and shaft of a memorial cross bearing his saltire with baron's coronet and what are probably the arms of his first two wives. The inscription " Eustace Lord Portlester 1462" appears from the style of the lettering to have been added in the seventeenth century.                

On his death in 1496, Thomas, his nephew, son of his brother Richard, succeeded to his estates but the title of Lord Portlester became extinct.

Richard Eustace, Portlester's brother, is a dim figure of whom we know nothing, except that he was living in 1493 and had two sons (His wife was probably Anne, daughter of a Robert Eustace of Ballyloughrane, 12 miles south of Arlow (see Castlemore): Sir Thomas, later Viscount Baltinglass ; and Sir Richard, who married Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Eustace of Ballycotland, and had a daughter Margaret who married George Barnewall of Arnoldstown. Anne later married Sir Maurice FitzGerald of Lackagh. He died before Portlester.

Sir Thomas Eustace of Harristown, 1st Viscount Baltinglass

(1480-1549)

Sir Thomas was born in 1480, and succeeded to his uncle's estates when only sixteen. Except that he was High Sheriff of the County in 1523 and was knighted sometime between 1528 .and 1533, we know nothing of him until the rebellion, in 1534, of his kinsman, " Silken " Thomas, 10th Earl of Kildare. His father, the 9th Earl (Portlester's grandson), before leaving on a visit to England (where he died, but was thought to have been murdered, in the Tower), had left instructions that his son, then still a minor, should be guided by the advice of the Earl of Desmond, the -Lord Chancellor (Archbishop of Armagh) and Sir Thomas Eustace. In defiance of their advice he raised forces against the government to avenge his father"s death, and one of his first acts was to seize Sir Thomas's Castle of Portlester. After other successes he besieged Dublin Castle and killed the Archbishop. The Eustaces (not for the last time) were sharply divided, and, among others of the family, Christopher of Ballycotland joined the rebels. Sir Thomas, however, collected forty of his relatives to aid the King with what retainers they could muster. In July, he and his men were present at the defeat of a much superior force of rebels engaged in the -interception of a. convoy on its way to Rathangan Castle, and the next month took a prominent part in the Battle of Allen. It was here that an elaborate plan had been made to surround the rebels, and as aresult many of them, including the Silken Thomas, were captured, not a few falling into the hands of Sir Thomas. Such however was the half-hearted ness of many of the government adherents, that they were " let goo agayne."

For his services, Sir Thomas was created, in 1535 Baron of Kilcullen. In 1537, he was appointed Constable of the Castle of Kilkea, and, with James FitzGerald of Osberstown (His wife was Margaret Eustace, sister of the rebel, Christopher Eustace of Ballycotelan, hanged in 1537), was made responsible for Lea Castle. For further actions against Irish rebels, he was advanced to Viscount Baltinglass in 1541, and was granted the very large possessions of the Abbey, although it is now difficult to identify the lands of Baltinglass, owing to changes in names and spelling. It was said that he held more than half of County Wicklow, in addition to his estates in Kildare and Meath. As one of the Lords of Parliament, his name appears that year in the historic Bill proclaiming Henry VIII King of Ireland. In 1542 he was chosen to take custody of the hostage held- to ensure the good behaviour of Rory O'More, when appointed Chief of Leix. In 1546, on the suppression of St. Patrick's, Dublin, he was granted the demesne and parish of Kilberry (see Athy). In 1549 he died at New Abbey, disestablished ten years before and in ruins except for a few rooms probably used for tending the sick. He had been granted the lease of the Abbey and grounds, still held by his son eleven years later.

He married Margaret, daughter of Sir Peter Talbot of Malahide Castle, Co. Dublin, by whom he had four son's and four daughters : ROLAND, the 2nd Viscount Richard of Boleybeg and later of Tullaghgorey, near Athy Alexander of Colbinstown (q.v.), who married Jenet, daughter of Robert Eustace of Oldcastle ; Robert of Tullaghgorey (see Athy), who (or perhaps his brother Richard) married in about 1542 an Irish girl named Dorothy O'More ; John who was High Sheriff of Kildare in 1535 ; Anne who married (1) one of the O'Tooles of Imail, Co. Wicklow, and (2) in about 1530 Nicholas Eustace of Kerdiffstown (q.v.) ; Janet who married (1) Gerald Sutton of Castletown, and (2) Maurice FitzGerald of Osberstown ; Margaret who married George Burnell ; and Catherine who married (1) James FitzGerald of Ballyshannon (or Carberry?) and (2) Gerald, son of Robert Plunkett, 5th Baron of Dunsany.

Roland Eustace of Harristown, 2nd Viscount Baltinglass

(1505-1578)

Roland, the 2nd Viscount, is another rather shadowy figure. He lived through the period of the Reformation, but held strongly to the old faith. One can but imagine his feelings in 1539, when New Abbey, which as a boy he had seen completed by his father, was dissolved by Henry VIII, and the chapel containing his great-uncle's tomb reduced to ruins. In 1558, he took his seat in the first Parliament of Queen Elizabeth, but strongly opposed-her Act of Uniformity of that year, and for this and other pro-Catholic actions, he was ordered to be arrested in 1567 and conveyed to London, but the order was not carried out. In the interval, however, he had been commissioned, in 1561, as one of the Justices of the Peace for Co. Kildare, during the temporary absence of the Lord Deputy. He married, in about 1528, Joan, daughter of James Butler, 8th Lord of Dunboyne, by whom he had six sons, with whom we deal shortly, and two daughters : Joan, who married Sir Barnaby FitzPatrick, Baron of Upper Ossory ; and Eleanor, who married Sir Edmund Butler, second son of the 9th Earl of Ormonde, and was the mother of Catherine, fourth wife of William Eustace of Castlemartin.( Her other children were: Piers or Ballysax and James, both executed in 1596; Theobald, Viscount Butler of Tolleophelim; and Joan, who married Teige, 4th Lord Upper Ossory). As a young married man he seems to have lived at Blackrath (Calverstown) until succeeding to the title and the family estate at Harristown in 1549.

James Eustace of Harristown, 3rd Viscount Baltinglass

(1530-1585)

James, the eldest son of the 2nd Viscount, was born in 1530 and had as his tutor an influential priest, Sir Norman Eustace. He became a fervent Catholic and regarded Queen Elizabeth as an illegitimate heretic. In 1576, before the death of his father, he lodged complaints against the persecution of Catholics and illegal taxation of the Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sydney. He and other leading Catholics were imprisoned in 1577, and lie was released only just in time to assume his title the next year. He married Mary, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Travers of Monkstown Castle, but they had no children. She died in 1610, having married secondly, in 1587, Sir Gerald Aylmer, Bart., of Donadea, a Catholic loyalist, repeatedly imprisoned, but finally. released and knighted, by Elizabeth and created baronet by James I.

(Sir John Travers of Monkstown (Carrickbrennan), Co. Dublin, was a connection of the Earls of Kildare. He was Master of the Ordnance and a Groom of the Chambers. He married Genet Preston, and during the period 1545 to 1551 received many grants of land, including Rathmore and-part of Haynestown (east of Naas), Tomogue, and estates in Co. Carlow. In 1589 Mary petitioned for the return of part of her lands, which must have been extensive. With the assistance of Sir Gerald Aylmer, whom she later married, she obtained the re-possession of the Preceptory of Killerig, Co. Carlow. Soon after her death in 1610 this estate was shared between several grantees.)

In 1579, Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, took up arms in Munster against the Queen, who appointed Thomas Butler, the 10th " Black " Earl of Ormonde to deal with the rebellion. This he eventually did, but with ruthless and terrible severity. In the summer of 1580, Baltinglass, apparently prompted almost entirely by religious motives, collected rebel forces in Wicklow, with a view to assisting Desmond. These included many influential Catholics, some of them his own relatives, and large numbers of Irish tribesmen. News of this soon reached the ears of Ormonde, his brother-in-law, (Edmund, brother of Ormonde, had married Eleanor, Baltinglass's sister) who must have sent him a severe warning, for we have Baltinglass's defiant reply, later produced in evidence against him. At first the revolt was remarkably successful, and a 'severe defeat was inflicted upon the troops of the Lord Deputy at the Pass of Glenmalure in the Wicklow mountains on the Baltinglass lands. But Baltinglass never co-ordinated his efforts with those of Desmond, and in any case had started too late. There was desultory fighting for nearly a year, but with no large engagement, and the Baltinglass troops over-ran a large area doing great damage,' but were then hopelessly overpowered. A force of Spaniards and Italians had landed at Smerwick, Co. Kerry, in order to assist the Catholic cause, but when they had completed the long march of 150 miles to Naas were taken prisoner and massacred. The scene of this massacre, on the southern edge of the town, is still called Spaniards' Cross or Foad Spaniagh. Baltinglass and his followers were outlawed and forty-five of them were hanged in Dublin. He himself escaped to Munster, where Desmond was still in revolt, and thence to Spain. He was well received, and only just failed to persuade King Philip to provide sufficient troops and ships to invade Ireland.2 He died there childless in 1585. The fates of his five brothers were as follows

n Edmund had married Frances, daughter of Robert Pipho,, and secondly Joan, daughter of Richard Walsh of Carrickmines, who afterwards married Dermot Kavanagh of Knockangary. In 1583 he escaped to Scotland and thence to Spain, where he was created " 4th Viscount " by the Pope. He served against England in the Armada in 1588, and died childless in Portugal in-1597.

n Thomas was executed in 1582.

n William was certainly believed to have been slain in battle in 1581, for-it was officially reported to Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of. State in London, "Head of William Eustace, another of the Baltinglass brethren, taken this morning."" It is, possible however that this report was untrue and that he was the ancestor of the Eustaces of Robertstown whose distinguished line will be dealt with later.

1.

2.

1. The Annals of the Four Masters states that " the entire extent of country from the Slaney to the Shannon and from the Boyne to the meeting of the Three Waters became one scene of strife and dissension."'

2. It is interesting to speculate upon the subsequent history of the world.' supposing that such an invasion had been successful, and that the Armada had been able to set sail from the ports of Ireland instead of from those of Spain.

n Walter was captured in 1583 and executed.

n Richard was in Paris at the time of the rebellion, engaged in arranging for the dispatch of ammunition and supplies to assist his brothers. He became a priest in Rome.

Among the other Eustaces who took part were Maurice of Castlemartin and Thomas of Kerdiffstown who were both executed, and John of Newland and Oliver of Blackhall, who were eventually pardoned, as was Maurice FitzGerald of Osberstown, who was the husband of Baltinglass's aunt Janet.

In 1585, the Statute of Baltinglass was passed by Parliament, but against considerable opposition. Under this Act, the title and arms were attainted, and all the vast Baltinglass possessions were forfeited, with retrospective clauses voiding all transfers of property that had taken place during the previous twelve years. The Eustaces of Harristown, once Lords of Portlester, Kilcullen and Baltinglass were thus virtually obliterated. James and his brothers had fought for what they were convinced was right, but they had failed, and for their failure they paid dearly. Whether traitors or martyrs, they were certainly brave men. At the time of the attainder, the Dowager Viscountess, once a proud Butler, but now the mother of " the six traitrous brethren," petitioned (rather pathetically, and with what result we can well imagine) to be allowed to retain her jointure or alternatively to be granted somewhere to live.

Almost all the forfeited estates were granted to Sir Henry Harrington who had been active in quelling the rebellion. He sold them in 1617 to Sir Charles Wilmot, from whom they passed, via Sir James Carroll and Sir Thomas Roper, to the Viscounts (later Earls) of Aldborough. Harristown, Rochestown and Calverstown were granted in about 1590 to John Eustace of Castlemartin with whom we shall deal shortly. The Baltinglass, house in Dublin and a lease of New Abbey, Kilcullen, were granted to Edmund Spenser, the poet, who was

Secretary to the Lord Deputy, Lord Arthur Grey de Wilton.

The title was revived in 1685, when Colonel Richard Talbot,  of Carlton, was created Viscount Baltinglass, but he died without an heir six years later. It was again revived in 1763, when John Stratford was created Baron of Baltinglass, but. he was advanced in 1776 to Viscount Aldborough and this title became extinct in 1875. The Eustaces of Castlemartin and Harristown were connected with his family twice. His father had married (as his second wife) Penelope nee Eustace, one of the three co-heiresses of Sir Maurice Eustace, the Lord Chancellor. His great-great-granddaughter, Louisa Saunders of Saunders Grove, married in 1860 Thomas Tickell, descendant and heir of Clotilda, Penelope's sister and another of the co-heiresses.

Footnotes: I I do not think that the following quaint, though quite unreliable, legend (State Papers Ireland 1585, Vol. 215, No. 21) has appeared in this Journal: " A pedigree of the house of Castlemartin, and ther orydgynall dessent oute of the house of Bullen; mayntayned bye historryes of Godfrey of Bullen his lyfe and .,voerthye actions . . . it happed upon the forces sent against the turckes at Jerusallem . . . that all four sonncs of the Ducke of Bullen went thither . . . Godffrye being the eldest and Eustace the younger . . . Wher they won greate patnemonyes ... of which Secsillia as I well remember fell to the lot of Eustace . . . thie Eustace loste his kingdom to the Castylians . . . taeking his adventure on the seas was windedryven to a place in Watterfoerde named in Irishe this day Eaye Neustace; ... and after the landing of King John they with all duetye joyned under his obeydience: of whom they had greate comand from Dongarvan to Laghlen . . . and for memorry of that he was called Eustace power ... and the eldest son came into Lewminster." This story, I think, confuses the family of Eustace with that of Le Poer.

2. There was another famous Eustace, Bishop of Ely and later Lord Chancellor of England, who was the chief of the bishops to convey to King John the Pope's threats of excommunication. He took a leading part in the events preceding Magna Carta, but died just before it was signed in 1215.

Eustace, Canon of Chichester, was Lord Treasurer of Ireland, 1233'.