Thus ended the last of his race; and the inheritance had passed to a
stranger.
The surrounding worshippers were mostly domestics and retainers of the
family, save Robert de Whalley, the dean of that ancient church,
supposed to have been founded by Augustine or Paulinus in the seventh
century, and then called "The White Church under the Leigh." No tidings
had been heard from the Fitz-Eustace at Halton, and in two days the body
was to be carried forth on its last pilgrimage to Kirkstall Abbey,
founded by Henry de Lacy, father of the deceased, about forty years
prior to this event.
The beginning of February, in the year 1193, when our story commences,
was an epoch memorable for the base and treacherous captivity of Richard
Coeur de Lion by the Duke of Austria; and for the equally base and
treacherous, but short-lived, usurpation of John, the brother of our
illustrious crusader. The nation was involved in great trouble and
dismay. The best blood of England and the flower of her nobility had
perished on the deserts of Palestine, or were pining there in hopeless
captivity. The house of Fitz-Eustace, into whose possession the estates
of the Lacies were now merged, had themselves been shorn of a goodly
scion or two from the family tree during these "holy wars.
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