The Countess Ella availed herself of the impression thus made upon her
husband to persuade him to seek the ghostly counsel of St. Edmund Rich,
then a canon of Salisbury; and the first sight of the countenance of
the holy man at once subdued him, so that he forsook his evil ways,
devoutly received the rites so long neglected, and spent his few
remaining years in trying to atone for his past sins.
In 1226, he was taken suddenly ill at a banquet given by Hubert de
Burgh, and being carried home, sent for the Bishop of Salisbury, Richard
Poer, who found him in a high fever; but he at once threw himself from
his bed upon the floor, weeping, and crying out that he was a traitor to
the Most High: nor would he allow himself to be raised till he had made
his confession, and received the Holy Eucharist.
He died a few days subsequently, and was buried at Old Sarum, whence
his tomb was afterward removed to the cathedral at Salisbury, where his
effigy lies in the nave, in chain armor, with his legs crossed as a
crusader. The Countess Ella founded a monastery at Laycock, where she
took the veil. Her eldest son, William Longespee, succeeded to the
Castle of Sarum, but afterward offended the King by quitting the realm
without the royal license, for which breach of rule Henry III. seized
his possessions, and he remained a knight adventurer. In this capacity
he followed his cousin, Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, who took
the Cross in 1240.
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