LUDLOW CASTLE.

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Hugh de Lacy of this second family, on whom Henry IT. conferred the earl-dom of Ulster , regained also the possession of Ludlow , under the sanction ofthe same monarch: and, in spite of occasional resumptions by the crown, ashe or his issue experienced the frowns of their sovereigns, he transmittedthese estates to a remote posterity, though his male descendants ended withWalter de Lacy , in the 25th of Henry III., who left two grand-daughters hiscoheirs, Margery, wife of John de Vernon, and Maud, wife of Jeffrey deGenevile. Theobald de Vernon, the last of that family, died in 1316, leavinghis moiety of Ludlow to his posthumous daughter and coheir, Isabel, the wifeof Henry de Ferrars of Groby.

Jeffrey de Genevile, or Joinyille, was brother of the celebrated historianof the same name, and was himself lord of Vaucouleur, a town of Berrois onthe Meuse . His estates, acquired by the coheiress of Lacy, ultimately centeredin his grand-daughter Jane, who brought them in marriage to her husband,Roger de Mortimer , of Wigmore, the paramour of queen Isabel,and the murdererof king Edward II. , who was created earl of March in the 1st year of Edward III . This great man, who was deservedly hanged at Smith Held, three years later,was ultimately succeeded in title by a grandson of the same name, who, de-sirous of uniting in himself the entire lordship of Ludlow , gave the manor ofCrcndon, in Bucks, to Sir William de Ferrars of Groby, in exchange for thatmoiety of this manor and town which had descended to Ferrars, from hismother Isabel Vernon. The castle had passed as an entirety to the share ofGenevile.

It is unnecessary to pursue this brief historical sketch any further. TheMortimer estates centered, as is well known, in Edward IV. , by descent fromhis grandmother, Anne Mortimer, Countess of Cambridge. The castle ofLudlow had been the scene of his infancy and youth : and he continued toregard it with peculiar fondness and affection to the close of his days. Hegranted the burgesses a charter of incorporation; he sent his son hither toreside, for the purpose of awing the neighbouring Marchers and Welshmen,with the aid of a standing council, which gradually devolved into a nationalestablishment under the name of “ The Council in the Marches of Wales.”It was from Ludlow castle that this unfortunate young prince proceeded,Hpon the death of his father, to the metropolis, where he was deposed, and

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