Dublin, ii. 396). He still continued his efforts to obtain real possession of his dead wife's estates; but, though Edward III did his best to provide him with supplies, he only succeeded in getting into his hands a small part of the sea-coast of eastern Ulster. His constant efforts to rule through Englishmen led to a great quarrel between the ‘English by birth’ and ‘English by blood,’ which, in order to unite both factions in the wars against the native Irish, Edward III did his best to appease.
Lionel transferred the exchequer from Dublin to Carlow, and spent 500l. in walling that town (ib. ii. 396). Early in Lent 1367 he met a famous parliament at Kilkenny. The great work of this assembly was the statute of Kilkenny, which aimed, by a series of minute restrictions and prohibitions, at preventing the tendency to intermixture between the ‘English by blood’ and the native Irish, which was rapidly destroying the basis of English rule and withdrawing the English settlers from English civilisation. With the same object the distinctions between ‘English by blood’ and ‘English by birth’ were, so far as possible, removed.
This was the last important act of Lionel in Ireland. He had grown weary of his thankless task. In November 1366 he returned to England, declaring that he would never go back with his own free will (Eulogium Historiarum, iii. 241). His government was handed over to Gerald Fitzgerald, fourth earl of Desmond [q. v.] His rule, unsuccessful as it was, marks an epoch in the history of the English relations with Ireland. In 1635 the claim of Charles I to the lands of Connaught was partly based on descent from Lionel (Strafford Letters, i. 454–5).
In 1366 a second rich marriage was proposed for Lionel. The Visconti of Milan were anxious to attain a social position among the rulers of Europe corresponding to their wealth and power. Galeazzo Visconti, lord of Pavia, and brother of the more famous Bernabò Visconti, lord of Milan, accordingly proposed that his beautiful and only daughter, Violante, should marry Lionel of Clarence. On 30 July Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, was sent to Milan to negotiate the match (Fœdera, iii. 797). After two years' negotiations a settlement was arranged. Violante brought with her a dower of two million florins of gold and many Piedmontese towns and castles, including Alba, a possession of the Visconti since the days of Archbishop Giovanni, and situated in Montferrat, on the Tanaro, between Cherasco and Asti (Chronicon Placentinum in Muratori, Scriptores Rer. Ital. xvi. 510; Ann. Mediolanenses in ib. xvi. 738). On 25 April 1368 the marriage treaty was signed at Windsor, and an instalment of the treasure paid down. There was vague and foolish talk in England of how the princes and towns of Italy had promised to do homage to Lionel, and how in time he might become emperor or king of Italy (Hardyng, Chronicle, p. 333). The chroniclers believed that Galeazzo had surrendered half his territories to his son-in-law (Chron. Angliæ, p. 61). Lionel married his little daughter to the Earl of March (Cont. Eulogium Hist. iii. 333), and set out from England to fetch his bride. He was magnificently equipped, and took with him in his train 457 men and 1,280 horses (Fœdera, iii. 845). He travelled by way of Dover and Calais to Paris, where he was received with great pomp by Charles V and the Dukes of Berri and Burgundy. He was lodged at the Louvre. He then travelled through Sens to Chambéry, where he was magnificently entertained by the Count of Savoy, whose sister Blanche was the mother of Violante. The count accompanied Lionel over the Alps to Milan. On 27 May Lionel reached Milan, being met outside the Ticino gate by Galeazzo, Bernabò, Galeazzo's son Gian Galeazzo, Count of Virtù, with his wife Isabella of France, and a gorgeously arrayed throng of Milanese grandees. The marriage was celebrated before the door of Milan Cathedral on 5 June (Ann. Mediolanenses, p. 738; the English authorities say on 29 May). There were festivities of extraordinary magnificence, elaborately described in the Milanese chroniclers (Muratori, Script. xvi. 738, 739, 1051). Among those present at the wedding feast was the aged poet Petrarch, who sat among the greatest of the guests at the first table (ib. xvi. 739; cf., however, Koerting, Petrarca's Leben und Werke, who doubts the fact on the ground of Petrarch's own silence about the marriage). Five months of continuous feasts, jousts, and revels followed, when early in October Lionel was smitten by a sudden and violent sickness at Alba. He had gone through an Italian summer carelessly, and without changing his English habits. The illness grew worse. On 3 Oct. he drew up his will, and on 7 Oct. 1368 he died. There was, as usual in Italy, some suspicion of poison, and one of his followers, Edward le Despenser, declaring for the church in the great contest between the papacy and the Visconti (Higden, Polychronicon, viii. 371, 419), joined Hawkwood and his White Company in their war against Milan, until satisfied of Galeazzo's innocence. There was in truth no motive for such an act, and Galeazzo went almost mad with
