Bourges, until after four years' captivity he purchased liberty by doing homage for his county to the French king, against which his own liegemen protested. At Christmas he went on a crusade, and died on his return at Naples, in 1302, leaving two orphan children (for the princess Eleanor had died previously), Joanna, who became Countess of Warenne, and Edward, under the care of his brother John. Almost as soon as the young Count Edward attained manhood, he was involved in misfortunes similar to his father, from his zeal against the French. Having been taken prisoner, and redeemed after five years' confinement by the payment of a large ransom and the surrender of many of his towns, he soon afterwards was shipwrecked in Cyprus, and there died. Before reverting to Joanna, we may remark that John de Bar alone seems to have prospered in the English service, and he was much trusted by the king. He was, in 1282, one of the forty knights' sureties for Charles d'Anjou, and is recorded as feasting at Odiham with Prince Edward: he went as an envoy to Flanders in 1297, and accompanied the king in his Scotch wars. He there appeared as a witness to a deed on the breach of the truce, dated "in the camp or tent of the king of England near Maidens' Castle (castrum puellarum), commonly called Edenburgh." A later document, in 1299, appointing him an envoy to treat of peace, describes him as " Monsieur Johan de Bar, chivaler, de notre conseil;" and another deed, dated Dumfries, October 30, 1300, mentions him as "chivaler, ditz Piau de Chat," a nickname apparently derived from his mother Jeanne de Foy's territory of Puisaye.[1] John was among the knights at Carlaverock, and the poem of that siege thus records his bearing:
"Johan de Bar iloec estoit
Ken la baniere inde portoit
Deus bars de or et fu croissillee
O la rouge ourle engraillee."
Sir H. Nicolas states, in a note, p. 174, that there is an effigy in mail armour in the church of Berwick St. John, co. Wilts, whose shield bears Bar, apparently within a bordure.
The subsequent life of Joanna, the young Countess of
- ↑ Rymer's Foed. vol. i. Dict, de la Noblesse — L'art de Verifier les Dates, iii, 49 — Pere Anselme, v, 509 — Devon's Issues of Exchequer— Moreri, Dict. Hist., t. 2.
