eputy of Ireland in 1597, and his younger brother, Sir
John (d. 1594), a distinguished soldier and sailor.

(J. H. R.)

BURGH, HUBERT DE (d. 1243), chief justiciar of England in the reign of John
and Henry III., entered the royal service in the reign of Richard I. He
traced his descent from Robert of Mortain, half brother of the Conqueror
and first earl of Cornwall; he married about 1200 the daughter of William
de Vernon, earl of Devon; and thus, from the beginning of his career, he
stood within the circle of the great ruling families. But he owed his high
advancement to exceptional ability as an administrator and a soldier.
Already in 1201 he was chamberlain to King John, the sheriff of three
shires, the constable of Dover and Windsor castles, the warden of the
Cinque Ports and of the Welsh Marches. He served with John in the
continental wars which led up to the loss of Normandy. It was to his
keeping that the king first entrusted the captive Arthur of Brittany.
Coggeshall is our authority for the tale, which Shakespeare has
immortalized, of Hubert's refusal to permit the mutilation of his prisoner;
but Hubert's loyalty was not shaken by the crime to which Arthur
subsequently fell a victim. In 1204 Hubert distinguished himself by a long
and obstinate defence of Chinon, at a time when nearly the whole of Poitou
had passed into French hands. In 1213 he was appointed seneschal of Poitou,
with a view to the invasion of France which ended disastrously for John in
the next year.

Both before and after the issue of the Great Charter Hubert adhered loyally
to the king; he was rewarded, in June 1215, with the office of chief
justiciar. This office he retained after the death of John and the election
of William, the earl marshal, as regent. But, until the expulsion of the
French from England, Hubert was entirely engaged with military affairs. He
held Dover successfully through the darkest hour of John's fortunes; he
brought back Kent to the allegiance of Henry III.; he completed the
discomfiture of the French and their allies by the naval victory which he
gained over Eustace the Monk, the noted privateer and admiral of Louis, in
the Straits of Dover (Aug. 1217). The inferiority of the English fleet has
been much exaggerated, for the greater part of the French vessels were
transports carrying reinforcements and supplies. But Hubert owed his
success to the skill with which he manoeuvred for the weather-gage, and his
victory was