field-marshal, Maurice Francis Lacy (Lasey), who was born in St. Petersburg in 1725, and at the age of twelve was placed by his father in the Austrian army, in the regiment of his kinsman, Ulysses Maximilian, count Brown [q. v.], with whom he made the campaign in Italy in 1747. He was favourably noticed by Daun, and served with great distinction in the seven years' war. In a family manuscript dated Vienna, 30 Nov. 1800, the emperor wrote to him, ‘You created my army.’ Frederick the Great also said of him: ‘I admire the disposition of Lacy (Lasey), but tremble at the onset of Loudon.’ Maurice Francis Lacy died at Vienna on 28 Nov. 1801 (see N. Deutsche Biog. vol. xxii.) A Count Lacy, who was a Russian major-general under Field-marshal Peter Lacy in the Finland war of 1741–3, and the Austrian general, Count Maurice Tanner Lacy, who died in 1819, are believed to have belonged to the same family as Peter, count Lacy. The Russian general, Maurice Lacy or De Lacy [q. v.] of Grodno, also belonged to the family.
[O'Callaghan's Hist. of the Irish Brigades in the Service of France, Glasgow, 1870, pp. 481–99, embody researches in the Lacy Family Papers (including some diaries of Field-marshal Peter Lacy and a copy of his will), then in possession of Richard MacNamara, esq., solicitor, 31 North Great George Street, Dublin. Confusion of christian names renders it utterly impossible to identify with certainty the immediate ancestors of Peter Lacy (cf. the notices of Colonel John Lacy and Colonel Pierce Lacy in D'Alton's Illustrations of King James's Army Lists, Dublin, 2nd edit. 1861, ii. 388–94; in Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. iii. 270–1, and in Ferrar and Lenihan's histories of Limerick). A useful summary of the campaigns in which Peter Lacy figured is furnished in Cust's Annals of the Wars of the Eighteenth Century, London, 1866. Some account of the Russian army in Lacy's time will be found in Schuyler's Peter the Great, London, 1886, vol. i. Notices of Peter, count Lacy, occur in Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. pt. ii. 10th Rep. pt. i. pp. 166, 188, 193, 268.]
LACY, ROGER de (d. 1212), justiciar, and constable of Chester, was son of John de Lacy, by Alice de Vere, sister of William de Mandeville, earl of Essex [q. v.] John de Lacy (d. 1190) was son of Richard FitzEustace, constable of Chester, by Alberda, daughter of Robert de Lisours and Alberda, aunt of Robert de Lacy (d. 1193), the last male representative of Ilbert de Lacy, who came over at the Conquest (Herald and Genealogist, vii. 182). John de Lacy assumed his cousin's name as heir to his estates. He was in charge of Dublin in 1181, and, going on the crusade, died at Tyre on 11 Oct. 1190 (Girald. Cambr. v. 355; Hoveden, ii. 253, iii. 88). John de Lacy founded Stanlaw Abbey, Cheshire, about 1172; it was afterwards transferred to Whalley in 1296, by his descendant Henry de Lacy, third earl of Lincoln [q. v.] The charter, dated 1178, is printed by Dugdale. John de Lacy also founded the hospital of Castle Donington (Mon. Angl. vi. 639, 641, 765).
On his father's death Roger de Lacy became constable of Chester. In 1192, having been entrusted by the chancellor with the custody of the castles of Tickhill and Nottingham, he hanged two knights who had conspired to surrender these castles to John. John in revenge plundered Lacy's lands. In April 1199 Lacy swore fealty to John on his accession, and from this time remained in high favour with the new king. In November 1200 he was sent to escort William the Lion to Lincoln, and was present when the Scottish king did homage there to John on 22 Nov. In 1201 he was sent with William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, in command of one hundred knights to defend the king's possessions in Normandy. In 1203 Philip Augustus besieged him in the famous Château Gaillard, which he defended with incomparable fidelity for nearly a year, and only surrendered through stress of famine on 5 March 1204. Matthew Paris relates that the French king, in recognition of his gallant defence, put him in free custody. Lacy was ransomed by John's assistance for a thousand marks (Rot. Claus. i. 4). He was further rewarded by being made sheriff of York and Cheshire, which offices he held till 1210. In 1209 he was a justiciar. He is said to have rescued Earl Randulf of Chester (see Blundevill, Randulf de] when besieged by the Welsh at Rhuddlan, Flintshire. His fierce raids against the Welsh are said to have earned him the name of ‘Roger of Hell.’ Lacy was on familiar terms with John, and a record is preserved of the king's losses to him ‘in ludo ad tabulas.’ He died in January 1212, and was buried at Stanlaw. He was a benefactor of that abbey, and also of Fountains. Dugdale prints an epitaph on him from Cotton MS. Cleop. C. iii. (Mon. Angl. v. 648). Dugdale's statement that he was present at the sieges of Acre and Damietta is due to a confusion with his father and son. Roger de Lacy married Maud de Clere, sister of the treasurer of York Cathedral, and left by her two sons, John, earl of Lincoln [q. v.], and Roger.
[Roger de Hoveden; Matt. Paris; Annales Monastici (all these are in the Rolls Ser.); Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 533–4, 647–8; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 100–1; Foss's Judges of England, ii. 87–8.]
