William de Braosa entered into a contest with King John, mainly with reference to royal rents claimed from lands in Ireland. In this dispute his wife, Matilda, also became involved. John, while in Ireland in 1210 captured Matilda de Braosa and her eldest son, William, and sent them prisoners to England. There, by his orders, the mother and son were confined in a dungeon, and starved to death. William de Braosa, the father, disguised as a beggar, effected his escape to Paris, where he died.24

Died: 1210 in Windsor castle.

Maud (Matilda) de Braose was also known as the Lady of la Haie and to the Welsh as Moll Walbee. Married to William de Braose, the "Ogre of Abergavenny", she was a significant warrior in her
own right. Her long defense of Pain's Castle when it was besieged by the Welsh earned it the name "Matilda's Castle". The local people saw her as a supernatural character. She was said to have built Hay Castle single handed in one night, carrying the stones in her apron. When one fell out and lodged in her slipper she picked it out and flung it to land in St Meilig's churchyard, three miles away across the River Wye at Llowes. The nine foot high standing stone can still be seen inside the church.
The final fall of her husband may owe a lot to her hasty reply to King John when he requested her son William as a hostage in 1208. She refused on the grounds that John had murdered his nephew Arthur whom he should have protected. The dispute between John and the de Braoses led to Maud dying of starvation in the King's castle at Windsor along with her son, while her husband, stripped of all his lands, died the following year in exile in France.