A ubiquitous image in the Middle Ages, used by writers to make the course of events more intelligible, was the ‘wheel of Fortune’, raising men and women up to the apex of fame, wealth and power, or casting them back to earth and the terrestrial realities of ignominy, poverty and disgrace. Whether depicted in manuscript illustrations, narrative structures or literary trajectories, life was reduced to the three stages: ascent, supremacy and decline. All enjoyed highs and suffered lows, but it was the fates of the highborn which held most interest for a medieval audience. ‘Nothing so interested the general populace, then as now, as to watch an individual fall, especially from great heights’, writes James Bothwell.

Few aristocratic lives in medieval Britain and Ireland displayed greater degrees of success and reversal than that of Hugh II de Lacy. Ascending from modest beginnings as a younger son of a celebrated Anglo-Norman adventurer, Hugh was the recipient of the first earldom in Angevin Ireland when he was created earl of Ulster by King John on 29 May 1205. But almost as swiftly as he had risen to prominence, Hugh fell foul of the crown and was banished from Ireland in 1210, joining the Albigensian crusade in southern France. Rise, supremacy and fall – except that de Lacy's story contained a fourth act. If the momentum of the rota Fortunae was beyond human control, on occasion the wheel could complete more than one revolution. After two decades in the political wilderness, Hugh was restored to his earldom in 1227 and retained it until his death, in late 1242 or early 1243.

Despite its unique quality, Hugh de Lacy's career has yet to be subjected to a thorough scholarly examination.