Ireland under the Tudors Part 5

Raymond was for sparing, Hervey for slaying. 'The opinion of the latter,'

says Giraldus, 'prevailed; the citizens were condemned, and, their limbs having been broken, they were cast headlong into the sea.'

[Sidenote: Earl Richard lands, 1170.]

Earl Richard landed near Waterford on August 23, 1170. The city was taken soon afterwards, and Reginald's tower is particularly mentioned as forming part of the defences. That tower still stands with one of Cromwell's cannon b.a.l.l.s sticking in the wall--a monument of three distinct invaders: the Pagan Northman, the Catholic Anglo-Norman, and the Puritan Englishman. 'Earl Strongbow,' say the Lough Ce annalists with pathetic brevity, 'came into Erin to Dermod MacMurrough to avenge his expulsion by Roderic, son of Tirlogh O'Connor; and Dermod gave him his own daughter and a part of his patrimony; and Saxon foreigners have been in Erin since then.'

[Sidenote: The adventurers take Dublin.]

Waterford and Wexford having fallen, and his daughter Eva having been married to Earl Richard, Dermod, who now aspired to the crown of all Ireland, felt himself strong enough to attack Dublin. The Earl had brought 200 knights and 1,000 other soldiers, so that the allied force was a considerable one. MacMurrough led the army safely through the Wicklow mountains, which were the scene of more than one disaster to Elizabeth's officers. Dermod's auxiliaries had been trained in Wales; and probably understood mountain warfare much better than those who had served in the Netherlands, or even on the Scottish border. Lawrence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, a man revered both by Danes and Irishmen, attempted to make peace between the citizens and their a.s.sailants; but Raymond and Milo de Cogan, while their elders parleyed, led a chosen band to the a.s.sault. They soon mastered the place; and Hasculph, with a number of followers and some treasure, escaped to the Orkneys, whence he went to Norway for help. Meath, which for some unexplained reason was in O'Rourke's possession, was next invaded, and Roderic then wrote to upbraid Dermod with having broken his oath by interfering outside the bounds of Leinster. MacMurrough shortly answered that he meant to be monarch of Ireland, and Roderic then killed his son, who was with him as a hostage. The clergy of Armagh a.s.sembled in their synod saw or suspected that the invasion was different from all former invasions. They agreed that Ireland had brought a curse on herself by keeping Englishmen in slavery, and they ordered the liberation of all such bondsmen. Henry II.

also saw that something extraordinary had happened. He had no fancy for having an independent Norman princ.i.p.ality within sight of Snowdon, and he ordered the adventurers to return, strictly forbidding all communication with them in the meantime. Fitz-Gilbert wrote to the King, who was in Aquitaine, protesting that he believed he had the royal licence for what he had done, and that he was ready to be his va.s.sal for all he might gain in Ireland. Raymond was sent with the letter, but Henry kept him a long time in suspense.

[Sidenote: The Danes vainly attempt to retake Dublin.]

At Whitsuntide, 1171, while Earl Richard was waiting for the King's answer, Hasculph returned with sixty s.h.i.+ps, containing a well-armed force, under a berserker called John the Mad. Milo de Cogan had been left governor of Dublin, and he and his brother Richard succeeded after a short fight in routing their a.s.sailants. John the Mad was killed, and Hasculph taken while trying to escape across the slob to his s.h.i.+ps. The prisoner annoying him by threats of another and more formidable attempt, Milo ordered him to be beheaded. He had, however, spoken truth, for G.o.dred, King of Man, soon appeared with thirty s.h.i.+ps, and blocked the mouth of the Liffey, while Roderic, having collected a great army from all parts of Ireland, except the extreme north and south, besieged the city by land. The Earl and his followers being thus shut up in Dublin, Dermod's local enemies besieged Fitz-Stephen in the castle which he had built at Wexford. No help, as the Irish well knew, could be expected from England while Henry II. frowned, and the Normans at Dublin resolved on a great effort to relieve Fitz-Stephen. A sally was arranged, and Roderic's army was dispersed. The Irish had trusted entirely to their numbers, and kept no watch and no order. Such stores of provisions fell into the victors' hands that there was no need to victual Dublin for a year afterwards. Fitz-Stephen, however, was not relieved. By force or stratagem, Giraldus says it was by perjury, the Wexford people obtained possession of his person, and killed or captured his men. Hearing of the disaster at Dublin, the victors burned their town and withdrew with their prisoners to an island in the middle of the harbour. Earl Richard arrived too late for his immediate purpose, and continued his journey to Waterford, whence he made his way to the King, whom he met near Gloucester. Henry was at first obdurate, but it was finally agreed that Dublin and all other port towns, with the lands adjoining, should be handed over to the King, and that the Earl and his heirs should hold all their other conquests of him and his heirs. While preparations were being made for a royal expedition, O'Rourke once more attacked Dublin, but the Cogans again surprised the Irish camp, and the city was never again seriously threatened by the natives.

[Sidenote: Henry II. lands in Ireland, 1171.]

The last attack on Dublin was about September 1, 1171, and on October 16 the King sailed from Milford Haven with 400 s.h.i.+ps, containing 4,000 men, of whom 400 or 500 were knights. He landed next day at Crook, on the right bank of the Suir, some miles below Waterford, which he entered on the 18th. The Wexford men saw that the game was up, and brought Fitz-Stephen to the King, expecting thanks for surrendering the man who had dared to make war without the royal licence. Henry spoke sharply to the prisoner, and ordered him to be kept safely in Reginald's tower.

Dermod MacCarthy, chief of Desmond and Cork, did homage at Waterford.

Thence Henry went to Lismore, where he stayed two days. From Lismore he went to Cashel, where Donald O'Brien, chief of Th.o.m.ond and Limerick, followed MacCarthy's example. The minor chiefs of Munster also made their submission, the only one mentioned by Giraldus being O'Phelan, who ruled a great part of the county of Waterford. Dermod's old antagonist, Donald of Ossory, also did homage. Henry placed governors both in Cork and Limerick, but it is not clear that he visited either of those cities. He then returned along the Suir to Waterford, where he took Fitz-Stephen into favour, and restored Wexford to him. During this progress the King selected three sites for fortresses, which were afterwards built by his son John--Lismore on the Blackwater, and Ardfinnan and Tibraghny on the Suir. The first and last were intended to command the upper tidal waters of the Blackwater and Suir; Ardfinnan secured a pa.s.sage from the southern sea-board into Central Ireland, and Cromwell recognised its importance nearly five hundred years afterwards.

[Sidenote: Henry II. winters at Dublin.]

Leaving a governor in Waterford, Henry then led the bulk of his army to Dublin, where he received the submissions of O'Rourke and of the chiefs of Leinster and Uriel. Hugo de Lacy and William Fitz-Adelm were sent to meet Roderic at the Shannon, and the monarch of Ireland acknowledged himself a tributary and va.s.sal of the King of England. Ulster still held out; for the submission of the nominal head king can in no way be held to bind the chiefs, much less the people, of his own province, and certainly not those of all Ireland. Giraldus does not venture to advance any such theory, and yet Hooker, who translated his work in Elizabeth's time, coolly interpolates the statement that 'by him and his submission all the residue of the whole land became the King's subjects, and submitted themselves.' The synod which met at Cashel under the legate's presidency did what was possible for the Church to do in strengthening Henry's pretensions. The King held a court at Dublin during the winter of 1171 and 1172. His temporary palace, erected outside the walls on the ground now occupied by the southern side of Dame Street, was built of polished wicker-work, after the manner of the country. Here he kept Christmas in state, and invited the Irish chiefs to share his feast. They admired the King's grandeur, and were by him persuaded to eat crane's flesh, which the Normans thought a delicacy, but which the Irish had hitherto loathed.

The winter was so stormy that there was scarcely any communication with England, and Henry's pleasure in his new acquisition must have been darkened by the sense of impending retribution for the recent murder of Becket.

[Sidenote: Henry's warlike preparations. He distrusts the adventurers.]

From the preparation which he made for the invasion of Ireland, it seems clear that the King profoundly distrusted the adventurers who had insisted on winning him a new realm. Vast stores of provisions, a great number of hand-mills, artisans for building bridges, horses, and tools for building or trenching, might indeed have been required for a war against the natives. But the Irish had no fortresses, and wooden castles, of which we also read, can only have been intended for attacking the port-towns which Earl Richard had promised to give the King, and which were already in Norman hands. Henry saw enough of Ireland to know that he had really nothing to fear from the adventurers. Dermod MacMurrough was dead before his arrival, and it was clear that Earl Richard would have enough to do in maintaining his wife's monstrous claim without doing anything to offend his own sovereign.

When, therefore, shortly before Easter, 1172, news came from Aquitaine and Normandy that the legates were on their way to inquire into the Canterbury tragedy, Henry lost no time in appointing Hugo de Lacy his representative at Dublin, and in arranging for the safe keeping of Waterford and Wexford. He sailed from the latter port on Easter Monday 1172, having been in Ireland exactly six months.[33]

[Sidenote: Henry leaves Ireland. He grants Meath to De Lacy.]

Before leaving the country Henry granted to Hugo de Lacy all the territory of Meath, by the service of fifty knights. This included Westmeath, with parts of King's County and Longford, and was about 800,000 acres in extent. De Lacy, to whom Hoveden gives the t.i.tle of justiciar, must be considered as the first Viceroy of Ireland, and he lost no time in advancing a claim which, if successful, would make him one of the most important va.s.sals of the Crown. Tiernan O'Rourke, the one-eyed King of Meath, consented to meet the Pretender at the Hill of Ward. The conference ended in a quarrel, and O'Rourke was killed.

Giraldus charges treason upon the Irishman, and the Irish annalists charge it upon the Norman. The important point is that De Lacy was able to make head against the Irish, and that a powerful Norman colony was established by him in the fertile central tract of Ireland. Earl Richard was rather less successfully engaged in fighting for Leinster, which Henry had granted him by the service of one hundred knights, when he was summoned to Normandy, where he did such good service that the King made him Viceroy in De Lacy's room. This was in 1173. It was in the next year, or perhaps in 1175, that Henry had the bulls or privileges of Adrian IV.

and Alexander III. promulgated in Ireland. We can hardly suppose that they were previously unknown to the clergy, who so manifestly favoured the Anglo-Normans all through. Perhaps the King's main object in publis.h.i.+ng them at this time was to make his own peace with Rome, by ostentatiously announcing that he held Ireland of the tiara, and not in right of his own sword.

[Sidenote: Difficulties of the adventurers.]

When Earl Richard returned to Ireland he found that he had lost ground.

The Irish were beginning to recover confidence, and Hervey and Raymond were quarrelling bitterly. The latter was the favourite of the soldiers, who insisted on having him for leader, and he gained some successes over the Danes of Cork and over the MacCarthys. Believing himself worthy of the highest rewards, Raymond asked for the Constables.h.i.+p of Leinster, and for the hand of Basilia, the earl's sister. The new Viceroy was disinclined to grant these terms, and Raymond, whose father had just died, went over to Wales to look after his old inheritance. Hervey thus became second in command, and planned a campaign in concert with the Dublin garrison. Earl Richard accompanied him to Cashel, but the intended junction was not effected. Donald O'Brien's homage to Henry II. did not prevent him from hindering his representative, and at Thurles he surprised and totally defeated the Dublin division. No less than 400 Danes are said by Giraldus to have fallen, which shows that a portion of that nation had accepted the alliance of their Teutonic kindred. The O'Briens were aided by a large contingent from Connaught, but it does not appear that Roderic was himself present. The immediate result of this defeat was the recall of Raymond and his marriage to Basilia. He easily put down a partial revolt of the Waterford and Wexford Danes; and, finding himself indispensable, remained at Wexford until his bride was brought to him. The honeymoon was scarcely begun when news came that Roderic was wasting Meath, and had penetrated nearly to Dublin. Raymond hastened thither, and the Connaught men retired before him. Castles, according to Giraldus, were already built at Trim and Duleek; but they had not proved strong enough to resist Roderic, and Raymond's first care was to restore and strengthen them. The adventurers, most of whom were already nearly related, were still more closely united by the marriage of Hervey to Raymond's sister Nesta, and of Earl Richard's daughter Aline to William Fitzgerald.

[Sidenote: The adventurers fail to hold Limerick. William Fitz-Adelm made Viceroy.]

[Sidenote: Death of Strongbow, 1176.]

Donald O'Brien was not left long to enjoy his victory. Limerick was taken by a sudden onslaught under Raymond, and the bounds of the colony were advanced as far as they had yet been. Raymond still lingered on the Shannon, where he received a loving letter from his wife, in which she informed him 'that the great molar tooth, which had been hurting her so much, had now fallen out.' He could not read, but his chaplain secretly imparted the contents of the paper, and he guessed that Basilia alluded to the death of her brother, who had been for some time ill. He hurried to Dublin, and found that Earl Richard was indeed dead. Deprived of their leader, and probably hard pressed by the Irish, the Normans thought it prudent to evacuate Limerick. It was surrendered to Donald O'Brien, who set fire to the city in four places as soon as they were gone. When the King heard of this he remarked that the abandonment of Limerick was the only wise thing that had been done concerning it. The Normans chose Raymond their governor in Earl Richard's room; but he was quickly superseded by William Fitz-Adelm de Burgh, whom Henry sent over as Viceroy with large powers.

[Sidenote: Fitz-Adelm depresses the adventurers.]

According to Giraldus, the new governor did all in his power to depress the adventurers of Nesta's stock. Raymond came to meet him with a chosen band of his relations and friends finely mounted and armed. Instead of being conciliated, the Viceroy muttered to his suite, 'I will soon cut short this pride and disperse these s.h.i.+elds.' According to the same authority, he took advantage of the death of Maurice Fitzgerald to defraud that leader's children. Giraldus is partial, but it is easy to see that official governors were from the first jealous of the local magnates, and were disposed to engross all influence. Fitz-Adelm did little or nothing to increase the Norman power in Ireland, and he was recalled in 1177.

[Sidenote: Treaty between Henry II. and Roderic O'Connor.]

In October 1175, not long before the death of Earl Richard, Henry II.

made a treaty with Roderic O'Connor, which must be understood as a kind of declaration of policy. The commissaries who attended at Windsor on Roderic's part were Catholicus, or Keyly O'Duffy, Archbishop of Tuam, the Abbot of Ardfert, and the King of Connaught's Brehon, whom Giraldus calls his Chancellor. The Archbishop of Dublin, St. Lawrence O'Toole, was among the witnesses to the instrument by which Henry granted 'to his liege man Roderic, King of Connaught, as long as he should serve faithfully, to be King under him, ready to serve him as his man, and to hold his land well and peacefully, as he held it before the King of England's entry into Ireland, paying him tribute.' Should he be unable to maintain his authority, the King's forces were to help him. The tribute was to be one in every ten marketable hides. Roderic was not to meddle with those lands which the King held in his own hands, or in those of his barons: that is to say, Dublin with its appurtenances; Meath with its appurtenances, in as ample a manner as Murchat O'Melaghlin had held it; Wexford with its appurtenances, and all Leinster; Waterford and Dungarvan with its appurtenances, and all the lands between the two places. Irish fugitives willing to return into the King's land were to have peace on paying the aforesaid tribute, 'or by performing the ancient accustomed services for their lands.' Those who would not return were to be coerced by the King of Connaught, who was to take hostages from all whom the King granted to him, and to give hostages on his own part wherever the King required him.

No refugees from the King's lands were to be entertained by Irishmen under any pretence. At the same time, as if to mark the fact that Irishmen were his own subjects as well as Normans, Henry appointed Augustine O'Sealbhaigh to the bishopric of Waterford, and sent him, in charge of the Archbishop of Dublin, to be consecrated by the Archbishop of Cashel. This was a confirmation of the Eugenian const.i.tution, and put an end to the succession of the Danish bishops through Canterbury. Henry had no wish to have future Beckets interfering in Ireland. Canterbury was near and Rome was far.

[Sidenote: Henry's original policy frustrated by De Courcy.]

The treaty with Roderic, if we accept it as Hoveden and Benedict have handed it down, shows that a full conquest of Ireland was not intended by Henry II. The possession of the port-towns gave him the command of St.

George's Channel, and a control over the trade of the island. He had seen enough to know that a permanent conquest was beyond the power of a feudal army, and his policy was to balance the adventurers, his own creation De Lacy, and the native princes against each other. Fitz-Adelm, a subtle intriguer with an eye for money, probably seemed a fitter instrument for his purpose than any enterprising soldier. But Fitz-Adelm brought with him to Ireland one of those restless and unscrupulous men of action, who sometimes disconcert the best laid plans of statesmen. John De Courcy is represented by Giraldus as a tall, fair man, of immense strength and extraordinary audacity, an experienced warrior, though often more of a partisan than a general; but religious in his way, and ever ready to ascribe to G.o.d the glory of any successful exploit. He was the patron of the monk Jocelin, who wove such a tangled web about St. Patrick, and he carried with him everywhere a tract of St. Columba, which was supposed to point him out as the destined conqueror of Ulster. Seeing that neither gain nor glory could be had under the Viceroy, De Courcy, in January 1177, boldly marched into Ulster with twenty-two knights and 300 chosen men. Among the knights were Almaric St. Lawrence, ancestor of the Howth family, and Roger le Poer, apparently a collateral ancestor of the Powers and Eustaces. In the course of a year or two, though by no means always successful in battle, De Courcy made himself supreme in eastern Ulster.

Where they had the advantage of the ground, the natives were too much for the adventurers; but in a fair field a hundred Normans, at least under such a leader as De Courcy, were more than a match for 1,000 Irish.

Discipline and steadiness soon gave them the coast, and the castles which they built everywhere enabled them to make war or peace as they pleased.

Downpatrick was John de Courcy's capital.

[Sidenote: De Courcy and De Lacy. Castle-building.]

O'Donlevy, chief king of Uladh, or that part of Ulster now comprised in Antrim and Down, had done homage to Henry II., and imagined that he would be thus secured from invasion. But the King evidently understood the matter differently, for De Courcy had a grant from him of such northern lands as he could conquer. Fitz-Adelm having failed as a Viceroy, Henry now fell back upon Hugo de Lacy, who perhaps dreamed of making himself independent. He distinguished himself by good government from 1177 to 1181, and by showing favour to the Irish; and he married a daughter of Roderic O'Connor without the King's consent. Henry accordingly sent for De Lacy to England, and gave the viceregal authority to John, Constable of Chester. The Lord of Meath succeeded in making his peace, and was soon restored to the government; Robert of Salisbury, a priest, being sent as a spy upon him. De Lacy covered his own district with castles, Trim being his capital. Delvin he granted to William Nugent, his sister Rose's husband, who became the ancestor of the Earls of Westmeath. Other estates he gave to his friends and followers, who founded many of the families of the Pale. The Flemings, Lords of Slane, became the most important of these. Other barons followed the example of De Lacy; and Giraldus mentions that by the year 1182 castles were built at or near Newtown Barry, Castle Dermot, Leighlin, Timahoe, Athy, Narragh, and other places.

The Meath castles, says the chronicler, were too many to mention by name.

[Sidenote: John designated as King of Ireland.]

As early as 1177 Henry had nominated his son John King of Ireland. For this he had the leave of Alexander III., and in 1186 Urban III. actually sent a crown of peac.o.c.k's feathers set in gold for the King to crown one of his sons, the choice being left to him. The intervening Pope, Lucius III., had opposed the plan, and this may have been the reason why it was never carried out. Or the King may have hesitated to repeat even in John's favour an experiment which had succeeded so ill in the case of his eldest son. The Oxford nomination of 1177 was allowed to take effect only so as to const.i.tute John Lord of Ireland, and this t.i.tle was afterwards a.s.sumed by the Kings of England. In the sixteenth century it was by some taken as evidence that the crown in Ireland was subject to the popes. But the idea of a separate, though subordinate, kingdom was very nearly realised. The acts of the colony were from the date of the Oxford Council executed in the name of 'John, Lord of Ireland, son of the King of England,' and the first Anglo-Norman coinage bore his face.

[Sidenote: John sent to Ireland as Viceroy.]

On March 31, 1185, the King knighted John at Windsor, and on April 24 the latter, who was in his nineteenth year, sailed from Milford Haven, with 300 knights and a large body of troops. The expedition reached Waterford in safety next day, and the neighbouring chiefs flocked to do honour to the King's son, and to give him the kiss of peace. The Anglo-Norman courtiers--young men mostly--pulled their long beards, and they at once departed to the hostile chiefs, Roderic O'Connor, Donnell O'Brien, and Dermod MacCarthy. All chance of conciliating the more powerful and distant potentates was thus taken away. Giraldus Cambrensis was present at Waterford, and he likens John to Rehoboam. The Irish, who had adhered to the invaders since Fitz-Stephen's first landing, were deprived of their lands; the castles were given up to favourites, who did nothing but eat, drink, and plunder; the worst officers were put in the best places, and the men, as a natural consequence, were as bad as their masters, devoted to Venus and Bacchus, but neglectful of Mars. Hoveden adds that John put all the profits of government into his own pocket, and that his soldiers being unpaid were useless in war. The three castles projected by his father were built; but he lost many to the Irish, and De Lacy was suspected of intriguing against him. It is clear that there could be no confidence in a prince whose chief care was to rob and displace the men who had won his princ.i.p.ality for him. The disastrous experiment lasted only eight months, when John returned to England, leaving the government to John de Courcy, who retained power until the death of Henry II. The Lough Ce annalists, who wrote beyond the Shannon, give the following account of John's expedition:--'The son of the King of the Saxons came to a.s.sume the sovereignty of Erin ... afterwards he went across to complain of Hugo de Lacy to his father; for it was Hugo de Lacy that was King of Erin when the son of the King of the Saxons came, and he permitted not the men of Erin to give tribute or hostages to him.' To the Irish bordering on Meath no doubt De Lacy seemed a veritable king. The Four Masters, who were better acquainted with the English theory of government, repeat this; but soften Hugo's t.i.tle of king into that of the King of England's deputy.

[Sidenote: Murder of Hugh de Lacy. The colony continues to extend.]

In or out of office, De Lacy continued to increase his dominion in Meath, but his career was cut short not long after John's departure. Having encroached upon the lands of the O'Caharneys, he was murdered while building a castle at Durrow by a foster-relation of the injured clan. His death was a great blow to the colonists, but his son Hugo succeeded to scarcely diminished power, and is accused by Giraldus of systematically thwarting De Courcy. Fitz-Stephen meanwhile was carving out a princ.i.p.ality in Munster, where he would be tolerably free from official interference. He and Milo de Cogan were joint grantees of Cork, and the latter married his daughter Catherine to Maurice, son of Raymond le Gros, to whom Dermod MacCarthy had given a portion of North Kerry. From this alliance the Fitzmaurices sprung. It is probable that in granting the land of the O'Connors to a stranger, Dermod gave that over which he had no real authority. The territory immediately round the city of Cork was divided between Fitz-Stephen and Cogan, the former taking that lying to the east, and the latter that lying to the west. Fitz-Stephen's share pa.s.sed to his sister's son, Philip de Barry. Before the death of Henry II. the country about Cork was studded with castles, but it is impossible to say how far it was really conquered. Intermarriages with the Irish were no doubt common from the first. The example set by Strongbow and by Hugo de Lacy was not likely to want imitators.

[Sidenote: No conquest of Ireland under Henry II.]

The conquest of Ireland by Henry II., as it used to be called, amounts on the whole to this. The coast from Larne to Cork harbour was, at the date of the King's death, strongly held by the invaders, all the ports being in their hands, and the princ.i.p.al points being defended by castles. They were also pretty firmly established on the south side of the Shannon estuary. The rivers of Leinster were in their hands, and the central plain almost, if not quite as far west as the Shannon. De Courcy had begun to a.s.sert his dominion over Monaghan and Armagh. All the Danish towns except Limerick were fully possessed by the conquerors. On the other hand, the Irish were not expelled from any part of the island. The mountains which extend almost uninterruptedly from Dublin to Waterford still sheltered the O'Tooles, the O'Byrnes, the MacMurroughs, the O'Nolans, and other clans. Fitz-Stephen had begun the conquest of what is now the county of Cork, but the Irish were still in force on all sides of the city. The natives generally had recovered in some degree from their first alarm. The first invaders had been trained in mountain warfare, but those who succeeded them were often quite unfit to dispute the possession of hills and woods with the light-armed natives. And there were jealousies between Normans, English, and Welsh, which went far to neutralise the strength of the colony. Had it not been for the dissensions of the Irish themselves, it is probable that they would have confined the invaders to the east coast. It was a quarrel between Dermod MacCarthy and his son which brought the Geraldines to Kerry; disputes among the O'Connors introduced De Cogan, De Lacy, and De Courcy into Connaught; and, though they effected nothing, they paved the way for the De Burgos, to whose founder, William Fitz-Adelm, Henry granted the whole of the western province. The King's troubles with his own sons, with the Holy See, and with France, prevented him from attending to Ireland. It would have been better for the peace of mankind had he made a real conquest, instead of leaving it to barons, who lost much of their old civilisation, and who disdained to learn anything from the weaker people whom they oppressed.[34]

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Matthew Paris calls the Irish 'b.e.s.t.i.a.les.'

[30] See the _Senchus Mor_, ii. 225.

[31] Giraldus, _Ex. Hib._ lib. i. cap. 2.

[32] In Webb's _Compendium of Irish Biography_ is a carefully compiled catalogue of Nesta's children and grandchildren. I have generally followed it, noting, however, that Fitz-Stephen's children cannot be held legitimate in the face of Giraldus' distinct statement.

[33] The details of Henry's preparations may be studied in Sweetman's _Calendar of Doc.u.ments_.