THE FIRST CAMPAIGN OF EARL RICHARD—SIEGE OF DUBLIN—DEATH OF KING DERMID
McMURROGH.
The campaigns of 1168 and 1169 had ended prosperously for Dermid in the
treaty of Ferns. By that treaty he had bound himself to bring no more
Normans into the country, and to send those already in his service back
to their homes. But in the course of the same autumn or winter, in
which this agreement was solemnly entered into, he welcomed the arrival
at Wexford—of Maurice Fitzgerald—son of the fair Nesta by her first
husband—and immediately employed this fresh force, consisting of 10
knights, 30 esquires, and 100 footmen, upon a hosting which harried the
open country about Dublin, and induced the alarmed inhabitants to send
hostages into his camp, bearing proffers of allegiance and amity. As
yet he did not feel in force sufficient to attack the city, for, if he
had been, his long cherished vengeance against its inhabitants would
not have been postponed till another season.
In the meantime he had written most urgent letters to Earl Richard to
hasten his arrival, according to the terms agreed upon at Bristol. That
astute and ambitious nobleman had been as impatiently biding his time
as Dermid had been his coming. Knowing the jealous sovereign under whom
he served, he had gone over to France to obtain Henry's sanction to the
Irish enterprise, but had been answered by the monarch, in oracular
phrases, which might mean anything or nothing. Determined, however, to
interpret these doubtful words in his own sense, he despatched his
vanguard early in the spring of the year 1170, under the command of his
uncle Herve and a company of 10 knights and 70 archers, under Raymond,
son of William, lord of Carew, elder brother of Maurice Fitzgerald, and
grandson of Nesta. In the beginning of May, Raymond, nicknamed _le
gros_, or the Fat, entered Waterford harbour, and landed eight miles
below the city, under the rock of Dundonolf, on the east, or Wexford
side. Here they rapidly threw up a camp to protect themselves against
attack, and to hold the landing place for the convenience of the future
expedition. A tumultuous body of natives, amounting, according to the
Norman account, to 3,000 men, were soon seen swarming across the Suir
to attack the foreigners. They were men of Idrone and Desies, under
their chiefs, O'Ryan and O'Phelan, and citizens of Waterford, who now
rushed towards the little fortress, entirely unprepared for the long
and deadly range of the Welsh and Flemish crossbows. Thrown into
confusion by the unexpected discharge, in which every shot from behind
the ramparts of turf brought down its man, they wavered and broke;
Raymond and Herve then sallied out upon the fugitives, who were fain to
escape, as many as could, to the other side of the river, leaving 500
prisoners, including 70 chief citizens of Waterford behind them. These
were all inhumanly massacred, according to _Giraldus_, the eulogist of
all the Geraldines, by the order of Herve, contrary to the entreaties
of Raymond. Their legs were first violently broken, and they were then
hurled down the rocks into the tide. Five hundred men could not well be
so captured and put to death by less than an equal number of hands, and
we may, therefore, safely set down that number as holding the camp of
Dundonolf during the summer months of the year.
Earl Richard had not completed his arrangements until the month of
August—so that his uncle and lieutenant had to hold the post they had
seized for fully three months, awaiting his arrival in the deepest
anxiety. At last, leaving his castle in Pembroke, he marched with his
force through North Wales, by way of St. David's to Milford Haven—"and
still as he went he took up all the best chosen and picked men he could
get." At Milford, just as he was about to embark, he received an order
from King Henry forbidding the expedition. Wholly disregarding this
missive he hastened on board with 200 knights and 1,200 infantry in his
company, and on the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day (August 23rd), landed
safely under the earthwork of Dundonolf, where he was joyfully received
by Raymond at the head of 40 knights, and a corresponding number of
men-at-arms. The next day the whole force, under the Earl, "who had all
things in readiness" for such an enterprise, proceeded to lay siege to
Waterford. Malachy O'Phelan, the brave lord of Desies, forgetting all
ancient enmity against his Danish neighbours, had joined the townsmen
to assist in the defence. Twice the besieged beat back the assailants,
until Raymond perceiving at an angle of the wall the wooden props upon
which a house rested, ordered them to be cut away, on which the house
fell to the ground, and a breach was effected. The men-at-arms then
burst in, slaughtering the inhabitants without mercy. In the tower,
long known as Reginald's, or the ring tower, O'Phelan and Reginald, the
Dano-Irish chief, held out until the arrival of King Dermid, whose
intercession procured them such terms as led to their surrender. Then,
amid the ruins of the burning city, and the muttered malediction of its
surviving inhabitants, the ill-omened marriage of Eva McMurrogh with
Richard de Clare was gaily celebrated, and the compact entered into at
Bristol three years before was perfected.
The marriage revelry was hardly over when tidings came from Dublin that
Asculph MacTorcall, its Danish lord, had, either by the refusal of the
annual tribute, or in some other manner, declared his independence of
Dermid, and invoked the aid of the monarch Roderick, in defence of that
city. Other messengers brought news that Roderick had assumed the
protection of Dublin, and was already encamped at the head of a large
army at Clondalkin, with a view of intercepting the march of the
invaders from the south. The whole Leinster and Norman force, with the
exception of a troop of archers left to garrison Waterford, were now
put in motion for the siege of the chief city of the Hibernicized
descendants of the Northmen. Informed of Roderick's position, which
covered Dublin on the south and west, Dermid and Richard followed
boldly the mountain paths and difficult roads which led by the secluded
city of Glendalough, and thence along the coast road from Bray towards
the mouth of the Liffey, until they arrived unexpectedly within the
lines of Roderick, to the amazement and terror of the townsmen.
The force which now, under the command-in-chief of Dermid, sat down to
the siege of Dublin, was far from being contemptible. For a year past
he had been recognized in Leinster as fully as any of his predecessors,
and had so strengthened his military position as to propose nothing
short of the conquest of the whole country. His choice of a line of
march sufficiently shows how thoroughly he had overcome the former
hostility of the stubborn mountaineers of Wicklow. The exact numbers
which he encamped before the gates of Dublin are nowhere given, but on
the march from Waterford, the vanguard, led by Milo de Cogan, consisted
of 700 Normans and "an Irish battalion," which, taken literally, would
mean 3,000 men, under Donald _Kavanagh_; Raymond the Fat followed "with
800 British;" Dermid led on "the chief part of the Irish" (number not
given), in person; Richard commanded the rear-guard, "300 British and
1,000 Irish soldiers." Altogether, it is not exorbitant to conjecture
that the Leinster Prince led to the siege of Dublin an army of about
10,000 native troops, 1,500 Welsh and Flemish archers, and 250 knights.
Except the handful who remained with Fitzstephen to defend his fort at
Carrick, on the Slaney, and the archers left in Waterford, the entire
Norman force in Ireland, at this time, were united in the siege. Of the
foreign knights many were eminent for courage and capacity, both in
peace and war. The most distinguished among them were Maurice
Fitzgerald, the common ancestor of the Geraldines of Desmond and
Kildare; Raymond the Fat, ancestor of the Graces of Ossory; the two
Fitz-Henries, grandsons of Henry I., and the fair Nesta; Walter de
Riddlesford, first Baron of Bray; Robert de Quincy, son-in-law and
standard-bearer to Earl Richard; Herve, uncle to the Earl, and Gilbert
de Clare, his son; Milo de Cogan, the first who entered Dublin by
assault, and its first Norman governor; the de Barries, and de
Prendergast. Other founders of Norman-Irish houses, as the de Lacies,
de Courcies, le Poers, de Burgos, Butlers, Berminghams, came not over
until the landing of Henry II., or still later, with his son John.
The townsmen of Dublin had every reason, from their knowledge of
Dermid's cruel character, to expect the worst at his hands and those of
his allies. The warning of Waterford was before them, but besides this
they had a special cause of apprehension, Dermid's father having been
murdered in their midst, and his body ignominiously interred with the
carcase of a dog. Roderick having failed to intercept him, the
citizens, either to gain time or really desiring to arrive at an
accommodation, entered into negotiations. Their ambassador for this
purpose was Lorcan, or Lawrence O'Toole, the first Archbishop of the
city, and its first prelate of Milesian origin. This illustrious man,
canonized both by sanctity and patriotism, was then in the thirty-ninth
year of his age, and the ninth of his episcopate. His father was lord
of Imayle and chief of his clan; his sister had been wife of Dermid and
mother of Eva, the prize-bride of Earl Richard. He himself had been a
hostage with Dermid in his youth, and afterwards Abbot of Glendalough,
the most celebrated monastic city of Leinster. He stood, therefore, to
the besieged, being their chief pastor, in the relation of a father; to
Dermid, and strangely enough to Strongbow also, as brother-in-law and
uncle by marriage. A fitter ambassador could not be found.
Maurice Regan, the "_Latiner_," or Secretary of Dermid, had advanced to
the walls, and summoned the city to surrender, and deliver up "30
pledges" to his master, their lawful Prince. Asculph, son of Torcall,
was in favour of the surrender, but the citizens could not agree among
themselves as to hostages. No one was willing to trust himself to the
notoriously untrustworthy Dermid. The Archbishop was then sent out on
the part of the citizens to arrange the terms in detail. He was
received with all reverence in the camp, but while he was deliberating
with the commanders without, and the townsmen were anxiously awaiting
his return, Milo de Cogan and Raymond the Fat, seizing the opportunity,
broke into the city at the head of their companies, and began to put
the inhabitants ruthlessly to the sword. They were soon followed by the
whole force eager for massacre and pillage. The Archbishop hastened
back to endeavour to stay the havoc which was being made of his people.
He threw himself before the infuriated Irish and Normans, he
threatened, he denounced, he bared his own breast to the swords of the
assassins. All to little purpose; the blood fury exhausted itself
before peace settled over the city. Its Danish chief, Asculph, with
many of his followers, escaped to their ships, and fled to the Isle of
Man and the Hebrides in search of succour and revenge. Roderick,
unprepared to besiege the enemy who had thus outmarched and outwitted
him at that season of the year—it could not be earlier than
October—broke up his encampment at Clondalkin, and retired to
Connaught. Earl Richard having appointed de Cogan his governor of
Dublin, followed on the rear of the retreating _Ard-Righ_, at the
instigation of McMurrogh, burning and plundering the churches of Kells,
Clonard and Slane, and carrying off the hostages of East-Meath.
Though Dermid seemed to have forgotten altogether the conditions of the
treaty of Ferns, yet not so Roderick. When he reached Athlone he caused
Conor, son of Dermid, and the son of Donald _Kavanagh_, and the son of
Dermid's fosterer, who had been given him as hostages for the
fulfilment of that treaty, so grossly violated in every particular, to
be beheaded. Dermid indulged in impotent vows of vengeance against
Roderick, when he heard of these executions which his own perjuries had
provoked; he swore that nothing short of the conquest of Connaught in
the following spring would satisfy his revenge, and he sent the
Ard-Righ his defiance to that purport. Two other events of military
consequence marked the close of the year 1170. The foreign garrison of
Waterford was surprised and captured by Cormac McCarthy, Prince of
Desmond, and Henry II. having prohibited all intercourse between his
lieges and his disobedient subject, Earl Richard, the latter had
despatched Raymond the Fat, with the most humble submission of himself
and his new possessions to his Majesty's decision. And so with Asculph,
son of Torcall, recruiting in the isles of Insi-Gall, Lawrence, the
Archbishop, endeavouring to unite the proud and envious Irish lords
into one united phalanx, and Roderick, preparing for the new year's
campaign, the winter of 1170-'71, came, and waned, and went.
One occurrence of the succeeding spring may most appropriately be
dismissed here—the death of the wretched and odious McMurrogh. This
event happened, according to _Giraldus_, in the kalends of May. The
Irish Annals surround his death-bed with all the horrors appropriate to
such a scene. He became, they say, "putrid while living," through the
miracles of St. Columbcille and St. Finian, whose churches he had
plundered; "and he died at Fernamore, without making a will, without
penance, without the body of Christ, without unction, as his evil deeds
deserved." We have no desire to meditate over the memory of such a man.
He, far more than his predecessor, whatever that predecessor's crimes
might have been, deserved to have been buried with a dog.