RETROSPECT OF THE NORMAN PERIOD IN IRELAND—A GLANCE AT THE MILITARY
TACTICS OF THE TIMES—NO CONQUEST OF THE COUNTRY IN THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY.
Though the victorious and protracted career of Richard de Burgh, the
"Red Earl" of Ulster, might, without overstraining, be included in the
Norman period, yet, as introductory to the memorable advent and
election of King Edward Bruce, we must leave it for the succeeding
book. Having brought down the narrative, as regards all the provinces,
to the end of the first century, from the invasion, we must now cast a
backward glance on the events of that hundred years before passing into
the presence of other times and new combinations.
"There were," says _Giraldus Cambriensis_, "three sundry sorts of
servitors which served in the realm of Ireland, Normans, Englishmen,
and the Cambrians, which were the first conquerors of the land: the
first were in most credit and estimation, the second next, but the last
were not accounted or regarded of." "The Normans," adds the author,
"were very fine in their apparel, and delicate in their diets; they
could not feed but upon dainties, neither could their meat digest
without wine at each meal; yet would they not serve in the marches or
any remote place against the enemy, neither would they lie in garrison
to keep any remote castle or fort, but, would be still about their
lord's side to serve and guard his person; they would be where they
might be full and have plenty; they could talk and brag, swear, and
stare, and, standing in their own reputation, disdain all others." This
is rather the language of a partizan than of an historian; of one who
felt and spoke for those, his own kinsmen many of them, who, he
complains, although the first to enter on the conquest, were yet held
in contempt and disdain, "and only new-comers called to council."
The Normans were certainly the captains in every campaign from Robert
Fitzstephen to Stephen de Longespay. They made the war, and they
maintained it. In the rank and file, and even among the knighthood, men
of pure Welsh, English, and Flemish and Danish blood, may be singled
out, but each host was marshalled by Norman skill, and every defeat was
borne with Norman fortitude. It may seem strange, then, that these
greatest masters of the art of war, as waged in the middle ages,
invincible in England, France, Italy, and the East, should, after a
hundred years, be no nearer to the conquest of Ireland than they were
at the end of the tenth year.
The main causes of the fluctuations of the war were, no doubt, the
divided military command, and the frequent change of their civil
authorities. They had never marched or colonized before without their
Duke or King at their head, and in their midst. One supreme chief was
necessary to keep to any common purpose the minds of so many proud,
intractable nobles. The feuds of the de Lacys with the Marshals, of the
Geraldines with the de Burghs, broke out periodically during the
thirteenth century, and were naturally seized upon, by the Irish as
opportunities for attacking either or both. The secondary nobles and
all the adventurers understood their danger and its cause, when they
petitioned Henry II. and Henry III. so often and so urgently as they
did, that a member of the royal family might reside permanently in
Ireland, to exercise the supreme authority, military and civil.
The civil administration of the colonists passing into different hands
every three or four years, suffered from the absence of permanent
authority. The law of the marches was, of necessity, the law of the
strong hand, and no other. But _Cambrensis_, whose personal prejudices
are not involved in this fact, describes the walled towns as filled
with litigation in his time. "There was," he says, "such _lawing_ and
vexation, that the veteran was more troubled in _lawing_ within the
town than he was in peril at large with the enemy." This being the
case, we must take with great caution the bold assertions so often made
of the zeal with which the natives petitioned the Henrys and Edwards
that the law of England might be extended to them. Certain Celts whose
lands lay within or upon the marches, others who compounded with their
Norman invaders, a chief or prince, hard pressed by domestic enemies,
may have wished to be in a position to quote Norman law against Norman
spoilers, but the popular petitions which went to England, beseeching
the extension of its laws to Ireland, went only from the townsmen of
Dublin, and the new settlers in Leinster or Meath, harassed and
impoverished by the arbitrary jurisdiction of manorial courts, from
which they had no appeal. The great mass of the Irish remained as
warmly attached to their Brehon code down to the seventeenth century as
they were before the invasion of Norman or Dane. It may sound barbarous
to our ears that, according to that code, murder should be compounded
by an _eric_, or fine; that putting out the eyes should be the usual
punishment of treason; that maiming should be judiciously inflicted for
sundry offences; and that the land of a whole clan should be equally
shared between the free members of that clan. We are not yet in a
position to form an intelligent opinion upon the primitive
jurisprudence of our ancestors, but the system itself could not have
been very vicious which nourished in the governed such a thirst for
justice, that, according to one of their earliest English law
reformers, they were anxious for its execution, even against
themselves.
The distinction made in the courts of the adventurers against natives
of the soil, even when long domiciled within their borders, was of
itself a sufficient cause of war between the races. In the eloquent
letter of the O'Neil to Pope John XXII.—written about the year 1318—we
read, that no man of Irish origin could sue in an English court; that
no Irishman, within the marches, could make a legal will; that his
property was appropriated by his English neighbours; and that the
murder of an Irishman was not even a felony punishable by fine. This
latter charge would appear incredible, if we had not the record of more
than one case where the homicide justified his act by the plea that his
victim was a mere native, and where the plea was held good and
sufficient.
A very vivid picture of Hiberno-Norman town-life in those days is
presented to us in an old poem, on the "Entrenchment of the Town of
Ross," in the year 1265. We have there the various trades and
crafts-mariners, coat-makers, fullers, cloth-dyers and sellers,
butchers, cordwainers, tanners, hucksters, smiths, masons, carpenters,
arranged by guilds, and marching to the sound of flute and tabor, under
banners bearing a fish and platter, a painted ship, and other "rare
devices." On the walls, when finished, cross-bows hung, with store of
arrows ready to shoot; when the city horn sounded twice, burgess and
bachelor vied with each other in warlike haste. In time of peace the
stranger was always welcome in the streets; he was free to buy and sell
without toll or tax, and to admire the fair dames who walked the quiet
ramparts, clad in mantles of green, or russet, or scarlet. Such is the
poetic picture of the town of Ross in the thirteenth century; the poem
itself is written in Norman-French, though evidently intended for
popular use, and the author is called "Friar Michael of Kildare." It is
pretty evident from this instance, which is not singular, that a
century after the first invasion, the French language was still the
speech of part, if not the majority, of these Hiberno-Norman townsmen.
So walls, and laws, and language arose, a triple barrier between the
races. That common religion which might be expected to form a strong
bond between them had itself to adopt a twofold organization.
Distinctions of nationality were carried into the Sanctuary and into
the Cloister. The historian _Giraldus_, in preaching at Dublin against
the alleged vices of the native Clergy, sounded the first note of a
long and bitter controversy. He was promptly answered from the same
pulpit on the next occasion by Albin O'Mulloy, the patriot Abbot of
Baltinglass. In one of the early Courts or Parliaments of the
Adventurers, they decreed that no Monastery in those districts of which
they had possession, should admit any but natives of England, as
novices,—a rule which, according to O'Neil's letter, was faithfully
acted upon by English Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines, and
regular canons. Some of the great Cistercian houses on the marches, in
which the native religious predominated, adopted a retaliatory rule,
for which they were severely censured by the general Chapter of their
Order. But the length to which this feud was carried may be imagined by
the sweeping charge O'Neil brings against "Brother Symon, a relative of
the Bishop of Coventry," and other religious of his nation, who openly
maintained, he says, that the killing of a mere Irishman was no murder.
When this was the feeling on one side, or was believed to be the
feeling, we cannot wonder that the war should have been renewed as
regularly as the seasons. No sooner was the husbandman in the field
than the knight was upon the road. Some peculiarities of the wars of
those days gleam out at intervals through the methodic indifference to
detail of the old annals, and reveal to us curious conditions of
society. In the Irish country, where castle-building was but slowly
introduced, we see, for example, that the usual storage for provisions,
in time of war, was in churches and churchyards. Thus de Burgh, in his
expedition to Mayo, in 1236, "left neither rick nor basket of corn in
the large churchyard of Mayo, or in the yard of the Church of Saint
Michael the Archangel, and carried away eighty baskets out of the
churches themselves." When we read, therefore, as we frequently do, of
both Irish and Normans plundering churches in the land of their
enemies, we are not to suppose the plunder of the sanctuary. Popularly
this seizing the supplies of an enemy on consecrated ground was
considered next to sacrilege; and well it was for the fugitives in the
sanctuary in those iron times that it should be so considered. Yet not
the less is it necessary for us to distinguish a high-handed military
measure from actual sacrilege, for which there can be no apology, and
hardly any earthly atonement.
In their first campaigns the Irish had one great advantage over the
Normans in their familiarity with the country. This helped them to
their first victories. But when the invaders were able to set up rival
houses against each other, and to secure the co-operation of natives,
the advantage was soon equalized. Great importance was attached to the
intelligence and good faith of the guides, who accompanied every army,
and were personally consulted by the leaders in determining their
march. A country so thickly studded with the ancient forest, and so
netted with rivers (then of much greater volume than since they have
been stripped of their guardian woods), afforded constant occasion for
the display of minute local knowledge. To miss a pass or to find a ford
might determine a campaign, almost as much as the skill of the chief,
or the courage of the battalion.
The Irish depended for their knowledge of the English towns and castles
on their daring _spies_, who continually risked their necks in
acquiring for their clansmen such needful information. This perilous
duty, when undertaken by a native for the benefit of his country, was
justly accounted highly honourable. Proud poets, educated in all the
mysteries of their art, and even men of chieftain rank, did not
hesitate to assume disguises and act the patriot spy. One of the most
celebrated spies of this century was Donogh Fitzpatrick, son of the
Lord of Ossory, who was slain by the English in 1250. He was said to be
"one of the three men" most feared by the English in his day. "He was
in the habit of going about to reconnoitre their market towns," say the
Annalists, "in various disguises." An old quatrain gives us a list of
some of the parts he played when in the towns of his enemies—
"He is a carpenter, he is a turner.
My nursling is a bookman.
He is selling wine and hides
Where he sees a gathering."
An able captain, as well as an intrepid spy, he met his fate in acting
out his favourite part, "which," adds our justice-loving Four Masters,
"was a retaliation due to the English, for, up to that time, he had
killed, burned, and destroyed many of them."
Of the equipments and tactics of the belligerents we get from our
Annals but scanty details. The Norman battalion, according to the usage
of that people, led by the marshal of the field, charged, after the
archers had delivered their fire. But these wars had bred a new mounted
force, called hobiler-archers, who were found so effective that they
were adopted into all the armies of Europe. Although the bow was never
a favourite weapon with the Irish, particular tribes seem to have been
noted for its use. We hear in the campaigns of this century of the
archers of Breffni, and we may probably interpret as referring to the
same weapon, Felim O'Conor's order to his men, in his combat with the
sons of Roderick at Drumraitte (1237), "not to shoot but to come to a
close fight." It is possible, however, that this order may have
reference to the old Irish weapon, the javelin or dart. The pike, the
battle-axe, the sword, and skein, or dagger, both parties had in
common, though their construction was different. The favourite
tactique, on both sides, seems to have been the old military expedient
of outflanking an enemy, and attacking him simultaneously in front and
rear. Thus, in the year 1225, in one of the combats of the O'Conors,
when the son of Cathal _Crovdearg_ endeavoured to surround Turlogh
O'Conor, the latter ordered his recruits to the van, and Donn Oge
Magheraty, with some Tyronian and other soldiers to cover the rear, "by
which means they escaped without the loss of a man." The flank movement
by which the Lord Justice Fitzgerald carried the passage of the Erne
(A.D. 1247) against O'Donnell, according to the Annalists, was
suggested to Fitzgerald by Cormac, the grandson of Roderick O'Conor. By
that period in their intercourse the Normans and Irish had fought so
often together that their stock of tactical knowledge must have been,
from experience, very much common property. In the eyes of the Irish
chiefs and chroniclers, the foreign soldiers who served with them were
but hired mercenaries. They were sometimes repaid by the plunder of the
country attacked, but usually they received fixed wages for the length
of time they entered. "Hostages for the payment of wages" are
frequently referred to, as given by native nobles to these foreign
auxiliaries. The chief expedient for subsisting an army was driving
before them herds and flocks; free quarters for men and horses were
supplied by the tenants of allied chiefs within their territory, and
for the rest, the simple outfit was probably not very unlike that of
the Scottish borderers described by Froissart, who cooked the cattle
they captured in their skins, carrying a broad plate of metal and a
little bag of oatmeal trussed up behind the saddle.
One inveterate habit clung to the ancient race, even until long after
the times of which we now speak—their unconquerable prejudice against
defensive armour. Gilbride McNamee, the laureate to King Brian O'Neil,
gives due prominence to this fact in his poem on the death of his
patron in the battle of Down (A.D. 1260). Thus sings the northern bard—
"The foreigners from London,
The hosts from Port-Largy *
Came in a bright green body,
In gold and iron armour.
"Unequal they engage in the battle,
The foreigners and the Gael of Tara,
_Fine linen shirts on the race of Conn_,
And the strangers _one mass of iron_."
[Footnote: Port-Largy, Waterford.]
With what courage they fought, these scorners of armour, their
victories of Ennis, of Callanglen, and of Credran, as well as their
defeats at the Erne and at Down, amply testify. The first hundred years
of war for native land, with their new foes, had passed over, and
three-fourths of the _Saer Clanna_ were still as free as they had ever
been. It was not reserved even for the Norman race—the conquest of
Innisfail!