[303] Epp. dcxxxii., dcxxxiii., dcxlviii.–dcli. (_ib._ pp. 216,

217, 256–264). Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 462, puts this

interdict too late.

[304] The “ten ordinances”; Ep. dxcix. (_ib._ vol. vii. pp.

147–149); Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 53–55; Gerv. Cant.

(Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 214–216; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i.

pp. 231–236; on the date see Bishop Stubbs’s note at last

reference.

[305] Ep. dclxxii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii. pp.

307–309). See the editor’s note.

[306] Ep. dclxxiii. (_ibid._), pp. 309, 312.

[307] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 5.

[308] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.

103.

[309] _Ibid._ Epp. dclviii.–dclx. (_ib._ vol. vii. pp. 275–277).

[310] Will. Fitz-Steph. (as above), p. 103; _Gesta Hen._

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 5; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs) vol. i. p. 219.

R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 338, Chron. Mailros, a. 1170,

Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 4, Chron. S. Serg. a. 1169

(Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 150), all give different dates, and

all wrong.

The elder king only waited to see the tenants-in-chief, with the king

of Scots at their head, swear fealty to his new-made colleague ere he

hurried back to Normandy to meet the fast-gathering storm.[311] Louis,

incensed that his daughter’s husband should have been crowned without

her, was already threatening war;[312] Thomas, seeing in the king’s

action nothing but the climax of Canterbury’s wrongs, was overwhelming

the Pope with complaints, reproaches, and intreaties for summary

vengeance upon all who had taken part in the coronation; and the

majority of the cardinals strongly supported his demands.[313] Henry

saw that he must make peace at any price. Two days before the feast of

S. Mary Magdalene he held a conference with Louis near Fréteval, on the

borders of the Vendômois and the county of Chartres;[314] they were

reconciled, and as they parted Henry said jestingly to the French king:

“That rascal of yours, too, shall have his peace to-morrow; and a right

good peace shall it be.”[315] At dawn on S. Mary Magalene’s day[316] he

met Thomas in the “Traitor’s Meadow,”[317] close to Fréteval; they rode

apart together, and remained in conference so long that the patience

of their followers was all but exhausted, when at last Thomas was seen

to dismount and throw himself at the king’s feet. Henry sprang from

his horse, raised the archbishop from the ground, held his stirrup

while he remounted, and rode back to tell his followers that peace was

made, on terms which practically amounted to a complete mutual amnesty

and a return to the state of affairs which had existed before the

quarrel.[318]

[311] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 6. Gerv. Cant.

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 220. Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_,

vol. i.), p. 83. Henry landed at Barfleur about Midsummer;

_Gesta Hen._ as above.

[312] _Gesta Hen._ as above.

[313] Ep. dccvii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii. pp. 373, 374).

[314] “In limitibus suis inter Firmitatem, oppidum scilicet

in pago Carnotensi, et Fretivalle, castrum videlicet in

territorio Turonensi.” Ep. dclxxxv. (_ibid._), p. 339. This

_Firmitas_ must be La Ferté-Villeneuil, and _Turonensi_ should

be _Vindocinensi_. Herb. Bosh., who lays the scene “in confinio

Carnotusiæ et _Cenomanniæ_, inter duo castella quorum unum

nominatur Viefui” [Viévy-le-Rayé] “et alterum Freteval” (_ib._

vol. iii. p. 466), is no nearer to the true geography.

[315] “Et crastinâ die habebit pacem suam latro vester; et

quidem bonam habebit.” Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ibid._), p. 108.

[316] Ep. dclxxxv. (_ib._ vol. vii.), p. 340.

[317] Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 466. _Thomas Saga_

(Magnusson), vol. i. p. 461.

[318] Epp. dclxxxiv., dclxxxv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol.

vii.), pp. 326–334, 340–342. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol.

iii.), pp. 108–111. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 466. Garnier

(Hippeau), pp. 150, 151. _Thomas Saga_ (as above), pp. 461–465.

Henry had no sooner returned to Normandy than he fell sick almost to

death; on his recovery he went on a pilgrimage to the shrine of our

Lady at Rocamadour in the Quercy,[319] and it was not until October

that Thomas again saw him at Tours, on his way to a conference with

Count Theobald of Blois at Amboise.[320] A difficulty had arisen about

the restitution of the confiscated Church property and the absolution

of the persons whom Thomas had excommunicated, each party insisting

that the other should make the first step in conciliation.[321] There

was also a difficulty about the kiss of peace, which Thomas required

as pledge of Henry’s sincerity, but which Henry seemed desirous of

postponing indefinitely.[322] Nevertheless, a letter from Henry to his

son, announcing the reconciliation and bidding the young king enforce

the restoration of the archiepiscopal estates, was drawn up in Thomas’s

presence at Amboise and sent over to England by the hands of two of

his clerks,[323] who presented it at Westminster on October 5.[324]

The restoration was, however, not effected until Martinmas, and then

it comprised little more than empty garners and ruined houses.[325]

Thomas saw the king once more, at Chaumont,[326] and Henry promised

to meet him again at Rouen, thence to proceed with him to England

in person.[327] Before the appointed time came, however, fresh

complications had arisen with the king of France; Henry was obliged to

give up all thought of going not only to England but even to Normandy,

and delegated the archbishop of Rouen and the dean of Salisbury to

escort Thomas in his stead.

[319] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 6, 7.

[320] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.) pp. 468,

469. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ibid._), p. 114. Garnier (Hippeau), p.

154. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 469. The writer of

the _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 8) gives the date of this

meeting as Tuesday, October 12. But this must be quite ten days

too late, for we shall see that a letter drawn up after the

meeting was received in England on October 5.

[321] Ep. dclxxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii.), pp.

333–337.

[322] Henry alleged that he had publicly sworn never to give

Thomas the kiss of peace, and could not face the shame of

breaking his oath. Garnier (Hippeau), p. 150; Herb. Bosh.

(Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 450; Ep. dcxxiii. (_ib._

vol. vii.) pp. 198, 199; _Thomas Saga_, as above, p. 449. See

in Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 469, Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ibid._),

p. 115, and _Thomas Saga_ (as above), p. 469, the contrivance

by which he avoided it at Tours--or Amboise, in William’s

version.

[323] Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 156, 157. The letter, of which

Garnier gives a translation, is Ep. dcxc. (Robertson, _Becket_,

vol. vii.) pp. 346, 347; also in Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.),

p. 85; Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 112; Gerv. Cant.

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 221; R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 339.

[324] Ep. dccxv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii.), p. 389.

[325] Ep. dccxxxiii. (_ibid._), p. 402.

[326] Chaumont on the Loire, seemingly. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol.

iii.), p. 470. Cf. _Thomas Saga_, as above, pp. 471–473.

[327] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp.

115, 116.

The duty finally devolved solely upon the dean, who was no other than

Thomas’s old opponent John of Oxford.[328] Naturally enough, the

primate was deeply hurt at being thus sent back to his see under the

protection of a man who, as he truly said, ought to have been thankful

for the privilege of travelling in his suite.[329] Thomas, however,

was in haste to be gone, although fully persuaded that he was going to

his death. He seems indeed to have been weary of life; the tone of his

letters and of his parting words to the friends whom he was leaving

in France indicates not so much a morbid presentiment of his fate as

a passionate longing for it. Yet it can hardly have been from him

alone that the foreboding communicated itself to so many other minds.

Warnings came to him from all quarters; one voice after another, from

the king of France[330] down to the very pilot of the ship in which

he took his passage, implored him not to go; Herbert of Bosham alone

upheld his resolution to the end.[331]

[328] _Ib._ p. 116. Epp. dccxxii., dccxxiii. (_ib._ vol. vii.),

pp. 400, 403. Garnier (Hippeau), p. 160.

[329] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above.

[330] _Ib._ p. 113.

[331] Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), pp. 472–476.

We may put aside at once all the wild talk of the archbishop’s

biographers about plots against his life in which the king had a share.

Even if Henry’s sudden willingness for his return was really suggested

by words said to have been uttered by one of his counsellors--“Why

keep the archbishop out of England? It would be far better to keep him

in it”--there is no need to assume that those words bore even in the

speaker’s mind, far less in that of the king, the horrible meaning

which they were afterwards supposed to have covered;[332] for they

were true in the most literal sense. The quarrel of king and primate

would have mattered little had it been fought out on English ground;

it was the archbishop’s exile which rendered him so dangerous. Thomas

had dealt his most fatal blow at Henry by flying from him, and Henry,

as he now perceived, had made his worst blunder in driving Thomas into

France. Of the infinitely greater blunder involved in the archbishop’s

murder--setting the criminal aspect of the deed altogether aside--it

is enough to say that Henry was wholly incapable. The same may be

said of Roger of York and Gilbert of London, although, like the king

himself, they were urged by dread of the archbishop into making common

cause with men of a very different stamp:--men who hated the primate

with a far more intense personal hatred, and who were restrained by

no considerations either of policy or of morality:--men such as Ralf

de Broc, a ruffian adventurer who had served as the tool of Henry’s

vengeance upon the archbishop’s kinsfolk, had resumed the custody of

the archiepiscopal estates when it was resigned by Gilbert Foliot, had

been for the last four years at once fattening upon the property of

Thomas and smarting under his excommunication, and was ready to commit

any crime rather than disgorge his ill-gotten gains.[333] It was known

that Thomas had letters from the Pope suspending all those bishops

who had taken part in the coronation of the young king, and replacing

Gilbert of London, Jocelyn of Salisbury, and all whom Thomas had

excommunicated under the sentences from which they had been irregularly

released by some of the Papal envoys.[334] Gilbert, Jocelyn and Roger

of York now hurried to Canterbury, intending to proceed to Normandy

as soon as Thomas set foot in England; while Ralf de Broc, Reginald de

Warren and Gervase of Cornhill the sheriff of Kent undertook to catch

him at the moment of landing, ransack his baggage, search his person,

and seize any Papal letters which he might bring with him. Thomas,

however was warned; he sent the letters over before him, and the three

prelates at Canterbury read their condemnation before their judge

quitted Gaul.[335] Next day he sailed from Wissant, and on the morning

of December 1 he landed at Sandwich.[336] His enemies were ready to

receive him; but at the sight of John of Oxford they stopped short, and

John in the king’s name forbade all interference with the primate.[337]

Amid the rapturous greetings of the people who thronged to welcome

their chief pastor, he rode on to Canterbury; there some of the royal

officials came to him in the king’s name, demanding the absolution of

the suspended and excommunicate bishops. Thomas at first answered that

he could not annul a Papal sentence; but he afterwards offered to take

the risk of doing so, if the culprits would abjure their errors in the

form prescribed by the Church. Gilbert and Jocelyn were inclined to

yield; but Roger refused, and they ended by despatching Geoffrey Ridel

to enlist the sympathies of the young king in their behalf, while they

themselves carried their protest to his father in Normandy.[338]

[332] Will Fitz-Steph. as above, pp. 106, 107.

[333] On Ralf de Broc see Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson,

_Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 75; Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 360;

Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.) p. 65; E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p.

404; Epp. lxxviii. (_ib._ vol. v. p. 152), cccxli., ccccxcviii.

(_ib._ vol. vi. pp. 278, 582), dccxviii., dccxxiii. (_ib._ vol.

vii. pp. 394, 402). In the last place Thomas says that Ralf

“in ecclesiam Dei ... per septem annos licentius debacchatus

est”; and the writer of the _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol.

i. p. 321, seems to have understood this as meaning that Ralf

had had the stewardship of the Canterbury property throughout

the archbishop’s exile. This, however, does not appear to have

been the case. Ralf certainly had the stewardship for a short

time at first; but it was, as we have seen, soon transferred to

Gilbert Foliot, and only restored to Ralf when Gilbert resigned

it early in 1167.

[334] Epp. dccxx., dccxxii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii. pp.

397–399).

[335] Ep. dccxxiii., dccxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii.),

pp. 403, 410. Cf. Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 87–89; Will.

Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 117; Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._),

pp. 471, 472; Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 68; Anon. II.

(_ibid._), p. 123; Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 161, 163. The version

in _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 483, seems founded on

a confusion between the delivery of these Papal letters and

that which Berengar delivered in S. Paul’s on the Ascension-day

of the previous year.

[336] Will. Fitz-Steph. (as above), p. 118. Herb. Bosh.

(_ibid._) p. 476. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 68. Garnier

(Hippeau), p. 164. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 339. Gerv.

Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 222. _Thomas Saga_ (as above), pp.

489–491. The date is from Will. Fitz-Steph., R. Diceto and the

Saga; Gervase makes it November 30, and Herbert “two or three

days after the feast of S. Andrew.”

[337] Will. Fitz-Steph. and Garnier, as above. Ep. dccxxiii.

(Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii.), pp. 403, 404. _Thomas Saga_

(as above), p. 491.

[338] Ep. dccxxiii., dccxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol.

vii.), pp. 404–406, 411, 412. Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp.

102–105. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 120, 121.

Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 480. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol.

i. pp. 497–501. Garnier (Hippeau), p. 172, erroneously thinks

the censures on the bishops were not issued till Christmas-day.

The young king was preparing to hold his Christmas court at

Winchester.[339] Thomas proposed to join it, but was stopped in

London by a peremptory command to “go back and mind his own business

at Canterbury.”[340] He obeyed under protest, and on Christmas-day

again excommunicated the De Brocs and their fellow-robbers.[341]

The elder king was keeping the feast at his hunting-seat of Bures

near Bayeux.[342] There the three bishops threw themselves at his

feet; Roger of York spoke in the name of all, and presented the

Papal letters;[343] the courtiers burst into a confused storm of

indignation, but not one had any counsel to offer. In his impatience

and disappointment Henry uttered the fatal words which he was to rue

all his life: “What a parcel of fools and dastards have I nourished

in my house, that none of them can be found to avenge me of this one

upstart clerk!”[344]

[339] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 166. Will. Cant. (Robertson,

_Becket_, vol. i.), p. 106. Anon. II. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 126.

R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 342, says the young king was at

Woodstock when Thomas sought for an interview; he was, however,

certainly at Winchester at Christmas.

[340] “Fère vostre mestier à Cantorbire alez.” Garnier

(Hippeau), p. 171. Cf. Ep. dccxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_,

vol. vii.), p. 412; Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.) pp. 106–113;

Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 121–123; Herb. Bosh.

(_ibid._), pp. 482, 483; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 13;

_Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 505–507.

[341] Will. Cant. (as above), p. 120. E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.),

p. 428. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 130. Herb.

Bosh. (_ibid._), pp. 484, 485. R. Diceto (as above), p. 342.

_Thomas Saga_ (as above), pp. 511–513.

[342] Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 481. Garnier (Hippeau), p.

175. _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 11. Rob. Torigni, a.

1171.

[343] Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 175–177. Will. Cant. (as above),

pp. 122, 123. Cf. _Thomas Saga_ (as above), pp. 501–503.

[344] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 175. Will. Cant. (as above), p.

121. E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 429. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol.

iii.), p. 487.

The words were hardly more than he had used at Chinon four years

before, but they fell now upon other ears. Four knights--Hugh de

Morville, William de Tracy, Reginald Fitz-Urse and Richard le

Breton[345]--took them as a warrant for the primate’s death. That

night--it was Christmas-eve[346]--they vowed to slay him, no matter how

or where;[347] they left the court in secret, crossed to England by

different routes,[348] and met again at Saltwood, a castle which the

archbishop had been vainly endeavouring to recover from the clutches

of Ralf de Broc, and where Ralf himself was dwelling amid a crowd of

his kinsfolk and dependents. There the final plot was laid.[349] How it

was executed is a tale which has been told so often that its details

may well be spared here. On the evening of December 29, after a scene

in his own hall scarcely less disgraceful than the last scene in the

king’s hall at Northampton, the primate of all England was butchered at

the altar’s foot in his own cathedral church.[350]

[345] In Will. Cant. (as above), pp. 128, 129, is a “descriptio

spiculatorum,” in which the only point of interest is the

English speech of Hugh de Morville’s mother.

[346] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 177. Will. Cant. (as above), p. 123.

[347] Garnier, as above. Will. Cant. (as above), p. 124. E.

Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 429. Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson,

_Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 128. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 487.

_Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 517.

[348] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 177. Will. Cant. (Robertson,

_Becket_, vol. i.) p. 124, Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.),

p. 130. _Thomas Saga_ as above.

[349] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above; cf. _ib._ p. 126. _Thomas

Saga_, as above, pp. 517–519. Saltwood was mentioned, as a

special subject for inquiry and restitution, in the king’s

letter commending Thomas to his son.

[350] Will. Cant. (as above), pp. 131–135. Joh. Salisb. (_ib._

vol. ii.), pp. 319, 320. E. Grim (_ibid._), pp. 430–438.

Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 132–142. Herb. Bosh.

(_ibid._), pp. 488 _et seq._ Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp.

70–77. Anon. II. (_ibid._), pp. 128–132. Garnier (Hippeau), pp.

179–195. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 343, 344. Gerv. Cant.

(Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 224–227. _Thomas Saga_ as above, pp.

523–549.

The ill news travelled fast. It fell like a thunderbolt upon the

Norman court still gathered round the king at Argentan,[351] whither

the assembly had adjourned after the Christmas feast at Bures. Henry

stood for a moment speechless with horror, then burst into a frenzy of

despair, and shut himself up in his own rooms, refusing to eat or drink

or to see any one.[352] In a few days more, as he anticipated, all

Christendom was ringing with execration of the murder and clamouring

for vengeance upon the king who was universally regarded as its

instigator. The Pope ordered an interdict upon Henry’s continental

dominions, excommunicated the murderers and all who had given or should

henceforth give them aid, shelter or support, and was only restrained

from pronouncing a like sentence upon the king himself by a promise

that he would make compurgation and submit to penance.[353] Two

cardinal-legates charged with the enforcement of these decrees were at

once despatched to Normandy;[354] but when they arrived there, Henry

was out of their reach. The death of Duke Conan in February had thrown

Britanny completely into his hands; he only stayed to secure Geoffrey’s

final establishment there as duke[355] before he called a council at

Argentan and announced that he was going to Ireland.[356] He quitted

Normandy just as the legates reached it,[357] leaving strict orders

that the ports should be closed to all clerks and papal envoys, and

that no one should dare to follow him without special permission.[358]

Landing at Portsmouth in the first days of August,[359] he hurried

to Winchester for a last interview with the dying Bishop Henry,[360]

closed the English ports as he had closed those of Normandy,[361] then

plunged once more into the depths of South Wales, and on October 16

sailed from Milford Haven for Waterford.[362]

[351] R. Diceto (as above), p. 345. _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol.

i. p. 14.

[352] Ep. dccxxxviii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii.), p. 438.

Cf. MS. Lansdown. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 159, 160, and _Gesta

Hen._ as above.

[353] Epp. dccl., dccli. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii. pp.

471–478).

[354] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 233. R. Diceto (Stubbs),

vol. i. p. 346. _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 24.

[355] Rob. Torigni, a. 1171. Conan died February 20; Chron.

Kemperleg. _ad ann._ (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 563).

The Chron. S. Serg. a. 1169 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 150),

places the event two years too early. Cf. Chron. Britann. a.

1170, 1171 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 560; Morice,

_Hist. Bretagne, preuves_, vol. i. col. 104).

[356] Rob. Torigni, a. 1171.

[357] MS. Lansdown. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 169.

Gerv. Cant. (as above), pp. 233, 234. The _Gesta Hen._ (as

above), and Rog. Howden (Stubbs, vol. ii. pp. 28, 29) seem to

imply that they arrived just before Henry left; but they are

rather confused about these legates. They make two pairs of

them come to Normandy this summer--first, Vivian and Gratian,

who come with hostile intent, and from whom Henry runs away

(_Gesta Hen._, Stubbs, vol. i. p. 24; Rog. Howden, Stubbs, vol.

ii. p. 29); and secondly, Albert and Theodwine, who apparently

supersede them later in the year, and whom Henry hurries to

meet (_Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 29; Rog. Howden as above, p.

34). But the MS. Lansdown. (which is the fullest account of

all), Gerv. Cant. and R. Diceto distinctly make only one pair

of legates, Albert and Theodwine. The confusion in _Thomas

Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. ii. pp. 31–33, is greater still.

[358] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 24. Cf. Rog. Howden (as

above), p. 29.

[359] _Gesta Hen._ as above, and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i.

p. 234, say August 3; R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 347, says

August 6.

[360] R. Diceto as above. Bishop Henry died on August 8; _ibid._

[361] Gerv. Cant., _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden, as above.

[362] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 25.

The elements favoured his escape; for five months a persistent contrary

wind hindered all communication to Ireland from any part of his

dominions.[363] The bishops and the ministers were left to fight their

own battles and make their own peace with the legates in Normandy until

May 1172, when the king suddenly reappeared[364] to claim the papal

absolution and offer in return not only his own spiritual obedience and

that of his English and continental realms, but also that of Ireland,

which he had secured for Rome as her share in the spoils of a conquest

won with Adrian’s bull in his hand.[365] The bargain was soon struck.

On Sunday May 21 Henry met the legates at Avranches, made his purgation

for the primate’s death, promised the required expiation, and abjured

his obnoxious “customs,” his eldest son joining in the abjuration.[366]

To pacify Louis, young Henry and Margaret were sent over sea with the

archbishop of Rouen and by him crowned together at Winchester on August

27;[367] and the Norman primate returned to join a great council of the

Norman clergy assembled at Avranches to witness there, two days before

Michaelmas, a public repetition of their sovereign’s purgation and his

final absolution by the legates.[368]

[363] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 350. Gir. Cambr., _Expugn.

Hibern._, l. i. c. 36 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 284).

[364] R. Diceto (as above), p. 351.

[365] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 28.

[366] Ep. dcclxxi.–dcclxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii.

pp. 513–522). MS. Lansdown. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 173, 174.

[367] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 31; Rog. Howden (Stubbs),

vol. ii. p. 34; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 237. R. Diceto

(as above), p. 352, makes it August 21.

[368] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), pp. 32, 33. Rog. Howden (as

above), pp. 35–37. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 238. These three

are the only writers who mention this purgation in September,

and they say nothing of the one in May. That it took place is

however clear from the letter of the legates themselves (Ep.

dcclxxiv. Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii. p. 521), giving its

date, “_Vocem jucunditatis_,” _i.e._ Rogation-Sunday. On the

other hand, the MS. Lansdown. (_ib._ vol. iv. pp. 173, 174)

mentions only one purgation, and this clearly is the earlier

one, for it is placed before the re-crowning of young Henry.

The explanation seems to be that this was a private ceremony

between the king and the legates, with a few chosen witnesses;

the legates say in their letter that Henry promised to repeat

it publicly at Caen; he probably did so at Avranches instead.

On the other hand, Rob. Torigni (a. 1172) says: “Locutus est

cum eis primo Savigneii, postea Abrincis, tercio Cadomi, ubi

causa illa finita est;” and seems to make the Michaelmas

council at Avranches a mere ordinary Church synod, where

moreover “obsistente regis infirmitate parum profecerunt.” To

add to the confusion, Gir. Cambr. (_Expugn. Hibern._, l. i.

c. 39; Dimock, vol. v. p. 289) says the purgation was made at

Coutances.

CHAPTER III.

THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND.

795–1172.

[Illustration: Map III.

IRELAND A. D. 1172.

_Ostmen’s settlements marked thus: Dublin._

Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic. London, Macmillan & Co.

]

It is in the history of the settlements formed on the Irish coast by

the northern pirates in the ninth century that we must seek for the

origin of those relations between England and Ireland which led to

an English invasion of the latter country in the reign of Henry II.

The earliest intercourse between the two islands had been of a wholly

peaceful character; but it had come utterly to an end when Bishop

Colman of Lindisfarne sailed back to his old home at Iona after the

synod of Whitby in 664. From the hour when her missionary work was

done, Ireland sank more and more into the isolation which was a natural

consequence of her geographical position, and from which she was

only roused at the opening of the ninth century by the coming of the

wikings. In the early days of the northmen’s attack upon the British

isles it was the tradition of Ireland’s material prosperity and wealth,

and the fame of the treasures stored in her religious houses, that

chiefly tempted the “white strangers” from the Norwegian fiords across

the unknown perils of the western sea; and the settlement of Thorgils

in Ulster and those of his fellow-wikings along the eastern and

southern coasts of Ireland formed a chief basis for the operations of

the northmen upon Britain itself. The desperate fighting of the Irish

succeeded in freeing Ulster after Thorgils’s death; but by the middle

of the ninth century the wikings were firmly established at four points

on the Irish coast, Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick.[369]

Under the leadership of Olaf the Fair, Dublin became the head of a

confederacy which served as a starting-point and furnished a constant

supply of forces for the Danish conquests in England;[370] and for

a hundred years afterwards, throughout the struggle of the house of

Ælfred for the recovery of the Danelaw, the support given by the Ostmen

or wikings of Ireland to their brethren across the channel was at once

the main strength of the Northumbrian Danes and the standing difficulty

of the English kings.[371]

[369] On Thorgils and the wiking settlements in Ireland see

_Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_ (Todd), and Green,

_Conquest of England_, pp. 66, 67, 74, 76.

[370] Green, _Conquest of England_, pp. 90, 91, 107.

[371] _Ib._ pp. 213, 242, 252–254, 270–272.

To Ireland itself the results of the wiking invasions were far more

disastrous than either to Britain or to Gaul. Owing to the peculiar

physical character of their country, to their geographical remoteness

from the rest of Europe, and to the political and social isolation

which was a consequence of these, the Irish people had never advanced

beyond the primitive tribal mode of life which had once been common to

the whole Aryan race, but which every European branch of that race,

except the Irish, had long since outgrown. In the time of Ecgberht and

of Charles the Great Ireland was still, as at the very dawn of history,

peopled by a number of separate tribes or septs whose sole bond of

internal cohesion was formed by community of blood;--whose social and

political institutions had remained purely patriarchal in character,

unaffected by local and external influences such as had helped to mould

the life of England or of Gaul:--who had never yet coalesced into any

definite territorial organization, far less risen into national unity

under a national sovereign. The provincial kings of Ulster, Connaught,

Leinster and Munster were merely the foremost chieftains among the

various groups of tribes over whom they exercised an ever-shifting

sway; while the supremacy of the _Ard-Righ_ or chief monarch, to whom

in theory was assigned the overlordship of the whole island, was

practically little more than a sort of honorary pre-eminence attached

to certain chosen descendants of an early hero-king, Niall “of the

Nine Hostages”; it carried with it little effective authority, and no

territorial power; for the monarch’s traditional seat at Tara had long

been a heap of ruins, and a tribal under-king had ousted him from the

plain of Meath which in legal theory formed his royal domain.[372]

Neither in the monarch himself nor in the provincial chieftains of

a state thus constituted could there be found, when the storm-cloud

from the north burst upon Ireland, a centre of unity even such as the

peoples of Gaul found in their Karolingian sovereigns, far less such

as the West-Franks found in the dukes of the French, or such as the

English found in their kings of the house of Ecgberht. The stress of

the northmen’s attack, which elsewhere gave a fresh impulse to the

upgrowth of national life, crushed out all hope of its developement

in Ireland. The learning and the civilization of ages perished when

Columba’s Bangor, Bridget’s Kildare, Ciaran’s Clonmacnoise, Patrick’s

own Armagh, shared the fate of Bæda’s Jarrow and Hild’s Streoneshealh,

of Cuthbert’s Melrose and Aidan’s Lindisfarne; and in Ireland there was

no Wessex and no Ælfred.

[372] Maine, _Early Hist. of Institutions_, lect. i.–x.;

O’Donovan, Introd. to _Book of Rights_; Lynch, _Cambrensis

Eversus_, with Mr. Kelly’s notes; O’Donovan, notes to Four

Masters, vols. i. and ii.

On the other hand, the concentration of the wiking forces upon Britain

had given to the Irish an advantage which enabled them to check the

spread of wiking settlements in their country; and the failure of all

attempts to establish a Scandinavian dominion in Britain destroyed

all chance of a Scandinavian conquest of Ireland. The Ostmen never

even gained such a footing in Ireland as the followers of Hrolf

gained in Frankland: their presence never received the sanction of

any Ard-Righ; they were not a compact body occupying the whole of an

extensive and well-defined territory, but a number of separate groups

settled here and there along the coast, and holding their ground

only by sheer hard fighting against a ring of implacable foes. The

long struggle may be said to have ended in a defeat of both parties.

The Irish kings of Munster succeeded in establishing a more or

less effective overlordship over the Scandinavian communities of

Limerick and Waterford; and in 989 Malachi II., supreme monarch of

Ireland, reaped his reward for nine years of desperate fighting in

the submission of the Ostmen of Dublin. The city was blockaded and

starved into surrender, and a yearly tribute was promised to Malachi

and his successors.[373] Six years later “the ring of Tomar and the

sword of Carl”--two heathen relics probably of ancient heroes, which

seem to have been treasured as sacred emblems of sovereignty by the

Ostmen[374]--were carried off by Malachi as trophies of another

victory;[375] and in 999 or 1000 a renewal of the strife ended in a

rout of the Ostmen and a great slaughter of their leaders, and Dublin

was sacked and burnt by the victorious Irish.[376]

[373] Tighernach, a. 989 (O’Conor, _Rer. Hibern. Scriptt._,

vol. ii. pp. 264, 265).

[374] See O’Donovan’s introduction to the _Book of Rights_, pp.

xxxviii, xxxix.

[375] Tighernach, a. 995 (as above, p. 267).

[376] _Ib._ a. 998, 999 (p. 268). _Wars of Gaedhil with Gaill_

(Todd), pp. 109–117.

Malachi’s triumph, however, was gained at the cost of a disruption of

the monarchy. Malachi himself was displaced by a king of the rival

house of Munster, his colleague in the sack of Dublin, the famous Brian

Boroimhe;[377] Brian’s career of conquest ended in 1014 on the field

of Clontarf, where he was slain in battle with the men of Leinster and

the Ostmen;[378] and when Malachi, who now resumed his place, died

in 1022,[379] the downfall of the Irish monarchy was complete.[380]

The tradition which had so long linked it to the house of Niall had

been shattered by Brian’s successes; and Brian had not lived to

consolidate in his own house the forces which had begun to gather

around himself. Thenceforth the Scandinavian colonies simply furnished

an additional element to the strife of the Irish chieftains, and to

the rivalry between the O’Briens of Munster and the O’Neills of Ulster

for the possession of a shadowy supremacy, claimed by the one house as

descendants of Brian Boroimhe and by the other as heirs of Malachi II.

and of his great ancestor Niall.

[377] Tighernach, a. 1000, 1001 (as above, pp. 269, 270). _Wars

of Gaedhil with Gaill_ (Todd), p. 119. Brian’s victory was won

by the help of the Ostmen, with whom he stooped to ally himself

for the sake of overcoming his rival; but the alliance was only

momentary. On Brian’s reign see _Wars of Gaedhil with Gaill_,

pp. 119–155.

[378] _Wars of Gaedhil with Gaill_ (Todd), pp. 155–211. Four

Masters, a. 1013 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. pp. 773–781). Ann. Loch

Cé, a. 1014 (Hennessy, vol. i. pp. 1–13).

[379] Tighernach, a. 1022 (as above, p. 274). Four Masters, a.

1022 (as above, p. 800). Ann. Loch Cé, a. 1022 (as above, p.

23).

[380] “From the death of Maelseachlainn II. the legitimate

monarchy of all Ireland departed from all families during

seventy-two years, until the joint reigns of Muircheartach

O’Briain and Domhnall MacLochlainn; during that time no Feis

or general assembly, so agreeable to the people, was held,

because Ireland had no supreme king.” Quoted by Mr. Kelly, note

to _Cambrensis Eversus_, vol. ii. p. 38, from Gilla-Modud, an

Irish poet of the twelfth century.

The social and political system of Ireland was powerless either to

expel or to absorb the foreign element thus introduced within its

borders. Not only was such an union of the two peoples as had at last

been effected in England simply impossible in Ireland; the Irish

Danelaw was parted from its Celtic surroundings by barriers of race and

speech, of law and custom and institutions, far more insuperable than

those which parted the settlers in the “northman’s land” at the mouth

of Seine from their West-Frankish neighbours. Even the Irish Church,

which three hundred years before had won half England--one might add

half Europe--to the Faith, had as yet failed to convert these pagans

seated at her door. At the close of the tenth century the Ostmen were

still for the most part heathens in fact if not in name, aliens from

whatever culture or civilization might still remain in the nation

around them. Meanwhile their relations with England had wholly altered

in character. The final submission of the English Danelaw to Eadred

carried with it the alliance of the Irish Danelaw; it seems that the

Ostmen in their turn endeavoured to strengthen themselves against

the attacks of the Irish princes by securing a good understanding

with the English king, if not actually by putting themselves under

his protection; for the fact that Eadgar coined money in Dublin[381]

indicates that his authority must have been in some way or other

acknowledged there. The years of the Ostmen’s struggle with Malachi

and Brian Boroimhe were the years of England’s struggle with Swein

and Cnut; but the two strifes seem to have been wholly unconnected;

and throughout the long peace which lasted from Cnut’s final triumph

until the coming of the Normans, new ties sprang up between the

Ostmen and the sister-isle. Owing to their position on the sea-coast

and to the spirit of merchant enterprise which was, quite as much

as the spirit of military enterprise, a part of the wiking-heritage

of their inhabitants, the towns of the Irish Danelaw rose fast into

importance as seats of a flourishing trade with northern Europe, and

above all with England through its chief seaports in the west, Bristol

and Chester. The traffic was chiefly in slaves, bought or kidnapped

in England to be sold to the merchants of Dublin or Waterford, and

by these again to their Irish neighbours or to traders from yet more

distant lands.[382] Horrible as this traffic was, however, even while

filling the Irish coast-towns with English slaves it helped to foster

a more frequent intercourse and a closer relation between Ostmen and

Englishmen; and the shelter and aid given to Harold and Leofwine in

1151 by Dermot Mac-Maelnambo,[383] a prince of the royal house of

Leinster who had acquired the sovereignty over both Leinstermen and

Danes, shews that the political alliance established in Eadgar’s day

had been carefully renewed by Godwine.

[381] Green, _Conquest of England_, p. 323.

[382] Green, _Conquest of England_, pp. 440, 443, 444.

[383] See Freeman, _Norm. Conq._, vol. ii. pp. 154.

To these commercial and political relations was added soon afterwards

an ecclesiastical tie. The conversion of the Ostmen to Christianity,

completed in the early years of the eleventh century, was probably due

to intercourse with their Christianized brethren in England rather than

to the influence of the Irish clergy, whose very speech was strange

to them; and their adoption of their neighbours’ creed, instead of

drawing together the hostile races, soon introduced a fresh element

into their strife. About the year 1040 the Ostmen of Dublin set up a

bishopric of their own. Their first bishop, Donatus, was probably Irish

by consecration if not by birth.[384] But when he died, in 1074,[385]

the Ostmen turned instinctively towards the neighbouring island with

which they had long been on peaceful terms, where the fruits of the

warfare waged by generation after generation of wikings upon the shores

of Britain were being reaped at last by Norman hands, where William of

Normandy was entering upon the inheritance alike of Ælfred and of Cnut,

and where Lanfranc was infusing a new spirit of discipline and activity

into the Church of Odo and Dunstan. The last wiking-fleet that ever

sailed from Dublin to attack the English coast--a fleet which Dermot

Mac-Maelnambo, true to his alliance with their father, had furnished

to the sons of Harold--had been beaten back six years before.[386]

Since then Dermot himself was dead;[387] the Ostmen were once more

free, subject to no ruler save one of their own choice and their own

blood; with the consent of their king, Godred,[388] they chose a priest

named Patrick to fill Donatus’s place, and sent him to be consecrated

in England by the archbishop of Canterbury.[389] No scruples about

infringing the rights of the Irish bishops were likely to make Lanfranc

withhold his hand. At the very moment when the Ostmen’s request

reached him, he had just been putting forth against the archbishop

of York a claim to metropolitical jurisdiction over the whole of

the British isles, founded on the words of S. Gregory committing

“all the bishops of the Britains” to S. Augustine’s charge.[390] He

therefore gladly welcomed an opportunity of securing for the authority

of his see a footing in the neighbour-isle. He consecrated Patrick

of Dublin and received his profession of obedience;[391] and for the

next seventy-eight years the bishops of Dublin were suffragans not of

Armagh but of Canterbury. When in 1096 the Ostmen of Waterford also

chose for themselves a bishop, they too sought him beyond the sea; an

Irishman, or more probably an Ostman by birth, a monk of Winchester

by profession, Malchus by name, he was consecrated by S. Anselm and

professed obedience to him as metropolitan.[392]

[384] That is, he was certainly not consecrated in England;

Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iii. pp. 433–436. But

might he not have been consecrated by some of the bishops in

Scotland and the Isles, with which the Ostmen were in constant

intercourse and alliance?

[385] Tighernach, a. 1074 (O’Conor, _Rer. Hibern. Scriptt._),

vol. ii. p. 309. Four Masters, a. 1074 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p.

907).

[386] Eng. Chron. (Worc.) a. 1067, 1068; Flor. Worc. (Thorpe),

vol. ii. p. 2; Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._),

p. 513; Will. Jumièges, l. vii. c. 41 (_ib._ p. 290); Freeman,

_Norm. Conq._, vol. iv. pp. 225–227, 243–245, 788–790.

[387] He fell in battle with the king of Meath in 1072,

according to the Four Masters _ad ann._ (O’Donovan, vol. ii.

pp. 901–903), and the Ann. Loch Cé (Hennessy, vol. i. p. 67).

The Chron. Scot. (Hennessy, p. 291) places his death in 1069;

Mr. Freeman (as above, p. 245) adopts this date.

[388] At the time of Donatus’s appointment in 1040, one Sihtric

ruled in Dublin (see Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol.

iii. pp. 434, 435)--doubtless under the overlordship of Dermot.

On Dermot’s death the Ostmen flung off the Irish supremacy and

took for their king, first a jarl named Godred, who died in

1072, and then another of the same name, who seems to have been

already king of Man. (Freeman, as above, p. 528 and note 5).

Lanfranc addresses this Godred as “King of Ireland” (Lanfranc,

Ep. 43, Giles, vol. i. p. 61); and no other prince is mentioned

in connexion with Patrick’s consecration. But it is plain

from Lanfranc’s correspondence, if from nothing else, that

Terence O’Brien was acknowledged overlord of Dublin for some

time before his death (see Lanfranc, Ep. 44, _ib._ p. 62; and

Lanigan, as above, p. 474 _et seq._); and he died in 1086.

[389] Lanfranc, Ep. 43 (as above, p. 61). Eng. Chron. Winch.,

Appendix (Thorpe, vol. i. p. 387). Cf. Lanigan, as above, pp.

457, 458.

[390] Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iii. pp. 464–466.

[391] _Ib._ p. 458. Eng. Chron. Winch., Appendix (Thorpe, vol.

i. p. 387).

[392] Eadmer, _Hist. Nov._ (Rule), pp. 76, 77. Cf. Lanigan, as

above, vol. iv. pp. 15, 16.

Through the medium of these Irish suffragans the archbishops of

Canterbury endeavoured to gain a hold upon the Irish Church by

cultivating the friendship of the different Irish princes who from time

to time succeeded in winning from the Ostmen an acknowledgement of

their overlordship. In the struggles of the provincial kings for the

supreme monarchy of Ireland it was always the Ostmen who turned the

scale; their submission was the real test of sovereignty. The power

which had been wielded by Dermot Mac-Maelnambo passed after his death

first to Terence or Turlogh O’Brien, king of Munster,[393] a grandson

of Brian Boroimhe, and then to Terence’s son Murtogh.[394] Both were

in correspondence with the successive English primates, Lanfranc and

Anselm,[395] and both were recognized as protectors and patrons, in

ecclesiastical matters at least, by the Ostmen,[396] whose adherence

during these years enabled the O’Briens to hold their ground against

the advancing power of Donnell O’Lochlainn, king of Aileach or western

Ulster,[397] a representative of the old royal house of the O’Neills

which had fallen with Malachi II. On Murtogh’s death in 1119[398] a new

aspirant to the monarchy appeared in the person of the young king of

Connaught, Terence or Turlogh O’Conor. A year before, Terence had won

the submission of the Ostmen of Dublin;[399] in 1120 he celebrated the

fair of Telltown,[400] a special prerogative of the Irish monarchs;

and from the death of Donnell O’Lochlainn next year[401] Terence

was undisputed monarch till 1127, when a joint rising of Ostmen and

Leinstermen enabled both to throw off his yoke.[402] Meanwhile Murtogh

O’Lochlainn, a grandson of Donnell, was again building up a formidable

power in Ulster; at last, in 1150, all the provincial kings, including

Terence, gave him hostages for peace;[403] and Terence’s throne seems

to have been only saved by a sudden change in the policy of the Ostmen,

whose independent action enabled them for a moment to hold the balance

and act as arbitrators between northern and southern Ireland.[404] Four

years later, however, they accepted Murtogh as their king,[405] and two

years later still he was left sole monarch by the death of Terence

O’Conor.[406]

[393] Four Masters, a. 1073–1086 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. pp.

905–927).

[394] _Ib._ a. 1087–1119 (pp. 929–1009).

[395] Lanfranc, Ep. 44 (Giles, vol. i. pp. 62–64); Anselm, Epp.

l. iii., Epp. cxlii., cxlvii. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol. clix.,

cols. 173, 174, 178–180); Lanigan, as above, vol. iii. pp. 474

_et seq._, vol. iv. pp. 15, 19, 20.

[396] Samuel of Dublin in 1095 and Malchus of Waterford in 1096

were both elected under Murtogh’s sanction and sent to England

for consecration with letters of commendation from him. Eadmer,

_Hist. Nov._ (Rule), pp. 73–76; Lanigan, as above, vol. iv. pp.

12–15.

[397] Four Masters, a. 1083–1119 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. pp.

921–1009). Cf. Ann. Loch Cé, a. 1083–1119 (Hennessy, vol. i.

pp. 73–111).

[398] Four Masters, a. 1119 (as above, p. 1009). Ann. Loch. Cé,

a. 1119 (as above, p. 111).

[399] Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. p. 48, says:

“The Annals of Innisfallen have at _A._ 1118, ‘Turlogh O’Conor

became king of the Danes of Dublin.’” (This passage does not

occur in either of the two editions of Ann. Inisfal. printed

by O’Conor.) The Four Masters, a. 1118 (as above, p. 1007),

say that Terence took hostages from the Ostmen in that year.

He was, at any rate, acknowledged as their overlord by 1121,

for it was he who in that year sent Gregory, bishop-elect of

Dublin, to England for consecration. Lanigan, as above, p. 47.

[400] Four Masters _ad ann._ (as above, p. 1011).

[401] _Ib._ a. 1121 (p. 1013). Ann. Loch Cé, a. 1121 (as above,

p. 113).

[402] Ann Loch Cé, a. 1127 (p. 123).

[403] Four Masters, a. 1150 (as above, p. 1093).

[404] Something of this kind must be meant by the phrase of the

Four Masters (_ib._ p. 1095): “The foreigners made a year’s

peace between Leath-Chuinn and Leath-Mhogha.” This is in

1150, after Murtogh’s appearance as “King of Ireland” and the

Ostmen’s submission to Terence (II.) O’Brien, whom his namesake

of Connaught had set up as king in Munster.

[405] Four Masters, a. 1154 (as above, p. 1113).

[406] Four Masters, a. 1156 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1119).

The anarchy of the Irish state was reflected in that of the Church. If

Lanfranc, when he consecrated Patrick of Dublin, knew anything at all

of the ecclesiastical condition of Ireland, he may well have thought

that it stood in far greater need of his reforming care than England

itself. The Irish Church had never felt the organizing hand of a

Theodore; its diocesan and parochial system was quite undeveloped; it

had in fact scarcely advanced beyond the primitive missionary stage.

Six centuries after S. Patrick’s death, the Irish clergy were still

nothing but a band of mission-priests scattered over the country or

gathered together in vast monastic establishments like Bangor or Durrow

or Clonmacnoise; the bishops were for the most part merely heads of

ever-shifting mission-stations, to whose number there was no limit;

destitute of political rank, they were almost equally destitute of

ecclesiastical authority, and differed from the ordinary priesthood by

little else than their power of ordination. At the head of the whole

hierarchy stood, as successor and representative of S. Patrick, the

archbishop of Armagh. But since the death of Archbishop Maelbrigid

in 927 the see of Armagh had been in the hands of a family of local

chieftains who occupied its estate, usurped its revenues, handed on

its title from father to son, and were bishops only in name.[407]

The inferior members of the ecclesiastical body could not escape the

evil which paralyzed their head. The bishops and priests of the Irish

Church furnished a long roll of names to the catalogue of saints; but

they contributed little or nothing to the political developement of

the nation, and scarcely more to its social developement. The growth

of a class of lay-impropriators ousted them from the management and

the revenues of their church-lands, reduced them to subsist almost

wholly upon the fees which they received for the performance of their

spiritual functions, stripped them of all political influence, and

left them dependent solely upon their spiritual powers and their

personal holiness for whatever share of social influence they might

still contrive to retain.[408] The Irish Church, in fact, while

stedfastly adhering in doctrinal matters to the rest of the Latin

Church, had fallen far behind it in discipline; to the monastic reforms

of the tenth century, to the struggle for clerical celibacy and for

freedom of investiture in the eleventh, she had remained an utter

stranger. The long-continued stress of the northern invasions had cut

off the lonely island in the west from all intercourse with the world

at large, so completely that even the tie which bound her to Rome had

sunk into a mere vague tradition of spiritual loyalty, and Rome herself

knew nothing of the actual condition of a Church which had once been

her most illustrious daughter.

[407] S. Bernard, _Vita S. Malach._, c. 10 (Mabillon, vol. i.

col. 667). Cf. Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iii. p.

382.

[408] On these lay impropriators, “comorbas” and “erenachs,”

see Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 79–86.

But it was the northmen, too, who were now to become the means of

knitting up again the ties which had been severed by their fathers’

swords. The state of things in Ireland, as reported to Canterbury from

Dublin and Waterford, might well seem to reforming churchmen like

Lanfranc and Anselm too grievous to be endured. Lanfranc had urged

upon Terence O’Brien the removal of two of its worst scandals, the

neglect of canonical restraints upon marriage and the existence of a

crowd of titular bishops without fixed sees;[409] Anselm used all his

influence with Murtogh O’Brien for the same end;[410] at last, finding

his efforts unavailing, he seems to have laid his complaints before

the Pope. The result was that, for the first time, a papal legate was

appointed for Ireland. The person chosen was Gilbert, who some two or

three years before Anselm’s death became the first bishop of the Ostmen

of Limerick. Gilbert seems, like the first Donatus of Dublin, to have

been himself an Irish prelate; he lost no time, however, in putting

himself in communication with Canterbury,[411] and displayed an almost

exaggerated zeal for the Roman discipline and ritual.[412] In 1118 he

presided over a synod held at Rathbreasil, where an attempt was made

to map out the dioceses of Ireland on a definite plan.[413] Little,

however, could be done till the metropolitan see was delivered from the

usurpers who had so long held it in bondage; and it was not until 1134

that the evil tradition was broken by the election of S. Malachi.

[409] Lanfranc, Ep. 44 (Giles, vol. i. p. 63).

[410] Anselm, Epp. l. iii., Epp. cxlii., cxlvii. (Migne,

_Patrol._, vol. clix., cols. 173, 174, 178–180).

[411] On Gilbert’s relations with Anselm see Lanigan, _Eccles.

Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 23–26.

[412] _Ib._ pp. 26–29.

[413] _Ib._ pp. 38, 40–43.

Malachi was the wisest and most enlightened as well as the most

saintly Irish prelate of his time; he had already been labouring for

nearly ten years at the reform of the diocese of Connor; in that of

Armagh itself he had earlier still, as vicar to Archbishop Celsus,

laid the foundations of a similar work which he now took up again as

primate.[414] After a successful pontificate of three years he again

retired to the humbler position of a diocesan bishop at Down;[415]

but he still continued to watch over the interests of the whole Irish

Church; and in 1139 he went to Rome specially to lay its necessities

before the Pope, and if possible to obtain from him the gift of a

pallium for the archbishop of Armagh, and another for the bishop of

Cashel as metropolitan of southern Ireland.[416] The pallium was now

generally regarded as an indispensable note of metropolitical rank,

but it had never been possessed by the successors of S. Patrick.[417]

Innocent II. refused to grant it save at the request of the Irish

clergy and people in council assembled; he sanctioned, however, the

recognition of Cashel as metropolis of southern Ireland, and moreover

he transferred to Malachi himself the legatine commission which Gilbert

of Limerick had just resigned.[418] Gilbert seems to have died shortly

afterwards: his successor in the see of Limerick went to Theobald of

Canterbury for consecration; but his profession of obedience was the

last ever made by an Irish bishop to an English metropolitan.[419] In

1148 a synod held at Inispatrick by Archbishop Gelasius of Armagh,

with Malachi as papal legate, decided upon sending Malachi himself

to the Pope once more, charged with a formal request for the two

palls, in the name of the whole Irish Church. Malachi died on the

way, at Clairvaux;[420] but he left his commission in safe hands.

Nine years before, when on his first journey to Rome he had passed

through the “bright valley,” its abbot had recognized in him a kindred

spirit.[421] From that moment S. Bernard’s care of all the churches

extended itself even to the far-off Church of Ireland; and if it was

not he who actually forwarded his dying friend’s petition to Eugene

III., there can be little doubt that Eugene’s favourable reception of

it was chiefly owing to his influence. The result was the mission of

John Paparo as special legate to Ireland. Stephen’s refusal to let

John pass through his dominions caused another year’s delay;[422] but

at the close of 1151 John made his way through Scotland safe to his

destination.[423] In March 1152 he held a synod at Kells, in which

the diocesan and provincial system of the Irish Church was organized

upon lines which remained unaltered till the sixteenth century. The

episcopal sees were definitely fixed, and grouped under not two but

four archbishoprics. The primacy of all Ireland, with metropolitical

authority over Ulster and Meath, was assigned to Armagh; Tuam became

the metropolis of Connaught, Cashel of Munster; while the rivalry

of Armagh and Canterbury for the spiritual obedience of the Ostmen

was settled by the grant of a fourth pallium, with metropolitical

jurisdiction over the whole of Leinster, to Bishop Gregory of Dublin

himself.[424]

[414] For S. Malachi see his _Life_ by S. Bernard, and Lanigan,

as above, pp. 59 _et seq._

[415] S. Bern., _Vita S. Malach._, c. 14 (Mabillon, vol. i.

cols. 671–672).

[416] _Ib._ c. 15 (col. 672).

[417] _Ibid._ Cf. Lanigan’s note, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol.

iv. pp. 110, 111.

[418] S. Bern., _Vita S. Malach._, c. 16 (as above, col. 674).

Lanigan, as above, p. 112.

[419] Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 114, 115,

116.

[420] S. Bern., _Vita S. Malach._, cc. 30, 31 (Mabillon, vol.

i. cols. 687–692). Lanigan, as above, pp. 129, 130.

[421] S. Bern., _Vita S. Malach._, c. 16 (as above, cols. 673,

674).

[422] See above, vol. i. p. 380.

[423] Four Masters, a. 1151 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1095).

[424] On the synod of Kells see Four Masters, a. 1152 (as

above, p. 1101); Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 212; and

Lanigan, as above, pp. 139–151.

It is plain that Bernard and Eugene aimed at applying to Ireland’s

troubles the same remedy which they were at that very time applying to

those of England. They hoped to build up an united nation and a strong

national government on the basis of a free and united national Church.

But the foundation-stone of their work for Ireland was scarcely laid

at Kells when both the wise master-builders were called away. On the

other hand, their labours for England were crowned by the accession

of the young Angevin king, whose restless temper, before he had been

nine months on his throne, was already seeking for another sphere of

activity still further beyond the sea; overwhelming the newly-crowned,

English-born Pope with suggestions of work and offers of co-operation

in every quarter of Christendom,[425] and proposing to begin at once

with the reduction of Ireland to political, ecclesiastical and social

order after the pattern of England and Normandy.[426] Adrian IV. would

have needed a wisdom and a foresight greater than those of S. Bernard

himself to enable him to resist the attractions of such an offer. The

so-called “Donation of Constantine”--a donation which is now known

to be forged, but whose genuineness no one in Adrian’s day had ever

thought of doubting--vested the ultimate sovereignty of all islands

in the Papacy.[427] The best and greatest Popes, from S. Gregory down

to Adrian himself, seem to have interpreted this as making them in

a special way responsible for the welfare of such outlying portions

of Christendom, and bound to leave no means untried for providing

them with a secure and orderly Christian government.[428] The action

of Alexander II. in sanctioning the Norman conquest of England was

a logical outcome of this principle, applied, however unwisely or

unjustly, to a particular case. But there was infinitely greater

justification for applying the same principle, in the same manner, to

the case of Ireland. Neither the labours of S. Malachi, nor the brief

visit of John Paparo, nor the stringent decrees passed at the synod

of Kells, could suffice to reform the inveterate evils of Ireland’s

ecclesiastical system, the yet more inveterate evils of her political

system, or the intellectual and moral decay which was the unavoidable

consequence of both. On the Pope, according to the view of the time,

lay the responsibility of bringing order out of this chaos--a chaos of

whose very existence he had but just become fully conscious, and which

no doubt looked to him far more hopeless than it really was. In such

circumstances Henry’s proposal must have sounded to Adrian like an

offer to relieve him of a great weight of care--to cut at one stroke a

knot which he was powerless to untie--to clear a path for him through a

jungle-growth of difficulties which he himself saw no way to penetrate

or overcome. John of Salisbury set forth the plan at Rome, in Henry’s

name, in the summer of 1155; he carried back a bull which satisfied all

Henry’s demands. Adrian bade the king go forth to his conquest “for

the enlargement of the Church’s borders, for the restraint of vice,

the correction of morals and the planting of virtue, the increase of

the Christian religion, and whatsoever may tend to God’s glory and the

well-being of that land;”[429] and he sent with the bull a gold ring,

adorned with an emerald of great price, as a symbol of investiture with

the government of Ireland.[430]

[425] Pet. Blois, Ep. clxviii. (Giles, vol. ii. pp. 116–118).

See above, vol. i. p. 497.

[426] “Significâsti siquidem nobis, fili in Christo carissime,

te Hiberniæ insulam, ad subdendum illum populum legibus et

vitiorum plantaria inde exstirpanda, velle intrare; et de

singulis domibus annuam unius denarii beato Petro velle solvere

pensionem; et jura ecclesiarum illius terræ illibata et integra

conservare.” Bull of Adrian IV. to Henry (“Laudabiliter”), in

Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. ii. c. 5 (Dimock, vol. v. p.

317), etc.

[427] “Nam omnes insulæ, de jure antiquo, ex donatione

Constantini qui eam fundavit et dotavit, dicuntur ad Romanam

ecclesiam pertinere.” Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42

(Giles, vol. v. p. 206).

[428] “Sane Hiberniam et omnes insulas, quibus sol justitiæ

Christus illuxit, et quæ documenta fidei Christianæ ceperunt,

ad jus beati Petri et sacrosanctæ Romanæ ecclesiæ, quod tua

etiam nobilitas recognoscit, non est dubium pertinere. Unde

tanto in eis libentius plantationem fidelem et germen gratum

Deo inserimus quanto id a nobis interno examine districtius

prospicimus exigendum.” Bull “Laudabiliter,” Gir. Cambr.

_Expugn. Hibern._, l. ii. c. 5 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 317).

[429] Bull “Laudabiliter,” Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l.

ii. c. 5 (Dimock, vol. v. pp. 317, 318); R. Diceto (Stubbs),

vol. i. pp. 300, 301; Pet. Blois, Ep. ccxxxi. (Giles, vol.

ii. pp. 201, 202); Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 19; etc. Its

authenticity has been fiercely disputed, but is now admitted

by all Irish scholars. See proofs in Lanigan, _Eccles. Hist.

Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 165, 166, and O’Callaghan’s edition of

_Macariæ Excidium_ (Irish Archæol. Soc.), pp. 242, 245, where

it is reprinted from Baronius’s copy, found by him in the

Vatican archives.

[430] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p.

206).

This strange crusade was postponed for the moment, as we have seen,

in deference to objections made by the Empress Matilda.[431] Adrian’s

bull and ring were stored up in the English chancery, and there, long

after Adrian was dead, they still lay,[432] unused and, as it seemed,

forgotten amid an ever-increasing throng of more urgent cares and

labours which even Henry found to be quite as much as he was capable

of sustaining. At last, however, the course of political events in

Ireland itself took a turn which led almost irresistibly to a revival

of his long-forsaken project. Two years before Henry’s accession Dermot

Mac-Murrough, king of Leinster, had made a raid upon the district of

Breffny in Connaught, on the borders of Ulster and Meath, and carried

off Dervorgil, the wife of its chieftain Tighernan O’Ruark.[433] From

that hour Tighernan’s vengeance never slept. During the next fourteen

years, while Murtogh O’Lochlainn was striving for the mastery first

against the veteran Terence O’Conor and after Terence’s death with

his son Rory or Roderic, the swords of the men of Breffny were thrown

alternately into either scale, as their chieftain saw a hope of

securing the aid of either monarch to avenge him of his enemy.[434]

In 1166 the crisis came. Murtogh drew upon himself the wrath of his

people by blinding the king of Uladh, for whose safety he was pledged

to the archbishop of Armagh; Ulster, Meath, Leinster and Dublin rose

against him all at once; he was defeated and slain in a great battle at

the Fews; the Ostmen of Dublin acknowledged Roderic as their king, and

all the princes of southern Ireland followed their example. Dermot’s

submission, however, was in vain; the first act of the new monarch was

to banish him from the realm.[435] The Leinstermen forsook him at once,

for their loyalty had long been alienated by his harsh government and

evil deeds.[436] Left alone to the justice of Roderic and the vengeance

of O’Ruark, he fled to Cork and thence took ship to Bristol. Here he

found shelter for a while in the priory of S. Augustine, under the

protection of its founder Robert Fitz-Harding;[437] at the close of the

year he made his way to Normandy, and thence, with some difficulty,

tracked Henry’s restless movements into the depths of Aquitaine,[438]

where he at last laid his appeal for succour at the feet of the English

king.

[431] Rob. Torigni, a. 1155. See above, vol. i. p. 431.

[432] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p.

206).

[433] Four Masters, a. 1152 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1103).

Cf. Gir. Cambr., _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 1 (Dimock, vol.

v. pp. 225, 226), and the elaborately romantic account in the

Anglo-Norman Poem on the Conquest of Ireland, edited by M.

Francisque Michel, pp. 2–6. The two last-named authorities

represent this affair as the _immediate_ cause of Dermot’s

overthrow, and of all the consequent troubles. Chronology shews

this to be mere romance; yet, notwithstanding the criticisms

of some modern writers, there still seems to be some ground

for the earlier view which looked upon Dervorgil as a sort

of Irish Helen. If we follow carefully the thread of the

story in the Four Masters from 1153 to 1166 we can hardly

avoid the conclusion that throughout those years the most

important personage in Irish politics, the man whose action

turned the scale in nearly all the ups and downs of fortune

between Murtogh of Ulster and the kings of Connaught, was the

border-chieftain whose position made him the most dangerous of

foes and the most indispensable of allies--Tighernan O’Ruark;

and we can hardly help seeing in Dermot’s banishment the

vengeance less of Roderic O’Conor himself than of a supporter

whom Roderic could not afford to leave unsatisfied. On the

other hand, it is perfectly true that the opportunity for

executing that vengeance was given by the disaffection of

Dermot’s own subjects--and, as usual, more especially by the

rising of the Ostmen of Dublin.

[434] See Four Masters, a. 1153–1166 (as above, pp. 1107–1159).

[435] Four Masters, a. 1166 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1159–1163).

[436] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 1 (Dimock, vol.

v. pp. 225, 226). For specimens of his misdeeds see Four

Masters, a. 1141 (as above, p. 1065), and Ann. Clonmacnoise, a.

1135 (_ib._ p. 1051, note _f_).

[437] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 12.

[438] “In remotis et transmarinis Aquitannicæ Galliæ partibus.”

Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 227). Henry was in Aquitaine from

December 1166 till May 1167; see Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp.

103–106. The chase which he characteristically led the Irish

king is amusingly described in the Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel),

p. 13:

“Bien est, seignurs, ke jo vus die Cum Dermod va par Normandie; Li rei

Henri va dunc quere, A munt, à val, avant, arere; Tant ad mandé et

enquis Que trové ad li rei Henris, A une cité l’ad trové, Que seignur

esteit clamé.”

On the last line the editor (notes, p. 168) remarks: “_Seignur_ (seigñ,

MS.)? Is it not: of which he was called lord?” One feels tempted to

suggest that it might be meant for the name of the place; but if so,

what can it be? Saintes?

At the crisis of his struggles with Thomas of Canterbury, with Louis

of France and with the rebel barons of Poitou, all that Henry could do

was to accept Dermot’s offer of homage and fealty,[439] promise to

send him help as soon as possible,[440] and furnish him with a letter

authorizing any loyal English, Norman, Welsh, Scottish or Angevin

subjects who might be so disposed to join the standard of the Irish

prince, as of a faithful vassal of their sovereign.[441] Another stay

of some weeks in Bristol[442] convinced Dermot that his best chance of

aid lay beyond the Severn. Wales was still in the main a Celtic land,

ruled in primeval Celtic fashion by native princes under little more

than nominal subjection to the king of England. The Norman conquest of

Wales, so far as Wales could be said to have been conquered at all,

had been effected not by the royal power but by the daring and prowess

of individual adventurers who did, indeed, seek the royal sanction for

their tenure of the lands which they had won, but who were scarcely

more amenable to the royal authority than their Welsh neighbours,

with whom they not unfrequently made common cause against it. It was

Robert of Bellême’s connexion with Wales, through his border-earldom

of Shrewsbury and his brother’s lordship of Pembroke, which had made

him so formidable to Henry I.; it was Robert of Gloucester’s tenure

of the great Welsh lordship of Glamorgan, even more than his English

honours, which had enabled him to act as an independent potentate

against Stephen. Another border-chieftain who played some part in the

civil war was Gilbert de Clare, whose father had received a grant of

Cardigan from Henry I. in 1107,[443] and upon whom Stephen in 1138

conferred the title of earl of Pembroke.[444] His son Richard appears

under the same title among the witnesses to Stephen’s proclamation

of the treaty of Wallingford in 1153;[445] the writers of the time,

however, usually describe him as earl of Striguil, a fortress which

seems to have occupied the site whence the ruins of Chepstow castle

now look down upon the Wye. His earldom of Pembroke, indeed, as one of

Stephen’s fictitious creations, must have been forfeited on Henry’s

accession; but the lord of Striguil was still a mighty man on the

South-Welsh border when in the spring of 1167 he promised to bring all

the forces which he could muster to aid in restoring Dermot, who in

return offered him his daughter’s hand, together with the succession to

his kingdom.[446] A promise of the town of Wexford and its adjoining

territory won a like assurance of aid from two half-brothers in whose

veins the blood of Norman adventurers was mingled with the ancient

royal blood of South-Wales: Maurice Fitz-Gerald, a son of Gerald

constable of Pembroke by his marriage with Nest, aunt of the reigning

prince Rees Ap-Griffith, and Robert Fitz-Stephen, son of the same Nest

by her second husband, Stephen constable of Cardigan.[447] Another

Pembrokeshire knight, Richard Fitz-Godoberd, volunteered to accompany

Dermot at once with a little band of Norman-Welsh followers.[448] With

these Dermot returned to Ireland in August 1167;[449] he was defeated

in a pitched battle with Roderic O’Conor and Tighernan O’Ruark;[450]

but in his own hereditary principality of Kinsellagh[451] he was safe;

there throughout the winter he lay hid at Ferns,[452] and thence, when

spring returned, he sent his bard Maurice Regan to claim from his Welsh

allies the fulfilment of their promises.[453]

[439] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 1 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 227). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 15.

[440] Anglo-Norm. Poem, as above.

[441] Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 227, 228).

[442] _Ib._ c. 2 (p. 228). He was at Bristol “quinzein u un

meins”; Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 16.

[443] _Brut y Tywys._, a. 1107 (Williams, p. 105).

[444] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 917.

[445] Rymer, _Fœdera_, vol. i. p. 18. Richard de Clare became

known to later generations by the nickname of “Strongbow.” Its

use is convenient, as helping to avoid confusion with the other

Richards of the period; but it seems to have no contemporary

authority. See Mr. Dimock’s note, _Gir. Cambr._, vol. v. p.

228, note 4.

[446] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 2 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 228). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 17.

[447] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 229). The circumstances

of Fitz-Stephen’s enlistment illustrate the condition of

South-Wales at this time. He had been cast into prison three

years before by his cousin Rees, and at the moment of Dermot’s

arrival had just been released on condition of joining Rees in

an attack upon England. His Norman blood, however, was loyal

enough to revolt against the fulfilment of the condition; and

Rees, who had warmly espoused Dermot’s interest, was persuaded

to allow its exchange for service in Ireland. _Ibid._; cf.

Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 19, 20. For pedigree of Nest’s

descendants see Mr. Dimock’s edition of _Gir. Cambr. Opp._,

vol. v. App. B. to pref., pp. c, ci.

[448] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 21.

[449] About August 1, according to Gir. Cambr. _Expugn.

Hibern._, l. i. c. 2 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 229).

[450] Four Masters, a. 1167 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. pp.

1165–1167). Among the slain they mention “the son of the king

of Britain, who was the battle-prop of the island of Britain,

who had come across the sea in the army of Mac Murchadha.” This

can only mean a son or brother of Rees; but neither Gerald

nor the Welsh chronicles make any mention of such a person in

Ireland.

[451] The modern county of Wexford, or rather the diocese of

Ferns. The Four Masters (as above, p. 1165) say that Dermot

“returned from England with a force of Galls, and he took the

kingdom of Ui-Ceinnsealaigh.”

[452] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 2 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 230).

[453] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 21.

In the first days of May[454] Robert Fitz-Stephen landed at Bannow,

between Wexford and Waterford, with thirty picked knights of his own

immediate following, and a body of auxiliaries to the number of sixty

men-at-arms and three hundred archers.[455] With him came three of

his nephews, Meiler Fitz-Henry, Miles Fitz-David[456] and Robert de

Barri;[457] and also a ruined knight called Hervey of Mountmorris,

uncle of Richard de Clare.[458] Next day an independent adventurer,

Maurice de Prendergast, arrived from Milford with ten more knights and

a band of archers.[459] Dermot himself came to meet them with some

five hundred Irishmen. The united force marched upon Wexford, and took

it in two days;[460] they then established their head-quarters at

Ferns,[461] and thence made an expedition into Ossory, whose chieftain

was specially hostile to Dermot. In spite of overwhelming odds, through

all the difficulties of an unknown country full of woods and marshes,

and traps laid against them by their skilful foes, the Norman-Welsh

knights and archers made their way into the heart of Ossory; and

a great battle ended in the rout of the Irish and the bringing of

two hundred heads to Dermot’s feet in his camp on the banks of the

Barrow.[462] A successful raid upon Offaly was followed by one upon

Glendalough, and a third upon Ossory again,[463] till in the following

year the state of affairs in Leinster had become threatening enough to

drive all the Irish princes and the Ostmen of Dublin into a confederacy

under Roderic O’Conor for the expulsion of the intruders.[464] Dermot

pledged himself to acknowledge Roderic as monarch of Ireland, and was

in his turn acknowledged by Roderic as king of Leinster on condition

that he should dismiss his foreign allies.[465] The agreement was

however scarcely made when Maurice Fitz-Gerald landed at Wexford with

some hundred and forty men;[466] these at once joined Dermot in an

expedition against Dublin, and harried the surrounding country till

the citizens were reduced to promise obedience.[467] Early in the next

year Dermot’s son-in-law Donell O’Brien, king of Limerick or Northern

Munster, succeeded by the help of Robert Fitz-Stephen in throwing off

the authority of Roderick O’Conor.[468] Encouraged by these successes,

Dermot now began to aspire in his turn to the monarchy of all

Ireland;[469] but his auxiliaries were numerically insufficient; and

the one from whom he had expected most had as yet failed to appear at

all.

[454] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 3 (as above). All

the later Irish historians, as well as Lord Lyttelton and Mr.

Dimock (_ib._ margin) date the arrival of Fitz-Stephen in May

1169. The reason apparently is that, as far as Dermot and his

English auxiliaries are concerned, the year 1168 is a blank in

the Four Masters, while under 1169 they say: “The fleet of the

Flemings came from England in the army of Mac Murchadha, _i.e._

Diarmaid, to contest the kingdom of Leinster for him; they were

seventy heroes clad in coats of mail.” But seeing that in the

following year, 1170, they for the first time mention Robert

Fitz-Stephen, and represent him as coming over with Richard

of Striguil (O’Donovan, vol. ii. pp. 1173–1175), it is by no

means evident that the foregoing entry has any reference to

him. It may just as well apply to Maurice Fitz-Gerald, who

certainly followed him after an interval of some months at

least. Gerald (as above, c. 2, p. 229) says that Fitz-Stephen

and Fitz-Gerald both promised, in the summer of 1167, to join

Dermot “cum zephyris et hirundine primâ.” Maurice undoubtedly

made a long delay; but there is not a word to shew that Robert

did otherwise than fulfil his engagement to the letter. Nay,

Gerald pointedly introduces him (_ib._ c. 3, p. 230) as “nec

promissionis immemor nec fidei contemptor.” He also tells

us (c. 2, _ibid._) that Dermot had _wintered_ at Ferns. Why

then are we to assume that by “wintered” he means “wintered,

summered, and wintered again”? What could Dermot possibly have

been doing there for more than twenty months?

[455] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 3 (p. 230). For account of

Fitz-Stephen himself see _ib._ c. 26 (pp. 271, 272).

[456] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 22. On Meiler see Gir.

Cambr. as above, l. ii. c. 9 (pp. 324, 325); and for pedigree,

Mr. Dimock’s App. B. to pref. (_ib._ pp. c., ci.).

[457] Gir. Cambr. as above, l. i. c. 3 (Dimock, vol. v. p.

232). Cf. App. B. to pref., _ib._ p. c.

[458] Gir. Cambr. as above, l. i. c. 3 (p. 230). See also l.

ii. c. 11 (pp. 327, 328).

[459] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 3 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 232).

[460] _Ibid._ (pp. 232, 233). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp.

24, 25.

[461] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 25, 26.

[462] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 4 (p. 234). Cf. the long account

in Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 27–38.

[463] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 42–51.

[464] Roderic, in 1169, met the northern chieftains at Tara,

thence marched to Dublin, and afterwards proceeded into

Leinster; and Tighernan O’Ruark, Dermot king of Meath, and the

Ostmen of Dublin “went to meet the men of Munster, Leinster and

Osraigh” [Ossory], “and they set nothing by the Flemings.” Four

Masters, a. 1169 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1173).

[465] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 10 (p. 244).

[466] Ten knights, thirty “arcarii” or mounted archers, and

about a hundred “sagittarii pedestres.” _Ib._ c. 11 (pp. 244,

245).

[467] _Ibid._ (p. 245).

[468] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 11 (Dimock,

vol. v. p. 245). The date, 1170, comes from the Four Masters

(O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1175), who however do not mention

Fitz-Stephen’s share in the matter.

[469] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 12 (p. 246).

The history of Richard of Striguil is far from clear. From the number

of troops which eventually accompanied him to Ireland it is evident

that he had been during these two years actively preparing for his

expedition; and it may even be that the extent of his preparations

had drawn upon him the suspicions of King Henry. We only know that,

for some cause or other, he was now a ruined man; his lands were

forfeited to the Crown;[470] and he seems to have lingered on, absorbed

in a desperate effort to regain Henry’s favour, and clinging to his

lost home with a feeling that if he once turned his back upon it, he

would never be allowed to see it again. A letter from Dermot, telling

of the successes of his party in Leinster and renewing his former

offers, forced him into action.[471] He made a last appeal to the

king, intreating either for restoration of his lands or for the royal

license to go and repair his fortunes elsewhere. Henry ironically bade

him go, and he went.[472] On S. Bartholomew’s eve, 1170, he landed at

Waterford with twelve hundred men;[473] next day he was joined by

Raymond “the Fat,” a young warrior whom he had sent over three months

before[474] with ten knights and seventy archers, and who with this

small force had contrived to beat back an assault of three thousand

Irishmen of Decies and Ostmen of Waterford upon his camp of wattle and

thatch, hastily thrown up on the rocky promontory of Dundonulf.[475]

On August 25 Richard and Raymond attacked Waterford; three assaults in

one day carried both town and citadel;[476] seven hundred citizens were

slaughtered,[477] and the officers of the fortress, whose names tell

of northern blood, were made prisoners.[478] A few days later Richard

was married at Waterford to Dermot’s daughter Eva.[479] He then joined

his father-in-law in a circuitous march across the hills and through

Glendalough,[480] whereby they avoided a great host which Roderic had

gathered at Clondalkin to intercept them, and arrived in safety on S.

Matthew’s day beneath the walls of Dublin.[481] Dermot sent his bard

to demand the instant surrender of the town, with thirty hostages for

its fidelity. A dispute arose, probably between the Irish and Danish

inhabitants, as to the selection of the hostages;[482] Archbishop

Laurence was endeavouring to compose the difficulty,[483] and Hasculf

Thorgils’ son, a chieftain of northern blood who commanded the citadel,

had actually promised to surrender it on the morrow,[484] when a sudden

attack made by Raymond the Fat on one side and by a knight called

Miles Cogan on the other carried the town before the leaders of either

party knew what had happened.[485] A second rush won the citadel;

Hasculf escaped by sea and took refuge in the Orkneys;[486] Dublin was

sacked,[487] and left throughout the winter under the command of Miles

Cogan,[488] while Richard of Striguil was guarding Waterford against

the men of Munster,[489] and Dermot, from his old head-quarters at

Ferns,[490] was making raid after raid upon Meath and Breffny.[491]

[470] The cause of Richard’s disgrace seems to be nowhere

stated, except by William of Newburgh. He has (l. ii. c. 26;

Howlett, vol. i. pp. 167, 168), as usual, an independent

version of the whole affair. According to him, Richard’s

chief motive for going to Ireland was to escape from his

creditors, he being deep in debt; he went in defiance of an

express prohibition from Henry, and it was on hearing of his

victories--_i.e._ some time in the latter part of 1170--that

Henry confiscated his estates. Dugdale (_Baronage_, vol. i. p.

208) gives 1170 as the date of the forfeiture, on the authority

of a MS. in the Bodleian library. But this is irreconcileable

with the very circumstantial story of Gerald. Gerv. Cant.

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 234, dates the forfeiture three years

before Henry’s visit to Ireland, _i.e._ 1168.

[471] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 12 (as above, pp.

246, 247).

[472] _Ib._ cc. 12, 13 (pp. 247, 248). Cf. Gerv. Cant. as above.

[473] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 16 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 254). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 72. The latter gives

the number of troops as fifteen hundred; Gerald makes them two

hundred knights and a thousand foot-men.

[474] So says Gerald, as above, c. 13 (p. 248); but Mr. Dimock

(_ib._ note 2) thinks this too early.

[475] _Ibid._ (pp. 248, 249). There is however a less heroic

version of this affair in the Anglo-Norman Poem (Michel), pp.

68–70. We are there told that Raymond and his men had provided

themselves with food by “lifting” all the cattle in the

neighbourhood and penning them within the camp. At the sound

of arms these creatures rushed out in a wild stampede, and it

was this which put the assailants to flight. On the site of

Dundonulf see Mr. Dimock’s _Glossary_ to Gir. Cambr., vol. v.

p. 421.

[476] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 16 (_ib._ pp. 254, 255).

[477] Four Masters, a. 1170 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1177).

[478] Ragnald and “the two Sihtrics”; Gir. Cambr. as above (p.

255). The Four Masters (as above) give to the commandant of

the citadel--which Gerald calls “Ragnald’s tower”--the name of

Gillemaire. In the Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 72, we read

that “les plus poanz de la cité” were Regenald and “Smorch.”

[479] Gir. Cambr. as above. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 73.

Four Masters, a. 1170 (as above).

[480] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 17 (p. 256).

[481] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 75–78. Cf. Gir. Cambr.

and Four Masters as above. The latter say that “there was a

challenge of battle between them” (_i.e._ between Roderic

and the foreigners) “for three days, until lightning burned

Ath-Cliath” [Dublin].

[482] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 79, 80.

[483] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 17 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 256).

[484] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 80. He is there called

“Hesculf”; in p. 79, “Mac Turkil Esculf.” In the Four Masters,

a. 1170 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1177), he is “Asgall, son of

Raghnall, son of Turcaill.” Gir. Cambr. (as above) calls him

simply “Hasculphus.”

[485] Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 256, 257). Anglo-Norm. Poem

(Michel), pp. 80, 81.

[486] Four Masters, as above. Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 257).

[487] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 81, 82.

[488] Gir. Cambr. as above. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 82.

[489] “A victory was gained by the son of Cormac, grandson of

Carthach, and the people of Desmond, over the knights who were

left to defend Port Lairge” [_i.e._ Waterford]. Four Masters,

as above. Earl Richard returned thither early in October;

Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 82.

[490] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 83.

[491] Four Masters, a. 1170 (as above, pp. 1177, 1179).

In vain did the Irish clergy meet in synod at Armagh and strive

to avert the wrath which seemed to have been revealed against

their country by a solemn decree for the liberation of the English

slaves with whom, even yet, the houses of the Irish chieftains were

filled.[492] One sentence from an Irish record of the next year may

serve to illustrate the condition of the country: “Seven predatory

excursions were made by the Ui-Maine into Ormond from Palm Sunday till

Low Sunday.”[493] It made but little difference when at Whitsuntide

Dermot, “by whom a trembling sod was made of all Ireland,” died at

Ferns “of an insufferable and unknown disease--without a will, without

penance, without the Body of Christ, without unction, as his evil

deeds deserved.”[494] At that very moment a wiking fleet gathered from

all the lands where the old sea-rovers’ life still lingered--Norway,

the Hebrides, Orkney, Man--appeared in Dublin bay under the command

of Hasculf, the exiled leader of the Ostmen, and of a northern chief

whose desperate valour won him the title of “John the Furious”--in the

English speech of that day, John the Wode.[495] Something of the spirit

of the old northern sagas breathes again in the story of this, the last

wiking-fight ever fought upon the soil of the British isles. Bard and

historian alike tell of the mighty strokes dealt by the battle-axes

of John and his comrades,[496] and how they had almost hewed their

way into Dublin once more, when a well-timed sally of the besieged

caught them at unawares in the rear;[497]--how an Irish chief named

Gillamocholmog, whom Miles Cogan had posted on a neighbouring hill,

chivalrously bidding him watch the course of the battle and join the

winning side, rushed down with his followers at the critical moment and

helped to complete the rout of the Ostmen;[498]--how John the Wode fell

by the hand of Miles Cogan;[499]--how Hasculf was taken prisoner by

Miles’s brother Richard and brought back to be reserved for ransom, and

how his hot wiking-blood spoke in words of defiance which goaded his

captors to strike off his head.[500] Fifteen hundred northmen fell upon

the field; five hundred more were drowned in trying to regain their

ships.[501] From the shores of Ireland, as from those of England, the

last northern fleet was driven away by Norman swords.

[492] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 18 (p. 258).

[493] Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1185). The

Ui-Maine were a tribe in south-eastern Connaught.

[494] _Ibid._ (p. 1183). Cf. Ann. Loch Cé, a. 1171 (Hennessy,

vol. i. p. 145). The date, “circa Kalendas Maiæ,” is given by

Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 20 (Dimock, vol. v. p.

263).

[495] “Duce Johanne agnomine the Wode,” Gir. Cambr. as above,

c. 21 (p. 264). “Johan le Devé,” Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel),

p. 108. It is there added that, “solum les Yrreis,” he was

a nephew of the king of “Norwiche,” _i.e._ Norway. The Four

Masters, a. 1171 (as above, p. 1185) describe him as “Eoan, a

Dane from the Orkney Islands.”

[496] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 116. Gir. Cambr. as above.

[497] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 111–114. Gir. Cambr. as

above.

[498] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 109–111, 115.

[499] _Ib._ p. 117.

[500] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 117, 118. (On his captor

cf. _ib._ p. 111). Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 21

(Dimock, vol. v. pp. 264, 265).

[501] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 116, 118. The date of this

siege is given by Gir. Cambr. (as above, p. 263) as “eâdem

fere tempestate” (_i.e._ about the time of Dermot’s death),

“circa Pentecosten.” This would be at the beginning of May. In

the Poem it comes much later in the year. There seems however

no reason to upset Gerald’s arrangement of events. See Mr.

Dimock’s remarks, Gir. Cambr. as above, note 2.

The garrison of Dublin fought in truth even more desperately than

their assailants; for they were fighting for their all. A remonstrance

addressed by some of the Irish princes to the king of England against

the aggressions of his subjects[502] can hardly have been needed to

open Henry’s eyes to the danger gathering for him and his realm beyond

the western sea. This little band of adventurers, almost all bound

together by the closest ties of kindred,[503] were conquering Leinster

neither for its native sovereign nor for their own, but were setting

up a new feudal state independent of all royal control, under the

leadership of a disgraced English baron. Such a state, if suffered

to grow unhindered, would soon be far more dangerous to England than

to Ireland, for it would be certain to play in every struggle of the

feudal principle against the royal authority in England the part

which the Ostmen had played of old in the struggles of the Danelaw.

At the beginning of the year 1171 therefore Henry issued an edict

prohibiting all further intermeddling of his subjects in Ireland,

and bidding those who were already there either return before Easter

or consider themselves banished for life.[504] Not a man went back;

Richard of Striguil sent Raymond over to Normandy with a written

protest to the king, pleading that his conquests had been undertaken

with the royal sanction and that he was ready to place them at the

king’s disposal;[505] but the “Geraldines,” as the kindred of Maurice

Fitz-Gerald called themselves, seem to have at once accepted their

sentence of exile and resolved to hold by their swords alone the lands

which those swords had won.[506]

[502] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 234, 235.

[503] The close kindred of these Norman-Welsh settlers in

Ireland is a very remarkable feature of their settlement.

Robert Fitz-Stephen and Maurice Fitz-Gerald were half-brothers

(Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 2, p. 229); the two Fitz-Henrys,

Raymond the Fat, Miles Fitz-David and Robert de Barri were

their nephews (_ib._ cc. 4, 13, and l. ii. c. 10, pp. 234, 248,

335); Richard of Striguil was nephew to Hervey of Mountmorris

(_ib._ l. i. c. 3, p. 230), who afterwards married a daughter

of Maurice Fitz-Gerald, while Maurice’s eldest son married

Richard’s daughter Alina (_ib._ l. ii. c. 4, p. 314); another

daughter of Richard married his constable Robert de Quincy

(Anglo-Norm. Poem, Michel, p. 130); and his sister Basilea

became the wife of Raymond the Fat (_ib._ p. 145, and Gir.

Cambr. as above, l. ii. c. 3, pp. 312, 313).

[504] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 19 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 259).

[505] _Ibid._ Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 235. Raymond

was back again in time to share in the defence of Dublin

against Roderic O’Conor--_i.e._ by the end of May or beginning

of June. Gerald says he had to seek the king in “Aquitanic

Gaul,” but this time the phrase cannot be taken literally.

Eyton’s _Itinerary_ shews plainly that throughout 1171 Henry

never was further south than the Norman, or, at the utmost, the

Breton border.

[506] This seems to be the key-note of a speech which Gerald

puts into Maurice’s mouth; _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 23 (as

above, pp. 266, 267).

The hostility of the Ostmen had apparently ended with Hasculf’s defeat;

thenceforth they seem to have made common cause with the new-comers in

whom they were perhaps already beginning to recognize the stirrings of

kindred blood. But, on the other hand, the position of Earl Richard

and his comrades had been seriously weakened by Dermot’s death. The

king of Leinster’s devise of his kingdom to his son-in-law was, like

the grants which he had made to the Geraldines and like his own homage

to King Henry, void in Irish law. In Irish eyes his death removed the

last shadow of excuse for the presence of the strangers on Irish soil;

their allies rapidly fell away;[507] and by midsummer the whole country

rose against them as one man. Roderic O’Conor mustered the forces

of the north; Archbishop Laurence of Dublin, whose family occupied

an influential position in Leinster, called up the tribes of the

south; while a squadron of thirty ships was hired from Jarl Godred of

Man.[508] The aim of the expedition was to blockade Dublin, whither

Earl Richard had now returned, and where almost all the leaders of

the invasion, except Robert Fitz-Stephen and Hervey of Mountmorris,

were now gathered together. The whole Irish land-force amounted to

sixty thousand men; half of these were under the immediate command of

Roderic, encamped at Castle-Knock;[509] Mac-Dunlevy, the chieftain of

Uladh, planted his banner on the old battle-field of Clontarf;[510]

Donell O’Brien, the king of North Munster, posted himself at

Kilmainham; and Murtogh Mac-Murrough, a brother of Dermot, whom

Roderic had set up as king of Leinster in 1167, took up his position

at Dalkey.[511] To these were added, for the northern division, the

men of Breffny and of East Meath under Tighernan O’Ruark, those of

Oiriel or southern Ulster under Murtogh O’Carroll,[512] and those of

West Meath under Murtogh O’Melaghlin; while the archbishop’s call had

brought up the whole strength of Leinster except the men of Wexford and

Kinsellagh;[513] and even these, as the sequel proved, were preparing

to fight the same battle on other ground.

[507] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 83.

[508] Gir. Cambr. as above, cc. 22, 24 (pp. 265, 266, 269).

This is the archbishop afterwards canonized as S. Laurence

O’Toole.

[509] Cf. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 84, with Gerald’s

reckoning of Roderic’s own forces at thirty thousand. _Expugn.

Hibern._, l. i. c. 24 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 268).

[510] “A Clontarf ficha sa banere.” Anglo-Norm. Poem, as above.

[511] _Ibid._

[512] Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1185). Gir.

Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 24 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 269).

[513] Gir. Cambr. as above.

For nearly two months[514] the English knights were thus blockaded in

Dublin. Their sole hope of relief was in Robert Fitz-Stephen, who had

been left in command at Wexford. They were all but starving when Donell

Kavanagh, a half-brother of Eva Mac-Murrough and a devoted adherent

of her husband, slipped into the city with tidings that Wexford had

risen; Robert Fitz-Stephen was blockaded in the little fort of Carrick

by the townsfolk and the men of Kinsellagh, to the number of three

thousand; unless he could be succoured within three days, all would be

over with him and his men.[515] Earl Richard at once called a council

of war. It comprised nearly all the leaders of the English and Welsh

forces in Ireland:--Richard of Striguil himself; Maurice Fitz-Gerald

with three of his gallant nephews, Meiler Fitz-Henry, Miles Fitz-David

and Raymond the Fat; Miles Cogan, the captor of Dublin and its chief

defender in the recent siege; Maurice de Prendergast,[516] who two

years before had thrown up the adventure and gone home in disgust at

the faithlessness of his allies,[517] but had returned, it seems, in

Earl Richard’s train, and was yet to leave, alone of all the invading

band, an honoured memory among the Irish people;[518] and some fourteen

others.[519] They decided upon sending Maurice de Prendergast and

Archbishop Laurence to Roderic with an offer of surrender on condition

that Richard of Striguil should hold the kingdom of Leinster under

Roderic as overlord. Roderic rejected the proposal with scorn; the

knights might hold what the earlier pirates had held--Dublin, Waterford

and Wexford; not another rood of Irish land should be granted to the

earl and his company; and if they refused these terms, Dublin should be

stormed on the morrow.[520] That afternoon the little garrison--scarce

six hundred in all[521]--sallied forth and surprized Roderic’s camp

while he and his men were bathing; Roderic himself escaped with great

difficulty; fifteen hundred Irishmen were slain, many of them perishing

in the water; while at sunset the victors returned, after a long

pursuit, with scarcely a man missing, and laden with provisions enough

to supply all Dublin for a year.[522] The rest of the besieging army

dispersed at once, and the very next morning Earl Richard was free to

set out for the relief of Robert Fitz-Stephen.[523]

[514] _Ib._ c. 22 (p. 266). This would bring the beginning of

the siege to Midsummer at latest, for it was certainly over by

the middle of August. The Four Masters (as above) make it last

only a fortnight.

[515] Gir. Cambr. as above. The Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp.

85, 86, gives a very hasty and confused sketch of this Wexford

affair.

[516] Earl Richard, Meiler, the two Mileses and Maurice

Prendergast are mentioned in the Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp.

86, 87. Raymond is named by Gerald, _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i.

c. 22 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 266), as “a curiâ jam reversus”; his

presence also appears later in the Poem. Gerald alone mentions

the presence of Maurice Fitz-Gerald, whom the Poem never names

throughout the siege; while Gerald never names Maurice de

Prendergast. Is it possible that he has transferred to his

own uncle the exploits of his namesake? But if so, where can

Fitz-Gerald have been?

[517] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 51–67.

[518] _Ib._ pp. 97–103.

[519] The Poem (as above), p. 87, reckons them at twenty in

all, and names four besides those already mentioned, viz.,

Robert de Quincy, Walter de Riddlesford, Richard de Marreis and

Walter Bluet.

[520] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 87–90.

[521] The Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 90, 91, describes the

force as composed of three divisions, each consisting of forty

knights, sixty archers and a hundred “serjanz.” Gir. Cambr. as

above, c. 24 (p. 268), makes the three bands of knights contain

respectively twenty, thirty and forty, each accompanied by as

many archers and citizens as could be spared from guarding the

walls.

[522] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 24 (Dimock, vol.

v. pp. 268, 269). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 90–94. Cf. the

brief account in Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p.

1185).

[523] Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 269, 270). Anglo-Norm. Poem

(Michel), p. 95.

He was however already too late. Three thousand men of Wexford and

Kinsellagh, finding that they could make no impression by fair means

upon Robert Fitz-Stephen shut up in the fort of Carrick with five

knights and a handful of archers, at length had recourse to fraud. Two

bishops and some monks were made to stand under the walls of the fort

and swear upon relics brought for the purpose that Dublin was taken,

the earl and his comrades slain, and Roderic on the march to Wexford at

the head of his victorious host. On a promise of liberty to escape to

Wales[524] Robert in his despair surrendered, only to see his little

band of humbler followers slaughtered to a man, and himself and his

five knights cast into chains. The men of Wexford then fired their

town and took refuge with their captives on the neighbouring island of

Beg-Erin,[525] whence they sent word to Richard of Striguil that if

he dared to approach them he should immediately receive the heads of

his six friends.[526] Notwithstanding this disaster at Wexford, and

the failure of a plot to entrap the chief of Ossory--a well-deserved

failure, due to the loyalty of Maurice de Prendergast[527]--the

invaders were rapidly gaining ground. The king of North Munster, who

was married to Eva’s sister, again forsook Roderic and made alliance

with his English brother-in-law;[528] an attempt made by Tighernan

O’Ruark to renew the siege of Dublin ended in failure;[529] and at

last Murtogh of Kinsellagh was reduced to make a surrender of his

principality into Richard’s hands and accept a re-grant of it from him

as overlord, while Donell Kavanagh was invested on like terms with the

remaining portion of Leinster.[530]

[524] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 25 (pp. 270, 271).

[525] _Ibid._ (p. 271). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 85, 97.

[526] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 28 (p. 273).

[527] See the story in Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 97–103.

[528] _Ib._ pp. 97, 98.

[529] Four Masters, a. 1171 (as above, pp. 1185–1187). Gir.

Cambr. as above, c. 29 (p. 274).

[530] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 103.

The earl’s triumphs, however, met with an abrupt check from over

sea. His uncle Hervey of Mountmorris, who had gone to plead his

cause with the king after the failure of Raymond’s mission, returned

to Waterford[531] with tidings that Henry himself was on his way

to Ireland and required the self-styled earl of Leinster to go and

speak with him without delay. Richard hurried over to Wales,[532]

met Henry on the border,[533] and was forgiven on condition that

he should surrender Dublin and the other coast towns absolutely

into the king’s hands and do him homage and fealty for the rest of

Leinster;[534] he then accompanied Henry into Pembrokeshire;[535]

where the royal fleet was assembling in Milford Haven. It consisted

of four hundred ships,[536] carrying a force of about four thousand

men, of whom some five hundred were knights and the rest archers,

mounted and unmounted.[537] The king embarked on the evening of

Saturday, October 16, and landed next day at Croch, eight miles from

Waterford.[538] On the morrow, S. Luke’s day, he entered the town of

Waterford;[539] there he was met by his seneschal William Fitz-Aldhelm,

his constable Humfrey de Bohun, Hugh de Lacy, Robert Fitz-Bernard,

and some other officers of his household whom he had sent over to

prepare for his coming.[540] The Irish of the district and the Ostmen

of the town, in the person of their chieftain Ragnald, made submission

to him as their sovereign;[541] while Richard of Striguil formally

surrendered the place into the king’s hands and did homage to him for

the earldom of Leinster.[542] The men of Wexford now, according to

an agreement which they had made with Henry while he was waiting for

a wind at Pembroke,[543] brought their captive Robert Fitz-Stephen

to his sovereign’s feet, to be by him dealt with as a rebel and a

traitor. Henry loaded him with reproaches and imprisoned him afresh,

but his anger was more assumed than real, and the captive was soon

released.[544] The submission of the English adventurers was followed

by that of the Irish princes. Dermot MacCarthy, king of Cork or South

Munster, was the first of them who came to Henry’s feet at Waterford,

swore him fealty, gave hostages and promised tribute.[545] On November

1[546] Henry advanced to Lismore, and thence, two days later, to

Cashel, where at the passage of the Suir he was met by the king of

Limerick or of Northern Munster, Donell O’Brien, with offers of tribute

and obedience. The lesser chieftains of southern Ireland followed the

example of the two kings; in three weeks from his arrival all Munster

was at his feet, and its coast-towns, Wexford, Waterford, Limerick and

Cork, were all in the custody of his own officers.[547] At Martinmas he

reached Dublin;[548] before Christmas he received hostages from all the

princes of Leinster and Meath, from Tighernan O’Ruark of Breffny, from

O’Carroll of Oiriel, and from the king of Uladh or eastern Ulster;[549]

his new vassals built him a dwelling of wattle or wicker-work, after

the manner of their country, outside the walls of Dublin, and there in

their midst he held his Christmas court.[550]

[531] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 28 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 273). Hervey must have gone before Midsummer; he was

clearly not in Dublin during the second siege, and returned

shortly after its conclusion.

[532] _Ibid._ Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 105, 106.

[533] At Newnham in Gloucestershire, according to Gerald (as

above). The Anglo-Norm. Poem (p. 106), however, says they met

at Pembroke. This would make a difference of at least ten days

in the date. From the account of Henry’s movements in the _Brut

y Tywys._, a. 1171 (William, pp. 211–213), it seems that he

crossed the border about September 8 and reached Pembroke on

September 20.

[534] Gir. Cambr. as above. Cf. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 26

(Howlett, vol. i. pp. 168, 169).

[535] _Brut y Tywys._, a. 1171 (Williams, p. 215).

[536] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 25; Rog. Howden

(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 29; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 235.

The Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1187), and

Ann. Loch. Cé, a. 1171 (Hennessy, vol. i. p. 145), give the

number as two hundred and forty.

[537] Gerald (_Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 30, Dimock, vol. v.

p. 275) reckons five hundred knights, with “arcariis [_var._

satellitibus equestribus] quoque et sagittariis multis.” The

Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 123, makes the knights four

hundred, and a few lines later sums up the whole force as

“quatre mil Engleis.” Mr. W. Lynch (_View of Legal Inst. in

Ireland under Hen. II._, p. 2) argues from the payments for

arms, provisions, shipping, etc. recorded in the Pipe-Rolls

for 1171, that the army must have numerically “far exceeded

the force described in our printed historians.” He gives a

few details of these payments, extracted from the Pipe-Roll

in question (17 Hen. II., a. 1171); some more, from this and

the next year’s roll, maybe seen in Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._,

pp. 161, 163. The host was no doubt composed almost wholly of

English tenants-in-chivalry; but whatever may have been its

numbers, there was a large proportion of these tenants who had

nothing to do with it except by paying its expenses next year

with a great scutage. See in Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. pp.

629–632, the extracts from Pipe Roll 18 Hen. II. “de scutagio

militum qui nec abierunt in Hyberniam nec denarios” (in some

cases “nec milites nec denarios”) “illuc miserunt.”

[538] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 25; Rog. Howden

(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 29. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 348,

makes October 16 the day of Henry’s arrival in Ireland; Gerv.

Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 235, makes it “about S. Calixtus’s

day” (October 16 would be two days after). Gerald, _Expugn.

Hibern._, l. i. c. 30 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 275) makes him reach

Waterford “circa kalendas Novembris, die videlicet S. Lucæ.”

The Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel, p. 123) turns this into “à la

Tusseinz”; the Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p.

1187) record his coming without any date at all; and the _Brut

y Tywys._ a. 1171 (Williams, p. 217), absurdly says he sailed

on Sunday, November 16. The Anglo-Norman poet seems to have

taken Croch--“à la Croiz” as he calls it--for the place of

embarkation.

[539] _Gesta Hen._, Rog. Howden and Gir. Cambr. as above.

[540] _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden, as above. Anglo-Norm. Poem

(Michel), p. 124.

[541] _Gesta Hen._ as above. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p.

30.

[542] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 124.

[543] See the curious story of their envoy’s arrival and

reception at Pembroke, _ib._ pp. 119–123.

[544] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. cc. 31, 32 (Dimock,

vol. v. pp. 276, 277, 278). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 125,

126.

[545] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 31 (p. 277).

[546] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 30, says he stayed at

Waterford fifteen days.

[547] Gir. Cambr. as above, cc. 31, 32 (pp. 277, 278). He adds

that Henry returned to Waterford, where he released Robert

Fitz-Stephen, and thence proceeded to Dublin. The Anglo-Norm.

Poem (Michel), pp. 126, 127, places this progress through

Cashel and Lismore in inverse order, after Henry’s first visit

to Dublin, and says nothing of a second visit to Waterford. Its

account is however much less circumstantial than Gerald’s. The

_Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden only name two places where Henry

stayed--Waterford and Dublin; and as they both say he reached

the latter at Martinmas, while Roger says he left Waterford

when he had been there a fortnight (_i.e._ on November 1),

Gerald’s story fills up the interval very well.

[548] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 28. Rog. Howden (as

above), p. 32.

[549] Gerald (as above, c. 33, p. 278) enumerates the princes

who submitted at Dublin as follows: “Machelanus Ophelan

[O’Phelan], Machtalewi, Otuetheli [O’Toole], Gillemoholmoch

[Gillamocholmog of Fingal by Dublin--see above, p. 106],

Ocathesi [O’Casey], Ocaruel Urielensis [O’Carroll of Oiriel],

et Ororicius Medensis [O’Ruark]”. He then relates the

half-submission of Roderic of Connaught (of which more later),

and adds: “sic itaque, præter solos Ultonienses, subditi per

se singuli.” (_Ib._ p. 279.) He need not however have excepted

the Ulstermen; for the Ann. Loch Cé, a. 1171 (Hennessy, vol.

i. p. 145)--copying, it seems, the old Annals of Ulster (see

Four Masters, O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1187, note _c_, and

O’Kelly’s note to Lynch’s _Cambr. Evers._, vol. ii. p. 472,

note _d_)--say that Henry while at Dublin received hostages

from “Leinster, Meath, Breffny, Oiriel and Uladh.” This leaves

only Connaught and Aileach unsubdued. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs, vol.

i. p. 235) and the _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 25) lump

all these submissions together, and the latter seems to place

them all, as well as the submission of the bishops, during

Henry’s stay in Waterford. Rog. Howden (Stubbs, vol. ii. p.

30) not only does the same still more distinctly, but he does

worse; he places the submission of the bishops first, and then

says that the lay princes submitted “exemplo clericorum.” It

is he, not Gerald or any one else, who is responsible for this

misrepresentation, which the champions of the Irish Church have

been justly denouncing ever since Dr. Lynch’s time.

[550] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 28, 29. Rog. Howden

(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 32. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 236.

Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 33 (Dimock, vol. v. p.

279).

Early in November two royal chaplains had been despatched to summon the

Irish bishops to a council and claim their submission.[551] We hear

not a word of Pope Adrian’s bull; but we can hardly doubt that its

existence and its contents were in some way or other certified to the

Irish prelates before, in response to the royal mandate, they met in

council at Cashel in the first weeks of 1172.[552] The archbishop of

Armagh absented himself on the plea of extreme age and infirmity;[553]

all his episcopal brethren, however, made full submission to Henry,

pledged themselves to conform in all things to the pattern of the

English Church,[554] gave written promises to support the English king

and his heirs as lawful sovereigns of Ireland,[555] and joined with

him in sending to Rome a report of his proceedings and their own.[556]

[551] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 28. Rog. Howden (as above),

p. 31. The messengers were Nicolas, a chaplain of the king, and

Ralf archdeacon of Landaff. They were sent out “circa festum S.

Leonardi” (November 6). _Gesta Hen._ as above.

[552] The _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden as above, both place

this council before Christmas 1171. Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 35

(p. 281), and R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351, date it 1172.

It seems better to follow them, for though Gerald is certainly

no chronologist, he is the only writer who gives a detailed and

rational account of this synod; and the summary given by R.

Diceto also shews a fair knowledge of the subject, though he

makes the synod meet at Lismore instead of Cashel.

[553] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 283). He adds that the primate

afterwards went to Dublin and there submitted to Henry; but see

Dr. Lanigan’s comment, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp.

205, 206.

[554] Gir. Cambr. as above. R. Diceto (as above), pp. 350, 351.

[555] They sent him “litteras suas in modum cartæ extra

sigillum pendentes:” _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 26. Cf. Rog.

Howden (as above), pp. 30, 31. This is however placed by both

writers some time before the council. See above, p. 114,

note 6{549}.

[556] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 31, says that Henry

sent copies of the bishops’ letters of submission to Rome.

Dr. Lanigan (_Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 217, 218)

objects that this can only have been done some time later,

as Henry’s communications were cut off by the weather. But

this is not borne out either by the words of R. Diceto

(Stubbs, vol. i. p. 350) or by those of Gerald (_Expugn.

Hibern._, l. i. c. 36, Dimock, vol. v. p. 284). They both

say distinctly that a persistent contrary wind hindered all

communication _from England to Ireland_. For communication

in the opposite direction such a wind would surely be most

favourable. Moreover, it is quite certain that the Pope did,

some time before September 20, 1172, receive reports of Henry’s

proceedings in Ireland both from Henry himself and from the

Irish bishops, for he says so in three letters--one addressed

to Henry, another to the kings and bishops of Ireland, and the

third to the legate, Christian bishop of Lismore--all dated

Tusculum, September 20, and all printed in Hearne’s _Liber

Niger_, vol. i. pp. 42–48, as well as in the notes to _Macariæ

Excidium_ (O’Callaghan), pp. 255–262.

In all Ireland the king of Connaught was now the only ruler, spiritual

or temporal, who had not submitted to Henry.[557] Trusting to the

inaccessible nature of his country,[558] Roderic had at first refused

all dealings with the invader, declaring that he himself was the sole

rightful monarch of Ireland.[559] It seems however that he afterwards

came to a meeting with William Fitz-Aldhelm and Hugh de Lacy by the

banks of the Shannon, on the frontier of Connaught and Meath, and

there promised tribute and fealty like his fellow-kings.[560] The

promise was however worthless until confirmed by his personal homage;

and this Henry soon perceived was only to be extorted at the sword’s

point. The impossibility of fighting to any advantage in the wet Irish

winter compelled him to postpone the attempt until the spring;[561]

and when spring came he found that his intended campaign must be

abandoned altogether. From the day when he left Milford he had received

not one word of tidings from any part of his dominions.[562] This

total isolation, welcome at first as a relief from the load of cares

which indeed he had purposely left behind him,[563] became at the end

of nineteen weeks a source of almost unbearable anxiety. On March 1

he removed from Dublin to Wexford;[564] there for nearly a month he

remained eagerly watching for a ship from England; none came until

after Mid-Lent,[565] and then it was laden with such ill news that he

could only take such hasty measures as were possible at the moment for

maintaining his hold upon Ireland, and prepare to hurry out of it as

soon as the wind would carry him.[566] Richard of Striguil was suffered

to remain at Kildare[567] as earl of Leinster; the general direction

of government and administration throughout the king’s Irish domains

was intrusted to Hugh de Lacy,[568] who had already received a grant of

Meath in fee,[569] and who was also left in command of the citadel of

Dublin,[570] with a garrison of twenty knights, among whom were Maurice

Fitz-Gerald[571] and Robert Fitz-Stephen.[572] The grants of territory

made by Dermot to the half-brothers were of course annulled; Waterford

and Wexford were both garrisoned and placed in charge of an officer

appointed by the king;[573] and in each of these towns a fortress was

either erected or repaired by his orders.[574]

[557] Perhaps we should add the chief of Aileach; see above, p.

114, note 6{549}.

[558] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 348.

[559] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 25, 26. Gerv. Cant.

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 235.

[560] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 33 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 279). See Dr. Lanigan’s refutation of Gerald’s comment on

the legal effect of this transaction, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_,

vol. iv. pp. 203, 204.

[561] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), pp. 26, 29.

[562] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 36 (p. 284). R. Diceto as above,

p. 350.

[563] See Gervase of Canterbury’s account of his motives for

going to Ireland (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 235).

[564] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 29; Rog. Howden

(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 33.

[565] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 37 (Dimock, vol.

v. p. 285).

[566] _Ib._ c. 37 (pp. 285, 286). In the Anglo-Norm. Poem

(Michel), pp. 128, 129, Henry is made to receive the bad news

before leaving Dublin, which is obviously too soon. Cf. _Gesta

Hen._ as above, and Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 33, 34.

[567] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 132.

[568] “Constituit eum justitiarium Hyberniæ.” Rog. Howden (as

above), p. 34.

[569] _Ibid._ _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 30. Gir. Cambr. (as

above), c. 38 (p. 286). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 130. See

the charter of donation in Lyttelton, _Hen. II._, vol. iv. p.

295.

[570] Gir. Cambr., _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden, as above.

Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 129.

[571] Gir. Cambr. as above.

[572] Anglo-Norm. Poem, as above--adding Meiler Fitz-Henry and

Miles Fitz-David.

[573] _Gesta Hen._, Rog. Howden and Gir. Cambr. as above.

[574] _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden, as above. If we may believe

the Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel, p. 130) Henry furthermore made

a grant of Ulster to John de Courcy--“si à force la peust

conquere.”

A better mode of securing his authority in Dublin was probably

suggested to him by the ravages which war and famine had made among

its population. Eight years before he had taken the burghers of

Bristol, so long the medium of trading intercourse between England

and Ireland, under his especial patronage and protection.[575] He now

granted to them the city of Dublin, to colonize and to hold of him and

his heirs by the same free customs which they enjoyed in their own

town of Bristol.[576] It is plain that Henry was already aiming at

something far other than a mere military conquest of Ireland; and the

long and varied list of English names, from all parts of the country,

which is found in a roll of the Dublin citizens only a few years

later,[577] shews how willingly his plans were taken up, not only at

Bristol but throughout his realm, by the class to which he chiefly

and rightly trusted for aid in their execution. Unluckily, they were

scarcely formed when he was obliged to leave their developement to

other hands; and the consequence was a half success which proved in

the end to be far worse than total failure. On Easter night[578] he

sailed from Wexford;[579] next day he landed at Portfinnan, hard by S.

David’s;[580] before the octave was out he had hurried through South

Wales to Newport;[581] in a few days more he was at Portsmouth;[582]

and before Rogation-tide he was once more in Normandy, ready to face

the bursting of a storm whose consequences were to overshadow all his

remaining years and to preclude all chance of his return to complete

his conquest of Ireland.

[575] In January 1164 “he granted a short charter of privileges

to the burghers of Bristol, whom as sovereign lord he calls

_his_ burgesses, although they were then under the lordship

of the earl of Gloucester. This charter contains only an

exemption from toll and passage and other customary payments

for themselves and their goods through the king’s own lands,

with a confirmation of their existing privileges and liberties”

(Seyer, _Mem. of Bristol_, vol. i. p. 494, with a reference to

“Charters of Bristol, No. 1”).

[576] Charter printed in Gilbert, _Hist. and Munic. Documents

of Ireland_, p. 1.

[577] _Ib._ p. 3 _et seq._

[578] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351, says at sunset on

Easter day (April 16); the Ann. Loch Cé, a. 1172 (Hennessy,

vol. i. p. 147), say on Easter day “after Mass.” Gerald,

_Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 38 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 286), the

_Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 30, and Rog. Howden (Stubbs),

vol. ii. p. 34, say he sailed early on the Monday morning,

the two latter adding a reason--he would not travel on the

feast-day, though he had suffered his household to do so. Most

probably he sailed at midnight, as seems to have been often

done. The _Brut y Tywys._ a. 1172 (Williams, p. 217), makes him

reach Pembroke on Good Friday, but this is impossible.

[579] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 30. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel),

p. 131. The household had sailed from Croch to Milford; _ibid._

Cf. Rog. Howden as above, p. 34.

[580] _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden, as above. R. Diceto

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351. The name of the place, Portfinnan, is

given only in the Anglo-Norm. Poem (as above).

[581] See the itinerary in Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i.

cc. 38–40 (Dimock, vol. v. pp. 286–291), compared with _Brut y

Tywys._ a. 1172 (Williams, pp. 217–219).

[582] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 30. Rog. Howden

(Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 34. It is Porchester in R. Diceto

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351.

CHAPTER IV.

HENRY AND THE BARONS.

1166–1175.

For the last eight years Henry had been literally, throughout his

English realm, over all persons and all causes supreme. From the hour

of Thomas’s flight, not a hand, not a voice was lifted to oppose or

to question his will; England lay passive before him; the time seemed

to have come when he might work out at leisure and without fear of

check his long-cherished plans of legal, judicial and administrative

reform. In the execution of those plans, however, he was seriously

hampered by the indirect consequences of the ecclesiastical quarrel.

One of these was his own prolonged absence from England, which was

made necessary by the hostility of France, and which compelled him

to be content with setting his reforms in operation and then leave

their working to other hands and other heads, without the power of

superintending it and watching its effects with his own eyes, during

nearly six years. He had now to learn that the enemy with whom he had

been striving throughout those years was after all not the most serious

obstacle in his way;--that the most threatening danger to his scheme of

government still lay, as it had lain at his accession, in that temper

of the baronage which it had been his first kingly task to bring under

subjection. The victory which he had gained over Hugh Bigod in 1156

was real, but it was not final. The spirit of feudal insubordination

was checked, not crushed; it was only waiting an opportunity to lift

its head once more; and with the strife that raged around S. Thomas of

Canterbury the opportunity came.

Henry’s attitude towards the barons during these years had been of

necessity a somewhat inconsistent one. He never lost sight of the

main thread of policy which he had inherited from his grandfather: a

policy which may be defined as the consolidation of kingly power in

his own hands, through the repression of the feudal nobles and the

raising of the people at large into a condition of greater security

and prosperity, and of closer connexion with and dependence upon the

Crown, as a check and counterpoise to the territorial influence of

the feudataries. On the other hand, his quarrel with the primate had

driven him to throw himself on the support of those very feudataries

whom it was his true policy to repress, and had brought him into

hostility with the ecclesiastical interest which ought to have been,

and which actually had been until now, his surest and most powerful

aid. If it was what we may perhaps venture to call the feudal side of

the ecclesiastical movement--its introduction of a separate system of

law and jurisdiction, traversing and impeding the course of his own

uniform regal administration--which roused the suspicions of the king,

it was its anti-feudal side, its championship of the universal rights

and liberties of men in the highest and widest sense, that provoked

the jealousy of the nobles. This was a point which Henry, blinded for

the moment by his natural instinct of imperiousness, seems to have

overlooked when at the council of Northampton he stooped to avail

himself of the assistance of the barons to crush the primate. They

doubtless saw what he failed to see, that he was crushing not so much

his own rival as theirs. The cause of the Church was bound up with that

of the people, and both alike were closely knit to that of the Crown.

Sceptre and crozier once parted, the barons might strive with the

former at an advantage such as they had never had while Lanfranc stood

beside William and Anselm beside Henry I., such as they never could

have had if Thomas had remained standing by the side of Henry II.[583]