Part 24 (2/2)
CHAPTER XVII.
Arrival of Henry II.--Some of the Native Princes pay him Homage--His Character--Dublin in the time of Henry II.--His Winter Palace--Norman Luxuries--King Henry holds a Court--Adrian's Bull--Temporal Power of the Popes in the Middle Ages--Conduct of the Clergy--Irish Property given to English Settlers--Henry II. returns to England--The Account Cambrensis gives of the Injuries done to Ireland by his Countrymen--Raymond, Montmarisco, and Strongbow--The latter is defeated--He recalls Raymond from Wales--Treaty between Roderic and Henry--Death of Strongbow.
[A.D. 1171-1176.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: H]
Henry landed in Ireland on the 18th of October, 1171, at Crook, in the county of Waterford. He was accompanied by Strongbow, William FitzAldelm, Humphrey de Bohun, Hugh de Lacy, Robert FitzBarnard, and many other lords. His whole force, which, according to the most authentic English accounts, was distributed in four hundred s.h.i.+ps, consisted of 500 knights and 4,000 men-at-arms. It would appear the Irish had not the least idea that he intended to claim the kingdom as his own, and rather looked upon him as a powerful potentate who had come to a.s.sist the native administration of justice. Even had they suspected his real object, no opposition might have been made to it. The nation had suffered much from domestic dissension; it had yet to learn that foreign oppression was an incomparable greater evil.
If a righteous king or a wise statesman had taken the affair in hand, Ireland might have been made an integral and most valuable portion of the British Empire without a struggle. The nation would have bowed gratefully to an impartial government; they have not yet ceased to resent a partial and frequently unjust rule. From the very commencement, the aggrandizement of the individual, and not the advantage of the people, has been the rule of action. Such government is equally disgraceful to the rulers, and cruel to the governed.
MacCarthy of Desmond was the first Irish prince who paid homage to the English King. At Cashel, Donnell O'Brien, King of Th.o.m.ond, swore fealty, and surrendered the city of Limerick. Other princes followed their example. The ”pomp and circ.u.mstance” of the royal court, attracted the admiration of a people naturally deferential to authority; the condescension and apparent disinterestedness of the monarch, won the hearts of an impulsive and affectionate race. They had been accustomed to an Ard-Righ, a chief monarch, who, in name at least, ruled all the lesser potentates: why should not Henry be such to them? and why should they suppose that he would exercise a tyranny as yet unknown in the island?
The northern princes still held aloof; but Roderic had received Henry's amba.s.sadors personally, and paid the usual deference which one king owed to another who was considered more powerful. Henry determined to spend his Christmas in Dublin, and resolved on a special display of royal state. It is to be presumed that he wished to make up for deficiency in stateliness of person by stateliness of presence; for, like most of the descendants of Duke Robert ”the Devil” and the daughter of the Falaise tanner, his appearance was not calculated to inspire respect. His grey bloodshot eyes and tremulous voice, were neither knightly nor kingly qualifications; his savage and ungovernable temper, made him appear at times rather like a demon than a man. He was charged with having violated the most solemn oaths when it suited his convenience. A cardinal had p.r.o.nounced him an audacious liar. Count Thiebault of Champagne had warned an archbishop not to rely on any of his promises, however sacredly made. He and his sons spent their time quarrelling with each other, when not occupied in quarrelling with their subjects. His eldest son, Richard, thus graphically sketched the family characteristics:--”The custom in our family is that the son shall hate the father; our destiny is to detest each other; from the devil we came, to the devil we shall go.” And the head of this family had now come to reform the Irish, and to improve their condition--social, secular, and ecclesiastical!
A special residence was erected for the court on part of the ground now occupied by the southern side of Dame-street. The whole extent of Dublin at that time was, in length, from Corn Market to the Lower Castle Yard; and in breadth, from the Liffey, then covering Ess.e.x-street, to Little Sheep-street, now s.h.i.+p-street, where a part of the town wall is yet standing.[286] The only edifices in existence on the southern side of Dame-street, even at the commencement of the seventeenth century, were the Church of St. Andrew and the King's Mills.[287] College-green was then quite in the country, and was known as the village of _Le Hogges_, a name that is apparently derived from the Teutonic word _Hoge_, which signifies a small hill or sepulchral mound. Here there was a nunnery called St. Mary le Hogges, which had been erected or endowed not many years before Henry's arrival, and a place called Hoggen's b.u.t.t, where the citizens exercised themselves in archery. Here, during the winter of 1171, the Celt, the Saxon, and the Norman, may have engaged in peaceful contests and pleasant trials of skill.
Henry's ”winter palace” was extemporized with some artistic taste. It was formed of polished osiers. Preparations had been made on an extensive scale for the luxuries of the table--a matter in which the Normans had greatly the advantage of either Celt or Saxon. The use of crane's flesh was introduced into Ireland for the first time, as well as that of herons, peac.o.c.ks,[288] swans, and wild geese. Almonds had been supplied already by royal order in great abundance; wine was purchased in Waterford, even now famous for its trade with Spain in that commodity. Nor had the King's physician forgotten the King's health; for we find a special entry amongst the royal disburs.e.m.e.nts of the sum of 10 7s., paid to Josephus Medicus for spices and electuaries. Yet Henri-curt-mantel[289] was careful of his physical well-being, and partook but sparingly of these luxuries. Fearing his tendency to corpulency, he threw the short cloak of his native Anjou round him at an earlier hour in the morning than suited the tastes of his courtiers, and took exercise either on horseback or on foot, keeping in constant motion all day.
When the Christmas festivities had pa.s.sed, Henry turned his attention to business, if, indeed, the same festivities had not also been a part of his diplomatic plans, for he was not deficient in kingcraft. In a synod at Cashel he attempted to settle ecclesiastical affairs. In a _Curia Regis_, held at Lismore, he imagined he had arranged temporal affairs.
These are subjects which demand our best consideration. It is an historical fact, that the Popes claimed and exercised great temporal power in the middle ages; it is admitted also that they used this power in the main for the general good;[290] and that, as monks and friars were the preservers of literature, so popes and bishops were the protectors of the rights of nations, as far as was possible in such turbulent times. It does not belong to our present subject to theorize on the origin or the grounds[291] of this power; it is sufficient to say that it had been exercised repeatedly both before and after Adrian granted the famous Bull, by which he conferred the kingdom of Ireland on Henry II. The Merovingian dynasty was changed on the decision of Pope Zachary. Pope Adrian threatened Frederick I., that if he did not renounce all pretensions to ecclesiastical property in Lombardy, he should forfeit the crown, ”received from himself and through his unction.” When Pope Innocent III. p.r.o.nounced sentence of deposition against Lackland in 1211, and conferred the kingdom of England on Philip Augustus, the latter instantly prepared to a.s.sert his claim, though he had no manner of t.i.tle, except the Papal grant.[292] In fact, at the very moment when Henry was claiming the Irish crown in right of Adrian's Bull, given some years previously, he was in no small trepidation at the possible prospect of losing his English dominions, as an excommunication and an interdict were even then hanging over his head. Political and polemical writers have taken strangely perverted views of the whole transaction. One writer,[293] with apparently the most genuine impartiality, accuses the Pope, the King, and the Irish prelates of the most scandalous hypocrisy. A cursory examination of the question might have served to prove the groundlessness of this a.s.sertion. The Irish clergy, he a.s.serts--and his a.s.sertion is all the proof he gives--betrayed their country for the sake of t.i.thes. But t.i.thes had already been enacted, and the Irish clergy were very far from conceding Henry's claims in the manner which some historians are pleased to imagine.
It has been already shown that the possession of Ireland was coveted at an early period by the Norman rulers of Great Britain. When Henry II.
ascended the throne in 1154, he probably intended to take the matter in hands at once. An Englishman, Adrian IV., filled the Papal chair. The English monarch would naturally find him favourable to his own country.
John of Salisbury, then chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, was commissioned to request the favour. No doubt he represented his master as very zealous for the interests of religion, and made it appear that his sole motive was the good, temporal and spiritual, of the barbarous Irish; at least this is plainly implied in Adrian's Bull.[294] The Pope could have no motive except that which he expressed in the doc.u.ment itself. He had been led to believe that the state of Ireland was deplorable; he naturally hoped that a wise and good government would restore what was amiss. There is no doubt that there was much which required amendment, and no one was more conscious of this, or strove more earnestly to effect it, than the saintly prelate who governed the archiepiscopal see of Dublin. The Irish clergy had already made the most zealous efforts to remedy whatever needed correction; but it was an age of lawless violence. Reform was quite as much wanted both in England and in the Italian States; but Ireland had the additional disadvantage of having undergone three centuries of ruthless plunder and desecration of her churches and shrines, and the result told fearfully on that land which had once been the home of saints.
Henry's great object was to represent himself as one who had come to redress grievances rather than to claim allegiance; but however he may have deceived princes and chieftains, he certainly did not succeed in deceiving the clergy. The Synod of Cashel, which he caused to be convened, was not attended as numerously as he had expected, and the regulations made thereat were simply a renewal of those which had been made previously. The Primate of Ireland was absent, and the prelates who a.s.sembled there, far from having enslaved the State to Henry, avoided any interference in politics either by word or act. It has been well observed, that, whether ”piping or mourning,” they are not destined to escape. Their office was to promote peace. So long as the permanent peace and independence of the nation seemed likely to be forwarded by resistance to foreign invasion, they counselled resistance; when resistance was hopeless, they recommended acquiescence, not because they believed the usurpation less unjust, but because they considered submission the wisest course. But the Bull of Adrian had not yet been produced; and Henry's indifference about this doc.u.ment, or his reluctance to use it, shows of how little real importance it was considered at the time. One fearful evil followed from this Anglo-Norman invasion. The Irish clergy had hitherto been distinguished for the high tone of their moral conduct; the English clergy, unhappily, were not so rich in this virtue, and their evil communication had a most injurious effect upon the nation whom it was supposed they should be so eminently capable of benefiting.
Henry did not succeed much better with his administration of secular affairs. In his _Curia Regis_, at Lismore, he modelled Irish administration on Norman precedents, apparently forgetting that a kingdom and a province should be differently governed. Strongbow was appointed Earl Marshal; Hugh de Lacy, Lord Constable; Bertram de Verdun, Seneschal; Theobald Walter, Chief Butler; and De Wellesley, Royal Standard-bearer. It was also arranged that, on the demise of a Chief Governor, the Norman n.o.bles were to elect a successor, who should have full authority, until the royal pleasure could be known. Henry did not then attempt to style himself King or Lord of Ireland; his object seems to have been simply to obtain authority in the country through his n.o.bles, as Wales had been subdued in a similar manner. English laws and customs were also introduced for the benefit of English settlers; the native population still adhered to their own legal observances. Henry again forgot that laws must be suited to the nation for whom they are made, and that Saxon rules were as little likely to be acceptable to the Celt, as his Norman tongue to an English-speaking people.
Dublin was now made over to the inhabitants of Bristol. Hugh de Lacy, its governor, has been generally considered in point of fact the first Viceroy for Ireland. He was installed in the Norman fas.h.i.+on, and the sword and cap of maintenance were made the insignia of the dignity.
Waterford and Wexford were also bestowed on royal favourites, or on such knights as were supposed most likely to hold them for the crown. Castles were erected throughout the country, which was portioned out among Henry's needy followers; and, for the first time in Ireland, a man was called a rebel if he presumed to consider his house or lands as his own property.
The winter had been so stormy that there was little communication with England; but early in spring the King received the portentous intelligence of the arrival of Papal Legates in Normandy, and learned that they threatened to place his dominions under an interdict, if he did not appear immediately to answer for his crime. Queen Eleanor and his sons were also plotting against him, and there were many who boldly declared that the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury would yet be fearfully avenged. Henry determined at once to submit to the Holy See, and to avert his doom by a real or pretended penitence. He therefore sailed for England from Wexford Harbour, on Easter Monday, the 17th of April, 1172, and arrived the same day at Port Finnen, in Wales. We give the testimony of Cambrensis, no friend to Ireland, to prove that neither clergy nor laity benefited by the royal visit. He thus describes the inauguration of that selfish system of plunder and devastation, to which Ireland has been subjected for centuries--a system which prefers the interests of the few to the rights of the many, and then scoffs bitterly at the misery it has created: ”The clergy are reduced to beggary in the island; the cathedral churches mourn, having been deprived, by the aforesaid persons [the leading adventurers], and others along with them, or who came over after them, of the lands and ample estates which had been formerly granted to them faithfully and devoutly. And thus the exalting of the Church has been changed into the despoiling or plundering of the Church.” Nor is his account of the temporal state of the kingdom any better. He informs us that Dermod Mac Murrough, the originator of all those evils, ”oppressed his n.o.bles, exalted upstarts, was a calamity to his countrymen, hated by the strangers, and, in a word, at war with the world.” Of the Anglo-Norman n.o.bles, who, it will be remembered, were his own relatives, and of their work, he writes thus: ”This new and b.l.o.o.d.y conquest was defiled by an enormous effusion of blood, and the slaughter of a Christian people.” And again: ”The lands even of the Irish who stood faithful to our cause, from the first descent of FitzStephen and the Earl, you have, in violation of a treaty, made over to your friends.”[295] His character of Henry is, that he was more given to ”hunting than to holiness.”
The English monarch, however, could a.s.sume an appearance of most profound humility and the deepest piety, when it suited his convenience.
He excelled himself in this department by his submission to the Holy See, when he found that submission alone could save his crown.
The Lord of Breffni had been one of Henry's favourite guests at his Christmas festivities. He possessed the territory of East Meath, and this territory Henry had coolly bestowed on Hugh de Lacy.[296] The rightful owner was not quite so dazzled by the suns.h.i.+ne of royal favour, as to be willing to resign his property without a struggle. The Irish chieftain, whose name was Tiernan O'Rourke, was persuaded to hold a conference with the English usurper at the Hill of Tara, near Athboy.
Both parties were attended by armed men. A dispute ensued. The interpreter was killed by a blow aimed at De Lacy, who fled precipitately; O'Rourke was killed by a spear-thrust as he mounted his horse, and vengeance was wreaked on his dead body, for the crime of wis.h.i.+ng to maintain his rights, by subjecting it to decapitation. His head was impaled over the gate of Dublin Castle, and afterwards sent as a present to Henry II. His body was gibbeted, with the feet upwards, on the northern side of the same building.[297] The Four Masters say that O'Rourke was treacherously slain. From the account given by Cambrensis, it would appear that there was a plot to destroy the aged chieftain, but for want of clearer evidence we may give his enemies the benefit of the doubt.
Strongbow was now employing himself by depredating the territories which had been conferred on him. He took an army of 1,000 horse and foot into Offaly, to lay waste O'Dempsey's territory, that prince having also committed the crime of wis.h.i.+ng to keep his ancestral estates. He met with no opposition until he was about to return with the spoils; then, as he pa.s.sed through a defile, the chieftain set upon him in the rear, and slew several of his knights, carrying off the Norman standard.
Robert de Quincey, who had just married a daughter of Strongbow's by a former marriage, was amongst the slain. The Earl had bestowed a large territory in Wexford on him.
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