Part 27 (1/2)
[312] _Conduct_.--This is mentioned even by c.o.x, who, Dr. O'Donovan observes, was always anxious to hide the faults of the English, and vilify the Irish. He calls Hugh Tyrrell ”a man of ill report,” and says he returned to Dublin ”loaden both with curses and extortions.”--_Hib.
Angl._ p. 38, ad an. 1184.
[313] _Accusation_.--There can be no doubt that De Lacy had ambitious designs. See Cambrensis, _Hib. Expug._ lib. ii. cap. 20. Henry II. heard of his death with considerable satisfaction.
[314] _Colum-cille_.--Dr. O'Donovan remarks that a similar disaster befell Lord Norbury. He was also a.s.sa.s.sinated by a hand still unknown, after having erected a castle on the same _site_ as that of De Lacy, and preventing the burial of the dead in the ancient cemetery of Durrow.
[315] _King of Ireland_.--During the reign of Richard all the public affairs of the Anglo-Norman colony were transacted in the name of ”John, Lord of Ireland, Earl of Montague.” Palgrave observes that John never claimed to be King of the Irish; like Edward, who wrote himself Lord of Scotland, and acknowledged Baliol to be King of the Scots.
[316] _Accounts_.--Gilbert's _Viceroys_, p. 58.
[317] _FitzHenri_.--His father was an illegitimate son of Henry I. When a mere youth, FitzHenri came to Ireland with the Geraldines, and obtained large possessions.
[318] _Pension_.--One hundred pounds per annum. Orders concerning it are still extant on the Close Rolls of England.--_Rol. Lit. Clau._ 1833, 144. It is curious, and should be carefully noted, how constantly proofs are appearing that the Irish bards and chroniclers, from the earliest to the latest period, were most careful as to the truth of their facts, though they may have sometimes coloured them highly. Dr. O'Donovan has devoted some pages in a note (Four Masters, vol. iii. p. 139) to the tales in the Book of Howth which record the exploits of De Courcy. He appears satisfied that they were ”invented in the fifteenth or sixteenth century.” Mr. Gilbert has ascertained that they were placed on record as early as 1360, in Pembridge's Annals. As they are merely accounts of personal valour, we do not reproduce them here. He also gives an extract from Hoveden's Annals, pars port, p. 823, which further supports the Irish account. Rapin gives the narrative as history. Indeed, there appears nothing very improbable about it. The Howth family were founded by Sir Almaric St. Lawrence, who married De Courcy's sister.
CHAPTER XIX.
Quarrels of the English Barons--The Interdict--John crushes and starves an Archdeacon to Death--King John's Visit to Ireland--He starves the Wife and Son of Earl de Braose to Death--Henry de Londres--The Poet O'Daly--Obituaries of Good Men--Henry III.--Regulations about the Viceroy--The Scorch Villain--Scandalous Conduct of the Viceroys--Three Claimants for Connaught--Death of Hugh Crovderg--Felim O'Connor--Henry's Foreign Advisers--Plots against the Earl of Pembroke--He is wounded treacherously--His Pious Death--Misfortunes of the Early Settlers--De Marisco's Son is hanged for High Treason, and he dies miserably in Exile.
[A.D. 1201-1244.]
King John was now obliged to interfere between his English barons in Ireland, who appear to have been quite as much occupied with feuds among themselves as the native princes. In 1201 Philip of Worcester and William de Braose laid waste the greater part of Munster in their quarrels. John had sold the lands of the former and of Theobald Walter to the latter, for four thousand marks--Walter redeemed his property for five hundred marks; Philip obtained his at the point of the sword. De Braose had large property both in Normandy and in England. He had his chancellor, chancery, and seal, recognizances of all pleas, not even excepting those of the crown, with judgment of life and limb. His sons and daughters had married into powerful families. His wife, Matilda, was notable in domestic affairs, and a vigorous oppressor of the Welsh. A b.l.o.o.d.y war was waged about the same time between De Lacy, De Marisco, and the Lord Justice. Cathal Crovderg and O'Brien aided the latter in besieging Limerick, while some of the English fortified themselves in their castles and plundered indiscrimately.
In 1205 the Earldom of Ulster was granted to Hugh de Lacy. The grant is inscribed on the charter roll of the seventh year of King John, and is the earliest record now extant of the creation of an Anglo-Norman dignity in Ireland. England was placed under an interdict in 1207, in consequence of the violence and wickedness of its sovereign. He procured the election of John de Grey to the see of Canterbury, a royal favourite, and, if only for this reason, unworthy of the office. Another party who had a share in the election chose Reginald, the Sub-Prior of the monks of Canterbury. But when the choice was submitted to Pope Innocent III., he rejected both candidates, and fixed on an English Cardinal, Stephen Langton, who was at once elected, and received consecration from the Pope himself. John was highly indignant, as might be expected. He swore his favourite oath, ”by G.o.d's teeth,” that he would cut off the noses and pluck out the eyes of any priest who attempted to carry the Pope's decrees against him into England. But some of the bishops, true to their G.o.d and the Church, promulgated the interdict, and then fled to France to escape the royal vengeance. It was well for them they did so; for Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Norwich, was seized, and enveloped, by the royal order, in a sacerdotal vestment of ma.s.sive lead, and thus thrown into prison, where he was starved to death beneath the crus.h.i.+ng weight. We sometimes hear of the cruelties of the Inquisition, of the barbarity of the Irish, of the tyranny of priestcraft; but such cruelties, barbarities, and tyrannies, however highly painted, pale before the savage vengeance which English kings have exercised, on the slightest provocation, towards their unfortunate subjects. But we have not yet heard all the refinements of cruelty which this same monarch exercised. Soon after, John was excommunicated personally. When he found that Philip of France was prepared to seize his kingdom, and that his crimes had so alienated him from his own people that he could hope for little help from them, he cringed with the craven fear so usually found in cruel men, and made the most abject submission. In the interval between the proclamation of the interdict and the fulmination of the sentence of excommunication (A.D. 1210), John visited Ireland. It may be supposed his arrival could not excite much pleasure in the hearts of his Irish subjects, though, no doubt, he thought it a mark of disloyalty that he should not be welcomed with acclamations. A quarter of a century had elapsed since he first set his foot on Irish ground. He had grown grey in profligacy, but he had not grown wiser or better with advancing years.
The year before his arrival, Dublin had been desolated by a pestilence, and a number of people from Bristol had taken advantage of the decrease in the population to establish themselves there. On the Easter Monday after their arrival, when they had a.s.sembled to amuse themselves in Cullen's Wood, the O'Byrnes and O'Tooles rushed down upon them from the Wicklow Mountains, and took a terrible vengeance for the many wrongs they had suffered, by a ma.s.sacre of some three hundred men. The citizens of Bristol sent over new colonists; but the anniversary of the day was long known as Black Monday.
The English King obtained money for his travelling expenses by extortion from the unfortunate Jews. He landed at Crook, near Waterford, on the 20th June, 1210. His army was commanded by the Earl of Salisbury, son to Henry I., by ”Fair Rosamond,” of tragic memory. De Braose fled to England when he heard of the King's movements. Here he endeavoured to make peace with his master, but failing to do so, he carefully avoided putting himself in his power, and took refuge in France. His wife was not so fortunate. After John's return to England, Matilda and her son were seized by his command, and imprisoned at Corfe Castle, in the isle of Pembroke. Here they were shut up in a room, with a sheaf of wheat and a piece of raw bacon for their only provision. When the prison door was opened on the eleventh day, they were both found dead.
De Lacy also fled before the King's visit; John took Carrickfergus Castle from his people, and stationed a garrison of his own there.
Several Irish princes paid homage to him; amongst others we find the names of Cathal Crovderg and Hugh O'Neill. The Norman lords were also obliged to swear fealty, and transcripts of their oaths were placed in the Irish Exchequer. Arrangements were also made for the military support of the colony, and certain troops were to be furnished with forty days' ration by all who held lands by ”knight's service.” The Irish princes who lived in the southern and western parts of Ireland, appear to have treated the King with silent indifference; they could afford to do so, as they were so far beyond the reach of his vengeance.
John remained only sixty days in Ireland. He returned to Wales on the 26th of August, 1210, after confiding the government of the colony to John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, whose predilection for secular affairs had induced the Holy See to refuse his nomination to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The most important act of his Viceroyalty was the erection of a bridge and castle at _Ath-Luain_ (Athlone). He was succeeded, in 1213, by Henry de Londres, who had been appointed to the see of Dublin during the preceding year. This prelate was one of those who were the means of obtaining _Magna Charta_. His name appears second on the list of counsellors who advised the grant; and he stood by the King's side, at Runnymede, when the barons obtained the bulwark of English liberty. It is sometimes forgotten that the clergy were the foremost to demand it, and the most persevering in their efforts to obtain it.
The Archbishop was now sent to Rome by the King to plead his cause there, and to counteract, as best he might, the serious complaints made against him by all his subjects--A.D. 1215. In 1213 Walter de Lacy obtained the restoration of his father's property in Wales and England.
Two years later he recovered his Irish lands; but the King retained his son, Gislebert, as hostage, and his Castle of _Droicead-Atha_ (Drogheda).
The Irish chieftains made some stand for their rights at the close of this reign. Cormac O'Melaghlin wrested Delvin, in Meath, from the English. O'Neill and O'Donnell composed their difference _pro tem._, and joined in attacking the invaders. In the south there was a war between Dermod and Connor Carthy, in which the Anglo-Normans joined, and, as usual, got the lion's share, obtaining such an increase of territory as enabled them to erect twenty new castles in Cork and Kerry.
The Four Masters give a curious story under the year 1213. O'Donnell More sent his steward to Connaught to collect his tribute. On his way he visited the poet Murray O'Daly, and began to wrangle with him, ”although his lord had given him no instructions to do so.” The poet's ire was excited. He killed him on the spot with a sharp axe--an unpleasant exhibition of literary justice--and then fled into Clanrickarde for safety. O'Donnell determined to revenge the insult, until Mac William (William de Burgo) submitted to him. But the poet had been sent to seek refuge in Th.o.m.ond. The chief pursued him there also, and laid siege to Limerick.[319] The inhabitants at once expelled the murderer, who eventually fled to Dublin. After receiving tribute from the men of Connaught, O'Donnell marched to Dublin, and compelled the people to banish Murray to Scotland. Here he remained until he had composed three poems in praise of O'Donnell, imploring peace and forgiveness. He was then pardoned, and so far received into favour as to obtain a grant of land and other possessions.
The Irish bishops were, as usual, in constant intercourse with Rome.
Several prelates attended the fourth General Council of Lateran, in 1215. The Annals give the obituaries of some saintly men, whose lives redeemed the age from the character for barbarity, which its secular literature would seem to justify. Amongst these we find the obituary of Catholicus O'Duffy, in 1201; of Uaireirghe, ”one of the n.o.ble sages of Clonmacnois, a man full of the love of G.o.d and of every virtue;” of Con O'Melly, Bishop of Annaghdown, ”a transparently bright gem of the Church;” of Donnell O'Brollaghan, ”a prior, a n.o.ble senior, a sage, ill.u.s.trious for his intelligence;” and of many others. A great number of monasteries were also founded, especially by the Anglo-Normans, who appear to have had periodical fits of piety, after periodical temptations to replenish their coffers out of their neighbours'
property. We may not quite judge their reparations as altogether insincere; for surely some atonement for evil deeds is better than an utter recklessness of future punishment.
Henry III. succeeded his father, John, while only in his tenth year.
William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, was appointed protector of the kingdom and the King. The young monarch was hastily crowned at Bristol, with one of his mother's golden bracelets. Had the wise and good Earl lived to administer affairs for a longer period, it would have been a blessing to both countries. Geoffrey de Marisco still continued Governor of Ireland. Affairs in England were in an extremely critical position.
The profligate Isabella had returned to her first husband, Hugh de Lusignan, whom she had before forsaken for King John. Gloucester, London, and Kent, were in the hands of the Dauphin of France. Some few acts of justice to Ireland were the result; but when justice is only awarded from motives of fear or interest, it becomes worse than worthless as a mode of conciliation. Such justice, however, as was granted, only benefited the Anglo-Norman settlers; the ”mere Irish” were a race devoted to plunder and extermination.