4

demand of thirty hostages, which Dermot had advanced as the condition of his agreeing to terms, the young Milo de Cogan, and his adventurous comrades, were eyeing the ramparts in search of an assailable point; and, as soon as the time allowed to St. Laurence for the purpose of parley had expired, or, according to some accounts, even before Milo de Cogan and Raymond gave the signal for the assault, and, leading their troops to a part of the walls which they had observed to be ill defended, were, in a few moments, in the streets of the city; where the wretched inhabitants, thus taken off their guard, having been led to expect terms of peace, became almost unresistingly victims of the slaughter and plunder which ensued.

Notwithstanding, however, the suddenness of the assault, the governor, Hasculf, and a number of the leading citizens, succeeded in gaining some small vessels which lay at anchor in the harbour, and, with the aid of a favourable wind, made their escape to some of the Orkney Isles.* In the midst of all the confusion and massacre, the good St. Laurence was seen exposing himself to every danger, and even, as his biographer describes him, dragging from the enemies' hands the palpitating bodies of the slain, to have them decently interred. He also succeeded, at great risk, in prevailing upon the new authorities to retain most of the clergy in their situations, and recovered from the plunderers the books and ornaments which had belonged to the different churches.

On Strongbow's departure from Waterford, he had left, for the defence of that town, a small garrison, chiefly of archers; which Cormac M'Carthy, King of Desmond, by a sudden and vigorous attack surprised and defeated.‡

While the invaders were thus employed in possessing themselves of the most important city in the kingdom, the forces of the monarch, instead of opposing them, and endeavouring to embarrass, if not wholly defeat, their operations, had been drawn off for the local and partisan purpose of supporting his liegeman O'Ruarc, in the possession of the territory of East Meath, over which he had lately, by an act of arbitrary favour, placed him. To back by arms his own and O'Ruarc's claims, in that territory, was the object for which he now marched his forces into Meath; and no sooner had Dublin been taken possession of, than Dermot determined to transfer the scene of his own operations to the same quarter. In addition to the desire of still farther humbling Roderic, the indulgence of his old and inveterate grudge to Tiernan O'Ruarc lent, of course, a peculiar zest to the enterprise. Having, through Strongbow's recommendation, intrusted the govern ment of Dublin to the gallant Milo de Cogan, he sent the earl, with a large force, to invade and lay waste the lands of Meath, and followed himself, soon after, with the remainder of the army.

Besides the usual waste and ruin of which fire and sword were the prompt instruments, a more than ordinary excess of barbarity is said to have marked the course of these confederate chiefs, as well through the parts of Meath now under the government of O'Ruarc, as in that chieftain's own principality of Breffny. The sacrilegious violence once so foreign to the character of the Island of Saints, and which had been engrafted on Irish warfare by the evil example of the Danes, was exhibited, in the course of this expedition, in its most revolting form; and the churches of Cluanrard, Tailten, Cell-Scire, and Disirt-Ciaran are among those mentioned as having been despoiled and burnt down by the ravagers.

Of all these insulting acts of aggression, the humbled monarch found himself forced to be an unresisting witness, wanting the power, even if possessed of the spirit, to resent such reiterated defiance of his authority and arms. In this dilemina, resorting once more to his old expedient of negotiation, he despatched deputies to the camp of Derinot, who were charged to upbraid him, in the name of their monarch, with these gross and repeated violations of all his most solemn engagements; and to threaten, moreover, that if he did not instantly withdraw his troops, and restrain the excursion of his foreigners, the head of his son, who was still in Roderic's hands as a hostage, should be cut off and sent to him. To this message Dermot haughtily replied, that he meant to persevere as he had begun, nor would desist till he had brought Connaught, his ancient inheritance, under his sway; and also recovered for himself, not merely by arms, but in right of his title, the supreme government of all Ireland. On receiving this insolent answer, the weak and angry Roderic, whose few accesses of vigour were as odious as his general weakness was contemptible, ordered the unoffending son of Dermot to be beheaded, T

IV. Mag. ad ann. 1170. It is stated, in the account given by the Four Masters of this event, that Asgal Mac Ragnall, the King of the Northmen of that city, also made his escape. Vita S. Laurentii, cap. 18. IV. Mag. ad an. 1170.

IV. Mag. ad ann. 1170.

It appears to have been on his descent from the monarch Murkertach O'Brien, that he founded this claim to the sovereignty.

Stanihurst, lib. 3.-IV. Mag. Ibid. In the face of this record-if, indeed, he knew of its existenceKeating tells us that Roderic, astonished at the insolence of this petty prince (Dermot,) resolved in his

putting to death, at the same time, a grandson of that prince, the son of Donald Kavenagh, and also a third hostage he had received from him, the son of his Comhalt, or foster-brother, O'Coallag. By these multiplied acts of cruelty, the wretched monarch drew down upon himself universal odium.

Among a people of strong religious feelings, such as the Irish had, even to this period, remained, notwithstanding the ignorance and barbarism to which internal misrule and foreign invasion had reduced them, it was not unnatural that the new scourge which had now fallen upon their land should be viewed with terror as a judgment of God on account of the sins of the people, an awful renewal, by the hand of Providence, of all that their fathers had endured in days gone by, when first the Black and the White Strangers descended in swarms upon their shores. That some such panic must at this period have taken possession of them appears manifest, not merely from the unmanly alarm with which, on several occasions, whole multitudes of the natives are said to have fled before small parties of these foreigners, but also from the proceedings of a remarkable synod, convened at Armagh this year, for the purpose of taking into their consideration the perilous state of the country. Concluding that the sins and offences of the people were the great cause of the awful calamities that threatened them, they resolved to seek, in some general and national act of repentance the salutary means both of propitiation and self-relief.

"The synod declared," says the chronicler, "that this calamity was to be held as an infliction of Divine justice, on account of the sins of the Irish people; and more especially because that, in former times, they used to make bond-slaves of the English whom they had purchased as well from merchants as from robbers and pirates;-a crime, for which God now took vengeance upon them by delivering them into like bondage themselves. For the English people," it was added, “while yet their kingdom was in a state of security, were accustomed, through a common vice of the nation, to expose their children for sale; and, even before they were pressed by want or distress, to sell their own sons and kinsmen to the Irish. It was therefore natural to suppose that the purchasers, as well as the sellers, in such a traffic, would well deserve, for their enormous crime, to be doomed themselves to wear the yoke of servitude.‡ "Acting upon the spirit of these humane and Christian views, the synod unanimously decreed and ordered that all the English throughout the island, who were in a state of slavery, should be restored to their former freedom."

It may be remarked here that slavery had, from a very early period, existed among the Irish, as is proved by the regulations respecting bond men and bond women, which are found in some very ancient canons of our Church. Wherever the practice, indeed, of piracy, whether in ancient or modern times, has prevailed, there the traffic in human

passion to execute his purpose upon the royal hostage he had in his hands, but, upon mature reflection, he desisted..... knowing that such a barbarous act would render him odious to his people, whose affections were his only support."

* Dr. Warner, in referring to this curious document, observes, very justly." Cambrensis, Bishop of St. David's, who gives this account, adds, That the English, by a common vice of their country, had a custom to sell their children and kinsfolk into Ireland, although they were neither in want nor extreme poverty.' The English reader, after this, must never charge the Irish of that age with being rude and barbarous; because he will be bid to look at home."-Hist. of Ireland, vol. i. book 2.

† By reference to the original it will be seen how carelessly, if not ignorantly, Dr. Campbell has interpreted the meaning of this passage." It was the common vice," he says, of all the English, from their first settlement in Britain, to expose their children and relations to sale rather than that they should suffer any want." -Strictures, &c. sect, 12. With the extremities to which want reduces its victims, the Irish were themselves but too well acquainted; and the annalists frequently, in describing the horrors of a famine, say that it was such as would compel a father to sell his son or daughter for food." Thus in the Ulster Annals (ad ann. 964:)-" -“ Gorta mor diulocta in er, eo renadh an tathair a mac et ingen arbiadh."

1 Tandem communis omnium in hac sententia resedit, propter peccata scilicit populi sui, eoque præcipue quod Anglos olim tam a mercatoribus quam a prædonibus atque pyratis, emere passim et in servitutem redigere consueverant, divinæ censura vindictæ hoc eis incommodum accidisse, ut et ipsi quoque ab eadem gente in servitutem vice recriproca jam redigantur. Anglorum namque populus adhuc integro eorum regno, communi gentis vitio, liberos suos venales exponere, et, priusquam inopiam ullam aut inediam sustinerent, filios proprios et cognatos in Hiberniam vendere consueverant. Unde et probabiliter credi potest, sicut venditores olim, ita et emptores tam enormi dilicto juga servitutis jam meruisse."-Girald. Cambrens. Hib. Expug. lib i. c. 18. In Ware's Annals, as translated into English. there occurs a most gross and, as it appears, wilful misrepre. sentation of the meaning of the sentences here printed in Italics, which the writer thus shamefully per verts: With the consent of the whole clergy it was concluded that God for the sins of the people had afflicted the Irish; and particularly for their selling the English taken by pirates, or otherwise." Of all share in this bare faced falsification, Sir James Ware himself is to be acquitted, being, as Dr. Lanigan justly remarks, too honest to corrupt his authority." The blame, therefore, of the dishonesty, or the ignorance, whichsoever it may have been, must lie at the door of his translators. The calumny, however, has been adopted, without examination or scruple, by others, and we find Rapin confusedly assigning, as the pretext for Henry's invasion, "the Irish having taken some Englishmen prisoners, and afterwards sold them for slaves." Speed, also, who takes the same false view of the subject, adds, in the genuine spirit of misrepresentation, which made the Irish clergy themselves confess that they had deserved no other than that their land should be transferred to that nation whom they had so cruelly handled."

§ See, for three canons, Ware, Antiq. c. 20.

creatures, as an ordinary article of commerce, has also existed; and it was in the course, as we have seen, of a predatory expedition of Nial of the Nine Hostages to the coast of Gaul,* that St. Patrick, then a youth, was carried away and sold as a bond slave in Ireland. Besides the slaves imported from England, of which traffic Bristol was the great mart, the Irish had also a class of bondmen called Villeins, which were regardant, as the law expresses it, to the manor, and esteemed a part of the inheritance or farm.

In referring to the remarkable synodic decree, just cited, an Irish writer of the seventeenth century,-one of the many whom, at that time, the persecution of their country's creed at home compelled to carry their talents and industry to other shores, indulges in a wish as deeply significant, as it is melancholy and hopeless. “If, then, the Irish,” he says, "as Giraldus intimates, made themselves accomplices in the guilt of the English by buying their children, when offered willingly by them for sale, it were to be wished that the English nation, which reduced the children of those Irish to slavery, contrary to the will and wish of their parents, would in so far imitate the act of the Irish of that period, as to release their posterity, long suffering in servitude, and restore them to their former independence and freedom. For, if the lighter crime drew down on its perpetrators such punishment, how heavy a judgment must fall upon the greater and more lasting wrong!"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Alarm of Henry at the progress of Strongbow.-His proclamation.-Raymond despatched to him with a letter.-Death of the King of Leinster.-Attack upon Dublin by Hasculf.-His defeat and death.-Patriotic exertions of Archbishop Laurence.-Dublin invested by a large army of the Irish.-Negotiation between Strongbow and Roderic.-Intrepid sally of the English.-Retreat of the Irish forces.-Fitz-Stephen besieged at Carrig.-Strongbow marches to relieve him.-Treacherous conduct towards Fitz-Stephen.-Strongbow repairs to England.-Makes his peace with King Henry.-Embarkation of Henry for Ireland.Receives the submission of several of the Irish Princes.-Holds his court in Dublin.-Synod of Cashel.-Its decrees.-Council held by Henry at Lismore.-Laws enacted by him.Grants of estates and dignities to Hugh de Lacy and others-Henry removes to Waterford. His departure for England.

THE open defiance by Strongbow of the mandate of his king, together with the independent course of conquest he was now pursuing, would, even in a prince far less tenacious of his kingly authority than Henry II., have awakened resentment and alarm. It was not to be expected, therefore, that he would any longer brook such encroachments; and the earl, in the midst of his flow of success, found himself checked, at once, by the appearance of an edict of the king, forbidding strictly all traffic and intercourse with Ireland, from any part of his dominions; and commanding all his subjects, now in that country, of every order and degree, to return home before the ensuing feast of Easter, on pain of perpetual banishment and the forfeiture of all their estates. The effects of this measure were soon most embarrassingly felt by Strongbow in the total stoppage of

* See chap. vii., p. 88., of this Work.

"Slaves," says Seyer, "were exported from England in such numbers that it seems to have been a fashion among the people of property in Ireland, and other neighbouring countries, to be attended by Eng. lish slaves."- History of Bristol. He ought to have added, that it was from his own city, Bristol, these slaves were chiefly, and to so late a period as the reign of king John, exported. William of Malmesbury, who describes the number of young English slaves, of both sexes, who used to be shipped off from Bristol to Ireland, tied together by ropes, attributes to St. Wistan the credit of having suppressed this unchristian traffic.-"Homines enim ex omni Anglia coemptos majoris spe quæstûs in Hiberniam distrahebant; ancillasque prius ludibrio lecti habitas jamque prægnantes venum proponebant. Videres et gemeres concatenatos funibus, miserorum ordines et utriusque sexus adolescentes."-De Vit. Wistani.

1 Colgan. Sed si Hiberni, ut ipse innuit, fuerint participes delicti Anglorum emendo filios eorum ab ipsis parentibus sponte divenditos, utinam et Angli postea filios Hibernorum contra parentum vota et volun. tates in servitutem redigentes, sint imitatores Hibernorum in filios eorum servitutis vinculo diu mancipatos in pristinam revocando libertatem, et vereantur ubi delictum levius severe jam punitum est graviori delicto severiorem vindictam aliquando non defecturam,"-Trias Thaumat. Sept. Append. ad ann. 1170.

his supplies from England, and the desertion of a number of his soldiers and knights; which state of things being ominous of ruin to his future prospects, he consulted the most judicious of those persons about him, as to the steps advisable for him to take, and the result was his sending off Raymond le Gros to the English king, who was then in Normandy, with a letter expressed in the following terms:

"My sovereign lord, I came into this land, and (if I remember aright) with your permission, for the purpose of aiding in the restoration of your liegeman Dermot Mac Morrough; and, whatsoever the favour of fortune has bestowed upon me, whether from his patrimony or from any other source, as to your gracious munificence I owe it all, so shall it all return to you, and be placed at the disposal of your absolute will and pleasure."

Though this acknowledgment comprised in it all that the king could desire, both pride and policy forbade his yielding too ready a pardon to acts of self-will so dangerous in their example. He did not deign, therefore, even to notice the earl's letter, and Raymond waited some time at his court, expecting an answer, but in vain. In the mean while the assassination of that remarkable man, Thomas à Becket, had drawn down upon Henry, throughout Europe, such a load of suspicion and odium as required all the resources of mind he so eminently possessed, to enable him to confront and overcome; and, accordingly, for a time his views upon Ireland were merged in objects of more deep and pressing interest.

In the state of embarrassment to which the English adventurers were now reduced, they had to suffer another serious blow in the loss of the great projector and patron of their expedition, Dermot himself, who died about the close of this year* at Ferns, of some unknown and frightful malady, which is said to have rendered him in his last moments, an object of horror and disgust. It is added, too, that so dreadful was the state of impenitence in which he departed, that his death combined, at once, all the worst features of moral depravity with the most loathsome form of physical disease. This evidently exaggerated account must be taken as a record, not so much of the real nature of his death, as of the deep and bitter hatred with which he was regarded by most of his contemporaries; the instances being numerous in history, where the mode of death attributed to personages who had rendered themselves odious during their lives, have been rather such as, according to popular feeling, they deserved, than as they actually did suffer.

On the demise of the King of Leinster, the Earl of Pembroke succeeded, in defiance of the law of the land, to the throne of that province, having been raised most probably to the post of Roydamna, by a forced election, during the life-time of the king. As he had been indebted, however, for much of his following to the personal influence acquired by Dermot over the lower classes, he now, in addition to his other difficulties, found himself deserted by the greater number of those partisans whom only fidelity to the fortunes of his father-in-law had led to range themselves under his banner. With the view of looking after his possessions and adherents in other parts of the country, the earl now left Dublin, and the commanders entrusted with the charge of that city during his absence were soon afforded an opportunity of displaying as well their good fortune as their valour. The late Governor of Dublin, Hasculf, who on its capture, as we have seen, by Strongbow and the King of Leinster, succeeded in escaping to the Orkney Islands, had been able to collect there a large army, as well of Norwegians as of other inhabitants of those isles, with which he now sailed up the Liffey; his armament, consisting of no less than sixty ships, while the troops armed, as we are told, in the Danish manner, wearing coats of mail and round red-coloured shields, were under the special conduct of a chieftain called by his countrymen John the Furious.

From this last King of Leinster, Dermot Mac-Morrough, descended the family of the O'Cavenaghs, the head of whom, through each successive generation, continued to style himself The Mac-Morrough till the reign of Henry VIII., when, on the submission of the Irish chiefs to Lord Leonard Grey, Charles O'Cavanach surrendered his title to Henry, and was constituted governor, for the king, of the Castle of Ferns. See, for an account of this circumstance, as well as of the title subsequently conferred upon the family, Hibernia Dominicana, c. 9., where the author thus cites his authority for the facts:- Huc porro faciunt sequentia verba quæ nudiustertius vidi in Regesto Feciali Regis Armorum in hac Dubliniensi civitate, nempe: Antiquissima familia de O'Cavanah originem ducit a Morrough Rege Lagenic," &c.

The explanation of this anomaly given by Mr. Sheffield Grace (in his Account of Tullyroan) is as follows:- Although, in the eyes of the English nation and sovereign, Strongbow was merely regarded as an English noble, holding of their king, yet, in the estimation of the Irish, be was accepted as the King of Leinster, in right of his wife Eva, heiress of that kingdom." But as, by the old Irish law, women themselves were excluded from inheritance, they were also, of course, incapable of communicating a right of inheritance to their husbands.

Hibern. Expugnat. 1. 1. c. 21.—“ Viri bellicosi Danico more, undique ferro vestiti, alii loricis longis, alii laminis ferreis arte consutis, clypeis quoque rotundis et rubris."

Landing with this force, Hasculf attacked the eastern gate of the city, where, being encountered by Milo de Cogan, he was repulsed with the loss of 500 men. But the Anglo-Norman, flushed with this advantage, and leading his knights in pursuit of the fugitives too eargerly, found himself beset at length by superior numbers,—some of his best men falling around him, while others were, it is said, seized with sudden panic, on seeing the thigh of a knight, which was cased all over in iron, cut off by a Danish chief with a single blow of his battle-axe.* Thus hardly pressed, Milo endeavoured, with his small band, to regain the gate for the purpose of retiring within the walls; but, the besiegers still crowding upon him, he was on the very point of falling beneath their numbers, when his brother, Richard de Cogan, whether from knowledge of his perilous situation, or more probably in pursuance of a pre-arranged plan, issued forth with a body of horse from the southern gate of the city, and coming unobserved on the rear of the assailants, raised a loud shout, and suddenly charged them. Dismayed by so unexpected an attack, and imagining it to proceed from some newly arrived re-enforcement, the besiegers fled in such headlong terror and confusion, that, in the efforts of all to save themselves, but a small number escaped.

After a long and fierce struggle with his assailants, John the Furious was at length felled to the ground; and an English knight, named Walter de Riddlesford, with the assistance of some others, slew him. Hasculf himself, in flying to his ships, was taken prisoner upon the sands, and brought back alive to be reserved for ransom. On appearing, however, before the governor and a large assembly in the council house, he haughtily exclaimed, "We came here with only a small force, and this has been but the beginning of our labours. If I live, far other and greater things shall follow." More angry at the insolence of this speech than touched by the brave, though rash, spirit which dictated it, the governor ordered the unfortunate chieftain to be immediately beheaded.

Notwithstanding this turn of success, as signal and brilliant as it was fortuitous, which had come thus seasonably to relieve the sinking fortunes of the English, it was clear that the relief could be but superficial and temporary; the small amount of force they could command being dispersed through different garrisons, while the defection of the natives had become almost universal, and all means of supply or re-enforcement from England were interdicted. Under such circumstances, it can hardly be doubted that there wanted but a single combined effort on the part of the Irish, to sweep at once this handful of hardy and desperate adventurers from the face of the land. That there should have arisen, at a crisis so momentous, not even one brave and patriotic Irishman to proclaim aloud to his divided countrymen that in their union alone lay strength and safety, would be a fact which, however disgraceful to the whole nation, might have been in so far consolatory, that it would prove all to have been alike worthy of the ignominious fate that befell them.

But the history of that period is not so utterly unredeemed and desolate, for such a patriot did then exist; and in the pious and high-minded St. Laurence O'Toole, Ireland possessed at that time both a counsellor and leader such as, had there been hearts and swords worthy to second him, might have rescued her from the vile bonds into which she was then sinking. Observing the reduced and straitened condition of the enemy, the archbishop saw with delight that the moment was arrived, when by a prompt and general coalition of his countrymen a blow might be struck to the very heart of the yet infant English power, a blow that would crush at once the swarm of foreign intruders now on their soil, and hold forth a warning of similar vengeance to all who, in future, might dare to follow in their footsteps. To effect this great national purpose a cordial union of the Irish princes was indispensable, and neither labour nor eloquence was spared by St. Laurence in his noble efforts to accomplish so glorious a result. He went from province to province, to every chieftain of every district, imploring them to forget all trivial animosities at such a crisis, and to rally round their common sovereign for the salvation of their own and their fathers' land. He likewise, in conjunction with Roderic, despatched emissaries to Godfred, King of the Island of Man, as well as to the princes of the neighbouring isles, entreating them, for their own sakes, as having a common interest in the reduction of the English power, to assist with their ships in the general attack which was now meditated upon Dublin.

Informed of these designs, Strongbow threw himself into the city, accompanied by Fitz

Regan. By this metrical chronicler the feat here described is attributed to John, the Norwegian chief himself, who bore the cognomen, according to Giraldus, of Theewoode, meaning the Mad, or Furious. † Lambeth MSS.

Laurentio Dubliniensi Antistite, zelo suæ gentis, ut ferebatur, hoc procurante.-Hib, Expug. 1. 1. c. 2. See Ware, Annals, ad ann. 1171.