and to have received thankfully the substitution of the laws of England for their own.* But such was by no means the real nature of this legislative act of the king, the sole object of which was to insure to his English subjects, settling in Ireland, the continued enjoyment of the laws and usages of that country from whence they had sprung, in return for their continued allegiance to him and his heirs in the new territories which they had adopted.

So far was Henry, indeed, from wishing to innovate on the ancient laws of the land, that in the synod held, as we have seen, at Cashel, under his authority, a direct sanction was tacitly given to some of the most inveterate of those old Irish abuses of which so much is heard in the subsequent history of the country. For it is clear, that, in exempting specially the body of the clergy from Coyn,t Coshering, the payment of Eric, and other such exactions, that synod left these old laws and customs still in full force, as regarded the laity. We shall find, as we proceed, that the attachment to traditional usages and observances which so strongly characterized the native Irish, was by them communicated, together with many other features of the national character, to the descendants of the foreigners who had settled among them; insomuch, that the spirit of English legislation has been forced to accommodate itself to this jealous reverence of the past; and, throughout the statutes and ordinances extended to Ireland, exceptions in favour of the old usages and customs of the land will be found of very frequent occurrence. Even in the Magna Charta, as extended to this country, a recognition of its old laws and usages is to be traced;-a number of minute differences being discoverable between the English and Irish charters, all referrible to the over-ruling force of the customs of ancient Ireland, be fore which even the legislation of her foreign masters was compelled to bow. So far was this deference, indeed, carried, that in the few instances which occur in later times, of the grant of dignities to native chieftains, it was thought expedient, in consequence of the ancient Irish law of succession, according to which honours and possessions did not descend hereditarily, but by election, to confer such dignities only during life.

Among the enactments of the king and his council, at this time, was one known, at a later period, as the statute of Henry Fitz-Empress, by which it was provided, that, in case of the death of any chief governor, the chancellor, treasurer, chief justices, and certain other officers should be empowered, with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal, to proceed to the election of a successor to that office.

It is almost superfluous to observe that, in all the laws and ordinances enacted by Henry, during his brief stay in Ireland for the foundation and future government of the new settlement, he was guided wholly by the spirit and principles of the feudal polity according to which the great body of the English laws was at that time modelled. Thus the estates and dignities conferred by him upon his officers, who had been already most of them tenants in capite from the crown, were granted on consideration of homage and fealty, and of military or honorary services to be rendered to himself and his heirs. Of such importance did he conceive the general acceptance of this system, and of the duties, services, and conditions enforced by it, that, even in the instance of Strongbow, who, as we have seen, acquired, by his marriage with Eva, the principality of Leinster, it was imperatively required, that he should resign the possession of that estate, and accept a new grant of it from the king, subject to the feudal conditions of homage and military service. With the view, too, of balancing the weight of so powerful a vassal, he granted by charter to Hugh de Lacy, whom he had appointed Justiciary of Ireland, the seignory of the land of Meath, to be held of him and his heirs by the service of fifty knights.

* Thus Lord Lyttelton:-"It is reasonable to infer that a reformation had been made, not only in the spiritual, but civil, state of Ireland, before this time (the time of the synod of Cashel,) by giving the Irish a better constitution of government, and a better rule of life and action than their barbarous Brehon law. Accordingly we are told by Matthew Paris, that a council, or parliament," &c.; and again :—“ However this may have been, the communicating to Ireland the laws and customs of England was unquestionably a great boon to the people of that country, and a most wise act of policy in the king who did it. "-Book iv.

It is rather singular that a notion, so wholly at variance with all subsequent facts, should have acquired so wide a currency. See Ware, who adopts the same false view. Even Mr. O'Connor (Dissert. sect. 20.) understands the result of the council at Lismore to have been "a grant of the laws and constitution of England to the Irish, "-a conclusion in which he is followed, almost verbally, by Plowden.-Hist. Review.

Called by the Irish themselves, Bonaght. This extortion (says Sir John Davies) was originally Irish; for they used to lay Bonaght upon their people, and never gave their soldiers any other pay. "-Hist. Discov. See Lynch's View of the Legal Institutions, &c., in which several of these variances in the two charters are pointed out.

§ A remarkable instance of this sort of compliance with the spirit of the ancient law of Ireland is found in the reign of queen Mary, when Kavenagh, a descendant of the kings of Leinster, was created a peer, by the title of baron Balyane, but still, in conformity with the old Irish custom, was, by the same patent, nominated captain of his sept, or nation; and, as such, was permitted to have a body-guard of hoblers (horse) and kerns, or infantry.

To Henry is attributed, by Leland and others, the credit of having caused the territories subject to him to be divided into shires, or counties; as well as of appointing therein sheriffs and other officers, according to the English model. But it was clearly in John's reign that these institutions were for the first time introduced into Ireland.

With respect to Meath, we have already seen that the Irish monarch, Roderic O'Connor, having taken forcible possession of this territory, which belonged, hereditarily, to the princes of the house of Melachlin, had appointed his trusty liegeman, O'Ruarc, to be the temporary ruler of East Meath, retaining the western parts of the province in his own hands. Following but too closely this flagrant example of usurpation, Henry granted the same territory to one of his own followers; and thus, with a disregard to the national feelings as impolitic as it was unjust, left to remain as a standing insult in the eyes of succeeding generations, the spectacle of an English lord holding possession of the ancient patrimony of the kings of Tara.*

The territory thus transferred to Hugh de Lacy contained, as it appears, about 800,000 acres; and the baron himself, and his family after him, held their courts, therein with an extent of jurisdiction and cognizance of pleas which, as trenching upon the rights of the crown, it was found, at a subsequent period, necessary to repress. It seems to have been also soon after the arrival of Henry that large possessions in the counties of Limerick, Cork, and Kerry were granted to the ancestors of the earl of Desmond.t

There was yet another source of honour and wealth of which the politic king adroitly availed himself, as well for the reward of his most active chiefs, as for the establishment in his new kingdom of a feudal nobility attached hereditarily to the crown by oath of fealty and honorary services; and this was the introduction into Ireland of the various high offices of constable, marshal, seneschal, and other such hereditary dignities, which had been attached to the king's court in England from the time of the Norman conquest. On the favoured Hugh de Lacy the office of lord constable was bestowed, while the dignity of lord marshal is supposed to have been borne by Strongbow; and either during the king's stay in Ireland, or some time after the office of high steward, or seneschal, was conferred upon Sir Bertram de Vernon.

Among the ancient honorary offices of the court, both in France and England, none stood higher in rank or estimation than the "Pincerna Regis," or king's butler,-an officer who, in the former country, even disputed the precedency of the constable of France. On Theobald Walter, the ancestor of the earls of Ormonde, this high dignity was conferred by Henry soon after 1170, and from a motive, it is said, which somewhat enhances the interest and memorableness of the event. Desirous of relieving his character from the weight of odium which the fate of Becket had drawn down upon it, the king availed himself at this time of every opportunity of conferring wealth and honours upon the relatives of that prelate; and it is supposed that to the circumstance of their being descended from the sister of Thomas à Becket, the family of Le Boteler were chiefly indebted for the high dignities they enjoyed.

Early in February 1172, the king removed from Dublin to Waterford, having left Hugh de Lacy his governor of the former city, with a guard of twenty knights, assisted by Maurice Fitz-Gerald and Robert Fitz-Stephen, with a similar train. During the whole of the winter months so remarkably tempestuous had been the weather, that all communication with the coasts of England was interrupted; and, the continued storms preventing the arrival of intelligence from his other dominions, the mind of the king was kept in a constant state of suspense. At length about the middle of Lent, there arrived couriers from the continent with alarming intelligence, to the effect that the Cardinals Albert and Theodine, who had been sent into Normandy to investigate the circumstances of Becket's death, had summoned Henry to appear before them, threatening, in the event of his not soon presenting himself, to lay all his kingdom under an interdict. T

He had intended, with a view of the subjection of Roderic, to defer his departure to

"The transferring an ancient kingdom of Ireland from the present Irish possessors, and from every branch of that race which could legally claim the inheritance of it, to an English lord and his heirs, was a measure which the nation would not easily approve, or even forgive."-Lord Lyttelton, book iv.

"One of the territories thus obtained by them was a district now called the barony of Connal, or Connelloe, in the county of Limerick, containing upwards of 100,000 acres of land; and this tract, which in ancient documents is called "Okonayl" and "Ogonneloe," was ceded to them by the native family, or sept, of O'Connel, in consideration of lands assigned them in the counties of Kerry and Clare, where branches of that family continue to the present day. "-Lyneh.

In the year 1185 he witnessed, as Constable of Ireland, prince John's charter to the abbey of "Valle Salutis," as well as several other charters executed in that reign.-Lynch, Feudal Dignities.

§ A still more lofty notion may be formed of the honour attached to this office from the circumstance of Henry himself having attended on his son, as chief butler, at that prince's coronation.

"He hoped," says Camden, "to redeem his credit in the world by preferring the relations of Thomas Becket to wealth and honours."

According to Carte and Lodge, the butlership was not conferred upon Theobald Walter till the year 1177, a lapse of time which seems to lessen a good deal the probability of the favour having originated in a feeling of the king respecting Becket.

For the tremendous consequences of a sentence of interdict, see Hume chap. 11.

the following summer;* and, though it be now but an idle and melancholy speculation, to consider how far, under other circumstances, the fortunes of Ireland might have been more prosperous, we cannot but regret that he was so soon interrupted in the task of providing for her future settlement and government; as there can hardly be a doubt that, at such a crisis, when so much was to be instituted and originated on which not only the well-being of the new colony itself, but also of its acceptance with the mass of the natives, would depend, the direct and continuous application of a mind like Henry's to the task, would have presented the best, if not perhaps sole, chance of an ultimately prosperous result, which a work, in any hands so delicate and difficult, could have been expected to afford. This chance, unluckily, the necessity of his immediate departure for ever foreclosed. To effect good would have required time, and the immediate superintendence of his own mind and eye; whereas mischief was a work more rapid in its accomplishment, and admitting more easily of being delegated. On the ready instruments he left behind him now devolved the too sure accomplishment of this task;-his prodigal grants to his English followers and their creatures having established in the land an oligarchy of enriched upstarts who could not prove otherwise than a scourge and curse to the doomed people whom he now delivered into their hands.

Though for the administration and security of the countries ceded to the crown he had mnade every requisite provision, the whole of Ulster still remained independent; and this one great exception to the recognition of his dominion must, he knew, endanger, as long as it lasted, the security of all the rest. How summarily, however, he was disposed to deal with what he considered to be his own property, appears from the charter granted by him, soon after he had taken possession of Dublin, giving that city to the inhabitants of Bristol, “ to be held of him and his heirs, fully and honourably, with all the same liberties and free customs which they enjoyed at Bristol and throughout his land."t The city of Waterford he gave in charge to Humphrey de Bohun, while Wexford was committed by him to William Fitz-Aldelm; the former officer having under him Robert FitzBernard and Hugh de Gundeville, with a company of twenty knights, and the latter Philip de Hastings and Philip de Breuse, with a similar guard. He likewise left orders that castles should be built, with all possible expedition, in both these towns.

The urgent affairs that called him to England not admitting of any farther deA. D. lay, the king ordered his troops to Waterford, where his fleet was then lying, and 1172. setting sail, himself, from Wexford, on Easter Monday, which fell on the 17th of April, arrived the same day, at Portfinnan, in Wales. Here, the lord of so many kingdoms assumed on landing the staff of the pilgrim, and, with pious humility, proceeded on foot to the church of St. David, where he was met at the White Gate by a procession of the clergy, coming forth to receive him with solemn honours.

The conclusion that already has suggested itself, on merely speculatively considering how far the results might have proved more prosperous had Henry been able to devote more time to his new kingdom, is borne out practically by the actual effects of his presence during the six months which he passed in the country; for, whether owing to the imposing influence of his name, or to the hopes that generally wait on a new and untried reign, so long and unbroken an interval of peace as Ireland enjoyed during that time is hardly to be found at any other period of her annals.

Benedict, abbot of Peterborough, referring to the arrival of the cardinals, says,-"Nisi eorum adventus eum impedisset, proposuit in proxima sequenti æstate ire cum exercitu suo ad subjiciendum sibi regem Cog. natensem qui ad eum venire nolebat."

"Sciatis me dedisse et concessisse et presenti oharta confirmasse hominibus meis de Bristow civitatem meam de Divelin, ad inhabitandum. Quare volo et firmiter præcipio ut ipsi eam inhabitent et teneant illam de me et hæredibus meis bene et in pace," &c. A fac-simile of this curious charter, taken from the original, preserved in the archives of Dublin, may be found in the History of Bristol, by Seyer, who in explanation of the meaning of the grant, quotes a passage from Camden, stating that an English colony had been transplanted by Henry from Bristol to Dublin, which latter city was, it is supposed, drained at that time of inhabitants.

↑ "Accedens itaque Meneviam devoto peregrinantium more pedes baculoque infultus, canonicorum ecclesiæ processione ipsum debita reverentia et honore suscipientium, apud Albam Portam obviam venit.—Hib. Erpug. c 37.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Conference of De Lacy with O'Ruarc.-Death of O'Ruarc.-Marriage and death of De Quincy. -Strongbow summoned to attend the king of France.-Rivalry between Hervey and Ray. mond. Strongbow returns to Ireland.-Raymond's popularity and success.-Retires in discontent to Wales.-Strongbow defeated by the Irish.-Raymond is recalled.—His marriage with Basilia, the Earl's sister.-Meath overrun and despoiled by Roderic.-His retreat, -Limerick taken.-Bull of Adrian promulgated.-Raymond's successes.-Treaty between Henry and Roderic..

A. D.

THE apparent calm produced by Henry survived but a short time his departure. The seeds of discontent so abundantly sown throughout the country, by the many 1172. unjust usurpations on the property of the natives which the king's grants to his lords and followers had occasioned, were quickly matured into a general feeling of hostility, which every succeeding year but rendered more bitter and deep. The grant of the whole of the principality of Meath to De Lacy was one of those encroachments on the right of the Irish to their own soil, which, though rendered familiar afterwards by repetition, must have been then as astounding from their audacity, as they were irritating, and at last infuriating, from their injustice. O'Ruarc, the party immediately grieved by this spoliation,* having, on the departure of the king, appealed to Hugh De Lacy for redress, it was agreed that a conference should be held on the points at issue between them, and a day and place were appointed for that purpose..

Accompanied on each side by a stipulated number of attendants, they met at a place called O'Ruarc's Hill, or, according to other accounts, the Hill of Tara, near Dublin; and, oaths and sureties having been.mutually given, the two chiefs, unarmed and apart from all the rest, held their conference together, on the top of the hill, assisted but by one unarmed interpreter.. While they were thus occupied, the soldiers who had accompanied O'Ruarc remained in the valley, at a little distance; while a small band of about seven or eight knights, who under the command of Gryffyth, the nephew of Maurice Fitz-Gerald, formed part of the guard of De Lacy, had ascended the hill ready mounted and armed with their shields and lances, for the purpose of being near the place of conference, having reason to apprehend treachery on the part of O'Ruarc. In order to appear as if solely bent upon pastime, this young troop continued all the time to tilt at each other, as in the tournaments of their own country, occasionally wheeling around the spot where the two chieftains stood..

Their apprehensions, which are ascribed by the chronicler to a warning dream that had appeared to Gryffyth, on the preceding night, proved not to have been without foundation. Whether by a preconcerted design, or, as appears more probable, in the irritation of the moment, O'Ruarc retiring, under some pretence, to the brow of the hill, made a signal to his soldiers in the valley to join him, and then returned towards De Lacy. But Maurice Fitz-Gerald, who, remembering his nephew's dream, had observed watchfully the movements of the Irish chief, now seeing him advance with pale visage and hurried strides, holding an axe uplifted threateningly, in his hand, instantly drew his sword, and calling out to De Lacy to save himself, rushed forward in his defence. Before, however, he could reach the spot, O'Ruarc had aimed a blow at the English lord, which the interpreter, rushing in bravely between them, caught on his own arm, and fell mortally wounded. Twice did De Lacy fall in endeavouring to escape; and was only saved by

The abbé Geoghegan, with the view of making out a stronger case against the English-as if the story of their wrongs towards Ireland needed aid from the colouring of fiction--has, in place of O'Ruarc, who was himself a usurper of the dominion of Meath, taken upon him to substitute, without any authority, O'Melachlin, the hereditary chief of that territory, as having been the prince thus robbed of his kingdom to en-. rich an English lord." O'Malaghlin, prince héréditaire de la Midie, pénétré de douleur à la vue des hostilités qu'on venoit d'exercer dans son pays natal," &c.-Hist. d'Irlande, troisième part. chap. 1.

No decisive conclusion as to his hostile intentions could fairly be drawn from this circumstance, it being the custom of the Irish, in those times, according to Giraldus, to carry an axe in the hand, wherever they went, as familiarly as a walking stick:-"Semper in manu quasi pro baculo securim baiulant." He then puns, in his usual style, on this formidable babit:" A securibus itaque nulla securitas: si securum té reputes securine senties. Te spontein periculum mittis: si securim admittis, et securitatem amittis." Topog. Dist. 3., c. 21.

Ob fugæ maturationem Hugo de Lacy bis retro cadens." Stanihurst, in his English zeal, suppresses altogether De Lacy's endeavour to escape; and the English translator of Giraldus thus colours it over:-" In. which skirmishing Hugh de Lacie was twice felled to the ground."

the valour of Fitz-Gerald, who opposed his sword to the axe of the Irish prince. Mean while Gryffyth, with his troop of knights, having been summoned to the spot by the shout of his gallant kinsman, arrived at the same moment with the band of infantry which O'Ruarc had called up out of the valley. Seeing these well-appointed horsemen, and fearing that his infantry would be unable to stand their onset, the Irish prince endeavoured to escape by mounting a horse which some of his attendants had brought to him. But while in the very act of mounting, both himself and his horse were pierced through by one violent thrust of Gryffyth's lance, and fell dead together. The three attendants also, who, in the face of such dangers, had endeavoured to aid his escape, were cut down on the spot; and the rest of his followers, flying dispersed in every direction, were most of them taken and slaughtered.

The corpse of O'Ruarc himself was beheaded, the body buried with the heels upwards, and the head, after hanging some time over one of the gates of Dublin was sent into England to the king. This insulting treatment of the remains of one of their most popular princes was to the Irish even more galling than the wrong previously inflicted upon him; as it showed that even to remonstrate against injustice was by their new masters accounted an unpardonable and ignominious crime. In the chance conflict which led to his death, even judging from the account given of it by one of the most prejudiced of chroniclers, it would surely be difficult to assert that the blame of originating the fray was not fully as much imputable to the English as to the Irish. The great and sole crime, therefore, of O'Ruarc was that he, a native prince, holding from the monarch of his own country a large territory by gift, had dared to question the right of an intrusive foreign king to deprive him of his territory and bestow it upon one of his own subjects. On the departure of the king for England, Strongbow took up his abode at Ferns, the ancient residence of the Lienster kings, and there celebrated the marriage of his daughter with Robert De Quincy, giving as her dowry the territory of the Duffreys in the county of Wexford, and, soon after appointing her husband to the high office of constable and standard-bearer of Lienster. His son-in-law's tenure, however, of these civil and military honours,* was but of very short duration. In consequence of the refusal of O'Dempsey O'Fally, a lord of Lienster, to attend his court, Strongbow marched a body of troops into that chieftain's territory, and, finding his progress unresisted, spread desolation whereever he went. On his returning, however, laden with booty, towards Kildare, just after the vanguard commanded by himself had passed through a defile which lay in their way, O'Dempsey, who had hovered for some time unperceived around them, fell suddenly upon their rear, and, in the fury of the first assault, Robert de Quincy with a number of his knights was slain, and the standard of Leinster fell into the hands of the assailants.

However much the earl may have mourned for the loss of his son-in-law, the disgrace, for the first time, thus brought upon the English arms, and the probable effect of such an occurrence in giving encouragement to the Irish, could hardly have affected him with much less real concern. But no time was left to repair the disaster; as, shortly after, he received orders from the king, who was then in France, requiring that he should join him instantly with a re-enforcement in that country, where all the means he could muster together were now wanting to oppose the formidable league which his own sons had been the chief instruments of arraying against his power. This royal mandate the earl promptly obeyed, though risking, by his departure at so critical a moment, the safety of his yet unsettled possessions; and so satisfied was Henry with this proof of his alacrity and zeal, that he gave him, soon after his arrival, the custody of the castle of Gisors, the most important of all his frontier fortresses.

Taught thus early to see, in the misfortunes of their English rulers, some opening of hope for themselves, the Irish exulted to hear of the storm that was now gathering around the king; and, openly disavowing their late submissions, seemed to be bent on availing themselves of Strongbow's absence to break out into general revolt. A spirit of discontent, too, had arisen in the English army, which promised to be favourable to their views. Hervey of Mount-Maurice, the chief in command, had rendered himself unpopular among the soldiers; while Raymond le Gros, who acted under him, and was of a far more conciliatory and attaching nature, had won for himself the favour and affections of all. Hence a jealousy arose in the mind of the former, which disturbed and embittered the whole of their intercourse and prevented their acting together with the concert necessary to sucThe serious mischief that might have resulted to the English cause, from this want of concord at head-qnarters, was prevented by the return of Strongbow from France.

cess.

By the banner and ensign of Leinster is meant the military government of it; as the constableship was the civil authority thereof."—Note of Harris on Regan.