disturbed possession both of his popularity and his honours. Even by the slanderer of all other persons and things belonging to Ireland, Laurence is pronounced to have been a "just and a good man."* An ardent lover of his ill-fated country, he felt but the more poignantly those wretched feuds and unnatural treacheries of her own sons, which were now co-operating so fatally with the enemy, in reducing her to complete degradation and ruin; and, a short time before his death he is said to have exclaimed, in the Irish language, "Ah, foolish and senseless people, what is now to become of you? Who will now cure your misfortunes? Who will heal you?" When reminded on his death-bed of the propriety of making his will, he answered," God knows, I have not at this moment so much as a penny under the sun." His remains were deposited in the middle of the church of Augum, where they lay till the year of his canonization, by Honorious III., A. D. 1226, when with great solemnity, they were placed over the high altar, and preserved in a silver shrine; some of his relicst having been sent to Christ Church, in Dublin, and some to different places in France.

Immediately on receiving the intelligence of Laurence's death, Henry, in exercise of the rights which he held over Ireland, as a realm annexed to the English crown, took the vacant archbishopric into his own custody, and despatched Jeffrey de la Hay, his chaplain to Dublin, for the purpose of seizing on the revenues of the see, and collecting them into the Exchequer. He likewise called together at Evesham, in Worcester, an assembly of the clergy of Dublin, by whom, on his recommendation, a learned Englishman, John Cumming, who had served him in a clerical capacity, was elected archbishop of Dublin. Still more to strengthen the English influence in that country, a bull was procured in the following year from pope Lucius III., exempting the diocess of Dublin from a great part of the jurisdiction hitherto exercised over it by the see of armagh. This memorable bull, the immediate purpose of which was to curtail the privileges of the archbishop of Armagh, but which had also, probably, in view the object of transferring, at some future time, the primacy to the seat of the English power, Dublin, became, in after ages, a subject of fierce and voluminous controversy between the two sees.

One of the earliest, and not least chivalrous, of the English adventurers, Milo de Cogan, who had remained, jointly with his brother in arms, Robert Fitz-Stephen, in quiet possession of the territory granted to them in Desmond, fell a victim at this time to an act of the most foul and revolting treachery. Accompanied by a young and valiant son of Fitz-Stephen, who had lately married his daughter, De Cogan was on his way to a conference with some citizens of Waterford, which was to be held on a plain near Lismore, when he was suddenly attacked by a band of Irish, armed with axes, under a chieftain of the district, named Mac Tyre, by whom he had been invited to pass that night under his roof. Whether from some sudden cause of anger, or, as would seem by the sequel, from a preconcerted design, this chief came, unawares upon De Cogan, as he was sitting carelessly with the young Fitz-Stephen and four other knights upon the grass, and barbarously murdered the whole party.

Scarcely had the news of this event reached Robert Fitz-Stephen, who was then A. D. in Cork, when, as if the murder had been meant as a signal for general revolt, 1182. almost all the chieftains of Munster rose up in arms, and a vast multitude of the people of Desmond, under their king, Dermod Macarthy, laid siege to the town of Cork. In this emergency, Raymond le Gros, apprised of the danger of his kinsman, embarked from Wexford with a band of twenty select knights, and about a hundred other soldiers, partly horsemen, partly archers, and sailing along the coast to Cork, the Irish having no fleet to guard their shores, arrived but just in time to succour Fitz-Stephen, to enable him to repel his assailants, and force them to raise the siege.

As soon as intelligence of these events reached Henry, he sent over Richard de Cogan, the brother of the deceased Milo, to take his place as the associate of Fitz-Stephen in the government, and with this officer was sent a chosen body of troops for the re-enforcement of the garrison. Shortly after, a still farther addition was made to the military strength

"Laurentius Dubliniensis Episcopus; vir bonus et justus."-Girald Cambrens. Hibern. Expugnat. 1. 2. c. 23. The Author of his life, published in Messingham's Florilegium, speaks of his munificence in entertaining the rich, as well as of his charity in feeding and succouring the poor. Every day he took care to see fed in his own presence from thirty to sixty poor persons and, during a famine which lasted for three years, he gave daily alms to 500 people, besides supplying 300 more throughout his diocess with clothes, provisions, and other necessasies. It is added, that during this severe time, 200 children were left at the door of his residence, all of whom were protected and provided for by his care.

† Vit. S. Laurent.

In the Office quoted by Harris, containing a description of these relics, it is said that "the head is kept in a silver case, with a crystal over it, through which may be seen the mark of the wound given him by the madman at Canterbury."-Ware's Bishops.

of the province, by the landing of Philip Barry, a nephew of Fitz-Stephen, with a considerable force, from Wales. Besides the object of assisting his relative, Barry had also in view the securing to himself some lands which Fitz-Stephen had granted to him in Olethan, a tract lying between Cork and Youghal. He was accompanied on this occasion by his brother Gerald Barry, a personage better known to fame as Giraldus Cambrensis, having connected his name inseparably with this period of our history, notwithstanding the strange heap of garrulous fiction and slander which he has mixed up with his otherwise useful, and in general trustworthy, records of the first transactions and adventures of the English settlers in this country.*

While of the earliest of these adventurers one or two, as we have seen, had been carried off by death, and most of the others still passed their lives in perpetual warfare, Hervy of Mount Maurice, who had once been as stirring on the scene as any, now withdrew from the turmoils of war to a life of religious seclusion; and, after having, in the year 1182, founded and endowed the abbey of Dunbrody, one of the finest ecclesiastical edifices in the country, he about this time assumed the monk's habit, and entered into the monastery of Christ Church, in Canterbury. The zeal for founding religious houses had begun to prevail at this time extensively among the great English lords; who, while with one hand they oppressed and plundered the miserable clergy, and despoiled the cathedrals of their possessions, made, with the other, as they thought full atonement for these sacrilegious spoliations, by calling into existence endowments and structures on which their own names were to be imprinted, and in which vanity had, at least as much share as any real religious feeling. About the same time with Dunbrody abbey, were erected in Meath, by Hugh de Lacy, two monasteries for Augustin canons; one at Duleek, and the other at Colp, called anciently Invercolpa, at the mouth of the Boyne.‡

Among the devout soldiers who thus employed themselves in alternately plundering and founding religious houses, John de Courcy was one of the most conspicuous; having founded the Benedictine priory of the island of Neddrum, somewhere off the coast of Down; and also the priory of St. John the Baptist in that county, for a branch of the Augustin canons, called Cruciferi. This lord also turned the secular canons out of the cathedral of Down, and introduced in their place Benedictine monks, from St. Werburgh's, in Chester; while, at the same time, he got the dedication title of the cathedral changed from that of the Holy Trinity to that of St. Patrick,-a step superstitiously believed to be the cause of all the misfortunes that afterwards happened to De Courcy.

The disgraceful feuds which had so long distracted the domestic relations of Roderic O'Conner still continued to rage as violently as ever; but, in order to understand clearly their origin, some brief explanation is necessary. According to the ancient constitution of Ireland, whenever a provincial king was elected to the supreme throne, he resigned the crown of the province to one of his sons, or else to some other of his kin who was entitled as well as qualified to govern. So tottering, however, was the state of the monarchy at the time when Roderic succeeded to the supreme power, that fearing he should be left, as would have been actually, indeed, his fate,-without either territory or throne, he conceived it most prudent still to retain his own hereditary dominions. Hence the continued efforts of his two sons, Connor and Murchard, to force him to surrender to them the sovereignty of Connaught. One of these sons he had already punished, by inhumanly putting out his eyes; and now the other was in open insurrection against his authority. About the year 1182, such indignation did the unnatural rebellion of these princes excite, that Flaherty O'Meldory, chief of Tyrconnel, marched an army into Connaught to put down their revolt, and gained a complete victory over them and their allies. The slaughter, in this battle, is said to have been immense, and

Ware, Annels, at the year 1183.--Some writers, and among others Prynne, erroneously suppose Giraldus to have accompanied Henry into Ireland. In speaking of the synod of Cashel, Prynne says, "to which (deirus) they all promised conformity, and to observe them for time to come, as Giraldus Cambrensis there present and other historians relate."On the Institutes, c. 76.

↑ Ware, Antiq. chap. 26.-Archdall, Monast. Hib. at Dunbrody. On giving up his commission in the army, says Mr. Shaw Mason, Hervey "parcelled out the portion of land allotted to him from the water of Wexford to Kempul (Campile) Pill along the sea-coast, for a certain short space in the country, amongst his followers, retaining to himself that portion of it now called the Union of St. James's; and on this he founded the abbey, dedicated it to St. Peter and St. Paul, and established there the order of Cistertian or Bernardine monks." Mr. Mason adds, that Hervey became himself the first abbot of Dunbrody; but I do not find this fact stated by either Ware, Archdall, or Lanigan. For a description of the present remains of this noble abbey, see Brewer's Beauties of Ireland.

"Les domaines du connétable Hervé de Montmorency en Irlande, si l'on en excepta ses donations a l'abbaye de Dunbrody, ont tous passé a son neveu et hoir Geoffroi, seigneur de Mariscis, vice-roi d'Irlande en 1215."— Les Montmorency de France et d'Irlande,

The walls of the church here," says Seward," in ruins, are still to be seen, the arches of which are both in the Saxon and Gothic style; and the east window, which appears older than the rest, is supposed to have made a part of the abbey. On the north side is a small chapel, and to the south two other chapels, one of which is at present the burial place of the family of Bellew."-Topograph. Hibern., 1795.

no less than sixteen of the royal race of Connaught were among the slain on that day. At length, in the year at which we are now arrived, the wretched Roderic, wearied out with the unnatural conflict, agreed, as the only means of bringing it to an end, to surrender the kingdom to his eldest son, Connor Maumoy, and retire into a monastery.

A. D.

However the transfer by king Henry to his son of a dominion which he himself but partially possessed, might, as a mere matter of form, be considered harmless, the measure adopted by him of actually sending this youth, who was now not more than twelve years of age, to rule over a kingdom requiring, at this crisis, the maturest counsels for its direction, was an act savouring, it must be owned, far more of the whim and wantonness of uncontrolled power, than of that deep and deliberate policy by which all the actions of this great king, even his least temperate, were in general regulated. His suspicious nature, it is true, had been kept in continual alarm by the increasing popularity of Hugh de Lacy; and being, for the third time, about to remove that lord from the government, he looked forward, doubtless, with hope to the effects of the presence of a prince of his blood in that country, as being likely to counteract the dangerous influence now exercised, and help to rally around its legitimate centre, the throne, that popular favour which had been hitherto intercepted by a bold and ambitious subject. But, whatever may have been his immediate motives for this step, it is clear, from the precautionary measures with which he guarded and fenced it round, 1184. that he was by no means unconscious of the dangers contingent on such an experiment. In order to prepare the way for the reception of the young prince, he sent over to Dublin, in the month of August, the new English archbishop of that see, John Cuming; and, in the following month, Philip of Worcester proceeded thither, attended by a guard of forty knights, to take possession of his government, having orders from Henry to send De Lacy over into England, and to await himself in Ireland the coming of prince John. The royal youth was to be accompanied by Ranulph de Glanville, the great justiciary of England, and highly distinguished both as a lawyer and a soldier ; while the historian, Gerald of Cambria, who had been sojourning for some time in Ireland, was appointed to attend John, as his secretary and tutor. If the notions impressed by the learned Welshman upon his pupil were at all similar to those he has recorded in his own writings, it is little to be wondered at that the prince and his companions should have been so much prepossessed against the country they were about to visit, and prepared to treat the unfortunate natives with indecent mockery and disdain. On the last day of March, John, earl of Moreton and lord of Ireland, having been previously knighted by his father at Windsor,* embarked with his attendants 1185. at Milford Haven, where a fleet of sixty ships had been prepared to transport a large body of cavalry, of which 400 were knights, together with a considerable force of infantry, chiefly, as it appears, archers; and on the following day, about noon, the royal fleet arrived in the harbour of Waterford.

A. D.

With such an army, added to the forces already in Ireland, a skilful leader, mixing conciliation with firmness, might have established the English power over the whole island. But the conduct of the new deputy, Philip of Worcester, had not been such as to inspire any confidence in the order of things of which he was the precursor. One of the first acts of his government-an act which, whatever might be its strict justice, was far from being calculated to render him popular-was to resume all the lands of the royal demesne, which De Lacy had parcelled out among his own friends and followers, and to appropriate them to the use of the king's household. The next measure of the lord deputy was to march an army into Ulster, a region of adventure hitherto occupied by John De Courcy alone, and where, ever since a victory gained by him, in the year 1182, over Donald O'Lochlin, the spirit of the Irish had been considerably broken. The leader of the present enterprise had evidently no object but plunder and extortion; and from the clergy, more especially, so grinding were his exactions, that even Giraldus, so lenient in general to all misdeeds against the Irish, brands the spoiler with his reprobation. “Even in the holy time of Lent," says this chronicler, "he extorted from the sacred order his execrable tribute of gold." From Armagh, where, chiefly, these enormities were committed, Philip proceeded to Downpatrick; and a violent fit or pang which seized him

Radulf. de Diceto.-According to the Annals of Margam, it was at Gloucester John was knighted :— "Prius tamen a patre apud Gloucestriam miles effectus. John,

Diceto, in re parking on the fortunes and situations of the different children of Henry, says, that " being secured by the promise and provision of his father, will reduce different parts of Ireland into a monarchy, if it shall hereafter be granted to him;"—that is, adds Sayer, he shall have a kingdom, if he can win it.-Hist. of Bristol, chap. x.

"A sacro clero auri tributum execrabile tam exigens cuam extorquens."—Hibern. Expugnat. I. 2. c. 24. Thus gently rendered by the English translator:-" Being well laden with gold, silver, and money, which he had exacted in every place where he came, for other good he did none."

in the course of his journey, is regarded by the writers of the time as a judgment upon him for the wrongs he had just been committing.

From this expedition he was returned but a few days before the arrival of prince John at Waterford, whither the archbishop of Dublin and other English lords had gone to receive the illustrious visiter on his landing. There came likewise, soon after, to wait upon him, many of those Irish chiefs of Leinster who had ever since the time of their first submission been living quietly under the English government, and now hastened to welcome the young prince, and acknowledge him loyally as their lord. But the kind of reception these chieftains experienced showed at the outset how weak and infatuated was the policy of sending a stripling, a mere boy, attended by a train of idle and insolent courtiers, upon a mission involving interests of so grave and momentous a description. Unaccustomed to the peculiar manners and dress of the Irish, their long bushy beards, their hair hanging in glibbes, or locks, down their backs,* the young Norman nobles, who formed the court of John, and who were themselves, to an unmanly degree, attentive to their dress, broke out in open derision of their visiters; and when the chiefs advancing towards the prince were about to give him, according to the manner of their country, the Kiss of Peace, they found themselves rudely and mockingly repulsed by his attendants, some of whom even proceeded to such insolence as to pluck these proud chiefs by their beards.

To a race and class such as were these princes at this period,-the fading remains of the ancient royalty of the land, and become but the more watchful and exacting in their claims to personal respect, in proportion as the foundation of those claims had grown more unreal and nominal,-to men thus circumstanced, thus proudly alive to the least passing shade of disrespect, it may easily be imagined how far transcending all ordinary modes of provocation was the kind of insult this contemptuous treatment conveyed. Resolved on deadly revenge, they returned immediately to their own homes, withdrew their families and septs from the English territory, and repairing, some to Donald O'Brian, the still untamed foe of the foreigners, others to the chiefs of Desmond and of Connaught, represented the indignities which, in their persons, had been offered to all Ireland; asking, "when such was the manner in which even loyal submission was received, what farther hope remained for the country but in general and determined resistance?"

Some of the chieftains, thus addressed, had been on their way to offer their homage at Waterford; but this news checked at once their purpose. Instead of loyalty, they now breathed only revenge; and, the flame rapidly catching from one to another, a spirit of hostility to the sway of the English sprung up, such as had never been before witnessed since the time of their coming into the country. Agreeing to merge in the common cause all local and personal differences, the chiefs pledged themselves by the most sacred oaths to each other, to stake their lives upon the issue, and "stand to the defence of their country and liberty." While such was the feeling of resistance awakened by the insolent bearing of the young prince's courtiers, the policy in other respects pursued by his government was calculated to aggravate, far more than to soften, this first impression. Nor were the Welsh settlers treated with much less harshness than the native Irish themselves, as they removed these people from the garrison towns in which they had been hitherto stationed, and forced them to serve in the marches. With a severity, too, even more impolitic than it was unjust, they drove from their settlements within the English territory some Irish septs that had long held peaceably those possessions, and divided their lands among some of the newly arrived foreigners. The consequence was, that the septs thus unwisely ejected, joined the ranks of their now arming fellow countrymen, and took with them not only a strong accession of revengeful feeling, but also a knowledge of the plans and policy of the enemy, an acquaintance with his strong and weak points of defence, and every requisite, in short, that could render them useful, as informers and guides, in the momentous struggle about to be hazarded.

While thus threatening was the aspect of the public mind, the advisers of the prince pursued unchecked their heedless career. Whether trusting to the people's divisions among themselves, as likely to avert the danger threatened by the league of their chiefs, or unable to awaken in John and his dissolute Normans any thought but of their own

"The Irish," says Ware, "wore their hair (by the moderns called glibs) hanging down their backs." "Proud they are (says Campion) of long crisped glibbes, and do nourish the same with all their cunning; to crop the front thereof they take it for a notable piece of villany."

tIn Camden's Remains we find them described as "all gallant, with coats to the mid-knee, head shorn, beard shaved, arms laden with bracelets, and faces painted." Lingard, in the same manner represents the Norman's as" ostentatiously fond of dress," but describes their hair as worn long and curled.

This ceremony of the Kiss of Peace was observed also in Richard II.'s reign, when that monarch received, by his commissioner, the earl marshal, the homage and fealty of the Leinster chieftains.

reckless indulgence,-* whatsoever was the cause, the attention of the government appears to have been but little directed to the gathering storm; and the erection of three forts or castles at Tipperary, Ardfinnan, and Lismore, was the only measure for the security of their power, which the incapable advisers of the prince had yet adopted. Even these castles, however, were not left long unassailed. That of Ardfinnan, built upon a rock overlooking the Suir, was attacked by Donald O'Brian, prince of Limerick, and its small garrison put to the sword. In Ossory, Roger de Poer, a young officer of brilliant promise, was cut off: while, in an assault upon Lismore, the Brave Robert Barry, one of those who had accompanied Fitz-Stephen into Ireland, was taken and slain. În various other quarters, the incursions of the natives were attended with equal success; and two other English leaders, Raymond Fitz-Hugh, who fell at Olechan, and Raymond Canton, slain at Odrone, were added to the victims, which the outraged feelings of the people now offered up in bitter revenge for their wrongs.

On the other hand, an attack upon Cork, by Mac Carthy of Desmond, was so vigorously resisted by Theobald Walter, the chief butler, who had accompanied John into Ireland, that the Irish prince and the whole of his party were slain in the encounter.

A like success awaited the arms of the English in Meath, into which district, defying the measures for its defence adopted by Hugh de Lacy, the septs on its western borders made now a desperate inroad; but were repulsed with immense slaughter by William Petit, a feudatory of De Lacy, who sent 100 heads of the slain, as a trophy of his victory, to Dublin. Notwithstanding these occasional successes on the part of the invaders, the general fortune of the war was decidedly in favour of the natives; and according to the chronicles of the English themselves, John lost, in the different conflicts with the Irish, almost his whole army. At length, informed of the imminent danger with which the very existence of his power in that realm was threatened, Henry sent over orders instantly, recalling the prince and his headlong advisers to England, and placing the whole power of the government, both civil and military, in the hands of De Courcy.

Though a liegeman of De Lacy had in the late warfare, acted so loyally, complaints of that lord himself were forwarded to England by John and his ministers, representing him as actuated by feelings of jealousy towards their government for having superseded his own, and as exerting the whole of his great talent and influence for the purpose of thwarting and bringing disgrace on their measures. It was believed, also, that this baron had, among his own vassals and partisans, assumed the title of king of Meath, receiving tribute in that character from Connaught; and had even proceeded so far in this assumption as to order a regal crown to be made for his own head. But, whatever grounds there may have been for these charges, De Lacy did not live to be called upon to answer to them, having met his death this year from a hand so obscure, that not even a name remains associated with the deed. T

1186.

He had been engaged for some time in erecting a castle at a place called Dar- A. D. maigh, in the southern part of ancient Meath, upon a spot hallowed in the eyes of the natives, as being the site of a monastery founded by their great saint, Columba. Being in the habit of attending personally to the building, De Lacy had gone forth to inspect the outworks, attended but by three English soldiers and an Irish labourer; and just as he was in the act, we are told, of stooping down to mark out the line of some wall or trench, the Irish workman drew forth a battle-axe which he had brought, concealed beneath his mantle for the purpose, and at one blow smote off the baron's head. The assassin escaped into a neighbouring wood, and being doubtless favoured in his flight by the country people, contrived to elude all persuit.**

On hearing of this event, at which he is said to have openly rejoiced, the first step of

"All that authority," says lord Lyttelton," over the minds of the Irish, which the courtesy, gravity, and prudence of Henry, during his abode in their island, had happily gained, was lost in a few days by the petulent levity of John and his courtiers; the good will of that people, on which Henry had desired to establish his dominion, being instantly turned into a national hatred.""

†The abbot of Peterborough attributes a great part of the failure of John's enterprise to the desertions of the soldiers of his army to the ranks of the Irish, in consequence of their pay having been withheld from them, and embezzled :-"Sed ipse Johannes parum ibi profecit, quia pro defectu indigenarum qui cum eo tenere debebant et pro eo quod stipendia militibus et solidariis suis dare noluit."

Hibern. Expugnat. 1. 2. c. 34.

Fere amisit totum exercitum suum in pluribus conflictibus quo sui fecerant contra Hybernienses."— Benedict Abbas. "Videbaturque sibi jam magis quam regi Anglorum regnum Hybernicum æmulari, in tantum ut diadema sibi regium parasse diceretur."-Gulielm. Neubrig. 1. 3. c. 9.

Gulielm. Neubrig, ut supra. Several names have been assigned to the perpetrator of this act, but all differing so much from each other, as to show that the real name was unknown. Geoffry Keating, with that love of dull invention which distinguished him, describes the assassin as a young gentleman in disguise. ** Gulielm. Neubrig, ut supra. Ware's Annals, ad ann. 1186.