Ireland under the Tudors - Bagwell Richard

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Meath, which for some unexplained reason was in O’Rourke’s possession, was next invaded, and Roderic then wrote to upbraid Dermod with having broken his oath by interfering outside the bounds of Leinster. MacMurrough shortly answered that he meant to be monarch of Ireland, and Roderic then killed his son, who was with him as a hostage. The clergy of Armagh assembled in their synod saw or suspected that the invasion was different from all former invasions. They agreed that Ireland had brought a curse on herself by keeping Englishmen in slavery, and they ordered the liberation of all such bondsmen. Henry II. also saw that something extraordinary had happened. He had no fancy for having an independent Norman principality within sight of Snowdon, and he ordered the adventurers to return, strictly forbidding all communication with them in the meantime. Fitz-Gilbert wrote to the King, who was in Aquitaine, protesting that he believed he had the royal licence for what he had done, and that he was ready to be his vassal for all he might gain in Ireland. Raymond was sent with the letter, but Henry kept him a long time in suspense.

      The Danes vainly attempt to retake Dublin.

      At Whitsuntide, 1171, while Earl Richard was waiting for the King’s answer, Hasculph returned with sixty ships, containing a well-armed force, under a berserker called John the Mad. Milo de Cogan had been left governor of Dublin, and he and his brother Richard succeeded after a short fight in routing their assailants. John the Mad was killed, and Hasculph taken while trying to escape across the slob to his ships. The prisoner annoying him by threats of another and more formidable attempt, Milo ordered him to be beheaded. He had, however, spoken truth, for Godred, King of Man, soon appeared with thirty ships, and blocked the mouth of the Liffey, while Roderic, having collected a great army from all parts of Ireland, except the extreme north and south, besieged the city by land. The Earl and his followers being thus shut up in Dublin, Dermod’s local enemies besieged Fitz-Stephen in the castle which he had built at Wexford. No help, as the Irish well knew, could be expected from England while Henry II. frowned, and the Normans at Dublin resolved on a great effort to relieve Fitz-Stephen. A sally was arranged, and Roderic’s army was dispersed. The Irish had trusted entirely to their numbers, and kept no watch and no order. Such stores of provisions fell into the victors’ hands that there was no need to victual Dublin for a year afterwards. Fitz-Stephen, however, was not relieved. By force or stratagem, Giraldus says it was by perjury, the Wexford people obtained possession of his person, and killed or captured his men. Hearing of the disaster at Dublin, the victors burned their town and withdrew with their prisoners to an island in the middle of the harbour. Earl Richard arrived too late for his immediate purpose, and continued his journey to Waterford, whence he made his way to the King, whom he met near Gloucester. Henry was at first obdurate, but it was finally agreed that Dublin and all other port towns, with the lands adjoining, should be handed over to the King, and that the Earl and his heirs should hold all their other conquests of him and his heirs. While preparations were being made for a royal expedition, O’Rourke once more attacked Dublin, but the Cogans again surprised the Irish camp, and the city was never again seriously threatened by the natives.

      Henry II. lands in Ireland, 1171.

      The last attack on Dublin was about September 1, 1171, and on October 16 the King sailed from Milford Haven with 400 ships, containing 4,000 men, of whom 400 or 500 were knights. He landed next day at Crook, on the right bank of the Suir, some miles below Waterford, which he entered on the 18th. The Wexford men saw that the game was up, and brought Fitz-Stephen to the King, expecting thanks for surrendering the man who had dared to make war without the royal licence. Henry spoke sharply to the prisoner, and ordered him to be kept safely in Reginald’s tower. Dermod MacCarthy, chief of Desmond and Cork, did homage at Waterford. Thence Henry went to Lismore, where he stayed two days. From Lismore he went to Cashel, where Donald O’Brien, chief of Thomond and Limerick, followed MacCarthy’s example. The minor chiefs of Munster also made their submission, the only one mentioned by Giraldus being O’Phelan, who ruled a great part of the county of Waterford. Dermod’s old antagonist, Donald of Ossory, also did homage. Henry placed governors both in Cork and Limerick, but it is not clear that he visited either of those cities. He then returned along the Suir to Waterford, where he took Fitz-Stephen into favour, and restored Wexford to him. During this progress the King selected three sites for fortresses, which were afterwards built by his son John—Lismore on the Blackwater, and Ardfinnan and Tibraghny on the Suir. The first and last were intended to command the upper tidal waters of the Blackwater and Suir; Ardfinnan secured a passage from the southern sea-board into Central Ireland, and Cromwell recognised its importance nearly five hundred years afterwards.

      Henry II. winters at Dublin.

      Leaving a governor in Waterford, Henry then led the bulk of his army to Dublin, where he received the submissions of O’Rourke and of the chiefs of Leinster and Uriel. Hugo de Lacy and William Fitz-Adelm were sent to meet Roderic at the Shannon, and the monarch of Ireland acknowledged himself a tributary and vassal of the King of England. Ulster still held out; for the submission of the nominal head king can in no way be held to bind the chiefs, much less the people, of his own province, and certainly not those of all Ireland. Giraldus does not venture to advance any such theory, and yet Hooker, who translated his work in Elizabeth’s time, coolly interpolates the statement that ‘by him and his submission all the residue of the whole land became the King’s subjects, and submitted themselves.’ The synod which met at Cashel under the legate’s presidency did what was possible for the Church to do in strengthening Henry’s pretensions. The King held a court at Dublin during the winter of 1171 and 1172. His temporary palace, erected outside the walls on the ground now occupied by the southern side of Dame Street, was built of polished wicker-work, after the manner of the country. Here he kept Christmas in state, and invited the Irish chiefs to share his feast. They admired the King’s grandeur, and were by him persuaded to eat crane’s flesh, which the Normans thought a delicacy, but which the Irish had hitherto loathed. The winter was so stormy that there was scarcely any communication with England, and Henry’s pleasure in his new acquisition must have been darkened by the sense of impending retribution for the recent murder of Becket.

      Henry’s warlike preparations. He distrusts the adventurers.

      From the preparation which he made for the invasion of Ireland, it seems clear that the King profoundly distrusted the adventurers who had insisted on winning him a new realm. Vast stores of provisions, a great number of hand-mills, artisans for building bridges, horses, and tools for building or trenching, might indeed have been required for a war against the natives. But the Irish had no fortresses, and wooden castles, of which we also read, can only have been intended for attacking the port-towns which Earl Richard had promised to give the King, and which were already in Norman hands. Henry saw enough of Ireland to know that he had really nothing to fear from the adventurers. Dermod MacMurrough was dead before his arrival, and it was clear that Earl Richard would have enough to do in maintaining his wife’s monstrous claim without doing anything to offend his own sovereign.

      Henry leaves Ireland. He grants Meath to De Lacy.

      Before leaving the country Henry granted to Hugo de Lacy all the territory of Meath, by the service of fifty knights. This included Westmeath, with parts of King’s County and Longford, and was about 800,000 acres in extent. De Lacy, to whom Hoveden gives the title of justiciar, must be considered as the first Viceroy of Ireland, and he lost no time in advancing a claim which, if successful, would make him one of the most important vassals of the Crown. Tiernan O’Rourke, the one-eyed King of Meath, consented to meet the Pretender at the Hill of Ward. The conference ended in a quarrel, and O’Rourke was killed. Giraldus charges treason upon the Irishman, and the Irish annalists charge it upon the Norman. The important point is that De Lacy was able to make head against the Irish, and that a powerful Norman colony was established by him in the fertile central tract of Ireland. Earl Richard was rather less successfully engaged in fighting for Leinster, which Henry

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