Edward III. died, deserted by everyone, Alice Perrers making off, after robbing him of his finger-rings.

14. Ireland from the Reign of John to that of Edward II.When England was gradually losing its hold on France, what hold it had had on Ireland was gradually slipping away. Henry II. had been quite unable to effect in Ireland the kind of conquest which William the Conqueror had effected in England. William had succeeded because he had been able to secure order by placing himself at the head of the conquered nation.

Figures of Edward, the Black Prince, and Lionel, Duke of Clarence, from the tomb of Edward III.; illustrating the ordinary costume of gentlemen at the end of the fourteenth century.

In Ireland, in the first place, the king was a perpetual absentee; and, in the second place, there was no Irish national organisation at the head of which he could have placed himself, even if he had from time to time visited the island. There were separate tribes, each one attached to its own chief and to its own laws and customs. They were unable to drive out their feudal conquerors; but in the outlying parts of the country, they were able to absorb them, just as the English in their own country absorbed their Norman con

querors. The difference was that in England the conquerors were absorbed into a nation in Ireland they were absorbed into the several tribes. The few who retained the English laws and habits were, for the most part, confined to the part of Ireland in the neighbourhood of Dublin, which was specially accessible to English influences. In 1315 Edward Bruce, the brother of Robert Bruce,

1315-1377

ENGLAND AND IRELAND

265

invaded Ireland, and, though he was ultimately defeated and slain, he did enough to shatter the power of the English nobility.

15. The Statute of Kilkenny. 1367.-As long as the French wars lasted the attention of the English Government was diverted from Ireland. In 1361, however, the year after the Treaty of Bretigni, the king's son, Lionel Duke of Clarence, was sent to extend English rule. Finding he had undertaken a task beyond his powers, he gathered, in 1367, a Parliament of the English colonists who remained faithful to English traditions. This Parliament passed the Statute of Kilkenny, by which the relations between the two peoples were defined. There was to be a certain district --known about a century later as the English Pale-the extent of which varied from time to time. Within its boundary English laws and customs were to prevail. Even Irishmen living within the Pale were to be debarred from the use of their own language. Beyond the Pale the Irish were to be left to themselves, communication between the two peoples being cut off as much as possible. The idea of conquering Ireland was abandoned, and the idea of maintaining a colony on a definite part of Irish soil was substituted for it. The Statute of Kilkenny was, in short, a counterpart of the Treaty of Bretigni. In both cases Edward III. preferred the definite maintenance of his authority over a part of a country to its assertion over the whole.

16. Weakness of the English Colony. 1367-1377.-It takes two to make a bargain, and the Irish were not to be prevented from encroaching on the English because the English had resolved no longer to encroach upon them. The renewal of the war with France in 1369 made it impossible to send help from England, and during the latter part of the reign of Edward III. the Irish pillaged freely within the English territory, constantly winning ground from their antagonists.

Genealogy of the more important Sons of Edward III.

1. The First Years of Richard II. 1377-1378.—“ Woe to the land," quoted Langland from Ecclesiastes, in the second edition of Piers the Plowman, "when the king is a child." Richard was but ten years of age when he was raised to the throne. The French plundered the coast, and the Scots plundered the Borders. In the presence of such dangers Lancaster and Wykeham forgot their differences, and as Lancaster was too generally distrusted to allow of his acting as regent, the council governed in the name of the young king. Lancaster, however, took the lead, and renewed the war with France with but little result beyond so great a waste of money as to stir up Parliament to claim a control over the expenditure of the Crown.

2. Wycliffe and the Great Schism. 1378-1381.- In 1378 began the Great Schism. For nearly half a century from that date there were two Popes, one at Avignon and one at Rome. Wycliffe had been gradually losing his reverence for a single Pope, and he had none left for two. He was now busy with a translation of the Bible into English, and sent forth a band of "poor priests," to preach the simple gospel which he found in it. He was thus brought into collision with the pretensions of the priesthood, and was thereby led to question the doctrines on which their authority was based. In 1381 he declared his disbelief in the doctrine of transubstantiation, and thereby denied to priests that power "of making the body of Christ,” which was held to mark them off from their fellowmen. In any case, so momentous an announcement would have cost Wycliffe the hearts of large numbers of his supporters. It was the more fatal to his influence as it was coincident with social disorders, the blame for which was certain, rightly or wrongly, to be laid at his door.

in those days at least the value of 4s. at the present day, required of the poorest peasant. A second poll-tax in 1380 exacted no less than three groats from every peasant, and from every one of his unmarried children above the age of fifteen. In 1381 a certain Wat Tyler in Kent struck dead a collector who attempted to investigate his daughter's age in an indecent fashion. His neighbours took arms to protect him. In an incredibly short time the peasants rose in insurrection from one end of England to the other.

4. The Peasants' Grievances.-The peasants had other grievances besides the weight of taxation thrown on them by a Parliament in which they had no representatives. The landlords, finding it impossible to compel the acceptance of the low wages provided for by the Statute of Labourers (see p. 248), had attempted to help themselves in another way. Before the Black Death the bodily service of villeins had been frequently commuted into a payment of money which had been its fair equivalent, but which, since the rise of wages consequent upon the Black Death, could not command anything like the amount of labour surrendered. The landlords in many places now declared the bargain to have been unfait, and compelled the villeins to render once more the old bodily service. The discontent which prevailed everywhere was fanned not merely by the attacks made by Wycliffe's poor priests upon the idle and inefficient clergy, but by itinerant preachers unconnected with Wycliffe, who denounced the propertied classes in general. One of these, John Ball, a notorious assailant of the gentry, had been thrown into prison. His favourite question was

When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then a gentleman?

5. The Peasants' Revolt. 1381.-From one end of England to another the revolt spread. The parks of the gentry were broken into, the deer killed, the fish-ponds emptied. The court-rolls which testified to the villeins' services were burnt, and lawyers and all others connected with the courts were put to death without mercy. From Kent and Essex 100,000 enraged peasants, headed by Wat Tyler and Jack Straw, released John Ball from gaol and poured along the roads to London. They hoped to place the young Richard at their head against their enemies the gentry. The boy was spirited enough, and in spite of his mother's entreaties insisted on leaving the Tower, and being rowed across the Thames to meet the in surgents on the Surrey shore. Those who were with him, however, refused to allow him to land. The peasants had sympathisers