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declared that Limerick should no longer be a nest of foreigners. In the mean time, Strongbow was interred with the most solemn pomp in Christ church, Dublin, and the ceremonies performed by the celebrated prelate, Laurence O'Toole. Soon after, a council was called, and Raymond le Gross unanimously elected viceroy of Ireland. This election, notwithstanding the past services of Raymond, did not meet with the approbation of Henry; he forbade the nomination, and substituted William Fitzansdelm, a nobleman allied to Henry by blood. John de Courcy, Robert Fitzstephen, Milo de Cogan, and Vivian, the pope's legate, accompanied the viceroy to Ireland. The legate was the bearer of the pope's brief, confirming Henry's title to Ireland. Raymond received the new viceroy with all due respect. An assembly of the Irish clergy was convened at Waterford, at which the brief of Alexander, and the bull of Adrian, were solemnly promulgated. This assembly of the clergy took place in the year 1177. The administration of Fitzansdelm seemed to be more directed against his predecessors in power, than to the extension of his royal master's interests. Giraldus Cambrensis says, that he was sensual and corrupt, rapacious and avaricious; and though not formidable from the terror of his arms, yet full of craft, of fraud, and dissimulation. Raymond le Gross was thrown into the shade, his property exchanged, and every mark of indignity and insult offered to those adventurers who had succeeded in making the first English establishment in Ireland. The north of Ireland was now marked out by the English adventurers, as a scene of plunder and confiscation, which would afford ample rewards to the spirit of heroic enterprise, and ample compensation for the hardships and difficulties to be contended with. The cruel and rapacious De Courcy selected the north as the theatre of his military fame. He was the first to visit its inhabitants with the calamities of war, and the more disastrous effects of foreign

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intrigue, with domestic treachery. Astonished and confounded at the horrid outrages committed by those unprovoked invaders, they abandoned their habitations, and for some time, made but a feeble resistance to their persecutors. At length the people collected, and appeared in arms under their prince; and in a short time De Courcy was doomed to trace back his sanguinary steps with mortification, and give up those places which his cruelty had desolated. Such were the persecutions of De Courcy, that Vivian, the pope's legate, who accompanied this English leader to Ireland, and was the bearer of the bull for its annexation to England, could no longer restrain his indignation, and boldly stimulated the Irish to fly to their arms. An Irish army was immediately collected, and marched against De Courcy; who, depending on the discipline and experience of his troops, advanced to meet the tumultuous Irish forces. The northern Irish fought many severe and obstinate battles, before they yielded to the superior skill of the English general. In one of those, Murtogh O'Carrol, chieftain of Oriel, or Louth, particularly distinguished himself He attacked De Courcy in his camp, and almost destroyed his entire force, within his own entrenchments. While John de Courcy was thus wasting the beautiful province of Ulster with fire and sword, Milo de Cogan marched into Connaught, to support the rebellion of Murrough, son of Roderic O'Connor. Such was the dreadful impression which these visits of the English adventurers made on the vish mind, that on the approach of Milo de Cogan, the inhabitants drove away the cattle, secreted their most valuable effects, and reduced their country to a desert. It was the practice of the Irish to deposite provisions in their churches, where, amidst all their domestic quarrels, they lay secure, as in a sanctuary. To the English those consecrated temples were not more sacred nor more respected than any other place where treasure might be secreted

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all were indiscriminately destroyed. The Irish of the west determined to anticipate the fury of their invaders. They prostrated their churches, destroyed the property they could not carry away, and left the country to be invaded without human sustenance or shelter. This policy succeeded-the English were compelled to a mortifying and disgraceful retreat. They abandoned their ally, Murrough, to an ignominious fate, and regained their quarters in Dublin, after an unsuccessful effort to plunder an unof fending people.

Nothing can so much excite the indignation of an honest or feeling heart, as the insolent reflections of the English historians, on the miserable feuds and animosities which, they say, disgraced all parts of this most devoted country. "Even," say they, "the presence of the invading enemy could not unite those infatuated people: it could not obliterate the impressions of domestic jealousy, and family rivalship." May it not be asked, what so calculated to keep alive those distracting divisions, as the hope of foreign support to domestic treachery; what so much as the distribution of foreign gold, the artifices of foreign policy, the intrigues of English fraud, and the insatiable ambition of English adventurers? What treacherous or rebellious child could not find an asylum in the arms of an English general? Or what bad or malignant passion would not the breath of English ambition blow into a flame, when such a policy extended the triumphs of their arms, increased the wealth of their families, and gratified the ambition of their monarch? It is not to be wondered that we should see so much treachery, and so much mutual bloodshed; that father and son should draw their swords against each other, and that the nobler virtues of humanity should have been lost in the conflict of those malignant passions which found protection and encouragement in the destructive policy of England. Much better had the sword annihilat

ed every Irish arm which was willing to defend the liberties of the country, than to wade through centuries of a lingering struggle, in which nothing is to be seen but courage betrayed on one side, and ambition sanguinary and insatiable on the other: an innocent and brave people contending for their families, their properties, their altars, and their liberties, against the unprincipled machinations of English adventurers, whose motive was plunder, whose pretext was religion and social order, and whose achievements were marked with the bravery of the midnight robber, who exposes his life to satiate his passions, and estimates his heroism by the atrocity of his courage, and the fearless contempt of the laws of God, and civilized society. Such are the reflections which must occur to every mind, not rendered callous by corruption, or not sacrificing his conviction to the hired purposes of the moment at which he is writing the history of his country.

The complaints against the viceroy Fitzansdelm, having reached the ears of Henry, the latter removed him from the government of Ireland. Hugh de Lacy was appointed to succeed the late viceroy; an active and vigorous officer, well calculated to extend the power of his master.

His administration was marked with a spirit of equity to which the Irish were unaccustomed since England first invaded their shores. It atoned, in some degree, for the violence and injustice of those who preceded him. In this year (1178) Henry constituted his son John, lord of Ireland: this prince never assumed any other title. He also made grants of large portions of Irish territory to his principal generals. The power with which John was now invested by his father, seemed to supersede the treaty made by Henry with the Irish monarch, and John was now what Roderic stipulated to be. The adventurers to whom Henry had made large grants of Irish territory, were re

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sisted, when endeavouring to take possession of them. The present possessors were unconscious of any act which could justify the English monarch to expel them from their properties. They therefore unanimously resisted the bold and despotic order, and compelled their despoilers to the surrender of claims so unjust and so indefensible. The mild spirit of Hugh de Lacy's administration was not very congenial to the feelings of his English companions in arms; and secret whispers and calumnious insinuations were communicated to Henry against the fidelity and allegiance of the viceroy. Hugh de Lacy was recalled; but, on investigation, the charge against his administration was found to be malicious and unfounded, and Henry immediately restored him to power. While Hugh de

Lacy was endeavouring, by the mild and efficient measures of a humane and equitable system, to preserve the English power in Leinster, De Courcy was desolating Ulster with fire and sword.-The Irish exhibited in their battles with the English leaders, an heroism worthy of men fighting for their liberties and properties; and under Murtough O'Carrol, reduced De Courcy and his veteran troops to the most disastrous extremities. The English government succeeded in keeping alive, throughout the south and west, the most desperate spirit of faction among the principal Irish families, and thus conquered by division with more effect than by the sword. According to Henry's treaty with the Irish monarch, the former was bound to support him against his rebellious vassals. Such a policy, however, would have been considered but little calculated to extend the English power; and we therefore see the opportunity warmly cherished by Henry, to widen the breach between Roderic and his subjects, and thus take advantage of divisions which must ultimately extinguish the country.-About this period (1181) died Laurence O'Toole, the prelate of Dublin; a man illustrious for his conscientious hatred of English oppression; his unconquer

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