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into Ireland, on the condition of paying him tribute. He was also to have the whole of the land and its inhabitants under him, on condition that they should faithfully pay tribute to the king of England; and that they should hold their rights on peaceably, so long as they remained faithful to the king of England, paying him tribute and all other rights through the hands of the king of Connaught-saving in all things the rights of the king of England and his." This treaty, of which we have loosely paraphrased the first article, consists of four. The second, stipulates, that if any of the Irish chiefs should be rebels against the king of England, or withhold their tribute, the king of Connaught should compel or remove them; or if unable to do so, that in such case he should have assistance from the king of England's constable. In the same article it is stipulated, that the king of Connaught was to pay one hide out of every tenth head of cattle slaughtered. The third article exempts, from the force of the previous articles, certain towns and districts already held by or under the king of England by his barons. And by the fourth and last it was provided, that those who had fled from the territories under the king's barons, were at liberty to return, under the same conditions of tribute or service to which they had been formerly subject, &c. &c. The importance of this treaty, as it affects the subject of this memoir, is, that it strongly manifests the respect paid to his vigour of character by the sagacious Henry, who was not a person likely to yield a hair's-breadth of sovereignty which he could easily secure or retain. He was, it is true, deeply involved in the troubles of domestic faction and rebellion, and could not have personally pursued the conquest of Ireland to its completion. And his distrust of his barons was so easily awakened, that it is probable, he thought it safer to compromise with the Irish monarch, and keep up the countercheck of a native power against their ambition, than to allow any deputed government raise itself into an independent form and force, in the absence of opposition, and from the growing resources of the whole united power of the country. This may undoubtedly take something from the force of any inference favourable to our view of Roderic: yet it still exhibits the result of a persevering resistance, crowned with substantial success, where every other power and authority was compelled to yield. Something was conceded and something trusted, to one who alone never, from the beginning of the contest to the end, laid down his arms or gave up the cause, till he was left alone-till late experience ascertained that he had no adequate means of resistance, and that his tributaries were not to be depended on in the field-till they of his own household were leagued against him; and until it became most respectable, as well as considerate to his province, to secure an honourable and nearly equal treaty, than to keep up a discreditable and unprincipled war, of which one result alone seemed probable the depopulation of his provincial realm

From this there is nothing recorded worthy of further commemoration, in the life of a monarch whose firm and vigorous, as well as sagacious policy both as king and leader, until the setting in of a new order of events-baffled and set at nought alike the virtues and

* Cox. Hibernia Anglicana.

resources of his country-might have helped the impartial historian to form a truer and kinder estimate of his conduct under trials against which he had no effectual strength but the perseverance against hope and under continual failure, for which his conduct is distinguished. He could not have concentrated the selfish, lukewarm, contentious, and disaffected chiefs at Ferns or in Dublin, into the compact, disciplined body of patriots, of which they had not one amongst them. One mistake he made. He did not, in the clash of petty oppositions and through the dust of the petty factions of his country, discern in its proper character and real magnitude, the new danger that was come upon his country; he did not see that it was time to abandon old rivalship, and to adopt a course of conciliation and combination, to give even the remotest prospect of resistance to the universal invader; instead of this he looked on the new foe, as simply one among the turbulent elements in the cauldron of perpetual feud, nor did he discern his error until the contest had assumed strength, and an extensive system of preparatory measures was impracticable. Again, he did not yield in time: an earlier submission would have saved more. But we will not extend these useless reflections. He felt and acted, not according to the feelings and opinions of modern patriots, yet very much in the same general temper; engrossed by the game of circumscribed passions and policies of the moment, he could not enlarge his comprehension at once to the compass of another spirit and another order of events.

Roderic, at an advanced age, worn out with the labours and vexations of a long life embittered by the ingratitude and turbulence of his children, retired into the monastery of Cong, where he lived in peaceful obscurity for twelve years, till 1198, when he died at the age of about eighty-two.

The character of Roderic has been summed with historic impartiality by a descendant of his blood: "In his youth, Roderic had failings, which were under little control from their neighbouring good qualities. Arrogant, precipitate and voluptuous; the ductility of his temper served only to put his passions under the directions of bad men, while its audaciousness rendered him less accessible to those, who would give those passions a good tendency, or would have rescued him from their evil consequences. His father Turloch the Great, endeavoured to break this bold spirit, by ordering him at several times, to be put under confinement. He bore this indignity, in the first trials, with the ignoble fortitude which flows from resentment: in the second, reflection came to his aid, and grafted that virtue upon a better stock; what engaged him to be wholly reconciled to his father, and forget the over-rigorous severity of his last imprisonment. Bred up in the camp, almost from his infancy, he became an expert warrior; and although licentious in private life, yet he never devoted to pleasures those hours which required his activity in the field or his presence in the council. In a more advanced stage of life his capacity opened, and gave the lead to his better qualities, in most instances of his conduct. Affable, generous, sincere; he retained a great number of friends, and he had the consolation, of being served faithfully by the worthiest among them, when every other good fortune deserted him. Years and experience took their proper effect on him; and the rectitude of

his measures had a greater share than fortune, in raising him above all his cotemporaries, in the esteem of the public, when the throne became vacant, on the fall of his predecessor in the battle of Litterhim. The crazy civil constitution, of which he got the administration, necessarily created him a number of avowed, as well as secret enemies. He reduced the former by his power: and the obedience of both had but little force, at a time when it ought to have the greatest. He had to do with some powerful men, who were of that species of subjects, that can never be gained to the public interest, unless they are gratified in their own way; a hard measure in all conjunctions, and what in some cannot possibly be complied with, as in the case before us. In his adversity, when this faction deserted the nation and him, his constancy in the public service shone forth in all its lustre, without any alloy from revenge, temerity, or despair; the usual concomitants of little minds, when stripped of power and left to their own natural strength. Fortitude, equanimity, and passive courage, dignified the last scene of his administration-independent virtues, which have their reward in every condition of life. His natural endowments were far from contemptible; yet he lived in an age no way favourable to the exertion of great parts, when even the greatest were smothered up in the ferocity of prevailing manners, or lost in the cloud of reigning ignorance. His abilities were as conspicuous as the times would permit, and perhaps more so than they could appear in an ulterior age of less barbarism; when the corruption, the treachery, and the meannesses of courts oppress but too often all the seeds of true genius, as well as of real virtue."*

Fitz-Adelm.

DIED A. D. 1204.

THIS nobleman was descended from Arlotta, mother to William the Conqueror, by a first husband, Harlowen De Burgo. Their son Robert, earl of Cornwall, was father of two sons, John and Adelm—the latter of whom was father to this deputy; while from the other came the family of De Burgo.

William Fitz-Adelm was, as we have said, sent with a large train into Ireland, to take on him a government for which he seems to have had no fitness. He commenced his measures by a progress of inspection. A meeting of the clergy was assembled at Waterford, where Adrian's bull was read, and the king's title formally promulgated under the formidable salvo of ecclesiastical denunciations.

But the only weapon that the state of the land required was wanting. The chiefs soon perceived that the sword was wielded with a feeble hand, and began to make bolder and more successful efforts for the recovery of their power. Fitz-Adelm seemed to have little inclination or ability for resistance against the common enemy; but he had come over with a prejudiced mind; and he exerted all his authority for the oppression of those whom he wanted spirit to protect.

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object only seemed to animate his conduct-extortion and circumvention, which he exercised on the English chiefs with a wanton freedom and indifference to the forms of justice, which could not have long been endured. The death of Maurice Fitz-Gerald left his sons exposed to the crafty influence of this governor; he prevailed on them to exchange their quiet residence in the fort of Wicklow, for the castle of Ferns, which was a kind of thoroughfare for the inroads of the native chiefs. In the same manner Raymond, Fitz-Stephen, and others, were, by a train of fraud and violence, as occasion required, compelled to make such exchanges as suited the rapacity or designs of the governor. The consequence was a spreading of discontent among the English of every rank. The leaders displayed their contempt and hate ;; the soldiers became turbulent and mutinous; while the Irish chiefs who discovered in the venal governor a new and easy way to effect: their objects crowded round the court, where they found in the vanity,, feebleness, prejudice, and corruption of the governor, the advantages. over their old enemies, which they could not gain in the field. Every cause was decided in their favour; and it is alleged that Fitz-Adelm was induced by bribes to demolish works which had been constructed: for the protection of the English in the vicinity of Wexford.*

Such a government could not continue long under a monarch so watchful as Henry. Fitz-Adelm was recalled. They who wish to temper the statements which we have here abridged with an appearance of historical candour, say little of a redeeming character; and we cannot but think that the general dislike of his historians, is of itself warrant enough for all that we have repeated from them. He founded and endowed the monastery of Dromore. But it brought forth no historian to repay his memory with respect.

He was recalled in 1179, and Hugh de Lacy substituted. He received large grants in Connaught, and was the ancestor of the illustrious family of Clanricarde; and of the still more illustrious name of Burke-the noblest and most venerable in the annals of Ireland, if the highest claim to honour be acceded to the noblest intellect adorned with the purest worth. He married a natural daughter of Richard I., by whom he left a son-whom we shall have to notice farther on—and, having died in 1204, he was buried in the abbey of Athasil, in Tipperary, which had been founded by himself.

* The language of Cox is strong and circumstantial':—

"This governor, Fitz-Adelm, was very unkind to Raymond, and all the Geraldines, and indeed to most of the first adventurers. He forced the sons of Maurice Fitz-Gerald to exchange their castle of Wicklow for the decayed castle of Fernes; and when they had repaired that castle of Fernes, he found some pretence to have it demolished. He took from Raymond all his land near Dublin and Wexford. He delayed the restitution of Fitz-Stephen to his lands in Ophaly, till he made him consent to accept of worse situated land in lieu of it. He made his nephew, Walter Amain (a corrupt beggardly fellow, says Cambrensis), seneschal of Wexford and Waterford, who received bribes from MacMorrough of Kensile, to prejudice the Fitz-Geralds; and so mercenary was Fitz-Adelm himself, that the Irish flocked unto him, as to a friar, to buy their demands. At last having neither done honour to the king, nor good to the country, he was revoked, and in his room the king appointed Hugh de Lacy, lord justice of Ireland, to whom Robert de Poer, the king's marshall, governor of Waterford and Wexford, was made coadjutor, counsellor, or assistant."

William de Braosa.

DIED A. D. 1210.

THIS nobleman is entitled to notice among the eminent persons of the 12th century, for his signal misfortunes, rather than on account of his personal merits or historical importance. But the reader of the earlier periods of our history, can scarcely fail to be aware, that its most valuable remains are the incidents which carry with them some distinct notions of a time, when manners and the form of society were so widely different from any thing now known in civilized countries.

Philip of Worcester, as he is called by some historians of his age, was sent over by Henry II. in 1184, as lord justice in the room of Hugh de Lacy, and made himself obnoxious to all classes, by his exactions and tyrannical measures. He received from the king a grant of large tracts of land in the county of Limerick. These lands were afterwards confirmed to William, his nephew, by king John.

On the occasion of the well-known contest which he had with the Roman see, this feeble and tyrannical king was for a time reduced to the most abject condition of terror and suspicion, by the excommunication and interdict of the Roman pontiff. Under this influence, he endeavoured to secure the fidelity of his barons by hostages; and William de Braosa was among those from whom this security was demanded. The messengers came to his castle in England, where he at the time resided. King John had a little before excited universal disgust and indignation by the murder of the hapless prince Arthur; and when his messenger, in his name, demanded that De Braosa's children should be delivered up as security for his loyal conduct, he was answered by De Braosa's wife, that "her children should never be trusted to the murderer of his own nephew." To the timid and vindictive John, this was an offence beyond the reach of conciliation. De Braosa himself, shocked by the uncalculating vehemence of his wife, and rightly apprehending its consequences, reproved her before the messengers, and promised obedience. But it was too late; nothing less than his ruin could satiate the tyrant's anger: and sure means were at once adopted to effect it. A demand was made for the arrears due upon his Irish lands; this could not by any means be met with sufficient promptitude, and an order was issued for the seizure of his lands, castles, and person. De Braosa, who thoroughly knew that the show of a legal right was only designed as the cloak of vengeance, and that his capture must terminate in his death, fled at once with his wife and children to Ireland, where they found refuge under the protection of Hugh de Lacy, who defied the king's resentment.

The anger of John was infuriated by this unexpected obstacle; and he resolved upon an expedition into Ireland, for the avowed purpose of reducing the power of De Lacy and securing De Braosa. It was in June, 1210, he arrived in Dublin. The Irish princes flocked round to do him homage, but the Lacies fled with De Braosa into France.

De Braosa, in the meantime was obliged to leave his wife and

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