His foundations of monasteries and castles are numerous and widely scattered. He founded a Carmelite monastery at Loughreagh, and also built the castles of Ballymote and Corran, in Sligo, with a castle in the town of Sligo; castle Connel on the Shannon near Limerick; and Green castle in Down, near Carlingford bay. He closed a long and active public life, by giving a magnificent entertainment to the nobility assembled at a parliament held in Kilkenny; after which he retired to the monastery of Athasil, the foundation and burial place of his family. There he died in the same year, 1326.

Arnold de la Poer.

CIRC. A. D. 1327.

AMONGST the most distinguished warriors who came with earl Strongbow to this island, none was more eminently distinguished for personal valour and the lustre of his exploits in the field, than Sir Roger le Poer, great-grandfather to lord Arnold. He had the government of the country about Leighlin, where he was assassinated. He left a son by a niece of Sir Armoric de St Lawrence, who was the grandfather of the subject of our present memoir. All the intermediate ancestors, from the first, were brilliantly distinguished in their several generations by those actions which, however illustrious, are unhappily the too uniform burthen of the page of our history. Lord Arnold's life presents an honourable variety of less conspicuous but more intrinsically noble distinction; he is here selected for commemoration on account of the creditable part he bore in resisting the power of a superstitious and persecuting church, and the honour of having been a martyr to the cause of mercy and justice. We shall therefore briefly notice the previous events of his life, in which he had his full share in those transactions of which we have already had, and still have to detail so much, and hasten to the last melancholy tribute which is justly due to his memory.

The first remarkable event of his life was a single combat, in which he was, in his own defence, compelled to slay Sir John Bonneville, who was the assailant, as was proved at his trial before a parliament held in Kildare, in 1310, the year after the circumstance.

In 1325, he was made seneschal of the county and city of Kilkenny, an office of high trust and dignity in those days, though since degraded both in rank and functions, and in our own times existing as the foulest blemish on the distribution of justice in this country.

In 1327, he excited a tumultuary war in Ireland, by calling Gerald, earl of Desmond, a rhymer. Of this we have already taken notice in the memoir of that eminent person.

Among the gloomy characters which have appropriated to these periods in which we are now engaged, the name of “dark ages”—the most awful both on account of its causes and consequences, was the cruel and arbitrary system of church despotism maintained by persecution. At a period when the original institutions of Christianity lay buried under a spurious superstition, developed out of all those very cor

ruptions of human nature, for which the gospel was designed to contain the remedy-the church, for the maintenance of its usurpations, had begun to protect its own groundless dogmas and spurious sanctity with an hundred-fold strictness. The primitive church was content to expel from its communion the idolater and the obstinate impugner of its fundamental doctrine: but the church of the darker ages, setting at nought this fundamental doctrine, yet assuming a character of more rigid and authoritative control of the conscience, guarded its own heresies with the rack and faggot of the inquisition. Opinion, reason, research, were hunted down with the cry of heresy and the bloodhounds of the hell-born inquisition; and a fearful tyranny, reared in moral and intellectual darkness and pillared by cruelty, was rapidly extending itself over all the kingdoms of Europe. Candour must admit that of the popes, the majority would have restrained this horrid system within the limits which their own policy required; but the vindictive principle in human nature, when it becomes combined with either superstition or any other passion of a permanent nature, and capable of affecting the multitude, readily kindles into fanaticism. And an instrument of power will seldom fail to be abused for the purposes of individual resentment or ambition.

In Ireland, where the authority of the Roman see had received slow admission, and was not for a long time after this established, the prudence of the Roman cabinet would have refrained; but the rancour of the odium theologicum-a term which has survived its correct meaning-burned the more fiercely in the breasts of individuals. A bishop of Ossory, fired no doubt by the report of the portentous novelty of the continental institution of the auto da fe, seems to have conceived the liberal and patriotic project of introducing it into Ireland.

In the midst of its distractions, and amid the wild and sanguinary confusion of a state closely bordering on utter anarchy, the island was suddenly horror-struck with the cry of heresy. Alice Ketler, a lady of rank, was the first victim of a charge, which, notwithstanding some circumstances that seem to refer it to the bigotry of an individual, it is yet not easy to avoid regarding as part of a systematic contrivance. The peculiar accusation was at least well adapted to the purpose of conciliating the sense of the multitude, ever easily brought round to any height of error or crime. A persecution for mere opinion is only popular when fanaticism has been fully kindled; but one for witchcraft, the horror of vulgar superstition, would be likely to win the support of opinion and public sentiment, and pave the way for the whole flagrant legion of St Dominic. Accordingly, this unhappy lady was accused in the spiritual court of Ossory, of the formidable crime of witchcraft; she was alleged to have stamped the sacramental wafer with the devil's name, and to have possessed an ointment to convert her staff into the flying broomstick of a witch. On this charge, one of her people was executed and her son imprisoned. The charge failed, but the accuser was resolved not to miss his object. The charge of heresy, which doubtless had been kept back to be an insidious aggravation, was brought forward, and Mrs Ketler was, on this charge, tried and condemned to the stake.

It was then that the lord Arnold de la Poer, being, as we have

mentioned, the seneschal of Kilkenny, humanely interfered. The resource of bishop Ledred was prompt and terrible;-lord Arnold was himself assailed with the fatal charge. He appealed to the prior of Kilmainham, who was chief justice; the same accusation was extended to the prior. Lord Arnold, thus deprived of every resource, was left in prison in the castle of Dublin, where his death took place before he could be brought to trial.* The prior of Kilmainham, Roger Outlaw, proved the falsehood of the accusation; but it is said that lord Arnold, having died "unassoiled," was left for a long time unburied.

As we shall not return to this disagreeable incident, we may here complete the account by adding that the archbishop of Dublin wisely and humanely determined to arrest in its commencement, the introduction of this new and fearful shape of calamity into Ireland. He assailed the fanatic of Ossory with his own weapon, and charged him with heresy. Ledred was obliged to fly, and made an impotent appeal to the Roman see.

Mortough O'Brian.

A. D. 1333.

MORTOUGH O'BRIAN, in common with every person of the name who finds a place in our pages, was descended from the hero of Clontarf, and was inaugurated king of Thomond in 1311. After undergoing many perilous vicissitudes in the party wars of his own family, he was obliged to fly, in 1314, from Thomond. He found a refuge in Connaught with the Burkes and Kellys, by whom he was humanely received and hospitably entertained. After undergoing some further troubles and reverses, he at last succeeded, in 1315, in fixing himself in the secure possession of his provincial territories. In 1316, he was chosen by the English of Munster to lead them against Bruce, and at their head he obtained some partial victories, which won him honour, and contributed both to protect Munster and weaken the Scotch. He enjoyed his sovereignty in peace till 1333, the year of his death.

Edmund de Burgo.

A. D. 1336.

EDMUND DE BURGO, the fourth son to Richard the second earl of Ulster, was made custos rotulorum pacis, in the province of Connaught. He is however only mentioned here on account of the horrible manner of his assassination by a relative of his own, Edward Bourk MacWilliam, who contrived to fasten a stone to his neck, and drown him in the pool of Lough Measgh a deed which occasioned frightful confusion, and nearly led to the destruction of the English in Connaught.

* Lodge.

From this unfortunate nobleman descended two noble families whose titles are now extinct, the lords of Castle Connel and Brittas.*

William de Burgo, Earl of Ulster.

A. D. 1338.

THIS nobleman was married to Maud, third daughter of Henry Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster, and by her had a daughter who was married to Lionel, duke of Clarence, third son of king Edward III., who was in her right created earl of Ulster and lord of Connaught. By her he became possessed of the honour of Clare in Thomond, from which came the title of duke Clarence, which has since been retained in the royal families of England. Lodge, from whom chiefly we have taken these particulars, mentions in addition, that the title Clarencieux, of the king of arms for the south of England, is similarly derived; for when the dukedom of Clarence escheated to Edward IV., on the murder of his brother George duke of Clarence, he made the duke's herald a king at arms, under the title of Clarencieux. The early death of this unfortunate nobleman, might seem to exempt the biographer from the task of noticing a life, which could be little connected with the political history of the period; but the circumstances of his death, in themselves marked by the worst shades of daring licence and treachery, appear to give a frightful testimony to the consequences of misgovernment.

Leland mentions, on the authority of Rymer, that "the only measure now taken for the regulation of Ireland, was that precarious and inglorious one of treating with the adversaries of government." Leland might with truth have used stronger language. This resource was to Ireland, as it has ever been wherever it has been resorted to, the fatal cause and beginning of disaster and decay: a compromise which must in every case expose either the feebleness and fear, the incapacity or the corruption of the administration, could have no consequence but the promotion of those disorders which it was intended to correct. They who seek even the most justifiable object by the commission of crime— and this is the most favourable case- -will not be tied to order by any consideration of pledges. But the then government of Ireland had to deal with a degenerate race, far gone in the decline of an imperfect civilization, and self-justified in the most perfidious deeds of outrage, by a combination of grievances partly real and partly fictitious. The history of every transaction which had occurred during the five generations which had elapsed since Henry II. had tended to prove, that there was among the Irish of those generations, an assumption that no pledge was binding, no deception dishonourable in their dealings with the Norman race. It was obvious that no bargain could bribe the assassin and the robber from their spoil, if the booty offered a reward beyond the bribe. The marauder would naturally look to secure both, or calculate at least the gain between them. Actuated by no principle

*Lodge.

but the desire of acquisition or the thirst for revenge, the powerful native chief readily assumed the specious tone of good faith and honour, and frankly pledged his forbearance or protection, until he received the reward; it then became the consideration, and the only one he cared to entertain, what course his interest might prescribe. The reward was to be viewed but as an instalment of concessions to be extorted by future crimes; the pledge, the treaty, the oath, were given to the winds that have ever blown away such oaths. Of this fatal policy we shall have again to speak; its present consequence was general disorder and licence.

The earl of Ulster was murdered by his own servants, in June, 1333, in the twenty-first year of his age, at a place called the Fords, on his way into Carrickfergus. This atrocity is supposed to have been caused by the vindictive animosity of a female of his own family, Gyle de Burgo, whose brother he had imprisoned. She was married to Walter de Mandiville, who gave the first wound, and attacked him at the head of a large body of people. His death caused a great commotion among the people of Ulster, who rose in large bodies in pursuit of his murderers, and killed three hundred of them in one day. His wife fled with her infant daughter to England, and very vigorous steps were taken to bring every one to justice who was accessary to the murder. In all public pardons, granted at the time by government, a clause was added, "excepting the death of William, late earl of Ulster.”*

In

Some of the results of the earl's death have a curious interest, and some a painful one: the decline of the De Burgo family was a consequence, and with it that of the English settlers on the Ulster estates. The feebleness of the administration operated to prevent the legal occupation of the territories of the murdered earl, by the king as guardian to his infant daughter; they became, therefore, the object of contention between the members of the family and the descendants of the house of O'Niall, their ancient possessor. The consequence was a bloody and destructive war, fatal to the English settlers; who were, notwithstanding much detached resistance, and many a gallant stand, cut up in detail by numbers and treachery, until few of them were left. Connaught, two of the most powerful of the De Burgo family seized and divided the vast estates of their unfortunate kinsman; and in the means by which they maintained this wrong, have left another testimony of the licentious anarchy of the time, and of its main causes and character. An usurpation against the law of England was maintained by its renunciation. With it they renounced their names, language, dress, manners, and every principle of right acknowledged in their previous life; and instead, adopted the costume and character of Irishmen, and assumed the name of MacWilliam, Oughter, and Eighter. They were followed in this unfortunate and derogatory step by their dependents, and thus spread among the Connaught settlers, a deterioration of character and manners, from which they did not soon

recover.

A policy of compromise has the fatal effect of rendering the whole administration one of false position and impolitic expedient. It must

* Lodge.