of that barbaric age. seems to demand too feeling.

Such may indeed have been the fact; but it much allowance for any supposable public

James, the ambitious. uncle, of course assumed the tone of one deeply offended and outraged by a match so derogatory to his family. It seemed but natural for him to vent his spleen, to express his contempt and indignation, to lament the family honour stained in its representative, and the followers and subjects dishonoured in their leader. There was a fertile topic of popular indignation in the elevation of a dependent to the invidious distinction of a superior, to be worshipped and honoured by those who were her superiors and equals. And every one is aware, for it is the main lesson of modern history, that no sentiment can be too trivial, or opinion too fallacious, to convulse the public mind if managed with sufficient address. The ferment swelled on and became inflamed to fury under the dexterous influence of the crafty and specious James. A formidable party was soon raised, and the unhappy youth was obliged to escape from his own territories. Probably the opinion of the large majority of orderly persons was in his favour: but orderly people are too passive to produce any public effect; the voice of the public is seldom heard above the uproar of the unprincipled and disorderly the froth and scum that floats upon its surface. A few turbulent spirits were enough for the earl; and when the unfortunate youth had not prudence and firmness to stand his ground and fight his own battle, these daily increased; and the feeling became general because it was unopposed.

Thrice earl Thomas ventured back in the vain hope that the clamour had died away, and each time he was obliged to fly from a fiercer appearance of hostility. His uncle openly took the lead in enmity; and at last so effectually terrified him, that he was compelled to save himself by a formal surrender of his title and territories.

There could be indeed little regard to law, or any principle of justice, at a time when such a surrender was formally made in the presence of some of the noblest and most dignified persons then living. The earl of Ormonde was a witnessing party to the transaction. consequence of this, however, was the just stipulation by which the son of the young earl was endowed with the manors of Moyallow, Broghill, and Kilcolnan.*

One

The deposed earl went to conceal his shame and grief at Rouen, in Normandy. There he died in 1420. His son, Maurice, was ancestor to the Fitz-Geralds of Broghill; and John, his second son, to the Adairs of Ireland and Scotland.†

James, Seventh Earl of Desmond.

DIED A. D. 1462.

THE circumstances related in the previous memoir form a consistent portion of the history of James, the succeeding earl of Desmond,

and settle the propriety of following them up with the remainder of his life. This must now be briefly done. His first care was to obtain a parliamentary confirmation of a title thus unfairly acquired. This was not a matter of any difficulty. His popularity, it will be easily understood, was great in Ireland; for the elements of his character were of the most popular kind—craft, audacity, and restless turbulence. He was a dangerous enemy and a useful friend. He gained the favour of the English sovereigns by his activity and success in quelling such disturbances as were not raised by his own ambition. He was favoured by the earl of Ormonde, who stood high with the kings of the house of Lancaster. From him he obtained the seneschalship of his lordships of Imokilly, Inchicoin, and the town of Youghall. On the 12th of June, 1438, Robert Fitz-Geoffry de Cogan granted to him all his lands in Ireland, being half the county of Cork; of which, by virtue of a letter of attorney, he took possession in the year following.* Of this transaction, a probable conjecture is, that the grant was forged. It was prejudicial to the legal claims of the De Courcys and Carews. Thus raised to wealth and territorial power beyond the rank of a subject, he lived in kingly though rude splendour, and exercised uncontrolled a regal power over these large territories. To screen himself the more effectually from all question, he kept aloof from the seat of administration, and employed his influence at court, through the friendship of the earl of Ormonde, so effectively as to obtain, in 1444, a patent for the government of the counties of Limerick, Waterford, Cork, and Kerry,† with a licence, on the ground of this duty, to absent himself during life from all parliaments, sending a sufficient proxy; and to purchase any lands he pleased, by what service soever they were holden of the king.‡

He married a daughter of Ulick de Burgo (Mac William Eighter), by whom he left two sons and two daughters, and died in 1462. He was buried in the friary at Youghall.

Art M'Murchard.

DIED A. D. 1422.

Of the Irish chieftains at this period, any information to be obtained is unsatisfactory; and we are compelled to pass them in silence, from the very desultory nature of our information. We have already had occasion to name M'Murchard amongst those Irish chiefs who were knighted by king Richard.

It is unnecessary to detail the circumstances which so soon brought Richard back to Ireland, 1399; here alone he found even the shadow

of honour or success. At this period, M'Murchard is represented as heading a strong force of his country against the English. His pride and sense of independence were deeply offended by the submissions he had been compelled to make; and neither the vows of allegiance and fealty, the pension of 80 merks, the honour of knighthood, nor even the

considerations of prudence, were sufficient to control his impatience to fling off the imputation of a yoke, and wash out the stain of submission, by the unconscious guilt of perjury and shame of falsehood.

For any open course of resistance on the battle-field, he had not, however, sufficient means. He therefore had recourse to the wellknown system of light-heeled, though not unsoldier-like tactics of flying and ambushed war that had so often perplexed and endangered the soldiers of Fitz-Stephen and Strongbow. With a force of three thousand men he took his post among the woods. The English, as they approached, were surprised with the apparition of a well appointed army drawn up along the forest edge, and seeming by their soldierlike order, and intrepid front, prepared to offer immediate battle. The appearance was illusory. As the English captains drew up their troops in order of battle, their enemies melted away into the darkness of the woods.

This incident elated Richard, who celebrated his triumph by the creation of several knights; among whom was Henry of Lancaster, whose father was at the moment preparing dethronement and disgrace for the feeble Richard, while he was vapouring about the fancied discomfiture of an enemy who despised him.

Richard ordered a large body of peasants to open a lane through the impervious woods; and, when this insane order was executed, he had the childish temerity to lead his army into a defile, aptly contrived for the destruction of its designer. The English troops were soon entangled in the miry passes of a labyrinth of thickets, lined with invisible enemies of hollow morasses and impeded ways, where it was as hard to return as to proceed. At every point of disorder they were assailed with sudden irruptions of the enemy, who rushed out into the entangled and struggling crowd with astonishing force and noise, and cast their darts with deadly effect. Under such circumstances, any force of ordinary numbers must have fallen a sacrifice to the rashness of their leader. The army of Richard was too strong to be beaten under any disadvantage by a tumultuary crowd, whose strength was the concealment from which they made attacks which were rather directed to cut off stragglers, than to make any impression on the main host. There was, therefore, no hope of gaining any decided advantage; and the chiefs of M'Murchard's army were most of them impressed with a sense of the danger of provoking the hostility of the English to extremities. Many of them came of their own accord, to make their peace with Richard; they appeared with halters round their necks and threw themselves at his feet to implore for pardon and mercy. Richard's anger was quickly appeased through the easy approach of his vanity. M'Murchard was formally summoned to submit, but the summons was deprived of its authority and dignity by the accompaniment of large offers. M'Murchard was, in his own way, as vain as his antagonist; and he saw the increasing distresses of the English. Richard had, in his thoughtless impetuosity, neglected to observe, that the scene of such long-continued wars and disturbances could not supply the wants of his army. This oversight was not lost upon the sagacity of M'Murchard, who anticipated the sure consequences, and was thus encouraged in the course of resistance he had pursued. There seems indeed to

have been throughout, a struggle between pride and prudence in the mind of this chief; he saw his advantages, but seems to have hesitated in their use—whether to obtain a beneficial compromise, or to win the name of a heroic resistance. The temptation to this latter vain course was very great. There was a dearth amounting to famine in Richard's camp: : his men were perishing from want—the horses were become unfit for service—a general discontent possessed the army-the very knights complained of hardships unattended with the chance of honour. It became a necessity to change their quarters. M'Murchard saw the advantageous occasion which was unlikely to recur, as Richard's distresses must end with his arrival in Dublin. The plunder of some vessels, laden with a scanty supply of provisions, by his own soldiers, decided the king; and the Irish chief who wavered to the last moment, now sent in to desire a safe-conduct, that he might treat for peace. The duke of Gloucester was sent to meet him and settle the terms. The meeting has been described, by a historian of the time, with graphic precision; the description, though assimilated to caricature by some touches of grotesque truth, affords a curious gleam of the social state of the Irish of that generation, and is equally interesting for the lively portrait it gives of the ancient barbaric chief: the ostentatious and flourishing extravagance of barbarian vanity cannot be mistaken, and the portrait is altogether full of uncouth nature and truth. The Irish king darted forth from a mountain, surrounded by the forests which concealed his forces; he was mounted on a strong and swift horse, and rode without stirrups. A vast mantle covered his person with its ample folds, but did not conceal the strong mould of his tall and well-proportioned frame, “formed for agility and strength." As he approached with the rapidity of a warrior about to charge, he waved proudly to his followers to halt; and, darting the spear which he grasped in his right hand, with the display of much force and skill, into the ground, he rushed forward to meet the English knight, who stood more entertained than awed by this formidable exhibition of native energy.

The treaty ended in nothing; the prudence of M'Murchard was uncertain and wavering, his pride and prurient haughtiness were in permanent inflammation. The hero outweighed the statesman, and he could not resist the opportunity for a display of kingly loftiness. He offered submission, for such was the purpose of his coming, but he refused to be shackled by stipulation or security. His insolence quickly terminated a conference in which no terms could be agreed upon, and each party returned to their own camps.

M'Murchard had now plainly involved himself in a condition of which, in the ordinary course, ruin must have soon followed. The king was infuriated; and an adequate force, intrusted to a leader of ordinary skill and knowledge of the country, would soon have deprived him of every rood of territory. But circumstances, stronger than the arms and pride of M'Murchard or the anger of Richard, now interfered.

Richard remained in Dublin, and was engaged in the arrangements for the vindication of his authority, and the indulgence of revenge. But his power was come to its end; and he was already devoted to the hapless fate which he was meditating for an inferior. The continued

prevalence of stormy weather had for some weeks prevented all intelligence from England; at length it came, and he learned that he was ruined.

The story of his return, and the sad particulars which followed, belong to English history, and are known to the reader.

Of the subsequent history of this chief we find but occasional tracks at remote intervals. In the following reign, during one of those occasional fits of vigour which a little retarded the decline of the English pale, his obstinate disaffection received a transient check. He exulted in the reputation of having alone, of all his fellow-countrymen, held out against the force and power of the English, and having foiled the power of the king at the head of thirty thousand men. This was the more galling to the English, as his territory lay within the pale. He was the only chief who refused to make submission to the duke of Lancaster; and as such submissions were in few instances more than nominal, he found no difficulty in seducing many of the others to join him. At the head of these he defied the government. Stephen Serope, who was at the time deputy to the duke, called a parliament in Dublin, which was adjourned to Trim, to consider the best means for the defence of the country. The Irish barons Ormonde, Desmond, the prior of Kilmainham, and other nobles and gentlemen, joined such troops as. they could collect, and marched against M'Murchard. The whole force of these leaders was but slight, and the Irish chief was enabled to present a formidable resistance. The first encounter was seemingly doubtful, and the little army of the English was compelled to give way before the impetuous onset of M'Murchard's host; but the steadiness of the English soon turned the foaming and roaring current of a tumultuous onset, and the Irish fled before them. O'Nolan and his son were taken, and many slain. But the English were prevented from following up their fortune. Accounts reached them on the field of other disturbances in the county of Kilkenny: they were obliged to make a forced march against O'Carrol, whom they slew, with eight hundred of his men; but M'Murchard was nothing the worse. A defeat was nothing to the Irish chief while he could save himself; his army was a mob that easily collected and scattered.

The power of the English was now far on the wane; their moments of vigour were desultory, and their effects were more than counteracted by the lengthened intervals of neglect and weakness. Henry IV. appears to have been both careless and ignorant about the interests of the Irish settlers; and the wisdom and valour of the best governors and deputies, were unable to obtain more than a respite from the ruin that was coming on with uniform progress.

Talbot, lord Furnival, came over; and to show, in a very forcible point of view, what might be done by skill and prudence with adequate means, without any force but what could be raised among the inhabitants of the pale, he managed by judiciously directed and alert movements to repress the insubordination of the Irish chiefs. And there cannot be a more unequivocal test of the efficacy of his conduct, than the submission of M'Murchard, who gave up his son as a hostage.

The remainder of M'Murchard's life was probably spent in quiet. In 1423 we find his successor, Gerald Kavenagh, succeeding to his