CH. VI. Remarkable Decree of the Synod of Clane. 501 among other decrees relating to Church disci- A. D. 1162. pline, &c., one was passed (with the unanimous consent of the synod) by which it was enacted that no person should be admitted as a Fearleghion, i. e. a professor or teacher of theology, in any church of Ireland, unless he had previously studied at the school of Armagh. This decree was well adapted to secure uniformity of doctrine throughout the country. account of a held at Ar A.D. 1170. But a much more remarkable synod was held Singular some years after at Armagh, during the troubles synod of the caused by Dermod and the English invaders, of Irish clergy which the following curious account is furnished magh about by the most eminent English annalist of that this time. day, the celebrated Gerald Barry, or according to the title by which he is more generally known, Giraldus Cambrensis. "Hereupon therefore," says this author,* "the entire clergy of Ireland having been convoked together at Armagh, and the subject of the arrival of the strangers into the island having been long handled and deliberated on, the general opinion of all at length The English agreed upon this conclusion, viz.,—that it was garded as a for the sins of their people, and particularly for judgment their having made it a constant practice in time for the sins past to buy English persons, as well from mer- and especichants, as from robbers and pirates, and tore- ally for their trading in duce them to slavery, that this calamity had slaves. *Hib. Exp. lib. i. cap. 18. Lan. iv. 196. VOL. II. I invasion re from God of the Irish, 502 Slavery condemned in the Synod of Armagh. [Book IV. A. D. 1170, befallen them by the sentence of the divine judgment; so as that they themselves also should now in their turn be brought into the condition of slavery by that same nation. For the English people, while their kingdom was still in a state of security, had been accustomed, through a common vice of the nation, to expose their children for sale, and even before they suffered any poverty or hunger, to sell their own sons and relations to the Irish. For which cause it may reasonably be supposed that the buyers had now, as the sellers had some time before,* deserved the yoke of slavery as a punishment for a crime so enormous. It was therefore decreed in the aforesaid council, and publicly enacted with the consent of all the assemblage, that in all parts of the island such English persons as were kept in a state of slavery, should be restored to their original liberty." This account given by Giraldus may be farther illustrated by a canon of an English synod, passed some years before, (at London, under Anselm, in A.D. 1102,) which enacts "that no person shall presume henceforth to carry on under any pretext, that nefarious traffic, by which men used heretofore The English to be sold in England like brute animals."† adventurers recalled home; The rising power of Strongbow in Ireland was now beginning to excite the jealousy of Henry * i. e. in the Norman invasion of England. CH. VI.] Henry II. arrives in Ireland. 503 to remain in II., who accordingly in order to check his pro- A. D. 1170, gress, gave commandment that all the English who had engaged in the expedition, should return home before the following Easter. But Strongbow succeeded in appeasing the wrath of but allowed his sovereign, and was allowed to remain with his afterwards troops in Ireland; where, by the death of Dermod Ireland. at Ferns in the following May, A.D. 1171, he was Dermod's left at the head of the allied Irish and English death. forces. Dermod, it is said, died of a horrid and unknown disease, and in a state of impenitence, as an object of divine wrath for his many crimes, and for the mischief and bloodshed in which his wickedness had involved his native land.* sets out for At length King Henry himself set out for Henry II. Ireland, and embarking at Pembroke in Wales, Ireland. he sailed from Milford Haven on Saturday, the A.D. 1171. 16th of October, A.D. 1171, and arrived on the following day at Crook Haven, near Waterford, with an army consisting of 500 knights, and about 4000 men at arms. His fleet on this occasion was composed of 400 large sized vessels.† the transac Of his proceedings immediately after his ar- Account of rival, the following original and interesting ac- tions which count is supplied us in the works of two valuable occurred on authors who lived at that period.‡ "On the † ib. and Hoveden ad an. * Lanigan iv. 196, 198. Roger de Hoveden, Annal. Lond. 1596, pp. 301, 2. An. 1171. Benedictus Abbas Petrobrugensis de Vita & Gestis Henrici II. & Ricardi I. Oxon. 1735, pp. 27, seqq. For an account of Hoveden, see the note to p. 482, sup. Although an excellent historian, with his arrival. 504 Original Account of the Arrival, &c., [BOOK IV. A. D. 1171. next day," say they, "after the coming of the king of England to Ireland, namely, on Monday, October the 18th, the festival of St. Luke the Evangelist, he and all his armies proceeded to Waterford, an episcopal city. And there he found William Fitz - Aldelm, his butler, and Robert Fitz-Bernard, and certain others of his own family, whom he had sent on before him from England. And there he stayed for fifteen days, [until there had come to him the kings and nobles of the country.] And there came to him there by his own order, the king of Cork, and the king of Limerick, and the king of Ossory, and the king of Meath, and Reginald of Waterford, and almost all the princes of Ireland, except the king of Connaught, who said that he O'Conor re- was of right the lord of all Ireland. [The king homage to of England however could not by any possibility attempt to crush him in war at that wintry season, in consequence of the flooded state of the country, and the rugged mountains, and desert wilds, that lay between them.] Moreover there Roderic fuses to do Henry; the exception of some few inaccuracies, already referred to, (which are to be attributed in part perhaps to mistakes of printers and copyists,) he is not so original in some respects as the other author here mentioned, viz.-Benedict of Peterborough, from whom, as well as from others, he has taken word for word a considerable part of his Annals. Benedict began to write about A.D. 1170, and carries his history to A.D. 1192. He was a judicious and faithful writer. For more concerning both these authors, see Nicholson's English Historical Library. The extract above given is translated from the printed text of Hoveden, except the parts enclosed between brackets, which are taken from the work of Benedict. CH. VI.] of King Henry II. in Ireland. 505 however submitted to lates and came to the king of England in the place above A. D. 1171. mentioned, all the archbishops, bishops, abbots whose auof all Ireland, and they received him for king thority is and lord of Ireland, swearing fealty to him and his heirs, and the power of reigning over them by the prefor ever, and thereupon they gave him their clergy, papers, [in the form of deeds with seals attached.] And after the example set them by and also by the clergy, the aforesaid kings and princes of Ireland did in like manner receive Henry king land. of England for lord and king of Ireland, and became his men, and swore fealty to him, and to his heirs, against all men." the lay no bles of Ire the Irish Waterford? Such is the account of Henry's arrival in Whether all Ireland, and of the circumstances connected prelates met with it, furnished by the worthy historians, Henry at Benedict of Peterborough, and Roger de Hoveden. They appear however to be inaccurate in saying that all the archbishops and bishops of of Ireland waited on Henry at Waterford, as it seems that the primate Gelasius, and perhaps also others of the Irish prelates, did not do so:* *It is to be regretted that so learned and respectable a writer as Dr. Lanigan was carried away by his prejudices against the English writers of the twelfth century, to insert on this and other circumstances noticed in this part of his history, many unjust comments. The reader of his work must therefore be careful not to attach too much weight to any of his remarks on these old historians, as they are only calculated to mislead. The Doctor's obvious motive was jealousy for the honour of Ireland, and more than just indignation against authors of another country who recorded charges against our ancestors not sufficiently confirmed by Irish testimonies. But there |