authorized again to proceed to the Holy Father, and in the name of the Irish Church beseech him to grant the palliums. The aged primate set out on his journey. But while on his way, having reached Clairvaux, he was seized with his deathsickness, and expired there (2d November, 1148), attended by the great St. Bernard, between whom and the Irish primate a personal friendship existed, and a correspondence passed, portion of which is still extant. Three years afterwards the palliums, sent by Pope Eugene the Third, were brought to Ireland by Cardinal Paparo, and were solemnly conferred on the archbishops the year following, at a national synod held at Kells.

But all the efforts of the ministers of religion could not compensate for the want of a stable civil government in the land. Nothing could permanently restrain the fierce violence of the chiefs; and it is clear that at Rome, and throughout Europe, the opinion at this time began to gain ground that Ireland was a hopeless case. And, indeed, so it must have seemed. It is true that the innate virtue and morality of the Irish national character began to assert itself the moment society was allowed to enjoy the least respite; it is beyond question that, during and after the time of the sainted primate, Malachy, vigorous and comprehensive efforts were afoot, and great strides made towards reforming the abuses with which chronic civil war had covered the land. But, like many another reformation, it came to late. Before the ruined nation could be reconstituted, the Nemesis of invasion arrived, to teach all peoples, by the story of Ireland's fate, that when national cohesiveness is gone, national power has departed and national suffering is at hand.

XVI. HOW HENRY THE SECOND FEIGNED WONDROUS ANXIETY TO HEAL THE DISORDERS OF IRELAND.

HE grandson of William of Normandy, Conqueror of England, Henry the Second, was not an inattentive observer of the progressing wreck of the Irish Church and Nation. He inherited the Norman design of one day conquering Ireland also, and adding that kingdom to his English crown. He was not ignorant that at Rome Ireland was regarded as derelict. An Englishman, Pope Adrian, now sat in the Chair of Peter; and the English ecclesiastical authorities, who were in constant communication with the Holy See, were transmitting the most alarming accounts of the fearful state of Ireland. It is now known that these accounts were, in many cases, monstrously exaggerated; but it is true that, at best, the state of affairs was very bad.

The cunning and politic Henry saw his opportunity. Though his was the heart of a mere conqueror, sordid and callous, he clothed himself in the garb of the most saintly piety, and wrote to the Holy Father, calling attention to the state of Ireland, which for over a hundred years has been a scandal to Europe. But oh! it was the state of religion there that most afflicted his pious and holy Norman heart! It was all in the interests of social order, morality, religion, and civilization,* that he now approached the Holy Father with a proposition. In those times (when Christendom was an unbroken family, of which the Pope was the head), the Supreme Pontiff was, by the voices of the nations themselves, invested with a certain kind of arbitrative civil authority for the general good. And, indeed, even infidel and non-Catholic historians declare to us that, on the whole, and with scarcely a possible exception

*Even in that day---seven hundred years ago -English subjugators had learned the use of these amiable pretexts for invasion and annexation !

the Popes exerted the authority thus vested in them with a pure, unselfish, and exalted anxiety for the general public good and the ends of justice, for the advancement of religion, learning, civilization, and civil freedom. But this authority rested merely on the principle by which the Arcadian farmers in Longfellow's poem constituted their venerable pastor supreme lawgiver, arbitrator, and regulator in their little community; a practice which, even in our own day, prevails within the realms of fact here in Ireland and in other countries.

Henry's proposition to the Pope was that he, the English king, should, with the sanction of the Holy Father, and (of course) purely in the interests of religion, morality, and social order, enter Ireland and restore order in that region of anarchy. He pleaded that the Pope was bound to cause some such step to be taken, and altogether urged numerous grounds for persuading the Pontiff to credit his professions as to his motives and designs. Pope Adrian is said to have complied by issuing a bull approving of Henry's scheme as presented to him, and with the purposes and on the conditions. therein set forth. Their is no such bull now to be found in the Papal archives, yet it is credited that some such bull was issued; but its contents, terms, and permissions have been absurdly misrepresented and exaggerated in some versions coined by English writers.

The Papal bull or letter once issued, Henry had gained his point. He stored away the document until his other plans should be ripe; and, meanwhile, having no longer any need of feigning great piety and love for religion, he flung off the mask and entered upon that course of conduct which, culminating in the murder of St. Thomas A'Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, drew down upon him the excommunication of Rome.

Meantime events were transpiring in Ireland destined to afford him a splendid opportunity for practically availing of his fraudulently obtained Papal letter, and making a commencement in his scheme of Irish conquest.

XVII. THE TREASON OF DIARMID M'MURROGH.

BOUT the year 1152, in the course of the interminable civil war desolating Ireland, a feud of peculiar bitterness arose between Tiernan O'Ruarc, prince of Brefni, and Diarmid M Murrogh, prince of Leinster. While one of the Ard-Righana favorable to the latter was for the moment uppermost, O'Ruarc had been dispossessed of his territory, its lordship being handed over to M'Murrogh. To this was added a wrong still more dire. Devorgilla, the wife of O'Ruarc, eloped with M'Murrogh, already her husband's most bitter rival and foe! Her father and her husband both appealed to Torlogh O'Connor for justice upon the guilty prince of Leinster. O'Connor, although M Murrough had been one of his supporters, at once acceded to this request. M'Murrogh soon found his territory surrounded, and Devorgiila was restored to her husband. She did not, however, return to domestic life. Recent researches amongst the ancient "Manuscript Materials for Irish History," by O'Curry and O'Donovan, throw much light upon this episode, and considerably alter the long prevailing popular impressions in reference thereto. Whatever the measure of Devorgilla's fault in eloping with M Murrogh-and the researches illuded to bring to light many circumstances invoking for her more of commiseration than of angry scorn-her whole life subsequently to this sad event, and she lived for forty years afterwards, was one prolonged act of contrition and of penitential reparation for the scandal she had given. As I have already said, she did not return to the home she had abandoned. She entered a religious retreat; and thenceforth, while living a life of practical piety, penance, and mortification, devoted the immense dower which she possessed in her own right, to works of charity, relieving the poor, building hospitals, asylums, convents, and churches.

Thirteen years after this event, Roderick O'Connor, son and successor of the king who had forced M'Murrogh to yield up the unhappy Devorgilia, claimed the throne of the kingdom. Roderick was a devoted friend of O'Ruarc, and entertained no very warm feelings towards M'Murrogh. The king claimant marched on his "circuit," claiming "hostages" from the local princes as recognition of sovereignty. M Murrogh, who hated Roderick with intense violence, burned his city of Ferns, and retired to his Wicklow fastnesses, rather than yield allegiance to him. Roderick could not just then delay on his circuit to follow him up, but passed on southward, took up his hostages there, and then returned to settle accounts with. M Murrogh. But by this time O'Ruarc, apparently only too glad to have such a pretext and opportunity for a stroke at his mortal foe, had assembled a powerful army and marched upon M'Murrogh from the north, while Roderick approached him from the south. Diarmid, thus surrounded, and deserted by most of his own people, outwitted and overmatched on all sides, saw that he was a ruined man. He abandoned the few followers yet remaining to him, fled to the nearest seaport, and, with a heart bursting with the most deadly passions, sailed for England (A.D. 1168), vowing vengeance, black, bitter, and terrible, on all that he left behind!

"A solemn sentence of banishment was publicly pronounced against him by the assembled princes, and Morrogh, his cousin commonly called Morrogh na Gael,' (or of the Irish,') to distinguish him from 'Morrogh na Gall' (or 'of the Foreigners')-was inaugurated in his stead."*

Straightway he sought out the English king, who was just then in Aquitaine quelling a revolt of the nobles in that portion of his possessions. M'Murrogh laid before Henry a most piteous recital of his wrongs and grievances, appealed to him for justice and for aid, inviting him to enter Ireland, which he was sure most easily to reduce to his sway, and finally offering to become his most submissive vassal if his majesty would but aid him in recovering the possessions from which he had

* M.Gee.