[1175-1189 A.D.] passive resistance of one part of the country or another. In 1175 Henry, in the hope that it might have some effect in subduing this rebellious temper, produced for the first time the bull which he had procured from Pope Adrian twenty-four years before, along with a brief confirming it, which he had received in the interval from Alexander III. William Fitz-Aldelm, and Nicholas. prior of Wallingford, were sent over to Ireland with the two instruments;

and they were publicly read in a synod of bishops which these commissioners summoned on their arrival. In this same year, also, a formal treaty was concluded between Henry and Roderick O'Connor, by which the former granted to the latter, who was styled his liegeman, that so long as he continued faithfully to serve him, he should be king of the country under him and enjoy his hereditary territories in peace on payment of the annual tribute of a merchantable hide for every tenth head of cattle killed in Ireland.

For some years after this one chief governor rapidly succeeded another, as each either incurred the displeasure of the king by the untoward events of his administration, or, as it happened in some cases, awakened his jealousy by seeming to have become too popular or too powerful. But Henry never himself returned to Ireland. At length, in 1185, he determined to place at the head of the government his youngest son, John, then only in his nineteenth year; the lordship of Ireland, it is said, being the portion of his dominions which he had always intended that John should inherit. But this experiment succeeded worse than any other he had tried. The same evil dispositions which were afterwards more conspicuously displayed on the throne, showed themselves in John's conduct almost from the first day he began to exercise his delegated authority; by his insulting behaviour he converted into enemies those of the Irish chieftains who had hitherto been the most attached friends of the English interest; and he met with nothing but loss and disgrace in every military encounter with the natives. He was hastily recalled by Henry after having been only a few months in the country. The government was then put into the hands of John de Courcy, who had some years before penetrated into Ulster and established the English power for the first time in that province. De Courcy remained governor to the end of the reign of Henry.k

LISMORE CASTLE, WATERFORD

HENRY II'S POLICY IN IRELAND

Let us consider the position of Henry II as regards Ireland. The first Norman adventurers had submitted to hold as his vassals the lands they had received by right from King Dermot, and also those which they claimed by

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inheritance. The Irish chiefs had taken an oath of fealty, by virtue of which, in the king's opinion at least, they held the tribe lands as vassals upon the terms of feudal tenure. Remark how different was the king's conduct to each of these classes. He treated the Normans with insolence and distrust in the hour of their sorest need; he called upon their followers to abandon them, and cut off all supplies from England; he compelled Strongbow upon his knees to ask for pardon; he deprived him of Dublin and the surrounding districts; he threw into chains Fitz

Stephen, the first adventurer, and received him into favour again only upon the terms of his surrendering Wexford and the adjoining country. Against the Irish chiefs, on the other hand, he waged no war; he deprived none of them of their estates, and he sought in Dublin to dazzle them by his pomp, as he had previously intimidated them by his power. It is evident that the Normans, and not the Irish, were the objects of his fears. He dreaded the establishment of a Norman monarchy rather than the maintenance of Irish nationality; and his apprehensions were well founded, for those who in Ireland subsequently strove to establish themselves in independence of the king were not Celts but Normans. The De Courcy, De Lacy, De Burgh, and the two families of Fitzgeralds were the most active enemies of the English crown.

For some reason, of which we are ignorant, Henry II suddenly abandoned the policy he had at first adopted and pursued one altogether different. It may be that the renewal of the war upon his return to England proved to him that his first design could not be executed. For the Norman adventurers to halt was equivalent to destruction; their safety depended upon continued aggression. The Irish chiefs had bowed before the first display of force as reeds before a blast; they yielded because they believed the king's force to be irresistible; when this force was withdrawn they returned to their former independence; they were ignorant how ineffective a feudal army must prove in an uncultivated and rude country; they had miscalculated the force of the invader and underrated their own powers of resistance; they had submitted to King Henry as to the many usurpers who for the last century and a half had occupied the throne of Ireland, simply because he was the more powerful. When his power was removed they were remitted to their original position.

It may be that the king was overpowered by the pressing instance of fresh adventurers and favourites, whom he sought to provide for in a manner wholly inexpensive. Whatever be the cause, he identified the English government with the party of the Norman invaders, and sought for the sovereignty of Ireland no longer by conciliation but by conquest; but in so doing he took care not to increase the already threatening power of the first colonists; he granted out the country to fresh adventurers, who undertook to conquer and

[1171-1189 A.D.] occupy it at their own expense, but as his subjects. He possessed an apparent title by gift of the pope and the submission of the inhabitants-a title which he was utterly unable to enforce; they offered in exchange for lands which the king did not possess, to wage war and extend his dominions; but the peculiarity of the transaction was that the king did not profess to confer lands which had been forfeited to him in consequence of the treason of their owners, or which lay waste and unoccupied; the existence of the Irish people was absolutely ignored, and estates were granted as if there had been no owners. A proceeding identical with this were the grants by the English crown of tracts of lands in America to English adventurers. This arrangement was peculiarly advantageous to the crown: if the adventurers succeeded, the English kingdom was extended; if they failed, so much the worse for them, and in a subsequent year fresh grants would be made to new speculators.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM IN IRELAND

We have, in theory at least, and in view of strict English law, a complete feudal system established in Ireland; at the top stood the king, at the bottom the lowest vassal, and this legalised form of society presented a consistent form. But the feudal system as established in Ireland differed in important respects from that existing in England. It is usual for Irish writers to attribute much of the sufferings of Ireland to the misgovernment of England and the introduction of feudalism, whereas most of these evils may be referred rather to English non-government and to the peculiar anomalies of the Irish feudal system. The feudal system as introduced into Ireland, like most other institutions imported from England, was altered in such a manner as

to retain all its evils and lose all its advantages. The crown in Ireland possessed no power of controlling its vassals. When William the Conqueror distributed the lands of England, he retained in his own hands a larger proportion of manors than he granted to any of his followers. He thus became himself the most powerful feudal lord in the country. In Ireland there were no manors or valuable estates that the crown could appropriate the entire country had to be conquered; and as the crown did not assist in the conquest,

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it received no part of the spoils. Thus we find the crown had absolutely no demesnes of its own, and, being deprived of any military force of its own, it had to rely upon such of the great feudal vassals as might remain loyal for the purpose of crushing those who might be in rebellion. The inevitable result of this policy was to kindle a civil war and excite personal feuds in the attempt to maintain order.

Thus the feudal system in Ireland was deprived of the only force which could keep it in regular and harmonious working; like a machine without a fly-wheel, its movements became uncontrolled and irregular. It was, however, possible that the several grantees of large tracts of land from the crown should have established themselves like petty princes, and occupied a position resembling that of the great vassals of the German emperor; but the jealousy of the crown towards its Norman vassals prevented this result. We have thus a feudal system, in which the crown is powerless to fulfil its duties, yet active in preventing the greater nobles from exercising that influence which might have secured a reasonable degree of order. The whole energy of the nobles was turned away from government to war; and lest they should become local potentates, they were allowed to degenerate into local tyrants.

The remarkable point in the conquest was, that the Celtic population was not driven back upon any one portion of the kingdom, but remained as it was, interpolated among the new arrivals. The distribution of the two populations may be briefly sketched as follows: The Normans occupied, in considerable force, the counties of Antrim and Down, in Ulster; in Leinster, the counties of Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, and the greater portion of Westmeath, were densely colonised by Normans and Saxons; southward, the colonists occupied, in a narrow line, portions of the King's and Queen's counties, and Carlow; they held the counties of Kilkenny and Wexford, and the eastern part of Munster; they occupied Limerick and the adjoining districts, and their castles extended to the mouth of the Shannon. In Connaught, the territories of the De Burghs stretched from Galway northward and eastward over the plain portion of Connaught, and communicated through Athlone with their countrymen in Leinster. On the other hand, the residue of Ulster was occupied by the O'Neills and O'Donells, and their subordinate tribes. South of them extended the districts of the O'Farrells, the O'Reillys, and O'Rourke. In Leinster, the O'Tooles and O'Brynes occupied the mountains of Wicklow, and the Carlow and Kilkenny hills were in the hands of various tribes, of which the chief was the McMurroughs, subsequently known as Kavanaghs. The west of Munster was strongly held by the MacCarthys and their subordinate tribes; Clare was occupied by the O'Briens; the western coast beyond Lough Corrib remained in the possession of the O'Flahertys, and the northeast of Connaught was under the control of the O'Connors.

The original source of the calamities of Ireland was the partial character of the Norman conquest, which caused the conquerors, instead of becoming an upper class, to remain a mere hostile settlement. The next great source of mischief was the disposition of Christendom at the period of the Reformation, and the terrible religious wars which ensued. Then Ireland became a victim to the attempt of Louis XIV to destroy the liberty and religion of England through his vassals, the House of Stuart. Finally the French Revolution, breaking out into anarchy, massacre, and atheism, at the moment when England under Pitt had entered on the path of reform and toleration, not only arrested political progress, but involved Ireland in another civil war.-GOLDWIN SMITH. P

IRELAND AFTER THE DEATH OF HENRY II

DURING his brother's reign John's viceroy was William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, who married Strongbow's daughter by Eva, and thus succeeded to his claims in Leinster. John's reputation was no better in Ireland than in England. He thwarted or encouraged the Anglo-Normans as best suited him, but on the whole they increased their possessions. In 1210 the excommunicated king visited Ireland again, and being joined by Cathal Crovderg O'Connor, king of Connaught, marched almost unchallenged by De Lacy from Waterford by Dublin to Carrickfergus. Thus, with the aid of Irish allies, did Henry II's son chastise the sons of those who had given Ireland to the crown. John did not venture farther west than Trim, but most of the Anglo-Norman lords swore fealty to him, and he divided the partially obedient districts into twelve counties-Dublin (with Wicklow), Meath (with Westmeath), Louth, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Kerry, and Tipperary. John's resignation of his kingdom to the pope in 1213 included Ireland, and thus for the second time was the papal claim to Ireland formally recorded.

During Henry III's long reign the Anglo-Norman power increased, but underwent great modifications. Richard, earl marshal, grandson of Strongbow, and to a great extent heir of his power, was foully murdered by his own feudatories-men of his own race; and the colony never quite recovered this blow. On the other hand the De Burghs, partly by alliance with the Irish, partly