Raymond le Gros, with a small body of horsemen; and as Strongbow was anxious to commence his operations by an attack upon Waterford, it was determined that with the forces then under his command, and without waiting for the promised aid of the King of Leinster, the assault should be undertaken on the following day.

The citizens of Waterford, consisting mainly of Dano-Irishmen, defended their city with resolution and spirit, and twice repulsed the attempts of the assailants. "At length," says Giraldus, "Raymond, perceiving in the east angle of the walls a small house projecting on timber props, ordered some of his knights to hew down the props, which being done, the house fell, and with it part of the wall. A breach being thus opened, the troops poured into the city, and took dreadful revenge for the resistance which they had encountered, by a general slaughter of all whom they met in the streets without distinction or mercy." In a tower (now called the king's tower), of which Reginald, a Dano-Irish lord, was governor, that chieftain and O'Phelan, chief of the Desies, had taken refuge, but being dragged forth, were on the point of being put to death when most unexpectedly they found themselves rescued by the interposition of Dermot, who had just arrived on the scene of carnage, with his daughter Eva, and his trusty liegemen Fitzstephen and Fitzgerald.

The Earl of Pembroke received him with all honours; but little time was allowed for welcome or ceremony, as intelligence had arrived from Dublin that Hasculph, the Danish governor of that city, had revolted, and it was deemed necessary to march thither without delay. Giraldus relates that the marriage of Dermot's daughter Eva, with Strongbow, was first celebrated, and that after it the whole army set out for Dublin, with the, exception of a small body of troops left to garrison Waterford.

The bold step taken by Hasculph, in declaring his defection from Dermot, was encouraged by the monarch, Roderic O'Conor, who becoming alarmed on hearing of the arrival of so many hostile foreigners, had assembled a large army, and had taken up his position at Clondalkin, near Dublin. In the meantime, the confederate troops of Earl Strongbow and Dermot were rapidly pressing on their march; and learning that the woods and defiles between them. and Dublin were occupied by the Irish troops, they turned out of the ordinary route, and made their way along the tops of the mountains of Glendalough, and so reached unmolested the very walls of the city.

The inhabitants, who had relied for protection on the large army under Roderic O'Conor, were seized with consternation at the sudden appearance of their ferocious enemy, King Dermot, at their very gates, supported with a large foreign force

In this emergency they had recourse to the mediation of the clergy, and the celebrated Laurence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, who was then in the city, undertook, at the earnest solicitation of the citizens, to mediate on their behalf. Whilst the negotiators on each side were conferring together outside the walls, Milo de Cogan, a puissant Anglo-Norman knight, and his comrades, were inspecting the ramparts in search of an assailable point, and as soon as the time allowed to the bishop for the purpose of parley had expired, or, according to some accounts, even before its expiration, Milo de Cogan and Raymond le Gros gave the signal for the assault, and leading their troops to a part of the walls which they had observed to be ill-defended, were in a few moments in the streets of Dublin, where the unfortunate inhabitants, taken off their guard, were slaughtered and plundered without mercy. Hasculph and some of the leading citizens succeeded in escaping to the vessels which lay at anchor in the harbour, and with the aid of a favourable wind made their way to the Orkney Islands, but the city remained in the possession of the invaders.

Meanwhile Roderic O'Conor, who lay encamped outside of Dublin, instead of rushing to the aid of the unfortunate inhabitants, was induced to draw off his forces to assist his liegeman, O'Rourke of Breifny, whom he had lately made King of Meath, and whose rights over that kingdom were at this moment disputed. Hearing of this, and having made themselves masters of Dublin, and having thus secured the most important city in Ireland, Dermot and his allies determined to follow up the war at once against Roderic, and to attack him in Meath, where he had gone to assist O'Rourke. In addition to the desire of further humbling Roderic O'Conor, Dermot's old grudge against O'Rourke urged him to this enterprise. Having, at Strongbow's recommendation, entrusted the government of Dublin to Milo de Cogan, he sent the Earl with a large force to invade and lay waste the lands of Meath, and followed himself soon after with the remainder of his army.

Roderic, now finding himself insulted and humbled, despatched deputies to the camp of Dermot, to upbraid him with these gross and repeated violations of all his solemn engagements, and to threaten that if he did not instantly withdraw his troops, and restrain the incursion of his foreign auxiliaries, the head of his son, Conor, who was still a hostage in Roderic's hands, should be cut off and sent to him. To this message Dermot haughtily replied that he intended to persevere as he had begun, nor would he desist till he had brought Connaught under his sway, and also recovered for himself the monarchy of all Ireland, to which, he said, that he had better title than the

King of Connaught. On receiving this insolent answer, the monarch Roderic became implacable, and at once ordered Conor, son of Dermot, heir of Leinster, to be beheaded; and executed, at the same time, Dermot's grandson and his foster-brother, O'Caelly.1

Whilst these proceedings were taking place in the east of Ireland, a synod of the Irish Church was called together at Armagh, for the purpose of taking into consideration the perilous state of the country; and, if we can believe Giraldus, the conclusion at which the synod arrived was, that the sins and offences of the people were the cause of the awful calamities which now threatened them; and it was therefore resolved to seek in some national and general act of repentance the means both of propitiation and relief. In accordance with this view, the synod unanimously decreed that all the English throughout Ireland who were in a state of slavery should be restored to liberty.

Just at this moment a check was put to the proceedings of the invaders, by intelligence which they received from England. It will be remembered, that Strongbow had set sail for Ireland in defiance of the command of King Henry, who now issued an edict forbidding all traffic and intercourse with Ireland from any part of his dominions, and commanding all his subjects then in Ireland, of every order and degree, to return home before the ensuing feast of Easter, under pain of perpetual banishment and the forfeiture of all their estates in England.

The effect of this mandate was soon felt by Strongbow. His supplies from England ceased, and a number of his soldiers and knights deserted. Alarmed by this change in his fortune, he summoned a council of his followers, to consider what steps should next be taken, and it was decided that Raymond le Gros should be despatched to King Henry, who was then in Normandy, with a letter from Strongbow, stating that he thought he had had His Majesty's permission to go to Ireland to aid the King of Leinster, and offering to place whatever he had acquired in that country at His Majesty's disposal. Although this acknowledgment was all that Henry could well desire, yet he did not deign even to notice the Earl's letter; and Raymond, after waiting some time at Henry's court, had the mortification to return to Ireland without any reply.

To add to the embarrassment of the English adventurers, their great

'A fresco painting in the Abbey of Knockmoy is stated by Dr. Ledwich and Dr. Petrie to represent this execution of the hostages of Leinster; but whether this is so or not seems doubtful.

patron, Dermot M'Murrough, King of Leinster, died, at the close of this year, at Ferns, of some frightful disease, which rendered him in his last moments an object of horror and disgust to everyone who approached him.1

The personal appearance and physical characteristics of Dermot are. graphically described by his contemporary, Giraldus Cambrensis, who states that he was "a man of great stature and ample dimensions; his voice hoarse and harsh from his continual shouting in the battle; kind to the clergy and the poor, but severe and tyrannical towards the gentry and the nobility; his hand against every man of power, and every man's hand against him."

On the death of the King of Leinster, his son-in-law, Richard, Earl of Pembroke, claimed succession to the throne; Conor, the son and heir of Dermot, having been executed by Roderic O'Conor, and the illegitimacy of his other son, Donnell Kavanagh, having been proved by the Lady Eva, Strongbow's wife. The great body of the Irish of Leinster, however, refused to acknowledge his claims, and attached themselves to the next Irish heir to the throne.

This defection in no way disheartened Strongbow, who, with the view of asserting his authority in other parts of Leinster, now left Dublin, entrusting its defence to De Cogan and others of his most powerful knights. These were soon afforded an opportunity of displaying their valour. The late Danish governor of Dublin, Hasculph, who had succeeded in escaping to the Orkney Islands, had collected there a large army of Danes and Norwegians, and with these he now sailed up the river Liffey. His armament consisted of sixty ships, which were under the special command of a chieftain, called by his countrymen Hans Thewoode, or "John the Furious." Hasculph, having landed his forces, attacked the eastern gate of the city, where being encountered by Milo de Cogan, he was repulsed with the loss of 500 men. The AngloNorman knight, flushed with this advantage, was tempted to pursue the fugitives too eagerly, and soon found himself surrounded by superior numbers, whilst some of his followers were seized with a sudden panic on seeing the thigh of a knight, which was cased all over in iron, chopped off by the Danish chieftain with a single blow. Finding himself in this difficulty, De Cogan endeavoured, with his small band, to regain the city; but the besiegers still crowding upon him, he was on the point of falling beneath their numbers, when his brother Richard suddenly issued forth with a body of horse from

1

According to other accounts, Dermot died penitently, "triumphant over the devil and his other enemies." This is the account given in the Annals of Leinster.

the southern gate of Dublin, and coming on them unobserved, charged the assailants in the rear. After a long struggle, John the Furious was at length killed by the Anglo-Norman Baron, Walter de Riddlesford, and Hasculph, believing defeat to be inevitable, attempted to fly to his ships, but was taken prisoner upon the strand, and brought back alive to be reserved for ransom.1 On appearing before the governor and a large assembly in the council house, and being questioned as to his intentions and resources, he had the courage to exclaim, "We came hither with only a small force, and this is but the beginning of our labours, and if I live, far other and greater things shall follow." This bold speech had an immediate effect, and the unfortunate Hasculph was ordered to be beheaded.

Notwithstanding this temporary success of the English in Dublin, it soon became evident that without further assistance from England they could scarcely hold out for any length of time, in what was now clearly a hostile. country, and all aid from England was stopped by the edict of King Henry. Under these circumstances, another opportunity was afforded to the Irish monarch to get rid of the invaders. What had been done by him immediately after the execution of the Leinster hostages is not recorded, and probably he was engaged in other parts of Ireland dealing with internal dissensions which seemed to be ever cropping up between the subordinate princes. About this time he was waited on by Laurence O'Toole, the Archbishop of Dublin, who, shocked at the excesses committed by the Anglo-Normans, urged the Irish monarch to take advantage of the present weakness of his enemies, and to lose no time in coming to the assistance of the Irish of Dublin. Roderic yielded to these representations, and determined on a general attack on the city both by land and sea, and for this purpose sought the aid of the fleet of the Isle of Man, and of the other islands off the coast of Ireland. In a short time Dublin was invested on every side. The fleet of the isles blocked up the harbour, whilst the Irish forces were encamped around the city, and amounted, if one can believe Giraldus, to 30,000 men. But no attempt was made to enter the city, the Irish monarch having determined to starve out the garrison. Believing that a patient blockade, and the stoppage of supplies, would be the most effective and least destructive mode of reducing the foreigners to submission, the Irish army remained inactive for nearly two months, occupied solely in

1 Gilbert, in his History of the Viceroys of Ireland, p. 23, referring to this engagement between the Danes and Anglo-Normans, remarks: "In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, are preserved what are supposed to be the remains of some of the swords or javelins used in this engagement, which were turned up about forty years ago, in excavating the southern side of College Green."