CHAPTER I.

THE FILIBUSTERS.

A.D. 1169–1172.

RORY O'CONNOR was fierce and brutal; he was brave, but unstable. There was nothing in him in the nature of a leader of men. The allegiance of Ulster and Munster was little more than nominal; and he had an open quarrel with Dermot McMurrough, the King of Leinster. Dermot was equally brutal and unscrupulous. He had incurred the displeasure of Rory's father, Turlough, by the abduction of the wife of Tiernan O'Rorke, Lord of Brefny and a chieftain of the kingdom of Connaught; and though protected during the reign of O'Lochlin, on the accession of Rory he found that he had to confront not only the anger of the new monarch and his client O'Rorke, but also the disaffection of his own kingdom of Leinster and the Danes of Dublin, whom he had by his cruel tyranny driven into revolt. Dermot, unable to meet the storm, fled from his kingdom in 1168, and sought protection of the Angevin King of England, who was then in Aquitaine.

The Norman kings had already marked Ireland for conquest, as a house divided against itself. And Henry

Plantagenet had obtained from Pope Adrian IV., the only Englishman who ever occupied the chair of St. Peter, an extraordinary document, which purported “for the purposes of enlarging the borders of the Church, setting bounds to the progress of wickedness, reforming evil manners, planting virtue, and increasing the Christian religion ;" and in consideration of the payment from Ireland to Rome of "the annual pension of one penny from each house," to make a grant of the whole island to the king. Henry, however, was too busy with other matters to take advantage of the papal bull, and allowed his designs to slumber, until the arrival of the King of Leinster. He was not inclined even then to offer Dermot any substantial help, but gave him letters patent recommending his own subjects to undertake the adventure, in return for which Dermot did homage and swore fealty.

Dermot went to England to beat up recruits. He came to a bargain with Robert de Clare, Earl of Pembroke and Chepstow, a broken-down Norman noble of good family; and with a group of Norman-Welsh gentlemen, the descendants, some legitimate, some illegitimate, of Nesta, the daughter of the prince of South Wales, by Henry I., Gerald de Windsor, the Lord of Carew, and Stephen de Marisco, the Constable of Abertivy. Of these the most conspicuous were Maurice Fitzgerald, Robert Fitzstephen, Raymond le Gros, and Hervey Mountmorres, Fitzgerald's son-in-law.

Fitzstephen and Mountmorres first crossed with a few followers, seized the Danish town of Wexford, and made a bloody raid into Ossory. Raymond soon

followed. Landing at Waterford, he defeated the men of Decies with great slaughter, and having captured seventy of the principal citizens, broke their limbs, and cast them over the cliffs into the sea. Strongbow him

self arrived shortly afterwards with reinforcements. Waterford was taken and sacked, and the earl's marriage was celebrated with Dermot's daughter, Eva, amidst the smoking ruins of the town.

The adventurers then turned to the northward, captured and plundered Dublin, the leading Danes of th city escaping in their ships to the Orkneys; and carried fire and sword into Meath and Brefny.

The success of these pioneers had a disturbing effect on King Henry. The latter was glad enough to get a foothold in Ireland, but there was the danger lest these lawless Normans, having won a kingdom by their swords, should keep it for themselves. He accordingly commanded Strongbow to return with all his men, and forbade all intercourse between Ireland and his own. subjects. To return, however, was not so easy. Dermot died suddenly, and thereupon every Irishman turned upon the foreigners, and the handful of English found themselves blockaded in Wexford and Waterford by the natives, and in Dublin by the Danes, who had returned from the north with reinforcements.

No sooner had the Northmen been driven into the sea than Rory O'Connor, who had stirred himself but little to protect his kingdom, roused himself to action, and having been joined by the King of Thomond, O'Rorke of Brefny, and Lawrence, the warlike arch

D

bishop, invested Dublin with a large Irish force. But the effort was unsuccessful. After a siege of two months, a desperate sally was made by the besieged, and the undisciplined Irish, unable to withstand the marshalled attack of the Norman knights, were dispersed in terror and confusion. Wexford in the mean time had fallen, and Strongbow, too late to relieve it, proceeded to Waterford, and having re-established his authority over the neighbouring district, crossed from thence to England to make his submission to the king. Henry, having accorded him his tardy forgiveness, proceeded, in 1171, in a fleet of 240 ships, with 400 knights and 4,000 men-at-arms, to Waterford. This conspicuous display of force seems to have impressed the Irish chieftains with the idea that Henry was irresistible. Without a master spirit to subdue their tribal jealousies and to cement the discordant elements together, united resistance was impossible. The King of Leinster had been a puppet in the hands of the English, and Strongbow was now posing as his successor. Rory was more intent upon coercing the King of Ulster than upon performing his duties as overlord by affording protection to the princes of the south. Accordingly, the Munster chieftains "came in." First, McCarthy of Desmond, who surrendered Cork, and received therein an English garrison. Then O'Brien of Thomond, who similarly surrendered Limerick. Next Donchad of Ossory, and O'Phelan of Decies, and all the petty chiefs of Munster. Henry made a royal progress to Cashel and Tipperary, and then proceeded to Dublin. The Danes swore allegiance, as did O'Carrol of Argial,

and O'Rorke of Brefny; and Rory at length turned to bay behind the Shannon. Negotiations with him were opened, but nothing came of them, and he and Henry tacitly agreed to leave one another alone. The kingdom of Ulster also held aloof.

Henry kept Christmas at Dublin, entertaining all the Irish chiefs right royally. He occupied the winter in organizing a government upon the English model. His first object was to plant the feudal system on Irish soil. Dermot had pretended to appoint his son-in-law Strongbow as his successor to the kingdom of Leinster, and had granted large tracts of land to him and to his fellowadventurers. Henry compelled them all to surrender their grants, and to receive them again from himself on the condition of their rendering him homage and military service. He decreed that his English subjects should be governed by English law; but he did not interfere with the natives, who continued, as before, to regulate their affairs by the Brehon law. He instituted the hereditary offices of marshal, justiciary, constable, seneschal, chamberlain, butler, standard-bearer, etc., which had been attached to the king's court, since the conquest, in England. He roughly divided the ceded districts into counties, and pricked sheriffs. He set up the three royal law courts of Bench, Pleas, and Exchequer in Dublin, and provided for the going of circuit by the judges. He appointed a chief governor of the kingdom to act as his viceroy in his absence, the king's justiciary, or lord justice. He held a council of nobles, in which it was enacted*

* Statute of Henry Fitzempress. 18 Hen. II.