Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3)

From the preparation which he made for the invasion of Ireland, it seems clear that the King profoundly distrusted the adventurers who had insisted on winning him a new realm. Vast stores of provisions, a great number of hand-mills, artisans for building bridges, horses, and tools for building or trenching, might indeed have been required for a war against the natives. But the Irish had no fortresses, and wooden castles, of which we also read, can only have been intended for attacking the port-towns which Earl Richard had promised to give the King, and which were already in Norman hands. Henry saw enough of Ireland to know that he had really nothing to fear from the adventurers. Dermod MacMurrough was dead before his arrival, and it was clear that Earl Richard would have enough to do in maintaining his wife’s monstrous claim without doing anything to offend his own sovereign.

When, therefore, shortly before Easter, 1172, news came from Aquitaine and Normandy that the legates were on their way to inquire into the Canterbury tragedy, Henry lost no time in appointing Hugo de Lacy his representative at Dublin, and in arranging for the safe keeping of Waterford and Wexford. He sailed from the latter port on Easter Monday 1172, having been in Ireland exactly six months.[33 - The details of Henry’s preparations may be studied in Sweetman’s Calendar of Documents.]

Henry leaves Ireland. He grants Meath to De Lacy

Before leaving the country Henry granted to Hugo de Lacy all the territory of Meath, by the service of fifty knights. This included Westmeath, with parts of King’s County and Longford, and was about 800,000 acres in extent. De Lacy, to whom Hoveden gives the title of justiciar, must be considered as the first Viceroy of Ireland, and he lost no time in advancing a claim which, if successful, would make him one of the most important vassals of the Crown. Tiernan O’Rourke, the one-eyed King of Meath, consented to meet the Pretender at the Hill of Ward. The conference ended in a quarrel, and O’Rourke was killed. Giraldus charges treason upon the Irishman, and the Irish annalists charge it upon the Norman. The important point is that De Lacy was able to make head against the Irish, and that a powerful Norman colony was established by him in the fertile central tract of Ireland. Earl Richard was rather less successfully engaged in fighting for Leinster, which Henry had granted him by the service of one hundred knights, when he was summoned to Normandy, where he did such good service that the King made him Viceroy in De Lacy’s room. This was in 1173. It was in the next year, or perhaps in 1175, that Henry had the bulls or privileges of Adrian IV. and Alexander III. promulgated in Ireland. We can hardly suppose that they were previously unknown to the clergy, who so manifestly favoured the Anglo-Normans all through. Perhaps the King’s main object in publishing them at this time was to make his own peace with Rome, by ostentatiously announcing that he held Ireland of the tiara, and not in right of his own sword.

Difficulties of the adventurers

When Earl Richard returned to Ireland he found that he had lost ground. The Irish were beginning to recover confidence, and Hervey and Raymond were quarrelling bitterly. The latter was the favourite of the soldiers, who insisted on having him for leader, and he gained some successes over the Danes of Cork and over the MacCarthys. Believing himself worthy of the highest rewards, Raymond asked for the Constableship of Leinster, and for the hand of Basilia, the earl’s sister. The new Viceroy was disinclined to grant these terms, and Raymond, whose father had just died, went over to Wales to look after his old inheritance. Hervey thus became second in command, and planned a campaign in concert with the Dublin garrison. Earl Richard accompanied him to Cashel, but the intended junction was not effected. Donald O’Brien’s homage to Henry II. did not prevent him from hindering his representative, and at Thurles he surprised and totally defeated the Dublin division. No less than 400 Danes are said by Giraldus to have fallen, which shows that a portion of that nation had accepted the alliance of their Teutonic kindred. The O’Briens were aided by a large contingent from Connaught, but it does not appear that Roderic was himself present. The immediate result of this defeat was the recall of Raymond and his marriage to Basilia. He easily put down a partial revolt of the Waterford and Wexford Danes; and, finding himself indispensable, remained at Wexford until his bride was brought to him. The honeymoon was scarcely begun when news came that Roderic was wasting Meath, and had penetrated nearly to Dublin. Raymond hastened thither, and the Connaught men retired before him. Castles, according to Giraldus, were already built at Trim and Duleek; but they had not proved strong enough to resist Roderic, and Raymond’s first care was to restore and strengthen them. The adventurers, most of whom were already nearly related, were still more closely united by the marriage of Hervey to Raymond’s sister Nesta, and of Earl Richard’s daughter Aline to William Fitzgerald.

The adventurers fail to hold Limerick. William Fitz-Adelm made Viceroy

Death of Strongbow, 1176

Donald O’Brien was not left long to enjoy his victory. Limerick was taken by a sudden onslaught under Raymond, and the bounds of the colony were advanced as far as they had yet been. Raymond still lingered on the Shannon, where he received a loving letter from his wife, in which she informed him ‘that the great molar tooth, which had been hurting her so much, had now fallen out.’ He could not read, but his chaplain secretly imparted the contents of the paper, and he guessed that Basilia alluded to the death of her brother, who had been for some time ill. He hurried to Dublin, and found that Earl Richard was indeed dead. Deprived of their leader, and probably hard pressed by the Irish, the Normans thought it prudent to evacuate Limerick. It was surrendered to Donald O’Brien, who set fire to the city in four places as soon as they were gone. When the King heard of this he remarked that the abandonment of Limerick was the only wise thing that had been done concerning it. The Normans chose Raymond their governor in Earl Richard’s room; but he was quickly superseded by William Fitz-Adelm de Burgh, whom Henry sent over as Viceroy with large powers.

Fitz-Adelm depresses the adventurers

According to Giraldus, the new governor did all in his power to depress the adventurers of Nesta’s stock. Raymond came to meet him with a chosen band of his relations and friends finely mounted and armed. Instead of being conciliated, the Viceroy muttered to his suite, ‘I will soon cut short this pride and disperse these shields.’ According to the same authority, he took advantage of the death of Maurice Fitzgerald to defraud that leader’s children. Giraldus is partial, but it is easy to see that official governors were from the first jealous of the local magnates, and were disposed to engross all influence. Fitz-Adelm did little or nothing to increase the Norman power in Ireland, and he was recalled in 1177.

Treaty between Henry II. and Roderic O’Connor

In October 1175, not long before the death of Earl Richard, Henry II. made a treaty with Roderic O’Connor, which must be understood as a kind of declaration of policy. The commissaries who attended at Windsor on Roderic’s part were Catholicus, or Keyly O’Duffy, Archbishop of Tuam, the Abbot of Ardfert, and the King of Connaught’s Brehon, whom Giraldus calls his Chancellor. The Archbishop of Dublin, St. Lawrence O’Toole, was among the witnesses to the instrument by which Henry granted ‘to his liege man Roderic, King of Connaught, as long as he should serve faithfully, to be King under him, ready to serve him as his man, and to hold his land well and peacefully, as he held it before the King of England’s entry into Ireland, paying him tribute.’ Should he be unable to maintain his authority, the King’s forces were to help him. The tribute was to be one in every ten marketable hides. Roderic was not to meddle with those lands which the King held in his own hands, or in those of his barons: that is to say, Dublin with its appurtenances; Meath with its appurtenances, in as ample a manner as Murchat O’Melaghlin had held it; Wexford with its appurtenances, and all Leinster; Waterford and Dungarvan with its appurtenances, and all the lands between the two places. Irish fugitives willing to return into the King’s land were to have peace on paying the aforesaid tribute, ‘or by performing the ancient accustomed services for their lands.’ Those who would not return were to be coerced by the King of Connaught, who was to take hostages from all whom the King granted to him, and to give hostages on his own part wherever the King required him. No refugees from the King’s lands were to be entertained by Irishmen under any pretence. At the same time, as if to mark the fact that Irishmen were his own subjects as well as Normans, Henry appointed Augustine O’Sealbhaigh to the bishopric of Waterford, and sent him, in charge of the Archbishop of Dublin, to be consecrated by the Archbishop of Cashel. This was a confirmation of the Eugenian constitution, and put an end to the succession of the Danish bishops through Canterbury. Henry had no wish to have future Beckets interfering in Ireland. Canterbury was near and Rome was far.

Henry’s original policy frustrated by De Courcy

The treaty with Roderic, if we accept it as Hoveden and Benedict have handed it down, shows that a full conquest of Ireland was not intended by Henry II. The possession of the port-towns gave him the command of St. George’s Channel, and a control over the trade of the island. He had seen enough to know that a permanent conquest was beyond the power of a feudal army, and his policy was to balance the adventurers, his own creation De Lacy, and the native princes against each other. Fitz-Adelm, a subtle intriguer with an eye for money, probably seemed a fitter instrument for his purpose than any enterprising soldier. But Fitz-Adelm brought with him to Ireland one of those restless and unscrupulous men of action, who sometimes disconcert the best laid plans of statesmen. John De Courcy is represented by Giraldus as a tall, fair man, of immense strength and extraordinary audacity, an experienced warrior, though often more of a partisan than a general; but religious in his way, and ever ready to ascribe to God the glory of any successful exploit. He was the patron of the monk Jocelin, who wove such a tangled web about St. Patrick, and he carried with him everywhere a tract of St. Columba, which was supposed to point him out as the destined conqueror of Ulster. Seeing that neither gain nor glory could be had under the Viceroy, De Courcy, in January 1177, boldly marched into Ulster with twenty-two knights and 300 chosen men. Among the knights were Almaric St. Lawrence, ancestor of the Howth family, and Roger le Poer, apparently a collateral ancestor of the Powers and Eustaces. In the course of a year or two, though by no means always successful in battle, De Courcy made himself supreme in eastern Ulster. Where they had the advantage of the ground, the natives were too much for the adventurers; but in a fair field a hundred Normans, at least under such a leader as De Courcy, were more than a match for 1,000 Irish. Discipline and steadiness soon gave them the coast, and the castles which they built everywhere enabled them to make war or peace as they pleased. Downpatrick was John de Courcy’s capital.

De Courcy and De Lacy. Castle-building

O’Donlevy, chief king of Uladh, or that part of Ulster now comprised in Antrim and Down, had done homage to Henry II., and imagined that he would be thus secured from invasion. But the King evidently understood the matter differently, for De Courcy had a grant from him of such northern lands as he could conquer. Fitz-Adelm having failed as a Viceroy, Henry now fell back upon Hugo de Lacy, who perhaps dreamed of making himself independent. He distinguished himself by good government from 1177 to 1181, and by showing favour to the Irish; and he married a daughter of Roderic O’Connor without the King’s consent. Henry accordingly sent for De Lacy to England, and gave the viceregal authority to John, Constable of Chester. The Lord of Meath succeeded in making his peace, and was soon restored to the government; Robert of Salisbury, a priest, being sent as a spy upon him. De Lacy covered his own district with castles, Trim being his capital. Delvin he granted to William Nugent, his sister Rose’s husband, who became the ancestor of the Earls of Westmeath. Other estates he gave to his friends and followers, who founded many of the families of the Pale. The Flemings, Lords of Slane, became the most important of these. Other barons followed the example of De Lacy; and Giraldus mentions that by the year 1182 castles were built at or near Newtown Barry, Castle Dermot, Leighlin, Timahoe, Athy, Narragh, and other places. The Meath castles, says the chronicler, were too many to mention by name.

John designated as King of Ireland

As early as 1177 Henry had nominated his son John King of Ireland. For this he had the leave of Alexander III., and in 1186 Urban III. actually sent a crown of peacock’s feathers set in gold for the King to crown one of his sons, the choice being left to him. The intervening Pope, Lucius III., had opposed the plan, and this may have been the reason why it was never carried out. Or the King may have hesitated to repeat even in John’s favour an experiment which had succeeded so ill in the case of his eldest son. The Oxford nomination of 1177 was allowed to take effect only so as to constitute John Lord of Ireland, and this title was afterwards assumed by the Kings of England. In the sixteenth century it was by some taken as evidence that the crown in Ireland was subject to the popes. But the idea of a separate, though subordinate, kingdom was very nearly realised. The acts of the colony were from the date of the Oxford Council executed in the name of ‘John, Lord of Ireland, son of the King of England,’ and the first Anglo-Norman coinage bore his face.

John sent to Ireland as Viceroy

On March 31, 1185, the King knighted John at Windsor, and on April 24 the latter, who was in his nineteenth year, sailed from Milford Haven, with 300 knights and a large body of troops. The expedition reached Waterford in safety next day, and the neighbouring chiefs flocked to do honour to the King’s son, and to give him the kiss of peace. The Anglo-Norman courtiers – young men mostly – pulled their long beards, and they at once departed to the hostile chiefs, Roderic O’Connor, Donnell O’Brien, and Dermod MacCarthy. All chance of conciliating the more powerful and distant potentates was thus taken away. Giraldus Cambrensis was present at Waterford, and he likens John to Rehoboam. The Irish, who had adhered to the invaders since Fitz-Stephen’s first landing, were deprived of their lands; the castles were given up to favourites, who did nothing but eat, drink, and plunder; the worst officers were put in the best places, and the men, as a natural consequence, were as bad as their masters, devoted to Venus and Bacchus, but neglectful of Mars. Hoveden adds that John put all the profits of government into his own pocket, and that his soldiers being unpaid were useless in war. The three castles projected by his father were built; but he lost many to the Irish, and De Lacy was suspected of intriguing against him. It is clear that there could be no confidence in a prince whose chief care was to rob and displace the men who had won his principality for him. The disastrous experiment lasted only eight months, when John returned to England, leaving the government to John de Courcy, who retained power until the death of Henry II. The Lough Cé annalists, who wrote beyond the Shannon, give the following account of John’s expedition: – ‘The son of the King of the Saxons came to assume the sovereignty of Erin … afterwards he went across to complain of Hugo de Lacy to his father; for it was Hugo de Lacy that was King of Erin when the son of the King of the Saxons came, and he permitted not the men of Erin to give tribute or hostages to him.’ To the Irish bordering on Meath no doubt De Lacy seemed a veritable king. The Four Masters, who were better acquainted with the English theory of government, repeat this; but soften Hugo’s title of king into that of the King of England’s deputy.

Murder of Hugh de Lacy. The colony continues to extend

In or out of office, De Lacy continued to increase his dominion in Meath, but his career was cut short not long after John’s departure. Having encroached upon the lands of the O’Caharneys, he was murdered while building a castle at Durrow by a foster-relation of the injured clan. His death was a great blow to the colonists, but his son Hugo succeeded to scarcely diminished power, and is accused by Giraldus of systematically thwarting De Courcy. Fitz-Stephen meanwhile was carving out a principality in Munster, where he would be tolerably free from official interference. He and Milo de Cogan were joint grantees of Cork, and the latter married his daughter Catherine to Maurice, son of Raymond le Gros, to whom Dermod MacCarthy had given a portion of North Kerry. From this alliance the Fitzmaurices sprung. It is probable that in granting the land of the O’Connors to a stranger, Dermod gave that over which he had no real authority. The territory immediately round the city of Cork was divided between Fitz-Stephen and Cogan, the former taking that lying to the east, and the latter that lying to the west. Fitz-Stephen’s share passed to his sister’s son, Philip de Barry. Before the death of Henry II. the country about Cork was studded with castles, but it is impossible to say how far it was really conquered. Intermarriages with the Irish were no doubt common from the first. The example set by Strongbow and by Hugo de Lacy was not likely to want imitators.

No conquest of Ireland under Henry II

The conquest of Ireland by Henry II., as it used to be called, amounts on the whole to this. The coast from Larne to Cork harbour was, at the date of the King’s death, strongly held by the invaders, all the ports being in their hands, and the principal points being defended by castles. They were also pretty firmly established on the south side of the Shannon estuary. The rivers of Leinster were in their hands, and the central plain almost, if not quite as far west as the Shannon. De Courcy had begun to assert his dominion over Monaghan and Armagh. All the Danish towns except Limerick were fully possessed by the conquerors. On the other hand, the Irish were not expelled from any part of the island. The mountains which extend almost uninterruptedly from Dublin to Waterford still sheltered the O’Tooles, the O’Byrnes, the MacMurroughs, the O’Nolans, and other clans. Fitz-Stephen had begun the conquest of what is now the county of Cork, but the Irish were still in force on all sides of the city. The natives generally had recovered in some degree from their first alarm. The first invaders had been trained in mountain warfare, but those who succeeded them were often quite unfit to dispute the possession of hills and woods with the light-armed natives. And there were jealousies between Normans, English, and Welsh, which went far to neutralise the strength of the colony. Had it not been for the dissensions of the Irish themselves, it is probable that they would have confined the invaders to the east coast. It was a quarrel between Dermod MacCarthy and his son which brought the Geraldines to Kerry; disputes among the O’Connors introduced De Cogan, De Lacy, and De Courcy into Connaught; and, though they effected nothing, they paved the way for the De Burgos, to whose founder, William Fitz-Adelm, Henry granted the whole of the western province. The King’s troubles with his own sons, with the Holy See, and with France, prevented him from attending to Ireland. It would have been better for the peace of mankind had he made a real conquest, instead of leaving it to barons, who lost much of their old civilisation, and who disdained to learn anything from the weaker people whom they oppressed.[34 - In narrating the events of Henry II.’s reign, I have generally followed Giraldus Cambrensis, checking him by references to Hoveden and Regan. The Expugnatio may be considered a fanciful book in some ways. But if we eliminate everything supernatural, and make some allowance for the writer’s prejudices, I see no reason to question his good faith. Of the native Irish he knew little, but the invaders were his neighbours, friends, and relations. Fitz-Stephen and the other descendants of Nesta may be unduly praised, Fitz-Adelm perhaps unduly blamed; but, after all, this is no more than may be said against most historians of their own times. Giraldus was undoubtedly an observer of first-rate power.]

CHAPTER IV.

FROM JOHN’S VISIT IN 1210 TILL THE INVASION BY THE BRUCES IN 1315

John acts as lord of Ireland under his father and brother

Richard I. did not interfere with his brother’s jurisdiction over Ireland, and this may be the reason why the records of the colony during his reign are so scanty. The invaders, though they fought a good deal among themselves, continued to extend their power, and gained a firm footing in Connaught. Some years before the death of Henry II., Roderic’s sons had invited the Anglo-Normans into his kingdom, and in 1183 the last monarch of Ireland retired to the abbey of Cong, where he died in 1198. His brother Cathal Crovdearg, or Charles of the Red Hand, about whom many marvellous stories are told, ultimately made himself supreme; but not without the help of William Fitz-Adelm, who lost no opportunity of advancing the claim given him by Henry’s thoroughly unjustifiable grant. Fitz-Adelm, who had made himself master of Limerick, at first opposed Cathal Crovdearg, but joined him in 1201 and enabled him to triumph over all competitors. The accession of John to the crown of England put an end to the separate lordship of Ireland, but his successors, until the time of Henry VIII., continued to call themselves only lords of Ireland. If Berengaria had had children, it is possible, and even probable, that Ireland would have passed to John’s issue as a separate, or at the most a tributary kingdom. The early years of John’s reign were much disturbed by a violent feud between the De Lacies and De Courcy. The King favoured the former party, and in 1205 created the younger Hugo Earl of Ulster and Viceroy. He proved an oppressive governor, over-taxing the King’s subjects to provide means for his foreign enterprises. The southern colonists, in alliance with some of the natives, defeated the Viceroy near Thurles, and the King began to fear that he had given too much power to one family; for Walter de Lacy continued to rule Meath, while his brother was all-powerful in the north and east. A royal army was accordingly levied, and John prepared to revisit the lordship where he had so signally failed twenty-five years before.

King John visits Ireland

The excommunicated King sailed from Milford Haven with a motley army of mercenaries, under command of Fair Rosamond’s son, William Long-sword, and landed on June 20, 1210, at the same place as his father had done. Among his train were John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, whom Innocent III. had refused to make Archbishop of Canterbury, and John de Courcy, who had been captured and given up by the De Lacies, and who had suffered a rigorous imprisonment, but was now again in favour with the King. John did not let the grass grow under his feet. On the eighth day after his arrival he was at Dublin, having travelled by Ross, Thomastown, Kilkenny, and Naas. The first effect of his presence was to separate the two De Lacies, and the Lord of Meath sent him the following message: – ‘Walter salutes the King as his liege lord, of whom he holds all he possesses; and prays the King to relax his ire, and suffer Walter to approach his presence; Walter will not plead against the King, but places all his castles and lands in the hands of the King as his lord, to retain or restore as he pleases.’ The messenger added that Walter had lost much by his brother Hugo, and that he left him to the King’s pleasure. It is possible that this was said in consequence of an arrangement between the two brothers. John was not pacified, and prepared to invade both Meath and Ulster. Trim was reached by July 2, and Kells by the 4th, and the Kings of Connaught and Thomond were summoned to take part in the expedition to Ulster. Cathal Crovdearg and Donough O’Brien both obeyed the King’s order, and the royal army proceeded by Dundalk, Carlingford, and Downpatrick to Carrickfergus. The latter place was taken and garrisoned. Hugo de Lacy had already fled into Scotland. The King stayed eight or nine days at Carrickfergus, where he was visited by Hugh O’Neill, who does not appear to have made any real submission, and then marched by Holywood, Downpatrick, Banbridge, and Carlingford to Drogheda. From Drogheda he again entered Meath, visited Duleek and Kells, and seems to have penetrated as far west as Granard. He was in Dublin by August 18, and back to England before the end of the month, having spent sixty-six days in Ireland. On his return from Ulster he had summoned Cathal Crovdearg a second time, bidding him bring his son ‘to receive a charter for the third part of Connaught.’ Over-persuaded by his wife, Cathal went to the King alone. John’s object may have been to make a hostage of the boy, and he seized instead MacDermot of Moylurg, O’Hara of Sligo, and two other men of importance in Connaught. Carrying these chiefs with him to England, the King left the government of Ireland to Bishop de Grey, who signalised his advent to power by building a castle and bridge at Athlone. William de Braose, who had enormous estates in Ireland, was driven into exile by John, who starved his wife and son to death, and gave his castle of Carrigogunnel on the Shannon to Donough O’Brien.

The Anglo-Normans flock to the King. He erects twelve shires

The Anglo-Norman barons of Ireland flocked to Dublin while John was there, and swore to obey the laws of England. The King divided their country into twelve counties: Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Uriel or Louth, Carlow, Kilkenny, and Wexford in Leinster; and Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary in Munster. Every knight’s fee was bound to supply a well-armed horseman, and inferior tenants were bound to provide foot-soldiers. The Viceroy was to give a notice of forty days when the feudal array was to muster at Dublin, and serve against the King’s enemies for forty days in each year. Ulster and Connaught were not shired, but were afterwards sometimes regarded as counties. Perhaps the nobles of these provinces were supposed to be constantly employed against the Irish. The native chiefs were considered as tributary subjects, but not as tenants. In 1215 John ordered the Archbishop of Dublin to buy enough scarlet cloth to make robes for the Kings of Ireland; and it is clear that they were expected to serve, though the exact measure of the aid rendered may have been left to themselves.

Leinster is divided after Earl Richard’s death

When Strongbow died without a son the principality of Leinster fell to his eldest daughter Isabel, who became a ward of the Crown. In 1189 the minor was given in marriage to William Earl Marshal, who thus became Earl of Pembroke and Strigul, and lord of a territory in Ireland, corresponding nearly to the counties of Wexford, Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, and part of the Queen’s County. He built a castle and incorporated a town at Kilkenny, and died in 1219, transmitting his honours and great power to his son William. The younger William was Viceroy in 1224, and depressed the De Lacies, allying himself generally with Cathal Crovdearg O’Connor. He died in 1231, leaving all to his brother Richard, who made good his position, although Henry III.’s foreign advisers plotted his destruction. Strongbow’s grandson was killed in 1234 by the feudatories who were bound to defend him, and the colony never recovered the blow.

The De Burgos in Connaught

Fitz-Adelm’s son, Richard de Burgo, generally called MacWilliam by the Irish, married Una, Cathal Crovdearg’s grand-daughter, and procured from Henry III. a grant of all Connaught, except five cantreds reserved for the support of the post at Athlone. From the first the position of the Anglo-Normans in Connaught differed from their position in other parts of Ireland. They were there rather as allies of the native chiefs than as conquerors, and the easy lapse of their descendants into Irish habits is the less to be wondered at. Richard de Burgo obtained a confirmation of his grant in 1226, through the favour of his kinsman, the great justiciar, Hubert, and he soon afterwards made himself master of Galway, which he fortified strongly, and made the chief place of Connaught. After his time the O’Connors never regained possession of it, and the importance of the royal tribe steadily diminished during the whole of the thirteenth century. Richard de Burgo’s eldest son Walter married Maud, daughter and heiress of the younger Hugo de Lacy, who died in 1243, and he thus became Earl of Ulster as well as Lord of Connaught. His son Richard, commonly called the Red Earl, advanced the power of the Anglo-Norman state to the furthest point which it ever attained.

Poverty of the colony under Henry III

Constant war is not favourable to the production of wealth, and it seems probable that no very considerable progress was made in the arts of peace. Tallage was first imposed on Ireland in 1217, in the name of Henry III., but it seems to have yielded little, and a generation later there was equal difficulty in collecting a tithe for the Pope. Innocent IV. ordered that a sum should be so raised for the liberation of the Holy Land, and very stringent letters were sent to Ireland in 1254; but collector Lawrence Sumercote declared that the difficulties were insuperable. The Irish, he explained, never saved anything, but lived riotously and gave liberally to all, and he professed that he would ‘rather be imprisoned than crucified any longer in Ireland for the business of the Cross.’ The plan of drawing upon Ireland for English or Continental wars was, however, largely practised during the reign of Henry III., and it tended to sap the strength of the colony. Ready money might be scarce, but there were men, and they could be ill-spared from the work of defending their lands against a native race who were ever on the watch to take advantage of their absence or neglect.

Edward I. had not time to attend to Ireland personally

A vast number of documents remain to show that Edward I. took great pains about Ireland. Phelim O’Connor, who died in 1265, may be regarded as the last King of Connaught. His son Hugh did indeed assume the title, and, according to the annalists, ‘executed his royal depredations on the men of Offaly, where he committed many burnings and killings;’ but his kingship does not appear to have been officially recognised, and the De Burgos were the true rulers. The Red Earl was supreme in the northern half of Ireland; but O’Neill was recognised as King of Tyrone, while his claim to be head of all the Irish in Ireland was denied. O’Cahan was also sometimes given the title of king. O’Donnell was treated with less respect, and a price was set upon his head, which appears to have been actually brought to Dublin in 1283. In 1281 Hugh Boy O’Neill, whom the annalists call ‘royal heir of all Erin, head of the hospitality and valour of the Gael,’ sided with the English against Donnell Oge O’Donnell, who is called ‘King of the north, the best Gael for hospitality and dignity; the general guardian of the west of Europe, and the knitting-needle of the arch sovereignty, and the rivetting hammer of every good law, and the top-nut of the Gael in valour.’ A battle was fought near Dungannon, and O’Donnell, who had under him the O’Rourkes and MacMahons, and ‘nearly the majority of the Irish of Connaught and Ulster,’ was defeated and slain. Two years later Hugh Boy was killed by the MacMahons. The story of this contest is a good illustration of the hopeless incapacity of the natives for anything like a national combination. If Edward I. had been able to attend to Ireland personally, it is at least probable that he would have conquered the country as completely as Wales.

Frequency of quarrels among the colonists

In 1275, Edward granted the whole of Thomond to Thomas de Clare, who took advantage of the dissensions among the O’Briens, and built the strong castle of Bunratty to dominate the district. The conquest of Thomond was, however, never completed, or nearly completed, nor did the De Clares succeed in establishing themselves like the De Burgos. They might have done so had they not come so late into the field, and their failure was certainly not owing to any exceptional power of combination shown by the Irish. It was rather due to quarrels among the colonists, whose strength was being constantly sapped by taking part in Edward’s Scotch wars, and who were not recruited by any considerable immigration. In 1245, the male line of the Earl Marshal was finally extinguished, and the inheritance of Strongbow fell to five sisters, the great grand-daughters of Dermod MacMurrough. Matilda, the eldest, obtained Carlow and carried the hereditary office of Earl Marshal to her husband, Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk. Joan, the second, received Wexford. Isabella, the third, had Kilkenny, which her descendants sold to the Ormonde family. Sibilla, the fourth, had Kildare for her share. Eva, the youngest sister, married William De Braose; and through her daughter, who was married to Roger Mortimer, became ancestress of most of the royal houses of Europe. As the five daughters of William Earl Marshal were all married, and had all children, the history of Leinster becomes very confusing. Had it remained in one strong hand the Irish would hardly have recovered their ground. But, as Giraldus points out, the ‘four great pillars of the conquest, Fitz-Stephen, Hervey, Raymond, and John de Courcy, by the hidden but never unjust judgment of God, were not blessed with any legitimate offspring.’ A similar fatality attended many others, including Earl Richard, to whom, and not to Fitz-Stephen, common fame, more true in this case than contemporary history, has attributed the real leadership among the Anglo-Norman invaders of Ireland.

Edward I. weakens the colony by drawing men and supplies from it

In his great campaign of 1296 Edward had much help from Ireland. The Earl of Ulster was among those who led contingents to Scotland, and the names of Power, Butler, Fitzthomas, Wogan, Rocheford, Purcell, Cantoke, and Barry appear among the leaders. The whole force from Ireland consisted of 310 men-at-arms, 266 hobelers or horsemen with unarmoured horses, and 2,576 foot, including many archers and cross-bowmen. All who went received pardons, but some refused or neglected to obey the royal summons. In 1298 Edward drew provisions from Ireland. His requisition included 8,000 quarters of wheat, chiefly fine flour in casks; 10,000 quarters of oats; much bran, bacon, salt beef, and salt fish; and 10,000 casks of wine. If so much wine could not be got in Ireland, then the Viceroy was to agree with some merchant to bring it from Gascony as quick as possible. Edward used Ireland as a base for operations, or as a recruiting ground, but he never had time to give it much of his personal care. First Wales, then Gascony, then Palestine, then Scotland engrossed his vast energies; but Ireland was left to herself. Without the means to keep order themselves, Viceroys found it necessary to preserve the colony by stirring up dissensions among the Irish. The justiciar, Robert d’Ufford, was sent for by Edward and charged with this evil policy. He answered, that to save the King’s coffers, and to keep the peace, he thought it expedient to wink at one knave cutting off another. ‘Whereat,’ says an old author, ‘the King smiled, and bade him return to Ireland.’

Disorders after the death of Edward I

John’s imperfect partition of Ireland into shires was still more imperfectly carried out. At the death of Edward I. four out of his grandfather’s twelve counties – namely, Meath, Wexford, Carlow, and Kilkenny – were liberties or exempt jurisdictions in the hands of what Davies calls ‘absolute palatines,’ claiming and exercising almost every attribute of sovereignty. The Fitzgeralds had acquired similar authority over a portion of Desmond, and the De Clares over a portion of Thomond. Connaught and Ulster were under the De Burghs, in so far as they had been reduced at all, and Roscommon was a royal castle and the head of a separate county. At Randon on Lough Ree was another royal castle, and these were almost the only strongholds of the Crown in Connaught; for Galway was quite subject to the De Burghs. Within their palatinate jurisdictions, the great nobles made barons and knights, appointed sheriffs, and executed justice. The King’s writ only ran in the Church lands, and was executed by a separate sheriff. So complete was the distinction, that in the mediæval parliaments knights were separately returned for the counties and for the ‘crosses,’ as the ecclesiastical jurisdictions were called. The inherent weakness of such a polity was probably aggravated by the suppression of the Templars, who always kept a strong armed force. In 1308 Edward II. called for an account of their lands and revenues, and the barons of the exchequer answered that they could make no proper inquisition. ‘On account,’ they wrote, ‘of the long distances, and of the feuds between certain of the magnates of Ireland, we do not dare to visit the places named, and jurors of the country cannot come to us for the same reason.’

Reasons why the colony declined. The Bruces invade Ireland

Dissensions among the barons, caused by the weakness and absence of the Crown, were one great cause of the decline of the colony. Another was the policy of Edward I., which left him little time to attend to Ireland, and tempted him constantly to draw supplies of men from thence. A third was the battle of Bannockburn, which allowed victorious Scotland to compete with England for the dominion of the neighbouring island; and the Irish themselves were not slow to adopt the principle that England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity. In 1315 Edward Bruce landed near Larne with 6,000 men, including some of the best knights in Scotland. Having been joined by O’Neill and the chiefs depending on him, Bruce twice defeated the Red Earl of Ulster, occupied the strongholds of Down and Antrim, and wintered in Westmeath. In the spring he overthrew the Viceroy, Sir Edmund Butler, at Ardscull, for the Earl of Ulster disdained to serve under the King’s representative, and the English armies were therefore beaten in detail. Bruce gained another battle at Kells, wasted all northern Leinster, and then returned to Carrickfergus, where he was joined by King Robert with reinforcements. The Scots went almost where they liked, and Robert Bruce is said to have heard mass at Limerick on Palm Sunday, 1317. They did not cross the Shannon, and seem not to have gone further south than Cashel. Dublin was not attacked, though the invaders came as near as Castleknock. On Easter Thursday, 1317, Roger Mortimer landed at Youghal with 15,000 men and full viceregal powers, and the Bruces retired before him into Ulster. They had devastated the country, and lost many men from the famine which they themselves had caused.

The Bruces fail to conquer Ireland