OF SCOTLAND DURING THE REIGN OF ROBERT I. SIRNAMED THE BRUCE. BY ROBERT KERR, F. R.S. & F. A. S. Ed. IN TWO VOLUMES VOLUME SECOND. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR WILLIAM CREECH, A. CONSTABLE & co. J. MURRAY, LONDON. HISTORY OF ROBERT I. CHAPTER XIV. Prom the Invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce, 23d May 1315; to his Assumption of Supreme Power in Ulster in February 1316. Ir is a singular trait in the history of human nature, that by how much the more rude and barbarous the manners, customs, and institutions may be of any nation, so much the more enthusiastically are they adhered to, and every attempt towards their alteration and improvement is sure to be resisted with the greater obstinacy and perseverance. This position was long and powerfully exemplified VOL. II. A A. D. 1315. A. D. 1315. in the pertinacity with which the original natives of Ireland resisted the introduction of the language, manners, laws, and institutions of their paramount English rulers; increased, perhaps, through the arrogant assumption of superiority by the English conquerors, always too much disposed to consider their Irish dependants as subjugated vassals, instead of fellow-subjects of the same sovereign, and citizens of the same state. It unaccountably happens, likewise, that the lower orders of a more civilized people, dwelling in small numbers among a more barbarous nation, are more.. apt to degenerate into the manners ma and cus toms of the more numerous natives, than to employ then influence and example for reclaiming the indigenous inhabitants to more civilized usages. Any attempt, however, to investigate the ancient institutions and customs of the Irish, known under the denomination of Tanistry and the Brehon laws, or to explain the differences between these and the laws and usages of Anglo-Norman feudalism, so long endeavoured to be established in Ireland, were quite irrelevant to the present object, and would lead into an extensive discussion which belongs exclusively to the history and antiquities of Ireland. |