HENRY THE SECOND'S PROJECTS.

3

Meath was governed by two " wise men," Cuan O'Lochlann, a poet, and Corcran Cleiveach, described as an anchoret, probably an ecclesiastic of ascetic life. King Donough of Munster had a formidable rival, as a claimant to the supreme kingship, in Dermod Mac Mael-nambo, King of Leinster, the northern portion of the island. The former was successful; but Turlough O'Brien, the son of the murdered Teigue, avenged his father's death by attacking and defeating Donough, who went on a pilgrimage to Rome to do penance for the fratricide he had committed, and there he died. Nine years afterwards the King of Leinster was killed in battle, and Turlough was recognized as King of Ireland.

Two years after the death of Donough, his brother-in-law, Harold, was defeated at Hastings, and the Norman William was King of England. How the great conquest was achieved and followed up we all know. The Saxons were subdued, Norman soldiers of fortune became powerful barons, castles were erected to overawe the common people, and the land of England was parcelled out among the followers of the powerful William, and his immediate successor on the throne. It is hardly to be supposed that Ireland, so near to England, peopled by a half-savage race, and known to be suffering from internal dissensions, caused by the contests of the petty kings for supremacy, would be overlooked by the ambitious earls and barons, accustomed to win wealth and honours by the sword, or by the English monarch, trained to believe in the right of conquest.

Henry the Second, son of the Empress Maud and Geoffrey of Anjou, and great-grandson of the Conqueror, had been only two years on the throne when he attempted to put into execution a scheme which had probably been long cherished. As a Christian King he felt bound to obtain the sanction of the Pope, as head of Christendom ; and Popes, in their political relations, were amenable to reason, espe cially if arguments were accompanied by other inducements. Pope Adrian IV., Nicholas Breakspeare, an Englishman by birth, attained the tiara in the same year that Henry ascended the English throne, and there had been a great interchange of complimentary messages.

not, in the slow and imperceptible progress of events, been succeeded by a gradual amelioration in the social condition of the conquered people. . . . The sad and singular fate which weighs alike upon the old and the new inhabitants of the isle of Erin, has for its cause the vicinity of England, and the influence which its government has continually exercised, since the conquest, over the internal affairs of that country."

Ireland, like England, had struggled bravely, and in the end successfully, against the invasions of the Scandinavian sea-kings, before the Norsemen, the Normans of history, established a sovereignty in England. There was friendship between some of the famous Saxon leaders and the Irish princes. When the sons of the great Earl Godwin unsuccessfully rebelled against Edward the Confessor, Harold, the second son, took refuge in Ireland, with his brother-in-law, Donough, King of Munster, who had married Driella, sister of Harold. This Donough was the son of Brian Boru, the warrior king celebrated in song and history in connection with the defeat of the Danes at Clontarf; and after the death of Malachy, who wore, as Tom Moore reminds us, "the collar of gold,” and was the last crowned King of Ireland, Donough assumed the title and claimed to exercise the power of Ard-righ, or King of all Ireland, having, in accordance with a policy not limited to those days, brought about the murder of his brother, Teigue, who had a superior claim.

The island was then divided into five kingdoms, Ulster, Leinster, Meath, Connaught, and Munster. The Ard-righ, or chief monarch, possessed the central district of Meath, and usually resided at a place which has served as the rallying-point of Irish nationality even in our own times-Tara, or the hill of Teamhair, where in the great hall of the palace of King Cormac, the semi-legendary monarch of the fourth. century, a hundred and fifty warriors stood in the King's presence when he feasted, and a hundred and fifty cupbearers handed the guests cups of silver and gold; and where, too, bards of marvellous poetic powers played on "the harp which once in Tara's halls its soul of music shed." For twenty years after the death of Malachy, the kingdom of

HENRY THE SECOND'S PROJECTS.

3

Meath was governed by two "wise men," Cuan O'Lochlann, a poet, and Corcran Cleiveach, described as an anchoret, probably an ecclesiastic of ascetic life. King Donough of Munster had a formidable rival, as a claimant to the supreme kingship, in Dermod Mac Mael-nambo, King of Leinster, the northern portion of the island. The former was successful; but Turlough O'Brien, the son of the murdered Teigue, avenged his father's death by attacking and defeating Donough, who went on a pilgrimage to Rome to do penance for the fratricide he had committed, and there he died. Nine years afterwards the King of Leinster was killed in battle, and Turlough was recognized as King of Ireland.

Two years after the death of Donough, his brother-in-law, Harold, was defeated at Hastings, and the Norman William was King of England. How the great conquest was achieved and followed up we all know. The Saxons were subdued, Norman soldiers of fortune became powerful barons, castles were erected to overawe the common people, and the land of England was parcelled out among the followers of the powerful William, and his immediate successor on the throne. It is hardly to be supposed that Ireland, so near to England, peopled by a half-savage race, and known to be suffering from internal dissensions, caused by the contests of the petty kings for supremacy, would be overlooked by the ambitious earls and barons, accustomed to win wealth and honours by the sword, or by the English monarch, trained to believe in the right of conquest.

Henry the Second, son of the Empress Maud and Geoffrey of Anjou, and great-grandson of the Conqueror, had been only two years on the throne when he attempted to put into execution a scheme which had probably been long cherished. As a Christian King he felt bound to obtain the sanction of the Pope, as head of Christendom; and Popes, in their political relations, were amenable to reason, espe cially if arguments were accompanied by other inducements. Pope Adrian IV., Nicholas Breakspeare, an Englishman by birth, attained the tiara in the same year that Henry ascended the English throne, and there had been a great interchange of complimentary messages.

The project for annexing Ireland to England was favoured by the papal conclave as a means of obtaining greater control over the Irish Church. The influence of Rome in ecclesiastical matters had been gradually developing, several of the bishops had professed unreserved obedience; but the clergy generally, and with them the greater portion of the people, animated by a love of national independence, had exhibited a spirit of passive resistance to the extension of papal influence. Eighty years before, an Irish bishop, Patricius, who had been chosen by the clergy and the people, and confirmed in his office by the king of his province and the Ard-righ, or supreme king, had visited England for the purpose of being consecrated at Canterbury, in obedience to a law of the Roman Church, which required that every bishop should receive consecration from an archbishop decorated with the pallium; and following up this demonstration of submission, several Irish bishops accepted the title of pontifical legate in Hibernia.

In 1111, St. Celsus, Archbishop of Armagh, and Maelmure (the servant of Mary), Archbishop of Cashel, fifty bishops, three hundred priests, and three thousand members of religious orders, attended a synod convened in Westmeath, for the purpose of reorganizing ecclesiastical matters, and enforcing discipline among the clergy and laity. The number of the bishops was reduced to twenty-four, and other regulations were agreed to. St. Malachy, who succeeded Celsus as Archbishop of Armagh, had, while Bishop of Down and Connor, made a pilgrimage to Rome, and received from Innocent II. the appointment of apostolical legate, but his request that the Irish archbishops might receive the pallium (the vestment made of the wool of lambs, blessed by the Pope on the festival of St. Agnes, and rendered more sacred by being deposited on the tomb of St. Peter during the eve of his festival), and so be pontifically recognized in their high office, was refused until the pallium was formally asked for by the prelates themselves. In 1148 Malachy convened a great synod, at which, as legate of the Holy See, he presided, and at which it was decided that he should make another attempt to obtain the coveted palliums. Pope

MACMURROUGH, KING OF LEINSTER.

5

Eugene III. was then visiting the abbey of Clairvaux, in France, where St. Bernard had established the famous order of Bernardine monks. But the Pope had quitted Clairvaux before the arrival of Malachy, who, a few days afterwards, was attacked by mortal sickness, died, and was buried in the abbey. The Pope, however, consented to confer the palliums, and in 1151 sent Cardinal Papirius with them to Ireland, and in the following year they were conferred at the Council of Kells, at which also it was decided that the clergy should be entitled to tithes. The laity probably cared little for the palliums, and, it would seem, objected to the tithes, for they were not enforced until after the conquest by the English.

In 1157, Christianus, Bishop of Lismore, and the Pope's legate held a synod attended by a large number of bishops, and Murtough O'Loughlin, King of Ireland. One of the objects of the meeting was the excommunication of Donough O'Melaghlin, King of Meath, who is described by the historians of the time as being "the common pest of the country." He had obtained possession of the lands of Tiernan O'Ruac, or O'Rourke, Prince of Brefni, who had married his sister, Devorgoil, or Devorgilla, and being on terms of friendship with Diarmid (Dermot) MacMurrough, King of Leinster, a man ready to commit any crime to promote his own interests or pleasures, assisted him in a project, the execution of which was, as we shall see, the immediate cause of the English invasion. The two kings, united in their enmity towards O'Ruac, planned the abduction of Devorgoil (Donough's sister, be it remembered) by MacMurrough; and she, worthy of her relationship, was a willing accomplice, and not only left her husband, but took with her in her flight the cattle which had formed her dowry. She afterwards returned, and passed forty years in religious seclusion, contrition, and penance, devoting her wealth to works of charity, and building churches and convents.

The papal hold on the Irish ecclesiastics was increasing, but as yet the temporal power of the Pope was very imperfectly recognized. The kings were practically pagans, whatever their occasional professions might be, and kings and people alike objected to the interference