Part 20

In the first days of May[454] Robert Fitz-Stephen landed at Bannow, between Wexford and Waterford, with thirty picked knights of his own immediate following, and a body of auxiliaries to the number of sixty men-at-arms and three hundred archers.[455] With him came three of his nephews, Meiler Fitz-Henry, Miles Fitz-David[456] and Robert de Barri;[457] and also a ruined knight called Hervey of Mountmorris, uncle of Richard de Clare.[458] Next day an independent adventurer, Maurice de Prendergast, arrived from Milford with ten more knights and a band of archers.[459] Dermot himself came to meet them with some five hundred Irishmen. The united force marched upon Wexford, and took it in two days;[460] they then established their head-quarters at Ferns,[461] and thence made an expedition into Ossory, whose chieftain was specially hostile to Dermot. In spite of overwhelming odds, through all the difficulties of an unknown country full of woods and marshes, and traps laid against them by their skilful foes, the Norman-Welsh knights and archers made their way into the heart of Ossory; and a great battle ended in the rout of the Irish and the bringing of two hundred heads to Dermot’s feet in his camp on the banks of the Barrow.[462] A successful raid upon Offaly was followed by one upon Glendalough, and a third upon Ossory again,[463] till in the following year the state of affairs in Leinster had become threatening enough to drive all the Irish princes and the Ostmen of Dublin into a confederacy under Roderic O’Conor for the expulsion of the intruders.[464] Dermot pledged himself to acknowledge Roderic as monarch of Ireland, and was in his turn acknowledged by Roderic as king of Leinster on condition that he should dismiss his foreign allies.[465] The agreement was however scarcely made when Maurice Fitz-Gerald landed at Wexford with some hundred and forty men;[466] these at once joined Dermot in an expedition against Dublin, and harried the surrounding country till the citizens were reduced to promise obedience.[467] Early in the next year Dermot’s son-in-law Donell O’Brien, king of Limerick or Northern Munster, succeeded by the help of Robert Fitz-Stephen in throwing off the authority of Roderick O’Conor.[468] Encouraged by these successes, Dermot now began to aspire in his turn to the monarchy of all Ireland;[469] but his auxiliaries were numerically insufficient; and the one from whom he had expected most had as yet failed to appear at all.

[454] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 3 (as above). All the later Irish historians, as well as Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Dimock (_ib._ margin) date the arrival of Fitz-Stephen in May 1169. The reason apparently is that, as far as Dermot and his English auxiliaries are concerned, the year 1168 is a blank in the Four Masters, while under 1169 they say: “The fleet of the Flemings came from England in the army of Mac Murchadha, _i.e._ Diarmaid, to contest the kingdom of Leinster for him; they were seventy heroes clad in coats of mail.” But seeing that in the following year, 1170, they for the first time mention Robert Fitz-Stephen, and represent him as coming over with Richard of Striguil (O’Donovan, vol. ii. pp. 1173–1175), it is by no means evident that the foregoing entry has any reference to him. It may just as well apply to Maurice Fitz-Gerald, who certainly followed him after an interval of some months at least. Gerald (as above, c. 2, p. 229) says that Fitz-Stephen and Fitz-Gerald both promised, in the summer of 1167, to join Dermot “cum zephyris et hirundine primâ.” Maurice undoubtedly made a long delay; but there is not a word to shew that Robert did otherwise than fulfil his engagement to the letter. Nay, Gerald pointedly introduces him (_ib._ c. 3, p. 230) as “nec promissionis immemor nec fidei contemptor.” He also tells us (c. 2, _ibid._) that Dermot had _wintered_ at Ferns. Why then are we to assume that by “wintered” he means “wintered, summered, and wintered again”? What could Dermot possibly have been doing there for more than twenty months?

[455] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 3 (p. 230). For account of Fitz-Stephen himself see _ib._ c. 26 (pp. 271, 272).

[456] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 22. On Meiler see Gir. Cambr. as above, l. ii. c. 9 (pp. 324, 325); and for pedigree, Mr. Dimock’s App. B. to pref. (_ib._ pp. c., ci.).

[457] Gir. Cambr. as above, l. i. c. 3 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 232). Cf. App. B. to pref., _ib._ p. c.

[458] Gir. Cambr. as above, l. i. c. 3 (p. 230). See also l. ii. c. 11 (pp. 327, 328).

[459] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 3 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 232).

[460] _Ibid._ (pp. 232, 233). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 24, 25.

[461] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 25, 26.

[462] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 4 (p. 234). Cf. the long account in Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 27–38.

[463] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 42–51.

[464] Roderic, in 1169, met the northern chieftains at Tara, thence marched to Dublin, and afterwards proceeded into Leinster; and Tighernan O’Ruark, Dermot king of Meath, and the Ostmen of Dublin “went to meet the men of Munster, Leinster and Osraigh” [Ossory], “and they set nothing by the Flemings.” Four Masters, a. 1169 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1173).

[465] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 10 (p. 244).

[466] Ten knights, thirty “arcarii” or mounted archers, and about a hundred “sagittarii pedestres.” _Ib._ c. 11 (pp. 244, 245).

[467] _Ibid._ (p. 245).

[468] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 11 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 245). The date, 1170, comes from the Four Masters (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1175), who however do not mention Fitz-Stephen’s share in the matter.

[469] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 12 (p. 246).

The history of Richard of Striguil is far from clear. From the number of troops which eventually accompanied him to Ireland it is evident that he had been during these two years actively preparing for his expedition; and it may even be that the extent of his preparations had drawn upon him the suspicions of King Henry. We only know that, for some cause or other, he was now a ruined man; his lands were forfeited to the Crown;[470] and he seems to have lingered on, absorbed in a desperate effort to regain Henry’s favour, and clinging to his lost home with a feeling that if he once turned his back upon it, he would never be allowed to see it again. A letter from Dermot, telling of the successes of his party in Leinster and renewing his former offers, forced him into action.[471] He made a last appeal to the king, intreating either for restoration of his lands or for the royal license to go and repair his fortunes elsewhere. Henry ironically bade him go, and he went.[472] On S. Bartholomew’s eve, 1170, he landed at Waterford with twelve hundred men;[473] next day he was joined by Raymond “the Fat,” a young warrior whom he had sent over three months before[474] with ten knights and seventy archers, and who with this small force had contrived to beat back an assault of three thousand Irishmen of Decies and Ostmen of Waterford upon his camp of wattle and thatch, hastily thrown up on the rocky promontory of Dundonulf.[475] On August 25 Richard and Raymond attacked Waterford; three assaults in one day carried both town and citadel;[476] seven hundred citizens were slaughtered,[477] and the officers of the fortress, whose names tell of northern blood, were made prisoners.[478] A few days later Richard was married at Waterford to Dermot’s daughter Eva.[479] He then joined his father-in-law in a circuitous march across the hills and through Glendalough,[480] whereby they avoided a great host which Roderic had gathered at Clondalkin to intercept them, and arrived in safety on S. Matthew’s day beneath the walls of Dublin.[481] Dermot sent his bard to demand the instant surrender of the town, with thirty hostages for its fidelity. A dispute arose, probably between the Irish and Danish inhabitants, as to the selection of the hostages;[482] Archbishop Laurence was endeavouring to compose the difficulty,[483] and Hasculf Thorgils’ son, a chieftain of northern blood who commanded the citadel, had actually promised to surrender it on the morrow,[484] when a sudden attack made by Raymond the Fat on one side and by a knight called Miles Cogan on the other carried the town before the leaders of either party knew what had happened.[485] A second rush won the citadel; Hasculf escaped by sea and took refuge in the Orkneys;[486] Dublin was sacked,[487] and left throughout the winter under the command of Miles Cogan,[488] while Richard of Striguil was guarding Waterford against the men of Munster,[489] and Dermot, from his old head-quarters at Ferns,[490] was making raid after raid upon Meath and Breffny.[491]

[470] The cause of Richard’s disgrace seems to be nowhere stated, except by William of Newburgh. He has (l. ii. c. 26; Howlett, vol. i. pp. 167, 168), as usual, an independent version of the whole affair. According to him, Richard’s chief motive for going to Ireland was to escape from his creditors, he being deep in debt; he went in defiance of an express prohibition from Henry, and it was on hearing of his victories--_i.e._ some time in the latter part of 1170--that Henry confiscated his estates. Dugdale (_Baronage_, vol. i. p. 208) gives 1170 as the date of the forfeiture, on the authority of a MS. in the Bodleian library. But this is irreconcileable with the very circumstantial story of Gerald. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 234, dates the forfeiture three years before Henry’s visit to Ireland, _i.e._ 1168.

[471] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 12 (as above, pp. 246, 247).

[472] _Ib._ cc. 12, 13 (pp. 247, 248). Cf. Gerv. Cant. as above.

[473] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 16 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 254). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 72. The latter gives the number of troops as fifteen hundred; Gerald makes them two hundred knights and a thousand foot-men.

[474] So says Gerald, as above, c. 13 (p. 248); but Mr. Dimock (_ib._ note 2) thinks this too early.

[475] _Ibid._ (pp. 248, 249). There is however a less heroic version of this affair in the Anglo-Norman Poem (Michel), pp. 68–70. We are there told that Raymond and his men had provided themselves with food by “lifting” all the cattle in the neighbourhood and penning them within the camp. At the sound of arms these creatures rushed out in a wild stampede, and it was this which put the assailants to flight. On the site of Dundonulf see Mr. Dimock’s _Glossary_ to Gir. Cambr., vol. v. p. 421.

[476] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 16 (_ib._ pp. 254, 255).

[477] Four Masters, a. 1170 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1177).

[478] Ragnald and “the two Sihtrics”; Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 255). The Four Masters (as above) give to the commandant of the citadel--which Gerald calls “Ragnald’s tower”--the name of Gillemaire. In the Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 72, we read that “les plus poanz de la cité” were Regenald and “Smorch.”

[479] Gir. Cambr. as above. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 73. Four Masters, a. 1170 (as above).

[480] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 17 (p. 256).

[481] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 75–78. Cf. Gir. Cambr. and Four Masters as above. The latter say that “there was a challenge of battle between them” (_i.e._ between Roderic and the foreigners) “for three days, until lightning burned Ath-Cliath” [Dublin].

[482] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 79, 80.

[483] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 17 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 256).

[484] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 80. He is there called “Hesculf”; in p. 79, “Mac Turkil Esculf.” In the Four Masters, a. 1170 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1177), he is “Asgall, son of Raghnall, son of Turcaill.” Gir. Cambr. (as above) calls him simply “Hasculphus.”

[485] Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 256, 257). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 80, 81.

[486] Four Masters, as above. Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 257).

[487] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 81, 82.

[488] Gir. Cambr. as above. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 82.

[489] “A victory was gained by the son of Cormac, grandson of Carthach, and the people of Desmond, over the knights who were left to defend Port Lairge” [_i.e._ Waterford]. Four Masters, as above. Earl Richard returned thither early in October; Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 82.

[490] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 83.

[491] Four Masters, a. 1170 (as above, pp. 1177, 1179).

In vain did the Irish clergy meet in synod at Armagh and strive to avert the wrath which seemed to have been revealed against their country by a solemn decree for the liberation of the English slaves with whom, even yet, the houses of the Irish chieftains were filled.[492] One sentence from an Irish record of the next year may serve to illustrate the condition of the country: “Seven predatory excursions were made by the Ui-Maine into Ormond from Palm Sunday till Low Sunday.”[493] It made but little difference when at Whitsuntide Dermot, “by whom a trembling sod was made of all Ireland,” died at Ferns “of an insufferable and unknown disease--without a will, without penance, without the Body of Christ, without unction, as his evil deeds deserved.”[494] At that very moment a wiking fleet gathered from all the lands where the old sea-rovers’ life still lingered--Norway, the Hebrides, Orkney, Man--appeared in Dublin bay under the command of Hasculf, the exiled leader of the Ostmen, and of a northern chief whose desperate valour won him the title of “John the Furious”--in the English speech of that day, John the Wode.[495] Something of the spirit of the old northern sagas breathes again in the story of this, the last wiking-fight ever fought upon the soil of the British isles. Bard and historian alike tell of the mighty strokes dealt by the battle-axes of John and his comrades,[496] and how they had almost hewed their way into Dublin once more, when a well-timed sally of the besieged caught them at unawares in the rear;[497]--how an Irish chief named Gillamocholmog, whom Miles Cogan had posted on a neighbouring hill, chivalrously bidding him watch the course of the battle and join the winning side, rushed down with his followers at the critical moment and helped to complete the rout of the Ostmen;[498]--how John the Wode fell by the hand of Miles Cogan;[499]--how Hasculf was taken prisoner by Miles’s brother Richard and brought back to be reserved for ransom, and how his hot wiking-blood spoke in words of defiance which goaded his captors to strike off his head.[500] Fifteen hundred northmen fell upon the field; five hundred more were drowned in trying to regain their ships.[501] From the shores of Ireland, as from those of England, the last northern fleet was driven away by Norman swords.

[492] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 18 (p. 258).

[493] Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1185). The Ui-Maine were a tribe in south-eastern Connaught.

[494] _Ibid._ (p. 1183). Cf. Ann. Loch Cé, a. 1171 (Hennessy, vol. i. p. 145). The date, “circa Kalendas Maiæ,” is given by Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 20 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 263).

[495] “Duce Johanne agnomine the Wode,” Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 21 (p. 264). “Johan le Devé,” Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 108. It is there added that, “solum les Yrreis,” he was a nephew of the king of “Norwiche,” _i.e._ Norway. The Four Masters, a. 1171 (as above, p. 1185) describe him as “Eoan, a Dane from the Orkney Islands.”

[496] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 116. Gir. Cambr. as above.

[497] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 111–114. Gir. Cambr. as above.

[498] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 109–111, 115.

[499] _Ib._ p. 117.

[500] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 117, 118. (On his captor cf. _ib._ p. 111). Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 21 (Dimock, vol. v. pp. 264, 265).

[501] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 116, 118. The date of this siege is given by Gir. Cambr. (as above, p. 263) as “eâdem fere tempestate” (_i.e._ about the time of Dermot’s death), “circa Pentecosten.” This would be at the beginning of May. In the Poem it comes much later in the year. There seems however no reason to upset Gerald’s arrangement of events. See Mr. Dimock’s remarks, Gir. Cambr. as above, note 2.

The garrison of Dublin fought in truth even more desperately than their assailants; for they were fighting for their all. A remonstrance addressed by some of the Irish princes to the king of England against the aggressions of his subjects[502] can hardly have been needed to open Henry’s eyes to the danger gathering for him and his realm beyond the western sea. This little band of adventurers, almost all bound together by the closest ties of kindred,[503] were conquering Leinster neither for its native sovereign nor for their own, but were setting up a new feudal state independent of all royal control, under the leadership of a disgraced English baron. Such a state, if suffered to grow unhindered, would soon be far more dangerous to England than to Ireland, for it would be certain to play in every struggle of the feudal principle against the royal authority in England the part which the Ostmen had played of old in the struggles of the Danelaw. At the beginning of the year 1171 therefore Henry issued an edict prohibiting all further intermeddling of his subjects in Ireland, and bidding those who were already there either return before Easter or consider themselves banished for life.[504] Not a man went back; Richard of Striguil sent Raymond over to Normandy with a written protest to the king, pleading that his conquests had been undertaken with the royal sanction and that he was ready to place them at the king’s disposal;[505] but the “Geraldines,” as the kindred of Maurice Fitz-Gerald called themselves, seem to have at once accepted their sentence of exile and resolved to hold by their swords alone the lands which those swords had won.[506]

[502] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 234, 235.

[503] The close kindred of these Norman-Welsh settlers in Ireland is a very remarkable feature of their settlement. Robert Fitz-Stephen and Maurice Fitz-Gerald were half-brothers (Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 2, p. 229); the two Fitz-Henrys, Raymond the Fat, Miles Fitz-David and Robert de Barri were their nephews (_ib._ cc. 4, 13, and l. ii. c. 10, pp. 234, 248, 335); Richard of Striguil was nephew to Hervey of Mountmorris (_ib._ l. i. c. 3, p. 230), who afterwards married a daughter of Maurice Fitz-Gerald, while Maurice’s eldest son married Richard’s daughter Alina (_ib._ l. ii. c. 4, p. 314); another daughter of Richard married his constable Robert de Quincy (Anglo-Norm. Poem, Michel, p. 130); and his sister Basilea became the wife of Raymond the Fat (_ib._ p. 145, and Gir. Cambr. as above, l. ii. c. 3, pp. 312, 313).

[504] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 19 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 259).

[505] _Ibid._ Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 235. Raymond was back again in time to share in the defence of Dublin against Roderic O’Conor--_i.e._ by the end of May or beginning of June. Gerald says he had to seek the king in “Aquitanic Gaul,” but this time the phrase cannot be taken literally. Eyton’s _Itinerary_ shews plainly that throughout 1171 Henry never was further south than the Norman, or, at the utmost, the Breton border.

[506] This seems to be the key-note of a speech which Gerald puts into Maurice’s mouth; _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 23 (as above, pp. 266, 267).

The hostility of the Ostmen had apparently ended with Hasculf’s defeat; thenceforth they seem to have made common cause with the new-comers in whom they were perhaps already beginning to recognize the stirrings of kindred blood. But, on the other hand, the position of Earl Richard and his comrades had been seriously weakened by Dermot’s death. The king of Leinster’s devise of his kingdom to his son-in-law was, like the grants which he had made to the Geraldines and like his own homage to King Henry, void in Irish law. In Irish eyes his death removed the last shadow of excuse for the presence of the strangers on Irish soil; their allies rapidly fell away;[507] and by midsummer the whole country rose against them as one man. Roderic O’Conor mustered the forces of the north; Archbishop Laurence of Dublin, whose family occupied an influential position in Leinster, called up the tribes of the south; while a squadron of thirty ships was hired from Jarl Godred of Man.[508] The aim of the expedition was to blockade Dublin, whither Earl Richard had now returned, and where almost all the leaders of the invasion, except Robert Fitz-Stephen and Hervey of Mountmorris, were now gathered together. The whole Irish land-force amounted to sixty thousand men; half of these were under the immediate command of Roderic, encamped at Castle-Knock;[509] Mac-Dunlevy, the chieftain of Uladh, planted his banner on the old battle-field of Clontarf;[510] Donell O’Brien, the king of North Munster, posted himself at Kilmainham; and Murtogh Mac-Murrough, a brother of Dermot, whom Roderic had set up as king of Leinster in 1167, took up his position at Dalkey.[511] To these were added, for the northern division, the men of Breffny and of East Meath under Tighernan O’Ruark, those of Oiriel or southern Ulster under Murtogh O’Carroll,[512] and those of West Meath under Murtogh O’Melaghlin; while the archbishop’s call had brought up the whole strength of Leinster except the men of Wexford and Kinsellagh;[513] and even these, as the sequel proved, were preparing to fight the same battle on other ground.

[507] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 83.

[508] Gir. Cambr. as above, cc. 22, 24 (pp. 265, 266, 269). This is the archbishop afterwards canonized as S. Laurence O’Toole.

[509] Cf. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 84, with Gerald’s reckoning of Roderic’s own forces at thirty thousand. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 24 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 268).

[510] “A Clontarf ficha sa banere.” Anglo-Norm. Poem, as above.

[511] _Ibid._

[512] Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1185). Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 24 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 269).

[513] Gir. Cambr. as above.

For nearly two months[514] the English knights were thus blockaded in Dublin. Their sole hope of relief was in Robert Fitz-Stephen, who had been left in command at Wexford. They were all but starving when Donell Kavanagh, a half-brother of Eva Mac-Murrough and a devoted adherent of her husband, slipped into the city with tidings that Wexford had risen; Robert Fitz-Stephen was blockaded in the little fort of Carrick by the townsfolk and the men of Kinsellagh, to the number of three thousand; unless he could be succoured within three days, all would be over with him and his men.[515] Earl Richard at once called a council of war. It comprised nearly all the leaders of the English and Welsh forces in Ireland:--Richard of Striguil himself; Maurice Fitz-Gerald with three of his gallant nephews, Meiler Fitz-Henry, Miles Fitz-David and Raymond the Fat; Miles Cogan, the captor of Dublin and its chief defender in the recent siege; Maurice de Prendergast,[516] who two years before had thrown up the adventure and gone home in disgust at the faithlessness of his allies,[517] but had returned, it seems, in Earl Richard’s train, and was yet to leave, alone of all the invading band, an honoured memory among the Irish people;[518] and some fourteen others.[519] They decided upon sending Maurice de Prendergast and Archbishop Laurence to Roderic with an offer of surrender on condition that Richard of Striguil should hold the kingdom of Leinster under Roderic as overlord. Roderic rejected the proposal with scorn; the knights might hold what the earlier pirates had held--Dublin, Waterford and Wexford; not another rood of Irish land should be granted to the earl and his company; and if they refused these terms, Dublin should be stormed on the morrow.[520] That afternoon the little garrison--scarce six hundred in all[521]--sallied forth and surprized Roderic’s camp while he and his men were bathing; Roderic himself escaped with great difficulty; fifteen hundred Irishmen were slain, many of them perishing in the water; while at sunset the victors returned, after a long pursuit, with scarcely a man missing, and laden with provisions enough to supply all Dublin for a year.[522] The rest of the besieging army dispersed at once, and the very next morning Earl Richard was free to set out for the relief of Robert Fitz-Stephen.[523]

[514] _Ib._ c. 22 (p. 266). This would bring the beginning of the siege to Midsummer at latest, for it was certainly over by the middle of August. The Four Masters (as above) make it last only a fortnight.

[515] Gir. Cambr. as above. The Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 85, 86, gives a very hasty and confused sketch of this Wexford affair.

[516] Earl Richard, Meiler, the two Mileses and Maurice Prendergast are mentioned in the Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 86, 87. Raymond is named by Gerald, _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 22 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 266), as “a curiâ jam reversus”; his presence also appears later in the Poem. Gerald alone mentions the presence of Maurice Fitz-Gerald, whom the Poem never names throughout the siege; while Gerald never names Maurice de Prendergast. Is it possible that he has transferred to his own uncle the exploits of his namesake? But if so, where can Fitz-Gerald have been?

[517] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 51–67.

[518] _Ib._ pp. 97–103.

[519] The Poem (as above), p. 87, reckons them at twenty in all, and names four besides those already mentioned, viz., Robert de Quincy, Walter de Riddlesford, Richard de Marreis and Walter Bluet.

[520] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 87–90.

[521] The Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 90, 91, describes the force as composed of three divisions, each consisting of forty knights, sixty archers and a hundred “serjanz.” Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 24 (p. 268), makes the three bands of knights contain respectively twenty, thirty and forty, each accompanied by as many archers and citizens as could be spared from guarding the walls.

[522] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 24 (Dimock, vol. v. pp. 268, 269). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 90–94. Cf. the brief account in Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1185).

[523] Gir. Cambr. as above (pp. 269, 270). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 95.

He was however already too late. Three thousand men of Wexford and Kinsellagh, finding that they could make no impression by fair means upon Robert Fitz-Stephen shut up in the fort of Carrick with five knights and a handful of archers, at length had recourse to fraud. Two bishops and some monks were made to stand under the walls of the fort and swear upon relics brought for the purpose that Dublin was taken, the earl and his comrades slain, and Roderic on the march to Wexford at the head of his victorious host. On a promise of liberty to escape to Wales[524] Robert in his despair surrendered, only to see his little band of humbler followers slaughtered to a man, and himself and his five knights cast into chains. The men of Wexford then fired their town and took refuge with their captives on the neighbouring island of Beg-Erin,[525] whence they sent word to Richard of Striguil that if he dared to approach them he should immediately receive the heads of his six friends.[526] Notwithstanding this disaster at Wexford, and the failure of a plot to entrap the chief of Ossory--a well-deserved failure, due to the loyalty of Maurice de Prendergast[527]--the invaders were rapidly gaining ground. The king of North Munster, who was married to Eva’s sister, again forsook Roderic and made alliance with his English brother-in-law;[528] an attempt made by Tighernan O’Ruark to renew the siege of Dublin ended in failure;[529] and at last Murtogh of Kinsellagh was reduced to make a surrender of his principality into Richard’s hands and accept a re-grant of it from him as overlord, while Donell Kavanagh was invested on like terms with the remaining portion of Leinster.[530]

[524] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 25 (pp. 270, 271).

[525] _Ibid._ (p. 271). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 85, 97.

[526] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 28 (p. 273).

[527] See the story in Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 97–103.

[528] _Ib._ pp. 97, 98.

[529] Four Masters, a. 1171 (as above, pp. 1185–1187). Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 29 (p. 274).

[530] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 103.

The earl’s triumphs, however, met with an abrupt check from over sea. His uncle Hervey of Mountmorris, who had gone to plead his cause with the king after the failure of Raymond’s mission, returned to Waterford[531] with tidings that Henry himself was on his way to Ireland and required the self-styled earl of Leinster to go and speak with him without delay. Richard hurried over to Wales,[532] met Henry on the border,[533] and was forgiven on condition that he should surrender Dublin and the other coast towns absolutely into the king’s hands and do him homage and fealty for the rest of Leinster;[534] he then accompanied Henry into Pembrokeshire;[535] where the royal fleet was assembling in Milford Haven. It consisted of four hundred ships,[536] carrying a force of about four thousand men, of whom some five hundred were knights and the rest archers, mounted and unmounted.[537] The king embarked on the evening of Saturday, October 16, and landed next day at Croch, eight miles from Waterford.[538] On the morrow, S. Luke’s day, he entered the town of Waterford;[539] there he was met by his seneschal William Fitz-Aldhelm, his constable Humfrey de Bohun, Hugh de Lacy, Robert Fitz-Bernard, and some other officers of his household whom he had sent over to prepare for his coming.[540] The Irish of the district and the Ostmen of the town, in the person of their chieftain Ragnald, made submission to him as their sovereign;[541] while Richard of Striguil formally surrendered the place into the king’s hands and did homage to him for the earldom of Leinster.[542] The men of Wexford now, according to an agreement which they had made with Henry while he was waiting for a wind at Pembroke,[543] brought their captive Robert Fitz-Stephen to his sovereign’s feet, to be by him dealt with as a rebel and a traitor. Henry loaded him with reproaches and imprisoned him afresh, but his anger was more assumed than real, and the captive was soon released.[544] The submission of the English adventurers was followed by that of the Irish princes. Dermot MacCarthy, king of Cork or South Munster, was the first of them who came to Henry’s feet at Waterford, swore him fealty, gave hostages and promised tribute.[545] On November 1[546] Henry advanced to Lismore, and thence, two days later, to Cashel, where at the passage of the Suir he was met by the king of Limerick or of Northern Munster, Donell O’Brien, with offers of tribute and obedience. The lesser chieftains of southern Ireland followed the example of the two kings; in three weeks from his arrival all Munster was at his feet, and its coast-towns, Wexford, Waterford, Limerick and Cork, were all in the custody of his own officers.[547] At Martinmas he reached Dublin;[548] before Christmas he received hostages from all the princes of Leinster and Meath, from Tighernan O’Ruark of Breffny, from O’Carroll of Oiriel, and from the king of Uladh or eastern Ulster;[549] his new vassals built him a dwelling of wattle or wicker-work, after the manner of their country, outside the walls of Dublin, and there in their midst he held his Christmas court.[550]

[531] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 28 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 273). Hervey must have gone before Midsummer; he was clearly not in Dublin during the second siege, and returned shortly after its conclusion.

[532] _Ibid._ Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 105, 106.

[533] At Newnham in Gloucestershire, according to Gerald (as above). The Anglo-Norm. Poem (p. 106), however, says they met at Pembroke. This would make a difference of at least ten days in the date. From the account of Henry’s movements in the _Brut y Tywys._, a. 1171 (William, pp. 211–213), it seems that he crossed the border about September 8 and reached Pembroke on September 20.

[534] Gir. Cambr. as above. Cf. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 26 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 168, 169).

[535] _Brut y Tywys._, a. 1171 (Williams, p. 215).

[536] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 25; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 29; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 235. The Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1187), and Ann. Loch. Cé, a. 1171 (Hennessy, vol. i. p. 145), give the number as two hundred and forty.

[537] Gerald (_Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 30, Dimock, vol. v. p. 275) reckons five hundred knights, with “arcariis [_var._ satellitibus equestribus] quoque et sagittariis multis.” The Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 123, makes the knights four hundred, and a few lines later sums up the whole force as “quatre mil Engleis.” Mr. W. Lynch (_View of Legal Inst. in Ireland under Hen. II._, p. 2) argues from the payments for arms, provisions, shipping, etc. recorded in the Pipe-Rolls for 1171, that the army must have numerically “far exceeded the force described in our printed historians.” He gives a few details of these payments, extracted from the Pipe-Roll in question (17 Hen. II., a. 1171); some more, from this and the next year’s roll, maybe seen in Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp. 161, 163. The host was no doubt composed almost wholly of English tenants-in-chivalry; but whatever may have been its numbers, there was a large proportion of these tenants who had nothing to do with it except by paying its expenses next year with a great scutage. See in Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. pp. 629–632, the extracts from Pipe Roll 18 Hen. II. “de scutagio militum qui nec abierunt in Hyberniam nec denarios” (in some cases “nec milites nec denarios”) “illuc miserunt.”

[538] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 25; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 29. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 348, makes October 16 the day of Henry’s arrival in Ireland; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 235, makes it “about S. Calixtus’s day” (October 16 would be two days after). Gerald, _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 30 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 275) makes him reach Waterford “circa kalendas Novembris, die videlicet S. Lucæ.” The Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel, p. 123) turns this into “à la Tusseinz”; the Four Masters, a. 1171 (O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1187) record his coming without any date at all; and the _Brut y Tywys._ a. 1171 (Williams, p. 217), absurdly says he sailed on Sunday, November 16. The Anglo-Norman poet seems to have taken Croch--“à la Croiz” as he calls it--for the place of embarkation.

[539] _Gesta Hen._, Rog. Howden and Gir. Cambr. as above.

[540] _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden, as above. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 124.

[541] _Gesta Hen._ as above. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 30.

[542] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 124.

[543] See the curious story of their envoy’s arrival and reception at Pembroke, _ib._ pp. 119–123.

[544] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. cc. 31, 32 (Dimock, vol. v. pp. 276, 277, 278). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 125, 126.

[545] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 31 (p. 277).

[546] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 30, says he stayed at Waterford fifteen days.

[547] Gir. Cambr. as above, cc. 31, 32 (pp. 277, 278). He adds that Henry returned to Waterford, where he released Robert Fitz-Stephen, and thence proceeded to Dublin. The Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 126, 127, places this progress through Cashel and Lismore in inverse order, after Henry’s first visit to Dublin, and says nothing of a second visit to Waterford. Its account is however much less circumstantial than Gerald’s. The _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden only name two places where Henry stayed--Waterford and Dublin; and as they both say he reached the latter at Martinmas, while Roger says he left Waterford when he had been there a fortnight (_i.e._ on November 1), Gerald’s story fills up the interval very well.

[548] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 28. Rog. Howden (as above), p. 32.

[549] Gerald (as above, c. 33, p. 278) enumerates the princes who submitted at Dublin as follows: “Machelanus Ophelan [O’Phelan], Machtalewi, Otuetheli [O’Toole], Gillemoholmoch [Gillamocholmog of Fingal by Dublin--see above, p. 106], Ocathesi [O’Casey], Ocaruel Urielensis [O’Carroll of Oiriel], et Ororicius Medensis [O’Ruark]”. He then relates the half-submission of Roderic of Connaught (of which more later), and adds: “sic itaque, præter solos Ultonienses, subditi per se singuli.” (_Ib._ p. 279.) He need not however have excepted the Ulstermen; for the Ann. Loch Cé, a. 1171 (Hennessy, vol. i. p. 145)--copying, it seems, the old Annals of Ulster (see Four Masters, O’Donovan, vol. ii. p. 1187, note _c_, and O’Kelly’s note to Lynch’s _Cambr. Evers._, vol. ii. p. 472, note _d_)--say that Henry while at Dublin received hostages from “Leinster, Meath, Breffny, Oiriel and Uladh.” This leaves only Connaught and Aileach unsubdued. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 235) and the _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 25) lump all these submissions together, and the latter seems to place them all, as well as the submission of the bishops, during Henry’s stay in Waterford. Rog. Howden (Stubbs, vol. ii. p. 30) not only does the same still more distinctly, but he does worse; he places the submission of the bishops first, and then says that the lay princes submitted “exemplo clericorum.” It is he, not Gerald or any one else, who is responsible for this misrepresentation, which the champions of the Irish Church have been justly denouncing ever since Dr. Lynch’s time.

[550] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 28, 29. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 32. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 236. Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 33 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 279).

Early in November two royal chaplains had been despatched to summon the Irish bishops to a council and claim their submission.[551] We hear not a word of Pope Adrian’s bull; but we can hardly doubt that its existence and its contents were in some way or other certified to the Irish prelates before, in response to the royal mandate, they met in council at Cashel in the first weeks of 1172.[552] The archbishop of Armagh absented himself on the plea of extreme age and infirmity;[553] all his episcopal brethren, however, made full submission to Henry, pledged themselves to conform in all things to the pattern of the English Church,[554] gave written promises to support the English king and his heirs as lawful sovereigns of Ireland,[555] and joined with him in sending to Rome a report of his proceedings and their own.[556]

[551] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 28. Rog. Howden (as above), p. 31. The messengers were Nicolas, a chaplain of the king, and Ralf archdeacon of Landaff. They were sent out “circa festum S. Leonardi” (November 6). _Gesta Hen._ as above.

[552] The _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden as above, both place this council before Christmas 1171. Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 35 (p. 281), and R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351, date it 1172. It seems better to follow them, for though Gerald is certainly no chronologist, he is the only writer who gives a detailed and rational account of this synod; and the summary given by R. Diceto also shews a fair knowledge of the subject, though he makes the synod meet at Lismore instead of Cashel.

[553] Gir. Cambr. as above (p. 283). He adds that the primate afterwards went to Dublin and there submitted to Henry; but see Dr. Lanigan’s comment, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 205, 206.

[554] Gir. Cambr. as above. R. Diceto (as above), pp. 350, 351.

[555] They sent him “litteras suas in modum cartæ extra sigillum pendentes:” _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 26. Cf. Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 30, 31. This is however placed by both writers some time before the council. See above, p. 114, note 6{549}.

[556] Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 31, says that Henry sent copies of the bishops’ letters of submission to Rome. Dr. Lanigan (_Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 217, 218) objects that this can only have been done some time later, as Henry’s communications were cut off by the weather. But this is not borne out either by the words of R. Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 350) or by those of Gerald (_Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 36, Dimock, vol. v. p. 284). They both say distinctly that a persistent contrary wind hindered all communication _from England to Ireland_. For communication in the opposite direction such a wind would surely be most favourable. Moreover, it is quite certain that the Pope did, some time before September 20, 1172, receive reports of Henry’s proceedings in Ireland both from Henry himself and from the Irish bishops, for he says so in three letters--one addressed to Henry, another to the kings and bishops of Ireland, and the third to the legate, Christian bishop of Lismore--all dated Tusculum, September 20, and all printed in Hearne’s _Liber Niger_, vol. i. pp. 42–48, as well as in the notes to _Macariæ Excidium_ (O’Callaghan), pp. 255–262.

In all Ireland the king of Connaught was now the only ruler, spiritual or temporal, who had not submitted to Henry.[557] Trusting to the inaccessible nature of his country,[558] Roderic had at first refused all dealings with the invader, declaring that he himself was the sole rightful monarch of Ireland.[559] It seems however that he afterwards came to a meeting with William Fitz-Aldhelm and Hugh de Lacy by the banks of the Shannon, on the frontier of Connaught and Meath, and there promised tribute and fealty like his fellow-kings.[560] The promise was however worthless until confirmed by his personal homage; and this Henry soon perceived was only to be extorted at the sword’s point. The impossibility of fighting to any advantage in the wet Irish winter compelled him to postpone the attempt until the spring;[561] and when spring came he found that his intended campaign must be abandoned altogether. From the day when he left Milford he had received not one word of tidings from any part of his dominions.[562] This total isolation, welcome at first as a relief from the load of cares which indeed he had purposely left behind him,[563] became at the end of nineteen weeks a source of almost unbearable anxiety. On March 1 he removed from Dublin to Wexford;[564] there for nearly a month he remained eagerly watching for a ship from England; none came until after Mid-Lent,[565] and then it was laden with such ill news that he could only take such hasty measures as were possible at the moment for maintaining his hold upon Ireland, and prepare to hurry out of it as soon as the wind would carry him.[566] Richard of Striguil was suffered to remain at Kildare[567] as earl of Leinster; the general direction of government and administration throughout the king’s Irish domains was intrusted to Hugh de Lacy,[568] who had already received a grant of Meath in fee,[569] and who was also left in command of the citadel of Dublin,[570] with a garrison of twenty knights, among whom were Maurice Fitz-Gerald[571] and Robert Fitz-Stephen.[572] The grants of territory made by Dermot to the half-brothers were of course annulled; Waterford and Wexford were both garrisoned and placed in charge of an officer appointed by the king;[573] and in each of these towns a fortress was either erected or repaired by his orders.[574]

[557] Perhaps we should add the chief of Aileach; see above, p. 114, note 6{549}.

[558] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 348.

[559] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 25, 26. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 235.

[560] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 33 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 279). See Dr. Lanigan’s refutation of Gerald’s comment on the legal effect of this transaction, _Eccles. Hist. Ireland_, vol. iv. pp. 203, 204.

[561] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), pp. 26, 29.

[562] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 36 (p. 284). R. Diceto as above, p. 350.

[563] See Gervase of Canterbury’s account of his motives for going to Ireland (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 235).

[564] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 29; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 33.

[565] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 37 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 285).

[566] _Ib._ c. 37 (pp. 285, 286). In the Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 128, 129, Henry is made to receive the bad news before leaving Dublin, which is obviously too soon. Cf. _Gesta Hen._ as above, and Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 33, 34.

[567] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 132.

[568] “Constituit eum justitiarium Hyberniæ.” Rog. Howden (as above), p. 34.

[569] _Ibid._ _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 30. Gir. Cambr. (as above), c. 38 (p. 286). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 130. See the charter of donation in Lyttelton, _Hen. II._, vol. iv. p. 295.

[570] Gir. Cambr., _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden, as above. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 129.

[571] Gir. Cambr. as above.

[572] Anglo-Norm. Poem, as above--adding Meiler Fitz-Henry and Miles Fitz-David.

[573] _Gesta Hen._, Rog. Howden and Gir. Cambr. as above.

[574] _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden, as above. If we may believe the Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel, p. 130) Henry furthermore made a grant of Ulster to John de Courcy--“si à force la peust conquere.”

A better mode of securing his authority in Dublin was probably suggested to him by the ravages which war and famine had made among its population. Eight years before he had taken the burghers of Bristol, so long the medium of trading intercourse between England and Ireland, under his especial patronage and protection.[575] He now granted to them the city of Dublin, to colonize and to hold of him and his heirs by the same free customs which they enjoyed in their own town of Bristol.[576] It is plain that Henry was already aiming at something far other than a mere military conquest of Ireland; and the long and varied list of English names, from all parts of the country, which is found in a roll of the Dublin citizens only a few years later,[577] shews how willingly his plans were taken up, not only at Bristol but throughout his realm, by the class to which he chiefly and rightly trusted for aid in their execution. Unluckily, they were scarcely formed when he was obliged to leave their developement to other hands; and the consequence was a half success which proved in the end to be far worse than total failure. On Easter night[578] he sailed from Wexford;[579] next day he landed at Portfinnan, hard by S. David’s;[580] before the octave was out he had hurried through South Wales to Newport;[581] in a few days more he was at Portsmouth;[582] and before Rogation-tide he was once more in Normandy, ready to face the bursting of a storm whose consequences were to overshadow all his remaining years and to preclude all chance of his return to complete his conquest of Ireland.

[575] In January 1164 “he granted a short charter of privileges to the burghers of Bristol, whom as sovereign lord he calls _his_ burgesses, although they were then under the lordship of the earl of Gloucester. This charter contains only an exemption from toll and passage and other customary payments for themselves and their goods through the king’s own lands, with a confirmation of their existing privileges and liberties” (Seyer, _Mem. of Bristol_, vol. i. p. 494, with a reference to “Charters of Bristol, No. 1”).

[576] Charter printed in Gilbert, _Hist. and Munic. Documents of Ireland_, p. 1.

[577] _Ib._ p. 3 _et seq._

[578] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351, says at sunset on Easter day (April 16); the Ann. Loch Cé, a. 1172 (Hennessy, vol. i. p. 147), say on Easter day “after Mass.” Gerald, _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 38 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 286), the _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 30, and Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 34, say he sailed early on the Monday morning, the two latter adding a reason--he would not travel on the feast-day, though he had suffered his household to do so. Most probably he sailed at midnight, as seems to have been often done. The _Brut y Tywys._ a. 1172 (Williams, p. 217), makes him reach Pembroke on Good Friday, but this is impossible.

[579] _Gesta Hen._ as above, p. 30. Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 131. The household had sailed from Croch to Milford; _ibid._ Cf. Rog. Howden as above, p. 34.

[580] _Gesta Hen._ and Rog. Howden, as above. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351. The name of the place, Portfinnan, is given only in the Anglo-Norm. Poem (as above).

[581] See the itinerary in Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. cc. 38–40 (Dimock, vol. v. pp. 286–291), compared with _Brut y Tywys._ a. 1172 (Williams, pp. 217–219).

[582] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 30. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 34. It is Porchester in R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 351.

CHAPTER IV.

HENRY AND THE BARONS.

1166–1175.

For the last eight years Henry had been literally, throughout his English realm, over all persons and all causes supreme. From the hour of Thomas’s flight, not a hand, not a voice was lifted to oppose or to question his will; England lay passive before him; the time seemed to have come when he might work out at leisure and without fear of check his long-cherished plans of legal, judicial and administrative reform. In the execution of those plans, however, he was seriously hampered by the indirect consequences of the ecclesiastical quarrel. One of these was his own prolonged absence from England, which was made necessary by the hostility of France, and which compelled him to be content with setting his reforms in operation and then leave their working to other hands and other heads, without the power of superintending it and watching its effects with his own eyes, during nearly six years. He had now to learn that the enemy with whom he had been striving throughout those years was after all not the most serious obstacle in his way;--that the most threatening danger to his scheme of government still lay, as it had lain at his accession, in that temper of the baronage which it had been his first kingly task to bring under subjection. The victory which he had gained over Hugh Bigod in 1156 was real, but it was not final. The spirit of feudal insubordination was checked, not crushed; it was only waiting an opportunity to lift its head once more; and with the strife that raged around S. Thomas of Canterbury the opportunity came.

Henry’s attitude towards the barons during these years had been of necessity a somewhat inconsistent one. He never lost sight of the main thread of policy which he had inherited from his grandfather: a policy which may be defined as the consolidation of kingly power in his own hands, through the repression of the feudal nobles and the raising of the people at large into a condition of greater security and prosperity, and of closer connexion with and dependence upon the Crown, as a check and counterpoise to the territorial influence of the feudataries. On the other hand, his quarrel with the primate had driven him to throw himself on the support of those very feudataries whom it was his true policy to repress, and had brought him into hostility with the ecclesiastical interest which ought to have been, and which actually had been until now, his surest and most powerful aid. If it was what we may perhaps venture to call the feudal side of the ecclesiastical movement--its introduction of a separate system of law and jurisdiction, traversing and impeding the course of his own uniform regal administration--which roused the suspicions of the king, it was its anti-feudal side, its championship of the universal rights and liberties of men in the highest and widest sense, that provoked the jealousy of the nobles. This was a point which Henry, blinded for the moment by his natural instinct of imperiousness, seems to have overlooked when at the council of Northampton he stooped to avail himself of the assistance of the barons to crush the primate. They doubtless saw what he failed to see, that he was crushing not so much his own rival as theirs. The cause of the Church was bound up with that of the people, and both alike were closely knit to that of the Crown. Sceptre and crozier once parted, the barons might strive with the former at an advantage such as they had never had while Lanfranc stood beside William and Anselm beside Henry I., such as they never could have had if Thomas had remained standing by the side of Henry II.[583]

[583] “The government party was made up of two elements--the higher order of the Clergy, who joined the king out of cowardice, having more at stake than they could make up their minds to lose; and the higher order of the Laity, who in this instance sided with the king against the Church, that when they had removed this obstacle they might afterwards fight him single-handed.” (R. H. Froude, _Remains_, vol. iv. p. 30). Which is just what Arnulf of Lisieux saw from the first (Ep. clxii., Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. pp. 309, 310), and what Henry learned to his cost in 1173.

As yet, however, there was no token of the strife to come. In February 1166, two years after the publication of the Constitutions of Clarendon, Henry assembled another council at the same place and thence issued an ordinance[584] for carrying out a reform in the method of bringing to justice criminals in general, similar to that which he had in the Constitutions sought to apply to criminals of one particular class. By the Assize of Clarendon it was enacted that the king’s justices and the sheriffs should in every shire throughout the kingdom make inquiry concerning all crimes therein committed “since our lord the king was king.”[585] The method of their investigations was that of inquest by sworn recognitors chosen from among the “lawful men” of each hundred and township, and bound by oath to speak the truth according to their knowledge of the fact in question. This mode of legal inquiry had been introduced into England by William the Conqueror for fiscal purposes, such as the taking of the Domesday survey, and its employment for similar objects was continued by his successors. Henry II. had in the early years of his reign applied the same principle to the uses of civil litigation by an ordinance known as the “Great Assize,” whereby disputes concerning the possession of land might, if the litigants chose, be settled before the justices of the king’s court by the unanimous oath of twelve lawful knights chosen according to a prescribed form from among those dwelling in the district where the land lay, and therefore competent to swear to the truth or falsehood of the claim.[586] This proceeding seems to be assumed as already in use by the ninth Constitution of Clarendon, which ordains its application to disputes concerning Church lands.[587] The Assize of Clarendon aimed at bringing criminals to justice by the help of the same machinery. It decreed that in every hundred of every shire inquest should be made by means of twelve lawful men of the hundred and four from each township, who should be sworn to denounce every man known in their district as a robber, thief or murderer, or a harbourer of such; on their presentment the accused persons were to be arrested by the sheriff, and kept by him in safe custody till they could be brought before the itinerant justices, to undergo the ordeal of water and receive legal punishment according to its results.[588] The inquest was to be taken and the session of the justices held in full shire-court; no personal privileges of any kind were to exempt any qualified member of the court from his duty of attendance and of service on the jury of recognitors if required;[589] and no territorial franchise or private jurisdiction, whether of chartered town or feudal “honour,” was to shelter a criminal thus accused from the pursuit of the sheriffs on the authority of the justices.[590]

[584] On the date see Bishop Stubbs’ preface to _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii. pp. lix.–lxi. The Assize is printed in an appendix to same preface, pp. cxlix–cliv, and in _Select Charters_, pp. 143–146.

[585] Assize of Clarendon, c. 1 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 143).

[586] Glanville, _De legibus Angliæ_, l. ii. c. 7 (_ib._ p. 161). Cf. Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 616.

[587] Constit. Clar. c. 9 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 139). See above, pp. 26, 27.

[588] Assize Clar. cc. 1, 2, 4, 6 (as above, pp. 143, 144).

[589] _Ib._ c. 8 (p. 144).

[590] _Ib._ cc. 9–11 (as above).

As was the case with most of Henry’s reforms, none of the methods of procedure adopted in this Assize were new inventions. Not only had the inquest by sworn recognitors been in use for civil purposes ever since the Norman conquest; it may even be that the germ of a jury of presentment in criminal cases, which in its modern shape appears for the first time in the Assize of Clarendon, is to be traced yet further back, to an ordinance of Æthelred II., whereby the twelve senior thegns in every wapentake were made to swear that they would “accuse no innocent man nor conceal any guilty one.”[591] The mission of itinerant justices--derived in principle from the early days of English kingship, when the sovereign himself perambulated his whole realm, hearing and deciding whatever cause came before him as he passed along--had been employed by Henry I., and revived by Henry II. immediately after his accession. A visitation of the greater part of England had been made by two of the chief officers of the Curia Regis in the first year of his reign, and again in the second; another circuit seems to have been made in 1159 by William Fitz-John; and in 1163 Alan de Neville held pleas of the forest in Oxfordshire, while the justiciar himself, Richard de Lucy, made a journey into Cumberland to hold the pleas of the Crown there, for the first time since the district had passed into the hands of the king of Scots.[592] From the date of the Assize of Clarendon, however, these journeys became regular and general,[593] and the work of the judges employed on them became far more extensive and important.

[591] Laws of Æthelred II., l. iii. c. 3 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 72). See Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. pp. 103, 115, 396, 611, 614.

[592] Stubbs, _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii., pref. p. lxiv.

[593] _Ib._ pp. lxiii, lxiv.

The first visitation under the assize was at once begun by Richard de Lucy and Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex;[594] and the Pipe Roll of the year furnishes some indications of its immediate results. The sums credited to the treasury for the pleas of the Crown reach a far greater amount than in the earlier rolls, and its receipts are further swelled by the goods and chattels of criminals condemned under the assize,[595] which were explicitly declared forfeit to the king.[596] The clause binding all qualified persons to be ready to serve on the juries was strictly enforced; one attempt to evade it was punished with a fine of five marks.[597] Another clause, enjoining upon the sheriffs the construction and repair of gaols for the detention of criminals, was carried into effect with equal vigour.[598] The work of the two justiciars was apparently not completed till the summer of 1167.[599] In that year pleas of the forest were held throughout the country by Alan de Neville; and in 1168 seven barons of the Exchequer made a general visitation of the shires for the collection of an aid on the marriage of the king’s eldest daughter.[600] This last was primarily a fiscal journey; the aid itself was a strictly feudal impost, assessed at one mark on every knight’s fee.[601] It was however levied in a remarkable manner. The Domesday survey, which by a few modifications in practice had been made to serve as the rate-book of the whole kingdom for eighty years, was at last found inadequate for the present purpose. A royal writ was therefore addressed to all the tenants-in-chief, requiring from them an account of the knights’ fees which they held and the services due upon them, whether under the “old infeoffment” of the time of Henry I., or under the “new infeoffment” since the resettlement of the country by his grandson.[602] The answers were enrolled in what is known as the _Black Book of the Exchequer_[603] and the aid was levied in accordance with their contents. The whole process occupied a considerable time; the preparations seem to have begun shortly after Matilda’s betrothal, for we hear of the purchase of “a hutch for keeping the barons’ letters concerning their knights” as early as 1166,[604] yet the collection of the money was not finished till the summer of 1169,[605] a year and a half after her marriage. The labours of the barons employed in it were however not confined to this one end; as usual, their travels were turned to account for judicial purposes,[606] and the system begun by the assize of Clarendon was by no means suffered to fall into disuse.

[594] Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 470. _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii., pref. pp. lxiv, lxv.

[595] See Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 471.

[596] Ass. Clar., c. 5 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, pp. 143, 144).

[597] “Homines de Tichesoura debent v marcas quia noluerunt jurare assisam regis.” Pipe Roll a. 1166, quoted in Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 470, note 1.

[598] “The expenses of gaols at Canterbury, Rochester, Huntingdon, Cambridge, Sarum, Malmesbury, Aylesbury and Oxford are accounted for in the Roll of 1166.” _Ib._ p. 471, note 5.

[599] Stubbs, _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii., pref. pp. lxiv, lxv and note 1.

[600] Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 471 and note 6.

[601] _Ib._ p. 472. Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. p. 572.

[602] The tenour of the king’s writ is shewn by a typical answer, printed by Bishop Stubbs in his _Select Charters_, p. 146, from Hearne’s _Liber Niger Scaccarii_ (2d ed.), vol. i. pp. 148, 149.

[603] _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, edited by Hearne. A roll of the Norman tenants-in-chivalry was compiled in the same manner in 1172; see Stapleton, _Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ_, vol. i., _Observations_, p. xxxiv.

[604] Madox, _Hist. Exch._, vol. i. p. 576, and Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, p. 471, note 7, from Pipe Roll a. 1166.

[605] Stubbs, as above, p. 472, and _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii. pref. p. lxv and note 2. Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 117.

[606] Stubbs, _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii., pref. p. lxv, note 2.

It was too soon as yet for the beneficial results of these measures to become evident to the people at large; but it was not too soon for them to excite the resentment of the barons. The stringency with which in the assize of Clarendon every claim of personal exemption or special jurisdiction was made to give way before the all-embracing authority of the king’s supreme justice shewed plainly that Henry still clave to the policy which had led him to insist upon the restoration of alienated lands and the surrender of unlicensed castles in England, to lose no opportunity of exercising his ducal right to seize and garrison the castles of his vassals in Normandy[607]--in a word, to check and thwart in every possible way the developement of the feudal principle. The assessment of the aid for his daughter’s marriage seems indeed at first glance to have been based on a principle wholly favourable to the barons, for it apparently left the determination of each landowner’s liabilities wholly in his own hands. But the commissioners who spent nearly two years in collecting the aid had ample power and ample opportunity to check any irregularities which might have occurred in the returns; and the impost undoubtedly pressed very heavily upon the feudal tenants as a body. Its proceeds seem, however, not to have come up to Henry’s expectations, and the unsatisfactory reports which reached him from England of the general results of his legal measures led him to suspect some failure in duty on the part of those who were charged with their execution.

[607] Stubbs, _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii. pref. p. xlvii, note.

A large share of responsibility rested with the sheriffs; and the sheriffs were still for the most part, as they had been in his grandfather’s days, the chief landowners in their respective shires, men of great local importance, and only too likely to have at once the will and the power to defeat the ends of the very measures which by their official position they were called upon to administer. Henry therefore on his return to England at Easter 1170 summarily deposed all sheriffs of counties and bailiffs of royal demesnes, pending an inquisition into all the details of their official conduct since his own departure over sea four years ago. The inquiry was intrusted not to any of the usual members of the King’s Court and Exchequer, but to a large body of commissioners specially chosen for the purpose from the higher ranks of both clergy and laity.[608] These were to take pledges of all the sheriffs and bailiffs that they would be ready to appear before the king and make redress on an appointed day; an oath was also to be exacted from all barons, knights and freemen in every shire that they would answer truthfully and without respect of persons to all questions put to them by the commissioners in the king’s name.[609]

[608] The list of commissioners for seven of the southern shires is in Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 216. See also Stubbs, _Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 473 and note 2.

[609] Inquest of sheriffs, Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 148. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 217.

The subject-matter of these inquiries, as laid down in the king’s instructions, embraced far more than the conduct of the sheriffs. Not only were the commissioners to examine into all particulars of the sums received by the sheriffs and bailiffs in the discharge of their functions, and the manner and grounds of their acquisition,[610] and into the disposal of all chattels and goods forfeited under the assize of Clarendon; they were also to ascertain whether the collection of the aid _pour fille marier_ had been honestly conducted; they were at the same time to investigate the administration of the forests[611] and the condition of the royal demesnes;[612] to find out and report any persons who had failed to do homage to the king or his son;[613] and they were moreover to make inquisition into the proceedings of all the special courts of the various franchises, whether held by archbishop or bishop, abbot, earl or baron, as fully and minutely as into those of the ordinary hundreds.[614] Only two months were allowed to the commissioners for their work, which nothing but their great number can have enabled them to execute in the time. Unhappily, the report which they brought up to the king on S. Barnabas’s day is lost, and we have no record of its results save in relation to one point: out of twenty-seven sheriffs, only seven were allowed to retain their offices. The rest, who were mostly local magnates owing their importance rather to their territorial and family influence than to their connexion with the court, were replaced by men of inferior rank, and of whom all but four were officials of the Exchequer.[615]

[610] Inquest of sheriffs, cc. 1, 4, 9, 10 (as above, pp. 148–150).

[611] _Ib._ cc. 5, 6, 7 (p. 149).

[612] _Ib._ c. 12 (p. 150).

[613] _Ib._ c. 11 (p. 150).

[614] _Ib._ cc. 2, 3 (pp. 148, 149).

[615] See the list, and Bishop Stubbs’s analysis of it, in his preface to _Gesta Hen._, vol. ii. p. lxvii, note 3.

This significant proof of Henry’s determination to pursue his anti-feudal policy was followed up next year by the last step in that resumption of alienated demesnes which in England had been virtually completed thirteen years ago, but which had been enforced only by slower degrees on the other side of the channel. In 1171 Henry ordered a general inquisition into the extent and condition of the demesne lands and forests held by his grandfather in Normandy, and into the encroachments since made upon them by the barons; and we are told that the restitution which resulted from the inquiry almost doubled his ducal revenue.[616] The endurance of the barons was now almost at an end; and moreover, their opportunity had now come. From that same council at Westminster whence the decree had gone forth for the inquest of sheriffs, there had gone forth also the summons for the crowning of the young king; that other assembly which on S. Barnabas’s day saw the deposition of the delinquent officers saw also, three days later, the new and dangerously suggestive spectacle of two kings at once in the land. When, six months later still, the first consequences of that coronation appeared in the murder of S. Thomas, the barons could not but feel that their hour was at hand. His regal dignity no longer all his own, but voluntarily shared with another--his regal unction washed out in that stream of martyr’s blood which cut him off from the support of the Church--Henry seemed to be left alone and defenceless in the face of his foes. The year which he spent in conquering Ireland was a breathing-space for them as well as for him. They used it to adapt to their purposes the weapon which he had so lately forged for his own defence; they found a rallying-point and a pretext for their designs against him in the very son whom he had left to cover his retreat and supply his place at home.

[616] Rob. Torigni, a. 1171.

The younger Henry had passed over to Normandy just before his father quitted it, in July 1171.[617] There he apparently stayed with his mother and her younger children till the opening of the next year, when he and his wife went to England, and there remained as titular king and queen until his father’s return from Ireland.[618] The youth’s kingship, however, was scarcely more than nominal; in his presence no less than in his absence, the real work of government in England was done by the justiciars; and his own personal interests lay chiefly beyond the sea. The influences which surrounded him there were those of his father’s open or secret foes:--of his wife’s father, King Louis of France, of his own mother, Queen Eleanor, her kindred and her people; and Eleanor had ceased to be a loyal vice-gerent for the husband who had by this time forfeited his claims to wifely affection from her. She seems to have taken for her political confidant her uncle, Ralf of Faye[619]--one of the many faithless barons of Poitou; and it is said to have been at her instigation that Ralf and an Angevin baron, Hugh of Ste.-Maure, profited by Henry’s absence in Ireland to whisper to her eldest son that a crown was worthless without the reality of kingly power, and that it was time for him to assert his claim to the substance of which his father had given him only the shadow.[620] Young Henry, now seventeen years old, listened but too readily to such suggestions; and it was a rumour of his undutiful temper, coupled significantly with a rumour of growing discontent among the barons, that called Henry back from Ireland[621] and made him carry his son with him to Normandy[622] in the spring of 1172. After the elder king’s reconciliation with the Church, however, and the second coronation of the younger one, the danger seemed to have subsided; and in November Henry, to complete the pacification, allowed his son to accompany his girl-wife on a visit to her father, the king of France.[623] When they returned,[624] the young king at once confronted his father with a demand to be put in possession of his heritage, or at least of some portion of it--England, Normandy, or Anjou--where he might dwell as an independent sovereign with his queen.[625] The father refused.[626] He had never intended to make his sons independent rulers of the territories allotted to them; Richard and Geoffrey indeed were too young for such an arrangement to be possible in their cases; and the object of the eldest son’s crowning had been simply to give him such an inchoate royalty as would enable his father to employ him as a colleague and representative in case of need, and to feel assured of his ultimate succession to the English throne. The king’s plans for the distribution of his territories and for the establishment of his children had succeeded well thus far. He had secured Britanny in Geoffrey’s name before he quitted Gaul in 1171; and a month after his return, on Trinity Sunday (June 10) 1172, Richard was enthroned as duke of Aquitaine according to ancient custom in the abbot’s chair in the church of S. Hilary at Poitiers.[627] One child, indeed, the youngest of all, was still what his father had called him at his birth--“John Lackland.”[628] Even for John, however, though he was scarcely five years old,[629] a politic marriage was already in view.

[617] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 24, note 2.

[618] Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp. 162, 166. He kept Christmas at Bures; Rob. Torigni, a. 1172 (_i.e._ 1171).

[619] Ep. ciii., Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. p. 197. Cf. Ep. cclxxvii., _ib._ vol. vi. p. 131.

[620] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 350.

[621] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 37 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 285). Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 128, 129.

[622] _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 30.

[623] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 34. This writer says they went over--young Henry much against his will--about All Saints’ day, and were sent to the king of France both together. Rob. Torigni, a. 1172, says they crossed at Martinmas, and paid their visits to Louis separately, Henry at Gisors, Margaret at Chaumont.

[624] Summoned, it seems, by Henry, “timens fraudem et malitiam regis Franciæ, quas sæpe expertus fuerat.” _Gesta Hen._ (as above), p. 35.

[625] _Ib._ p. 41. Cf. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 242. The _Gesta_ say the demand was made “per consilium regis Francorum, et per consilium comitum et baronum Angliæ et Normanniæ, qui patrem suum odio habebant.”

[626] _Gesta Hen._ and Gerv. Cant. as above.

[627] Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 67 (Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 318).

[628] “Quartum natu minimum Johannem Sine Terrâ agnominans.” Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 18 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 146).

[629] There is some doubt as to the date of John’s birth. Rob. Torigni (_ad ann._) places it in 1167; R. Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 325) in 1166. The prose addition to Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle (Hearne, vol. ii. p. 484) says that he was born at Oxford on Christmas Eve. As Eleanor seems to have been in England at Christmas-tide in both years, this gives us no help. Bishop Stubbs (Introd. to _W. Coventry_, vol. ii. p. xvii, note 3) adopts the later date.