everlasting treasure, and on earth gain a glorious name for ages yet to come.’
The papal title.
The right of the Pope to dispose of islands rested upon the donation of Constantine, which is now admitted to be as certainly spurious as Adrian’s bull is certainly genuine. Adrian may have believed the donation authentic, but in any case, as Irish scholars point out, Constantine could not give what he had never possessed. It is true that Ireland never really formed part of the Roman Empire, but so strong was the idea of an œcumenical sovereignty that Celtic lawyers imagined a state of things in which Ireland would be tributary to the King of the Romans. This was a mere fiction, but it was one of which Rome would readily take advantage, and the Pope who insisted so sturdily on Barbarossa holding his stirrup was not the one in whose hands any available weapon would be allowed to rust.30
Henry II. finds a pretext for interference.
Henry II. was the most powerful prince in Europe, and sooner or later he was almost sure to have a reason for interfering in Ireland. The opportunity was at last afforded by Dermod MacMurrough, King of Leinster, who aspired to reign over all Ireland with the help of Anglo-Norman arms. As early as 1152 Dervorgil O’Melaghlin, wife of Tiernan O’Rourke, Prince of Brefny, being ill-treated by her husband, left him, and placed herself, her cattle, and her furniture under the protection of Dermod. Dervorgil was forty-four and Dermod sixty-two, so that the affair, in spite of a beautiful poem on the subject, was not what would be commonly called romantic. Yet Cleopatra was thirty-nine, when Antonius, at the age of fifty-three, refused to survive her. O’Rourke felt the insult and the loss of the lady, or, at least, of her property, and appealed to Tirlogh O’Connor, King of Connaught and titular King of Ireland. Dermod was compelled to abandon Dervorgil, who survived her husband eleven years, and died as late as 1193, during a pilgrimage to Mellifont Abbey. On the death of Tirlogh O’Connor his son Roderic became a candidate for the chief sovereignty, but Dermod espoused the cause of the O’Neill candidate, who was successful. The flight or abduction of Dervorgil was certainly not the proximate cause of the Norman invasion, but by placing Dermod in permanent opposition to O’Connor and O’Rourke, it probably contributed to bring it about.
Dermod MacMurrough.
In 1166 Dermod, who had made himself odious by his tyranny, was expelled from Leinster by O’Connor and O’Rourke, who demolished his stronghold at Ferns, and transferred his kingship to the next-of-kin. The clergy appear to have been generally favourable to Dermod; and as Adrian’s bull, even if not published, could hardly be a secret, it may have been their advice which induced him to go to Henry II. Dermod, though seventy-seven years old, was still active and enterprising, and he sought the king in Aquitaine or Guienne. Henry was too busy to think of going to Ireland himself, but he gave the suppliant a kind of letter of marque in the following terms:—‘Henry, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, to all his faithful English, Norman, Welsh, and Scots, and to all nations subject to his jurisdiction, greeting: When these present letters reach you you will know that we have received into the bosom of our grace and favour Dermod, prince of the Leinstermen. If anyone, therefore, within the bounds of our power wishes to help his restoration as our man and liege subject, let him know that he has our licence and favour for the purpose.’31
Dermod seeks allies in England.
Thus armed, Dermod returned to Bristol, which was much frequented by ships from Leinster, and he appears to have been supplied with money by his partisans there. His promise of gold and land at first attracted little attention, but after two or three weeks he was visited by Richard Fitz-Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Chepstow. Earl Richard, whose father had lost most of his lands, lent a favourable ear to Dermod, and undertook to bring an army to Ireland in the spring of 1169. The Irishman promised to give him his daughter Eva, his only legitimate child. According to Norman law Eva would bring the kingdom of Leinster to her husband and children. According to Celtic law the lands belonged to the tribe, and the royal dignity was elective. In this singular contract between MacMurrough and Fitz-Gilbert, we have the key to most of the problems which have made Ireland the despair of statesmen.
Earl Richard and his friends.
Dermod, however, did not rest his hopes of success upon Earl Richard alone. He went to St. David’s, so as to be as near Ireland as possible, and made friends with the bishop, who had two brothers admirably suited for the work in hand. Nesta, the beautiful daughter of Rice ap Tudor, Prince of South Wales, is reported to have been the mistress of Henry I., and to have had two sons by him. The younger of these had also two sons, the Robert and Meiler Fitz-Henry who played a prominent part in the conquest of Ireland. Nesta afterwards married Gerald of Windsor, by whom she had three sons and one or two daughters, and from one or other of her children all the Fitzgeralds, Barrys, Carews, and Cogans are descended. After the death of Gerald, Nesta married Stephen, the castellan of Abertivy, and by him had one son, the famous Robert Fitz-Stephen. Giraldus, who must have known, twice states expressly that Fitz-Stephen had no legitimate child. The historian himself was Nesta’s grandson, through her daughter Angareta, who married William de Barry. Robert Fitz-Stephen, and his half-brother, Maurice Fitzgerald, listened readily to MacMurrough, who promised them Wexford and two cantreds of land, if they would help him conquer Leinster.32
Fitz-Stephen and others land in Ireland, 1169.
Robert Fitz-Stephen was a desperate man. Betrayed by his own followers, he had suffered three years’ imprisonment among the Welsh, had been released on promising to serve Rice Fitz-Griffith against Henry II., and had agreed to hold Abertivy for the Cambrian and not for the Angevin. Dermod now offered him a loophole to escape from, and he agreed to accept his offers and to invade Ireland. His half-brother, Maurice Fitzgerald, consented to accompany him. Dermod then slipped over to Ireland and sought a refuge among the clergy of Ferns, who entertained him, as the Archdeacon of St. David’s carefully notes, to the best of their small ability. It was in the winter of 1168 that MacMurrough returned to Ireland, and in May 1169 Fitz-Stephen and his brother followed with thirty knights of their own kinfolk, sixty men-at-arms, and 300 archers, picked, as Giraldus says, from among the youth of Wales. Three ships carried them all, and they landed safely in Bannow Bay, a shallow inlet which they had probably mistaken either for Waterford or Wexford. The brothers were accompanied by Hervey de Montmorency, who was sent by his nephew, Earl Richard, rather as a spy than as a soldier. On the following day Maurice de Prendergast, whose name still lives at Haverfordwest, brought ten knights and a number of archers from Milford, and landed not far from the same place. As soon as Dermod heard of the adventurers’ arrival he sent his son Donald with 500 men to welcome them, and soon followed himself. Donald, surnamed Kavanagh, from having been fostered at Kilcavan, was illegitimate; but that was a matter little considered among the old Irish, and he became the ancestor of those Kavanaghs or MacMurroughs who afterwards claimed the kingship of Leinster and even of Ireland, and who baffled Richard II. and his great army.
They win Wexford.
After a smart conflict Fitz-Stephen and MacMurrough mastered Wexford, which was a Danish town. The Irishman’s readiness to grant Wexford to the adventurers was very probably caused by the fact that the town had never been really in his power. Perhaps he hoped to get rid of the Normans when he had used them to subdue his enemies. It was evident that Fitz-Stephen and his company could do little more than hold Wexford. If Leinster was to be conquered it could only be by a much larger force. Nevertheless, Fitz-Stephen decided to advance into the country, and was joined by the Wexford Danes, who probably were not slow to learn that the Normans were their kinsmen. With a heterogeneous army of 3,000 men, Dermod and his allies marched towards Ossory. There was a battle in open ground with the Ossorians, and the mail-clad stranger had an easy victory. Among the slain was a personal enemy of Dermod, and we are told that that savage, ‘lifting up the dead man’s head by hair and
