In the meantime King Roderic had set his army in motion against the invaders, and easily penetrated to the neighbourhood of Ferns. The monastery was surrounded by woods and bogs, and Fitz-Stephen, who was an adept in Welsh warfare, taught the Leinstermen how to make it impregnable with ditches and abattis. Neither party were very anxious to fight, and Dermod made a treaty with Roderic, in which he acknowledged him as chief king, in consideration of being allowed to enjoy Leinster in peace. Giraldus says there was a secret understanding that the adventurers should be sent home as soon as they had pacified Leinster, and that no reinforcements should be brought over.
Earl Richard hesitates. His friends take Waterford.
Whatever understanding he might have with O’Connor, Dermod did not soon abandon the hope of more help from Wales. ‘We have,’ he wrote to Earl Richard, ‘observed the storks and swallows; the summer birds have come, and with this west wind have returned. Neither Favonius nor Eurus has brought us your much-desired and long-expected presence.’ The Earl had waited for the return of Hervey de Montmorency, and when he brought a favourable report it was still necessary to make at least some show of consulting Henry II. The King had forbidden him to go to Ireland, but he now sought an audience and begged either the restoration of his estates or leave to carve out a new one for himself. Henry gave an ambiguous answer, which the Earl chose to interpret in his own favour. In May 1170 he sent out Hervey again, accompanied by Raymond Fitzgerald, called Le Gros, a creature of Fitz-Stephen and Maurice, with twenty knights and seventy archers. Raymond landed at the south-eastern angle of the modern county of Kilkenny, just at the point where the united Nore and Barrow flow into the Suir. He intrenched himself at once, and was soon attacked by the Waterford Danes. If Giraldus is to be believed, a panic seized the assailants, of whom 500 were killed, and many taken. Among Raymond’s followers was a leper named William Ferrand, who performed prodigies of valour, ‘choosing rather to die gloriously than to endure the burden of his disease.’ A question arose as to the disposal of the prisoners. Raymond was for sparing, Hervey for slaying. ‘The opinion of the latter,’ says Giraldus, ‘prevailed; the citizens were condemned, and, their limbs having been broken, they were cast headlong into the sea.’
Earl Richard lands, 1170.
Earl Richard landed near Waterford on August 23, 1170. The city was taken soon afterwards, and Reginald’s tower is particularly mentioned as forming part of the defences. That tower still stands with one of Cromwell’s cannon balls sticking in the wall—a monument of three distinct invaders: the Pagan Northman, the Catholic Anglo-Norman, and the Puritan Englishman. ‘Earl Strongbow,’ say the Lough Cé annalists with pathetic brevity, ‘came into Erin to Dermod MacMurrough to avenge his expulsion by Roderic, son of Tirlogh O’Connor; and Dermod gave him his own daughter and a part of his patrimony; and Saxon foreigners have been in Erin since then.’
The adventurers take Dublin.
Waterford and Wexford having fallen, and his daughter Eva having been married to Earl Richard, Dermod, who now aspired to the crown of all Ireland, felt himself strong enough to attack Dublin. The Earl had brought 200 knights and 1,000 other soldiers, so that the allied force was a considerable one. MacMurrough led the army safely through the Wicklow mountains, which were the scene of more than one disaster to Elizabeth’s officers. Dermod’s auxiliaries had been trained in Wales; and probably understood mountain warfare much better than those who had served in the Netherlands, or even on the Scottish border. Lawrence O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, a man revered both by Danes and Irishmen, attempted to make peace between the citizens and their assailants; but Raymond and Milo de Cogan, while their elders parleyed, led a chosen band to the assault. They soon mastered the place; and Hasculph, with a number of followers and some treasure, escaped to the Orkneys, whence he went to Norway for help. Meath, which for some unexplained reason was in O’Rourke’s possession, was next invaded, and Roderic then wrote to upbraid Dermod with having broken his oath by interfering outside the bounds of Leinster. MacMurrough shortly answered that he meant to be monarch of Ireland, and Roderic then killed his son, who was with him as a hostage. The clergy of Armagh assembled in their synod saw or suspected that the invasion was different from all former invasions. They agreed that Ireland had brought a curse on herself by keeping Englishmen in slavery, and they ordered the liberation of all such bondsmen. Henry II. also saw that something extraordinary had happened. He had no fancy for having an independent Norman principality within sight of Snowdon, and he ordered the adventurers to return, strictly forbidding all communication with them in the meantime. Fitz-Gilbert wrote to the King, who was in Aquitaine, protesting that he believed he had the royal licence for what he had done, and that he was ready to be his vassal for all he might gain in Ireland. Raymond was sent with the letter, but Henry kept him a long time in suspense.
The Danes vainly attempt to retake Dublin.
At Whitsuntide, 1171, while Earl Richard was waiting for the King’s answer, Hasculph returned with sixty ships, containing a well-armed force, under a berserker called John the Mad. Milo de Cogan had been left governor of Dublin, and he and his brother Richard succeeded after a short fight in routing their assailants. John the Mad was killed, and Hasculph taken while trying to escape across the slob to his ships. The prisoner annoying him by threats of another and more formidable attempt, Milo ordered him to be beheaded. He had, however, spoken truth, for Godred, King of Man, soon appeared with thirty ships, and blocked the mouth of the Liffey, while Roderic, having collected a great army from all parts of Ireland, except the extreme north and south, besieged the city by land. The Earl and his followers being thus shut up in Dublin, Dermod’s local enemies besieged Fitz-Stephen in the castle which he had built at Wexford. No help, as the Irish well knew, could be expected from England while Henry II. frowned, and the Normans at Dublin resolved on a great effort to relieve Fitz-Stephen. A sally was arranged, and Roderic’s army was dispersed. The Irish had trusted entirely to their numbers, and kept no watch and no order. Such stores of provisions fell into the victors’ hands that there was no need to victual Dublin for a year afterwards. Fitz-Stephen, however, was not relieved. By force or stratagem, Giraldus says it was by perjury, the Wexford people obtained possession of his person, and killed or captured his men. Hearing of the disaster at Dublin, the victors burned their town and withdrew with their prisoners to an island in the middle of the harbour. Earl Richard arrived too late for his immediate purpose, and continued his journey to Waterford, whence he made his way to the King, whom he met near Gloucester. Henry was at first obdurate, but it was finally agreed that Dublin and all other port towns, with the lands adjoining, should be handed over to the King, and that the Earl and his heirs should hold all their other conquests of him and his heirs. While preparations were being made for a royal expedition, O’Rourke once more attacked Dublin, but the Cogans again surprised the Irish camp, and the city was never again seriously threatened by the natives.
Henry II. lands in Ireland, 1171.
The last attack on Dublin was about September 1, 1171, and on October 16 the King sailed from Milford Haven with 400 ships, containing 4,000 men, of whom 400 or 500 were knights. He landed next day at Crook, on the right bank of the Suir, some miles below Waterford, which he entered on the 18th. The Wexford men saw that the game was up, and brought Fitz-Stephen to the King, expecting thanks for surrendering the man who had dared to make war without the royal licence. Henry spoke sharply to the prisoner, and ordered him to be kept safely in Reginald’s tower. Dermod MacCarthy, chief of Desmond and Cork, did homage at Waterford. Thence Henry went to Lismore, where he stayed two days. From Lismore he went to Cashel, where Donald O’Brien, chief of Thomond and Limerick, followed MacCarthy’s example. The minor chiefs of Munster also made their submission, the only one mentioned by Giraldus being O’Phelan, who ruled a great part of the county of Waterford. Dermod’s old antagonist, Donald of Ossory, also did homage. Henry placed governors both in Cork and Limerick, but it is not clear that he visited either of those cities. He then returned along the Suir to Waterford, where he took Fitz-Stephen into favour, and restored Wexford to him. During this progress the King selected three sites for fortresses, which were afterwards built by his son John—Lismore on the Blackwater, and Ardfinnan and Tibraghny on the Suir. The first and last were intended
