as his father had done. Among his train were John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, whom Innocent III. had refused to make Archbishop of Canterbury, and John de Courcy, who had been captured and given up by the De Lacies, and who had suffered a rigorous imprisonment, but was now again in favour with the King. John did not let the grass grow under his feet. On the eighth day after his arrival he was at Dublin, having travelled by Ross, Thomastown, Kilkenny, and Naas. The first effect of his presence was to separate the two De Lacies, and the Lord of Meath sent him the following message:—‘Walter salutes the King as his liege lord, of whom he holds all he possesses; and prays the King to relax his ire, and suffer Walter to approach his presence; Walter will not plead against the King, but places all his castles and lands in the hands of the King as his lord, to retain or restore as he pleases.’ The messenger added that Walter had lost much by his brother Hugo, and that he left him to the King’s pleasure. It is possible that this was said in consequence of an arrangement between the two brothers. John was not pacified, and prepared to invade both Meath and Ulster. Trim was reached by July 2, and Kells by the 4th, and the Kings of Connaught and Thomond were summoned to take part in the expedition to Ulster. Cathal Crovdearg and Donough O’Brien both obeyed the King’s order, and the royal army proceeded by Dundalk, Carlingford, and Downpatrick to Carrickfergus. The latter place was taken and garrisoned. Hugo de Lacy had already fled into Scotland. The King stayed eight or nine days at Carrickfergus, where he was visited by Hugh O’Neill, who does not appear to have made any real submission, and then marched by Holywood, Downpatrick, Banbridge, and Carlingford to Drogheda. From Drogheda he again entered Meath, visited Duleek and Kells, and seems to have penetrated as far west as Granard. He was in Dublin by August 18, and back to England before the end of the month, having spent sixty-six days in Ireland. On his return from Ulster he had summoned Cathal Crovdearg a second time, bidding him bring his son ‘to receive a charter for the third part of Connaught.’ Over-persuaded by his wife, Cathal went to the King alone. John’s object may have been to make a hostage of the boy, and he seized instead MacDermot of Moylurg, O’Hara of Sligo, and two other men of importance in Connaught. Carrying these chiefs with him to England, the King left the government of Ireland to Bishop de Grey, who signalised his advent to power by building a castle and bridge at Athlone. William de Braose, who had enormous estates in Ireland, was driven into exile by John, who starved his wife and son to death, and gave his castle of Carrigogunnel on the Shannon to Donough O’Brien.
The Anglo-Normans flock to the King. He erects twelve shires.
The Anglo-Norman barons of Ireland flocked to Dublin while John was there, and swore to obey the laws of England. The King divided their country into twelve counties: Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Uriel or Louth, Carlow, Kilkenny, and Wexford in Leinster; and Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary in Munster. Every knight’s fee was bound to supply a well-armed horseman, and inferior tenants were bound to provide foot-soldiers. The Viceroy was to give a notice of forty days when the feudal array was to muster at Dublin, and serve against the King’s enemies for forty days in each year. Ulster and Connaught were not shired, but were afterwards sometimes regarded as counties. Perhaps the nobles of these provinces were supposed to be constantly employed against the Irish. The native chiefs were considered as tributary subjects, but not as tenants. In 1215 John ordered the Archbishop of Dublin to buy enough scarlet cloth to make robes for the Kings of Ireland; and it is clear that they were expected to serve, though the exact measure of the aid rendered may have been left to themselves.
Leinster is divided after Earl Richard’s death.
When Strongbow died without a son the principality of Leinster fell to his eldest daughter Isabel, who became a ward of the Crown. In 1189 the minor was given in marriage to William Earl Marshal, who thus became Earl of Pembroke and Strigul, and lord of a territory in Ireland, corresponding nearly to the counties of Wexford, Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, and part of the Queen’s County. He built a castle and incorporated a town at Kilkenny, and died in 1219, transmitting his honours and great power to his son William. The younger William was Viceroy in 1224, and depressed the De Lacies, allying himself generally with Cathal Crovdearg O’Connor. He died in 1231, leaving all to his brother Richard, who made good his position, although Henry III.’s foreign advisers plotted his destruction. Strongbow’s grandson was killed in 1234 by the feudatories who were bound to defend him, and the colony never recovered the blow.
The De Burgos in Connaught.
Fitz-Adelm’s son, Richard de Burgo, generally called MacWilliam by the Irish, married Una, Cathal Crovdearg’s grand-daughter, and procured from Henry III. a grant of all Connaught, except five cantreds reserved for the support of the post at Athlone. From the first the position of the Anglo-Normans in Connaught differed from their position in other parts of Ireland. They were there rather as allies of the native chiefs than as conquerors, and the easy lapse of their descendants into Irish habits is the less to be wondered at. Richard de Burgo obtained a confirmation of his grant in 1226, through the favour of his kinsman, the great justiciar, Hubert, and he soon afterwards made himself master of Galway, which he fortified strongly, and made the chief place of Connaught. After his time the O’Connors never regained possession of it, and the importance of the royal tribe steadily diminished during the whole of the thirteenth century. Richard de Burgo’s eldest son Walter married Maud, daughter and heiress of the younger Hugo de Lacy, who died in 1243, and he thus became Earl of Ulster as well as Lord of Connaught. His son Richard, commonly called the Red Earl, advanced the power of the Anglo-Norman state to the furthest point which it ever attained.
Poverty of the colony under Henry III.
Constant war is not favourable to the production of wealth, and it seems probable that no very considerable progress was made in the arts of peace. Tallage was first imposed on Ireland in 1217, in the name of Henry III., but it seems to have yielded little, and a generation later there was equal difficulty in collecting a tithe for the Pope. Innocent IV. ordered that a sum should be so raised for the liberation of the Holy Land, and very stringent letters were sent to Ireland in 1254; but collector Lawrence Sumercote declared that the difficulties were insuperable. The Irish, he explained, never saved anything, but lived riotously and gave liberally to all, and he professed that he would ‘rather be imprisoned than crucified any longer in Ireland for the business of the Cross.’ The plan of drawing upon Ireland for English or Continental wars was, however, largely practised during the reign of Henry III., and it tended to sap the strength of the colony. Ready money might be scarce, but there were men, and they could be ill-spared from the work of defending their lands against a native race who were ever on the watch to take advantage of their absence or neglect.
Edward I. had not time to attend to Ireland personally.
A vast number of documents remain to show that Edward I. took great pains about Ireland. Phelim O’Connor, who died in 1265, may be regarded as the last King of Connaught. His son Hugh did indeed assume the title, and, according to the annalists, ‘executed his royal depredations on the men of Offaly, where he committed many burnings and killings;’ but his kingship does not appear to have been officially recognised, and the De Burgos were the true rulers. The Red Earl was supreme in the northern half of Ireland; but O’Neill was recognised as King of Tyrone, while his claim to be head of all the Irish in Ireland was denied. O’Cahan was also sometimes given the title of king. O’Donnell was treated with less respect, and a price was set upon his head, which appears to have been actually brought to Dublin in 1283. In 1281 Hugh Boy O’Neill, whom the annalists call ‘royal heir of all Erin, head of the hospitality and valour of the Gael,’ sided with the English against Donnell Oge O’Donnell, who is called ‘King of the north, the best Gael for hospitality and dignity; the general guardian of the west of Europe, and the knitting-needle of the arch sovereignty, and the rivetting hammer of every good law, and the top-nut of the Gael in valour.’ A battle was fought near Dungannon, and O’Donnell, who had under him the O’Rourkes and MacMahons, and ‘nearly the majority of the Irish of Connaught and Ulster,’ was defeated and slain. Two years later Hugh Boy was killed by the MacMahons. The story of this contest is a good illustration of the hopeless incapacity of the natives for anything like a national combination. If Edward
