educed to great straits; and on one occasion he only escaped capture— which in his case would have been inevitable death—by flying before his enemies for two days and nights, without other sustenance than water and wild berries.

The petty and mischievous warfare which De Courcy had commenced in Ulster naturally led to similar disturbances in other parts. Filz-Adelm, the governor, was detested; and Henry imagining that a more popular governor would perhaps succeed in restoring and preserving the peace of the country a peace which was indispensable towards making the possession of the country a source of revenue to England—removed FilzAdelm, and gave his post to Hugh de Lacy, the lord of Meath, whom he instructed to take all possible means to conciliate the natives, but at the same time to exert himself in the erection of castles sufficiently strong and advantageously situated for the defence of the English pale. Nor did the king's efforts to secure the peace of Ireland stop even here. He applied to Rome for permission to crown his son Prince John as king of Ireland, though of course in vassalage to England. The court of Rome, which even only with reference to Peter-pence, and still more with reference to future contingencies, had a deep slake in the tranquillity and prosperity of Ireland, readily gave the permission required. But, whither from already perceiving something of John's real nature, or from some other unexplained feeling, the king did not avail himself of it, but merely sent him over as lord of Ireland, where the prince arrived in the year 1185 Prince John was at this period about nineteen years of age. Arrogant, heartless, and destitute even of the prudence which would have taught him to imitate the affability of manner by which his father had contrived to conciliate the testy but warm-hearted chieftains, John by his first act disgusted those who approached him for the purpose of renewing their allegiance to the English crown. The flowing yellow garments and long hair and beards of the Irish presented a very odd appearance, no doubt; though, as the Irish were a singularly well and powerfully made race, one would imagine that the peculiarities of costume tended to make their appearance imposing rather than ludicrous. But when they were introduced to Prince John, who seems to have been surrounded by persons as young and ignorant as himself, they were received with peals of laughter, and some of the boy-courtiers are said to have gone so far as to pull the beards of these fiery and veteran warriors. The Irish nature was precisely such as it would be safer to injure than to insult. Burning with rage, the chieftains departed with the deepest determination to leave no effort untried towards shaking off the English yoke. They who had been the most sincerely desirous to show themselves faithful to the absent king of England, now joined those of their fellow-countrymen who were already in arms against him, and an insurrection of the most extensive description forthwith broke out. The English army, beaten at various points, was in a measure destroyed, and the Irish even made themselves a passage into the English pile, plundering and burning many of the houses and butchering the inhabitants. So extensive was this revolt, and so deadly the animosity felt towards John, that it is likely Ireland would have been wholly lost to England, had he longer continued in that island. Fortunately, genuine information, not always procurable by even the most powerful kings, reached the ears of Henry, and he instantly recal led his incapable son and gave the government to De Courcy, earl of Ulster. He, probably, combining both civil and military talents, and possess. ing enormous property and proportionate influence in Ulster, was the fittest man then in Ireland to overcome the difficulties and danger consequent upon Prince John's absurd conduct. Hugh de Lacy, who had for merly replaced Fitz-Adelm, would have been a still more efficient governor, but lie had recently been murdered in cold blood, by an Irish labourer

while superintending the building of a castle in his lordship of Meath. De Courcy, well knowing the propensity of Irish princes to make war upon each other, so skilfully exerted himself to foment quarrels among them, that he easily broke up their league; and, at once separated froin their common object, they weakened each other so far that he had but little difficulty in quelling their desultory attacks upon the English.

A. D. 1189.—Henry the Second, after a reign of thirty-five years, the latter portion of which had been tormented by the unnatural misconduct of his sons, died on the 6th of July, and was succeeded by the renowned king Richard the first. Attached to warfare, Richard was more anxious to humble France, or to lead an army against the far-distant hosts of Heathenesse, than to improve a conquest already made in his own neighborhood. He left Ireland wholly unnoticed; yet it was in his reign that the final annexation of Ireland to the English crown may in some sort be said to have taken place; as in the year 1198 O'Connor, the last native king of Ireland, expired in the monastery in which for thirteen years he had lived in peace. As he was the last Irish king, so was he the first of them who had the sagacity to perceive that the great source of Irish weakness and misery was ignorance. Though monasteries and their inhabitants existed in very evil abundance, the great mass of the people were in the most deplorable state of ignorance. Roderick O'Connor exerted himself to establish schools, especially in Armagh; and by that wise act deserved an admiration which, unfortunately, the world is more willing to bestow upon the king that leads in war, than upon him who points the road to civilization and happiness.

De Courcy, by nature restless and ambitious, availed himself of the neglect shown to Ireland by Richard, and made war and took spoil at his own pleasure; and when, in 1199, John succeeded to Richard, De Courcy had the boldness to refuse to acknowledge him as sovereign. As the matter really stood between John and his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, his claim was open to question. But powerful as De Courcy was in Ireland and against Irish chieftains, he soon discovered that he had overshot his mark in venturing to beard the king of England, even in the person of so contemptible a man as John was. De Courcy, in the life-time of Richard, had given offence to Prince John by the contempt with which he had treated all the prince's orders having relation to Ireland; and John, now that he had come to the throne, resolved to curb the proud vassal. De Courcy was accordingly arrested and sent to England. How or when he died is not known, but it is certain he never returned to his Irish possessions; and even his lordship of Ulster was taken from him and bestowed upon Hugh, the son of Hugh de Lacy, the murdered governor.

Though anything but warlike in disposition, John made an expedition to Ireland; less, it would seem, for the sake of putting an end to the disorders which existed there, than as an excuse for leaving England while the minds of his subjects were alarmed and irritated by the tremendous effects of the papal interdict. Attended by a powerful army, he was speedily waited upon at Dublin by twenty of the most powerful chieftains, who did homage and took the oath of allegiance. Anxious now to conciliate, as formerly he had been hasty to offend, he made many presents among them; and we may take it as a proof that these brave chieftains were even yet not far removed from barbarism, when we learn that of all the presents he made them, they were most delighted with a quanuty of scarlet cloth. The reader is aware of the important law regulations which were made in England during the reign of John; all these were equally extended to Ireland, as were the provisions of that great political blessing—magna charta. But these benefits, though actually conferred upon all, were enjoyed only by the English in Ireland; the turbulence and

indomitable prejudices of the dwellers beyond the English pale, making them look with contempt upon all liberty and enjoyment procured others wise than by force of arms. Where the barons from England subdued tracts of country and subjected the inhabitants to the feudal law, those inhabitants undoubtedly enjoyed the same imperfect liberty as Englishmen of the same rank; and nothing can be more grossly unjust than to represent as a consequence of English partiality, that difference between the people which really arose from the fierceness of the Irish themselves. A. D. 1216.—John, whose attention to Ireland was but temporary, was now succeeded by Henry III. The reign of this prince extended to fifty. six years; and the weakness of his character unfitting him to contend with the bold and restless barons of his time, made the struggles of England more than enough to employ him; and Ireland was consequently left to be scourged by constant wars between the Irish people and their English rulers, the latter of whom still farther increased the confusion by fierce and frequent contests among themselves. How desperate the condition of the country had at length become, may be inferred from a petition of the Irish people to Edward I., in which they implored him to compel the barons to administer the laws equally whether to English or Irish vassals of his majesty, and to compel the extension of all English laws and customs to the whole Irish people. Utterly heedless, it would seem, of the fact that, as far as decree could avail, all this had been done in the reign of John, and that it was the people themselves who prevented prac tice from being assimilated to theory; yet sensible of the existing evils, though blind to their real causes, they offered to pay the sum of eight thousand marks to the king as the price of his rendering them this great service. He made an order accordingly; but the order of the great Edward was as ineffectual as that of the mean John, when opposed to the prejudices of a people at once brave, restless, and ignorant, living in a state of society provocative of injustice and tyranny.

The war in which Edward I. was engaged with Scotland compelled him to summon his barons from Ireland, and during their absence the natives made frequent and destructive attacks upon the English pale. The death of Edward enabled the celebrated, Robert Bruce to seat himself firmly upon the throne of Scotland. Knowing how ardently the Irish desired to throw of the English yoke, and judging how important he could make them in diverting the attacks of the English from Scotland, King Robert Bruce in the year after his accession to the Scottish throne, (1315) sent his brother Edward into Ireland with a well equipped army of six thousand men. He was received with open arms as deliverer, and took upon himself the title of king. His brother soon afterwards landed in Ireland with a still more powerful army. But just at this time there was an absolute famine in both England and Ireland; and the latter country, suffering under the effects of long civil war as well as of the bad season, was still more terribly destitute than the former. The most splendid successes of war could avail nothing against famine. Reduced to feed upon the horses as they died of actual hunger, the soldiers of Bruce perished in awful numbers, and he at length returned to Scotland, leaving his brother to contest his usurped crown with the English or abandon it, as he might see fit. Edward Bruce, who was to the full as cruel as he was brave, bore up with a constant spirit against all difficulties. But though he had much success in the field, and made terrible examples of the vanquished, he found it impossible to drive the English from their strong holds. The Irish were for the most part very favourable to him; but if they hated the English much they hated each other still more, and, as usual, their mutual strife rendered it impossible that they could cordially co-operate even for a purpose which they all had strongly at heart A. D. 1318.—Under such circumstances, it is likely that Edward Bruce

would at length have seen that the conquest of Ireland was a project too vast for Scotland, even with the mighty Robert Bruce for her king. But ere he had made up his mind to abandon his usurped royalty and return to Scotland, he was encountered at Dundalk by the English army, under Lord Bermingham. Edward Bruce on this important day performed the part of a good general and a stout soldier; but all his efforts were in vain and he fell upon the field of battle while making efforts to rally a portion of his routed and dispirited force. Conspicuous by his arms and orna ments, he was marked out by an English knight, Sir John Maupas. Hold ing Edward Bruce in especial detestation, and believing his death to be in every way deserved and desirable, he vowed himself, after the custom of the age, to destroying him. Accordingly, though Edward was zealously defended by his friends and attendants, Sir John succeeded in reaching him; and after the battle their dead bodies were found still grasping each other in the death-gripe.

CHAPTER V.

Knowing what we do of the turbulence of the barons wherever the feudal law prevailed, we have no room to doubt that the English in reland made their vassals feel the weight of their feudal chains. Removed as they were from the check of the king's presence, and living in a country in which civil strife was not the mere exception but the general rule, it would have been strange indeed if those barons had been less tyrannous than the men of their order. But it is abundantly evident, after making allowance for the evils which Ireland, in common with other countries, must have owed to the abuses of the feudal system, the chief and abiding cause of misery was the inherent disorderliness of the Irish character. The clergy, for instance, both English and Irish, were at deadly feud. No English monk was allowed to enter an Irish monastery; and the monasteries of the English pale were hopelessly inaccessible to the native monk. When we see that even the common bond of spiritual and temporal interest could not induce the clergy to lay aside their animosities, we need not marvel that the best attempts at causing a general union of the people failed. Edward III., who did so much towards improving the laws and raising the trade of England, was desirous to render the same service to Ireland. Clearly perceiving that it was next to impossible to obtain the exact obedience of the barons whose lands lay in Ireland, and, at the same time, desirous to prevent the Irish people from being oppressed, he threw, as far as possible, the government of Ireland into the hands of nobles whose property lay in England, and for whose obedience and good conduct he consequently had some security. But this excellent stroke of policy was made too late to have the effect it would have had at an earlier date.

A. D. 1361.—Lionel, duke of Clarence, was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland in the year 1361; and he evidently went there with the desire to give effect to his royal father's wishes for the people's welfare. But the animosities which had been so many years increasing were now beyond the possibility of a speedy remedy. Such was the hostility between the two races, that under the governorship of Lionel, it was found requisite to pass the stringent regulations known to lawyers as the statute of Kilkenny. Hitherto attempts had been made to govern Ireland rather by affection than by severity; and the law left it quite open to the two races to become amalgamated by marriage and friendship. But by this statute, which seems to have been called for by the danger of the English from the Irish, the latter were at length treated formally as an inferior people. Marriage

with the Irish was forbidden; the nursing of English infants by Irish women was discountenanced; and severe punishments were allotted to the offences, on the part of men of English descent, of speaking the Irish language, using the Irish customs, or wearing the Irish dress. These enactments were doubtless severe; but it must be remembered that an opposite spirit had, for two hundred years, been tried in vain; and that between this stern severity and the actual abandonment of the island— the possession of which by France would have been so prejudicial to the English throne—the condition and temper of the Irish people left room for no middle course. However reasonable the demands of the English government, they never failed to provoke an armed resistance; the country was continually in a state of revolt, famine was frequent, and suffering constant.

Soon after the accession of Richard II. to the throne of England, that prince went to Ireland with a considerable force, naturally expecting that he should find the chiefs disinclined to yield him peaceable homage. Whether from some vague predilection in his favour, or from the fact of his being accompanied by a well-appointed force, he was even joyfully received. No fewer than seventy-four of the most powerful men hastened to make a surrender of their possessions, and to agree to receive them in grant from him on condition of maintaining his royal authority in Ireland. Delighted with a loyalty so exuberant, Richard proposed to honour with knighthood the four principal chiefs. But the Irish were not learned in the lore of chivalry, and an honour which would have been eagerly coveted by the high-born and wealthy elsewhere, was actually declined by these untutored men, who gravely assured him it was the custom of the Irish kings to confer knighthood on their sons as early as the age of seven years. And it was not until pains had been taken to explain to them the theory of knighthood, that they could be induced to pass the preparatory vigil and receive the honour with its formalities. Richard on this occasion made a considerable stay in Ireland, and he and his Irish subjects parted in apparent good feeling. But as soon as the king was absent the chiefs became turbulent as ever. The English pale was perpetually attacked, and so much territory recovered that it became reduced within dangerously narrow limits; and at length, Roger, earl of March, cousin and heir-presumptive of the king, was barbarously murdered. Richard was at this time greatly harrassed by the enmity of Henry Bolingbroke, the exiled duke of Lancaster. But though he well knew that noble meditated the invasion of England, Richard unhesitatingly led an army to Ireland to avenge the death of his cousin : (A. D. 1399.) As usual with them, the Irish chieftains endeavoured to avoid being brought to a general action, and retired among the bogs and mountains. But Richard was too intent upon avenging the murder of his cousin to listen to those who represented the difficulty of following the rebels into their retreats. Burning the towns and villages as he marched along, and disregarding the sufferings and complaints of his soldiers, who often floundered in the treacherous soil of the bogs, he followed so closely, that the greater part gladly submitted on condition of being received into the king's peace with full indemnity for the past. But Macmorrogh, a lineal descendant of that chief whose misconduct had first called the English into Ireland, held out aid loudly protested that neither fear nor love should induce him to submit. The chivalry of England was not to be resisted by a chieftain so comparatively powerless; and Macmorrogh at length agreed to treat with the earl of Gloucester. But when the meeting took place, the fiery chieftain was so enraged at what he thought the insulting terms proposed, that he angrily broke up the conference and betook himself to his savage haunts, less inclined than ever to submission. Richard offered a large reward for the person of Macmorrogh, living or dead; but events had by