; |
|
Cathal Crovdearg was younger brother of Rory,
and son of Turlogh Mór O'Conor, the powerful prince whose
successful wars against Ulster and Munster had prepared the way
for the supremacy of his son. Turlogh built the first three stone
castles of Irish Ireland and the first stone bridges over the Shannon
and the Suck. He will ever be remembered as the founder of the cathedral
of Tuam with its splendid chancel-arch and the unique cross, thirty
feet high, which stands beside it. At Clonmacnois, where he is buried,
the great belfry was built under his auspices. But more interesting
still is the cross of Cong—a magnificent specimen of Irish
filigree metal work, inlaid with precious stones. In its centre
a polished crystal contained a relic of the wood of the true Cross
sent to the King from Rome in 1125, and round it runs the inscription,
"A prayer for Turlogh O'Conor, King of Ireland, for whom this
shrine was made." He was justly proud of the exquisite workmanship
and purpose of this cross, ordering it to be carried in procession
throughout Ireland and honoured with the greatest devotion. His
reign and that of his sons formed the climax of Connacht's pre-eminence
He erected a mint at Clonmacnois for the coinage of silver money,
and the arts of peace as well as of war flourished under his rule.
The artists who designed and the men who ordered such delicate works
of art as the cross of Cong, the Ardagh chalice, or the shrine of
St Manchan, all produced by this school, must have been possessed
of taste and culture. There had been, from early times in Ireland,
families or castes of metal-workers, devoted to their craft, and
these may still have existed; but it may have been a daughter of
Rory O'Conor who designed the lovely adornments of the chalice of
Ardagh, "the silver chalice with a burnishing of gold upon
it," which we still admire to-day. She died in 1247 at Clonmacnois.
In 1129 a great misfortune occurred. A Dane entered the church of
Clonmacnois and stole from the high altar the precious vessels with
which it was adorned. These included three gifts bestowed upon the
church by King Turlogh: a silver cup with a gold cross over it,
a drinking-horn with gold, and a silver chalice, besides a model
of Solomon's Temple among other valuables. The thief was taken and
executed a year later, and the treasures were restored. [1]
[1] Annals of the Four Masters, 1129.
The story of Cathal of the Red Hand is a romantic one. Tradition
says that he was the illegitimate son of Turlogh, whose wife pursued
him with such hatred that his mother was obliged to flee with him
into Leinster. She also, with a magical charm, turned his hand wine-red.
When he grew up he took service with a farmer, always keeping his
right hand covered. He was one day reaping rye in a field when a
herald passed by, proclaiming that the King of Connacht was dead,
and that the people would elect no other successor save Cathal,
if he could be found. He would be known, it was said, by his right
hand, which was red like wine. For some minutes Cathal Crovdearg
stood on the ridge in silent thought. Then, pulling off his glove,
he exhibited his hand to the herald, who, recognizing him by his
likeness to his father, fell at his feet. Flinging away his sickle
on the ridge, the youth exclaimed, "Farewell, sickle; now for
the sword." "Cathal's farewell to the rye" is a proverb
meaning a farewell never to return.[2] |
[2] Annals of the Four Masters, 1224, and note. The story is not alluded
to by the O'Conor Don in his history of his family, or by Dr O'Conor.
But it follows an old tradition.
According to more historical sources Cathal was the son of Turlogh's second
wife, Dervorgil, daughter of O'Lochlan of Ulster, later monarch of Ireland,
and thus stepbrother to Rory, Turlogh's successor. Cathal's life was spent
in struggles with the members of his own family to maintain himself on
the throne. Rory, on his retirement to the monastery of Cong in 1183,
had resigned the sovereignty to his son Conor Moinmoy, thus carrying out
the English principle of primogeniture. But on his "return from his
pilgrimage" in 1185 his son refused to resign the throne, and a general
war broke out between the different members of the family, no less than
five of whom aspired to the kingship. These were, besides Rory himself,
his two sons Conor Moinmoy and Conor O'Dermot; Cathal Carragh, son of
Conor Moinmoy; and Cathal Crovdearg, Rory's brother. The inherent weakness
of the Irish rule of succession, by which a group of relatives could all
claim the kingship, could not be better illustrated. The murder of Conor
Moinmoy by his own people in 1189 and the death of Rory in 1198 removed
two of the competitors and left the two Cathals face to face to fight
out their contest for the throne. A fierce and prolonged struggle ensued,
in which the local chiefs, especially Crovdearg's mortal foes the O'Flahertys
of West Connacht, took part. It seemed as though the contest would terminate
in favour of Cathal Carragh, who was supported by two of the O'Briens
and the fierce and ruthless Norman baron William de Burgh, whose combined
armies pillaged the province, stripping the priests in the churches, carrying
off the women, and plundering the country without pity.[3] Crovdearg,
on his side, appealed for help to the O'Neills of Ulster and to John de
Courcy. The O'Neills refused to be drawn into the warfare, and Hugh de
Lacy the Younger took their place, only to share in a severe defeat at
Kilmacduagh, and to escape ignominiously with his allies across Lough
Ree back into his own district of Meath. This was in 1202. Finding Cathal
and de Courcy both in his power, de Lacy, who was aiming at the downfall
of de Courcy, took advantage of his opportunity, arrested both the fugitives,
and sent John de Courcy to Dublin, where he was forced to give pledges
for obedience to the Government, of which he had hitherto been practically
independent.
[3] Annals of Loch Cé, 1200, 1202.
On his release Cathal Crovdearg seems to have thrown himself into the
hands of his old enemies, William de Burgh and the O'Briens, who marched
with him into Connacht, devastating as they went. Cathal Carragh himself
was accidentally killed while watching a fight between his own army and
that of his former supporter, de Burgh. But a fearful vengeance fell on
de Burgh and his people for their destruction of the province. A rumour
was circulated that he had been killed, and one night every man in the
province who had any of de Burgh's soldiery quartered in his household
rose and murdered his guests, nine hundred in all, so that he returned
with a remnant only into Munster. To chastise de Burgh, Meiler FitzHenry,
who had become Justiciar of Ireland in 1200, came into Munster with Walter
de Lacy; they marched to Limerick and banished de Burgh, handing over
the custody of Limerick to William de Braose. William de Burgh was called
over to England to answer for complaints made against him by FitzHenry,
but he eventually returned to Munster with his castles of Askeaton and
Kilfeakle restored to him, though the King retained Connacht in his own
hands. William's stormy career came to an end in 1205 or 1206. He had
established himself in Munster and is said to have married a daughter
of Donal O'Brien to strengthen his connexion there; and he had vigorously
exerted himself to make good a vague grant in Connacht made to him by
Prince John, first by his war-alliance with Cathal Carragh and, when he
died and the cause of Cathal Crovdearg was taken up by the English Government,
by going over to the winning side. His actual possessions seem to have
been limited to the castle of Meelick, which he had built in Co. Galway,
using for the core of his structure the largest church in the place. He
made an attempt also to fortify the monastery of Boyle (Ath-da-Larag)
and to use it for a barracks, but was interrupted in the course of this
work. In later days it frequently became a centre of war and one of the
stormiest districts in the whole province. No sense of having desecrated
sacred sites seems to have troubled de Burgh in carrying out these schemes.
William was the founder of the family of the de Burghs or Burkes, future
Earls of Ulster, and of the Burkes of Munster and Connacht, the latter
province being regranted to his son Richard in 1222-23.
We must now return to the later history of Cathal Crovdearg and his immediate
successors. It was probably at the synod held at Athlone in 1202 under
the presidency of the Cardinal John, and soon after the death of his rival,
Cathal Carragh, that the claims of Cathal to Connacht were formally ratified.
Either then or earlier he had received the regular inauguration of his
people, which was still carried out with all the old solemn ceremonial
up to the reign of his grandson, Felim, whose chief chronicler, O'Mulconry,
has left an interesting account of the ritual at which, in 1315, he acted
as the principal official. Twelve bishops and twelve of the greater chieftains
must always be present at the ceremony, with representatives of the minor
septs. It took place at the huge cairn called Carnfree (Carn Fraoich)
on the plains of Rathcrogan, in Co. Roscommon.[4] Only a prince chosen
by the suffrages of his people was eligible for this popular election.
The Irish steadfastly held to the old habit of selection between candidates
who, being born within the limits prescribed by Irish law, were all equally
eligible for election to the sovereignty. They knew nothing up to Rory's
time of the English system of primogeniture.
[4] Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society (1852-53), ii,
341-347; Hardiman's edition of O'Flaherty's Iar Connacht (1846), pp. 139-140.
In the long disputes with the turbulent Hugh de Lacy the Younger, Cathal
ranged himself on the side of the English King against their common enemy,
as he held de Lacy to be. But Prince John's grant to Hugh de Lacy of six
cantreds of Connacht on the borders nearest Meath was destined to prove
a thorn in the side of Cathal. With his elder brother Walter, Hugh had
inherited the rich grant of Meath made to their father, but, not satisfied
with this, he aspired also to the rule of Eastern Ulster as well as to
the lands in Connacht. In Ulster he spared no effort to dispossess John
de Courcy by war and treachery.[5] That brave knight had fallen out of
favour, it is said because he took no care to conceal his horror of King
John's dastardly murder of his young nephew, Arthur, in Brittany. The
King, therefore, was ready to further de Lacy's schemes to bring him to
ruin. The brothers de Lacy pursued him into Ulster and two years later,
in 1203, they defeated him at the battle of Down, taking him prisoner
either in that or the following year. It is said that Hugh's soldiers
were so afraid of the great warrior that they dared not attack him in
his armour; therefore they fell on him on the Good Friday following the
battle, when, unarmed and barefooted, he was making his devotions at the
church of St Patrick in Down. With the help of some of his own men, who
had been bribed by de Lacy, he was captured after a fight in which he
defended himself with a cross-pole until it broke in his hand having killed
thirteen of those who attacked him. But when the traitors appeared before
de Lacy to claim their reward he had them hanged and their goods plundered.
Hugh, however, had achieved his will. On May 2, 1205, he went over to
England and in the same month he received a grant of all the lands held
by de Courcy in Ulster, with the title of Earl of Ulster, the first Anglo-Norman
dignity of which there is a record extant. The later career of de Courcy
is something of a mystery.
[5] Hoveden, Annals ed. William Stubbs (1871), iv, 176.
The common story of his imprisonment in the Tower of London, and of his
release in order to fight the French champion, may or may not be true.
The Annals of Loch Ce (1204) speak of his having been released after being
'crossed' for the Crusades, but it is unlikely that he ever went to Palestine.
The Chronicle of Man says that he sought help from his wife's relations
in the Isle of Man, and that he returned with a large army and a hundred
ships, which sailed up Strangford Lough, but they were surprised by Walter
de Lacy and put entirely to rout. John de Courcy must have lived for some
years longer, for there are licences extant permitting him to come to
his friends in England in 1207. When King John came to Ireland in 1210
to drive out de Lacy, whose tyrannies had made his rule insufferable,
de Courcy appears to have accompanied him and to have had the satisfaction
of seeing his old enemy fleeing before him to Carrickfergus.[6] Thence
de Lacy went to France, where he and his brother took refuge in a monastery
at St Taurins in Normandy, working as lay brethren until their identity
was eventually discovered by the Abbot. They were partially restored to
favour through his intercession,[7] only to work still more havoc in Ireland
in later life. On Hugh de Lacy's death in 1243 the lands of Ulster definitely
reverted to the Crown, and were only regranted in 1264, twenty-one years
later, to Walter de Burgh, having in the meantime been given as part of
his appanage to Prince Edward, afterward Edward I, on his marriage with
Eleanor of Castile.
[6] Sweetman, i, Nos. 358 (1207), 409 (1210); and cf. Nos. 482 (1213),
833 (1218).
[7] Grace, Annales Hiberniae, 1210.
It is evident that Cathal Crovdearg had sufficient grounds for believing
that the turbulent de Lacy had by the year 1223 become as much the King's
enemy as his own. Cathal's letters are of extreme interest as indicating
the terms on which he stood as the ally of Henry III in Ireland. He complains
that "Hugh de Lacy, enemy of the King, of the King's father, and
of Cathal, whom King John by Cathal's advice expelled from Ireland, has
without consulting the King, come to that country to disturb it. Against
Hugh's coming, Cathal remains, as the Archbishop of Dublin [i.e., Henri,
the then Justiciar] knows, firm in his fidelity to the King. But the closer
Cathal adheres to the King's service the more he is harassed by those
who pretend fealty to the King, but, as the Justiciar knows, shamefully
fail against the enemy, so that, between Hugh de Lacy on the one hand
and those who feign to be faithful on the other, Cathal is placed in extreme
difficulty. Wherefore, unless it is better that the peace of Ireland should
be subverted by this disturber and by default of some of the King's subjects,
Cathal prays the King to send a force thither to restrain Hugh's insolence."
[8] It seems likely from the tone of this letter that it was written just
after the retirement of the allied troops from Ulster, and that Cathal
had cause to suspect the sincerity of some of the combatants His second
letter was probably written in 1224. It is addressed to his "very
dear Lord, Henry King of England, Lord of Ireland, etc., to whom Cathal
O'Conor, King of Connacht, sends greeting." O'Conor believes that
Henry has heard, through the faithful counsellors of himself and his father,
King John, that he had never failed in his fidelity; nor will he ever
swerve therefrom. He possesses a charter of the land of Connacht from
King John to himself and to his heirs and to his son and heir, Aedh; and
for the latter he now solicits a similar charter from Henry. This would
render his son and people more zealous for the King's interest, and he
urges his request, that the lands of Ubriun, Conmacni, and Calad, in Connacht,
held by his enemy, William de Lacy, brother of King Henry's enemy, should
be given to his own son, who is ready to do homage for them; O'Conor prays
an answer by the bearers of the present letter, in whom confidence may
be placed.[9]
[8] Sweetman, 1, Nos. 1174, 1184; original in W. W. Shirley, Royal Letters
(1862), 1. 183.
Cathal Crovdearg, after the death of his competitors, seems to have been
in the favoured position of an elected King of Connacht who was also approved
and supported by the English Government. On several occasions he addressed
himself directly to the throne instead of to the deputy. In a mandate
from Henry III appointing Archbishop Henri de Londres Justiciar in 1221,
in the place of Geoffrey de Marisco, who was accused of using the revenues
of the country for his own advantage, "Kathel of Connacht" is
addressed first of the Irish kings; following him come "King of Kenelon
[Aedh O'Neill, King of the Cinel Owen], Dunekan and Muriadac O'Bren [O'Brien],
Dermot Macarthi [MacCarthy], Loueth MacDonahod [MacDonoghue], and the
Norman barons." [10] Protections for Cathal "and for his chattels,
lands, and possessions," were issued in 1219 and 1224, and a letter
written by the Justiciar to the King speaks of Cathal and his son as "the
King's faithful subjects, who have loyally assisted the Archbishop and
obeyed the King's mandates." [11] There is no doubt, from the frequent
friendly correspondence between Cathal and his immediate successors and
the English kings, that they endeavoured faithfully to carry out the terms
of compact made between Henry II and Cathal's brother Rory. Cathal made
a personal submission to John at Ardbracken in Meath on that king's second
visit to Ireland in 1210, and accompanied him on his tour as far as Carrickfergus,
though he refused, on the advice of his wife, to entrust his son Aedh
into the King's hands.
[9] This letter is given in Appendix II, and in Gilbert, Facsimiles,
ii, No. LXXI.
[10] Sweetman, i, No. 1001.
[11] Ibid., 1, Nos. 530, 928, 1164, 1183; W W. Shirley, op. cit., p. 178.
The exact position of the King of England toward Cathal is not very clear.
In 1204 we find the then Justiciar, Meiler FitzHenry, reporting that Cathal
had quit-claimed to the King two-thirds of his province, retaining the
other third by right of inheritance at a yearly rent of a hundred marks;
for the two-thirds he was to pay three hundred marks, the King of England,
however, claiming as his own portion "the best towns and harbours;
those fittest for the King's interest and for fortifying castles."
Cathal was to give hostages for his faithful service, and for the forwarding
of the King's interests to the best of his judgment; he was to strengthen
castles, found towns, and assess rents in those parts. To these immense
claims Cathal seems to have agreed, raising his tribute first to four
hundred marks for the whole province, and in 1215, when the charter was
actually received by him, to five thousand marks, to be paid in two portions
annually. This great advance in the payments given must have been the
result of the consultations between the two kings during John's second
visit to Ireland.[12] Cathal never seems to have grudged tribute; and
when in 1224 his son Aedh appealed to the English, who were holding a
court at Athlone, for aid against Turlogh O'Conor, his cousin, who had
been elected by the popular vote and installed as King at Carnfree instead
of himself, they willingly assisted him; for "every one of them was
a friend of his, for his father's sake and his own; for he and his father
before him were very liberal of stipends." [13] These large claims
made and admitted over Connacht, whether enforced or not, practically
transformed the kings of that province into feudal barons. They now held
their lands as grants of the English monarchs and not by the old prescription
and right. The King's gift, in 1214, of "scarlet robes, to be given
to the kings of Ireland and other faithful subjects of the King"
emphasized this new position; the recipients were regarded as the King's
lieges.
[12] Sweetman, i, Nos. 222, 279, 654, 656. An equal tribute was demanded
of William de Braose for the custody of the city of Limerick.
[13] Annals of Loch Cé, 1225.
This bestowal of robes of office had special reference to Cathal, for
it followed immediately on the protection accorded to him and his men
in that year, which led up to the final confirmation of his grant. This
change of position must be clearly realized, for all that followed depends
upon it. By the English sovereign the Irish princes, up till now independent
rulers, came to be regarded as feudatories, ruling still as kings within
their own domains, but holding their lands at the will of the English
monarch, paying tribute to him, and being removable at his pleasure if
they proved recalcitrant or failed to pay their dues. This claim was one
that could easily be used for purposes of aggression when the occasion
arose. In the case of the O'Conors the memory that they had once been
independent kings seems to have quickly faded from the minds of the English
monarchs, for we find Edward I, in an order to Richard de Burgh, Earl
of Ulster, in 1305, speaking of King Felim of Connacht, son of Cathal
Crovdearg, as "a certain Irishman named Felim O'Conor, who called
himself King of Connacht." In the meantime things might have gone
on quietly, Cathal and his successors paying tribute and receiving protection
and support in return, but for the old vague grants made to the de Burghs
before John became king. William de Burgh had never been able to enforce
what he conceived to be his rights in spite of the support he had given
to the two Cathals in turn, but the claim was to be revived by his son,
Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, in the reign of Cathal's son Hugh (Aedh).
During Cathal's lifetime the King's claims proved abortive; Cathal continued
to be styled "King of Connacht" and to exercise full authority.
His appeal to the English King in the last year of his life for protection
on behalf of his son, whom, adopting the English custom, he indicated
as his successor, shows that the relationship between the two powers was
friendly, and that Cathal had no intention of rupturing the new connexion.
But, feeling death approaching and weighed down by the cares of a stormy
life, he decided in 1224 to retire to the abbey of Grey Friars at Knockmoy,
which he had himself founded in 1189. He and his favourite poet, Morrogh
O'Daly, called Muredach Albanach, or "Murray the Scot," from
his connexion with Scotland, entered the monastery on the same day, and
there has been preserved a curious poem supposed to have been composed
by them while their hair was being tonsured. This poet was the turbulent
bard who was driven out of Ulster for killing a steward of the O'Donnells
who was attempting to extract a rent from him. He was forced to take refuge
in Scotland, where he wrote some beautiful religious poems, which seem
singularly out of keeping with his irascible temper. He must have travelled,
for a poem written from shipboard in the Levant to Cathal exclaims that
it would be "the joys of heaven to find himself off the Scottish
coast or breathe the breath, of Ireland."
This O'Daly, called "bard of Erin and Alba," was the first
of the race of the Scottish MacVurrichs, bards of the MacDonalds of Clanranald.[14]
Cathal must have been a favourite with the poets, for many poems are addressed
to him. The Irish Annals, also, break out into lamentations of unusual
sincerity on the death of Cathal of the Red Hand. Among his other virtues,
one that seems to have struck the writers of his day as particularly surprising
was that he was content with one married wife and that after her death
he remained single.[15] It may well have been an example of extraordinary
virtue in his family. Turlogh had three wives and at least twenty legitimate
and illegitimate children, and it is said that the Pope offered to allow
King Rory O'Conor six wives if he would be satisfied with that number.
Rory refused the offer, and the annalists ascribe to this the extinction
of the monarchy of Ireland in his line, as a punishment for his sins.[16]
No doubt Cathal's death in the Grey Habit, his institution of tithes,
and the splendid abbeys built by him in his native province partly serve
to account for the warmth of the monastic chroniclers' praises. Even so,
the panegyric pronounced upon him by Torna O'Mulconry, his own and his
son's official bard, is so startling, as a symbol of the standards of
virtue in the thirteenth century, that we quote a few words from it: "Cathal
Crovdearg, son of Turlogh Mór O'Conor, King of Connacht, died.
He was a man calculated to strike fear and dread more than any other Irishman
of his day; he was a man who burned the greatest number of homesteads,
and took the greatest number of preys from both the English and Irish
who opposed him; he was the most valorous and undaunted man in opposing
his enemies that ever lived. It was he who blinded, killed, and subdued
the greatest number of rebels and enemies...He was the most gentle and
peaceable of all the kings that ever reigned in Ireland." [17]
[14] For his poems see Book of the Dean of Lismore; S. H. O'Grady, Catalogue
of Manuscripts in the British Museum, pp. 333-338; Hull, Poem-book of
the Gael, pp. 156, 157, 159.
[15] His wife was More, daughter of Donal O'Brien; she died in 1218
[16] Annals of Loch Cé, 1233.
[17] Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society (1852-53), ii,
337-339.
Cathal was succeeded, in turn, by his two sons Aedh (1224-28) and Felim
(1228-65), but their reigns were a long contest for the throne with their
cousins, the sons of Rory, of the elder line. Cathal had endeavoured to
provide against this by getting Aedh recognized as his successor before
his death, and it augured well for the introduction of the hereditary
form of succession that it was remarked that "no crime was committed
on account of his accession, save one act of plunder and one woman violated."
[18] But though the English upheld the claims of Aedh, the eldest son,
the people supported the sons of Rory and inaugurated one of them, Turlogh,
on the cairn of Carnfree, with the help of Hugh O'Neill. Three armies
entered the province, from the north, east, and south, for the O'Briens,
aided by the English of Munster, flung themselves into the conflict. The
country was devastated, and the inhabitants died of sickness, cold, and
famine. These wars led the English troops into parts of Connacht into
which they had never before penetrated; and Aedh's appeals for help "were
cheerfully responded to, for these expeditions were profitable to the
Foreigners, who obtained spoils without encountering danger or conflict."
[19] The O'Flahertys were persistent and bitter enemies of Aedh, but with
the help of his English allies he succeeded in subduing them, even driving
them for a time out of parts of West Connacht. He patched up a transient
peace with Donogh Cairbrech O'Brien, who a few months before had made
a treaty "of drowning of candles" [20] with Aedh's enemies.
In Mayo he compelled the O'Haras to submit. Aedh was now at peace, and
the English Justiciar, escorted by him, had retired for the second time
over the Shannon and into Athlone. But behind Aedh's back Richard de Burgh
was intriguing to get Connacht into his hands. Already in 1219 he had
made large offers to Henry III for the realization of what, on the ground
of King John's loose promise to his father, he professed to claim as his
right.[21]
[18] Annals of Loch Cé, 1224.
[19] Ibid., 1225.
[20] Annals of Loch Cé, 1225. That is, with excommunication of
the party who broke the peace, the extinction of candles being a part
of the ceremony of excommunication. The expression is frequently used.
[21] Sweetman, i, No. 900.
During Cathal's life the matter was waived, but on his death Richard again
began to urge his demands with offers of increased tribute to the Crown.
By a sudden and disgraceful change of government policy Aedh was summoned
to Dublin to surrender the land of Connacht, "forfeited by his father
and himself," for it was to be handed over to de Burgh at a fixed
rent. Aedh did not come. He was dealing with Geoffrey de Marisco, one
of the most crafty Justiciars who ever ruled in Ireland, a man whose crooked
ways got him twice into disgrace and ended in his flight to France, where
he died friendless and in poverty. De Marisco was bent on capturing Aedh
by fair means or foul. He attempted to detain him, and would have succeeded
but for the timely warning of Aedh's faithful friend, the noble and incorruptible
Earl William Marshal the Younger, second Earl of Pembroke, whose family,
in an epoch of subtle craft and scheming, stands out as a line of great
soldier-statesmen, stern, dignified, and faithful. As his father had befriended
William de Braose when he fell into disgrace, so the son befriended Aedh;
his steady opposition to the scheme of confiscation led to the enmity
of the King toward his house, and to persecution from the Justiciar.[22]
But in the following year, 1228, de Marisco again invited Aedh to his
house, where, by accident or design, he was killed by the stroke of an
axe from the hand of a carpenter, jealous of the handsome face of Aedh.
The carpenter's wife, according to the custom of the times, had bathed
the guest "with sweet balls and other things" and washed his
head. The carpenter was immediately hanged by the Justiciar; but Connacht
again became the scene of sanguinary quarrels for the kingship.[23]
[22] Annals of Loch Cé, 1227.
[23] The O'Conor Don, in his O'Conors of Connaught, has followed earlier
writers in confusing the friend of Aedh with Marisco, or Marsh, his worst
enemy; but see Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, ii,
339. It was usual for guests to be bathed by women attendants.
It was in this year that Richard de Burgh, or, as he now came to be called,
from the name of his father, MacWilliam Burke, replaced de Marisco as
Justiciar, and was thus in a position from which he could carry out his
projects. A fresh war broke out in Connacht led by the sons of Rory, whose
followers, the MacDermotts of the Rock,[24] declared and pledged their
word "that they would not own any king who would make them submit
to the Foreigners," [25] and MacWilliam led an army into that province
to expel Aedh, son of Rory, and place Felim, the late King's brother,
on the throne. In this case the English seem to have ignored altogether
their own principle of primogeniture. With a mixed army of English and
Irish, who from this time onward are constantly found fighting on both
sides, MacWilliam overran the province as far west as Mayo and Galway,
and succeeded in placing Felim on the throne, banishing his cousin and
rival to the O'Neill country. This happened in 1230. A steady policy on
the part of Richard de Burgh might have settled the distracted province
and consolidated the power of Felim, who appears to have been a man of
greater force of character than his elder brother, the late King. But
to settle the country was not MacWilliam's aim. The very next year we
find him unseating Felim and imprisoning him at Meelick Castle and setting
up his recently expelled rival in his place. But the flood of de Burgh's
prosperity received a check. His near kinsman, Hubert de Burgh, who had
been for fifteen years (1217-32) Justiciar of England, standing between
the young King Henry III and the bad counsels of his French favourites,
had fallen; and a band of hungry and mean-spirited Poitevins was filling
England with anarchy and the Court with corruption. The change was reflected
in Ireland in the disfavour into which Richard de Burgh suddenly fell.
He was ordered to release Felim and deliver up the King's castles; and
Felim, whose right to the sovereignty was strengthened by the defeat and
death of his rival, Aedh, in 1233, began to carry out the order by himself,
demolishing the castles that had been recently built, and setting up what
promised to be a strong administration. But again de Burgh, who was partially
restored to favour, gathered a great army, and assisted by Hugh de Lacy
and Maurice FitzGerald (who is called "MacMaurice" or "MacMorrish"
in the Annals, and who now became Justiciar), for the third time invaded
Connacht and Thomond in his campaign of 1235. Felim made peace, and the
five cantreds held by the English King were returned to him for a fixed
tribute, which amounted to a practical partition of the province between
him and de Burgh.
[24] I.e., the Rock of Loch Ce, famous for the Annals of that name; it
was one of the principal residences of the MacDermott, who was chieftain
of Moylurg.
[25] The technical term for such submission in Irish is "went into
his house."
In 1240 Felim followed the example of his predecessors and appealed directly
to the English King against the depredations of the barons and of their
Irish allies. He was invited to visit London and lay his case in person
before Henry; he was received with great honour by the King and "came
home safely, joyfully, contentedly." The reception given to Felim
in London undoubtedly changed his position at home for the better and
put him out of reach of the designs of his enemies, and in 1245 we find
him accompanying the Justiciar with a great Irish army to aid the King
in his wars against Llewelyn in Wales. So effectually did he represent
his case that the King sent his command to FitzGerald that he should "pluck
up by the root that fruitless sycamore, de Burgh...nor suffer it to bud
forth any longer." But the Justiciar himself soon fell into disgrace.
His reply to the King's request for troops for the Welsh expedition had
not been so prompt as might have been wished. The Norman-Irish barons
had put in a plea for exemption from the duty of attending the King beyond
the realm, and the King had to promise that the present occasion should
not be taken as a precedent. But when at last FitzGerald and Felim presented
themselves side by side in battle array with a numerous army, Henry thought
it prudent to "wink awhile in policie at the tarriance and slow coming
of Maurice FitzGerald," though he manifested his displeasure soon
afterward by dismissing him from his post as Lord Justice. The provisions
required for this miserable expedition, in which the troops suffered much
from inclement weather and lack of food, were largely supplied from Ireland.
For the next twenty years affairs in Connacht went on much in the same
manner. The rivals to the throne never relaxed their efforts, nor did
de Burgh, whose lands were restored in 1247,[26] cease to push forward
on every opportunity. More than once a delusive peace was patched up,[27]
and from time to time Felim brought his case directly to the notice of
the English King by ambassadors, "always obtaining from him everything
he asked."[28] His son and successor took a prominent part in the
wars of the province and kept at bay the rival princes. He seems to have
been much with the English troops, for he is always styled Aedh-na-nGall,
or "Hugh of the Foreigners," from his friendly relations with
them. But the province was torn with dissensions, and the constant passage
of great armies from end to end, preying and burning, brought it into
a condition of wretchedness such as it had never experienced before.
[26] Sweetman, i, No. 2908.
[27] Annals of Loch Cé, 1255, 1256, 1257, etc.
[28] Ibid., 1255.
It was while things were in this condition that a determined effort was
put forth to bring matters to a climax. An old Irish proverb says, "From
the North comes help," and on more than one critical occasion it
has been to Ulster that the warring factions have looked for a deliverer.
The resolution of the Ulster kings to hold themselves aloof from the provincial
wars of their neighbours had rarely been broken since the North had ceased
to give its princes to the throne of Tara.
But at this moment a prince of more than usual force named Bryan O'Neill
ruled in Tyrowen and Tyrconnel, whose septs he appears to have united
under his sway. Probably he would still have held himself apart behind
the protecting mountains that formed the frontiers of his territory but
that the Justiciar, MacMaurice FitzGerald, harried him into action. Again
and again the latter invaded Cinel Conaill on various excuses, and O'Neill
felt that the castle of Caol-uisce, or "Narrow-Water," which
had been built in 1212 by John de Gray, the then Justiciar of Ireland,
in the gangway between Tyrconnel and Fermanagh to guard the main western
pass of entry into his province, was a perpetual threat to his independence.[29]
Since then it had been strengthened or re-erected by MacMaurice (1252),
and he had forced Felim to build another castle not far off, at Sligo,
out of stone and lime taken from a hospice that had been presented not
long before by him to Bishop Claras MacMailin in honour of the Holy Trinity.[30]
Thus threatened, Bryan O'Neill put forth all his strength to resist the
invaders of his territory. On more than one occasion the English armies
were forced to turn back, having obtained no pledges or hostages from
O'Neill. In 1253 he made war on them on his own account; he demolished
castles, burned 'street-towns'[31] and desolated the levels of Co. Down.
In 1257 the castle of Caol-uisce was razed to the ground and its garrison
slain, and the English of Sligo routed. The exploits of Bryan made all
eyes turn to him as a possible saviour of the country, and a great meeting
summoned to Caol-uisce in 1258 included not only Bryan O'Neill and Hugh,
or Aedh, Felim's son, but also a representative of the O'Briens of the
South. The Ulster and Connacht-men elected O'Neill sovereign of the Gael
of Erin, and placed their hostages in his hands, Hugh at the same time
receiving hostages from the O'Reilleys and other subject clans.
[29] The editors of the Annals of Loch Cé strangely confuse this
place with Narrow-water, near Newry, Co. Down. See under 1252, note 4.
[30] Ibid., 1242, 1245, 1250.
[31] I.e., villages of one long street, of the kind still common in Ireland.
At this period they are frequently mentioned in the Annals.
In 1260 the combination was complete, and Hugh hosted with the men of
Connacht into the North, joining Bryan and his people in Tyrowen, and
together they marched to Downpatrick. But their hopes were shattered by
a terrible defeat. Bryan himself fell, and with him a long list of chieftains,
both of Ulster and Connacht, fifteen being of the people of the O'Kanes
(Muinter Cathain). The battle of Down put a definite end to the possibility
of a combination strong enough to check the advance of the foreigner,
and, until the confederation under another O'Neill, the great Tyrone,
more than three centuries later, no similar united effort was organized
by the Irish. Each provincial prince fought his own wars and made his
own alliances, but there was no attempt to place themselves under a central
ruler as King of Ireland. The special position of "Bryan of the battle
of Down" was recognized by the English. His seal was afterward found
near Beverley, in Yorkshire, with the inscription round a mounted warrior
brandishing a long sword, Sigillum Brien, Regis de Kinel Eoghan. According
to a poem written by his bard MacNamee, his head was carried to London
and buried "under a white flagstone" in some church there, while
his body was laid in Armagh.
MacWilliam Burke followed up the victory by fresh hostings into Connacht,
and MacMaurice into Munster. They seem to have made an annual peace with
their foes, Hugh O'Conor on one occasion even "sleeping cheerfully
and contentedly in the same bed with MacWilliam Burke," but these
were only momentary halts in the path of attempted conquest. MacWilliam's
attention was distracted from Connacht for a time by his wars with the
FitzGeralds of Munster, and meanwhile the strength of Felim and his son
increased; in a conference at Athlone in 1264 they came so strongly attended
that they secured their own terms, the English feeling it prudent to conclude
a treaty with them. Felim died in the following year, having held his
own with remarkable courage against the invaders. His tomb, bearing a
dignified recumbent figure in white stone representing the King, still
remains in the abbey of the Friars Preachers in Roscommon. About 1261,
soon after the battle of Down, Felim had written to Henry III "returning
infinite thanks to his Majesty for the various honours conferred on him,
but chiefly for the King's orders to the Justiciar to cause restitution
to be made to him for the losses which Gaultier [Walter] de Burgh had
caused" of a portion of the lands in the cantreds of the King and
elsewhere in the province, amounting in all to nine thousand marks. The
Justiciar having died before the King's letter reached him, Felim states
that Walter still continues to burn churches and slay nuns and ecclesiastics.
The letter concludes: "For no promise made to him by the Irish had
Felim receded, nor would he recede, from the King's service. He places
himself, his people, and all he has under the protection of the King,
and of the Lord Edward; and confides to the Lord Edward from then until
the arrival of the latter in Ireland all his property and all his rights,
if any he has, in Connacht." [32] There is something pathetic in
the phrase "if any [property and rights] he has in Connacht,"
but between the various claimants among whom from time to time Felim heard
of his lands being distributed, he may well have wondered where his own
rights came in. The allusion to Lord Edward, the King's eldest son, afterward
Edward I, refers to the proposal long entertained by Henry to make Prince
Edward resident Lord of Ireland, and to transfer to him the practical
government of the country. This proposal may have arisen out of the suggestion
made on the King's accession by the then Justiciar, Geoffrey de Marisco,
that the late Queen Isabella, widow of John, or her second son Richard
should reside in Ireland, an admirable piece of advice which would have
tended to check the insolent truculence of the barons and to give a much-needed
central authority which the distant English kings could not wield.
[32] The original of this letter is in the Public Record Office, London;
and see Gilbert, Facsimiles, ii, No. LXXIII.
Henry's later project to send over his eldest son, would have given the
future king an intimate acquaintance with the affairs of Ireland, and
it would undoubtedly have tended to consolidate that loyal sentiment of
which the native kings were giving ample proof as opportunity arose. Unfortunately
the plan broke down. In July 1255 the immediate departure of the Prince
is spoken of; in August he is commanded to cross over from Gascony and
proceed to Ireland for the winter as speedily as he can. But it does not
appear that the Prince ever actually went over, and on his departure for
the Holy Land vicegerents were appointed to act for him in relation to
Ireland. Thus a plan fraught with favourable possibilities was allowed
to drop, and the very rare visits of the English kings ill compensated
for the actual residence of a prince of the royal blood in this part of
the King's dominions.[33]
[33] It is seldom realized how rare and brief these visits were: Henry
II, 1171; John, 1210; Richard II, 1394 and 1399; James II, 1689; William
III, 1690; George IV, 1821; Victoria, 1849, 1853, 1861, 1900; Edward VII,
1903, 1904, 1907. These dates do not include visits before coronation.
Hugh, or Aedh, O'Conor succeeded his father, and during the years 1270-72
he made a most determined and successful stand against the English, defeating
them in the field, demolishing their castles, and driving his victorious
arms as far east as Meath. In 1271 his bitterest foe, Walter de Burgh,
Earl of Ulster, suddenly died in Galway; and in 1274 the nine years of
Hugh's vigorous reign were closed by his death, after he had cleared his
province from the invaders. But his loss meant the revival of the old
dissensions for the kingship, and in the same year three of his grandsons
were successively kings of Connacht, each being slain by his rival cousins
within a few weeks of his succession. Between 1274, when Hugh died, and
1315, when Edward Bruce landed in Ireland, there were thirteen kings of
Connacht, of whom nine were slain, usually by their own brothers or cousins,
and two were deposed. When Edward Bruce landed the throne was occupied
by a foster-son of the powerful chief of the MacDermotts, who gathered
round him a strong following, and called upon William Liath de Burgh to
support him. The MacDermotts were violently opposed to any English connexion,
and the young prince called on his adherents to swear "that for the
future we will not stain our swords with the blood of Irishmen, or flourish
them with parricidal hands, but will draw them against the Saxon assassins,
the enemies of our country and of the human race." Matters were in
this condition when the news of the landing of Brace on the coasts of
Ulster in 1315 gave events a new direction.
We must now turn our attention to contemporary affairs in the South of
Ireland. The country of Thomond during the latter years of the thirteenth
and beginning of the fourteenth centuries was disturbed to an unusual
extent by the wars between the O'Briens and de Clares, commonly known
as the Wars of Thomond. It would seem that from the time of Donal, the
prince who submitted to Henry II, the family had abandoned to a certain
extent their claims to the sovereignty, though they continued to be inaugurated
at Magh Adhair for some time longer. Donogh Cairbrech, Donal's son and
successor (1194-1242) was the first O'Brien to adopt the name as that
of his family "after having dropped the royal style and title that
were ever customary to his ancestors." [34] Similar changes were
going on all over Ireland, for many of the family names date from this
period. In 1210, when King John landed, Donogh swore fealty, and the castle
of Carrigogonnell was delivered over to him. He abandoned the ancient
palace of Killaloe, the seat of the sovereignty since the time of Kennedy,
father of Brian Boromhe, and built a new castle at Clonroad (Cluain-ramh-fhoda),
near Ennis, which henceforth became the chief dwelling of the family.
But it was one thing to swear allegiance to a distant sovereign and quite
another to have the territories that had belonged to the sept of the Dalcais
for many centuries trampled down and annexed by the subjects of that prince.
The yearly encroachments of the "foreign adventurers, who, through
excess of rapacity that grew and settled in them, were committing oppression
and injustice, violence and constant pillage, on the old natives and stripping
them of their estates and blood everywhere they could," aroused the
Irish to the necessity of combining to elect a supreme king of Ireland,
who should hold them together in a united effort to drive back the foreigner.
[34] The Triumphs of Turlogh (1194-1355), from which the following details
are largely taken, is a lengthy tract written by John MacRory MacGrath,
historian of the Dalcais, about 1459. Though it is compiled in the inflated
style of the bardic chroniclers, it gives details not to be found elsewhere.
But the dates need correction. The story of the meeting of Teige and Bryan
at Caol-uisce, for example, is antedated by six years.
To the conference of Caol-uisce Conor O'Brien, the reigning prince, had
sent his son Teige to represent him. But it would seem that both Teige
and Bryan O'Neill expected to be the chosen candidate for the sovereignty,
and when Teige sent a present of a hundred steeds to O'Neill, as from
the lord to his vassal, O'Neill returned them with the addition of two
hundred more, each decked out with a golden bridle. Furious at the return
of his gift, Teige ordered an armed trooper to mount on every steed, and
in this warlike guise the whole body swung back and drew up before O'Neill
"in order to secure his submission by fair means or by force."
But O'Neill, "seeing O'Brien's pride and haughty mind," drew
away in anger, and the conference broke up, both the chief representatives
returning home in wrath. Thus a much-needed combination between the North
and the South ended in the old way, tribal pride weighing more with the
leaders than even the desire to rid the country of the enemy. O'Neill,
forsaken by his chief supporter, marched to the battle of Down and fell
there with the men of Ulster and Connacht around him, while Teige returned
to his own province to fight single-handed against an enemy "whom
he hated and abhorred more than any animal or creature under heaven; nor
would he suffer one of the English progeny to inhabit so much as a nutshell
of a pauper's hut throughout the country under his sway." So says
the panegyrist of his house, Rory McGrath, writing a couple of hundred
years after him. He inflicted a severe defeat on the English at Limerick,
but he died before he was of age. Conor O'Brien, after his son's death,
"was filled with despondency and a loathing and contempt for the
world." He retired into private life, and his subjects revolted from
his rule and refused to pay their royal dues. But in 1267, summoning his
resolution, he gathered together his forces for a raid northward against
Conor O'Lochlan, leaving the country behind him "in red flashes of
blazing fire and wreathed in crimson-tinted smoke," only to fall
in a wood in Clare named Siudan, from which he is called Conor na Siudaine.
On Conor's death the whole province was rent between opposing claimants
for the title of King of Thomond. His son Brian Roe O'Brien was unanimously
elected at Magh Adhair, but the MacNamaras and O'Deas disputed his claim,
and he was forced to fly across the Shannon, while the opposing party
put up Turlogh, his nephew, son of Teige, in his stead. It was at this
moment of family feud that Brian Roe took the resolution to follow Dermot
MacMorrogh's example and to appeal to the English for help. He sent his
son Donogh to Thomas, son of the Earl of Clare, in Cork offering to him
and his heirs in return for his aid, all the land between Limerick and
Athsollas. The offer must have been as agreeable as it was unexpected.
Shortly before, de Clare had received permission from Henry III to make
what acquisitions he could among the Irish, but he could scarcely have
reckoned on the good fortune which, without effort on his own part, threw
so fine a demesne into his grasp by gift. He readily consented, and in
1277 the de Clares and O'Briens, joined by the Geraldines and Butlers,
with large bodies both of Irish and English, met at Limerick and marched
from thence to Clonroad, hoping to find Turlogh there. But he was gone
south to receive the fealty of the MacMahons, and was collecting an army
which was to include the O'Kellys, O'Maddens, and O'Madigans from Connacht,
and the MacNamaras, O'Deas, O'Quins, and MacMahons, supported by the de
Burghs, who were never loath to have a fight with their hereditary foes
the Geraldines. Thus the whole South was quickly astir with English and
Irish fighting equally on both sides, as they were to fight for many centuries
afterward. De Clare had found time, during the short pause, to erect at
Bunratty a castle of lime and stone and to banish the old inhabitants
and settle his expectant soldiers, both English and Irish, on his new
lands; but the return of the Cullenans (Clann Culien), the former inhabitants,
made their lives a burden. The great armies met at Moygressan, where Turlogh
inflicted on Brian party a complete defeat, the remnant flying in rout
to Bunratty. Many of the leaders were killed, among them the brother of
de Clare's wife, Patrick FitzMaurice. In her anger at his loss she persuaded
her husband to a frightful revenge upon their hapless ally. Brian was
seized and "bound to stern steeds" to be torn to pieces, according
to one account: but the Triumphs of Turlogh say that he was hanged.[35]
In any case it was an act of inexcusable treachery, for the two allies
had sworn a solemn oath together, and had formed 'gossipred' or sponsorship
for their children, exchanging mutual vows "by the relics, bells,
and croziers of Munster." According to the old Irish custom, they
had even mingled their blood in the same vessel in token of unity.[36]
The anger of the Dalcais was so great that de Clare had to build a double
ditch round his castle for defence; subsequently the de Clares and Geraldines
were driven into the Slievebloom Mountains, where they were forced by
famine to capitulate and acknowledge the O'Briens as sovereigns of Thomond.
[35] So also the Dublin copy of the Annals of Innisfallen. The same account
is given of the death of Tiernan O'Rorke in the Book of Fenagh, where
he is said to have been drawn by wild horses, but there is no support
for this. It was, however, a common form of punishment for great crimes
at this period.
[36] Annals of Loch Cé, 1277.
This wasting and cruel war lasted for over fifty years with varying fortunes.
De Clare dreaded the success of Turlogh, who was a strong prince and uniformly
successful in the field, and he took the course of deliberately stirring
up hostilities between the rival houses. The uproar was, even for Ireland,
so unusual that it penetrated to Westminster, and the King sent for the
Lord Justice to answer in person for the tumult that was going on in the
land. Turlogh proved a formidable foe. In 1285 he defeated de Clare and
laid waste English Thomond to the walls of Bunratty. In 1287 he repeated
his success, and Thomas de Clare, FitzMaurice, and others were slain.
He built in Ennis the first castle erected by a native prince of Thomond
all of stone. In 1304 he received hostages from all the chiefs of North
Munster, demolished the English castles as far as Youghal, and forced
Richard de Clare to acknowledge him. His reign was one of uninterrupted
prosperity. But the wars continued after his death in 1306, and were still
in progress when Edward Bruce landed in 1315. The race of Brian Roe O'Brien
was nearly extirpated at the battle of Corcomroe, leaving the line of
Turlogh in the ascendant; and the de Clares were expelled from Thomond,
leaving no trace of their occupation behind. After the fatal battle of
Dysart O'Dea in 1318, in which de Clare was slain, his wife and followers
abandoned the country and went back to England, never to return. The O'Briens
had prevailed.
By the end of the thirteenth century the larger part of Ireland, except
O'Neill's and O'Donnell's vast territories in Western Ulster, Oriell (Co.
Louth), and the O'Rorkes' country of Breifne (Cos. Leitrim and Cavan),
were claimed by various Norman barons in right of grants from English
sovereigns, often overlapping each other, equally a matter of contention
between opposing feudatories as between them and the Irish kings whom
they were endeavouring to displace. The great Liberties of Meath, Carlow,
Kilkenny, and Wexford were practically independent principalities, in
which quiet was enforced by the garrisons occupying the motes or castles
scattered thickly about the country. The family of the Butlers, later
to become Earls, and finally Dukes, of Ormonde, who came over for the
first time with King John in 1210, settled down on estates in Upper Tipperary;
and the larger part of the estates of Strongbow had passed into the hands
of the family of Mareschal, or Marshal, who became, by the marriage of
William Marshal with the daughter and heiress of Strongbow, Earls of Pembroke
and Striguil, and possessors of her great position and estates. Of all
the Norman lords who founded families in Ireland, Earl Marshal bears the
most unblemished character. He worthily carried on the tradition left
by Strongbow in Leinster by endeavouring to build up a peaceable and settled
principality in which the Irish inhabitants and English settlers could
live in amity side by side. His was a romantic career. He had grown up
during the wars of Stephen, when England was reduced to a condition of
anarchy and misrule perhaps never equalled in her history.
As a boy he had been handed over to Stephen as a hostage, (1152), and
he only escaped a horrible death by being shot out of a huge catapult
used for storming castles by his childish prattle about the weapon, which
he thought was only a pretty toy, thus attracting the attention and liking
of Stephen, His youth was spent in the wars of Poitou and in the Crusades,
where his exploits brought him into prominence and aroused the jealousy
of his rivals. His whole early life was beset by the endeavours of enemies
to undermine his influence with Henry II, whose part he took against his
rebellious sons, John and Richard, but his incorruptible loyalty and his
nobility of character carried him to the highest offices of the realm.
He took his family name from the high position held by himself and by
his father before him as Lords Marshal of England. He came to Ireland
for the first time in 1207, but he was constantly recalled to England
either on official business or by the intrigues of his enemies in Ireland,
who envied him his great estates. Meiler FitzHenry, the younger de Lacy,
and afterward Geoffrey de Marisco were the determined adversaries of his
house, and plunged him and his sons and successors, William Marshal the
Younger and Richard Marshal, into perpetual wars; but the earls showed
their steadfastness and independence of mind by sheltering de Braose of
Limerick from the wrath of his sovereign and Kings Aedh and Felim of Connacht
from the designs of their enemies. The elder Marshal, of whom it was said
that "He who made him was a great architect," spent the latter
years of his long life, passed under four English monarchs, in his favourite
town of Kilkenny,[37] beautifying it by building the splendid castle and
abbeys by which it is adorned and founding the Cathedral of St Canice,
from which the city takes its name. It quickly became a town of repute,
second only to Dublin in historical interest, and several of the earliest
Irish Parliaments assembled there. He and his sons developed Ossory, encouraged
trade, established markets, and watched with interested eyes the progress
of the new towns and villages springing up around the Norman keeps and
castles all over Southern Leinster. New Ross they specially fostered as
a possible rival to Waterford.
[37] Kilkenny Castle was purchased by James, third Earl of Ormonde, in
1392 from Sir Hugh le Despencer, Earl of Gloucester, to whom it had passed
on the failure of male heirs to William Marshal the Younger, and it has
ever since been the chief seat of the Ormonde family. See deed of transfer
in Gilbert, Facsimiles, iii, No. XX.
When William Marshal the elder died in 1219 [38] he left five sons and
five daughters; the sons were successively Earls of Pembroke and Marshals
of England, and the two eldest succeeded him in his Irish estates, but
they all died without issue. Giraldus remarks on the paucity of male descendants
among the Geraldines; and in the second generation the lack of legitimate
sons to the Norman lords continued. Neither Richard de Burgh nor the de
Lacys left adult male heirs, and the great inheritance of the Earls Marshal
was parcelled out among the five daughters of the first of their line.
By the marriages of these ladies into the families of the Bigods, Earls
of Norfolk, the de Clares, Earls of Gloucester, the de Warennes, Earls
of Surrey, and others of the highest families of England, King Dermot's
daughter Eva (Aoife) became the ancestress of many English lines of distinction
closely connected in some cases with the throne. Richard Marshal, the
third earl, with the usual fearless rectitude of his house endeavoured
to resist the evil influence which "the mean brood of Poitevin favourites"
was exercising over the mind of young Henry III, and suffered outlawry
for his fidelity; in Ireland he was beset by intrigues and finally fell
a victim to a combination formed against him; abandoned by his own people,
he fought single-handed against his enemies and was mortally wounded in
the battle of the Curragh of Kildare in 1234. The annalist adds, "This
deed was one of the greatest deeds committed in that time."
[38] The father and son were buried in the Temple Church, in London.
The office of Earl Marshal passed to the Bigods, Earls of Norfolk, and
through them to the Mowbrays and Howards, the present Earls Marshal.
There are various indications that at this time many of the Irish leaders
desired to throw themselves on the side of law and order and to support
any honourable officer who set himself to bring about peaceable relations
between the contending parties in the country. An instance of this is
found in the action of certain Irish chiefs in Ulster, who had been assisting
Sir William FitzWarenne to restore peace between the English and Irish
in that district and who wrote to the King that they had endeavoured with
all their might to support the seneschal by pursuing and routing the King's
Irish enemies, but had only been oppressed by some of the Council of Ireland
as their reward. They pray that these evildoers may not escape punishment,
otherwise they fear that this war will serve as an example for others
to follow.[39] They are referring especially to the discord stirred up
in the district by the evil deeds of Sir Henry de Mandeville, who had
been appointed bailiff in Twescard, in the north of the present Co. Antrim,
at a moment when, through the exertions of de Warenne, the whole land
of Ulster had been brought into a condition of peace, and hostages had
been rendered for the continuance of these good relations. But with the
entry of this fire-eating knight all was changed. Though himself an Anglo-Norman,
he set himself to stir up the Irish to commit crimes on all the surrounding
Norman settlers and their dependents, in order to secure their properties
for himself; he had defrauded the revenue and "by rapine and unjust
extortion to his own use had brought the land into a state of ruin."
The whole community "as well of English as of Irish" threatened
to rise if the bailiwick were granted to Sir Henry, "saving their
fealty to Lord Edward." No country could settle down with violent
men like de Mandeville setting his neighbours by the ears, and instigating
one party to murder the other, and there were unfortunately always some
officials in the Government in Dublin to support these evildoers. A three-cornered
contest between the de Burghs, FitzWarennes, and de Mandevilles, which
was carried on from father to son, culminated in 1333 in the awful tragedy
of the murder of the youthful Brown Earl of Ulster, William de Burgh,
by Richard de Mandeville, when they were quietly riding home together
from morning prayer in apparent friendship.
[39] Sweetman, ii, Nos. 929, 952, 953.
In Ulster, Munster, and Connacht alike jealousies and treacheries between
the Anglo-Norman families were ever ready to break out, as one member
more ambitious or warlike than the others got the upper hand; each was
ready to combine with the Irish princes against his own compatriots or
to use Irish quarrels to further his own ends. From time to time the distant
kings intervened, pointing out how "Ireland is depauperated by discord
and wars," and expressing their disturbance and anxiety of mind thereat;
"desiring much that these controversies and wars should be appeased
and that peace and tranquility should prevail." [40] But these desires
had little effect on men intent upon their family disputes and ambitions
in Ireland. In the year 1311 the compiler of the Annals of Clonmacnois,
copying from an earlier writer "whom he would take to be an authentic
author who would tell nothing but the truth," says that in his time
"there reigned more dissensions, strifes, warres and debates, between
the Englishmen themselves than between the Irishmen, as by perusing the
warres betweene the Lacies of Meath, John Courcy, Earl of Ulster, William
Marshal and the English of Meath and Mounster, mac Gerrald [FitzGerald],
the Burkes, Butlers and Cogan may appear." In addition, the constant
changes of policy in England produced a perpetual ferment. They were always
destined to be a source of weakness and unrest in Ireland, and especially
so during the frequent revolutions and changes of dynasty which disturbed
England throughout the period of the Plantagenet and Yorkist wars. Though
not directly concerned in the dynastic conflicts raging round the English
throne, the Anglo-Irish barons were inevitably dragged into them, and
rival parties were formed which took different sides in these distant
struggles.
[40] Sweetman, ii, No. 1155.
From the time of John's visits in 1185 and 1210, first as prince and later
as king, the barons in Ireland began to experience sudden changes of royal
favour. From his day the old settlers began to fall into disfavour and
were forced to make way for the "new English," as the later
comers were loosely called. John had brought with him to Ireland a swarm
of dissolute favourites, "talkers, boasters, enormous swearers,"
Angevin and Poitevin by birth, men who were "bold in the town but
cowards in the field" and "who in Ireland would be far from
the west and nigh to the east and the sea, as though they had a mind to
flee rather than to fight." They clung round the Court in order to
receive favours, though they gave none. The Irish christened the new lords,
French and English alike, the Dubh-Gaill, or "Black Foreigners,"
when comparing them with the great barons of an earlier day, as in times
gone by they had so named the Danes in comparing them with the more friendly
Norsemen who had preceded them.[41] These men of the old nobility were
thrust aside and only young favourites were called to the Council. Thus,
while busily engaged in building up their Irish estates, the Anglo-Irish
lords were forced all the time to keep one eye fixed on affairs in England
and on the policies of English kings. At any moment they might find themselves
fallen into disfavour, either through a change in State policy or through
the whispering of some malicious enemy near the throne who was anxious
to undermine their influence. They became, in consequence, more and more
independent of outside interference, and each baron ruled within his own
domain like a free prince in his palatinate.
[41] Annals of Ulster, 1310, and Annals of the Four Masters, at same
date.
END OF CHAPTER VI
|
|