BOOK X. FROM THE INVASION OF IRELAND BY THE NORMANS ESTABLISHED IN ENGLAND TO THE DEATH OF HENRY II. 1171-1189. Character of the Irish-Attempts of the popes upon Ireland-Their indifferent success-Ecclesiastical revolution in Ireland-Unpopularity there of the papal power-Enterprise of Henry II. and the pope against Ireland-Bull of Adrian IV.-Norman settlers in Wales-Alliance between them and an Irish king-First establishment of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland - Their election of a leader-Their conquests-Jealousy of them on the part of Henry II.-He proceeds to Ireland-Submission of several Irish chieftains-Cowardice of the Irish bishops-Disquietudes of Henry II.-Conduct of the clergy of Normandy— Fictitious narrative of the death of Thomas Beket-Letter of Henry II. to the pope-Departure of the king for Normandy-His reconciliation with the court of Rome, and rehabilitation of Beket -Scenes of hypocrisy-Bull of Alexander III.-Domestic troubles of Henry II.-Discovery of a conspiracy - Prince Henry acknowledged king in France-His manifesto-Progress of the quarrel - General abandonment of Henry II.-His return to England, and penance at the tomb of Beket-Motives and results of this proceeding-Bertrand de Born-The Troubadours-Reconciliation of the royal family-Hostilities between Richard and Henry-Interview between king Henry and prince Geoffroy at Limoges-Death of Henry the younger-Interview between king Henry and Bertrand de Born-Re-establishment of peace -Fresh revolt of Richard-The kings of France and England assume the cross-The crusades-Resumption of hostilities-Death and burial of Henry II. THE reader must now quit Britain and Gaul, to which this history has hitherto confined him, and, for some moments, transport himself to the Western Isle, called by its inhabitants Erin, and by the English Ireland. The people of this island, brothers of the Scottish highlanders, and forming with them the last remains of a great population, which, in ancient times, had covered Britain, Gaul, and part of the Spanish peninsula, had several of the physical and moral characteris 1 In the Greek and Latin languages, Iierne, Ierna, Invernia, Ouernia, Ibernia. The Saxons spelt it Iraland. The tics which distinguish the original races of the south. major portion of the Irish were men with dark hair and impetuous passions, loving and hating with vehemence, prompt to anger, yet of a sociable disposition. Enthusiasts in many things, and especially in religion, they mixed up Christianity with their poetry and their literature, the most cultivated, perhaps, of all western Europe. Their island counted a host of saints and learned men, venerated in England and in Gaul, for no country had furnished more Christian missionaries, uninfluenced by other motives than pure zeal to communicate to foreign nations the opinions and faith of their own land.1 The Irish were great travellers, and always ingratiated themselves with the people they visited, by the extreme facility with which they conformed to their customs and modes of life.2 This facility of manner was combined in them with an intense love of their national independence. Invaded at various periods by different nations of the north and of the south, they had never admitted a prescription of conquest or made voluntary peace with the sons of the stranger; their old annals contain narratives of terrible acts of vengeance exercised, often after the lapse of a century, by the natives on their conquerors.3 The remnant of the ancient conquering races, or the small bands of adventurers who from time to time had sought lands in Ireland, avoided the effects of this patriotic intolerance, by incorporating themselves with the Irish tribes, by submitting to the ancient social order established among the natives, and by learning their language. This was the case with the Danish and Norwegian pirates, who, in the course of the eighth and ninth centuries, founded on the eastern coast several colonies, where, renouncing their former life of robbery, they built towns and practised com merce. 1 Exemplo patrum, commotus amore legendi, (Collectanea de rebus Hibernicis, i. 112.) 2 Quid Hiberniam memorem, contempto pelagi discrimine, pene totam cum grege philosophorum ad littora nostra migrantem? quorum quisquis peritior est, ultio sibi indicit exilium. (Epist. Herici monachi ad Carolum calvum, apud Script. rer. Gallic. et Francic., vii. 563.) See in Le Catholique, xiv. No. 42, a dissertation by the Baron d'Eckstein on the origin of the Irish nation. When the Roman church had established its dominion in Britain by the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, she laboured incessantly to extend over Erin the empire she claimed to exercise over all the worshippers of Jesus Christ. As in Ireland there were no pagan conquerors to convert, the popes were fain to content themselves with seeking, by letters and messages, to induce the Irish to establish in their island an ecclesiastical hierarchy similar to that of the continent, and, like it, calculated to serve as a step to the pontifical throne. The men of Erin, like the Britons of Cambria and of Gaul, having spontaneously organized Christianity in their country, without in any way conforming to the official organization decreed by the Roman emperors, had no fixed and determinate episcopal sees. Their bishops were simple priests, to whom had been confided, by election, the purely honorary charge of superintending or visiting the churches. They did not constitute a body superior to the rest of the clergy; there were no different degrees of hierarchy among them; in a word, the church of Ireland had no archbishop, and not one of its members needed to visit Rome to solicit or buy the pontifical pallium. Thus enjoying full independence of foreign churches, and administered, like any other free society, by elective and revocable chiefs, this church was at an early period stigmatized as schismatic by the consistory of Saint John Latran; a continuous system of attack was directed against it, with that perseverance inherent in the successors of the old senate, who, by dint of one unvarying will applied to one unvarying purpose, had subjugated the universe. The new Rome had not, like the old, legions issuing from her gates to conquer nations; all her power was in address and in her skill to make alliance with the strong; an unequal alliance for the latter, which, under the names of friends and sons, rendered them subjects and vassals. The victories of the conquerors, and especially those of the still pagan barbarians, presented, as may have been observed more than once in this history, the most ordinary occasions for the political aggrandizement of the pontifical court. It carefully watched the rise of the first thought of ambition in the invading kings, as the moment at which to enter into association with them; and, in default of foreign conquests, it loved and encouraged internal despotism. Hereditary monarchy was the system it best liked, because under hereditary monarchy it only needed to gain possession of the mind of one family to acquire absolute authority over a whole nation. Had such a system prevailed in Ireland, it is probable that the religious independence of this country would have been early destroyed by mutual agreement between the popes and the kings. But, although the Irish had chiefs to whom the Latin title of reges might be applied, and was, in fact, applied in public acts, the greater number of these kings, and their perpetual dependence on the various Irish tribes, whose simple name served them as a title,1 gave slight hold to Roman policy. There was, indeed, in Erin, a chief superior to all the rest, who was called the great king or the king of the country, and who was chosen by a general assembly of the chiefs of the different provinces;2 but this elective president of the national confederation swore to the whole nation the same oath which the chiefs of the tribes swore to their respective tribes, that of inviolably observing the ancient laws and hereditary customs. Moreover, the share in power of the great king was rather the execution than the decision of general affairs, all of which were regulated in councils held in the open air, upon a hill, surrounded by a deep ditch;3 here, the laws of the land were made, and here the disputes between province and province, town and town, and occasionally between man and man, were contested, sometimes in a very tumultuous manner.4 Ac It may be easily understood that such a social order, whose basis was the people themselves, and where the impulsion always emanated from the variable and passion-led mass, was little favourable to the projects of the court of Rome. cordingly, despite all their efforts with the kings of Ireland, during the four centuries and a half which elapsed between the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and the descent of the Normans into England, the popes effected not the slightest change in the religious practices and organization of the clergy of Erin, or the smallest tribute from the inhabitants of 1 Every Irish tribe or clan had a family name common to all its members. 2 Rex Hiberniæ, maximus rex; in Irish, ardriagh. 3 Montana colloquia. (Harris, Hibernica.) Ib. Spenser's State of Ireland. the island.1 After the conquest of England, the intrigues of the primate Lanfranc, a man devoted to the simultaneous aggrandisement of the papal power and of the Norman domination, energetically directed upon Ireland, began to make some slight impression on the national mind of the priests of this island; Lanfranc combining with his credit as a man of learning and eloquence, other efficacious means of persuading and seducing, for he had accumulated great wealth, the result of his share of the pillage of the Anglo-Saxons, and, if ancient testimonies are to be believed, of selling to the bishops of Norman race the pardon of their violence and excesses.2 In the year 1074, an Irishman, named Patrick, after having been elected bishop by the clergy and people, and confirmed by the king of his province and by the king of all Ireland, went to be consecrated at Canterbury, instead of contenting himself, as was the ancient custom, with the benediction of his colleagues; this was the first act of obedience to the laws of the Roman church, which required that every bishop should be consecrated by an archbishop who had received the pallium, and it was not long ere these new seeds of religious servitude bore their fruit. From that time, several Irish bishops accepted in succession the title of pontifical legate in Hibernia; and about the period at which this history has arrived, Christian, bishop of Lismore and papal vicar, conjointly with Papirius, a Roman cardinal, undertook to reorganize the church of Ireland, according to the views and interests of the court of Rome. After four years' efforts he succeeded, and in a synod attended by the bishops, abbots, kings, chiefs, and other magistrates of Hibernia, with the consent of all present, say the old acts, and by apostolical authority, four archbishops were instituted, to whom were assigned, as fixed sees, the cities of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam.3 But notwithstanding the appearance of national consent given to these measures, the ancient spirit of independence still prevailed: the clergy of Ireland exhibited little docility in their submission to the new hierarchal order, and There were not even tithes; the Irish clergy subsisted on voluntary gifts and offerings. 2 Willelm. Malmesb. Vitæ pontific. 3 Girald. Cambrens. Topographia Hiberniæ; Camden, Anglica, Hibernica, &c. p. 742. |