he especially detested, the old chief, seizing it by hair and ears, indulged his savage passion by fastening his teeth on the nose and lips. In the course of this warfare, the Ossyrians made an attempt one night to surprise the invaders, and are mentioned as rushing to the attack with clashing of axes. By-and-bye a false peace was concluded.

Roderic O'Connor, now aroused, summoned all the warriors of Ireland to the annihilation of the foreign band; and almost all his Lagenians desert Dermot MacMorough. He therefore hides himself near Ferns, among woods, hills, and marshes, where, under the direction of Fitz-Stephen, he fortifies his post with felled trees, branches intertwined, holes, and pitfalls. The king of all Ireland did not venture to put his quarrel to the arbitrement of steel. He therefore agreed upon a peace, by which Dermot, contumacious though he were, retained his former possessions in Leinster.

Maurice Fitzgerald now appears upon the stage. He arrives at Wexford with two ships, ten knights, thirty squires, and a hundred archers. Fitz-Stephen begins the construction of a rude fort at Carrig, on a steep hill, two miles from Wexford.

Dermot now led his allies to attack Dublin, which lay within his boundaries, and the Ostmen, distressed by the desolation and ravage of the surrounding country, consent to give security for the payment of tribute.

The now glorious Mac Morough, being fully in possession of his own territories, begins to entertain the scheme of supplanting Roderic O'Connor, and achieving the conquest of the whole island. He sends for additional forces to Strongbow, and soon afterwards Raymond brings a reinforcement of ten knights and seventy archers, with which he lands near Waterford. He is here attacked by three thousand citizens, whom he totally defeats, massacres, and, when weary of striking, precipitates his victims into the sea.

Strongbow himself at last arrived, with two hundred

knights, and a thousand other troops. Waterford is stormed, and Eva, daughter of king Dermot Mac Morough, is given in wedlock to Strongbow. Dublin now-no longer excused by a capitulation only-is captured. Meath is ravaged. King Roderic remonstrates with Dermot, for Meath was beyond his borders; but the successful exile replies that he will not desist till he has dethroned the monarch, and the O'Connor therefore decapitates a son of Dermot, whom he had received at the last peace as a hostage.

In this conjuncture of affairs, an assembly of the Church is held at Armagh, not to rouse resistance, but to declare that the present calamities are a providential infliction, brought upon the Irish for kidnapping English children. It is decreed that all English slaves be liberated. This passive acquiescence in so powerful a body as the Church deserves notice. Henry II. had, it is true, obtained a bull from Pope Adrian (Dec. 1154), granting Ireland to him and his heirs, but this bull was only published in 1171.

Henry II. now became jealous of his own servants, and orders them to return to England. Strongbow sends Raymond to him, and the royal order is not insisted on. Dermot died at Ferns in 1171.

The Norwegians attempted the recovery of Dublin, but were repulsed with the loss of their best leaders. The king of all Ireland, with his Conacians, then besieges Dublin for the space of two months. The port is blockaded by the Ostmen from the Western Isles and from Man, and the scanty garrison reduced to want. News reached the besieged that Fitz-Stephen, in his little fort of turf and twigs, is besieged by the Wexfordians, and must have relief in three days. The garrison of Dublin resolves on a sally, forms three parties of twenty, thirty and forty knights, and thus attacks the Conacian army of thirty thousand, which is at once totally routed. But by employing the perjuries of two bishops, the Wexfordians had got Fitz

Stephen and his men into their power before relief reached him.

King Henry landed with five hundred knights on the feast of St. Luke, 18th October, 1171, at Waterford. He has nothing to do but receive submissions. Waterford surrenders Fitz-Stephen to his lawful sovereign. The King of Desmond tenders his obedience; Henry goes to Cashel, where the King of Limerick comes in and submits; the reguli of Ossory and Offaly humble themselves. The great monarch proceeds to Dublin, and, except Ulster, the chieftains of the whole island do homage: among them was Roderic O'Connor, of Connaught, the Milesian.

Henry kept the Christmas festival of 1171 in Dublin, and there being no house in that city spacious enough to contain the numerous court, he ordered one to be built outside the walls, not of brick or stone, for the construction of which there was not time, but of smoothed twigs or wattles, after the Irish fashion. Here he entertained the princes and nobility of Ireland with magnificence, and sailed on Easter Monday, 1172, from Wexford.

A learned and accurate writer has observed that king Henry threw away his opportunities: he contributed nothing towards the pacification of the country; built no castles, established no garrisons nor any military system, and did nothing effectually for the inhabitants.

In two years the independence of Ireland had disappeared. The remainder of the contest was the advance of the myrmidons of law, the supremacy of paper and parchment, the progress of settlement and cultivation into districts barbarous, unlettered, violent, and wild. From the hour King Henry landed, a national Irish standard has never been held aloft for one day.

Roderic O'Connor, in 1175, consented to a treaty, which put his submission upon record. This document concedes to the fallen prince his ancient title of king, but

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it pledges his service to the more powerful Henry, (ut sit rex sub eo, paratus ad servitium suum). The name of king continued for several reigns as a concession to the Irish chieftains. The commission of Fitz-Adelm, lieutenant of Ireland, is addressed to the archbishops, bishops, kings (regibus), earls, barons, &c. In the

reign of John, the title of regulus is allowed in the pipe rolls, quoted by Sir John Davies, to the king of Connaught; in the reign of Henry III., to the king of Thomond; and even O'Neill, earl of Ulster, enjoys the same compliment.

The Church had done nothing for the independence of the country. In that age, there existed a less jealous care for separate existence than in our own, and a union with the rich dominions of Henry might be desired as an advantage. A synod now assembled at Cashel (1172), which acknowledged the sovereignty of the English king. The prelates availed themselves of the advent of more obedient children to reform some evils in their flocks. They decree-1, that all persons shall marry according to the rites of the church; 2, that children be baptized in the church, and duly catechized (it was the custom of these uncatholic Catholics to baptize infants by dipping three times in milk, or, if very poor, in water; the liquid was then thrown away into the sink); 3, that tithes be paid; 4, that the clergy be exempt from civil jurisdiction; 5, that in case of murder, the clergy be exempt from contributing towards the fine or eric; 6, that the goods of the dead be divided into three parts, of which one to go to the widow, one to the children, and one to mortuary expenses; 7, that masses be duly said for the dead, and be paid for (out of the estate).

The English lords were not reduced into subordination to the crown as had they been in England. Strongbow was instituted to the whole kingdom of Leinster, partly by invasion and partly by marriage. He surMoved, however, the whole into the hands of King

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Henry, his sovereign, for that with his licence he came over, and with the aid of his subjects he had gained that great inheritance.' Yet did the king regrant to him and to his heirs all that province, reserving only the city of Dublin, and the cantreds of land next adjoining, with the maritime towns, and the principal forts and castles. Next, the same king granted to Robert Fitz-Stephen the whole kingdom of Cork, from Lismore to the sea. To Philip Bruce he gave the whole kingdom of Limerick, with the donation of bishoprics and abbeys, except the city itself and one cantred of land adjoining. To Sir Hugh De Lacy, all Meath. To Sir John de Courcy, all Ulster. To William Burke Fitz-Adelm, the greatest part of Connaught. In like manner, Sir Thomas de Clare obtained a grant of all Thomond; and Otho de Grandison of all Tipperary; and Robert le Poer of the territory of Waterford, the city itself and the cantred of the Ostmen only excepted. Thus was Ireland cantonized among ten persons of the English nation; and though they had not secured possession of one-third part of the whole kingdom, yet in title they were owners and lords of all, so that nothing was left to be granted to the natives. For three hundred years are found no grants from the crown to the Irish, except that the king of Thomond had a grant from Henry III. during his minority, and to Roderic O'Connor, king of Connaught, did Henry II. grant (ut sit rex_sub_eo) as above. This king's successor, when the Bourkes had made a strong plantation in Connaught, and had well nigh expelled him from his inheritance, came over to England and made complaint to Henry III. of this invasion, affirming that he had duly paid a yearly tribute of five thousand marks for his kingdom. The king decreed accordingly, but the decree was never executed, for, in fact, Richard de Burgo had obtained a grant of all Connaught after the death of King Roderic, for which he gave a thousand pounds.