CHAP. can conceive. They affured the commander in a parley that Roderic, having taken Dublin by storm, and put the whole garrifon to the fword, was in full march to make the same execution at Carrick; but, that if Fitzftephen, whose virtues they respected, would confide in the protection of the Wexfordians, they would fhip himself and all his adherents for Wales before the vengeful prince could arrive with his army. When the truth of thofe affertions was moft folemnly attefted by two right reverend bishops in their pontifical robes, laying their hands, while they pronounced the oath, on the cross, the hoft, and the adored relics of faints, Fitzftephen accepted the terms propofed, and was inftantly thrown into chains, while his followers were most inhumanly tortured and maimed, fo that most of them expired under the violence of their sufferings. The inftances of perfidy in the annals of Ireland, of which this appears the most forcible, are difgraceful in the extreme to the national character in former ages, and ought to inftigate the Irish of the prefent age to the most inviolable regard for honour and humanity. Strongbow, in his march for the relief of Carrick, which, though too late, he immediately commenced on the rout of Roderick's forces, fell into the extremity of danger, in an ambuscade, in a territory named Hi-drone, in the modern county of Carlow. The ambufcaders, making a fudden and and impetuous onfet with hideous yells, in a defile where the ground was difadvantageous to the Britons, amid bogs, woods, and precipices, threw the troops into almoft fatal confufion, beating to the ground one of their most valiant leaders, Meyler Fitzhenry, who was with difficulty rescued. In the critical moment an arrow difcharged by Nicholas a monk, by which fell O'Ryan, general of the affailants, decided the battle in favour of the English; but in their advance to Wexford, they had the mortification to hear of Fitzftephen's captivity, and of fuch a fituation of affairs as rendered his relief at present impoffible. The Wexfordians, to avoid the fury of the approaching Britons, had fired their town, and retired with their furviving prisoners to an ilet in the harbour named Holy Iland, whence they informed Strongbow by a meffage that, if any hoftility fhould be attempted against them in this place of retreat, they would instantly put every one of their prifoners to death. Dreading the execution of this menace, the Earl turned afide, and took his way to Waterford, whence, after the transaction of some business, particularly the acquittal of the lord of Offory, accufed of difaffection by O'Brien of Thomond, he marched to Ferns, the regal feat of the Leinstrian monarchs. Here, when he had made fome regulations, and punished his enemies among the toparchs of Leinster, particularly O'Byrn of Wicklow, whom he put to death, he received a fum CHAP. VI. CHAP. VI. mons from Henry, commanding his immediate attendance, a fummons judged abfolutely neceffary to be obeyed by the Earl, who, appointing governors to the feveral garrifons, repaired inftantly to England. CHAP, CHAP. VII. Proceedings of King Henry-His landing at Waterford Fitzandelm's Administration-Invasion of Ulster by HENRY had been engaged in a vexatious and CHAP. VII. even perilous contest with one of his own fubjects, Becket archbishop of Canterbury, who, protected Henry. by the Pope, had violently oppofed a body of regulations called the conftitutions of Clarendon, enacted in the year 1164 for the independence of the civil on the ecclefiaftical authority. After a feeming accomodation, brought to a conclufion with tedious difficulty, the intolerable infolence of the inordinately ambitious prelate forced fome paffionate exclamations of complaint from the king, in confequence of which the archbishop was affaffinated in church at divine fervice by four knights in revenge for their monarch's VII. CHAP. monarch's wrongs. The news of this unfortunate event, which threatened to arm the papal power to the ruin of Henry, arrived at his court in fouthern France while Raymond Le Grofs was petitioning his majefty in favour of Strongbow. Raymond, on the king's proclamation, which interdicted fupplies for the adventurers in the Irifh expedition, and commanded their return, had been dispatched by the earl with fupplicatory letters, declaring that the adventurers themselves, and whatever acquifitions they should make in Ireland, were at the difpofal of their fovereign. By the aftonishment and grief of Henry at the fatal accident of Becket's death, which precluded for fome time all business of fecondary concern, Raymond had been obliged to return to his diftreffed affociates without any answer, while archbifhop O'Toole was forming a combination of Irish and Oftmen for the fiege of Dublin. The great abilities, activity and vigilance of Henry warded the blow levelled at him by his enemies in the papal court, and, finding leifure to embark in the Irish expedition, he had come into England, where he utterly difavowed all the proceedings of Strongbow's adherents and fummoned the earl to his prefence to anfwer for his conduct. 1172. Strongbow, waiting on the king at Newnham near Gloucester, and furrendering to him all his maritime fortreffes with a territory around Dublin, was, by the interceffion of Hervey of Mountmorres, received into the royal favour, and permitted to retain in perpetuity all his other Irish poffeffions under Henry and his heirs. Accompanied by this nobleman, the monarch |