CHAPTER XVIII.

ON THE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND.

Ancient State of Ireland ·

-Acqui

Ex

The Irish regain Part of

Its Kingdoms and Chieftainships - Law of Tanistry and Gavel-kind Rude State of Society - Invasion of Henry II. sitions of English Barons Forms of English Constitution established clusion of native Irish from them Degeneracy of English Settlers - Parliament of Ireland — Disorderly State of the Island their Territories English Law confined to the PalePoyning's Law Royal Authority revives under Henry VIII. Resistance of Irish to Act of Supremacy Protestant Church established by Elizabeth -Effects of this Rebellions of her Reign— Opposition in Parliament

Measure Proceedings of Sir Henry Sidney James I. Laws against Catholics enforced-English Law established throughout Ireland — Settlements of English in Munster, Ulster, and other Parts — Injustice attending them · of Irish Parliament - -Charles I. promises Graces to the Irish- Does not confirm them Administration of Strafford Rebellion of 1641 — Subjugation of Irish by Cromwell - Restoration of Charles II. Act of Settlement Hopes of Catholics under Charles and James- War of 1689, and final Reduction of Ireland - Penal Laws against Catholics — Dependence of Irish on English Parliament - · Growth of a patriotic Party in 1753.

THE antiquities of Irish history, imperfectly recorded, and rendered more obscure by controversy, seem hardly to belong to our present subject. But the political state of order or state of society among that people at the period of Henry II.'s invasion must be distinctly apprehended and kept in mind, before we can pass a judgment upon, or even understand, the course of succeeding events, and the policy of the English government in relation to that island.

It can hardly be necessary to mention (the idle traditions of a derivation from Spain having long been exploded) that the Irish are descended from one of those Celtic tribes which occupied Gaul and Britain some centuries before the Christian era. Their language, however, is so far dissimilar from that spoken in Wales, though evidently of the same root, as to render it probable that the emigration, whether from this island or from Armorica, was in a remote age; while its close resemblance to that of the Scottish Highlanders, which hardly

can be called another dialect, as unequivocally demonstrates a nearer affinity of the two nations. It seems to be generally believed, though the antiquaries are far from unanimous, that the Irish are the parent tribe, and planted their colony in Scotland since the commencement of our era.

About the end of the eighth century, some of those swarms of Scandinavian descent which were poured out in such unceasing and irresistible multitudes on France and Britain, began to settle on the coasts of Ireland. These colonists were known by the name of Ostmen, or men from the east, as in France they were called Normans from their northern origin. They occupied the sea-coast from Antrim easterly round to Limerick; and by them the principal cities of Ireland were built. They waged war for some time against the aboriginal Irish in the interior; but, though better acquainted with the arts of civilized life, their inferiority in numbers caused them to fail at length in this contention; and the piratical invasions from their brethren in Norway becoming less frequent in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they had fallen into a state of dependence on the native princes. The island was divided into five provincial kingdoms, Leinster, Munster, Ulster, Connaught, and Meath; and chief- one of whose sovereigns was chosen king of Ireland tainships. in some general meeting, probably of the nobility or smaller chieftains and of the prelates. But there seems to be no clear tradition as to the character of this national assembly, though some maintain it to have been triennially held. The monarch of the island had tributes from the inferior kings, and a certain supremacy, especially in the defence of the country against invasion; but the constitution was of a federal nature, and each was independent in ruling his people, or in making war on his neighbours. Below the kings were the chieftains of different septs or families, perhaps in one or two degrees of subordination, bearing a relation, which may be loosely called feudal, to each other and to the crown.

Its kingdoms

These chieftainships, and perhaps even the kingdoms them

Sir James Ware's Antiquities of Ireland. Leland's Hist. of Ireland; Introduction. Ledwich's Dissertations.

tanistry,

selves, though not partible, followed a very different rule of succession from that of primogeniture. They They were Law of subject to the law of tanistry, of which the principle is defined to be, that the demesne lands and dignity of chieftainship descended to the eldest and most worthy of the same blood; these epithets not being used, we may suppose, synonymously, but in order to indicate that the preference given to seniority was to be controlled by a due regard to desert. No better mode, it is evident, of providing for a perpetual supply of those civil quarrels, in which the Irish are supposed to place so much of their enjoyment, could have been devised. Yet, as these grew sometimes a little too frequent, it was not unusual to elect a tanist, or reversionary successor, in the lifetime of the reigning chief, as has been the practice of more civilized nations. An infant was never allowed to hold the sceptre of an Irish kingdom, but was necessarily postponed to his uncle or other kinsman of mature age; as was the case also in England, even after the consolidation of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy.*

The land-owners, who did not belong to the noble class, bore the same name as their chieftain, and were and gavelpresumed to be of the same lineage. But they held kind." their estates by a very different and an extraordinary tenure, that of Irish gavel-kind. On the decease of a proprietor, instead of an equal partition among his children, as in the gavel-kind of English law, the chief of the sept, according to the generally received explanation, made, or was entitled to make, a fresh division of all the lands within his district; allotting to the heirs of the deceased a portion of the integral territory along with the other members of the tribe. It seems impossible to conceive that these partitions were renewed on every death of one of the sept. But they are asserted to have at least taken place so frequently as to produce a continual change of possession. The policy of this custom doubtless sprung from too jealous a solicitude as to the excessive inequality of wealth, and from the habit of looking on the tribe

Iid. Auct.: also Davis's Reports, 29., and his "Discovery of the true Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued till his Majesty's happy Reign," 169. Sir John Davis, author of the philosophical

poem, гvâlɩ Zeauтdy, was chief justice of Ireland under James I. The tract just quoted is well known as a concise and luminous exposition of the history of that country from the English invasion.

as one family of occupants, not wholly divested of its original right by the necessary allotment of lands to particular cultivators. It bore some degree of analogy to the institution of the year of jubilee in the Mosaic code, and, what may be thought more immediate, was almost exactly similar to the rule of succession which is laid down in the ancient laws of Wales.*

Rude state

In the territories of each sept, judges called Brehons, and taken out of certain families, sat with primeval simof society. plicity upon turfen benches in some conspicuous situation, to determine controversies. Their usages almost wholly unknown; for what have been published as fragments of the Brehon law seem open to great suspicion of having at least been interpolated. † It is notorious that, according to the custom of many states in the infancy of civilization, the Irish admitted the composition or fine for murder, instead of capital punishment; and this was divided, as in other countries, between the kindred of the slain and the judge.

In the twelfth century it is evident that the Irish nation

Ware. Leland. Ledwich. Davis's

Discovery, ibid. Reports, 49. It is remarkable that Davis seems to have been aware of an analogy between the custom of Ireland and Wales, and yet that he only quotes the statute of Rutland, 12 Edw. I., which by itself does not prove it. It is however proved, if I understand the passage, by one of the Leges Walliæ, published by Wotton, p. 139. A gavel or partition was made on the death of every member of a family for three generations, after which none could be enforced. But these parceners were to be all in the same degree; so that nephews could not compel their uncle to a partition, but must wait till his death, when they were to be put on an equality with their cousins; and this, I suppose, is meant by the expres sion in the statute of Rutland, "quod hæreditates remaneant partibiles inter consimiles hæredes."

† Leland seems to favour the authenticity of the supposed Brehon laws published by Vallancey. Introduction, 29. The style is said to be very distinguish able from the Irish of the twelfth or thirteenth century, and the laws them

selves to have no allusion to the settlement of foreigners in Ireland, or to coined money; whence some ascribe them to the eighth century. On the other hand, Ledwich proves that some parts must be later than the tenth century. Dissertations, i. 270. And others hold them to be not older than the thirteenth. Campbell's Historical Sketch of Ireland, 41. It is also maintained that they are very unfaithfully translated. But, when we find the Anglo-Saxon and Norman usages, relief, aid, wardship, trial by jury (and that unanimous), and a sort of correspondence in the ranks of society with those of England (which all we read elsewhere of the ancient Irish seems to contradict), it is impossible to resist the suspicion that they are either extremely interpolated, or were compiled in a late age, and among some of the septs who had most intercourse with the English. We know that the degenerate colonists, such as the earls of Desmond, adopted the Brehon law in their territories; but this would probably be with some admixture of that to which they had been used.

had made far less progress in the road of improvement than any other of Europe in circumstances of climate and position so little unfavourable. They had no arts that deserve the name, nor any commerce; their best line of sea-coast being occupied by the Norwegians. They had no fortified towns, nor any houses or castles of stone; the first having been erected at Tuam a very few years before the invasion of Henry.* Their conversion to Christianity indeed, and the multitude of cathedral and conventual churches erected throughout the island, had been the cause, and probably the sole cause, of the rise of some cities, or villages with that name, such as Armagh, Cashel, and Trim. But neither the chiefs nor the people loved to be confined within their precincts, and chose rather to dwell in scattered cabins amidst the free solitude of bogs and mountains. † As we might expect, their qualities were such as belong to man by his original nature, and which he displays in all parts of the globe where the state of society is inartificial: they were gay, generous, hospitable, ardent in attachment and hate, credulous of falsehood, prone to anger and violence, generally crafty and cruel. With these very general attributes of a barbarous people, the Irish character was distinguished by a peculiar vivacity of imagination, an enthusiasm and impetuosity of passion, and a more than ordinary bias towards a submissive and superstitious spirit in religion.

This spirit may justly be traced in a great measure to the virtues and piety of the early preachers of the gospel in that country. Their influence, though at this remote age, and with our imperfect knowledge, it may hardly be distinguish

"The first pile of lime and stone that ever was in Ireland was the castle of Tuam, built in 1161 by Roderic O'Connor, the monarch." Introduction to Cox's History of Ireland. I do not find that any later writer controverts this, so far as the aboriginal Irish are concerned; but doubtless the Norwegian Ostmen had stone churches, and it used to be thought that some at least of the famous round towers SO common in Ireland were erected by them, though several antiquaries have lately contended for a much earlier origin of these mysterious strucSee Ledwich's Dissertations, vii..

tures.

143.; and the book called Grose's Antiquities of Ireland, also written by Ledwich. Piles of stone without mortar are not included in Cox's expression. In fact, the Irish had very few stone houses, or even regular villages and towns, before the time of James I. Davis, 170.

† ["I dare boldly say, that never any particular person, from the conquest till the reign of James I., did build any stone or brick house for his private habitation, but such as have lately obtained estates according to the course of the law of England." Davis.-1845.]