309 



In furtherance of this pohtical subterfuge, Henry convened a meeting 

 of the clergy at Cashel, where a Bull to the above effect, and purport- 

 ing to be from Adrian, was read and received, and several ordinances 

 framed for the reformation of manners and protection of the ecclesiasti- 

 cal constitutions. Henry's personal exertions in Ireland, were, however, 

 prevented by the intelligence of his sons' disaffection, which no sooner 

 reached his ears, than hastily making feudatory grants to his Norman 

 followers, in all of which the cantreds occupied by the Danes were, 

 as before-mentioned, prudently excepted,* he left the country at the 

 mercy of his greedy tributaries. 



bn Koderic O'Conor, of wliom mention has been already made, was 

 the only Irish prince, who obstinately refused to submit to English 

 power. His measures, however, were tardy and ill concerted, and 

 too feebly supported to restore the country to its former indepen- 

 dence, yet, scorning to treat with any of the buccaneers of the day, 

 when he found he could no longer avert the storm, he sent three am- 

 bassadors to Henry, then resident at Windsor, where a league and 

 final accommodation, still extant, -f and by no means degrading to 

 Koderic, was concluded. ji 



The years that immediately succeeded carry a deep but melan- 

 choly interest, feudal principles and passions were introduced into 

 the country, not with the magnificence and chivalry that are their 

 usual associates, but debased by the wants and necessities with which 

 they were mixed up, and stimulated into riotous desolation by the im- 

 punity with which they might be exercised in this then comparatively 

 remote country. The mask of religion, for a time assumed, was soon 

 flung off, vice strode forth in all its deformity, and the epochs of history 

 became beacons of guilt and oppression, like the crosses that meet the 



* See Smith's Cork, vol. i. p. 369. f See post, section 2 of this Period. 



