CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



a flimsy pretext for invading them from Eng- 

 land. Dermot Macmorrough, king of Leinster, 

 having been dethroned by his subjects, intro- 

 duced an English warrior, Richard, Earl of Pem- 

 broke, generally called Strongbow, for the purpose 

 of regaining his possessions. A body composed 

 of 50 knights, 90 esquires, and 460 archers, in all 

 600 men, was enabled by its superior discipline 

 to overthrow the whole warlike force that could 

 be brought against it ; and the conquest was 

 easily completed by Henry in person, who went 

 thither in 1171. The military leaders were left to 

 rule over the country; but they managed their 

 trust so ill, that the Irish never became peace- 

 able and improving subjects of the Norman king, 

 as the English had gradually done. 



RICHARD CCEUR DE LION JOHN MAGNA 

 CHARTA. 



Henry II. was much troubled in his latter years 

 by the disobedience of his children. At his death, 

 in 1189, he was succeeded by his son RICHARD, 

 styled Caeur eU Lion, or the Lion-hearted, from 

 his headstrong courage. At his coronation, the 

 people were permitted to massacre many thou- 

 sands of unoffending Jews throughout the king- 

 dom. Almost immediately after his accession, he 

 joined the king of France in a second Crusade. 

 To obtain funds, he sold crown lands and even 

 state offices, and for 10,000 marks gave up to 

 William the Lion 'all the conditions which Henry 

 by new deeds and by his capture had extorted.' 

 Accompanied by Philip Augustus of France, he 

 landed in Palestine (1191), and fought with pro- 

 digious valour, but with no good result. On one 

 occasion, being offended at a breach of truce by 

 his opponent Saladin, he beheaded 5000 prisoners, 

 whose deaths were immediately revenged by a 

 similar massacre of Christian prisoners. In 1 192, 

 he returned with a small remnant of his gallant 

 army, and being shipwrecked at Aquileia, wan- 

 dered in disguise into the dominions of his mortal 

 enemy, Leopold, Duke of Austria, who, with 

 Henry VI. Emperor of Germany, detained him 

 till he was redeemed by a ransom, which im- 

 poverished nearly the whole of his subjects. This 

 prince spent the rest of his life in wars with Philip 

 of France, and was killed by an arrow at the siege 

 of a castle in Limousin, in 1199, after a reign of 

 ten years, of which he had spent only about three 

 months in England. 



JOHN, the younger brother of Richard, suc- 

 ceeded, although Arthur, Duke of Brittany, the 

 son of his elder brother Geoffrey, was the lawful 

 heir. John, a vain, cruel, and weak prince, 

 alienated the affections of his subjects almost 

 at the very first by his conduct towards his 

 nephew, who suddenly disappeared, and whom 

 he was said to have assassinated with his own 

 hands. The tyranny and wickedness of John, 

 shewn in his imposition of oppressive taxes and 

 his revival of the forest laws, as well as in his 

 cruelty, his licentiousness, and his struggles with 

 the church, caused his barons to rise against him, 

 and the result was, that, on the I5th June 1215, he 

 was compelled by them to sign what is called the 

 Magna Charta, or Great Charter, granting them 

 many privileges and exemptions, and generally 

 securing the personal liberty of his subjects. The 

 principal point concerning the nation at large 



was, that no tax or supply should be levied from 

 them without their own consent in a Great 

 Council. 



John, however, induced the pope (Innocent II I.) to 

 annul the Great Charter, and renewed his struggle 

 with the barons, who even offered the throne to 

 Louis, eldest son of Philip of France. The struggle 

 between John and Louis continued till the death 

 of the former in 1216. Some time after his death, 

 Louis, deserted by the barons, withdrew from 

 England. 



HENRY III. ORIGIN OF PARLIAMENT. 



John was succeeded by his son, HENRY III. a 

 weak and worthless prince, who ascended the 

 throne in his boyhood, and reigned fifty- six years, 

 without having performed one worthy act of suffi- 

 cient consequence to be mentioned. In his reign 

 was held the first assemblage approaching to the 

 character of a parliament. It was first called in 

 1225, in order to give supplies for carrying on a 

 war against France. Under the earlier Norman 

 kings, and even, it is believed, under the Saxons, 

 an assembly called the Great Council had shared 

 with the sovereign the power of framing laws ; but 

 it was only now that the body had any power to 

 balance that of the sovereign, and it was not till 

 1265 that representatives from the inhabitants of 

 towns were introduced. 



EDWARDS I. AND II. ATTEMPTED CONQUEST 

 OF SCOTLAND. 



Henry III. at his death in 1272 was succeeded 

 by his son, EDWARD I. a prince as warlike and 

 sagacious as his father was the reverse, and who 

 had distinguished himself, even in his father's 

 reign, by relieving him from the barons, into whose 

 hands he had fallen, and defeating them and their 

 leader, Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester, at 

 the battle of Evesham in 1265. Early in his reign 

 Edward reduced Wales, whose prince, Llywelyn, 

 had refused to do what his predecessors had done, 

 swear fealty to the English monarch. An insur- 

 rection by Llywelyn's brother, David or Daffy d, 

 was crushed, and David executed in 1283. In 

 the meantime, from the death of William the 

 Lion in 1214, Scotland had been ruled by two 

 princes, ALEXANDERS II. and III. under whom it 

 advanced considerably in wealth and civilisa- 

 tion. On the death of Alexander III. in 1285, 

 the crown fell to his grand-daughter, MARGARF/T, 

 a young girl whose father was Eric, king of Nor- 

 way. Edward formed a treaty with the Estates of 

 Scotland for a marriage between this princess and 

 his son Edward, styled Prince of Wales. Un- 

 fortunately, 'the Maid of Norway,' as the young 

 queen was styled, died at Orkney, on her way to 

 Scotland, in 1290 ; and the crown was left to be 

 disputed by ten distant relatives, of whom JOHN 

 BALIOL and ROBERT BRUCE seemed to have the 

 best right. Edward, being resolved to make 

 Scotland his own at all hazards, interfered in this 

 dispute, and being appointed arbitrator among 

 the competitors, persuaded them to own in the 

 first place an ill-defined claim put forward by 

 himself of the right of paramountcy or superior 

 sovereignty over Scotland. When this was done, 

 he appointed Baliol to be his vassal-king, an 

 honour which the unfortunate man was not long 





