38 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



by his heirs afterwards. Dermot was left free to follow his 

 own inclinations, and he accordingly marched with his allies, 

 reinforced by Maurice Fitz-Gerald and a small following, to 

 Dublin, which had thrown off its duty to him, and which was 

 now made to pay by rivers of blood for its temerity, being only 

 saved from utter destruction by the wish of Dermot to turn his 

 arms northward, where the King of Munster was fighting on 

 unequal terms with O'Connor of Connaught. 



Allying himself with the King of Munster, Dermot drove 

 Roderic back into his own dominions, and finding himself so 

 strong, resolved to set up a claim to be sovereign of all Erin. 

 At this juncture Raymond Le Gros, in command of the vanguard 

 of the Earl of Pembroke, arrived at a place near Waterford, and 

 being joined by Hervey de Montemarisco, succeeded in estab- 

 lishing himself in a fort near Waterford. Three months after- 

 wards the Earl of Pembroke himself, in spite of a positive order 

 from his king which reached him at Milford Haven as he was 

 about to embark, and which forbade him to proceed came over 

 to Waterford with 200 knights and 1,000 archers. 



Raymond le Gros joined his master, and the earl, knowing 

 that if he wanted to justify by success his disregard of King 

 Henry's orders, he must lose no time in setting to work, gave 

 orders for an immediate attack on Waterford. The city was 

 carried by assault, and then Dermot came, and gave the earl 

 his daughter Eva in marriage then and there. 



It were long to trace out step by step the history of the 

 English campaigns in Ireland, before Henry II. himself came 

 over and assumed the lordship of the country ; to show how St. 

 Laurence O'Toole, Archbishop of Dublin, rallied for a time the 

 numerous Irish princes round the national standard, and how 

 his exertions were nearly rewarded with the destruction of all 

 the invaders ; how the English adventurers suffered many things 

 at the hands of the Irish, and how they saved themselves by the 

 exhibition of a desperate and splendid courage. It is sufficient 

 for the present purpose to say that Strongbow, having in the 

 summer of 1171 gone over to England, and made his peace with 

 Henry at the price of surrendering to him all sovereign rights 

 and all the ports and fortresses in Ireland, returned with his 

 monarch, who, being now free from the disquietude which had 

 before troubled him, gave his whole attention to achieving the 

 conquest of Ireland. On St. Luke's Day, the 1 8th October, 1171, 

 Henry landed at the Crook, near Waterford, with 500 knights and 

 4,000 men-at-arms. Some show of resistance was made in one 

 or two places, but it was feeble and useless against the numbers 

 and discipline of the English troops. Prince after prince gave 

 in his adhesion, swore fealty to Henry, and was admitted his 

 liegeman, so that the English monarch's progress was one of 

 continued triumph ; and when, on Christmas Day, he kept his 

 court in Dublin, his table was filled with Irish chieftains who 

 had hitherto maintained a perfectly real independence, only 

 doubtingly confessing the superiority of the titular Irish king. 



There can be little doubt that, if Henry had had time to 

 consolidate the power he had acquired in Ireland, he would have 

 settled his grasp on the island with very little trouble ; but 

 unfortunately, perhaps, for Ireland, he was suddenly recalled in 

 the spring of 1172, on account of the proceedings taken against 

 him for his alleged part in the death of Thomas a Becket. On 

 the 17th of April, 1172, he sailed from Waterford, after having 

 arranged for the government of his new kingdom, and having 

 appointed various noblemen of his army to posts of command. 

 The laws of England were also imposed on the realm of Ireland. 



Never before, and perhaps never since, had Ireland enjoyed a 

 quieter and more contented time than during the six months 

 after Henry's departure. The strength of the English kept the 

 Irish from interfering with them, and their far-reaching power 

 even restrained the Irish from internecine war. The land 

 breathed again, and all went well till the restless spirit of the 

 Irish, not enduring the presence of strangers, broke out again 

 in armed resistance. The fortune of war gave the advantage 

 now to this side, now to that, and at one time it seemed as if 

 the work of conquest in Ireland would have to be done all over 

 again ; but in the end the root which had been planted spread 

 abundantly, and by a treaty made between Henry and Roderic 

 O'Connor, it was agreed that the latter should be king over all 

 Ireland, except about one-third, -which was given to the English 

 (it was afterwards called the Pale), and that he should do 

 homage for the same, receiving in return the homage of all the 

 lesser Irish princes. An arrangement of this sort was fruitful 



in disturbances ; the English encroached upon the Irish, the 

 Irish ever sought to oust the English, and bloodshed, rapine, 

 and misery were made part of the natural order of things. The 

 only way, at length, in which the island could be governed, if 

 held by the English at all, was by means of a military governor, 

 armed with large discretionary power ; and this system of 

 government was adopted from the time of Strongbow till quite 

 modern times, the idea of the ruling power being, not to do 

 what was best for the interests of the governed, but to secure 

 the conquest which had been made. 



Government conducted on this principle, or rather on this 

 want of principle, could have but one result discontent with, 

 and hatred for, the dominant power. Whenever an opportunity 

 presented itself, whenever the oppression of the government, 

 or the yet more insufferable insolence of the foreign settlers, 

 became too unbearable, rebellions broke forth ; and though they 

 did not succeed in breaking the yoke from off the necks of the 

 rebels, they involved the country in such confusion as to make 

 it a thorn and a trouble in the side of England, and English 

 governors and statesmen, it is to be feared, looked rather to the 

 plucking out of the thorn than to remedying the causes which 

 led to that thorn being pricked into her. Here are words written 

 by Edmund Spenser, the poet, in Elizabeth's time, in his " Views 

 of the State of Ireland," words which, for their vigour and apt 

 relation to the case, might have been written at a much 

 later date : " There have bin divers good plottes devised, and 

 wise councels cast already about reformation of that realme ; 

 but they say it is the fatall destiny of that land, that no pur- 

 poses whatsoever which are meant for her good wil prosper or 

 take good effect, which, whether it proceed from the very genius 

 of the soyle, or influ6*hce of the starres, or that Almighty God 

 hath not yet appointed the time of her reformation, or that hee 

 reserveth her in this unquiet state still for some secret scourge, 

 which shall by her come unto England, it is hard to be knoune, 

 but yet much to be feared." And thus Spenser answers his 

 own questions : " Surely I suppose this but a vaine conceipt of 

 simple men which judge things by their effects and not by their 

 causes : for I would rather thinke the cause of this evill, which 

 hangeth upon that countrey, to proceed rather of the unsound- 

 nes of the councels and plots, which you say have bin oftentimes 

 laid for the reformation, or of faintnes in following and effecting 

 the same, than of any such fatall course appointed of God, as 

 you misdeem ; but it is the manner of men, that when they are 

 fallen into any absurdity, or their actions succeede not as they 

 would, they are always readie to impute the blame thereof unto 

 the heavens, so to excuse their oune follies and imperfections." 



The " good plots and wise counsels" above referred to were 

 either not appreciated by the Irish, or and this is closer to 

 the truth they were devised so much in the selfish interests of 

 the English and so little in the interests of the Irish, that the 

 latter would have none of them, and, as has been said, they rose 

 in rebellion on every favourable occasion. Under Henry III., 

 under Elizabeth, under James I. and Charles I., their uprisings 

 were general and most formidable, requiring the whole strength 

 of England to crush them, though it did not at the same time 

 crush the almost universal discontent. Not until Oliver Crom- 

 well himself took the military command in Ireland could that 

 country ever have been said to be thoroughly subdued ; and the 

 manner in which he behaved there, following out to the utter- 

 most the traditionary English policy, is remembered to this day 

 with dread and a shudder, and the Irish peasant can wish no 

 worse cnrse to fall upon the head of an enemy than the " curse 

 of Crnm'll." He marched right through the country, conquering 

 all before him, scarcely forgiving those who did not resist him, 

 slaughtering without mercy all who dared to oppose his arms. 

 Whole garrisons were put to the sword, and Ireland, blinded 

 with the blood of her children, remained for a while at rest, 

 unable to move, pressed down by the iron heel of the mighty 

 warrior who had bound the Kings of England and Scotland 

 with chains, and their nobles with links of iron. Then came 

 William III., pursuing into Ireland his father-in-law, outcast 

 from England, and the land groaned again under the tramp of 

 armed men and the roar of cannon; but the battle was the 

 battle of English against English, though on Irish ground, and 

 brought no good to the country in which it was fought. The 

 cause of William once triumphant, the old policy of repression 

 was adopted towards Ireland, and religious heats which had 

 already been thrown out to a large extent, and which had 



