 CHAPTER I. The war in England, its effects on the Anglo-Irish, the Knights of St. John, general desire of the Anglo-Irish to naturalize themselves among the native population, a policy of non-intercourse between the races resolved on in England. The closing years of the reign of Edward II of England were endangered by the same partiality for favorites which had disturbed its beginning. The dispensers, father and son, played at this period the part which Gaviston had performed twenty years earlier. The barons, who undertook to rid their country of this pampered family, had, however, at their head Queen Isabella, sister of the King of France, who had separated from her husband under a pretended fear of violence at his hands, but in reality to enjoy more freely her criminal intercourse with her favorite Mortimer. With the aid of French and Flemish mercenaries, they compelled the unhappy Edward to fly from London to Bristol, once he was pursued, captured, and after being confined for several months in different fortresses, was secretly murdered in the autumn of 1327 by thrusting a red-hot iron into his bowels. His son, Edward, a lad of fifteen years of age, afterward the celebrated Edward III, was proclaimed king, though the substantial power remained for some years longer with Queen Isabella and her paramour, now elevated to the rank of Earl of March. In the year 1330, however, their guilty prosperity was brought to a sudden close. Mortimer was seized by surprise, tried by his peers, and executed at Tibern. Isabella was imprisoned for life, and the young king, at the age of eighteen, began in reality that reign which, through half a century's continuance, proved so glorious and advantageous for England. It will be apparent that during the last few years of the Second and under the minority of the Third Edward, the Anglo-Irish barons would be left to pursue undisturbed their own particular interests and enmities. The renewal of war with Scotland on the death of King Robert Bruce, and the subsequent protracted wars with France, which occupied, with some intervals of truce, nearly thirty years of the Third Edward's reign, left ample time for the growth of abuses of every description among the descendants of those who had invaded Ireland, under the pretext of its reformation, both in morals and in government. The contribution of an auxiliary force to aid him in his foreign wars was all the warlike king expected from his lords of Ireland, and at so cheap a price they were well pleased to hold their possessions under his guarantee. At Halledon Hill, the Anglo-Irish, led by Sir John Darcy, distinguished themselves against the Scots in 1333, and at the siege of Calais, under the earls of Kildare and Desmond, they acquired additional reputation in 1347. From this time forward it became a settled maxim of English policy to draft native troops out of Ireland for foreign service, and to send English soldiers into it in times of emergency. In the very year when the tragedy of Edward II's deposition and death was enacted in England, a drama of a lighter kind was performed among his new-made earls in Ireland. The Lord Arnold de Poer gave mortal offence to Maurice, the first Earl of Desmond, by calling him a rhymer, a term synonymous with potester. To make good his reputation as a bard, the earls summoned his allies, the butlers and Birminghams, while Le Poer obtained the aid of his maternal relatives, the de Burgues, and several desperate conflicts took place between them. The Earl of Kildare, then deputy, summoned both parties to meet him at Kilkenny, but Le Poer and William de Burgue fled into England, while the victors, instead of obeying the deputy's summons, enjoyed themselves in ravaging his estate. The following year, AD 1328, Le Poer and de Burgue returned from England, and were reconciled with Desmond and Ormond by the meditation of the new deputy, Roger Outlaw, prior of the Knights of the Hospital at Kilmanham. In honour of this reconciliation de Burgue gave a banquet at the castle, and Maurice of Desmond reciprocated by another the next day in St. Patrick's Church, though it was then, as the Anglo-Irish analyst remarks, the penitential season of Lent. A work of peace and reconciliation, calculated to spare the effusion of Christian blood, may have been thought some justification for this irreverent use of a consecrated edifice. The mention of the Lord Deputy, Sir Roger Outlaw, the second prior of his order, though not the last, who wielded the highest political power over the English settlements, naturally leads to the mention of the establishment in Ireland of the illustrious orders of the temple and the hospital. The first foundation of the elder order is attributed to Strongbow, who erected for the Maccastle at Kilmanham on the high ground to the south of Liffey, about a mile distant from the Danish wall of Old Dublin. Here, the Templars flourished for nearly a century and a half until the process for their suppression was instituted under Edward II in 1308. Party members of the order were imprisoned and examined in Dublin, before three Dominican inquisitors, Father Richard Balbin, Minister of the Order of St. Dominic in Ireland, Fathers Philip Deslane, and Hugh de St. Ledger. The decision arrived at was the same as in France and in England. The order was condemned and suppressed, and their priory of Kilmanham, with sixteen benefices in the diocese of Dublin and several others in Furns, Miath and Dromour, passed to the succeeding order in 1311. The state maintained by the priors of Kilmanham in their capacious residents often rivaled that of the Lord's justices. But though their rents were ample, they did not collect them without service. Their house might justly be regarded as an advanced fortress on the south side of the city, constantly open to attacks from the mountain tribes of Wicklow. Though their vows were for the Holy Land, they were ever ready to march at the call of the English deputies, and their banner, blazoned with the Agnes Day, waved over the bloodiest border phrase of the fourteenth century. The priors of Kilmanham sat as barons in the Parliaments of the Pale, and the office was considered the first in ecclesiastical rank among the regular orders. During the second quarter of this century an extraordinary change became apparent in the manners and customs of the descendants of the Normans, Flemings and Cambrians, whose ancestors a hundred years earlier were strangers in the land. Instead of intermarrying exclusively among themselves, the prevailing fashion became to seek for Irish wives, and to bestow their daughters on Irish husbands. Instead of clinging to the language of Normandy or England, they began to cultivate the native speech of the country. Instead of despising Irish law, every nobleman was now anxious to have his Brehyn, his Bard and his Senechy. The children of the barons were given to be fostered by Malaysian mothers, and trained in the early exercises so minutely prescribed by Malaysian education. Kildare, Ormand and Desmond adopted the old military usages of exacting coin and livery, horsemeat and mansmeat from their feudal tenants. The tie of gossipred, one of the most fondly cherished by the native population, was multiplied between the two races, and under the wise encouragement of a domestic dynasty might have become a powerful bond of social union. In Canot and Munster, where the proportion of native to naturalized was largest, the change was completed almost in a generation, and could never afterwards be wholly undone. In Ulster the English element in the population towards the end of this century was almost extinct, but in Miath and Lenster, and that portion of Munster immediately bordering on Miath and Lenster, the process of amalgamation required more time than the policy of the kings of England allowed it to obtain. The first step taken to counteract their tendency to hibernicize themselves was to bestow additional honors on the great families. The barony of Offaly was enlarged into the earldom of Kildare, the lordship of Carrick into the earldom of Ormand. The title of Desmond was conferred on Maurice Fitz Thomas Fitzgerald, and that of Louth on the baron to Birmingham. Where were they empty honors, they were accompanied with something better. The royal liberties were formally conceded in no less than nine great districts to their several lords. Those of Carlo, Wexford, Kilkenny, Kildare, and Leakes had been inherited by the heirs of the Earl Marshall's five daughters. Four other counties, Palatine, were now added, Ulster, Miath, Ormand, and Desmond. The absolute lords of those palatonates, says Sir John Davis, made barons and knights, exercised high justice within all their territories, erected courts for civil and criminal causes, and for their own revenues, in the same form in which the king's courts were established at Dublin. They constituted their own judges, senesals, sheriffs, coroners, and escheters. So that the king's writ did not run in their counties, which took up more than two parts of the English colony, but ran only in the churchlands lying within the same, which was, therefore, called the Cross, wherein the sheriff was nominated by the king. By high justice is meant the power of life and death, which was hardly consistent with even a semblance of subjection. No wonder such absolute lords should be found little disposed to obey the summons of deputies, like Sir Ralph Ufford and Sir John Morris, men of merely knightly rank, whose equals they had the power to create by the touch of their swords. For a season their new honors quickened the dormant loyalties of their recipients. Desmond, at the head of ten thousand men, joined the Lord Deputy, Sir John Darcy, to suppress the insurgent tribes of South Lentster. The earls of Ulster and Orman united their forces for an expedition into West Mieeth against the brave Maconagans and their allies. But even these services, so complicated were public and private motives in the breast of the actors, did not allay the growing suspicion of what were commonly called the Old English, in the minds of the English king and his council. Their resolution seems to have been fixed to entrust no native of Ireland with the highest office in his own country, in accordance with which decision Sir Anthony Lucy was appointed 1331, Sir John Darcy 1332 to 34, again in 1341, and Sir Ralph Ufford 1343 to 1346. During the incumbency of these English knights, whether acting as justiciaries or as deputies, the first systemic attempts were made to prevent, both by the exercise of patronage or bipenal legislation, the fusion of races, which was so universal a tendency of that age. And although these attempts were discontinued on the recommencement of war with France in 1345, the conviction of their utility had seized too strongly on the tenacious will of Edward III to be wholly abandoned. The peace of Bretany in 1360 gave him leisure to turn again his thoughts in that direction. The following year he sent over his third son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence and Earl of Ulster, in right of his wife, who boldly announced his object to be the total separation into hostile camps of the two populations. This first attempt to enforce non-intercourse between the natives and the naturalized deserves more particular mention. It appears to have begun in the time of Sir Anthony Lucy, when the king's council sent over certain articles of reform, in which it was threatened that if the native nobility were not more attentive in discharging their duties to the king, his majesty would resume into his own hands all the grants made to them by his royal ancestors or himself, as well as enforced payment of debts due to the crown which had been formerly remitted. From some motive these articles were allowed, after being made public, to remain a dead letter, until the administration of Darcy, Edward's confidential agent in many important transactions, English and Irish. They were proclaimed with additional emphasis by his deputy, who convoked a parliament or council at Dublin, to enforce them as law. The same year, 1342, new ordinance came from England, prohibiting the public employment of men born or married or possessing estates in Ireland and declaring that all offices of state should be filled in that country by fit Englishmen, having lands, tenements and benefits in England. To this sweeping prescription the Anglo-Irish, as well townsmen as nobles, resolved to offer every resistance, and by the convocation of the earls of Desmond, Ormond and Kildare, they agreed to meet for that purpose at Kilkenny. Accordingly, what is called Darcy's parliament met at Dublin in October, while Desmond's rival assembly gathered at Kilkenny in November. The proceedings of the former, if it agreed to any, are unrecorded, but the latter dispatched to the king by the hands of the prior of Kilmanum, a remonstrance couched in Norman French, the court language, in which they reviewed the state of the country, deplored the recovery of so large a portion of the former conquest by the old Irish, accused in round terms the successive English officials sent into the land with a desire suddenly to enrich themselves at the expense both of sovereign and subject, pleaded boldly their own loyal services, not only in Ireland but in the French and Scottish wars, and finally claimed the protection of the great charter that they might not be ousted of their estates without being called in judgment. Edward, sorely in need of men and subsidies for another expedition to France, returned them a conciliatory answer, summoning them to join him in arms with their followers at an early day, and although a vigorous effort was made by Sir Ralph Ufford to enforce the articles of 1331 and the ordinance of 1341 by the capture of the earls of Desmond and Kildare, and by military execution on some of their followers, the policy of non-intercourse was tacitly abandoned for some years after the remonstrance of Kilkenny. In 1353, under the Lord Deputy Rokeby, an attempt was made to revive it, but it was quickly abandoned, and two years later Maurice Earl of Desmond, the leader of the opposition, was appointed to the office of Lord Justice for life. Unfortunately that high-spirited nobleman died the year of his appointment before its effects could begin to be felt. The only legal concession which marked his period was a royal writ constituting the Parliament of the Pale and the Court of Last Resort for appeals from the decisions of the King's courts in that province. A recurrence to the former favourite policy signalized the year 1357 when a new set of ordinances were received from London, denouncing the penalties of treason against all who intermarried, or had relations of fostering with the Irish, and proclaiming war upon all currents and idle men found within the English districts. Still severe measures in the same direction were soon afterwards decided upon by the English King and his council. Before relating the farther history of this penal code as applied to race, we must recall the reader's attention to the important date of the Kilkenny remonstrance, 1342. From that year may be distinctly traced the growth of two parties among the subject of the English Kings in Ireland. At one time they are distinguished as the Old English and the New English, at another as English by birth and English by blood. The New English, fresh from the Imperial Island, seemed to have usually conducted themselves with a haughty sense of superiority. The Old English, more than half hibernicised, confronted these strangers with all the self-complacency of natives of the soil on which they stood. In their frequent visits to the Imperial capital, the Old English were made sensibly to feel that their country was not there, and as often as they went they returned with renewed ardour to the land of their possessions and their birth. Time also had thrown its reverent glory round the names of the first invaders, and to be descended from the companions of Earl Richard, or the captains who accompanied King John, was the source of family pride, second only to that which the native princes cherished in tracing up their lineage to Melisius of Spain. There were many reasons, good, bad and indifferent, for the descendants of Norman adventurers adopting Celtic names, laws and customs, but not the least potent perhaps, was the fostering of family pride and family dependence, which, judged from our present standpoints, were two of the worst possible preparations for our national success in modern times. CHAPTER II. LIONEL. Duke of Clarence, Lord Lieutenant, the Penal Code of Race, the Statute of Kilkenny, and some of its consequences. While the grand experiment for the separation of the population of Ireland into two hostile camps was being matured in England, the earls of Kildare and Ormand were, for four or five years, alternately entrusted with the supreme power. Fresh ordinances, in the spirit of those dispatched to Darcy in 1342, continued annually to arrive. One commanded all legions of the English king, having grants upon the marches of the Irish enemy, to reside upon and defend them under pain of revocation. By another entrusted to the earl of Ormand for promulgation, no mere Irishman was to be made a mayor or bailiff, or other officer of any town within the English districts, nor was any mere Irishman thereafter under any pretense of kindred or from any other cause to be received into holy orders or advanced to any ecclesiastical benefits. A modification of this last edict was made the succeeding year, when a royal writ explained that exception was intended to be made of such Irish clerks as had given individual proofs of their loyalty. Soon after the peace of Brecheny had been solemnly ratified at Calais in 1360 by the kings of France and England, and the latter had returned to London, it was reported that one of the princes would be sent over to exercise the supreme power at Dublin. As no member of the royal family had visited Ireland since the reign of John, though Edward I, when prince had been appointed his father's lieutenant, this announcement naturally excited unusual expectations. The prince chosen was the king's third son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and every preparation was made to give a clout and effect to his administration. This prince had married a few years before Elizabeth de Berg, who brought him the titles of Earl of Ulster and Lord of Canot, with the claims which they covered. By a proclamation issued in England, all who held possessions in Ireland were commanded to appear before the king, either by proxy or in person, to take measures for resisting the continued encroachments of the Irish enemy. Among the absentees compelled to contribute to the expedition accompanying the prince are mentioned Maria, Countess of Norfolk, Agnes, Countess of Pembroke, Marjorie de Bouze, Annad, Ledda Spencer, and other noble ladies, who, by a strange recurrence, represented in this age the five co-heiresses of the first Earl Churchill, granddaughters of Eva McMurrah. What exact force was equipped from all these contributions is not mentioned, but the prince arrived in Ireland with no more than fifteen hundred men, under the command of Ralph, Earl of Stratford, James, Earl of Orman, Sir William Windsor, Sir John Carew, and other knights. He landed at Dublin on the fifteenth of September, thirteen sixty-one, and remained in office for three years. On landing he issued a proclamation prohibiting natives of the country of all origins from approaching his camp or court, and having made this hopeful beginning he marched with his troops into Munster, where he was defeated by O'Brien and compelled to retreat. Yet by the flattery of courtiers he was saluted as the conqueror of Clare, and took from the supposed fact his title of Clarence. But no adulation could blind him to the real weakness of his position. He keenly felt the injurious consequences of the proclamation, and endeavored to remove the impression he had made by conferring knighthood on the Prestons, Talbits, Cusacks, Dillahides, and members of other families not immediately connected with the Palantene Earls. He removed the ex-checker from Dublin to Carlow, and it spended five hundred pounds, a large sum for that age, in fortifying the town. The barrier of Lenster was established at Carlow, from which it was removed by an act of the English parliament ten years afterwards. The town and castle were retaken in 1397 by the celebrated art McMurrah, and long remained in the hands of his posterity. In 1364 Duke Lionel went to England, leaving de Winsor as his deputy, but in 1365, and again in 1367, he twice returned to his government. This latter year is memorable as the date of the second great stride towards the establishment of a penal code of race by the enactment of the statute of Kilkenny. This memorable statute was drawn with elaborate care, being intended to serve as the cornerstone of all future legislation, and its provisions are deserving of enumeration. The act sets out this preamble, whereas at the conquest of the land of Ireland, and for a long time after, the English of the said land used the English language, mode of writing, and apparel, and were governed and ruled both they and their subjects, called betagies, villains, according to English law, etc., etc. But now many English of the said land, forsaking the English language, manners, mode of writing, laws and usages, live and govern themselves according to the manners, fashion, and language of the Irish enemies, and also have made diverse marriages and alliances between themselves and the Irish enemies aforesaid. It is therefore enacted, among other provisions, that all intermarriages, fosterings, gossipred, and buying or selling with the enemy, shall be accounted treason, that English names, fashions, and manners shall be resumed under penalty of the confiscation of the delinquent's lands, that march law and brechen law are illegal, and that there shall be no law but English law, that the Irish shall not pasture their cattle on English lands, that the English shall not entertain Irish rimers, minstrels, or newsmen, and moreover, that no mere Irishmen shall be admitted to any ecclesiastical benefits or religious house situated within the English districts. All the names of those who attended at this parliament of Kilkenny are not accessible to us, but the earls of Kildare, Ormond, and Desmond were of the number need hardly surprise us, alarmed, as they all were, by the late successes of the native princes, and overawed by the recent prodigious victories of Edward III at Cressy and Poitiers. What does at first seem incomprehensible is that the archbishop, not only of Dublin, but of Casual and Tom, in the heart of the Irish country, and the bishops of Leglan, Osary, Lismore, Cloyne, and Kilala should be parties to this statute. But on closer inspection our surprise at their presence disappears. Most of these prelates were at that day nominees of the English king, and many of them were English by birth. Some of them never had possession of their seas, but dwelt within the nearest strong town as pensioners on the bounty of the crown, while the diocese were administered by native rivals or tolerant vickers. Larev, bishop of Lismore, was chancellor to the Duke in 1367. Young, bishop of Leglan, was vice treasurer. The bishop of Osary, John Tatendale, was an English Augustinian, whose appointment was disputed by Milo Sweetman, the native bishop-elect. The bishop of Cloyne, John de Swasham, was a carmelite of Lynn, in the county of Norfolk, afterwards bishop of Banger, in Wales, where he distinguished himself in the controversy against Wycliffe. The bishop of Kilala, we only know by the name of Robert, at that time very unusual among the Irish. The two native names are those of the arch-bishops of Casual and Tuam, Thomas O'Carroll, and John O'Grady. The former was probably, and the latter certainly, a nominee of the crown. We know that Dr. O'Grady died in exile from his sea, if he was ever permitted to enter it, in the city of Limerick, four years after the sitting of the Parliament at Kilkenny. Shortly after the enactment of this law, by which he is best remembered, the Duke of Clarence returned to England, leaving to Gerald, fourth Earl of Desmond, the task of carrying it into effect. In the remaining years of this reign, the office of Lord Lieutenant was held by Sir William de Windsor, during the intervals of whose absence in England, the prior of Kilmanum, or the Earl of Kildare, or of Ormond, discharged the duties with the title of Lord Deputy or Lord Justice. It is now time that we should turn to the native annals of the country to show how the Irish princes had carried on the contest during the eventful half-century, which the reign of Edward III occupies in the history of England. In the generation which elapsed from the death of the Earl of Ulster, or rather from the first avowal of the policy of prescription in 1342, the native tribes had on all sides and continuously gained on the descendants of their invaders. In Canot, the McWilliams, McWattons, and McForests retained part of their estates only by becoming as Irish as the Irish. The lordships of Lenny and Koran in Sligo and Mayo were recovered by the heirs of their former chiefs, while the powerful family of O'Connor Sligo converted that strong town into a formidable center of operations. Rendown, Athalon, Roscommon, and Benrati, all frontier posts fortified by the Normans, were in 1342 as we learned from the remonstrance of Kilkenny in the hands of the elder race. The war in all the provinces was in many respects a war of posts. Towards the north, Carrick-Fergus continued the outwork till captured by Neil O'Neill when Downpatrick and Dundalk became the northern barriers. The latter town, which seems to have been strengthened after Bruce's defeat, was repeatedly attacked by Neil O'Neill and at last entered into conditions by which it procured his protection. Downpatrick also, in the year 1375, he gained a signal victory over the English of the town and their allies under Sir James Talbot of Malahide and Burke of Camline, in which both these commanders were slain. This O'Neill, called from his many successes Neil Moore, or the Great, dying in 1397, left the borders of Ulster more effectually clear to foreign garrisons than they had been for a century and a half before. He enriched the churches of Armagh and Denny and built a habitation for students resorting to the primatial city on the side of the ancient palace of Imania, which had been deserted before the coming of St. Patrick. The northern and western chiefs seem in this age to have made some improvements in military equipment and tactics. Cuinagall, a celebrated captain of the O'Caines, is represented on his tomb at Dungiven as clad in complete armor, though that may be the fancy of the sculptor. British Galagrasses, heavy-armed infantry trained in Bruce's campaigns, were permanently enlisted in their service. Of their leaders the most distinguished were MacNeil Cam, or the Crooked, and McRory in the service of O'Connor and McDonnell, McSorley and McSweeney in the service of O'Neill, O'Donnell and O'Connor Sligo. The leaders of these war-like bands are called the constables of Tyr Owen, of North Canot, or of Canot, and are distinguished in all the war-like encounters in the north and west. The Midland Country, the counties now of Longford, West Meath, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Kings, and Queens, were almost constantly in arms during the latter half of this century. The Lords of Annaly, Moi Cashel, Carbury, Ophely, Eli, and Lex rivaled each other in enterprise and endurance. In 1329, Megagahan, of West Meath, defeated and slew Lord Thomas Butler with the loss of 120 men at Mullingar, but the next year suffered an equal loss from the combined forces of the Earls of Ormond and Ulster. His neighbor, O'Farrell, contended with even better fortune, especially towards the close of Edward's reign, 1372, when in one successful foray he not only swept their garrisons out of Annaly, but rendered important assistance to the insurgent tribes of Meath. In Lenster, the House of O'Mour, under Lausat, their chief, by a well-concerted conspiracy, seized in one night, in 1327, no less than eight castles, and raised the fort of Dunamis, which they disparate of defending. In 1346, under Connell O'Mour, they destroyed the foreign strongholds of Lay and Kilmahidi, and though Connell was slain by the English and Rory, one of their creatures, placed in his stead, the tribe put Rory to death as traitor in 1354, and for two centuries thereafter upheld their independence. Simultaneously, the O'Connor's of Ophilly and the O'Carrolls of Eli, adjoining and kindred tribes, so straightened the Earl of Kildare on the one hand, and the Earl of Ormond on the other, that assess of forty pence on every carricade, one hundred and forty acres, of tilled land, and of forty pence on chattels of the value of six pounds, was imposed on all the English settlements for the defense of Kildare, Carlo, and the marches generally. Out of the amount collected in Carlo, a portion was paid to the Earl of Kildare, for preventing the O'Mours from burning the town of Kilhan. The same nobleman was commanded by an order in council to strengthen his castles of Rathmore, Kilkiah, and Ballymore under pain of forfeiture. These events occurred in 1356, 7, and 8. In the south the same struggle for supremacy proceeded with much the same results. The Earl of Desmond, fresh from his justiceship in Dublin, and the penal legislation of Kilkenny, was in 1370 defeated and slain near Adair by Brian O'Brien, Prince of Thoman, with several nights of his name, and an indescribable number of others. Limerick was next assailed and capitulated to O'Brien, who created Sheedy McNamara, warden of the city. The English burgers, however, after the retirement of O'Brien, Rose murdered the new warden and opened the gates to Sir William de Windsor, the Lord Lieutenant who had hastened to their relief. Two years later the whole Anglo-Irish force, under the fourth Earl of Kildare, was summoned to Limerick in order to defend it against O'Brien. So desperate now became the contest that William de Windsor only consented to return a second time as Lord Lieutenant on 1374, on condition that he was to act strictly on the defensive, and to receive annually the sum of eleven thousand, two hundred thirteen pounds, six shilling, eight pence, a sum exceeding the whole revenue which the English king derived from Ireland at that period, which according to Sir John Davies fell short of eleven thousand pounds. Although such was the critical state of the English interest, this Lieutenant obtained from the fears of successive Parliament's annual subsidies of two thousand pounds and three thousand pounds. The deputies from Louth having voted against his demand were thrown into prison, but a direct petition from the Anglo-Irish to the king brought in order to de Windsor not to enforce the collection of these grants, and to remit in favour of the petitioners the scuttage on all those lands of which the Irish enemy had deprived them. In the last year of Edward III, 1376, he summoned the magnets and the burgers of towns to send representatives to London to consult with him on the State of the English Settlements in Ireland. But those so addressed having assembled together drew up a protest setting forth that the Great Council of Ireland had never been accustomed to meet out of that kingdom, though saving the rights of their heirs and successors, they expressed their willingness to do so, for the king's convenience on that occasion. Richard Dean and William Stapelein were first sent over to England to exhibit the evils of the Irish administration. The proposed General Assembly of Representatives seems to have dropped. The king ordered the two delegates just mentioned to be paid ten pounds out of the exchequer for their expenses. The series of events, however, which most clearly exhibits the decay of the English interest, transpired within the limits of Lenster, almost within sight of Dublin. Of the actors in these events, the most distinguished for energy, ability, and good fortune was Art McMurrah, whose exploits are entitled to a separate and detailed account. End of Chapter 2 Red by Cibella Denton For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 3 of A Popular History of Ireland, Book 6 by Thomas Darcy McGee Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain Chapter 3 Art McMurrah, Lord of Lenster First expedition of Richard II of England to Ireland Whether Donald Cavanaugh McMurrah, son of Dermot, was born out of wedlock as the Lady Eva was made to depose in order to create a claim of inheritance for herself as sole heiress. This at least is certain that his descendants continued to be looked upon by the kindred clans of Lenster as the natural lords of that principality. Towards the close of the thirteenth century, in the third or fourth generation after the death of their immediate ancestor, the Cavanaugh's of Leglan and Ballelalan began to act prominently in the affairs of their province, and then, life is styled both by Irish and English the McMurrah. In the era of King Edward Bruce they were sufficiently formidable to call for an expedition of the Lord Justice into their patrimony, by which they are said to have been defeated. In the next age, in 1335, Maurice, the McMurrah, was granted by the Anglo-Irish Parliament or Council the sum of eighty marks annually for keeping open certain roads and preserving the peace within its jurisdiction. In 1358, Art, the successor of Maurice, and Donald Revig were proclaimed rebels in a parliament held at Castle Dermot, by the Lord Deputy Sancto Amando, the said Art being further branded with deep ingratitude to Edward III, who had acknowledged him as the McMurrah. To carry on a war against him the whole English interest was assessed with a special tax. Louth contributed twenty pounds, Meath and Waterford two shillings on every curaket, one hundred and forty acres, of tilled land, Kilkenny the same sum, with the addition of six pence in the pound on chattels. This Art captured the strong castles of Kilbell, Garberstown, Rathville, and although his career was not one of invariable successes he bequeathed to his son, also called Art, in 1375 an inheritance extending over a large portion, perhaps one half of the territory ruled by his ancestors before the invasion. Art McMurrah, or Art Kavanaugh as he is more commonly called, was born in the year 1357, and from the age of sixteen and upwards was distinguished by his hospitality, knowledge, and feats of arms. Like the great Brian he was a younger son, but the fortune of war removed one by one those who would otherwise have preceded him in the captaincy of his clan and connections. About the year 1375, while he was still under age, he was elected successor to his father, according to the analysts, who record his death in fourteen seventeen, after being forty-two years in the government of Lenster. Fortunately he attained command at a period favorable to his genius and enterprise. His own and the adjoining tribes were aroused by tidings of success from other provinces, and the partial victories of their immediate predecessors to entertain bolder schemes, and they only waited for a chief of distinguished ability to concentrate their efforts. This chief they found, where they naturally looked for him, among the old ruling family of the province. Nor were the English settlers ignorant of his promise. In the parliament held at Castle Dermot in 1377, they granted to him the customary annual tribute paid to his house, the nature of which calls for a word of explanation. This tribute was granted, as the late King had done to his ancestors. It was again voted in a parliament held in 1380, and continued to be paid so late as the opening of the seventeenth century, A.D. 1603. Not only was a fixed sum paid out of the ex-checker for this purpose, inducing the native chiefs to grant a right of way through their territories, but a direct tax was levied on the inhabitants of English origin for the same privilege. This tax, called black mail or black rent, was sometimes differently regarded by those who paid and those who received it. The former looked on it as a stipend, the latter as a tribute, but that it implied a formal acknowledgment of local jurisdiction of the chief cannot be doubted. Two centuries after the time of which we speak, Baron Finglas, in his suggestions to King Henry VIII for extending his power in Ireland, recommends that no black rent be paid to any Irishman for the four shires of the pale, and any black rent they had afford this time be paid to them forever. At that late period the McMurrah still had his eighty marks annually from the ex-checker, and forty pounds from the English settled in Wexford. O'Carroll of Eli had forty pounds from the English in Kilkenny, and O'Connor of Offaly twenty pounds from those of Kildare, and three hundred pounds from Mieth. It was to meet these and other annuities to more distant chiefs that William of Windsor, in thirteen sixty-nine, covenanted for a larger revenue than the whole of the Anglo-Irish districts then yielded, and which led him besides to stipulate that he was to undertake no new expeditions, but to act entirely on the defensive. We find a little later that the necessity of sustaining the Dublin authorities at an annual loss was one of the main motives which induced Richard II of England to transport two royal armies across the Channel, in thirteen ninety-four and thirteen ninety-nine. Art McMurrah, the younger, not only extended the bounds of his own inheritance and imposed tribute on the English settlers in adjoining districts during the first years of his rule, but having married a noble lady of the pale, Elizabeth, heiress to the barony of Norog in Kildare, which included Nas and its neighborhood, he claimed her inheritance in full, though forfeited under the statute of Kilkenny, according to English notions. So necessary did it seem to the deputy and council of the day to conciliate their formidable neighbor that they addressed a special representation to King Richard, setting forth the facts of the case and adding that McMurrah threatened, until this lady's estates were restored and the arrears of tribute do them fully discharged, that he should never cease for more, but would join with the Earl of Desmond against the Earl of Ormond, and afterwards return with a great force out of Minster to ravage the country. This illusion most probably refers to James, Second Earl of Ormond, who, from being the maternal grandson of Edward I, was called the noble Earl, and was considered in his day the peculiar representative of the English interest. In the last years of Edward III, and the first of his successor, he was constable of the Castle of Dublin, with a fee of eighteen pounds five shillings per annum. In 1381, the probable date of the address just quoted, he had a commission to treat with certain rebels, in order to reform them and promote peace. Three years later he died, and was buried in the Cathedral of St. Kenees, Kilkenny, the place of sepulchre of his family. When, in the year 1389, Richard II, having attained his majority, demanded to reign alone, the condition of the English interest was most critical. During the twelve years of his minority, the Anglo-Irish policy of the Council of Regency had shifted and changed, according to the predominance of particular influences. The Lord Lieutenancy was conferred on the King's relatives, Edward Mortimer, Earl of March, 1379, and continued to his son, Roger Mortimer, a minor, 1381. In 1383 it was transferred to Philip D'Cortenay, the King's cousin. The following year, D'Cortenay, having been arrested and fined for maladministration, Robert Devere, Earl of Oxford, the special favourite of Richard, was created Marquise of Dublin and Duke of Ireland, with a grant of all the powers and authority exercised at any period in Ireland by that King or his predecessors. This extraordinary grant was solemnly confirmed by the English Parliament, who, perhaps willing to get rid of the favourite at any cost, allotted the sum of thirty thousand marks due from the King of France, with a guard of five hundred-minute arms and one thousand archers for Devere's expedition. But that favoured nobleman never entered into possession of the Principality assigned him. He experienced the fate of the Gavistins and dispensers of a former reign, fleeing for his life from the barons. He died in exile in the Netherlands. The only real rulers of the Anglo-Irish in the years of the King's minority, or previous to his first expedition in 1394, if we accept Sir John Stanley's short terms of office in 1385 and 1389, were the Earls of Ormond, Second and Third, Colton, Dean of St. Patrick's, Pettit, Bishop of Mieth, and White, prior of Kilmanum. For thirty years after the death of Edward III, no Geraldine was entrusted with the highest office, and no Anglo-Irish layman of any other family but the butlers. In 1393, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, uncle to Richard, was appointed Lord Lieutenant, and was on the point of embarking when a royal order reached him announcing the determination of the King to take command of the forces in person. The immediate motives for Richard's expedition are variously stated by different authors. That usually assigned by the English, a desire to divert his mind from brooding over the loss of his wife, the Good Queen Anne, seems wholly insufficient. He had announced his intention a year before her death. He had called together before the Queen fell ill the Parliament at Westminster, which readily voted him a tenth of the revenues of all their estates for the expedition. Anne's sickness was sudden, and her death took place in the last week of July. Richard's preparations at that date were far advanced towards completion, and Sir Thomas's group had been already some months in Dublin to prepare for his reception. The reason assigned by Anglo-Irish writers is more plausible, that he had been a candidate for the Imperial Crown of Germany, and was tauntingly told by his competitors to conquer Ireland before he entered the list for the highest political honour of that age. This rebuke and the ill success of his arms against France and Scotland probably made him desirous to achieve in a new field some share of that military glory which was always so highly prized by his family. Some events which immediately preceded Richard's expedition may help us to understand the relative positions of the natives and the naturalised, to the English interests in the districts through which he was to march. By this time the banner of Art McMurrah floated over all the castles and rafts, on the slope of the Ridge of Lencer, or the steps of the Black Stair Hills, while the forests along the Barrow and the Upper Slainy, as well as in the Plain of Carlo and in the south-western Anglo-Wiklo, now the Barony of Shalala, served still better his purposes of defensive warfare. So entirely was the range of country thus vaguely defined under native sway that John Griffin, the English Bishop of Leglin and Chancellor of the Exchequer, obtained a grant in 1389 of the town of Gullros Town, in the county of Dublin, near the marches of O'Toole, seeing he could not live within his own sea for the rebels. In 1390 Peter Craig, Bishop of Limerick, on his way to attend an Anglo-Irish Parliament, was taken prisoner in that region, and in consequence the usual fine was remitted in his favour. In 1392 James, the Third Earl of Ormond, gave McMurrah a severe check at Tyscoffin, near Shankill, where six hundred of his clansmen were left dead among the hills. This defeat, however, was thrown into the shade by the capture of Newboss, on the very eve of Richard's arrival at Waterford. In a previous chapter we have described the fortifications erected round this important seaport towards the end of the thirteenth century. Since that period its progress had been steadily onward. In the reign of Edward III the controversy, which had long subsisted between the merchants of Ross and those of Waterford, concerning the trade monopolies claimed by the latter, had been decided in favour of Ross. At this period it could muster in its own defence three hundred and sixty three cross bowmen, twelve hundred long bowmen, twelve hundred pikemen, and one hundred and four horsemen, a force which would seem to place it second to Dublin in point of military strength. The capture of so important a place by McMurrah was a cheering omen to his followers. He raised the walls and towers and carried off gold, silver, and hostages. On the second of October, thirteen ninety-four, the royal fleet of Richard arrived from Milford Haven at Waterford. To those who saw Ireland for the first time, the Rock of Dundonoff, famed for Raymond's camp, the Abbey of Dunbrody, looking calmly down on the confluence of the three rivers, and the half Danish, half Norman port before them, must have presented scenes full of interest. To the townsmen the fleet was something wonderful. The endless succession of ships of all sizes and models which had wafted over thirty thousand archers and four thousand men at arms, the royal galley leading on the fluttering penins of so many great nobles, was a novel sight to that generation. Attended on the king were his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, the young Earl of March, heir apparent, Thomas Mobury, Earl of Nottingham, the Earl of Rutland, the Lord Thomas Percy, afterwards Earl of Westmoreland and father of Hotspur, and Sir Thomas Moorley, heir to the last Lord Marshal of the Pale. Several dignitaries of the English church, as well bishops as abbots, were also with the fleet. Immediately after landing, a tiddum was sung in the cathedral, where Earl Richard had wedded the Princess Ava, where Henry II and John had offered up similar thanksgivings. Richard remained a week at Waterford, gave splendid fets, and received some lords of the neighboring county, Lapours, Graces, and Butler's. He made gifts to churches, and ratified the charter given by John to the Abbey of Holy Cross in Munster. He issued a summons to Gerald, Earl of Desmond, to appear before him by the Feast of the Purification in whatever part of Ireland he should then be, to answer to the charge of having usurped the manner, revenues, and honour of Dunn-Garvin. Although it was then near the middle of October, he took the resolution of marching to Dublin, through the country of McMurrah, and knowing the memory of Edward the Confessor to be popular in Lenster, he furled the royal banner, and hoisted that of the Saintly Saxon King, which bore a crosspatience, or, on a field ghouls, with four doves argent on the shield. His own proper banner bore Leoncells and Fleur-de-Lys. His route was by Thomaston to Kilkenny, a city which had risen into importance with the butlers. Nearly half a century before, this family had brought artisans from Flanders, who established the manufacture of woolens, for which the town was ever after famous. Its military importance was early felt and long maintained. At this city Richard was joined by William de Wellesley, who claimed to be hereditary standard bearer for Ireland, and by other Anglo-Irish nobles. From thence he dispatched his Earl Marshall into Catherlow to treat with McMurrah. On the plain of Ballygory, near Carlow, art, with his uncle, Malachi, Omore, O'Nolan, O'Burn, MacDavid, and other chiefs met the Earl Marshall. The terms proposed were almost equivalent to extermination. They were in effect that the Lenster chieftains, under fines of enormous amount payable into the Apostolic Chamber, should, before the first Sunday of Lent, surrender to the English King, the full possession of all their lands, tenements, castles, woods, and forts, which by them and all other of the Ken's saloves, their companions, men, or adherents, late were occupied within the province of Lenster. And the condition of this surrender was to be that they should have unmolested possession of any and all lands they could conquer from the King's other Irish enemies elsewhere in the kingdom. To these hard conditions some of the minor chiefs, overawed by the immense force brought against them, would, it seems, have submitted, but art sternly refused to treat, declaring that if he made terms at all it should be with the King and not with the Earl Marshall, and that instead of yielding his own lands, his wife's patrimony in Kildare should be restored. This broke up the conference and Mowbray returned discomfitted to Kilkenny. King Richard, full of indignation, put himself at the head of his army and advanced against the Lenster clans. But his march was slow and painful, the season and the forest fought against him, he was unable to collect, by the way, sufficient fodder for the horses or provisions for the men. McMurrah swept off everything of the nature of food, took advantage of his knowledge of the country to burst upon the enemy by night, to entreat them into ambush-guards, to separate the cavalry from the foot, and by many other stratagems to thin their ranks and harass the stragglers. At length Richard, despairing of dislodging him from his fastnesses and idrone, or fighting away out of them, sent to him another deputation of the English and Irish of Lenster, inviting him to Dublin to a personal interview. This proposal was accepted, and the English King continued his way to Dublin, probably along the sea coast by Bray and the White Strand, over Kilkenny and Dunleary. Soon after his arrival at Dublin, care was taken to repair the highway which ran by the sea, towards Wicklow and Wexford. CHAPTER VI. SUBSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS OF RICHARD II. LUTENANCY AND DEATH OF THE EARL OF MARCH. SECOND EXPEDITION OF RICHARD AGAINST ART MCMURRA. CHANGE OF DYNASTY IN INGLAND. At Dublin Richard prepared to celebrate the Festival of Christmas, with all the splendor of which he was so fond. He had received letters from his council in England warmly congratulating him on the results of his noble voyage and his successes against his rebel McMurr. Several lords and chiefs were hospitably entertained by him during the holidays, but the greater magnates did not yet present themselves, unless we suppose them to have continued his guests at Dublin from Christmas till Easter, which is hardly creditable. The supplies which he had provided were soon devoured by so vast a following. His army, however, were paid their wages weekly and were well satisfied. But whatever the king or his flatterers might pretend, the real object of all the mighty preparations made was still in the distance, and fresh supplies were needed for the projected campaign of 1395. To raise the requisite funds he determined to send to England his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. Gloucester carried a letter to the region, the Duke of York, countersigned Lincolne, and dated from Dublin, February 1st, 1395. The council, consisting of the earls of Darby, Arendelle, Deware, Salisbury, Northumberland, and others, was conveyed, and they were readily voted a tenth off the clergy and a fifteenth off the laity for the king's supply. This they sent with a document, signed by them all, exhorting him to a vigorous prosecution of the war, and the demolition of all forts belonging to Macmurg, or Legrande-Onel. They also addressed him another letter, complementary of his valor and discretion in all things. While awaiting supplies from England, Richard made a progress as far northwards as Drojeda, where he took up his abode in the Dominican convent of St. Mary Magdalene. On the eve of St. Patrick's Day, O'Neill, O'Donnell, O'Reilly, O'Hanlon, and McMahon, visited and exchanged profession of friendship with him. It is said they made submission to him as their sovereign lord, but until the indentures which have been spoken of, but never published, are exhibited, it will be impossible to determine what, in their minds and in his, were the exact relations subsisting between the native Irish princes and the king of England at that time. O'Neill and other lords of Ulster accompanied him back to Dublin, where they found O'Brien, O'Connor, and McMurrah, lately arrived. They were all lodged in a fair mansion, according to the notion of Master Castide, Frasar Sainformant, and were under the care of the Earl of Orman, and Castide himself, both of whom spoke familiarly the Irish language. The glimpse we get through Norman spectacles of the manners and customs of these chieftains is eminently instructive, both as regards the observers and the observed. They would have, it seems, very much to the dissedification of the English Esquire, their minstrels and principal servants sit at the same table and eat from the same dish. The interpreters employed all their eloquence in vain to dissuade them from this lewd habit, which they perversely called a praiseworthy custom, till it last, to get rid of importunities, they consented to have it ordered otherwise, during their stay as King Richard's guests. On the twenty-fourth of March the Cathedral of Christ's Church beheld the four kings devoutly keeping the vigil preparatory to knighthood. They had been induced to accept that honour from Richard's hands. They had apologized at first, saying they were all knighted at the age of seven. But the ceremony, as performed in the rest of Christendom, was represented to them as a great and religious custom, which made the simplest knight the equal of his sovereign, which added new luster to the crowned head, and fresh honour to the victorious sword. On the feast of the annunciation they went through the imposing ceremony according to the custom obtaining among their entertainers. While the native princes of the four provinces were thus lodged together in one house, it was inevitable that plans of cooperation for the future should be discussed between them. Soon after the Earl of Ormond, who knew their language, appeared before Richard as the accuser of McMurah, who was, on his statement, committed to close confinement in the castle. He was, however, soon after said at liberty, though O'more, O'Burn, and O'Mullen were retained in custody, probably as hostages, for the fulfilment of the terms of his release. By this time the expected supplies had arrived from England, and the Festival of Easter was happily passed. Before breaking up from his winter quarters, Richard celebrated with great pomp the festival of his namesake, Saint Richard, Bishop of Chichester, and then summoned a parliament to meet him at Kilkenny on the twelfth of the month. The acts of this parliament have not seen the light, an obscurity which they share in common with all the documents of this prince's progress in Ireland. The same remark was made three centuries ago by the English chronicler, Grafton, who adds with much simplicity, that as Richard's voyage into Ireland was nothing profitable nor honourable to him, therefore the writers think it scant worth the noting. Early in May a deputation at the head of which was the celebrated William of Wickham arrived from England, invoking the personal presence of the king to quiet the disturbances caused by the progress of lullardism. With this invitation he decided at once to comply, but first he appointed the youthful Earl of March, his lieutenant in Ireland, and confirmed the ordinance of Edward III, empowering the chief governor in council to convene parliament by writ. Which writ should be of equal obligation with the king's writ in England? He ordered that a fine of not less than fifty marks, and not more than one hundred, should be exacted of every representative of a town or shire, who, being elected as such, neglected or refused to attend. He reformed the royal courts and appointed Walter de Hanckerford and William Sturmey, two Englishmen, all learned in the law, as judges, whose annual salaries were to be forty pounds each. Having made these arrangements he took an affectionate leave of his heir and cousin and sailed for England, whether he was accompanied by most of the great nobles who had passed over with him to the Irish wars. Little dreamt they of the fate which impended over many of their heads. Three short ears and Gloucester would die by the assassin's hand, Arendelle by the executioner's axe, and Mowbray, Earl Marshall, the ambassador at Ballygory, would pine to death in an Italian banishment. Even a greater change than any of these, a change of dynasty, was soon to come over England. The young Earl of March, now left in the supreme direction of affairs, so far as we know, had no better title to govern than that he was heir to the English throne, unless it might have been considered an additional recommendation that he was sixth in descent from the Lady Ava McMurrah. To his English title he added that of Earl of Ulster and Lord of Canot, derived from his mother, the daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and those of Lord of Trim and Clare from other relations. The counsellors with whom he was surrounded included the wisest statesmen and most experienced soldiers of the pale. Among them were Almaric, Baron Grace, who, contrary to the statute of Kilkenny, had married an Omeker of Icaron, and whose family had intermarried with the McMurrahs. The third Earl of Ormond, an indomitable soldier who had acted as Lord Deputy in former years of this reign, Cranley, Archbishop of Dublin, and Rush, the Cistercian Abbot of St. Mary's, lately created Lord Treasurer of Ireland, Stephen Bray, Chief Justice, and Gerald, Fifth Earl of Kildare. Among his advisers of English birth were Roger Gray, his successor, the new judges Hanckerford and Sturmey, and others of less specific reputation. With the dignitaries of the Church and the innumerable priors and abbots in and about Dublin, the court of the air presumptive must have been a crowded and imposing one for those times, and had its external prospects been peaceful, much ease and pleasure might have been enjoyed within its walls. In the three years of this administration the struggle between the natives, the naturalized, and the English interests knew no cessation in Lenster. Some form of submission had been wrung from McMurrah before his release from Dublin Castle in the spring of 1395, but this engagement extorted under duress from a guest towards whom every right of hospitality had been violated, he did not feel bound by after his enlargement. In the same year an attempt was made to entrap him at a banquet given in one of the castles of the frontier, but warned by his bard he made good his escape by the strength of his arm and by bravery. After this double violation of what among his countrymen, even of the fiercest tribes, was always held sacred, the privileged character of a guest, he never again placed himself at the mercy of Prince or Peer, but prosecuted the war with unfaltering determination. In 1396 his neighbor, the chief of Email, carried off from an engagement near Dublin six scoreheads of the foreigners, and the next year at an exploit hardly second in its kind to the taking of Ross, the strong castle and town of Carlow were captured by McMurrah himself. In the campaign of 1398, on the twentieth of July, was fought the eventful battle of Kenless or Kells, on the banks of the stream called the King's River, in the barony of Kells, and county of Kilkenny. Here fell the heir presumptive to the English crown, whose premature removal was one of the causes which contributed to the revolution in England a year or two later. The tidings of this event filled the pale with consternation, and thoroughly aroused the vindictive temper of Richard. He at once dispatched to Dublin his half-brother, Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, recently created Duke of Surrey. To this Duke he made a gift of Carlow Castle and town, to be held if taken by night service. He then as much perhaps to give occupation to the minds of his people, as to prosecute his old project of subduing Ireland, began to make preparations for his second expedition thither. Death again delayed him. John of Kent, Duke of Lancaster, his uncle, and one of the most famous soldiers of the time suddenly sickened and died. As Henry his son was in banishment, the king, under pretense of appropriating his vast wealth to the service of the nation, seized it into his own hands, and despite the warnings of his wisest councillors as to the disturbed state of the kingdom, again took up his march for Milford Haven. A French knight, named Cretan, had obtained leave with a brother-in-arms to accompany this expedition, and has left us a very vivid account of its progress. Quitting Paris they reached London just as King Richard was about to cross the sea on account of the injuries and grievances that his mortal enemies had committed against him in Ireland, where they had put to death many of his faithful friends. Wherefore they were further told he would take no rest until he had avenged himself upon Macmore, who called himself most excellent king and lord of great Ireland, where he had but little territory of any kind. They at once set out for Milford, where, waiting for the north wind, they remained ten whole days. Here they found King Richard with a great army and a corresponding fleet. The clergy were taxed to supply horses, wagons, and money. The nobles, shires, and towns, their knights, men-at-arms, and archers, the seaports from White Haven to Penzance were obliged by an order in council dated February 7 to send vessels rated at twenty-five tons and upwards to Milford by the octave of Easter. King's letters were issued wherever the general ordinances failed, and even the press gang was resorted to to raise the required number of mariners. Minstrels of all kinds crowded to the camp, enlivening it by their strains and enriching themselves the wild. The wind coming fair the vessels took in their lading of bread, wine, cows, and calves, salt-meat and plenty of water, and the king taking leave of his ladies they set sail. In two days they saw the Tower of Waterford, the condition to which the people of this English stronghold had been reduced by the war was pitiable in the extreme. Some were in rags, others girt with ropes, and their dwellings seemed to the voyagers but huts and hulls. They rushed into the tide up to their wastes for the speedy unloading of the ships, especially attending to those that bore the supplies of the army. Little did the proud Cavaliers and well-fed Yeoman, who then looked on, imagine, as they pitied the poor wretches of Waterford, that before many weeks were over they would themselves be reduced to the light necessity, even to rushing into the sea to contend for a morsel of food. Six days after his arrival, which was on the first of June, King Richard marched from Waterford in close order to Kilkenny. He now had the advantage of long days and warm nights, which in his first expedition he had not. His forces were rather less than in thirteen ninety-four, some say twenty, some twenty-four thousand in all. The Earl of Rutland, with a free enforcement in one hundred ships, was to have followed him, but this unfaithful courtier did not greatly hasten his preparations to overtake his master. With the King were the Lord Steward of England, Sir Thomas Percy, the Duke of Exeter, dispenser, Earl of Gloucester, the Lord Henry of Lancaster, afterwards King Henry V, the Son of the late Duke of Gloucester, the Son of the Countess of Salisbury, the Bishop of Exeter in London, the Abbot of Westminster, and a Gallant Wells gentleman afterwards known to fame as Owen Glendauer. He dropped the subterfuge of bearing Edward the Confessor's banner and advanced his own standard, which bore leopards and fleur-de-lous. In this order, riding boldly, they reached Kilkenny, where Richard remained a fortnight awaiting news of the Earl of Rutland from Waterford. No news, however, came, but while he waited, he received intelligence from Kildare, which gratified his thirsts for vengeance. Genneco d'Artois, a gas-gone knight of great discretion and valour who had come over the preceding year with the Duke of Surrey, marching towards Kilkenny, had encountered some bands of the Irish in Kildare, bound on a like errand to their Prince, whom he found and put to flight, leaving two hundred of them dead upon the ground. This Genneco, relishing Irish warfare more than most foreign soldiers of his age, continued long after to serve in Ireland, married one of his daughters to Preston, Baron of Nass, and another to the First Lord, Portolestor. On the twenty-third of June, the very vigil of St. John, a saint to whom the King was very much devoted, Richard, resolving to delay no longer, left Kilkenny, and marched directly towards Catherlow. He sent a message in advance to McMurrah, who would neither submit nor obey him in any way, but affirmed that he was the rightful King of Ireland, and that he would never cease from war and the defence of his country until his death, and said that the wish to deprive him of it by conquest was unlawful. Art McMurrah, now some years beyond middle age, had with him in arms three thousand hardy men, who did not appear, says our French knight, to be much afraid of the English. The cattle and corn, the women and the helpless, he had removed into the interior of the fastnesses, while he himself awaited, in Edron, the approach of the enemy. This district, which lies north and south between the river Slaney and Barrow, is of a diversified and broken soil, watered with several small streams, and patched with tracks of morass and marsh. It was then half-covered with wood, except in the neighbourhood of Old Legling, and a few other places where villages had grown up around the castles, wraths, and monasteries of earlier days. Upon reaching the border of the forest, King Richard ordered all the habitations in sight to be set on fire, and then two thousand five hundred of the well-affected people, or, as others say, prisoners, began to hew a highway into the woods. When the first space was cleared, Richard, ever fond of pageantry, ordered his standard to be planted on the new ground, and penins and banners arrayed on every side. Then he sent for the sons of the dukes of Gloucester and Lancaster, his cousins, and the son of the Countess of Salisbury and other bachelors in arms, and there knighted them with all due solemnity. To young Lancaster he said, My fair cousin, henceforth, be proux and valiant, for you have some valiant blood to conquer. The youth to whom he made this address was little more than a boy, but tall of his age and very vigorous. He had been a hard student at Oxford, and was now as unbridled as a cult knew loosed into a meadow. He was fond of music and afterwards became illustrious as the fifth Henry of English history. Who could have foreseen, when he first put on his spurs by the wood side in Cthulhu, that he would one day inherit the throne of England and make good the pretensions of all his predecessors to the throne of France? Richard's advance was slow and wearysome in the forests of Edron. His route was towards the eastern coast. McMurrah retreated before him, harassing him dreadfully, carrying off everything fit for food for man or beast, surprising and slaying his foragers and filling his camp nightly with alarm and blood. The English archers got occasional shots at his men, so that they did not all escape, and they in turn often attacked the rear-guard and threw their darts with such force that they pierced Halbergen and plates through and through. The Lentster King would risk no open battle so long as he could thus cut off the enemy in detail. Many brave knights fell, many men at arms and archers, and a deep disrelish for the service began to manifest itself in the English camp. A party of Wexford settlers, however, brought one day to his camp Maliki McMurrah, uncle to art, a timid, treaty-making man. According to the custom of that century, observed by the defenders of Stirling and the burgesses of Calais, he submitted with a whiff about his neck, rendering up a naked sword. His retinue, bare-headed and bare-foot, followed him into the presence of Richard, who received them graciously. Friends, said he to them, as to the evils and wrongs that you have committed against me, I pardon you on condition that each of you will swear to be faithful to me for the time to come. Of this circumstance he made the most, as our guide goes on to tell in these words, then every one readily complied with his demands and took the oath. When this was done he sent word to McMurrah, who called himself Lord and King of Ireland, that country, where he has many a wood but little cultivated land, that if he would come straight ways to him with a rope about his neck, as his uncle had done, he would admit him to mercy, and elsewhere give him castles and lands in abundance. The answer of King Art is thus reported. McMurrah told the King's people that he would do no such thing for all the treasures of the sea or on this side, the sea, but he would continue to fight and harass him. For eleven days longer Richard continued his route in the direction of Dublin. McMurrah and his allies falling back toward the hills and glens of Wicklow. The English could find nothing by the way but a few green oats for the horses, which being exposed night and day and so badly fed, perished in great numbers. The general discontent now made itself audible even to the ears of the King. For many days five or six men had but a single loaf. Even gentlemen, knights and squires, fasted in succession, and our chivalrous guide for his part, would have been heartily glad to have been penniless at Portier or Paris. Daily deaths made the camp a scene of continued mourning, and all the minstrels that had come across the sea to amuse their victor countrymen, like the poet who went with Edward II to Bannock Byrne to celebrate the conquest of the Scots, found their gay imaginings turned to a sorrowful reverse. At last, however, they came inside of the sea coast, where vessels laden with provisions sent from Dublin were awaiting them. So eager were the famished men for food that they rushed into the sea as eagerly as they would into their straw. All their money was poured into the hands of the merchants, some of them even fought in the water about a morsel of food, while in their thirst they drank all the wine they could lay hands on. Our guide saw full a thousand men drunk that day on the wine of Ossie in Spain. The scene of this extraordinary incident is conjectured to have been at or near Arclo, where the beach is sandy and flat, such as it is not at any point of Wicklow north of that place. The morning after the arrival of these stores, King Richard again sent forward for Dublin, determining to penetrate Wicklow by the valleys that lead from the meeting of the waters to Bray. He had not proceeded far on his march, when a friend Cheskin Friar reached his camp as ambassador from the Lentster King. This unnamed messenger, whose cowl history cannot raise, expressed the willingness of his Lord to treat with the King through some accredited agent, some Lord who might be relied upon, so that their anger, Richard's and his own, that had long been cruel, might now be extinguished. The announcement spread great joy in the English camp. A halt was ordered and a council called. After a consultation it was resolved that dispenser Earl of Gloucester should be empowered to confer with art. This nobleman, now but twenty-six years of age, had served in the campaign of 1394. He was one of the most powerful peers of England, and had married Constance, daughter of the Duke of York, Richard's cousin. From his possessions in Wales he probably knew something of the Gaelic customs and speech. He was captain of the rearguard on this expedition, and now with two hundred lances and one thousand archers, all of whom were chosen men, he set out for the conference. The French knight also went with him, as he himself relates in these words. Between two woods, at some distance from the sea, I beheld McMore and a body of the Irish, more than I can number, to send the mountain. He had a horse without housing or saddle, which was so fine and good, that it had cost him, they said, four hundred cows, for there is little money in the country, wherefore their usual traffic is only with cattle. In coming down it galloped so hard that in my opinion I never saw hare, deer, sheep, or any other animal, I declare to you for a certainty, run with such speed as it did. In his right hand he bore a great long dart, which he cast with much skill. His people drew up in front of the wood. These two, Gloucester and the King, like an outpost, met near a little brook. There McMore stopped. He was a fine large man, wondrously active. To look at him he seemed very stern and savage and an able man. He and the Earl spake of their doings, recounting the evil and injury that McMore had done towards the King at sundry times, and how they all foreswore their fidelity when wrongfully, without judgment or law, they most mischievously put to death the courteous Earl of March. Then they exchanged much discourse, but did not come to an agreement. They took short leave and hastily parted. Each took his way apart and the Earl returned towards King Richard. This interview seems to have taken place in the lower Vale of Ivaca, locally called Glenart, both from the description of the scenery and the stage of his march at which Richard halted. The two woods, the hills on either hand, the summer shrunken river, which, to one accustomed to the sen and the Thames, naturally looked no bigger than a brook, form a picture, the original of which can only be found in that locality. The name itself, a name not to be found among the immediate chiefs of Wicklow, would seem to confirm this hypothesis. The Earl, on his return, declared he could find nothing in him, art, save only that he would ask for pardon, truly upon condition of having peace without reserve, free from any molestation or imprisonment. Otherwise he will never come to agreement as long as he lives. And, he said, nothing venture, nothing have. This speech, says the French Knight, was not agreeable to the King. It appeared to me that his face grew pale with anger. He swore in great wrath by St. Edward that no never would he depart from Ireland till alive or dead he had met him in his power. The King, notwithstanding, was most anxious to reach Dublin. He at once broke up his camp and marched on through Wicklow, for all the shoutings of the enemy. What other losses he met in those deep valleys our guide deigns not to tell, but only that they arrived at last in Dublin more than thirty thousand strong, which includes, of course, the forces of the Anglo-Irish lords that joined them on the way. There the whole of their ills were soon forgotten and their sorrow removed. The provost and sheriffs feasted them sumptuously, and they were all well housed and clad. After the dangers they had undergone, these attentions were doubly grateful to them. But for long years the memory of the Stoleful March lived in the recollection of the English on both sides of the Irish sea, and but once more for above a century did a hostile army venture into the fastnesses of Edrone and High Cancela. When Richard arrived in Dublin, still gulled by the memory of his disasters, he divided his force into three divisions and sent them out in quest of McMurrah, promising, whosoever should bring him to Dublin, alive or dead, one hundred marks in pure gold. Everyone took care to remember these words, says Cretan, for it was a good hearing. And Richard, moreover, declared that if they did not capture him when the autumn came, and the trees were leafless and dry, he would burn all the woods great and small or find out that treblous rebel. The same day he sent out his three troops, the Earl of Rutland, his laggard cousin, arrived at Dublin with one hundred barges. His unaccountable delay he submissively apologized for, and was readily pardoned. Joy and delight now reigned in Dublin, the crown jewels shown at daily banquets, tournaments, and mysteries. Every day some new pastime was invented, and thus six weeks passed, and August drew to an end. Richard's happiness would have been complete had any of his soldiers brought in McMurrah's head. But far other news was on the way to him. Though there was such merriment in Dublin, a long continued storm swept the channel. When good weather returned, a barge arrived from Chester, bearing Sir William Baggett, who brought intelligence that Henry of Lancaster, the banished Duke, had landed at Ravensburg, and raised a formidable insurrection among the people, winning over the archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of York, and other great nobles. Richard was struck with dismay. He at once sent the Earl of Salisbury into Wales to announce his return, and then, taking the evil Council of Rutland, marched himself to Waterford, with most part of his force, and collected the remainder on the way. Eighteen days after the news arrived he embarked for England, leaving Sir John Stanley as Lord Lieutenant in Ireland. Before quitting Dublin he confined the sons of the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester in the strong fortress of Trim, from which they were liberated to share the triumph of the successful usurper, Henry IV. It is beyond our province to follow the after-fate of the monarch, whose Irish campaigns we have endeavored to restore to their relative importance. His disposition and cruel death, in the prison of Pontfrock, are familiar to readers of English history. The unsuccessful insurrection suppressed during his rival's reign, and the glory won by the son of that rival, as Henry V, seemed to have established the House of Lancaster firmly on the throne. But the long minority of Henry VI, who inherited the royal dignity at nine months old, and the factions among the other members of that family, opened opportunities too tempting to be resisted to the rival dynasty of York. During the first sixty years of the century, on which we are next to enter, we shall find the English interest in Ireland controlled by the House of Lancaster. In the succeeding twenty-five years the partisans of the House of York are in the ascendant, till at length, after the victory of Bosworth Field, A.D. 1485, the wars of the Roses are terminated by the coronation of the Earl of Richmond as Henry VII, and his politic marriage with the Princess Elizabeth, the representative of the Yorkist dynasty. It will be seen how these rival houses had their respective factions among the Anglo-Irish, how these factions retarded two centuries the establishment of English power in Ireland, how the native lords and chiefs took advantage of the disunion among the foreigners to circumscribe more and more the narrow limits of the pale, and lastly how the absence of national unity alone preserved the powers so reduced from utter extinction. In considering all these far extending consequences of the deposition of Richard II and the substitution of Henry of Lancaster in his stead, we must give due weight to his unsuccessful Irish wars as proximate causes of that revolution. The death of the heir presumptive in the Battle of Kells, the exactions and ill-success of Richard in his wars, the seizure of John of Gensis states and treasures, the absence of the sovereign at the critical moment, all these are causes which operated powerfully to that end. And of these all that relate to Irish affairs were mainly brought about by the heroic constancy in the face of enormous odds, the unwearyed energy and high military skill exhibited by one man, Art McMurrah. CHAPTER V. OF A POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND BOOK VI. BY TOMAS D. STARCY MAGUI. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. CHAPTER V. PARTYS WITHIN THE PALE. BATTLES OF KILMAINUM AND KILLUKIN. SIR JOHN TALBOT'S LORD LUTENANCEY. One leading fact which we have to follow in all its consequences through the whole of the fifteenth century is the division of the English and of the Anglo-Irish interest into two parties, Lancasterians and Yorkists. This division of the foreign power will be found to have produced a corresponding sense of security in the minds of the native population, and thus deprived them of that next best thing to a united national action, the combining effects of a common external danger. The new party lines were not drawn immediately upon the English revolution of 1399, but a very few years suffice to infuse among settlers of English birth or descent the partisan passions which distracted the minds of men in their original country. The third Earl of Ormand, although he had received so many favors from the late King and his grandfather, yet by a common descent of five generations from Edward I, stood in relation of cousinship to the usurper. On the arrival of the young Duke of Lancaster as Lord Lieutenant in 1402, Ormand became one of his first courtiers, and dying soon after he chose the Duke Guardian to his heir, afterwards the fourth Earl. This heir, while yet a minor, 1407, was elected or appointed deputy to his guardian, the Lord Lieutenant, during almost the whole of the short reign of Henry V, 1413 to 1421, he resided at the English court or accompanied the king in his French campaigns, thus laying the foundations of that influence which, six several times during the reign of Henry VI, procured his appointment to office as Lord Deputy, Lord Justice, or Lord Lieutenant. At length in the mid year of the century, his successor was created Earl of Wiltshire and entrusted with the important duties of one of the commissioners for the fleet, and Lord Treasurer of England, favors and employments which sufficiently account for how the Ormand family became the leaders of the Lancaster party among the Anglo-Irish. The bestowal of the first place on another house tended to estrange the Geraldines, who with some reason regarded themselves as better entitled to such honours. During the first official term of the Duke of Lancaster, no great feeling was exhibited, and on his departure in 1405 the fifth Earl of Kildare was, for a year, entrusted with the office of deputy. On the return of the Duke, in August 1408, the Earl rode out to meet him, but was suddenly arrested with three other members of his family and imprisoned in the castle. His house in Dublin was plundered by the servants of the Lord Lieutenant, and the sum of three hundred marks was exacted for his ransom. Such injustice and indignity, as well as the subsequent arrest of the sixth Earl in 1418, for having communicated with the prior of Kilmainham, still more than their rivalry with the Ormans, drove the Kildare family into the ranks of the adherents of the dukes of York. We shall see in the sequel the important reacting influence of these Anglo-Irish combinations upon the fortunes of the White Rose and the Red. To signalize his accession and remove the reproach of inaction, which had been so often urged against his predecessor, Henry IV was no sooner seated on the throne than he summoned the military tenants of the Crown to meet with him upon the tine, for the invasion of Scotland. It seems probable that he summoned those of Ireland with the rest, as we find in that year, fourteen hundred, that an Anglo-Irish fleet, proceeding northwards from Dublin, encountered a Scottish fleet in Strongford, Low, where a fierce engagement was fought, both sides claiming the victory. Three years later the Dubliners landed at St Nenians and behaved valiantly as their train-bands did the same summer against their mountain tribes of Wicklow. Notwithstanding the personal sojourn of the unfortunate Richard and his lavish expenditure among them, these war-like burgers cordially supported the new dynasty. Some privileges of trade were judiciously extended to them, and in 1407 Henry granted to the mayors of the city the privilege of having a gilded sword carried before them in the same manner as the mayors of London. At the period when these politic favours were bestowed on the citizens of Dublin, Henry was contending with a formidable insurrection in Wales, under the leadership of Owen Glendauer, who had learned in the fastnesses of Edrone serving under King Richard how brave men, though not formed to war in the best schools, can defend their country against invasion. In the struggle which he maintained so gallantly during this and the next reign, though the fleet of Dublin at first assisted his enemies, he was materially aided afterwards by the constant occupation furnished them by the clans of Lentster. The early years of the Lancastrian dynasty were marked by a series of almost invariable defeats in the Lentster counties. Art McMurrah, whose activity defied the chilling effects of age, poured his cohorts through scullage gap on the garrisons of Wexford, taking in rapid possession in one campaign, 1406, the castles of Camelon, Ferns, and Enescorthy. Returning northward he retook Castle Dermont and inflicted chastisement on the warlike Abbot of Connell, near Noss, who shortly before attacked some Irish forces on the Courag of Kildare, slaying two hundred men. Castle Dermont was retaken by the Lord Deputy Shrope the next year, with the aid of the Earls of Ormond and Desmond, and the prior of Kilmanum at the head of his knights. These allies were fresh from a parliament in Dublin where the statute of Kilkenny had been, according to custom, solemnly re-enacted as the only hope of the English interest, and they naturally drew the sword in maintenance of their Palladium. Within six miles of Callan, in McMurrah's country, they encountered that chieftain and his clansmen. In the early part of the day the Irish are stated to have had the advantage, but some methion captains coming up in the afternoon turned the tide in favor of the English. According to the Chronicles of the Pale, they won a second victory before nightfall at the town of Callan over O'Connell of Ely, who was marching to the aid of McMurrah. But so confused and unsatisfactory are the accounts of this twofold engagement on the same day, in which the deputy in person, and such important persons as the Earls of Desmond, of Ormond, and the prior of Kilmanum commanded, that we cannot reconcile it with probability. The Irish annals simply record the fact that a battle was gained at Callan over the Irish of Munster, in which O'Connell was slain. Other native authorities add that eight hundred of his followers fell with O'Connell, but no mention whatever is made of the battle with McMurrah. The English accounts gravely add that the evening sun stood still, while the Lord deputy rode six miles from the place of the first engagement to that of the second. This was the last campaign of Sir Stephen Scrope. He died soon after by the pestilence which swept over the island, sparing neither rich nor poor. The Duke of Lancaster resumed a lieutenancy, arrested the Earl of Kildare as before related, convoked a parliament at Dublin, and with all the forces he could muster, determined on an expedition southwards. But McMurrah and the mountaineers of Wicklow now felt themselves strong enough to take the initiative. They crossed the plain which lies to the north of Dublin, and encamped at Kilmanum, where Roderick, when he besieged the city, and Brian, before the battle of Clontarf, had pitched their tents of old. The English and Anglo-Irish forces under the eye of their prince marched out to dislodge them in four divisions. The first was led by the Duke in person, the second by the veteran knight, Genneco d'Artois, the third by Sir Edward Perres, an English knight, and the fourth by Sir Thomas Butler, prior of the order of St. John, afterwards created by Henry V for his distinguished service, Earl of Kilman. With McMurrah were O'Burn, O'Nolan, and other chiefs, besides his sons, nephews, and relatives. The numbers on each side could hardly fall short of ten thousand men, and the action may be fairly considered one of the most decisive of those times. The Duke was carried back wounded into Dublin. The slopes of Incacor and the valley of the Liffey were strewn with the dying and the dead. The river, at that point, obtained from the Lentster Irish the name of Athcro, or the Ford of Slaughter. The widowed city was filled with lamentation and dismay. In a petition addressed to King Henry by the council, apparently during his son's confinement from the effects of his wound, they thus described the Lord Lieutenant's condition. His soldiers have deserted him, the people of his household are on the point of leaving him, and though they were willing to remain, our Lord is not able to keep them together. Our said Lord, your son is so destitute of money that he hath not a penny in the world, nor a penny he can get credit for. One consequence of this battle of Kilmanum was that while Art McMurrah lived, no further attacks were made upon his kindred or country. He died at Ross on the first day of January 1417 in the sixtieth year of his age. His Brehen, Odoren, also having died suddenly on the same day, it was supposed that they were both poisoned by a drink prepared for them by a woman of the town. He was, say, our impartial foremasters, whose seldom speak so warmly of any Lentster prince, a man distinguished for his hospitality, knowledge, and feats of arms, a man full of prosperity and royalty, a founder of churches and monasteries by his bounty and contributions, and one who had defended his province from the age of sixteen to sixty. On his recovery from the effects of his wound, the Duke of Lancaster returned finally to England, appointing prior Butler his deputy, who filled that office for five consecutive years. Butler was an illegitimate son of the late Earl of Orman, and naturally a Lancasterian. Among the Irish he was called Thomas Bacog, on account of his lameness. He at once abandoned South Lentster as a field of operations, and directed all his efforts to maintain the pale in Kildare, Mieh, and Louth. His chief antagonist in this line of action was Murag or Maurice O'Connor of Offaly. This powerful chief had lost two or three sons, but had gained as many battles over former deputies. He was invariably aided by his connections and neighbors, the McGogagans of West Heath. Conjointly they captured the castles and plundered the towns of their enemies, holding their prisoners to ransom or carrying off their flocks. In fourteen eleven O'Connor held to ransom the English sheriff of Mieh, and somewhat later defeated prior Butler in a pitched battle. His greatest victory was the battle of Kilucan, fought on the tenth day of May fourteen fourteen. In this engagement McGogagan was, as usual, his comrade. All the power of the English pale was arrayed against them. Sir Thomas Mereward, baron of Screen, and a great many officers and common soldiers were slain, and among the prisoners were Christopher Fleming, son of the baron of Slane, for whom a ransom of fourteen hundred marks was paid, and the ubiquitous Sir Genico Artois, who, with some others, paid twelve hundred marks besides a reward and a fine for intercession. A parliament which sat at Dublin for thirteen weeks, in fourteen thirteen, and a foray into Wicklow, complete the notable acts of Thomas Bacog's vice-royalty. Soon after the accession of Henry V, fourteen thirteen, he was summoned to a company that wore like monarch into France, and for a short interval the government was exercised by Sir John Stanley, who died shortly after his arrival, and by the Archbishop of Dublin as commissioner. On the eve of St. Martin's Day, fourteen fourteen, Sir John Talbot, afterwards so celebrated as First Earl of Shrewsbury, landed at Dahlke, with the title of Lord Lieutenant. The appointment of this celebrated captain on the brink of a war with France was an admission of the desperate strait to which the English interest had been reduced, and if the end could ever justify the means, Henry V, from his point of view, might have defended on that ground the appointment of this inexorable soldier. Adopting the system of Sir Thomas Butler, Talbot paid little or no attention to South Lentster, but aimed in the first place to preserve to his sovereign, Louth and Meath. His most southern point of operation in his first lieutenancy was Lex, but his continuous efforts were directed against the O'Connor's of Ophaly, and the O'Hanlon's and McMahon's of Oriel. For three succeeding years he made circuits through these tribes, generally by the same route, west and north, plundering chiefs and churches, sparing neither saint nor sanctuary. On his return to Dublin after these forays, he exacted with a high hand whatever he wanted for his household. When he returned to England, 1419, he carried along with him, according to the Chronicles of the Pale, the curses of many, because he, being run much in debt for victuals and diverse other things, would pay little or nothing at all. Among the natives he left a still worse reputation. The plunder of a bard was regarded by them as worse, if possible, than the spoilation of a sanctuary. One of Talbot's immediate predecessors was reputative died of the malediction of a bard of West Meath, whose property he had appropriated, but as if to show his contempt of such superstition, Talbot suffered no son of song to escape him. Their satires fell powerless on his path. Not only did he enrich himself by means lawful and unlawful, but he created interest, which a few years afterwards was able to checkmate the Desmond's and Orman's. The Sea of Dublin falling vacant during his administration, he procured the appointment of his brother Richard as Archbishop, and left him, at his departure, in temporary possession of the office of Lord Deputy. Branches of his family were planted at Malahide, Belgard, and Talbot's town in Wicklow, the representatives of which survived till this day. One of this lieutenant's most acceptable offices to the State was the result of stratagem rather than of arms. The celebrated art McMurrah was succeeded in 1417 by his son, Dunnock, who seems to have inherited his valor without his prudence. In 1419, in common with the O'Connor of Offaly, his father's friend, he was entrapped into the custody of Talbot. O'Connor, the night of his capture, escaped with his companions and kept up the war until his death. McMurrah was carried to London and confined in the tower. Here he languished for nine weary years. At length in 1428, Talbot, having got license to make the best of him, held him to ransom. The people of his own province released him, which was joyful news to the Irish. But neither the aggrandizement of any new nor the depression of old families affected any cardinal change in the direction of events. We have traced for half a century and are still farther to follow out the natural consequences of the odious statute of Kilkenny. Although every successive parliament of the pale recited and reenacted that statute, every year saw it dispensed in particular cases, both as to trading, intermarriage, and fostering with the natives. Yet the virus of national prescription outlived all the experience of its futility. In 1417 an English petition was presented to the English parliament, praying that the law, excluding Irish ecclesiastics from Irish benefits, should be strictly enforced, and the same year they prohibited the influx of fugitives from Ireland, while the pale parliament passed a corresponding act against allowing anyone to emigrate without special license. At a parliament held at Dublin in 1421, O'Heddean, Archbishop of Casual, was impeached by Guess, Bishop of Waterford, the main charges being that he loved none of the English nation, that he presented no Englishman to a living, and that he designed to make himself King of Minister. This zealous assembly also adopted a petition of grievances to the King, praying that as the Irish, who had done homage to King Richard, had long since taken arms against the government, notwithstanding their recognises payable in the Apostolic Chamber, his Highness the King would lay their conduct before the Pope, and prevail upon the Holy Father to publish a crusade against them to follow up the intention of his predecessor's grant to Henry II. In the temporal order, as we have seen, the policy of hatred brought its own punishment. The pale, which may be said to date from the passing of the Statute of Kilkenny, 1367, was already abridged more than one half. The Parliament of Kilkenny had defined it as embracing Louth, Mieh, Dublin, Kildare, Catherlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, and Tipperary, each governed by Sennishals or sheriffs. In 1422 Dunlavin and Ballymore are mentioned as the chief keys of Dublin and Kildare, and in the succeeding reign Ocala and Oriel is set down as the chief key of that part. Dykes to keep out the enemy were made from Talaq to Tasigard, at Rathkanal in Mieh, and at other places in Mieh and Kildare. These narrower limits it long retained, and the usual phrase in all future legislation by which the assemblies of the Anglo-Irish to find their jurisdiction is the Four Shires. So completely was this enclosure isolated from the rest of the country that in the reign at which we have now arrived, both the Earls of Desmond and Ormond were exempted from attending certain sittings of Parliament, and the Privy Council, on the ground that they could not do so without marching through the enemy's country at great risk and inconvenience. It is true occasional successes attended the military enterprises of the Anglo-Irish, even in these days of their lowest fortunes. But they had chosen to adopt a narrow, bigoted, unsocial policy, a policy of exclusive dealings and perpetual estrangement from their neighbours dwelling on the same soil, and they had their reward. Their borders were narrowed upon them. They were penned up in one corner of the kingdom, out of which they could not venture a league without license and protection. From the free Klansmen they insincerely affected to despise. CHAPTER VI. Acts of the Native Princes, subdivision of tribes and territories. Anglo-Irish towns under native protection. Attempt of Thaddeus O'Brien, Prince of Thoman, to restore the monarchy. Relations of the races in the fifteenth century. The history of the Pale being recounted down to the period of its complete isolation, we have now to pass beyond its entrenched and castleated limits in order to follow the course of events in other parts of the kingdom. While the highest courage was everywhere exhibited by chiefs and Klansmen, no attempt was made to bring about another national confederacy after the fall of Edward Bruce. One result of that striking denouement of a stormy career, in addition to those before mentioned, was to give new life to the jealousy which had never wholly subsided between the two primitive divisions of the island. Bruce, welcomed, sustained, and lamented by the Northern Irish, was distrusted, avoided, and execrated by those of the South. There may have been exceptions, but this was the rule. The Bards and Newsmen of subsequent times, according to their provincial bias, charged the failure of Bruce upon the Eugenian race, or justified his fate by dispersing his memory and his adherence of the race of Khan. This feeling of irritation always most deep-seated when driven in by a consciousness of mismanagement or of self-approach goes a great way to account for the fact that more than one generation was to pass away before any closer union could be brought about between the Northern and Southern Malaysian Irish. We cannot, therefore, in the period embraced in our present book, treat the provinces otherwise than as estranged communities, departing farther and farther from the ancient traditions of one central legislative council and one supreme elective chief. Special short-lived alliances between lords of different provinces are indeed frequent, but they were brought about mostly by ties of relationship or gossip-read, and dissolved with the disappearance of the immediate danger. The very idea of national unity, once so cherished by all the children of Milag Espana, seems to have been as wholly lost as any of those secrets of ancient handiwork over which modern ingenuity puzzles itself in vain. In the times to which we have descended it was every principality and every lordship for itself. As was said of old in Rome, Antony had his party, Octavius had his party, but the Commonwealth had none. Not alone was the greater unity wholly forgotten, but no sooner were the descendants of the Anglo-Normans driven into their eastern enclosure or thoroughly amalgamated in language, laws, and costume with themselves than the ties of particular clans began to lose their binding force, and the tendency to subdivide showed itself on every opportunity. We have already, in the Book of the War of Secession, described the subdivisions of Brefne and of Miethe as measures of policy taken by the O'Connor kings to weaken their two powerful suffragens. But that step, which might have strengthened the hands of a native dynasty, almost inevitably weakened the tribes themselves in combating the attacks of a highly organized foreign power. Of this the O'Connor's themselves became afterwards the most striking example. For half a century following the Red Earl's death, they had gained steadily on the foreigners settled in Canot. The terrible defeat of Athenry was more than atoned for by both other victories. At length the descendants of the vanquished on that day ruled as proudly as ever did their ancestors in their native province. The posterity of the victors were merely tolerated on its soil, or anxiously building up new houses in Miethe and Louth. But in an evil hour on the death of their last king, 1384, the O'Connor's agreed to settle the conflicting claims of rival candidates for the secession by dividing the common inheritance. From this state downwards we have an O'Connor dawn and an O'Connor row in the annals of that province, each rallying a separate band of partisans, and according to the accidents of age, minority, alliance, or personal reputation, infringing, harassing, or domineering over the other. Powerful lords they long continued, but as provincial princes we meet with them no more. This fatal example, of which there had been a faint foreshadowing in the division of the McCarthy's in the preceding century, in the course of a generation or two, was copied by almost every great connection, north and south. The descendants of Yellow Hugh O'Neill and Clandiboy claimed exemption from the supremacy of the elder family in Tyrone. The O'Farrills acknowledged two lords mannally, the McDonough's two lords of Terrarial. There was McDermott of the Wood claiming independence of McDermott of the Rock, O'Brien of Ere, asserting equality with O'Brien of Thoman. The nephews of Art McMurrah contested the superiority of his sons, and thus slowly but surely the most powerful clans were hastening the day of their own dissolution. A consequence of these subdivisions was the necessity which arose for new and opposite alliances, among those who had formerly looked on themselves as members of one family with common dangers and common enemies. The pivot of policy now rested on neighborhood rather than on pedigree, a change in its first stages apparently unnatural and deplorable, but in the long run not without its compensating advantages. As an instance of these new necessities, we may adduce the protection and sucker steadily extended by the O'Neill's of Clandiboy to the McQuillins, bassets of the Antrim Coast, and the McDonald's of the Glens, against the frequent attacks of the O'Neill's of Terrone. The latter laid claim to all Ulster, and long refused to acknowledge these foreigners, though men of kindred race and speech. Had it not been the interest of Clandiboy pointed the other way, it is very doubtful if either the Welsh or Scottish settlers by the bays of Antrim could have made a successful stand against the overruling power of the House of Dunganon. The same policy adopted by native chiefs under similar circumstances protected the minor groups of settlers of foreign origin in the most remote districts, like the Barrett's and other Welsh people of Tyrol, long after the deputies of the Kings of England had ceased to consider them as fellow subjects or to be concerned for their existence. In like manner the detached towns built by foreigners of Welsh, Flemish, Saxon, or Scottish origin were now taken under the protection of the neighbouring chief, or Prince, and paid to him or to his bailiff an annual tax for such protection. In this manner Wexford purchased protection of Metmura, Limerick from O'Brien, and Dundalk from O'Neill. But the yoke was not always born with patience, nor did the bare relation of tax gatherer and taxpayer generate any very cordial feeling between the parties. Emboldened by the arrival of a powerful deputy, or a considerable accession to the colony, or taking advantage of contested elections for the chieftaincy among their protectors, these sturdy communities sometimes sought by force to get rid of their native masters. Yet in no case that this period were such town-risings ultimately successful. The appearance of a menacing force and the threat of the torch soon brought the refractory burgesses to terms. On such an occasion, 1444, Dundalk paid Owen O'Neill the sum of sixty marks and two tons of wine to avert his indignation. On another the townsmen of Limerick agreed about the same period to pay annually forever to O'Brien the sum of sixty marks. Notwithstanding the precarious tenure of their existence, they all continued jealously to guard their exclusive privileges. In the oath of office taken by the Mayor of Dublin, 1388, he is sworn to guard the city's franchises so that no Irish rebels shall intrude upon the limits. Nicholas O'Grady, abbot of a monastery in Clare, is mentioned in 1485 as the twelfth Irishman that ever possessed the freedom of the city of Limerick up to that time. A special by-law at a still later period was necessary to admit Colonel William O'Shaughnessy of one of the first families in that county to the freedom of the corporation of the town of Galway. Exclusiveness on the one side and arbitrary taxation on the other were ill means of ensuring the prosperity of these new trading communities. Freedom and peace have ever been as essential to commerce as the winds and waves are to navigation. The dissolution and reorganization of the greater clans necessarily included the removal of old and the formation of new boundaries, and these changes frequently led to broader battles between the contestants. The most striking illustration of the struggles of this description, which occurs in our annals in the fifteenth century, is that which was waged for three generations between a branch of the O'Connor's established at Sligo, calling themselves Lords of Lower Canot and the O'Donnells of Donegal. The country about Sligo had anciently been subject to the Donegal chiefs, but the new masters of Sligo, after the era of Edward Bruce, not only refused any longer to pay tribute, but endeavored by the strong hand to extend their sway to the banks of the drows and the urn. The pride not less than the power of the O'Donnells was interested in resisting this innovation, for in the midst of the debatable land rose the famous mountain of Ben-Gulban, now Ben-Bulban, which bore the name of the first father of their tribe. The contest was therefore bequeathed from father to son, but the family of Sligo, under the lead of their vigorous chiefs and with the advantage of actual possession, prevailed in establishing the exemption of their territory from the ancient tribute. The drows, which carries the surplus waters of the beautiful Lao Melvin into the Bay of Donegal, finally became the boundary between Lower Canot and Tier Connell. We have already alluded to the loss of the arts of political combination among the Irish in the Middle Ages. This loss was occasionally felt by the Superior Mines, both in church and state. It was felt by Donald Morrow Bryan and those who went with him into the house of Conner Moinmoyle Conner in 1188. It was felt by the nobles who, at Kaleusga, elected Bryan O'Neill in 1258. It was felt by the Twelve Reguli, who, in 1315, invited Edward Bruce, a man of kindred blood, to rule over them. It was imputed as a crime to Art McMurrah in 1397 that he designed to claim the general sovereignty, and now in this century Thaddeus O'Brien, Prince of Thoman, with the aid of the Irish of the Southern half-kingdom, began, to use the phrase of the last antiquary of Lechon, working his way to Thara. This Prince united all the tribes of Munster in his favour, and, needing, according to ancient usage, the suffrages of two other provinces to ensure his election, he crossed the Shannon in the summer of 1466 at the head of the largest army which had followed any of his ancestors since the days of King Bryan. He renewed his protection to the town of Limerick, entered into an alliance with the Earl of Desmond, which alliance seems to have cost Desmond his head, received in his camp the hostages of Ormond and Ossary, and gave gifts to the lords of Lentster. Simultaneously, O'Connor of Offaly had achieved a great success over the Palesmen, taking prisoner the Earl of Desmond, the prior of Trim, the lords Barnwell, Plunkett, Nugent, and other Methian magnets, a circumstance which also seems to have some connection with the fate of Desmond and Plunkett, who were the next year tried for treason and executed at Drogueta by order of the Earl of Worcester, then deputy. The usual Anglo-Irish tales, as to the causes of Desmond's losing favor of Edward IV, seem very like after inventions. It is much more natural to attribute that sudden change to some connection with the attempt of O'Brien the previous year, since this only makes intelligible the accusation of him of alliance, fosterage, and alterage with the King's Irish enemies. From Lentster, O'Brien recrossed the Shannon and overran the county of the Clan William Burke. But the ancient jealousy of Louth Khan would not permit its proud chiefs to render hostage or homage to a Munster Prince of no higher rank than themselves. Disappointed in his hopes of that union which alone could restore the monarchy in the person of a native ruler, the descendant of O'Brien returned to King Cora, where he shortly afterwards fell ill of a fever and died. It was commonly reported, says the antiquary of Lekin, that the multitudes, envious eyes, and hearts shortened his days. The naturalized Norman nobles spoke the language of the Gale, and returned his Braheans and Bards like his Malaysian compere. For generations the daughters of the elder race had been the mothers of his house, and the milk of Irish foster mothers had nourished the infancy of its heirs. The Geraldines, the McWilliams, even the butlers, among their tenants and soldiers, were now as Irish as the Irish. Whether allies or enemies, rivals or as relatives, they stood as near to their neighbors of Celtic origin as they did to the descendants of those who first landed at Benau and at Waterford. The Statute of Kilkenny had proclaimed the eternal separation of the races, but up to this period it had failed, and the men of both origins were left free to develop whatever characteristics were most natural to them. What we mean by being left free is that there was no general or long sustained combination of one race for the suppression of the other from the period of Richard II's last reverses, A.D. 1399, till the period of the Reformation. Native Irish life, therefore, throughout the whole of the 15th, and during the first half of the 16th century, was as free to shape and direct itself to ends of its own choosing as it had been at almost any former period in our history. Private wars and hereditary blood feuds, next after the loss of national unity, were the worst vices of the nation. Deeds of violence and act of retaliation were as common as the secession of day and night. Every free clansman carried his battle-axe to church and chates, to festival and fair-green. The strong arm was prompt to obey the fiery impulse, and it must be admitted in solemn sadness that almost every page of our records at this period is stained with human blood. But though crimes of violence are common, crimes of treachery are rare. The memory of a McMahon, who betrayed and slew his guest, is execrated by the same stoical scribes, who set down, without a single expression of horror, the open murder of chief after chief. Taking off by poison, so common among their contemporaries, seems to have been altogether unknown, and the cruelties of the state prisons of the Middle Ages undreamt of by our fierce, impetuous, but not implacable ancestors. The facts which go to affix the imputation of cruelty on those ages are the frequent entries which we find of deposed chiefs, or conspicuous criminals, having their eyes put out or being maimed in their members. By these barbarous punishments they lost case, if not life, but that indeed must have been a wretched remnant of existence which remain to the blinded lover, or the maimed warrior, or the crippled tiller of the soil. Of the social and religious relations existing between the races we shall have occasion to speak more fully before the closing of the present book. End of Chapter 6 Red Vice Bella Denton For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit Librebox.org