his supplies from England, and the desertion of a number of his soldiers and knights; which state of things being ominous of ruin to his future prospects, he consulted the most judicious of those persons about him, as to the steps advisable for him to take, and the result was his sending off Raymond le Gros to the English king, who was then in Normandy, with a letter expressed in the following terms:

66

My sovereign lord, I came into this land, and (if I remember aright) with your permission, for the purpose of aiding in the restoration of your liegeman Dermot Mac Morrough; and, whatsoever the favour of fortune has bestowed upon me, whether from his patrimony or from any other source, as to your gracious munificence I owe it all, so shall it all return to you, and be placed at the disposal of your absolute will and pleasure."

Though this acknowledgment comprised in it all that the king could desire, both pride and policy forbade his yielding too ready a pardon to acts of self-will so dangerous in their example. He did not deign, therefore, even to notice the earl's letter, and Raymond waited some time at his court, expecting an answer, but in vain. In the mean while the assassination of that remarkable man, Thomas à Becket, had drawn down upon Henry, throughout Europe, such a load of suspicion and odium as required all the resources of mind he so eminently possessed, to enable him to confront and overcome; and, accordingly, for a time his views upon Ireland were merged in objects of more deep and pressing interest.

In the state of embarrassment to which the English adventurers were now reduced, they had to suffer another serious blow in the loss of the great projector and patron of their expedition, Dermot himself, who died about the close of this year* at Ferns, of some unknown and frightful malady, which is said to have rendered him in his last moments, an object of horror and disgust. It is added, too, that so dreadful was the state of impenitence in which he departed, that his death combined, at once, all the worst features of moral depravity with the most loathsome form of physical disease. This evidently exaggerated account must be taken as a record, not so much of the real nature of his death, as of the deep and bitter hatred with which he was regarded by most of his contemporaries; the instances being numerous in history, where the mode of death attributed to personages who had rendered themselves odious during their lives, have been rather such as, according to popular feeling, they deserved, than as they actually did suffer.

On the demise of the King of Leinster, the Earl of Pembroke succeeded, in defiance of the law of the land, to the throne of that province, having been raised most probably to the post of Roydamna, by a forced election, during the life-time of the king. As he had been indebted, however, for much of his following to the personal influence acquired by Dermot over the lower classes, he now, in addition to his other difficulties, found himself deserted by the greater number of those partisans whom only fidelity to the fortunes of his father-in-law had led to range themselves under his banner. With the view of looking after his possessions and adherents in other parts of the country, the earl now left Dublin, and the commanders entrusted with the charge of that city during his absence were soon afforded an opportunity of displaying as well their good fortune as their valour. The late Governor of Dublin, Hasculf, who on its capture, as we have seen, by Strongbow and the King of Leinster, succeeded in escaping to the Orkney Islands, had been able to collect there a large army, as well of Norwegians as of other inhabitants of those isles, with which he now sailed up the Liffey; his armament, consisting of no less than sixty ships, while the troops armed, as we are told, in the Danish manner, wearing coats of mail and round red-coloured shields, were under the special conduct of a chieftain called by his countrymen John the Furious.

* From this last King of Leinster, Dermot Mac-Morrough, descended the family of the O'Cavenaghs, the head of whom, through each successive generation, continued to style himself The Mac-Morrough till the reign of Henry VIII., when, on the submission of the Irish chiefs to Lord Leonard Grey, Charles O'Cavanach surrendered his title to Henry, and was constituted governor, for the king, of the Castle of Ferns. See, for an account of this circumstance, as well as of the title subsequently conferred upon the family, Hibernia Dominicana, c. 9., where the author thus cites his authority for the facts:- Huc porro faciunt sequentia verba quæ nudiustertius vidi in Regesto Feciali Regis Armorum in hac Dubliniensi civitate, nempe: Antiquissima familia de O'Cavanah originem ducit a Morrough Rege Lagenim," &c.

The explanation of this anomaly given by Mr. Sheffield Grace (in his Account of Tullyroan) is as follows:- Although, in the eyes of the English nation and sovereign, Strongbow was merely regarded as an English noble, holding of their king, yet, in the estimation of the Irish, be was accepted as the King of Leinster, in right of his wife Eva, heiress of that kingdom." But as, by the old Irish law, women themselves were excluded from inheritance, they were also, of course, incapable of communicating a right of inheritance to their husbands.

Hibern. Expugnat. 1. 1. c. 21.—“ Viri bellicosi Danico more, undique ferro vestiti, alii loricis longis, alii laminis ferreis arte consutis, clypeis quoque rotundis et rubris."

Landing with this force, Hasculf attacked the eastern gate of the city, where, being encountered by Milo de Cogan, he was repulsed with the loss of 500 men. But the Anglo-Norman, flushed with this advantage, and leading his knights in pursuit of the fugitives too eargerly, found himself beset at length by superior numbers,-some of his best men falling around him, while others were, it is said, seized with sudden panic, on seeing the thigh of a knight, which was cased all over in iron, cut off by a Danish chief with a single blow of his battle-axe.* Thus hardly pressed, Milo endeavoured, with his small band, to regain the gate for the purpose of retiring within the walls; but, the besiegers still crowding upon him, he was on the very point of falling beneath their numbers, when his brother, Richard de Cogan, whether from knowledge of his perilous situation, or more probably in pursuance of a pre-arranged plan, issued forth with a body of horse from the southern gate of the city, and coming unobserved on the rear of the assailants, raised a loud shout, and suddenly charged them. Dismayed by so unexpected an attack, and imagining it to proceed from some newly arrived re-enforcement, the besiegers fled in such headlong terror and confusion, that, in the efforts of all to save themselves, but a small number escaped.

After a long and fierce struggle with his assailants, John the Furious was at length felled to the ground; and an English knight, named Walter de Riddlesford, with the assistance of some others, slew him. Hasculf himself, in flying to his ships, was taken prisoner upon the sands, and brought back alive to be reserved for ransom." On appearing, however, before the governor and a large assembly in the council house, he haughtily exclaimed, "We came here with only a small force, and this has been but the beginning of our labours. If I live, far other and greater things shall follow." More angry at the insolence of this speech than touched by the brave, though rash, spirit which dictated it, the governor ordered the unfortunate chieftain to be immediately beheaded.

Notwithstanding this turn of success, as signal and brilliant as it was fortuitous, which had come thus seasonably to relieve the sinking fortunes of the English, it was clear that the relief could be but superficial and temporary; the small amount of force they could command being dispersed through different garrisons, while the defection of the natives had become almost universal, and all means of supply or re-enforcement from England were interdicted. Under such circumstances, it can hardly be doubted that there wanted but a single combined effort on the part of the Irish, to sweep at once this handful of hardy and desperate adventurers from the face of the land. That there should have arisen, at a crisis so momentous, not even one brave and patriotic Irishman to proclaim aloud to his divided countrymen that in their union alone lay strength and safety, would be a fact which, however disgraceful to the whole nation, might have been in so far consolatory, that it would prove all to have been alike worthy of the ignominious fate that befell them.

But the history of that period is not so utterly unredeemed and desolate, for such a patriot did then exist; and in the pious and high-minded St. Laurence O'Toole, Ireland possessed at that time both a counsellor and leader such as, had there been hearts and swords worthy to second him, might have rescued her from the vile bonds into which she was then sinking. Observing the reduced and straitened condition of the enemy, the archbishop saw with delight that the moment was arrived, when by a prompt and general coalition of his countrymen a blow might be struck to the very heart of the yet infant English power, a blow that would crush at once the swarm of foreign intruders now on their soil, and hold forth a warning of similar vengeance to all who, in future, might dare to follow in their footsteps. To effect this great national purpose a cordial union of the Irish princes was indispensable, and neither labour nor eloquence was spared by St. Laurence in his noble efforts to accomplish so glorious a result. He went from province to province, to every chieftain of every district, imploring them to forget all trivial animosities at such a crisis, and to rally round their common sovereign for the salvation of their own and their fathers' land. He likewise, in conjunction with Roderic, despatched emissaries to Godfred, King of the Island of Man, as well as to the princes of the neighbouring isles, entreating them, for their own sakes, as having a common interest in the reduction of the English power, to assist with their ships in the general attack which was now meditated upon Dublin.

Informed of these designs, Strongbow threw himself into the city, accompanied by Fitz

Regan. By this metrical chronicler the feat here described is attributed to John, the Norwegian chief himself, who bore the cognomen, according to Giraldus, of Thecwoode, meaning the Mad, or Furious. Lambeth MSS.

Laurentio Dubliniensi Antistite, zelo suæ gentis, ut ferebatur, hoc procurante.-Hib. Expug. 1. 1. c. 22, See Ware, Annals, ad ann. 1171.

260

Gerald and Raymond,-the latter but lately returned from his fruitless mission to Henry, and though considerably straitened for the maintenance of the army, prepared boldly for defence. Nor was it long before his resolution and means were put to the trial; as a force, far more considerable than he could have expected to see assembled, was now brought to invest his position on every side;-the fleet of the Isles, which consisted of thirty ships, being so stationed as to block up the harbour, while the confederate Irish forces were all encamped around the city, and amounted, according to an estimate most probably exaggerated, to no less than 30,000 men. Among the leaders of this great national force was seen St. Laurence himself,-bearing arms, it is said, like the rest, and endeavouring to animate, by his example and eloquence, the numerous chieftains of all septs and factions, whom he had brought thus together under one banner.

But, encouraging as was all this commencement of the enterprise, the results fell miserably short of the cheering promise which it held forth. Whether from some difficulty in coming to an agreement among themselves, as to the peculiar mode of assault, or probably a persuasion among the majority, that a patient blockade, preventing entirely the introduction of provisions, would be the most secure mode of compelling the garrison to submission, it appears certain that for nearly two months this great besieging force lay wholly inactive before the city. In the desired object, however, of reducing the garrison to the utmost difficulties, the policy adopted was completely successful; and the earl having at length notified a desire to negotiate with the besiegers, the Archbishop of Armagh, as the most worthy representative of all that ought, at least, to have been the feelings of his countrymen at such a crisis, was unanimously deputed to receive his

overtures.

The proposition of Strongbow was, that, provided Roderic would raise the siege and consent to receive him as his vassal, he would, on his part, agree to receive the province of Leinster from the monarch, and to acknowledge him as his sovereign. This proposition having been laid before Roderic by the archbishop, an answer was returned, so much more in consonance with the character of the prelate himself than with that of his unworthy master, that it was most probably of his own dictation, in which it was declared that, unless the English would forthwith surrender to Roderic the towns of Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford, together with all the forts and castles then possessed by them, and would agree, on a day assigned, to depart with all their forces from Ireland, the besieging army would without delay attack and storm the city. Taking into account the relative position of the two parties, the garrison being at that moment reduced to extremity, and apparently at the mercy of the besiegers, while the latter were still a fresh unbroken force, there was assuredly nothing in the nature of these terms, however mortifying to the hitherto successful invaders, which the Irish were not justified as well on grounds of equity and mercy to the conquered, as by a sense of duty towards their own aggrieved and insulted country, to demand.* So utterly hopeless was the state of the garrison, that there appeared every prospect of the earl being driven to accept of these terms, or even to surrender at discretion; when, by one of those inspirations of despair which, for the time, invest men with an almost supernatural strength, and enable them to control and conquer fortune itself, the whole complexion of the fortunes of the English were, in a few eventful hours, brightened and changed.

Having eluded, by some means, the vigilance of the enemy, Donald Kavenagh, the son of the late King Dermot, had contrived to enter the city, and acquaint Strongbow with the distressing intelligence, that Fitz-Stephen was now closely besieged in the fort of Carrig, by a large multitude of the people of Wexford and Hy-Kinsellagh,t and that having with him but five knights and a small company of archers, if not relieved within a few days, not merely himself and his followers, but also his wife and children,

*See Leland, who views in the same light the terms proposed on this occasion by the Irish. Dr. Campbell, confounding Leland with Lord Lyttelton, quotes the latter as expressing this opinion respecting the terms, though he has said nothing whatsoever about them.

"Fitz

tEcce Duvenaldus Dermitii filius Kenceliæ finibus adveniens, Stephanidem inter Karractense castrum à Guesfordiæ civibus nec non et Kenceliensibus quasi tribus virorum millibus cum paucis obsessum nuntiavit."-Hib. Expug. 1. i. c. 22. Lord Lyttelton, whose general accuracy in the portion of his history which relates to Ireland, is deserving of the highest praise, has here fallen into a slight geographical error. Stephen," he says, "was besieged in his fort at Carrick, near Wexford, by the citizens of that town and the Irish of Kinsale;" thus confounding the sea port town of this name in the county of Cork with the great territory called Kinsellagh, or Hy-Kinsellagh, which comprehended the chief portion of the southern part of Leinster.

It is stated, in Regan's account, that Fitz-Stephen had still farther weakened his small garrison by contributing thirty-six of his soldiers to the force collected for the defence of Dublin by Strongbow.

As the historical fragment attributed to Regan, the servant and interpreter, as it is pretended, of Dermot, King of Leinster, will be occasionally referred to in these notes, it is right that the reader should know upon what grounds the pretensions of this tract to an authentic character are founded. Of the alleged author, or rather dictator, of this fragment, Maurice Regan, no mention whatever is made in our annals; and the original manuscript preserved at Lambeth, from which Sir George Carew made his translation, instead of

who were shut up with him in the fort, must fall into the hands of the fierce and implacable besicgers. On learning this painful intelligence, the earl summoned without delay a council of war to consult as to the measures that should be pursued; and for some time, all thoughts of their own reduced and desperate condition were forgotten in their anxiety for the fate of Fitz-Stephen and his family. At length, with a courage which could only have arisen out of the very hopelessness of their common lot, Maurice Fitz-Gerald proposed to his comrades, as the only chance now left for their own deliverance, or the relief of his kinsman Fitz-Stephen, that they should at once sally forth with the whole of the garrison, and cut their way through the besieging army.

This bold suggestion the gallant Raymond, with characteristic zeal and eloquence, seconded; and Strongbow, adopting readily the project, selected from the garrison three bodies of horse; the first of which, forming the vanguard, consisted of twenty knights under the conduct of Raymond; while the second, thirty in number, and forming the centre, had for its leader Milo de Cogan, and the third, consisting of about forty knights, under the command of Strongbow himself and Fitz-Gerald, was appointed to bring up the rear. The remainder of the force, which amounted altogether, it is said, to but 600 men, was made up of the esquires of the knights, also on horseback, and of some infantry composed of the citizens of Dublin. With this small band the earl sallied forth, about the ninth hour of the day, to attack an army stated by the English chroniclers to have been no less than 30,000 strong.

In the presumed security of their own numbers and strength, and expecting hourly the surrender of the exhausted garrison, so sudden and vigorous an outbreak from the city was the very last of all possible events that the besieging multitude could have expected. In the terror and confusion, therefore, into which all were thrown by the first onset, their great numbers were but an impediment to effectual resistance; and the panic spreading also to the armies of Irish that were quartered to the north and south of the city, they, in like manner, with scarcely even an attempt at resistance, precipitately broke up their camps and fled. The monarch himself, who was at the time indulging in the luxury of a bath, received the first intimation of what had occurred from the sudden flight of his attendants, and succeeded with difficulty in effecting his own escape. Having thus, notwithstanding the fewness and feebleness of their force, dispersed in a few hours the mighty army that had held them in durance for nearly two months, the English returned at the close of the evening into the city, loaded with the spoils and baggage of the enemy, and having gained sufficient provisions to victual the city for a year.*

The relief of Fitz-Stephen from his alarming position was now the great object to which Strongbow's attention was devoted; and having committed the government of Dublin to Milo de Cogan, he without delay marched towards Wexford, to effect the delivery, if possible, of the fort of the Carrig. In his way thither the road lay through

being in Irish, as might have been expected, was written in old French or Norman verse, having been taken down, as we are told, in that form by a contemporary and friend of Regan himself. The following are the introductory lines of the Fragment:

"Parsoen demande Latinner
L'moi conta de sim Historie
Dunt far ici la Memorie
Morice Regan iret celui
Buche a buche par la alui

Ri cest gest endita

Lestorie de lui mi mostra
Jeil Morice iret Latinner

Al rei se Murcher

Ici lira del Bacheller

Del rei Dermod, vous voil conter."

This metrical narrative which comprises a period only of three years, differs, on many essential points, from the accounts given of the same transactions by Giraldus and others; and notwithstanding the emphatic declaration of Harris that "whoever writes the history of Ireland during the English period, must make this piece the main basis of his account," the preference given by almost every writer who has hitherto treated of this period, to the authority of Giraldus over that of the supposed Regan, is a sufficient proof of the doubt entertained of the authenticity of this Fragment. "I cannot think," says Lord Lyttelton, "that this rhyming chronicle, drawn from a verbal relation, imperfectly recollected, and mixed with other hearsays, picked up, we know not how, or from whom, is of equal credit with the history of Giraldus Cambrensis, whose near kinsmen were actors, and principal actors, in most of the facts he relates." Vol. v. note, pp. 70, 71.

The notion of Mr. Whitty (Popular Hist. of Ireland,) that this Fragment may have been written by some Norman rhymester, who had accompanied his countrymen into Ireland, seems by no means improbable. * Hibern. Expugnat. 1. 1. c. 22, 23.

† An eloquent Irishman of the present day, in a speech delivered by him some years since, at Wexford, thus alludes to this memorable tower and its history:-"Situate at the gorge of the mountain, and commanding the passage over the stream, whose waters are darkened with its shadow, it is invested with many

a narrow pass, in the territory then called Idrone, where he found himself stopped by O'Regan, the prince of that district, who waited to receive him with a considerable force. An action ensued, which was, for some time, maintained with balanced success, when at length an arrow, shot from the bow of a monk named Nicholas, who fought in the English ranks,* brought the Prince of Idrone to the ground, and his troops, disheartened by the death of their leader, took to flight, and left the English army masters of the field. Among the knights who most distinguished themselves in this action was the young Meyler Fitz-Henry, another of the descendants of the fair Nesta, and nephew of MauriceFitz-Gerald. A tale is told, but on no other authority, as it appears, than tradition, of a son of Strongbow, a youth of but seventeen years of age, who, making on this occasion his first appearance in a field of battle, was so terrified by the war-cry of the Irish, on advancing to the attack, that he instantly took to flight, and, returning to Dublin in the utmost terror, announced that his father and all the English forces were slain.

Hurrying on from Idrone impatiently to his object, the earl was met at a short distance from Wexford by messengers sent to convey to him the painful intelligence, that the fort he was on his way to relieve had fallen, by an act of the basest treachery, into the hands of the Irish. After repeated and fruitless attacks upon the castle, the besiegers despairing at length of success, had resorted to a stratagem which, if at all fairly represented, must for ever draw down the historian's most unmitigated reprobation on all those persons, lay and clerical, who took part in so base and impious a fraud. In order to inveigle Fitz-Stephen into the surrender of his castle, information was conveyed to him that Roderic and his army had made themselves masters of Dublin; and a parley was proposed for the purpose of satisfying him of the truth and accuracy of this intelligence. With utter disregard as well of religious as of all moral obligations, they brought forward, it is said, at this conference, the Bishops of Wexford and Kildare, who, coming arrayed in their sacred vestments to the brink of the ditch, there took a most solemn oath, upon some relics of saints which they had brought for the purpose, that the Irish were in possession of Dublin; that the whole of the garrison, including the earl himself, Fitz-Gerald and Raymond, were all cut to pieces; and that the monarch was now on his march to Wexford, to extirpate the remains of the English adventurers in that quarter. It was partly out of friendship, as they pretended, to Fitz-Stephen, on account of his mild government of the territory over which he had been placed, that they now communicated to him this information; and, should he think right, while there was yet time for his rescue, to avail himself of their protection, they solemnly promised to convey both himself and his garrison safely to Wales.

Deceived by this gross stratagem, Fitz Stephen surrendered himself into the hands of these perjurers; when instantly the mask they had assumed was thrown off, some of his companions were basely murdered by them, and the remainder, after having been beaten almost to death, were, together with himself, chained and thrown into prison.

Scarcely had this infamous fraud been accomplished, when, to the utter dismay of all the accomplices in it, intelligence reached them that Earl Strongbow, having forced the Irish to raise the siege of Dublin, was advancing with his army to Wexford. Thrown into consternation by this news, they immediately set fire to the town, and taking with them their effects, and all the prisoners they had made at the Carrig, retired to an island, lying off the harbour, called Beg-Erin, or Little Erin.f

On Strongbow's arrival in the neighbourhood of the scene of this transaction, he had to endure the double mortification of at once hearing of the melancholy fate of his friends, and finding himself debarred from even the satisfaction of taking revenge; for, on his

melancholy associations, and imparts to the solemnity of the scene what I may call a political picturesque. From the fosse of that tower, memory may take a long and dismal retrospect:. years have flowed by, like the waters which it overshadows, and yet it is not changed. It stands as if it were the work of yester. day; and, as it was the first product of English domination, so it is its type, &c. &c."-Speech of Mr. Sheil delivered at Wexford, 22d of July, 1825.

*"We have a sample," says Dr. Lanigan," of the hopeful kind of ecclesiastics who came over to Ireland with Strongbow and others, in one Nicholas, a monk who fought in their armies. . . . . Such were the missionaries who, according to the wish of Adrian IV., were to establish pure religion and sound ecclesiastical discipline in Ireland."-Eccles. Hist. chap. xxix. note 106.

† According to Regan's account, Beckerin (as he calls it) was "a castle situated upon the river Slane."See Ware, Antiq. ch. 6. at Edri; also ch. 30., where, in speaking of Beg Eri, he says, "Perhaps this is the island which Pliny calls Edros, and Ptolemy, Edri." This island was celebrated for a monastery built upon it by St. Ibar; in reference to which there occurs a passage in the life of St. Abban, another Irish saint, which will be found confirmatory of what I have above stated, as to the extent of the territory anciently called Hy-Kinsellagh. "In famosissimo quondam et sanctissimo monasterio suo quod Beg-Erin, id est, Parva Hibernia vocatur, et situm est ad Australem partem regionis Hua-Kensellach."-Quoted by Usher, Eccles. Primord. Addend. et Emendand.

O'Halloran's Irish learning, such as it was, ought to have taught him better than to identify Hy-Kinsellagh in extent with Wexford. "Mac Murchad," he says, (book xiii. ch. 1.,)" was to possess the country of Hy-Cinsellagh, or Wexford."