prince Edward was in Ireland; but there is reason to believe, though we find no mention of it in any of our histories, that he did once, for a short time, visit his Irish dominions. There is, at least, extant, a royal mandate addressed by Henry in the year A. D. 1255, to this prince, approving of his project of passing over to Ireland from 1255. Gascony, and remaining there for the winter,-with the view, as he adds, of reforming and regulating the state of that country; and that the prince may have put such an intention in practice, is rendered, in a high degree, probable, by the tenor of letters addressed to him by the king, in the very same year, ordering him to convoke before him the prelates, barons, and other magnates of Ireland, for the purpose of consulting with them as to the redress and remedy of certain encroachments on their ancient rights complained of by the elergy. Could a gallant example of self-defence have roused the Irish to an effective effort for their own deliverance, they had now, in the struggle of their brave neighbours the Welsh, against English aggression, a precedent worthy of being emulated by them;for most truly was it said of that people, now armed to a man in defence of their mountain soil, that "their cause was just, even in the sight of their enemies." In the course of this warfare, the earl of Chester, who was engaged for some time on the side of the Welsh, had recourse for assistance to Ireland; but prince EdA. D. ward, fitting out hastily a fleet, attacked the vessels which contained this Irish force, and having sunk the greater number of them, sent the remainder back with tidings of the defeat. 1255. Shortly after, the king himself, renewing hostilities with the Welsh prince, Llewellyn, sent to ask for troops and supplies from Ireland, against the very cause she had lately so warmly espoused. Thus was it then, as it has been too frequently since, the hard fate of the Irish to be not only themselves the bond-slaves of England, but to be made, also, her unwilling instruments, in imposing the same yoke of slavery upon others. A. D. In the year 1259 the office of lord justice was held by sir Stephen Longespè, who in an encounter with O'Neill, in the streets of Down, slew that chief and 350 of his followers. Before the end of the year, however, Longespé himself was treacherously murdered by his own people. During the administration of his successor, Wil1259. liam Den, a general rising of the Mac Carthys of Desmond threw all Munster into confusion. This warlike sept, the ancient proprietors of the kingdom of Desmond, had, by the grants made to the Geraldines in that territory, been despoiled of almost the whole of their princely possessions. It was not, however, without fierce and frequent struggles that they suffered their soil to be thus usurped by the foreigners; and, at the time we now treat of, attacking suddenly a number of nobles and knights collected at Callan, they slew, among other distinguished Geraldines, the lord John Fitz-Thomas, founder of the monastery of Tralee, together with Maurice, his son, eight barons, 1261. and fifteen knights. In consequence of this great success, says the chronicler, the Mae Carthys grew, for a time, so powerful, that "the Geraldines durst not put a plough into the ground in Desmond. A. D. As usual, however, the dissension of the natives among themselves proved the safety and strength of the common enemy's cause. The mutual jealousy to which joint success so frequently leads now sprang up among the different septs, both of Carbery and Muskerry; and the Mac Carthys, O'Driscolls, O'Donovans, and Mac Mahons, who had lately joined, with such signal success, against the English being now disunited among themselves, fell powerless before them. The remaining years of this long reign continued to roll on, at once dully and turbidly, in the same monotonous course of fierce but ignoble strife which had darkened its records from the commencement. As if schooled into civil discord by the example of the natives, scarcely had the swords of the great English lords found time to rest from their wars with the Mac Carthys and Mac Mahons, than they again drew them in deadly conflict against each other; and the families of the De Burghs and the Geraldines were now engaged in as fierce contention among themselves, as, but a short time before, they had The writ for the sailing of the prince to Ireland, may be found in Rymer, tom. i. p. 560, 561. ↑ "Causa autem eorum etiam hostibus eorum just a videbatur." This officer, who was a descendant of the countess Ela of Salisbury (foundress of Lacock Abbey,) is styled, in the Book of Lacock, earl of Ulster; and Borlase, among others, has adopted the mistake. The truth is, Stephen Longespé married the widow of Hugh de Lacy, who had been male earl of Ulster by king John, and hence, no doubt the misconception. See Annals and Antiquities of Lacock Abbey, by the Rev. W. L. Bowles, pp. 154, 155, The Mac Carthys (says the old chronicler, in language worthy of his subject)"were now playing the devil in Desmond." T Hanmer. been waging jointly against the Irish. Walter de Burgh, who in consequence of his marriage with the daughter and heiress of Hugh de Lacy, had been created earl of Ul- A. D. ster, was, at this time, the head of the great house of the De Burghs; and to such a 1264. pitch had arisen the feud between them and the Geraldines, that, at a meeting held this year at Castle Dermond, Maurice Fitz-Maurice Fitz-Gerald, assisted by John FitzThomas (afterwards earl of Kildare,) audaciously seized on the persons of Richard de Capella, the lord justice, of Richard de Burgh, heir apparent of Ulster, of Theobald le Butler, and one or two other great partisans of the family of the De Burghs, and committed them to prison in the castles of Ley and Dunamase.* At length, the attention of the English monarch, already sufficiently distracted by the difficulties of his own position, was drawn to the disturbed state of his Irish dominions. A parliament or council was held at Kilkenny, by whose advice the prisoners so arbitrarily detained by the Geraldines were released; and the king, recalling the present lord justice, appointed in his place David Barry (the ancestor of the noble family of Barrymore,) who, curbing the insolent ambition of the Geraldines, restored peace between the two rival houses. Among those unerring symptoms of a weak and vicious system of policy, which meet the eye on the very surface of the dreary history we are pursuing, may be rec- A. D. koned the frequent change of chief governors;-showing how uneasy, under such 1267. laws, was power, as well to the rulers as the ruled. David Barry had been but a few months the lord justice, when he was replaced by sir Robert de Ufford, during whose administration there came over a writ from king Henry to levy aurum regina for Elianor, the wife of prince Edward. This act of sovereignty, exercised by Henry in Ireland, sufficiently proves how far from his intention it had been to cede to his son the right of dominion over that realm. But a still stronger proof is afforded by a writ issued in the same year, wherein he annuls a grant of some lands made by Edward, without his permission, and transfers them to the son of his own brother, Richard, earl of Cornwall. During the administration of sir James Audley, or Aldethel, the last but one of the numerous chief governors who administered the affairs of the country during this A. D. reign, a more than ordinary effort of vigour was made by the natives to wreak ven- 1270. geance, at least, on their masters, if not to right and emancipate themselves. Rising up in arms all over the country, they burned, despoiled, and slaughtered in every direction, making victims both of high and low. In the country then called Offaley, all the fortified places were destroyed by them; while, in the mean time, the prince of Connaught, availing himself of the general excitement, took the field against Walter de Burgh, earl of Ulster, and putting his forces to rout, killed, among a number of other nobles and knights, the lords Richard and John de Verdon. In the year 1272, this long reign-the longest to be found in the English annals-was brought to a close: and the few meager and scattered records which have been strung together in this chapter comprise all that Ireland furnishes towards the history of a reign whose course, in England, was marked by events so pregnant with interest and importance,-events which by leading to a new distribution of political power, were the means of introducing a third estate into the constitution of the English legislature. It is somewhat remarkable, too, that the very same order of men, the fierce and haughty barons, who laid the foundation, at this time, in Ireland, of a system of provincial despotism, of which not only the memory but the vestiges still remain, should have been likewise, by the strong force of circumstances, made subservient to the future establishment of representative government and free institutions in England. Annal. Hib, ap. Camd.-Dunamase, signifying the Fortress of the Plain, was in ancient times, the strong. hold of the O'Moores, princes of Ley. As this rock bounded the English Pale on the west, a castle was built there for the protection of the vicinity, which Vallancey thinks must have been erected about the beginning of Henry the Third's reign; as, nearly at the same time, the castle of Ley, a structure similar in its general style of architecture, and about eight miles distant, was erected by the barons of Offaley on the banks of the Barrow."-Collectanea, vol. ii. † See this writ in Cox. CHAPTER XXXV. EDWARD I. Laws of England not yet extended to the Irish.-Revolt of the natives-seize on the person of the lord deputy, and defeat his successor in battle.-Wars of De Clare in Thomondhis treachery to the contending chiefs-is defeated by Tirlogh O'Brian.-Petition of the Irish to be admitted to the benefits of English law-the king favourable to their request.— Grant of charters of denization.—Continuance of the feud between the Geraldines and the De Burghs.-Great power of the earl of Ulster.-Contest between De Vescy and the baron of Offaley-triumph of the latter, and his insolence in consequence-throws the earl of Ulster into prison.-Truce between the Geraldines and De Burghs.-A parliament assembled.Irish forces summoned to join the king in Scotland.-Savage murders committed both by English and Irish. THERE had now elapsed exactly a century from the time of the landing of Henry II.; and it would be difficult to pronounce a severer or more significant comment upon A. D. the policy pursued by the rulers of Ireland, during that period, than is found in a petition addressed to king Edward, in an early part of his reign, praying that he would extend to the Irish the benefit of the laws and usages of England..* 1272. It was the wise boast of the Romans, that their enemies, on the day they were conquered, became their fellow citizens;† and one of the most eloquent of the Roman philosophers demands, "What would have become of the empire had not a kindly Providence mixed up together the victors and the vanquished?" Far different was the policy adopted by the rude satraps of the English colony, who, seeing no safety for their own abused power but in the weakness of those subjected to them, took counsel of their fears, and, never relaxing the unsure hold, continued through ages to keep the Irish in the very same hostile and alien state in which they had found them. A. D. 1272. The reign of Edward I., which forms so eventful a portion of England's history and, combines in its course so rare and remarkable a mixture of the brilliant and the solid, the glorious and the useful, presents, as viewed through the meager records of Ireland, a barren and melancholy waste-unenlivened even by those fiery outbreaks of just revenge, which, at most other periods, flash out from time to time, lighting up fearfully the scene of suffering and strife. In the first year, indeed, of this reign, before the return of Edward from abroad, advantage was taken of his absence, by the natives, to make a sudden and desperate effort for their own deliverence. Attacking the castles of Roscommon Aldleck, and Sligo, they dismantled, or, as it is said, destroyed them;|| and at the same time were enabled, through the treachery of his followers, to seize the person of the lord justice, Maurice Fitz-Maurice, and cast him into prison. T This nobleman was succeeded in his high office by the lord Walter Genevil, newly returned from the Holy Land, during whose administration the Scots and RedA. D. shanks, out of the Highlands, made a sudden incursion into Ireland, and committing 1273. the most cruel murders and depredations, escaped with their booty before the inhabitants had time to rally in their defence. Shortly after, however, a considerable force under Richard de Burgh and sir Eustace de Poer, invading, in their turn, the Highlands and Scottish isles, spread desolation wherever they went, putting to death all whom they could find; while such as dwelt, in the manner of the ancient Irish, in caves, were smoked out from thence, like foxes from their holes, or destroyed by suffocation. 1267. The successor of Genevil in the government of the country was Robert de A. D. Ufford, now for the second time lord justice; and the five or six following years, during which, personally, or through his deputy, Stephen de Fulburn, he managed the affairs of the country, were distracted by a series of petty wars, in which not only * Prynne, cap. 1xxvi. 257 "Conditor noster Romulus tantum apientia valuit, ut plerosque populos eodem die hostes deinde cives habuerit."-Tacitus. ↑ "Quid hodie esset imperium, nisi salubris providentia victos permiscuisset victoribus?"—Seneca. §Quasi omnes Hiberni guerraverunt," says a MS. fragment, cited by Cox, respecting this general revolt. [ Hanmer. T Ware's Annals. English fought with Irish, but the Irish, assisted by the arms of the foreigner, fought no less bitterly against their own countrymen. At the great battle of Glandelory, the English were defeated with much slaughter; and among the numerous prisoners taken is mentioned William Fitz-Roger, prior of the king's hospitallers. On the other hand, Ralph Pippard, assisted by O'Hanlon, gave, in the same year, a severe check to the great chieftain O'Neill.* But it was in Thomond that the scenes most tumultuous and most disgraceful to the English name were now exhibited. A large grant of lands, in Thomond, had been, about this time, bestowed upon Thomas de Clare, son of the earl of Gloucester; whether by grant from the crown, or as a gift from one of the O'Brian family,† does not very clearly appear. Having thus got footing in that territory, De Clare proceeded on a course of open and flagrant treachery, such as proved both the simplicity of his victims, and his own daring craft. Taking advantage of the fierce strife then raging among the O'Brians for the succession to the throne of Thomond, he contrived, by supporting and be- 1277. traying each of the rivals, in turn, to enrich and aggrandize himself at the expense of all. To enter into the details of these multiplied treacheries would be an almost endless task; but the following is a brief outline of the events as they are found related in the Annals of Inisfallen. A. D. Forming an alliance with Brian Ruadh, whose nephew Tirlogh was then contending with him for the principality, De Clare, attended by Brian himself, marched an army of English and Irish against his competitor. In the battle which then ensued, the allied forces under the English lord were utterly defeated; and among the slain was Patrick Fitz-Maurice, the son and heir of Fitz-Maurice of Kerry, and brother to De Clare's wife. As it was in Brian's cause this calamitous defeat had been incurred, the conclusion drawn by the barbarous logic of De Clare was, that upon him, first the disaster ought to be avenged; and, the wife and father-in-law of Fitz-Maurice being the most loud in A. D. demanding this sacrifice, the wretched chieftain was put to death, and, according 1277. to some accounts, with peculiar refinement of cruelty. The manner in which De Clare followed up this crime affords a sequel, in every way, worthy of it. To Tirlogh; against whom he had so lately fought, in conjunction with Brian, he made a merit of having thus removed so formidable a rival; while, at the same time, he entered into negotiations with Donogh O'Brian, the son of the murdered prince, and engaged to assist him in gaining the throne of Thomond. To effect this object, and put down the pretensions of the usurper, a force was collected under the joint command of De Clare and Donogh, which, making an impetuous attack upon Tirlogh, drove him, as the annalist describes the locality, "to the east of the wood of Forbair." The Irish chieftain, however, making his way back through defiles and by-ways with which he was acquainted, fell upon the confederates by surprise, and gained so decisive a victory, that they were forced to surrender to him half of the country of Thomond, leaving the remainder in the hands of the rightful successor, Donogh. De Clare, in drawing off his troops from the territories of these chiefs, said significantly, that "the first of them who would lay waste the other's lands, should be his declared friend for life." In one of these battles, fought by this lord with the Irish, himself and his father-in-law; Fitz-Maurice, were drawn, with a part of their force, into a pass in the mountains of Slieve Bloom, and there compelled to surrender at discretion. While such was the state of Thomond, in almost every other direction the same strife and struggle prevailed; the infatuated natives performing actively the work of the enemy, by butchering each other. Thus, in a battle between the king of Connaught and the chief of the Mac Dermots of Moy-Lurg, the army of Connaught was utterly defeated * Hanmer. ↑ According to Lodge, "all that tract of Thomond which extends from Limerick to Ath Solais, was bestowed by Bryan Ruadh, prince of Thomond, upon Thomas de Clare, in consideration of this lord coming with the English troops to reinstate him in his kingdom." But, according to others, this immense property was a reckless gift from the crown: and a grant (Pat. Roll, 4 Ed. 1.,) of ample liberties in his lands of Thomond to Thomas de Clare, seems to confirm this statement.-See Ryley's Placit. Parliamentar., Appen dix, 439. 1 MS., translated by Charles O'Connor of Belanagare, and now in the possession of Messrs. Smith and Hodges, Dublin. Though Leland cites these annals as an authority for his account of De Clare's proceedings in Thomond, the statements made by him differ entirely from those found in the Annals. § The particulars of this treacherous act, as given by the Annalist, are as follows:-" The earl of Clare's son took Brian Roe O'Brian prisoner very deceitfully, after they had sworn to each other all the oaths in Munster-as bells, relics of saints, and bachals-to be true to one another; also after they became sworn gossips, and for confirmation of this third indissoluble bond of perpetual friendship, they drew part of the blood of one another, which they put in a vessel and mingled it together. After all which protestations, the said Brian was taken, as aforesaid, and bound to a steed; and so was tortured to death by the said earl's son." 1277. with the loss of two thousand men, and the king himself slain. It was with reA. D. ference to this battle that the lord justice, Robert de Ufford, when called to account by king Edward for permitting such disorders, replied shrewdly, that "he thought it not amiss to let rebels murder one another, as it would save the king's coffers, and purchase peace for the land."* A. D. It is clear that the petition addressed to the king, by the natives, praying for the privileges of English law, had not yet been even taken into consideration by the 1280. barons, as we find Edward, in the present year, again calling upon the lords spiritual and temporal, as well as the whole body of English subjects in "the Land of Ireland," to assemble and deliberate upon that prayer. Intimating clearly the views he himself entertained on the subject, and the nature of the decision, which, if left to his own clear sense and vigorous will, he could not have failed to adopt, he yet declares, that without the concurrence of at least the prelates and nobles of the land, he should not feel justified in granting the desired boon. With evident allusion, however, to certain excuses alleged by the barons for not sooner applying themselves to the subject, he enjoins strictly, that they shall by no means omit, in consequence of the absence of any of their body, whether owing to business or from their being under age, to meet at the time, which he had appointed, and to give to the subject such full and mature deliberation, as might serve to point out to him the line of policy most expedient for him to adopt.‡ The petitioners, though styled, in vague language, "the community" of Ireland, were, in all probability, only the inhabitants of the districts bordering on the English settlement, who, from contiguity of property and other causes, were brought the most frequently into collision with the king's subjects, in matters of law as well as of warfare; and naturally wished, by acquiring possession of the same rights and privileges as were enjoyed by their neighbours, to share with them the safeguard of English law, instead of knowing it only as an instrument of oppression. As the crown in those times, required to be bribed into justice, these wretched petitioners did not forget that necessary consideration, but offered to pay into the king's trea sury 8000 marks, on condition that he would grant their request; and the king, in his reply to the lord justice, begins by mentioning-what was, with him, doubtless, not the least interesting part of the transaction-this tender of a sum of money; it having been, throughout his whole reign, one of the most pressing objects of his policy to raise supplies for the constant warfare, both foreign and internal, in which he was engaged. He then proceeds, in this letter, to say that, inasmuch as the laws used by the Irish were hateful in the sight of God, and so utterly at variance with justice as not to deserve to be regarded as laws, he had considered the question deliberately, with the aid of his council, and it had appeared to them sufficiently expedient to grant to that people the English laws:provided always, that the common consent of the English settlers, or at least of their welldisposed prelates and nobles, should lend sanction to such a measure.|| Thus laudibly anxious was this great prince to settle calmly the question, then first brought into discussion, whether the Irish were to be ruled by the same laws, and enjoy the same rights and privileges, as the English; a question which, under various forms and phases, has remained, essentially, down to the present day, in almost the same state in which Edward then found and left it. Notwithstanding the urgent terms of the royal mandate, no farther step appears to have been taken on this important subject, either by king or barons; and it may be concluded, indeed, from the records of licenses granted in this and subsequent reigns, admitting certain favoured individuals to the privileges of English law, that no such general measure of denization as the Irish had prayed for, and the throne wisely recommended, was, throughout that whole period, conceded. Mean while, the entire country continued to be convulsed with constant warfare, not only of Irish with English, but of the natives and settlers respectively among themselves, and the long-standing feud between the Geraldines and the De Burghs was, owing to the power of the great families enlisted in it, prolonged through the greater part of 1286. this reign. But the deaths, in 1286, of the two leading barons, Gerald Fitz-Maurice and the lord Thomas de Clare, threw the ascendency, without farther dispute, A. D. * Cox. The district occupied by the English, and known, at a later period, by the name of the Fale, was at this time, and for some centuries after called "the Land of Ireland."" Pat. Roll, 8 Ed. I. This letter of the king is given in full by Leland. In order to turn this concession to the most profitable account, for the recruitment of his fiscal and military means, he desired the lord justice to agree with the petitioners for the highest sum of money he could obtain; and also to stipulate that they should hold in readiness a certain number, as might be agreed upon, of good and able foot soldiers, to repair to him whensoever he should think fit to summon their aid. The form of these licenses may be seen in Prynne, 258. |