Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV. The campaign of the year 1171 languished from a variety of causes. At the very outset, the invaders lost their chief patron, who had been so useful to them. During the siege of Dublin in the previous autumn, the townsmen of Wexford, who were in revolt, had by stratagem induced Robert Fitzsteven to surrender his fort at Carrick, and had imprisoned him in one of the islands of their harbour. Waterford had been surprised and taken by Cormac McCarthy, Prince of Desmond, and Strongbow, alarmed by the proclamation of Henry, knew hardly whether to consider himself outlaw, subject, or independent sovereign. Richard had originally acted. It was evidently not the policy of Henry to abandon the enterprise already so well begun, but neither was it his interest or desire that any subject should reap the benefit or erect an independent power upon his mere permission to embark in the service of McMurrow.
Hervey, the Earl's uncle, had been dispatched as ambassador in Raymond's place, but with no better success. At length Richard himself, by the advice of all his councillors, repaired to England, and waited on Henry at Newenham in Gloucestershire. At first he was ignominiously refused an audience, but after repeated solicitations he was permitted to renew his homage. He then yielded in due form the city of Dublin and whatever other conquests he claimed, and consented to hold his lands in Leinster as chief tenant from the Crown, in return for which he was graciously forgiven the success that had attended his adventure, and permitted to accompany the King's expedition in the ensuing autumn. Before Strongbo's departure for England, three unsuccessful attempts had been made for the expulsion of the Norman garrison from Dublin. They were unfortunately not undertaken in concert, but rather in succession. The first was an attempt at surprising the city by Asculf Mac Torkle, probably relying on the active aid of the inhabitants of his own race. He had but a small force, chiefly from the Isles of Insegul and the Orkneys. The Orcadians were under the command of a warrior called John the Furious or Mad, the last of those wild beserkers of the North, whose valor was regarded in pagan days as a species of divine frenzy.
This redoubted champion, after a momentary success, was repulsed by Milo and Richard de Kogan, and finally fell by the hand of Walter de Riddlesford. Asculf was taken prisoner, and avowing boldly his intention never to desist from attempting to recover the place, was put to death. The second attack has been often described as a regular investment by Roderick O'Connor at the head of all the forces of the island, which was only broken up in the ninth week of its duration by a desperate Sally on the part of the famished garrison. Many details and episodes, proper to so long a beleaguement, are given by Géraldus and reproduced by his copyists. We find, however, little warrant for these passages in our native annals, any more than for the antithetical speeches which the same partial historian places in the mouths of his heroes. The Four Masters limit the time to the course of a fortnight. Roderick, according to their account, was accompanied by the lords of Brefny and Oriole only. Frequent skirmishes and conflicts took place, and excursion was made against the Lenster allies of the Normans to cut down and burn the corn of the Saxons. The surprise by night of the monarch's camp is also duly recorded, and that the enemy carried off the provisions, armour and horses of Roderick. By which Sally, according to Géraldus, Dublin having obtained provisions enough for a year, Earl Richard marched to Wexford, taking the highway by a drone with the hope to deliver Fitzsteven.
But the Wexford men, having burned their suburbs and sent their goods and families into the stockaded island, sent him word that at the first attack they would put Fitzsteven and his companions to death. The Earl, therefore, held sorrowfully on his way to Waterford, where, leaving a stronger force than the first garrison to which he had entrusted it, he sailed for England to make his peace with King Henry. The third attempt on Dublin was made by the Lord of Brefny during the Earl's absence, and when the garrison were much reduced, it was equally unsuccessful with those already recorded. De Kogan displayed his usual courage, and the Lord of Brefny lost a son and some of his best men in the assault. It was upon the marches of Wales that the Earl found King Henry busily engaged in making preparations for his own voyage into Ireland. He had levied on the landholders throughout his dominions an esquitage, or commutation, for personal service, and the pipe roll, which contains his disbursements for the year, has led an habitually cautious writer to infer that the force raised for the expedition was much more numerous than has been represented by historians. During the muster of his forces, he visited Pembroke and made a progress through North Wales, severely censuring those who had enlisted under Strongbow and placing garrisons of his own men in their castles. At St. David's, he made the usual offering on the Shrine of the Saint and received the hospitalities of the Bishop. All things being in readiness, he sailed from Milford Haven with a fleet of 400 transports, having on board many of the Norman nobility, 500 knights, and an army usually estimated of 4,000 men at arms.
On the 18th of October, 1171, he landed safely at Crook in the county of Waterford, being unable, according to an old local tradition, to sail up the river from adverse winds. As one headland of that harbour is called Hook and the other Crook, the old adage, by Hook or by Crook, is thought to have arisen on this occasion. In Henry's train beside Earl Richard, there came over Hugh de Lacey, sometime Constable of Chester, William's son of Aldilm, ancestor of the Clan Ricardies, Theobald Walter, ancestor of the Butlers, Robert Lepore, ancestor of the Powers, Humphrey de Bohun, Robert FitzBarnard, Hugh de Gunderville, Philip de Hastings, Philip de Braos, and many other cavaliers whose names were renowned throughout the world. These were the men, who were the most powerful men, who had ceased to be sacred, and in a chieftain race, brave indeed as mortal men could be, but envious, arrogant, revengeful, and insubordinate. For their criminal indulgence of these demoniacal passions, a terrible chastisement was about to fall on them, and not only on them, but also, alas, on their poor people. The whole time passed by Henry II in Ireland was from the 18th of October, 1171, till the 17th of April following, just seven months. For the first politician of his age, with the command of such troops, and so much treasure, these seven months could not possibly be barren of consequences. Winter, the season of diplomacy, was seldom more industriously or expertly employed. The townsmen of Wexford, aware of his arrival as soon as it had taken place, hastened to make their submission and to deliver up to him their prisoner, Robert FitzSteven, the first of the invaders.
Henry, affecting the same displeasure towards FitzSteven he did for all those who had anticipated his own expedition, ordered him to be fettered and imprisoned in Reginald's Tower. At Waterford he also received the friendly overtures of the lords of Dessies and Ossery, and probably some form of feudal submission was undergone by those chiefs. Cormac, Prince of Desmond, followed their example, and soon afterwards Donald O'Brien of Thomond met him on the banks of the Seward, not far from Cashel, made his peace and agreed to receive a Norman garrison in his hiberno-Danish city of Limerick. Having appointed commanders over these and other southern garrisons, Henry proceeded to Dublin, where a spacious Cagework Palace, on a lawn without the city, was prepared for winter quarters. Here he continued those negotiations with the Irish chiefs, which we are told were so generally successful. Amongst others, whose adhesion he received, mention is made of the Lord of Brefney, the most faithful follower the monarch Roderick could count. The chiefs of the northern High Neale remain deaf to all his overtures, and though Fitz-Heldhelm and De Lacey, the commissioners dispatched to treat with Roderick, are said to have procured from the deserted Ardrey an act of submission, it is incredible that a document of such consequence should have been allowed to perish.
Indeed, most of the confident assertions about submissions to Henry are to be taken with great caution. It is quite certain he himself, though he lived nearly twenty years after his Irish expedition, never assumed any Irish title whatever. It is equally true that his successor Richard I never assumed any such title as an incident of the English crown. And although Henry in the year 1185 created his youngest son, John Lackland, Lord of Ireland, it was precisely in the same spirit and with as much ground of title as he had for creating Hugh de Lacey, Lord of Meath, or John de Corsi, Earl of Holster. Of this question of title we shall speak more fully hereafter, for we do not recognise any English sovereign as King of Ireland previous to the year 1541. But it ought surely to be conclusive evidence that neither had Henry claimed the crown, nor had the Irish chiefs acknowledged him as their Ardrey, that in the two authentic documents from his hand which we possess, he neither signs himself Rex, nor dominates Hibernii. These documents are the Charter of Dublin and the Concession of Glendalock, and their authenticity has never been disputed. After spending a right Merry Christmas with Norman and Milesian guests in abundance at Dublin, Henry proceeded to that work of religious reformation under plea of which he had obtained the Bill of Pope Adrian, 17 years before, declaring such an expedition undertaken with such motives lawful and praiseworthy.
Early in the new year, by his desire, a Synod was held at Cashel, where many salutary decrees were enacted. These related to the proper solemnisation of marriage, the catechising of children before the doors of churches, the administration of baptism in baptismal or parish churches, the abolition of aeronauts or lay trustees of church property, and the imposition of tithes both of corn and cattle. By most English writers, this Synod is treated as a national council, and inference is a thence drawn of Henry's admitted power over the clergy of the nation. There is, however, no evidence that the bishops of Ulster or Connord were present at Cashel, but strong negative testimony to the contrary. We read under the date of the same year in the Four Masters that a Synod of the clergy and laity of Ireland was convened at Tuam by Roderick O'Connor and the Archbishop Catholicus O'Duffie. It is hardly possible that this meeting could be in continuation or in concord with the assembly convoked at the instance of Henry.
Following quickly upon the Cashel Synod, Henry held a curia regis, or great court, at Lismore, in which he created the offices of Marshal, Constable and Seneschal for Ireland. Earl Richard was created the First Lord Marshal, De Lacy the First Lord Constable, Theobald, ancestor of the Ormond family, was already Chief Butler, and de Vernon was created the First High Steward or Seneschal. Such other orders could be taken for the preservation of the places already captured was not neglected. The surplus population of Bristol obtained a charter of Dublin to be held of Henry and his heirs, with all the same liberties and pre-customs which they enjoyed at Bristol. Wexford was committed to the charge of Fitz Aldon, Waterford to de Vaughan and Dublin to de Lacy.
Castles were ordered to be erected in the towns and at other points, and the politic king, having caused all those who remained behind to renew their homage in the most solemn form, sailed on Easter Monday from Wexford Haven and on the same day landed at Port Fionon in Wales. Here he assumed the Pilgrim's staff and proceeded humbly on foot to St David's, preparatory to meeting the papal commissioners appointed to inquire into Beckett's murder. It is quite apparent that had Henry landed in Ireland at any other period of his life except in the year of the martyrdom of the renowned Archbishop of Canterbury, while the wrath of Rome was yet hanging poised in the air, ready to be hurled against him, he would not have left the work he undertook but half begun.
The net result of his expedition, of his great fleet, mighty army and sagacious councils was the infusion of a vast number of new adventurers, most of them of higher rank and better fortunes than their precursors, into the same old field. Except the garrisons admitted into Limerick and Cork and the displacing of Strongbow's commandants by his own at Waterford, Wexford and Dublin, there seems to have been little gained in a military sense. The decrees of the Synod of Cashel would, no doubt, stand him in good stead with the papal legates as evidences of his desire to enforce strict discipline,
even on lands beyond those over which he actually ruled. But after all, harassed as he was with apprehensions of the future, perhaps no other prince could have done more in a single winter in a strange country than Henry II did for his seven-month sojourn in Ireland.
