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 thieves, who were worse than many snakes. In spite of some few settlements of Danish pirates and traders on the eastern coast, Ireland had remained purely Celtic and purely a pasture country. All wealth was reckoned in cows; Rome had never set foot there, so there was a king for every day in the week, and the sole amusement of such persons was to drive off each other’s cows, and to kill all who resisted. In Henry I’s time this had been going on for at least 700 years, and during the 700 that have followed much the same thing would have been going on, if the English Government had not occasionally interfered.

Well, in 1168, one of these wild Kings, being in more than usual trouble, came to Henry and asked for help. Henry said, ‘Oh, go and try some of my barons on the Welsh border; they are fine fighting-men. I have no objection to their going to help you.’ The Welsh border barons promptly went, and, of course, being well armed and trained, a few hundred of their soldiers simply drove everything before them in Ireland, and won, as their reward, enormous estates there. The King began to be anxious about the business, and so, in 1171, he sailed over to Waterford and spent half a year in Ireland. The Irish Kings hastened, one after another, to make complete submission to him; he confirmed his English subjects in their new possessions; he divided the island into counties, appointed sheriffs and Judges for it—and then he went home. He had made only a half-conquest, which is always a bad business, and the English he left behind him soon became as wild and barbarous as the Irishmen themselves.

Henry was succeeded in all his vast dominions by his eldest surviving son, Richard I, ‘Richard the Lion