Page:Comic History of England.djvu/118

114 to say that she has more influence in America than in Ireland would be unkind. Surely her modern history is most pathetic.

For three centuries the island was harassed by the Danes and Northmen; but when the Marquis of Queensberry rules were adopted, the latter threw up the sponge. The finish fight occurred at Clontarf, near Dublin.

Henry had written permission from the Pope to conquer Ireland years and years before he cared to do it. Sometimes it rained, and at other times he did not feel like it, so that his permission got almost worn out by carrying it about with him.

In 1172, however, an Irish chief, or subordinate king, had trouble with his kingdom,—doubtless because some rival monarch stepped in it and tracked it around over the other kingdoms,—and so he called upon the Anglo-Normans under Strongbow (Richard de Clare), whose declaration of Independence was the first thing of the kind known to civilization, for help. While assisting the Irish chief, Strongbow noticed a royal wink on the features of Henry, and acting upon it proceeded to gather in the other precincts of Ireland. Thus, in 1172, the island was placed under the rule of a viceroy sent there by England.

Henry now had trouble with three of his sons, Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey, who threatened that if the old gentleman did not divide up his