Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/276

 260 IRELAND [HISTORY. Edward I.(1272- 1307). Edward II. (1307- 27). Edward III. (1327- 77). of the five regal and privileged bloods) he was not to be tried for murder, for Irish law admitted composition (erick) for murder. In Magna Charta there is a proviso tbt foreign merchants shall be treated as English merchants are treated in the country whence the travellers came. When Henry III. sent the letter against Irish clerks, Gualo the papal legate was chief minister, and the king a child of eleven years. Yet some enlightened men strove, to fuse the two nations together, and the native Irish, or that section which bordered on the settlements and suffered great oppression, offered 8000 marks to Edward I. for the privilege of living under English law. The justiciary supported their petition, but the prelates and nobles refused to consent. There is a vague tradition that Edward I. visited Ireland&quot; about 1256, when his father ordained that the prince s seal should have regal authority in that country. A vast number of documents remain to prove that he did not neglect Irish business. Yet this great king cannot be credited with any specially enlightened views as to Ireland. Hearing with anger of enormities committed in his name, he summoned the viceroy D Ufford to explain, who coolly said that he thought it expedient to wink at one knave cutting off another, &quot; whereat the king smiled and bade him return into Ireland.&quot; The colonists were strong enough to send large forces to the king in his Scotch wars, but as there was no corresponding immigration this really weakened the English, whose best hopes lay in agriculture and the arts of peace, while the Celtic race waxed propor tionally numerous. Outwardly all seemed fair. The De Burghs were supreme in Connaught, and English families occupied eastern Ulster. The fertile southern and central lands were dominated by strong castles. But Tyrone and Tyrconnel, and the mountains everywhere, sheltered the Celtic race, which, having reached its lowest point under Edward I., began to recover under his son. In 1315, the year after Bannockburn, Edward Bruce landed near Lams with 6000 men, including some of the best knights in Scotland. Supported by O Neill and other chiefs, and for a time assisted by his famous brother, Bruce gained many victories. The Scots ranged at will over great part of Ireland, but the brothers never took Dublin, though they came as near it as Castleknock. There was no general effort of the natives in their favour ; perhaps the Irish thought one Norman no better than another, and their total incapacity for national organization forbade the idea of a native sovereign. The family quarrels of the O Connors at this time, and their alliances with the Burkes, or De Burghs, and the Birminghams, may be traced in great detail in the annalists, the general result being fatal to the royal tribe of Connaught, which is said to have lost 10,000 warriors in the battle of Templetogher. In other places the English were less successful, the Butlers being beaten by the O Carrolls in 1318, and Richard de Clare falling about the same time in the decisive battle of Dysert O De-i. The O Briens re-established their sway in Thomond and the illustrious name of De Clare disappears from Irish history. Edward Bruce fell in battle near Dundalk, most of his army recrossing the channel, and leaving behind a reputation for cruelty and rapacity. Indeed the invaders were generally hated, and have had little thanks either from Irish or colonial chroniclers. The colonists were victorious, but their organization was undermined, and the authority of the crown, which had never been able to keep the peace, grew rapidly weaker. Within twenty years after the great victory of Dundalk, the quarrels of the barons allowed the Irish to recover much of the land they had lost. John de Birmingham, earl of Louth, the conqueror of Bruce, was murdered in 1329 by the Gernons, Cusacks, F.verards, and other English of that county, who disliked his linn government. The} were never brought to justice. Talbot of Malahide and two hundred of Birmingham s rela tions and adherents were massacred at the same time. In 1333 the young earl of Ulster was murdered by the Mande- villes and others ; in this case signal vengeance was taken, but the feudal dominion never recovered the blow, and on the north-east coast the English laws and language were soon confined to Drogheda and Dundalk. The earl left one daughter, Elizabeth, who was of course a royal ward. She married Lionel, duke of Clarence, and from her springs the royal line of England from Edward IV., as well as James V. of Scotland and his descendants. The two chief men among the De Burghs were loth to hold their lands of a little absentee girl. Having no grounds for opposing the royal title to the wardship of the heiress, they abjured English law and became Irish chieftains. As such they were obeyed, for the king s arm was short in Ireland. Sir William appropriated Mayo as the Lower (Oughter) M William, and the earldom of Mayo perpetuates the memory of the event. Sir Edmund as the Upper (Eighter) M William took Gal way, and from him the earls of Clanricarcle afterwards sprung. Edward III. being busy with foreign wars had little time to spare for Ireland, and the native chiefs every where seized their opportunity. Dublin was forced to pay blackmail to M Murrough, and the northern settlements fared no better. In 1348 O Kennedy drove the Cogans and Cantwells from their lands in North Tipperary, and burned Nenagh to the castle walls under the eyes of Ormonde s governor. In 1318 Brian O Brien left Clare, and established himself in Tipperary, founding the family of M Brien Arra. Perhaps the most remarkable of these aggressive chiefs was Lysaght O More, who reconquered Leix. Clyn the Franciscan annalist, whose Latinity is so far above the mediaeval level as almost to recall Tacitus, sums up Lysaght s career epigrammatically : &quot;He was a slave, he became a master ; he was a subject, he became a prince (de servo dominus, de subjecto princeps effectus).&quot; The two great earldoms whose contests form a large 1 part of the history of the south of Ireland were created by * Edward III. James Butler, eldest son of Edmund, earl of | Carrick, became earl of Ormonde and palatine of Tipperary in 1328. Next year Maurice Fitzthomas Fitzgerald was made earl of Desmond, and from his three brethren descended the historic houses of the White Knight, the knight of Glyn, and the knight of Kerry. The earldom of Kildare dates from 1316. la this reign too was passed the statute of Kilkenny, a confession by the crown that obedient subjects were the minority. The enactments against Irish dress and customs, and against marriage and fostering proved a dead letter. In two expeditions to Ireland Richard II. at first over- 1 came all opposition, but neither had any permanent effect. J. Art M Murrough, the great hero of the Leinster Celts, ^ practically had the best of the contest. The king in his despatches divided the population into Irish enemies, Irish rebels, and English subjects. As he found them so he left them, lingering in Dublin long enough to lose his own crown. But for M Murrough and his allies the house of Lancaster might never have reigned. No English king again visited Ireland until James II., declared by his English subjects to have abdicated, and by the more out spoken Scots to have forfeited the crown, appealed to the loyalty or piety of the Catholic Irish. Henry IV. had a bad title, and his necessities were I conducive to the growth of the English constitution, but ; fatal to the Anglo-Irish. His son Thomas was viceroy in ^ 1401, but did very little. &quot;Your son,&quot; wrote the Irish council to Henry, &quot; is so destitute of money that he has not a penny in the world, nor can borrow a single penny,