Chapter 20

After a time Oraric retired a few steps from the rest, and made a sign, on which an Irishman came forward and gave him his weapons. He instantly fell upon Hugo de Lacy, and would have cloven his skull, if the interpreter had not thrown himself between, and saved his master, with the loss of his own arm. Oraric’s men sprung from their ambush, but at the same moment the eight Fitzgeralds rushed to the rescue; the traitor fled, pursued by Griffith, who overtook him, thrust him through with a lance, cut off his head, and sent it to King Henry.

Hugo de Lacy kept tolerable order until the King recalled him in the troubles occasioned by the rebellion of the young princes, when trusty friends were scarce. Earl Strongbow became governor, and was at once more violent and less firm in the restraint of English and Irish. He quarrelled with Raymond le Gros for presuming to gain the affections of his sister Basilia, and took from him the command, conferring it on Hervé de Montmarais, a person much disliked. Raymond went home to Wales, to receive his inheritance, on his father’s death; and the Irish, as old Campion’s history says, rose “tagge and ragge;” headed by Roderick O’Connor. They be sieged Waterford and Dublin; and Strongbow, in distress, wrote to Raymond: “As soon as you read this, make all the haste you can, bring all the help you can raise, and you shall have what you have so long desired.” No further summons was needed; and just as Waterford was on the point of being taken, and the wild Irish were about to massacre the English, Raymond, with twenty ships, sailed into the harbor, dispersed the Irish, relieved Dublin, and in his full armor wedded the Lady Basilia. The very next morning he pursued the Irish; he took Limerick, and reduced Roderick to come to a final peace with the King, to whom that prince sent messengers, disdaining to treat with Strongbow.

Montmarais, being displaced, went in revenge to the King, and maligned Raymond, so that Henry empowered commissioners to inquire into his conduct, and send him home. Just as he was departing, the O’Briens of Thomond broke out in insurrection, and besieged Limerick; the troops refused to march unless under Raymond, and the commissioners were obliged to send him to chastise the rebels. He pushed his conquests into Desmond, and established his good fame. During his absence Earl Strongbow died, leaving, by Eva, one daughter named Isabel, who, being of tender age, became the ward of the Crown. It is said that he also had a son by a former wife, and that this youth, being seized with a panic in a battle with the Irish, was afterward stricken through with a sword by his command, though given with streaming tears. He was buried at Dublin, with an epitaph recording his cowardice.

The friends of Montmarais were resolved to let no tidings of Strongbow’s death reach Raymond, that so they might first gain the ear of the King, and prevent him being made governor. They turned back all the servants, and intercepted all the letters sent to him with the news, till they were outwitted by Lady Basilia. She wrote a letter to her husband, with no word of her brother, but full of household matters; among others, that she had lost the “master tooth which had been so long ailing, and she sent it to him for a token.” The tooth was “tipped with gold and burnished featly,” but Raymond knew it was none of his lady’s; and gathering her meaning, hurried home, and was made Protector of Ireland till the King’s pleasure should be known. Henry sent as governor William Fitz Adhelm, a selfish voluptuary, under whose command all went ill; and, indeed, the English rule never prospered except when in the hands of good old Hugo de Lacy, under whom “the priest kept his church, the soldier his garrison, and the ploughman followed his plough.” But Henry, who was constantly tormented by jealousies of his Anglo-Irish nobles, was perpetually recalling him on suspicion, and then finding it necessary to send him back again. He built many castles, and, while fortifying that of Dernwath, was entreated by some of the Irish to allow them to work for hire. Glad to encourage any commencement of industry, he took a pickaxe to show them how to work; when one of them, seizing the moment when he bent forward to strike with it, cleft his head with an axe, and killed him on the spot. His less worthy nephew and namesake succeeded to his Irish estates, and at times held the government.

King Henry intended Ireland as the inheritance of his son John, and in 1185 wrote to request the Pope to grant him the investiture. Urban returned a favorable answer, and with it a crown of peacock’s feathers set in gold--a more appropriate present than he intended for the feather-pated prince, who was then sixteen years of age, and who, having been knighted by his father, set off for Dublin, accompanied by a train of youths of his own age, whom the steadier heads of the good knight Philip Barry, and his clerkly relative Gerald, were unable to keep in order. This Gerald Barry was the historian commonly known as Giraldus Cambrensis, to whom we are chiefly indebted for the account of the conquest of Ireland. The Irish chiefs of Leinster flocked to pay their respects, but were most improperly received by John and his friends, who could not restrain their mirth at their homely garb, and soon proceeded to gibes and practical jokes; pricking them with pins, and rapping them on the head with a stick as they bent to pay homage, tweaking their ample mantles, and pulling their long beards and moustaches, all as if they had studied to enrage this proud and sensitive people. These were the Irish of the friendly country; and when those of more distant and unsubdued regions heard what treatment they had met, they turned back, and soon broke out in insurrection. John and his gay companions did not stay to meet the storm they had raised, but hastily fled to England, and the King wrote to Sir John de Courcy to take the government, and do his best to restore obedience.

It is round this De Courcy that the interest of the Irish wars chiefly centres. [Footnote: This history of De Courcy is derived from an old life of him by an Irish priest, which is disputed by many historical authorities] In his youth, while serving the King in Normandy, he had made friends with Sir Almeric Tristrem, and, in true chivalrous style, the two knights plighted their faith in the Church of our Lady at Rouen, to be sworn brethren-in-arms, to live and die for each other, and to divide equally whatever they might gain in war. Their friendship was never broken till death, and their whole career was one of perfect chivalry. Almeric became the husband of his friend’s sister, and in honor of this closer alliance changed his surname to De St. Laurence, their wedding-day being the feast of that Saint. The two brethren-in-arms came into Ireland with Henry in 1172, and De Courcy received a grant of Ulster, when he could conquer it. Sir Almeric at once landed at Howth, and fought a bloody battle, in which he gained the victory, but with the loss of seven of his kindred, and for that reason Howth was made his portion, and long remained in his family. At the battle of Daud, fought with Roderick O’Connor, the two friends, with seven hundred men, were again victorious, owing to a timely charge of Almeric’s with his reserve of forty horse. The next midsummer another battle took place, with the same result, though Sir Almeric was so sorely wounded that he was found lying, faint and bleeding, under a hedge, eating honeysuckles by way of cure, and his son Nicholas received nine wounds, and was left for dead. These successes made the Irish submit, and De Courcy was acknowledged as their feudal chief. He proceeded to build castles, and granted two of them to one MacMahon, who had made every promise of fidelity. Within a month, De Courcy heard that the castles were pulled down, and, on his calling his refractory vassal to account, received a truly Irish answer: MacMahon said he had not promised to hold stones, but land, and it was contrary to his nature to couch within cold stones, when the warm woods were so nigh.

De Courcy proceeded to foray his land, and was driving off a great herd of cattle, when a host of Irish set on him, and by their shouts so frightened the cows, that they ran on the English, and more were killed by being trodden down by them than were slain by the Irish; and De Courcy and De St. Laurence with difficulty collected the remnant in a little fort. At night Almeric went out to survey the enemy, and reported that there were five thousand feasting and drinking at no great distance. If they should fall on the wearied, hungry, and wounded English the next day, they would make them an easy prey, and he therefore advised a night-attack, to take them by surprise. The English sat silent, looking at each other, til Sir John de Courcy spoke: “I looked all this while for some of these young gallants to deliver their courage; but, Sir Almeric, where are their horses bestowed?”

“Your white horse and my black,” said Sir Almeric, “I have cunningly conveyed away, and the rest I can point out to you with my finger.”

“Then,” said Sir John, “let two men ride these two horses, gather their horses together, and drive them in on the enemy; then, all who can bear arms shall follow, and we will serve them with their horses as they did us with our kine.”

The stratagem was completely successful; the Irish were entirely routed with great slaughter, while the English lost only two--though the preceding day had lost them four hundred men.

By six battles, altogether, Sir John established his power, and he then received from Henry the rank of Earl of Ulster. He governed Ireland from the time of Prince John’s flight till the accession of Richard Coeur de Lion, with great prosperity; and during this time Roderick O’Connor was dethroned by his sons, and forced to retire to a convent, where he died.

King Richard left the management of Irish affairs to his brother, who took the government from De Courcy, and gave it to Hugo de Lacy, the nephew. He, comporting himself as a favorite, of John was likely to do, of course occasioned another war, and Cathal O’Connor, the Bloody-handed, of Connaught, began to threaten Ulster. De Courcy summoned Almeric to his aid, and the good knight set out with two hundred foot and thirty horse; but, while passing through the enemy’s country, he suddenly found himself beset by Cathal, at the head of an enormous host. The horsemen might easily have saved themselves by their speed; but though death was certain if he remained, this true knight would not forsake the foot in their extremity.

In Hanmer’s affecting words, “Sir Almeric turned him to the foot company, and hardly gathering breath with the sorrow of his heart, resolved himself thus: ‘I have no power to fly, and leave my friends, my flesh and blood, in this extreme distress. I will live with them who for my sake came hither, if it so please God; or I will die with them, if it be His pleasure, that, ending here, we shall meet again, bodies and souls, at the last day. God and the world bear witness that we do as Christian knights ought to do. I yield my soul into God’s hands; my body to return whence it came; my service to my natural prince; my heart to my wife, and brother Sir John de Courcy; my might, my force, my bloody sweat, to the aid of you all that are in the field.’ He alighted, kneeled on his knees, kissed the cross of his sword, ran his horse through, saying, ‘Thou shalt never serve against me, that so worthily hast served with me.’ All the horses were then killed but two, on which he mounted two of the youngest of his followers, bidding them watch the fight from the next hill, then make all speed to bear his greetings to his brother De Courcy, and report that day’s service.”

When the Irish saw the devoted band so firmly awaiting their attack, they fancied that succor must be near, and did not venture their onset till the whole country had been reconnoitred. Every Englishman was slain, but one thousand Irish also fell, and the death of these brave men was not in vain. Cathal was so impressed by their courage, that he sued for peace, and never ventured another pitched battle. He afterward told Sir Hugo de Lacy that he thought verily there never was the like seen on earth; for, when the Englishmen could not stand, they set themselves back to back, and fought on till the last man was slain.

De Courcy long survived his faithful brother-in-arms, and stood so high in all men’s estimation, that De Lacy in jealousy sent information to King John, soon after the death of Arthur, that the Earl of Ulster was sowing disaffection by accusing him of his nephew’s murder. This was the very thing for which John had lately starved to death the Lady de Braose and her children, and he sent orders to De Lacy to attack the person of De Courcy. Every means of open force failed, and De Lacy was reduced to tamper with his servants, two of whom at length informed him that it was vain to think of seizing their master when he had his armor on, as he was of immense strength and skill, nor did he ever lay aside his weapons, except on Good Friday, when he was wont to walk up and down the churchyard of Downe, alone and unarmed.

Accordingly, De Lacy sent a band of horsemen, who fell upon the betrayed knight. He caught up a wooden cross, and made brave resistance, and so did his two nephews, sons of Sir Almeric, who were with him; but they had no weapon, and were both slain, while De Courcy was overpowered, and carried a prisoner to London. The two traitors begged De Lacy to give them passports to go to England; on which he gave them a sealed paper, on condition of their not opening it themselves, nor returning on pain of death. Now, the paper set forth that they were traitors no better than Judas, and exhorted every true man to spit in their faces, and drive them away. However, these letters were never delivered; for the wretched men were driven, by stress of weather, back on the coast of Ireland, and De Lacy had them hanged.

De Courcy continued in captivity till one of the many disputes between John and Philippe Auguste was to be decided by the ordeal of battle. The most stalwart of all John’s subjects was his prisoner, and he immediately sent to release him from the Tower, offering him immense rewards if he would become his champion. The old knight answered that King John himself was not worthy to have one drop of blood shed for him; and as to rewards, he could never requite the wrongs he had done him, nor restore the heart’s ease he had robbed him of. For John Lackland he would never fight, nor for such as him, but for the honor of the Crown, and of England, he undertook the cause. The old warrior, wasted with imprisonment, was prepared by good feeding, and received his weapons: the Frenchman fled at once, and De Courcy prepared to return to Ireland. He made fifteen attempts to cross, and each time was forced to put back. At length, as old chronicles relate, he was warned in a dream to make the trial no more: for, said the voice, “Thou hast done ill: thou hast pulled down the master, and set up the servant.”

This was thought to refer to his having newly dedicated the cathedral of Downe in the name of St. Patrick, whereas before it had been the Church of the Holy Trinity. He took blame to himself, submitted, and going to France, there died at an advanced age. For his championship, the right of wearing the head covered in the presence of royalty was granted to him and his heirs, and it is still the privilege of his descendants, the Earls of Kinsale;

“For when every head is unbonneted They walk in cap and plume.”

CAMEO XXIII. THE REBELLIOUS EAGLETS. (1149-1189.)

_King of England_. 1154. Henry II.

_King of Scotland_. 1165. William.

_Kings of France_. 1137. Louis VII. 1180. Philippe II.

_Emperor of Germany_. 1152. Friedrich I.

_Popes of Rome_. 1154. Adrian IV. 1159. Alexander III. 1181. Lucius III. 1185. Urban III. 1187. Gregory VIII.

“The gods are just, and of our pleasant sins make whips to scourge us.” This saying tells the history of the reign of Henry of the Court Mantle.

Ambition and ill faith were the crimes of Henry from his youth upward, and he was a man of sufficiently warm affections to suffer severely from the retribution they brought on him, when, through his children, they recoiled upon his head. “When once he loveth, scarcely will he ever hate; when once he hateth, scarcely ever receiveth he into grace,” was written of him by his tutor, Peter of Blois, and his life proved that it was a true estimate of his character.

The root of his misfortunes may be traced to his ambitious marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, twelve years older than himself, and divorced by Louis VII. of France on account of her flagrant misconduct in Palestine, in the course of the miserable expedition called the Second Crusade. For her broad lands, he deserted the woman whom he loved, and who had left her home and duty for his sake, and on his promise of marriage.

Fair Rosamond Clifford was the daughter of a Herefordshire baron, with whom Henry became acquainted in his seventeenth year, when he came to England, in 1149, to dispute the crown with Stephen. He lodged her at Woodstock, in the tower built, according to ballad lore, “most curiously of stone and timber strong,” and with such a labyrinth leading to it that “none, but with a clue of thread, could enter in or out.” There Rosamond remained while he returned to France to receive Normandy and Anjou, on the death of his father, and on going to pay homage to Louis VII., ingratiated himself with Queen Eleanor, whose divorce was then impending. Eleanor and her sister Petronella were joint heiresses of the great duchy of Aquitaine, their father having died on pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago de Compostella, and the desire of the fairest and wealthiest provinces of the south of France led the young prince to forget his ties to Rosamond and her infant son William, and never take into consideration what the woman must be of whom her present husband was resolved to rid himself at the risk of seeing half his kingdom in the hands of his most formidable enemy.

For some time Rosamond seems to have been kept in ignorance of Henry’s unfaithfulness; but in 1152, the year of his coronation, and of the birth of her second child, Geoffrey, she quitted Woodstock, and retired into the nunnery of Godstow, which the King richly endowed. It has been one of the favorite legends of English history, that the Queen traced her out in her retreat by a ball of silk that had entangled itself in Henry’s spurs, and that she offered her the choice of death by the dagger or by poison; but this tale has been refuted by sober proof; there is no reason to believe that Eleanor was a murderess; and it is certain that Rosamond, on learning how she had been deceived, took refuge in the nunnery, where she ended her days twenty years after, in penitence and peace, far happier than her betrayer. Her sons, William and Geoffrey, were honorably brought up, and her remains were placed in the choir, under a silken canopy, with tapers burning round, while the Sisters of the convent prayed for mercy on her soul and King Henry’s. Even King John paid the costs of this supposed expiation; but St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, not thinking it well that her history should be before the minds of the nuns, ordered the corpse to be interred in the ordinary burial-place of the convent.

During most of these twenty years of Rosamond’s repentance, all apparently prospered with Henry. The rigorous justice administered by his excellent chancellor, Ranulf de Glanville, had restored order to England; the only man bold enough to gainsay him had been driven from the kingdom. Ireland was in course of conquest, and his astute policy was continually overreaching the simple-minded Louis VI., who, having derived the surname of _le jeune_ from his age at his accession, was so boyish a character all his life as never to lose it.

Four sons and three daughters were born to Henry and Eleanor, and in their infancy he arranged such alliances as might obtain a still wider power for them--nay, even the kingdom of France. Louis VI. had married again, but his second wife died, leaving two infant girls, named Margaret and Alice, and to them Henry betrothed his two eldest sons, Henry and Richard. It was to ask the hand of Margaret for the prince that Becket took his celebrated journey to Paris, and the young pair, Henry and Margaret, were committed to his care for education; but the disputes with the King prevented their being sufficiently long in his hands for the correction of the evil spirit of the Angevin princes.

By threats of war, Henry obtained for Geoffrey, his third son, Constance, the only child of Conan, Duke of Brittany; though the Bretons, who hated Normans, Angevins, and English with equal bitterness, were extremely angry at finding themselves thus connected with all three. On Conan’s death, Geoffrey, then ten years old, was called Duke of Brittany, but his father took the whole government into his hands, and made it a heavy yoke.

John, Count of Mortagne, for whom no heiress had been obtained, was gayly called by his father Lackland--a name which his after-life fitted to him but too well. Richard was intended to be the inheritor of his mother’s beautiful duchy of Aquitaine, where he spent most of his early years. It was a strange country, where the ordinary events of life partook so much of romance that we can hardly believe them real.

It had never been so peopled by the Franks as to lose either the language or the cultivation left by the Romans. The _langue d’oc_ had much resemblance to the Latin, and was beautifully soft and adapted to poetry; and when the nobles adopted chivalry, they ornamented it with all the graces of their superior education. The talent of improvising verses was common among them; and to be a minstrel, or, as they called it, a troubadour (a finder of verses), was essential to the character of a complete gentleman.

Courts of beauty and love took place, where arguments were held on cases of allegiance of a knight to his lady-love, and competitions in poetry, in which the reward was a golden violet. Each troubadour thought it needful to be dedicated to the service of some lady, in whose honor all his exploits in arms or achievements in minstrelsy were performed. To what an extravagant length this devotion was carried, is shown in the story of Jauffred Rudel, Lord of Blieux, who, having heard from some Crusaders a glowing account of the beauty and courtesy of the Countess of Tripoli, on their report made her the object of his affections, and wrote poem after poem upon her, of which one has come down to our times:

“No other love shall e’er be mine, None save my love so far away; For one more fair I’ll never know, In region near, or far away.”

Thus his last verse may be translated, and his “_amour luench_,” or love far away, occurs in every other line. He embarked for Palestine for the sole purpose of seeing his _amour luench_, but fell sick on the voyage, and was speechless when he arrived. The countess, hearing to what a condition his admiration had brought him, came on board the vessel to see him; the sight of her so charmed him, that he was able to say a few words to her before he expired. She caused him to be buried with great splendor, and erected a porphyry tomb over him, with an Arabic inscription.