Part 13

(_C_) That the Pope in reply, according to Gerald, sent a “privilegium” empowering Henry to rule the Irish, and reform their ecclesiastical condition,[395] but, according to the ‘Gesta,’ confirmed Henry in possession of the kingdom of Ireland, and appointed him and his heirs kings thereof for ever.

Here we have sufficient discrepancy to mark the independence of the writers, combined with a distinct agreement to the effect that Henry sent “nuncii” to Rome, that they took something with them to support the king’s petition, and that the Pope, in reply to it, sent something back.

What was it?

Here we must turn to a third quarter, where the evidence is wholly independent. This is the Black Book of the Exchequer in which are entered the three letters from Pope Alexander, all of them dated from Tusculum, 20th September, 1172. Miss Norgate, in her History, referred to them as documents of undoubted authenticity;[396] but in her article, though stoutly maintaining that their evidence was not hostile to the genuineness of the “Bull,” she seems to have felt uneasy on the subject, for she changes her tone, and writes that they “purport to have been written by Pope Alexander III.,”[397] nay, even speaks of them as Alexander’s letters, “if they indeed are his.”[398]

To these letters, which Cardinal Moran pronounced “certainly authentic,” I now invite attention. The first, which is addressed to Christian bishop of Lismore (the legate), the four archbishops (by name), and their suffragans the bishops, speaks of the “vitiorum enormitates” made known to the writer by their letters (“ex vestrarum serie literarum,” “ex vestris literis”) and the “abominationis spurcitiam.”[399] No more exact agreement could be found than this document presents with the statement of Giraldus that the Legate’s letters, on behalf of the assembled prelates, recited “tam enormitates quam spurcitias” of the Irish. Again, the third letter, “to the kings and princes of Ireland,” similarly charges the Irish with “enormitatem et spurcitiam vitiorum”; and it confirms not only Giraldus but the ‘Gesta’ by its words: “in vestrum Regem et dominum suscepistis et ei fidelitatem jurastis ... vos voluntate libera subdidistis ... fidelitatem quam tanto Regi sub juramenti religione fecistis.” Their “juramenti debitum et fidelitatem predicto Regi exhibitam” is spoken of also in the letter to the prelates. Passing now to the second letter, which is to Henry himself, it introduces a new element; for while that to the prelates had referred to their letters and “aliorum etiam veridica relatione,” a vague phrase which, in the letter to the princes, reappears as “communi fama et certa relatione,” the Pope, in writing to the king, gives as his sources of information, first, the letters from the Legate and Prelates, and then the _viva voce_ statements of Ralf archdeacon of Llandaff.[400] Now we know from the ‘Gesta’ that this Ralf was sent by Henry to hold the Council of the Irish Prelates at Cashel;[401] and we further know that the king had sent him to Rome as an envoy in the Becket business some two years before.[402] We have then, in this letter, confirmation of the fact that Henry sent a mission, with the prelates’ letter, to Rome, while the envoy it names is the very one whom he was specially likely to send.

So far, then, we find a most convincing agreement. Pope Alexander relied mainly for information as to the state of Ireland and as to the action of Henry on the written report of his Legate and the other prelates of Ireland, and on the personal statements of the king’s envoy who came with it. As to these points, there can really be no question.

But the best proof, to my mind, of the authenticity of these letters is that neither Giraldus nor any of the chroniclers used them, and that, so far at least as the ‘Gesta’ and Hoveden are concerned, they must have been purposely kept back. For the points of discrepancy are even more instructive than the points of agreement. It may have been observed that the ‘Gesta’ speaks of the documentary evidence as consisting of the prelates’ sealed letters appointing Henry and his heirs kings of Ireland. Giraldus, on the contrary, makes it consist of a report from the Council of Cashel on the State of Ireland. The letters explicitly confirm the latter statement, and wholly ignore the evidence described in the former. Moreover, the assertion in the ‘Gesta’ that the Pope made Henry and his heirs, in reply, kings of Ireland for ever is at direct variance with the letters, which do nothing of the kind. We must, then, it seems to me, conclude that the ‘Gesta’ and Roger Hoveden deliberately strove to represent the Pope as doing what he did not do, and dared not, therefore, quote the letters, knowing them to be not at all what was wanted.[403]

It seems to me a strong argument in favour of the letters to Henry himself, and one which may have been overlooked, that Pope Alexander pointedly speaks of Henry’s fresh expedition as undertaken, like a crusade, by way of penance for his sins:

Rogamus itaque Regiam excellentiam, monemus et exhortamus in Domino, atque in remissionem tibi peccatorum injungimus quatinus, etc ... ut sicut pro tuorum venia peccatorum adversus eam tantum laborem (ut credimus) assumpsisti, etc.

Even if the words do not imply that Henry himself had so represented it, they afford an answer to those who urge that the Pope could not have approved of such an enterprise by one who was himself at the time under a grave cloud.

Broadly speaking, they express the Pope’s warm approval of Henry’s expedition--as a missionary enterprise. It is as the champion of the church, and especially of St. Peter and his rights, that they praise him for what he has done. Specially significant is the fact that the rights claimed by Rome, under the Donation of Constantine, over all islands are not asserted (as by John of Salisbury) as justifying the grant of Ireland to Henry, but as entitling the Papal see to claim there rights for itself.[404]

Accepting, then, these letters as genuine, let me briefly recapitulate how the case stands. Their contents agree, we have seen, independently, in the most indisputable way, with the narrative of Giraldus. Moreover, that narrative, when carefully examined, leads us to infer that the Pope’s answer was despatched in reply to Henry’s mission; and with that inference the date of these letters (20th Sept., 1172) agrees fairly enough. Such a date as 1174 or 1175 would not agree with it at all. Lastly, Giraldus tells us that the Pope’s confirmation was despatched to Ireland with William Fitz Audelin; and, indeed, we should naturally expect that Henry, when he had succeeded in getting it, would lose no time in publishing the fact. Both the statement of Giraldus and that expectation are confirmed by the Pipe Roll entry, which proves that William Fitz Audelin did visit Ireland between Michaelmas, 1172, and Michaelmas, 1173, which is just the time that he must have done so, if he went there in charge of the Pope’s letter (or letters).

But now comes the hitch. If Giraldus had given us the text of the letter which the Pope really sent, and which is entered in the Black Book, it would have agreed with and confirmed his narrative in every respect. Instead, however, of doing this, he gave a letter, which even his champions do not venture to defend as authentic, a letter which does not agree with his narrative--for it ignores the legate’s report and the other information supplied--a letter which, for all we can find in it, was written in complete ignorance, not only of Henry’s visit to Ireland, but of every other fact in the case. In short, it is a mere general confirmation of Adrian’s famous “Bull,” and might as well have been issued before as after the king’s expedition. And so clumsily is it introduced that Giraldus does not even make the king ask for anything of the kind.

I have said that even his champions do not defend its authenticity. Miss Norgate, who defends with equal fervour Giraldus and “Laudabiliter,” admits that its critics are right in stating that the Pope’s letters in the ‘Liber Niger’

make no mention of any papal grant, nor of the tribute of Peter-pence, which “Laudabiliter” expressly states that Henry had undertaken to establish in Ireland.[405]

But, she urges, it was most improbable that the Pope would refer to Peter-pence in 1172:

It would have been much more surprising, because highly derogatory to his tact, wisdom, and justice, if he had mentioned it at that moment.... To expect that he should assail them with an instant demand for money before they had time to settle down in their new relations, would be to charge him with equal recklessness and rapacity.[406]

I do not say that I agree with the argument: it could, I think, scarcely be weaker. But the point is that Pope Alexander, in the letter given by Giraldus, and asserted by him to have been sent in reply to the letters from the Council of Cashel (1171–2), is represented as confirming the “Bull of Adrian” “salva beato Petro ... de singulis domibus annua unius denarii pensione.” That is to say that, if the letter is genuine, he did exactly what Miss Norgate assures us he would not have done. It follows then, from her own argument, that the letter cannot be genuine.[407]

I must here again remind the reader of the cardinal point in my case, namely, that Giraldus has been misunderstood as assigning to “1175” the despatch of the Pope’s “privilegium,” whereas his narrative clearly shows that he treats that “privilegium” as obtained by Henry in reply to the report of the Council of Cashel (1171–2) and as the Papal sanction of what he had done in Ireland. That the king was anxious to obtain this sanction, and to publish it, when obtained, as soon as possible, we may readily believe. But that he obtained it as soon as possible, and, having done so, made no use of it till he suddenly, in “1175,” despatched it to Ireland _à propos de bottes_, is an unintelligible hypothesis. In any case, we are confronted with the fact that both the “privilegium”[408] and the Black Book letter purport to have been despatched from Rome in reply to Henry’s mission. But they could not both be the Pope’s reply: one or the other must be false. This being so, we need not hesitate to decide in favour of the Black Book letter; for the “privilegium” given by Giraldus is virtually abandoned, we have seen, even by Miss Norgate.

The conclusion, then, at which we arrive is that Giraldus substituted for the true reply of the Pope a false one merely confirming the “Bull” Laudabiliter. From this conclusion we advance to the question whether, if he was capable of concocting (or giving it currency when concocted) a spurious letter of Alexander, he was not also capable of concocting (or giving it currency when concocted) that letter of Adrian, which he published with it, in the ‘Expugnatio,’ and which, in fairness, must be treated as inseparable from it.[409]

We saw clearly at the outset that he can have had no scruple as to inserting in his narrative--I will not say a forged document, but one of which the text was the work of his own pen. On this point, therefore, we need not hesitate. We may proceed then to enquire whether Henry II. was likely to keep silence as to Adrian’s “Bull” when he entered Ireland--the very time when he might be expected to make use of it--and then produce it at a subsequent time with no particular reason. Two propositions are here involved. As to the first Father Gasquet has observed:

It was of vital importance when he went over to receive the homage of the Irish, and could never have been withheld or concealed at the Council of Cashel in 1172, at which the Papal legate presided.[410]

Father Burke, whom he quotes, has bluntly insisted on the fact; and Father Morris has similarly dwelt on the king’s suspicious silence. So great, indeed, is the difficulty of supposing that Henry made no mention of the “Bull” at the very time when, if ever, he was likely to make use of it, that Miss Norgate wrote as follows, in her ‘England under the Angevin Kings’ (ii. 115):

We hear not a word of Pope Adrian’s bull, but we can hardly doubt that its existence and its contents were in some way or other certified to the Irish prelates before ... they met in council at Cashel in the first weeks of 1172.

Going even further, in another passage (ii. 81), she boldly spoke of Henry’s “conquest won with Adrian’s bull in his hand.” And yet, when afterwards, in her article, she wished to deny the difficulty, she could turn round and confidently urge that “Henry said nothing about the Pope’s letter, because it was a matter of no practical consequence whatever.”[411] Such a _volte-face_ as this does not tend to inspire confidence in her arguments. But even if we accept this, her later conclusion, it only increases the difficulty of explaining why Henry II. formally made the “Bull” public a year or two later (and still more, why he should have done so, as she holds he did, in “1175”). And this difficulty, so far as I can find, she does not attempt to meet.

Everything then, it seems to me, points to the clear conclusion that Giraldus substituted for the genuine letters from the Pope, in the ‘Liber Niger,’ a concocted confirmation of an equally concocted “Bull” from his predecessor Adrian.

Having arrived at this conclusion, I propose to ask three questions:

(1) Why did Giraldus do this? (2) How were his documents concocted? (3) Was there a conspiracy, in which Giraldus joined?

As to the Welshman’s motive, it has been urged by his critics that he wished to gratify the king. Miss Norgate retorts:

At no period of his life is it likely that Gerald would have had any personal interest in putting in circulation, for King Henry’s benefit, a document which he knew or suspected to be forged; least of all would he have cared to do it for the sake of bolstering up Henry’s claims upon Ireland.[412]

But whatever may have been his personal feelings towards Henry II. his eagerness to prove the right of the English Crown to Ireland is one of the leading features of his ‘Expugnatio Hiberniæ.’ He sets forth more than once the arguments on which he bases it, and he treats the Papal action as the crowning argument of all:

Et quod solum sufficere posset ad perfectionis cumulum et absolutæ consummationis augmentum, summorum pontificum, qui insulas omnes sibi speciali quadam jure respiciunt, totiusque christianitatis principum et primatum confirmans accessit auctoritas (v. 320).

The reference, in this passage, to the Donation of Constantine, and therefore to “Laudabiliter,” is clear.

I pass to my second question: ‘How were the documents concocted?’ The unfortunate theory was advanced by the ‘Analecta’ writer that “Laudabiliter” was adapted from a genuine letter of Adrian written, in 1158, to Henry of England and Louis of France, forbidding them to enter Ireland, as they proposed to do, in conjunction. It was urged that this genuine letter had been altered into the ‘Bull’ Laudabiliter, and thus made to bear the very reverse of its meaning. It was necessary, for this solution, to hold that the genuine letter did not refer, as had been supposed, to Spain (_H[ispania]_) but to Ireland (_H[ibernia]_). Although this bold theory was adopted by Father Gasquet,[413] he seems to have been conscious of its weakness; for he leaves it with the words: “Whether this theory as to the origin of the Bull be correct or not,” etc., etc. The words “pagani” in the genuine letter are of themselves fatal to the theory, and Father Malone had no difficulty in showing that it was preposterous.[414] It is true that, as Miss Norgate admits,[415] “between the introductory sentences of the two letters there is certainly a close verbal similarity,” but even if this letter, relating to the Spanish crusade was placed under contribution by the concocter of our document, I should none the less advance as my own theory the view that Gerald employed, largely at any rate, the genuine letters of Alexander III., entered in the ‘Liber Niger.’ In support of this theory I might adduce certain suggestive parallels:

THE LETTER. THE “BULL.”

sicut ... comperimus, ... ad Significasti ... nobis ... te subjugandum tuo Dominio gentem Hiberniæ insulam ad subdendum illam et ad extirpandum tantæ illum populum legibus et vitiorum abominationis spurcitiam ... plantaria exstirpanda velle, tuum animum erexisti. intrare.

Christianæ religionis suscipiat crescat fidei Christianæ religio, disciplinam ... ita etiam et quæ ad honorem Dei et salutem de suæ salutis perfectu coronam pertinent animarum taliter merearis suscipere sempiternam. ordinentur, ut a Deo sempiternum mercedis cumulum consequi merearis.

quia, sicut tuæ magnitudinis sane Hiberniam et omnes insulas excellentia [? cognoscit], ... ad jus beati Petri et Romana ecclesia aliud jus habet sacrosanctæ Romanæ ecclesiæ, in Insula quam in terra magna quod tua etiam nobilitas et continua, etc. recognoscit, non est dubium pertinere.

The very fact that these coincidences are rather suggestive than verbal, favours, I think, the theory of concoction. But I am chiefly influenced by the fact that “Laudabiliter” does little more than paraphrase and adapt the contents of Alexander’s letter. Even its clause as to Peter’s pence might be based on Alexander’s insistence that Henry was not only to guard “jura beati Petri,” but “si etiam ibi non habet (jura)”--as was the case with Peter’s pence--to establish them himself.

And now as to my third question: ‘Was there a conspiracy?’ I doubt if sufficient attention has been paid to the remarkable words of the ‘Gesta Henrici,’ followed as they were by Hoveden.[416] That they were introduced of set purpose is evident from their repetition.[417] It should be observed that the story told in the ‘Metalogicus’ of Adrian and in the ‘Gesta’ of Alexander is to the same effect:

METALOGICUS. GESTA HENRICI.

regi Anglorum Henrico secundo summus pontifex ... confirmavit (Papa) concessit et dedit ei et heredibus suis regnum Hiberniam jure hæreditario illud, et eos imperpetuum possidendam. reges constituit.

Neither the letters in the ‘Liber Niger’ nor even the documents given by Giraldus can justify these expressions. Yet this must have been what we may term the view officially adopted. As the Black Book letters of Alexander III. could not be made to support this view, its upholders preferred to fall back on the alleged grant by Adrian, as the source of Henry’s title, and to pretend that his successor Alexander had merely confirmed it. “Laudabiliter” did not, it is true, go so far as was required, but it carried back the title to Adrian’s action, and, so far, supported the story.

* * * * *

The subsequent attitude of Rome towards the English story is a matter of obvious interest, but, as yet, of much obscurity. Cardinal Moran relied on the personal information of Theiner for the statement that

nowhere in the private archives, or among the private papers of the Vatican, or in the ‘Regesta’ which Jaffé’s researches have made so famous, or in the various indices of the Pontifical letters, can a single trace be found of the supposed Bulls of Adrian and Alexander.[418]

In the strict sense of the words, no doubt the above statement may be absolutely true. But in the document below, from Theiner’s own work,[419] we have, surely, in the words “de voluntatis sedis ipsius,” a most distinct reference, at least, to Adrian’s alleged action. In the preamble to a Papal dispensation of the 13th century, we find these words:

Exposita siquidem nobis dilecti filii nobilis viri Galfridi de Ianvilla patris tui, fili Symon, petitio continebat quod cum terra Ybernie ac eius incole, ut tenentur, nec sedi eidem, nec Regi Anglie obedirent, sed velut effrenes per campum licentie ducerentur, clare memorie Henricus olim Rex Anglorum de voluntate sedis ipsius armata manu terram predictam intravit, et eam ac habitatores ipsius ad ejusdem sedis obedientiam suaque (_sic_) pro posse reduxit, et tam idem Rex quam ejus successores in regno prefato probos viros nationis alterius studuerunt successu temporis in terra memorata Ybernie ad continuandam inibi sedis ejusdem obedientiam collocare.

The words of this preamble should be most carefully studied; for though, as I have said, it clearly refers to the action of Pope Adrian, in its statement that Henry invaded Ireland “at the wish of the Papal see,” yet the words “velut effrenes per campum licentie ducerentur” must, surely, be derived from the “tanquam effrenis passim per abrupta deviat viciorum” of Alexander’s letter to Henry entered in the ‘Liber Niger.’ If so, they are evidence, even though they stand alone, that the existence and contents of this letter were known in Ireland at the time.

There is another and far later reference to ‘Laudabiliter’ in a Papal document, which I have not seen mentioned, although the document is one of great consequence for Irish history. When Innocent X. despatched Rinuccini as Papal Nuncio to Ireland (1645) he gave him formal instructions, in which was comprised a brief outline of past events. In it we find this definite and most striking passage:

For a long period the true faith maintained itself, till the country, invaded by the Danes, an idolatrous people, fell for the most part into impious superstition. This state of darkness lasted till the reigns of Adrian IV. and of Henry II., king of England. Henry, desiring to strengthen his empire, and to secure the provinces which he possessed beyond sea in France, wished to subdue the island of Ireland; and, to compass this design, had recourse to Adrian, who, himself an Englishman, with a liberal hand granted all he coveted.

The zeal manifested by Henry to convert all Ireland to the faith moved the soul of Adrian to invest him with the sovereignty of that island. Three important conditions were annexed to the gift. 1st. That the king should do all in his power to propagate the Christian religion throughout Ireland. 2nd. That each of his subjects should pay an annual tribute of one penny to the Holy See, commonly called Peter’s pence. And 3rd. That civil liberty should be guaranteed, and the privileges and immunities of the Church be held inviolate.[420]

This clear testimony to the Pope’s belief, in 1645, that Adrian had, by ‘Laudabiliter,’ invested Henry II. with the sovereignty of Ireland can hardly be agreeable reading to Father Gasquet and his friends.

IX

The Coronation of Richard I

The first coronation of an English king of which we possess a detailed account is that of Richard I. (3rd Sept., 1189). It was carried out, says Dr. Stubbs, “in such splendour and minute formality as to form a precedent for all subsequent ceremonies of the sort.”[421] As a more recent writer has observed:

The order of the procession and the details of the ceremonial were arranged with unusual care and minuteness; it was the most splendid and elaborate coronation-ceremony that had ever been seen in England, and it served as a precedent for all after-time.[422]

It is consequently of some interest to learn on what authority the narrative of this coronation rests.