Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

C >> Charlotte Mary Yonge >> Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43

He was at a loss how to treat the murderers. He could not punish what
his own words had been supposed to authorize, and he dared not let them
escape, lest he should be supposed to be their defender. He therefore
let them reap the benefit of the liberties for which Becket had died:
their crime was done on the person of a clerk; therefore it was left to
the censures of the Church.

They had, in the meantime, fled to Morville's Castle, in Cumberland,
where they found themselves regarded with universal execration; their
servants shrank from their presence, and, in the exaggerations of
tradition, it was said that the very dogs would not approach them.

Overwhelmed with remorse, they set out for Italy, and dreaded and
avoided, as if they bore a mark like the first "murderer and vagabond,"
they threw themselves at the feet of the Pope, and entreated to know
what they should do to obtain mercy. He ordered them to go on pilgrimage
to Jerusalem; and they all went except Tracy, who, lingering behind, was
seized with a dreadful illness, and died at Cosenza. The others all died
within three years, with deep marks of penitence, and were buried before
the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Henry obtained pardon from the Pope on giving up all attempts at
subjecting the Church to the law of the State, and on giving a large sum
of money to maintain 200 knights for three years in the Holy Land. He
also largely endowed Mary and Agnes Becket, the Archbishop's sisters,
with possessions in his newly-conquered domain in Ireland; and one of
them became the ancestress of the noble family of Butler, Earls of
Ormonde.

The cathedral at Canterbury had, in the meantime, been sprinkled with
holy water, to purify it from the crime of sacrilege and murder there
committed, and for which it had been a whole year left neglected, and
without the celebration of Divine service. On its reopening, gifts
poured in from all quarters, in honor of the Archbishop, and it was
repaired and beautified to a great degree. The beautiful circular chapel
at the east end was named Becket's Crown, and the spot by the north
transept, where he fell, was termed The Martyrdom. Reports of miracles
having been performed at his intercession were carried to Rome, and Pope
Alexander canonized him as St. Thomas of Canterbury. The next year,
1174, Henry II., who was broken down with grief at the rebellion of his
sons, rode from Southampton to Canterbury without resting, taking no
food but bread and water, entered the city, and walked through the
streets barefoot to the cathedral, and into the crypt, where he threw
himself prostrate on the ground, while Gilbert Folliot preached to the
people.

In the chapter-house Henry caused each of the clergy present, to the
number of eighty, to strike him over the shoulders with a knotted cord,
and afterward spent the whole night beside the tomb. He heard mass the
next morning, and returned to London.

A few years after, Louis VII. came to pray at the tomb of his friend for
the recovery of his son Philippe Auguste, who was ill of a fever. He
made splendid gifts to the cathedral, and in especial a very large
diamond, and a golden cup. In Italy Thomas was equally honored. William
the Good, of Sicily, who married Joan, daughter to Henry II., placed a
colossal statue of St. Thomas of Canterbury in his new foundation,
the Church of Monreale; and at Agnani there is still preserved a
richly-embroidered cope, presented by Pope Innocent III., bearing
thirty-six different scenes in delicate needlework, and among them the
death of the English Archbishop. There are also many German and French
representations of the subject; the murderers, in the more ancient
ones, carefully distinguished by their shields: Morville, _fretty
fleur-de-lis_; Tracy, _two bars gules_; Brito, _three bears, heads
muzzled_; Fitzurse, _three bears passant_.

In Henry III.'s reign a new shrine was built at Canterbury, and the
Archbishop's relics were thither translated. No saint in England was
more popular than St. Thomas of Canterbury, and frequent pilgrimages
were made to his shrine. The Canterbury Pilgrims of Chaucer are thither
journeying, and Simon of Sudbury, the archbishop killed by Wat Tyler's
mob, is said to have made himself unpopular by rebuking the superstition
that made the ignorant believe in the efficacy of these pilgrimages.

Then came the reaction. Henry VIII., little able to endure such a saint
as Becket, sent the spoilers to Canterbury. Lord Cromwell burnt his
relics, and carried off the treasures of gold and jewels, which filled
two chests, so heavy that six or eight men were wanted to carry each of
them. Henry wore Louis VII.'s diamond in a ring. The costly shrine was
destroyed, and the pavement, worn by the knees of the pilgrims, alone
remained to show where Becket's tomb had been. In London, the house of
Gilbert a Becket, in Southwark, where the Saracen lady had ended her
toilsome journey, and where Thomas had been born, had, in Henry III.'s
reign, been made a hospital; Edward VI. granted it for the same use; and
thus it still remains, by its old name of St. Thomas's Hospital, which
perhaps would not so generally be given it, if it were known after what
saint it was so called. His likeness was destroyed in every church and
public building, so that but one head of St. Thomas a Becket is known
to exist in England--namely, one in stained glass, at the village of
Horton, in Ribblesdale--and even in missals and breviaries it was
defaced.

No one has met with more abuse than Becket, ever since the Reformation.
Proud, ostentatious, hypocritical, and rebellious--these are the terms
usually bestowed on him. How far he deserves them, may be judged from a
life detailed with unusual minuteness by three intimate companions, none
of them treating him as faultless. Of the rights of the struggle we will
not speak. No one can doubt that Becket gave his life for the cause
which, in all sincerity, he deemed that of the Church against the World.

The fate of the murderers has been questioned in later times. It is said
that they died at home, in peace and fair prosperity; but the evidence
on either side is nearly balanced.

CAMEO XXII.

THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND.
(1172)

Few histories are more strange and confused than the Irish. The
inhabitants of Ierne, or Erin, as far as anything credible can be
discovered about them, were of three different nations, who had in turn
subdued the island before the beginning of history. These were the Tuath
de Dunans, the Firbolg, and the Scots, or Milesians. Who the two first
were, we will not attempt to say, though Irish traditions declare that
some of them were there before the Flood, and that one Fintan was saved
by being transformed into a salmon, and so swimming about till the water
subsided, after which he resumed the human form, and lived so long that
the saying was, "I could tell you much, if I was as old as Fintan."

The Milesians are not much behind their predecessors in their claim, for
they say they are descended from a son of Japhet, and first discovered
writing, and all the arts commonly said to have been derived from Egypt,
but which they assert were carried thither by one Neill, who gave his
name to the river Nile, as well as to his sons, all the O'Neills of
Ireland.

It is more certain that these Milesians were Kelts, and were in early
times called Scots. A colony of them conquered the Picts; drove the
Caledonians into Galway, and gave North Britain, or Albin the name of
Lesser Scotland, while their own country, or Greater Scotia, returned
to its former name of Erin, called by the Romans Hibernia, and by the
English, Ireland.

The Erse tongue is nearly the same as the Gaelic, and there was much in
the Irish and Highland institutions showing their common origin. The
clan system prevailed in Ireland, the clans being called Septs, and
all having, as a surname, the name of the common ancestor. His
representative, the chief, was known as the Carfinny; but the succession
was not determined by the rules of primogeniture. It was always in one
family, but the choice was made by election of the next heir. When a
Carfinny died, another came into office who had been chosen on his
accession as heir, or Tanist, and at the same time another Tanist
was chosen to succeed him as Carfinny at his death. The land was the
property of the tribe, divided into holdings; and whenever the death of
a considerable proprietor took place, there was a fresh allotment of
the whole, which, of course, as well as the choice of a Tanist, set the
whole population at war.

There were four kingdoms--Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught--to
which the chiefs succeeded by tanistry, besides Meath, another kingdom
which always belonged to the principal king, or Toparch, who was in
like manner elected as Tanist on each new accession; and the number
of battles and murders among these wild Irish princes is beyond all
estimate. Out of 178 kings, 71 were slain in battle, and 60 murdered.

Christianity was brought to Ireland about the year 400, by St. Colman
and St. Patrick. It does not seem to have materially softened the
manners of the people at large, whose wars went on as fiercely as ever;
but the churches were seats of peace and learning, whence teachers went
forth in numbers into Gaul, and among the heathen Saxons of England. The
Roman calender shows so many names of Irish hermits, priests, and nuns,
that we do not wonder Erin once was known as the Isle of Saints.

The Northmen made their cruel inroads on Ireland, and swept away much
of the beginnings of civilization. Turges, a Danish chief, was, in 815,
King of all Ireland; and having forced Melachlin, or Malachy, King of
Meath, to give up his daughter to him, Melachlin sent with her, in the
disguise of female attendants, sixteen young men armed with skeynes, or
long knives. They killed Turges, and brought the princess back to her
father, who was waiting in ambush at no great distance with his armed
men, set upon the Danes, defeated them, and, being joined by the other
Irish princes, destroyed them all.

It is said that shortly before, Melachlin, when at the court of Turges,
had told him that Ireland was full of a kind of foul, ravenous bird, and
asked his advice how to get rid of them; to which Turges answered, that
he had better destroy the nests--eggs, nestlings, and all--counsel which
the Irish hardly needed; and the massacre of the Danish raven's brood
was frightful.

During the lull brought about by Alfred's conquests, the Irish enjoyed
the halcyon days remembered as those of Malachy with the collar of gold
(which he had torn from the neck of a conquered Dane), and those of
Brien Boromhe, or Boru, the great Brien, in whose reign a maiden, though

"Rich and rare were the gems she wore,"
travelled safely round the Green Isle unprotected,
save by "Erin's honor and Erin's pride."

But when England suffered again, Ireland shared its fate, and, in 1004,
Brien Boru, at the age of eighty-eight, perished in the great battle of
Clontarf, with his eldest son Morogh, and the Danes gained a permanent
settlement, besides making endless forays on the coast. King Olaf
Trygvesson, of Norway, conducted one of these descents; and while
driving off a large herd of cattle, a peasant so piteously entreated to
have his own cows restored, that the king told him he might take them,
if he could tell at once which they were, but that he must not delay the
march. The peasant said his dog knew them, and sent the animal into the
midst of the herd, which consisted of several hundreds, when he drove
out just the number his master had asked, and all bearing the same mark.
The King desired to purchase the intelligent animal, but the man begged
that he would take it as a gift; on which Olaf presented him with a gold
ring, and kept and valued the faithful Vige as "the best of dogs" for
many years after.

Turlogh, the contemporary of the Conqueror, seems to have been
prosperous, since his subjects were rich enough to buy the unfortunate
English, who were sold for slaves, till St. Wulstan put a stop to the
traffic.

Morogh O'Brien, of Leinster, sent to William Rufus bog oak from the
green of Oxmanton, on the Liffey, to serve for the timber of the roof of
Westminster Hall; and this wood, enjoying the universal Irish exemption
from vermin, is said never to harbor a spider. Morogh was once told
that William Rufus intended to make a bridge of his ships, and conquer
Ireland. After some musing, Morogh asked, "Hath the King, in his great
threatening, said, 'If it please God?'" "No!" "Then, seeing he putteth
his trust only in man, and not in God, I fear not his coming."

Morogh was a peaceable man. Magnus, the Norse King of Man, by way of
defiance, sent him his shoes, ordering him to hang them on his shoulders
on Christmas-day, as he passed through his hall. The Irish were, of
course, much enraged at the insult offered to their master, but Morogh
only laughed at the folly of the conceit, saying, "I will not only bear
his shoes, but I had rather eat them, than that he should destroy one
province in Ireland." Magnus did not, however, give up his purpose of
invasion, but was killed in reconnoitring the coast. Morogh was murdered
at Dublin about 1130, and thenceforward all was dire confusion.

The Irish Church had never been decidedly under the dominion of Rome,
and the Popes, in the divided state of the country, obtained neither
money nor obedience from it. They thought much advantage might be gained
if it were under the rule of England; and in 1154, Adrian IV., assuming
that all islands were at the disposal of the Church, gave Henry II.
a bull, authorizing him to become Lord of Ireland, provided he would
establish the Pope's authority there. However, the Irish, not being
likely readily to receive their new Lord, and Henry having full
occupation at home, allowed his grant to rest in oblivion till
circumstances arose to enable him to avail himself of it.

Dermod MacMorogh, King of Leinster, a cruel savage, who had barbarously
revenged the death of his father, the good Morogh, had, in the year
1152, stolen away Devorghal, the wife of Tigheirnach O'Rourke, Prince of
Breffny. The toparch, Turlogh O'Connor, was the friend of O'Rourke, and
forced Dermod to make restitution, but the husband and lover, of course,
remained bitter enemies; and when O'Connor died, the new chieftain,
O'Lachlan, being on the side of Dermod, O'Rourke was severely oppressed,
till the tables were turned by O'Lachlan being killed, and Roderick
O'Connor, the son of Turlogh, becoming toparch. Thereupon Leinster was
invaded in 1167, and Dermod was obliged to flee, setting fire to his
capital at Ferns. He hastened to Henry II. in Normandy, and offered his
allegiance, provided the King would restore him. But Henry was too much
engaged in his disputes with France to attend to the matter, and all
Dermod could obtain was a letter permitting the English knights to take
up his cause, if they were so inclined.

With these letters Dermod sought the fierce Normans whose estates
bordered on Wales. The first who attended to him was Richard de Clare,
son of the Earl of Pembroke, and surnamed Strongbow--a bold, adventurous
man, ruined by his extravagance, and kept at a distance by the King on
account of his ambition. To him Dermod offered the hand of his daughter
Eva, and the succession of Leinster, provided he would recover for him
the kingdom. Richard accepted, but thought it prudent to obtain the
King's special permission; and in the meantime, Dermod, by his promises,
further engaged in his cause a small band of other knights--Robert
Fitzstephen, Maurice Fitzgerald, Milo Fitzhenry, Herve de Montmarais,
and some others. In May, 1169, thirty knights, sixty men-at-arms, and
three hundred archers, landed at the Creek of Bann, near Wexford, to
conquer Ireland.

They first besieged Wexford, and took it; then attacked the Prince
of Ossory, and gained a great victory; after which they had full
opportunity of seeing of what a savage they had undertaken the defence,
for Dermod mangled with his teeth the face of his chief foe among the
slain, to gratify his revenge.

However, they fought not for the right, but for the spoil; and when
Roderick O'Connor sent to declare war against them, and inform them of
the true character of their ally, they returned a scornful answer; and,
with their heavy armor and good discipline, made such progress against
the half-armed Irish kernes, that Richard Strongbow saw the speculation
was a good one, and was in haste for his share. He went to the King, to
beg him either to give him his inheritance, or to grant him leave to
seek his fortune in other lands. "Go where thou wilt, for what I care,"
said Henry. "Take Daedalus's wings, and fly away."

Taking this as sufficient consent, Strongbow sent before him 3,000 men
under his friend Raymond le Gros, and, landing on St. Bartholomew's day,
joined his forces with Dermod, took Waterford, and in a few days was
married to Eva. The successes of the English continued, and on the death
of Dermod, which took place shortly after, he declared Earl Richard his
heir. However, the vassals would not submit to the Englishman, and the
invaders were for a time hard beset, and found it difficult to keep the
enemy at bay, while the King in great displeasure peremptorily summoned
Strongbow to return, and forbade men, horses, or arms to be sent to his
aid. On this Richard found himself obliged to make his peace with the
King, sending Raymond le Gros and Herve de Montmarais before him. The
King was at Newnham, in Gloucestershire, and at first refused to see
him, but soon relented; and Richard, on entering his presence, threw
himself on his knees, and gave up to him the city of Dublin, and all
other towns and castles on the coast, after which Henry confirmed him
in the possession of the rest of Leinster, and made him Seneschal
of Ireland, though at the same time confiscating his castles in
Pembrokeshire, because his expedition had been unsanctioned. In October
of the next year, 1172, Henry himself came to Ireland, with 500 knights
and 4,000 men-at-arms. The Irish princes felt that it was needful to
submit to such power, nor was it with much reluctance on the part of the
toparchs, who had some pride in being under the sway of the mighty Henry
Fitzempress, rather than that of the petty chieftain of Meath.

Henry professed not to come as a conqueror, but in consequence of the
Pope's grant, and soon received the submission of all the toparchs of
Leinster and Munster. Roderick O'Connor himself did not hold out, though
he would not come to the King, and only met Hugo de Lacy and William
Fitz Adhelm on the Shannon, where he swore allegiance, but, as appeared
afterward, with a mental reservation--Connaught he was willing to hold
under Henry, but Ireland he neither could nor did yield up.

Henry invited all these new subjects of his to keep Christmas with
him at Dublin, where he entertained them in a temporary structure of
wicker-work, outside the gates; and after receiving their homage, he
gave them a banquet of every kind of Norman delicacy, among which were
especially noticed roasted cranes--a food hitherto held in abhorrence by
them, so that partaking of it was a sort of pledge that they were about
to forsake their peculiar and barbarous habits. They are said to have
been much impressed by the splendor of Henry's gold and jewels, the rich
robes of his court, and the chivalrous exercises of the knights and
nobles. Afterward he held a synod of the Irish clergy at Cashel, where
he caused the bull of Adrian to be read, and regulations were made for
the Church, requiring the priests to catechize children and baptize
them, enforcing the payment of tithes, and the performance of Divine
service, as well as that corpses should receive Christian burial. Henry
had intended to subject Ireland to English law, but the danger in which
he had been involved by the murder of Becket obliged him to return at
Easter, before his arrangements were completed. The lands settled by the
Normans around Dublin, which were called the English pale, were alone
under English laws; besides five septs--the O'Neills, the O'Connors, the
O'Briens, the O'Lachlans, and the MacMoroghs--all the rest were under
the Brehon, or Irish law; and an injury, or even murder done by an
Englishman on one of the Irish, was to be atoned for by a fine according
to this code.

Hugo de Lacy, [Footnote: The readers of "The Betrothed" will here
recognise a friend.] constable of Chester, an old, experienced warrior,
much trusted by the King, was made governor of Ireland with a grant
of the county of Meath. Shortly after, Oraric, a chieftain of that
territory, invited De Lacy to a conference on the hill of Tara, whither
each party was to come unarmed. The night before the meeting young
Griffith, the nephew of Maurice Fitzgerald, dreamt that he saw a herd of
wild boars rush upon his uncle and Hugo de Lacy, and tear them to pieces
with their tusks. Treating this dream as a warning, he chose seven tall
men of his own kindred, armed them well, and, leading them near the
place of conference, began to career about with them as if in chivalrous
exercises, always watching the assembly on the hill.

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
Herve 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.