Arrival Of Henry
Above : Picture Of Henry II
On the 18th October, 1171, Henry’s fleet of 400 ships arrived in Waterford Harbour, and the King landed at Crook with a fully equipped army of nearly 10,000 men. From the first he professed to come not as a conqueror, but to curb his lawless subjects and to protect the Irish from their aggression. When the people of Wexford handed him over their prisoner, Fitz-Stephen, he ordered him to be fettered—but released him in a few days. At the same time, however, he claimed an acknowledgment of his over-lordship as a powerful and protecting sovereign.
An acknowledgment of such a vague supremacy, with its promise of immunity from the adventurers, the Irish chiefs were apparently quite willing to give. At Waterford and Cashel, the chiefs of Leath Mhogha, including the hereditary rulers of Munster—Mac Carthy and O’Brien—and the militant chiefs of the Deisi and Osraidhe all paid homage to Henry. From Waterford the King and his imposing Court and army proceeded to Dublin. There other chiefs came in : O Maolachlan, O’Carroll chief of Oirghialla, and even that old warrior, the scarred and one-eyed Tiernan O’Rourke of Breifne. O’Connor held aloof beyond the Shannon, although Norman writers say that he made some sort of acknowledgment to Henry’s ambassadors—De Lacy and Fitz-Adelm De Burgh. The chiefs of Tir Eoghain and Tir Chonaill—true to the traditions of the Northern Ui Neill—and the chiefs of Ulaidh, refused any token of submission.
The winter of 1171 was spent by Henry in Dublin. In a large pavilion of wicker work erected outside the city on the height which rose over what is now College Green, he entertained the Irish chiefs, and impressed them by the pomp of his Court, as well as by the luxuries which the Crusades were introducing into Europe froni the East. He also busied himself in organising the future government of his subjects in Ireland. He installed the great feudal officers of state, each of whom was responsible for his own sphere of government and administration ; instituted royal courts of law, and appointed judges and sheriffs to be a check on the nobles in their own territories. These institutions affected his own subjects only ; the Irish, of course, still maintained their own laws and customs.
Early in the following year (1172), Henry caused a Synod of the Church to be held at Cashel which was attended by most of the Irish bishops—Gelasius, Archbishop of Armagh, and some other northern bishope being the exceptions. This Synod is said to have been convened in consequence of a famous bull of Pope Adrian IV, regarding which there has been much controversy. That Pope was named Nicholas Brakespear, and was the only Englishman who was ever Pope. The year after Henry became King he represented to Adrian the fearful state of Ireland, and offered to cure her ills. The Pope, knowing him only as the King who had saved England from anarchy, issued a Bull (1155), which purported to make a grant of Ireland to Henry for the purpose of ” reforming evil manners, planting virtue, and increasing the Christian religion.” For sixteen years Henry did nothing with regard to it, and now he was in danger of being excommunicated for the murder of Becket. The Synod of Cashel was necessary to keep up an appearance of carrying out the objects for which the Bull was granted. Yet, strange to say, no mention of the Bull was made at the Synod, and the decrees which were passed by it related only to formal matters of Church discipline.* These decrees, however, were forwarded to the Pope, and three years later at another Synod at Waterford, an acknowledgment of them, and a confirmatory grant from Pope Alexander III, were read. This was the first public announcement of Adrian’s Bull.
There has been much controversy regarding the authenticity of this Bull, chiefly based upon the delay in publishing it, and the fact that the original has never been found, but the balance of authority is in favour of its being genuine. Even admitting this, however, and apart from the questions of the authority of the Pope to make the grant and the truth, of Henry’s representations which secured it, it is evident that the Irish Church had shown sufficient vigour to carry out its oun reform. In any case, Henry and his barons were far from being the most edifying instruments for the advancement of religion and morals.
Six months Henry spent in Ireland. He had met with no opposition. On the contrary, his superior position had been more or less definitely acknowledged by most * Such as marriage within certain degrees of kinship, the payment of tithes, tie. of the country. He had come as a protector, and had been received as such. He had carried on no warfare. The fighting had been done by the early adventurers, and it had been chiefly against the Norse townsmen. It was now necessary, on the one hand, to reward those who had prepared the way, and, on the other, to secure his own control. Accordingly, he proceeded to make ” grants ” of great pieces of Irish territory to his chief followers. Strongbow was confirmed in his Lordship of Leinster. The dissensions of the O Maolachlan family were utilised as an excuse to make a grant to Hugh de Lacy of the ancient patrimony of the Southern Ui Neill as the Lordship of Meath. Other great grants, made either during Henry’s visit, or soon after, were those of the Earldom of ” Ulster” to De Courcey, and of Connaught to De Burgh. Territories of lesser extent in various parts of the country, in many of which a Norman had not yet been seen, were similarly ” granted ” as feudal fiefs. But the towns Henry kept for himself. Dublin (which he made the seat of his viceroy), Wexford, and Waterford were fortified and guarded by strong castles, and placed under the control »f governors or ” constables ” to be nominated by the King. The Norse inhabitants of Dublin were removed to the north side of the Liffey, and their places taken by settlers from Bristol.
Henry was now suddenly summoned before the Papal Legates to account for his share in the murder of Becket. He sailed from Wexford on the 17th April, 1172, and hurried across England to Normandy, where he made an abject submission to the Pope, and afterwards went through a humiliating public penance.
Below : Picture Of Pope Alexander III
