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FitzAudelin appointed
Procurator - Arrival of John de Courcy - He enters Ulster and takes
Downpatrick - Defeats MacDunlevy, King of Ulster - Battle of Down - Prince
John visits Ireland - His Mission a Failure - De Courcy's Doings in Ulster
- His Lands confiscated - Hugh de Lacy created Earl of Ulster.
On the death of Strongbow,
Raymond assumed the position of procurator in Ireland until the King's
will should be known. Henry, always of a very jealous disposition, and
suspicious of his barons lest by any chance they should grow too great to
be subdued, had never trusted Raymond. Le Gros was of a frank and free
nature, liberal and honest, but he had enemies who were envious of his
success and seized every opportunity to traduce him. Under these
circumstances it is not strange that Henry, on learning of Strongbow's
death, and distrusting Raymond, should send William FitzAudelin (who had
held office previously in 1173) to be procurator instead of Raymond, with
instructions to seize for the King all the castles belonging to the Earl
in Leinster.
Raymond, on FitzAudelin
being appointed Viceroy, was deprived of all authority, civil or military,
and retired to his estates in Wexford, where he died in 1182.
With FitzAudelin came Miles
de Cogan and Robert FitzStephen, who had accompanied Henry when he left
Ireland, and had no doubt done good service for the King in France and in
England. They were now to reap their reward in Ireland. With them came
John de Courcy, who now first set foot on Irish soil.
FitzAudelin was descended
from a half-brother of William the Conqueror, and was therefore connected
with Henry, who appears to have placed great confidence in him, and given
him several offices under the crown. Giraldus describes him as "a man full
of guile, bland and deceitful, much given to wine and women covetous of
money and ambitious of Court favour". He was an over-cautious man, and
damped the ardour of such enterprising spirits as Raymond and FitzStephen,
and in the end his viceroyalty was not a success, and he was recalled
(1178).
Of those who chafed under
FitzAudelin's rule John de Courcy was the most notable. He was a tall,
fair man, muscular, of great strength and remarkable daring. He possessed
the qualities of a soldier rather than of a commander, for he was so keen
a combatant that he forgot the aplomb of the general, and plunged
impetuously into the thick of the fight. Such a man was not likely to long
remain quiescent. King Henry, whose ebullience often cost him dear
(witness his unguarded exclamation which resulted in the murder of
Becket), had said to De Courcy, as he had already said to Strongbow
half-jestingly, that he might take Ulster if he could. With a lively
recollection of this utterance De Courcy prepared to carry it into effect.
Gathering round him some of the more adventurous spirits in the garrison
of Dublin, he, with a little band of 22 men-at-arms and about 500 others,
and gathering as he went malcontents of all kinds, boldly advanced into
Ulster, where hitherto the arms of the English had not penetrated.
Marching rapidly through Drogheda and Dundalk, he took by surprise the
city of Downpatrick, which was then the chief seat of the Kings of Ulidia.
The resistance of the Ulster men could not but be feeble, and the King of
the district, named Rory MacDunlevy, precipitously fled, only to return at
the head of an army of 10,000 men.
A peaceable settlement was
attempted by Cardinal Vivian, who happened to be in Downpatrick on his way
to Dublin. He had come from Rome as papal legate, and he endeavoured to
get the opposing forces to come to terms by offering, on the part of the
Ulster chiefs, to acknowledge the sovereignty of King Henry and pay him
tribute if De Courcy would withdraw his men and return to Dublin. His
efforts, however, were fruitless, and, seeing that war was inevitable, he
is said to have urged the Irish to fight for their country.
In a week MacDunlevy
returned with his huge army, determined to win his own again. De Courcy is
said to have had only 700 men. They met on the low-lying district north of
the city, which at the time consisted of swampy ground. Here a battle
ensued in which the deadly crossbows did their work so effectively that De
Courcy, notwithstanding the great odds, won a decisive victory. This
victory he followed up later in a battle fought on the 24th of June, also
at Down. On this occasion Rory MacDunlevy was not alone. As King of the
Ulidians he was supported by Melaghlin O'Neill, King of the Cinel Owen.
The Church was represented on the battle-field by the Archbishop of Armagh
and a large number of the clergy, including the Bishop of Down, who
displayed numerous relics in the hope of securing success. The result of
this encounter is variously estimated at from 500 to 1500 men killed. "The
Archbishop of Armagh, the Bishop of Down, and all the clergy were taken
prisoners, and the English secured the croziers of St. Comgall and St.
Dachiarog, the 'Book of Armagh', and a bell called 'Ceolan an Tighearna'.
The bishops were later set at liberty, and the 'Book of Armagh' was
restored, with
the bell, but they killed all the inferior clergy, and kept the other
noble relics."
A third engagement took
place in 1178 at Fir-Li, a tribal district on the Bann, in the north of
Antrim. De Courcy was raiding cattle, when he was set upon by O'Flynn, the
chief of the territory he was plundering, in a narrow pass, and barely
escaped with his life, his troops being cut down by the Irish in such
numbers that it was said there were but eleven survivors. Later, at Newry,
De Courcy met the combined forces of O'Carroll of Uriel and Rory
MacDunlevy, and sustained a loss of nearly 500 men.
Knowing the superstitious
nature of the Irish, De Courcy spread abroad a legend to the effect that a
prophecy of Merlin was fulfilled in his advent. The prediction was
supposed to be to the effect that Ulster would be conquered by a white
knight mounted on a white charger, and having on his shield graven figures
of birds. He took care in dress and accoutrements to pose as the white
knight, and thus gained credence for the tale, which, in addition to a
prophecy of St. Columba that a needy and broken man, a stranger from a far
country, should come to Down with a small following and possess himself
of-the city, had its weight in a credulous age, and no doubt in some
measure furthered his claim to be heavensent. As the news of his exploits
spread he was reinforced from Dublin by large numbers of adventurers sick
of FitzAudelin's pacific rule.
While De Courcy from his
stronghold in Downpatrick carried war into the surrounding districts, the
Ulster princes continued to fight amongst themselves as if there were no
enemy in their midst. The various septs were much weak- ened by this state
of constant warfare, and thereby laid themselves open to become an easy
prey to De Courcy, who lost no opportunity to widen his borders;
accordingly we find a new English settlement near Derry, and mote castles
(wooden towers erected on artificial mounds of earth) dotted all over the
adjacent country.
In 1180 De Courcy
strengthened his position by marrying Affreca, daughter of Gottred, King
of Man. By this alliance he gained a powerful friend in Gottred, and was
enabled to keep open communication by sea with Dublin, and also with
England, a fact which proved of incalculable advantage to him in later
years.
The hostile spirit of the
various Irish tribes towards each other continued without any abatement.
Thus we find, in 1181, the Cinel Connel engaged in a sanguinary struggle
with the kingdom of Connaught, in which "were killed sixteen sons of kings
of Connaught, and stark slaughter of Connaught besides". Even the presence
of their common enemy did not serve to animate the princes of Ulster to
combine and sink their differences, for the Cinel Owen in this very same
year (1181), under their king, Donnell O'Loughlin, "gained a battle over
the Ulidians, and over Ui Tuirtri, and over Fir-Li around Rory MacDunlevy
and Cumee O'Flynn". Both these chiefs had been De Courcy's most formidable
opponents; therefore, by their action, the Cinel Owen were actively
assisting the invader. The result of this and subsequent raids into Ulidia
by the Cinel Owen, in which they "took many thousands of cows", is seen in
the significant fact that the Ulidians, unable to cope with their
neighbours, appealed to De Courcy to help them, and when Donnell
O'Loughlin made his next raid, in 1182, he was met and defeated by De
Courcy's troops.
Little by little the
superior arms and strong government of De Courcy made an impression on the
people, who gradually settled down, more or less contentedly, under his
protection. Recognizing the civilizing power of the Church, John de Courcy
did much for the spiritual advancement of his subjects; for such,
remembering his unlimited jurisdiction, we may call them. He reigned
supreme in the territory he had won, and was not in any way interfered
with by either King or Viceroy. In his relations with the Church he was
princely in his munificence, as a long list of his gifts to the See of
Down proves. He introduced Benedictine monks into Down, and granted large
tracts of land to others, besides endowing religious houses of various
kinds.
In 1184 Henry carried out a
design he long had contemplated, by carrying into effect the appointment
of his son John as Lord of Ireland. There is even evidence that at one
time Henry thought of having John crowned King of Ireland. This idea,
however, luckily came to nothing; but at the Council of Oxford, in May,
1177, John, then a boy of ten, had been, with the authority of the Pope,
constituted "Dominus Hiberniae", and as such all those to whom grants of
land were made had done homage to him and taken the oath of fealty.
Laurence OToole, the
archbishop, had died in 1180, and had been succeeded by John Comyn, and
now (1184) Henry once more recalled Hugh de Lacy, and appointed Philip of
Worcester as procurator. In the following year Philip invaded Armagh, and
exacted a heavy tribute from the clergy. What the object of this
expedition may have been is uncertain, but the Annals of Ulster record
that "Philip of Worcester, accompanied by the Foreigners of Erin, remained
at Armagh for six days in the middle of Lent".
John landed in Waterford on
24th April, 1185, having with him 300 knights and a large force of
men-at-arms. Immediately on his arrival the Irish chiefs in the
neighbourhood came to welcome and pay homage to him. Instead of behaving
with becoming dignity, John appears to have derided his Irish subjects,
and it is said that their beards were rudely pulled in ridicule by the
clean-shaven Norman members of his retinue. The Irish, ever proud and
sensitive, withdrew in anger at this treatment, and carried their
grievances to the kings of the south and west of Ireland, with the result
that John's visit to Ireland proved a disastrous failure. He returned to
England on I7th December, having, in the short period of eight months,
undone all that King Henry had by his admirable diplomacy succeeded in
doing.
Henry, no doubt recognizing
the failure of John's mission to Ireland, and possibly dreading an
outbreak of hostilities as a result of his son's flippant treatment of the
Irish chiefs, bethought him of John de Courcy, and forthwith appointed him
Justiciar. De Courcy accordingly transferred the scene of his activities
from Downpatrick to Dublin. His followers in Ulster, however, continued as
belligerent as ever, and we read of raids into Tirowen (1188), followed by
a battle in which O'Loughlin was slain, and in 1189 of an engagement
between the English, who had entered Fermanagh, and O'Carroll of Uriel and
O'Mahony, Lord of Fermanagh, in which the latter was killed and the
English were victorious.
In 1189 Henry II died. He
was succeeded by his son, Richard Cceur de Lion, who paid no attention to
his Irish dominions, and but little to his possessions in either England
or Normandy, but sought a wider field for his activities in the Third
Crusade. While Richard was abroad, John reigned at home, and one of his
first acts was to supersede De Courcy and appoint Hugh de Lacy, a son of
the first Viceroy, to take his place. De Courcy retired to Downpatrick,
and in the very year of his retirement, for some inexplicable reason,
plundered Tirowen and, in the following year, Armagh.
The history of Ulster for
the next fifteen years is little more than the record of De Courcy's
doings. Ever ambitious, he never ceased in his endeavours to extend his
borders. Two of his chief opponents, O'Carroll of Uriel and Cumee O'Flynn,
were removed, the former by a violent, the latter by a natural death. Life
to De Courcy was a perpetual warfare. The years 1197 to 1199 were spent by
him in unending conflict with the Irish and in building castles to hold
them in check. In 1197 his brother, Jordan de Courcy, was killed by an
Irishman of his household, and this piece of treachery seems to have
embittered John. He avenged his brother's death on some of the petty
chiefs, and gave large tracts of their land to a Scotsman named Duncan
Galloway, who aided him. There was, it appears, a Scottish settlement near
Coleraine, where large grants were made later by King John to the Scots of
Galloway.
John de Courcy's
independent rule in Ulster seems to have roused the envy of Hugh de Lacy,
who appears to have misrepresented him to John as being engaged "in
destroying the King's land in Ireland". It is possible that De Courcy
refused to pay homage to John, and claimed his holding in Ulster as an
independent kingdom. Whatever his offence may have been, John de Courcy
was treacherously arrested by De Lacy in 1201, and was to have been
delivered up to the King, but that his followers obtained his release by
undertaking not to plunder the De Lacy lands in future. De Courcy seems
from this time to have been a marked man. We read of his getting
safe-conducts to and from the King's Court "to treat of peace". These he
seems to have ignored. Two years later De Lacy came north and defeated him
in a battle at Downpatrick, and banished him from Ulster. On the 3ist of
August, 1204, he was summoned to appear before King John, "as he had sworn
and given hostages to do", and in default his lands were to be
confiscated. As De Courcy ignored this mandate, Hugh de Lacy again
repaired to Ulster, and after a struggle took De Courcy prisoner. He was
again set at liberty on condition that he went to the Holy Land; but he
did not go. Finally the King's patience was exhausted, and on the 2Qth of
May, 1205, he granted to Hugh de Lacy all the land of Ulster, to hold of
the King in fee. John at the same time created De Lacy Earl of Ulster.
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