Coming of the Norman. 1169-76.

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CHAPTER II***

The Coming of the Normans***

1169-1176**

“For why? because the good old rule

Sufficeth them, the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can.”

Wordsworth.

The restless enterprise of the Normans would, doubtless, have brought them across S. George’ Channel sooner or later, even had they not been invited by Dermot MacMurrough. Ireland, like the sister countries, was probably destined to come under the same authority as England. Yet it is a great pity that the conquest came about in the way it did. The coming of the English was associated with the barbarous vengefulness of a thoroughly bad man, and the hungry avarice of a pack of needy adventurers. The evil tree did not bring forth good fruit.

Dermot, on whom rests the primary responsibility for the loss of his country’s freedom and the subsequent centuries of bloodshed, was a mere compact of vices. One redeeming virtue he had-he was a good soldier. But he was cruel with a savage fury, which impressed men even in that callous age. An English chronicler relates with horror how MacMurrough, recognising the features of a personal enemy amid the pile of heads laid before him after a battle, snatched up the poor, mutilated fragment of humanity, and tore it with his teeth in hideous frenzy.

His passions were strong and evil. He abducted the wife of Ternan O’Rourke, King of Breffny (Co. Leitrim), and only released his prey when the angry husband marched an army into Dermot’s dominions. His violence and tyranny gave rise to a great coalition against him, which included O’Rourke, the Dublin Danes, under their king, Hasculf MacThorkil, and even his own patient subjects of Leinster.

No one stirred a finger on behalf of the wicked prince. Dermot was banished, and fled to the court of Henry II., with the design of obtaining assistance there, and returning, so aided, to wreak a fearful vengeance. The English monarch, however, declined to assist Dermot for his own part, while he gave permission for any of his vassals to do so if they chose.

A number of the barons of South Wales, finding but a poor subsistence in their rugged mountains, gladly embraced the opportunity of winning for themselves rich estates in a new country. The chief of these was Richard De Clare, Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow, a nobleman of good family but broken fortune. To him was given the leadership of the expedition, with the promise of the hand of Dermot’s daughter, Eva, and the succession to the kingdom.

In May 1169 a force of 2000 Anglo-Normans, or Cambro-Normans, as they might perhaps better be called, under Fitzstephen and Prendergast, established themselves in Wexford after a sharp struggle. The King of Connaught, Roderick O’Connor, who was the acknowledged suzerain of all Ireland at the time, immediately marched against them.

At this moment the invaders might easily have been crushed, but Roderick treated when he should have fought. Eventually he was weak enough to restore Dermot to his kingdom and annul the sentence of banishment, on condition of the expulsion of the foreigners. As soon as the arch-king had marched away, reinforcements arrived from Wales, so that Dermot soon felt himself strong enough to break his promises and march on Dublin.

He was specially inflamed against the citizens, for they had killed both his son and his father, adding insult to injury in the latter case by burying a dead dog in the same grave. Dermot and his allies carried fire and sword up to the very walls of the city, until the burghers were terrified into submission.

In the following summer Strongbow himself arrived with an army of 3000** **men, and at once won a signal success by the capture of Waterford. His wedding with Eva was solemnised in the breach amid the corpses of the slain.

Close on the ceremony came the tidings that Dublin was in revolt. The Danes were determined to hazard a battle for their independence. Dermot and his new son-in-law marched on the capital through the Wicklow mountains and by the dark, lonely valley of Glendalough, a route almost impassable for the heavy Norman men-at-arms, had it not been for the skilful guidance of the King of Leinster.

Their appearance in this quarter surprised the citizens, who, thinking the mountain road impracticable, had expected them to come by the plains of Carlow and Kildare. Archbishop Lawrence O’Toole was hastily sent out to ask a truce, while terms of surrender should be arranged. The request was granted, but, either through treachery or impatience, two Norman knights, Raymond Fitzgerald, called “le Gros,” and Miles de Cogan, began a fierce assault, in which the city was carried by storm.

Hasculf sailed away to the Northern Isles (the Scotch Hebrides) to obtain assistance to recover his kingdom. Strongbow and his followers now felt secure in the saddle, especially as their ally, Dermot, who might have been troublesome eventually, died in 1171**. **According to the Four Masters, his death was like that of Herod, for his flesh putrefied while he was still living. Such was the end of the man, who in their striking phrase, had made “a trembling sod” of all Ireland.

There was, however, much trouble in store for Strongbow, who had now taken the title of King of Leinster. Dublin was destined to undergo three sieges by land and water in that year. Henry II. did not like the notion of his late vassal setting up an independent kingdom, and determined to hinder the development of any such ambitious scheme.

He forbade any further dispatch of provisions or men to Ireland, at the same time ordering the adventurers already there to return before Easter, under pain of exile and confiscation. As soon as the sea was open for navigation, the defeated Hasculf returned with a great fleet and army of Norsemen and laid siege to Dublin. The Irish of the city and suburbs also mustered under a chief called “MacGilleMocholmog,” but were induced by Miles de Cogan to remain neutral spectators of the coming battle, with full liberty to fall on the defeated side, whichever it might be. They took their post on the rising ground where S. Andrew’s Church now stands. Rarely in their history have Irishmen been content to play this part amid the clash of arms. Probably only a fear for the lives of their hostages in De Cogan’s hands restrained them from participation on the Danish side.

The besiegers were led by a great Berserker of a Dane called “John the Mad.” He is said to have been capable of severing a mail-clad thigh with a single blow of his battle-axe, so that the leg fell on one side of the horse and the dying man on the other. Headed by this paladin, who slew that day nearly a score of Normans with his own hand, the Danish attack was almost irresistible.

The city was saved by the exertions of Miles de Cogan, who, like Raymond le Gros, often outshone his chief. A desperate charge of the defenders from the eastern gate (near the present entrance of the Lower Castle Yard) was repulsed, and the madman’s deadly axe was doing fearful execution, when Miles sent a small party under his brother Richard to slip out by the southern portal in Werburgh Street and fall on the rear of the assailants, now all but successful.

By this unexpected movement the Danes were thrown into a confusion, which became a rout. John the Mad was slain, Hasculf was captured and brought before the Norman leaders. Somewhat imprudently, he fell to threats and boastings.

“With little power we came now,” said he, “and this was but assay of our might, but if I live, ere it be long, there shall come far more than these.”

Whereon his captors, not unnaturally, “made siccar” by ordering his execution.

So passed away the Danish rule in Dublin after an existence of 300 years. It has left few memorials of its presence. Some churches are, on rather dubious authority, ascribed to the Norsemen. But during the greater part of their occupation the Danes were destroyers, not builders. A place-name like Howth or Dalkey, a surname like Broderick or McAuliffe, an occasional flaxen head among the dark-haired crowds of Dublin, these are practically all the traces of their long stay which remain, unless we include the round towers which the Irish built for an outlook and a refuge from the plundering heathen.

Dublin was soon again besieged. The native chiefs were now thoroughly alarmed, and were glad to join a great confederation organised by Archbishop Lawrence O’Toole against the invaders. Arch-king Roderick of Connaught was their general ; his army of 30,000** **men represented every clan in Ireland from the O’Rourkes of Leitrim to the Archbishop’s kinsmen, the O’Tooles of Wicklow.

True to his somewhat *fainéant *character, Roderick preferred a blockade to an assault. The garrison was soon starving, for in addition to Henry’s embargo their supplies were completely cut off by a Danish fleet in alliance with the Irish. Strongbow offered to surrender on terms of holding Leinster as a fief from Roderick, but his proposal was rejected. Negotiations were accordingly broken off, and under the influence of his hard-fighting subordinates, Raymond and Miles, the Norman commander resolved on a bolder course.

With the scanty remnant of his followers, some six hundred war-worn men, he determined to sally forth, sword in hand, to cut his way through the ranks of the foe. At three o’clock on a sultry afternoon lie made his attempt. Two months’ inactivity had demoralised the Irish forces, and the little band, to its own surprise, completely routed Roderick’s huge army. The Irish king was in his bath at the time, and escaped with difficulty in a half-naked condition.

The garrison returned triumphant, amply furnished with supplies by the plunder of the Irish camp. Strongbow, thinking the posture of affairs permitted his absence, hastened into England to make his peace with King Henry. He found that ruler busy with preparations for a great expedition to Ireland, which should assert the royal supremacy there over both native chief and Anglo-Norman adventurer.

During the great earl’s absence Dublin was again besieged, this time by Ternan O’Rourke, the husband whom Dermot MacMurrough had wronged. He, too, was easily defeated by the indefatigable Miles de Cogan.

On the 18th 1171, King Henry II. landed at Waterford with a force which overawed all opposition. Almost all the Irish princes came in to make submission, and were entertained sumptuously by the King at a wickerwork palace built outside the walls of Dublin, near that eastern gate where John the Mad was killed.

The Irish bishops, including Lawrence O’Toole, met in synod at Cashel and acknowledged King Henry. Arrangements were made for the government of the new conquest. Strongbow was given the province of Leinster, from which, significantly enough, the capital was excluded. Dublin was granted as a colony to the citizens of Bristol. Hugh de Lacy was appointed its first governor.

Henry was throughout very mistrustful of Strongbow’s aims, and seems to have intended this De Lacy, who is generally considered the first of the long line of Irish viceroys, as a watch and a check on the powerful earl. The troubles with the Papacy consequent on the murder of Becket called the King back to England before the work of settlement in Ireland was completed. He had intended to bridle the country in the usual Norman style with castles, to conquer the north and west, as yet untrodden by an English foot, and to restrain his barons from the feudal anarchy to which they were so prone. Henry left Ireland in April, 1172.

A year later Strongbow succeeded De Lacy as viceroy. Ireland soon fell into a state of utter confusion. Native princes rebelled, Norman barons ravaged the country, the new governor was defeated and besieged in Waterford, whence he was barely rescued by his lieutenant, Raymond le Gros, who demanded as his reward the hand of Strongbow’s sister, Basilea.

Only within the fortified town of Dublin was there any peace. Here the troubled years, which followed the invasion, were marked by some important religious foundations. Wherever they went, the Normans delighted to build great churches and endow religious establishments. Strongbow determined to be the founder of a cathedral fit for the metropolis of Ireland. Archbishop Lawrence O’Toole, now reconciled to English rule, gladly fell in with the idea, and in 1172** **Strongbow, Raymond le Gros, his brother-in-law, and Robert Fitzstephen, celebrated as the first Norman to land in Ireland, undertook to erect a splendid new structure on the site of Sitric’s church. The older edifice was most probably swept away to make room for the new, which took at least 50 years to build.

The present nave, transepts and crypt of Christ Church Cathedral were constructed by Strongbow and his immediate successors. At the same time an order of military monks was installed in Kilmainham, where a magnificent priory sprang up on a beautiful site looking westward up the tranquil water-meadows of the upper Liffey.

In 1176 Strongbow died of a malignant ulcer in his foot, which his enemies ascribed to the miracles of the Irish saints, whose shrines he had violated. Archbishop Lawrence O’Toole died about the same time while returning from a pilgrimage to Rome. With the disappearance of the two leaders in Church and State a long period of feudal anarchy settled down upon Ireland.

Dublin 1176-1316. To Chart Index. Home.