Dublin 1176-1316.

**

CHAPTER III***

From Strongbow’s Death to the Scottish Invasion***

1176-1316**

“They quitted not their armour bright,

Neither by day, nor yet by night;

They lay down to rest With corslet laced,

Pillowed on buckler cold and har;

They carved at the meal

With gloves of steel

And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred.”

- Scott.

After the famous year of the three sieges, Dublin enjoyed comparative peace for more than a century. The men of Bristol flocked over to settle on the Liffey and relegated the original Danish inhabitants to the north bank of the river where they formed the suburb of Ostmantown (town of the East-men or Danes), now called Oxmantown. The increased intercourse with England brought great prosperity to the Irish ports, although the country, as a whole, suffered considerably from the internecine wars of her late invaders.

The death of Strongbow began a squalid scramble among his followers. With all his faults the great earl had won the respect of his subordinates and maintained order with a strong hand. Basilea, his sister, concealed the fact of his death until she could summon her husband, Raymond le Gros, to Dublin.

As a letter might go astray, she dared not convey her news in plain language. So she merely sent him word that “the great jaw tooth, which used to trouble her so much, had fallen out,” adding an entreaty to come quickly. Raymond read and understood. His share of the spoil went to endow the Geraldine or Fitzgerald family, which still bears the surname of the doughty Norman.

One of his fellow barons, Dc Courcy, set off to carve out for himself an independent kingdom in Ulster. Another, De Lacy, made himself ruler of North Leinster from Kildare to the Shannon, and even married the daughter of the Irish King, Roderick of Connaught. Then the two became bitter rivals and the country was rent by their feuds.

The distant King of England, dimly discerning that all was not well, sent over viceroy after viceroy. Some of these simply feathered their own nests during their short stay; others became partisans of one faction or the other and made confusion worse confounded. In 1185 Henry sent across his son, Prince John, afterwards king, hoping that the presence of one of the royal family would still the contending parties.

But John was a foolish and petulant boy, whose retinue contained no wiser head than his own. He spent his days and nights in debauchery, while the clean-shaven dandies of his court insulted the proud Irish chiefs by plucking their beards as they came in to make their submission to the son of the great Henry.

The native leaders returned to their homes deeply incensed, and a fierce rebellion burst forth immediately. The settlers were everywhere driven into the towns for refuge. John’s army was frittered away to no purpose, and the English authority received its first sharp shock.

Dublin Castle probably owes its existence to the misbehaviour of Prince John. It was found to be essential that the capital of the country should be strongly fortified, seeing the loose hold the new government really had over the outlying districts.

The city, too, required protection against some of its troublesome neighbours. Only six miles from the southern suburbs, the mountains, where dwelt the warlike, plundering tribes of O’Byrne and O’Toole, lay extended like a long blue wall against the horizon. The burghers were plagued by frequent raids which, while not a serious danger to their town, caused nevertheless a great loss of life and property.

The worst disaster which ever befell the citizens at the hands of the natives happened on Easter Monday, 1209. The colonists were holiday-making at Cullenswood, near Ranelagh, when the mountaineers swooped down on them, and drove them with great slaughter into the city. The ranks of the Dubliners were so thinned that fresh reinforcements had to be called for from Bristol.

The day was long remembered as Black Monday, and the anniversary was commemorated each year by a great review of the armed forces of the city on the scene of the defeat, when banners were displayed, and the victorious hillmen challenged to another trial of strength. It was a case of “Who dares to tread on the tail of my coat?” but the O’Byrnes seldom accepted the invitation. A good soldier rarely fights at. the very place and time of his enemy’s choosing. The Irish tribes preferred to give no notice of their coming.

The misfortune at Cullenswood accelerated the building of Dublin Castle, for which a writ had been issued in 1204. At the same time permission was granted for the holding of an annual fair, the tolls of which were to be appropriated for the enclosing of the city with walls. Donnybrook Fair owes its origin to this ancient writ of King John, and it is possible that the famous practice of “trailing the coat” may have been modelled on the annual bravado of the municipal forces at Cullenswood, which is but half a mile away.

The citadel of Dublin, curiously enough, was built, not by warrior barons, but by ecclesiastics. The English kings, after trying every other expedient for the good government of Ireland, had taken to sending over episcopal viceroys. The bishops of that day were often as good soldiers and statesmen as any of the feudal nobility. Besides, they had one great advantage in the king’s eyes. They could not found families.

The great fear of the English monarchs was that some ambitious man might make himself independent ruler of Ireland and transmit his authority to his descendants. A unified kingdom, under strong hereditary kings, would be more difficult to conquer than was the heterogeneous, tribal Ireland of 1172. But the power of the ecclesiastical governor, no matter how much he aggrandised himself, must cease with his death. It could not be transmitted to a son. De Gray, Bishop of Norwich and Viceroy of Ireland, is believed to have commenced the castle, which his successor, Henry of London, Archbishop of Dublin, and also Viceroy, completed about the year 1220.

The conjunction of the supreme authority in Church and State in the same hands led to a great prominence of the religious element in the life of the capital. Old Dublin was a small town, about half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. Yet in the city and its environs there were two cathedrals, nearly a dozen abbeys and about a score of churches. The total population could scarcely have exceeded 10,000.

There was certainly no necessity for the second cathedral. Christ Church was sufficiently large and dignified for all the needs of the diocese. But its situation did not please the early archbishops. Lying in the heart of the city, it was subject to the authority of the viceroy, who might be a layman, and the mayor, who was always lay. Moreover, it was the home of a monastic chapter, which often ran counter to the episcopal wishes.

So in 1191 Comyn, successor of S. Lawrence O’Toole in the see of Dublin, established a great church outside the walls as a counterpoise to his troublesome cathedral. The site was that of the Celtic church and well hallowed by association with S. Patrick. The old building was swept away and an edifice erected in its place far excelling Christ Church in size and splendour.

As yet the new foundation was only a collegiate church, served by a number of secular priests living together. But the ecclesiastical viceroys followed the same lines as Comyn. In 1219 Henry of London. made S. Patrick’s a regular cathedral, equal in every respect to Christ Church, save that it had at its head not a bishop but a dean.

Ever since that day S. Patrick’s has held a higher place in the affections of Dublin people than Christ Church, though viceroy and mayor maintain their old allegiance. The triumphant archbishops issued forth from the city, built their palace of S. Sepulchre close to their new foundation, and exercised feudal jurisdiction over the surrounding districts, long known as “the archbishop’s liberty.”

In the year 1210 King John visited Ireland again, and stayed some time at Dublin. Wars and excommunications had taught him prudence, so that on this occasion he succeeded in pacifying the country. The De Lacys were exiled, and the districts under English rule were divided into 12 counties, of which Dublin was one. Some of the native chiefs came in and submitted.

The remainder of the 13th century in the annals of the city is mainly occupied with quarrels between the civic authorities and the archbishops. The prelates were so immersed in politics as to be often somewhat regardless of their sacred office. Statecraft, particularly during troubled times, tends to produce a harshness and lack of scruple, which are odious in any one, but especially in a head of the church. The occupants of the see of Dublin were sometimes unduly severe to their subjects and dependants. Henry of London, already referred to, was the worst offender.

He once called on all his villeins or tenants to produce their title-deeds. The unsuspecting peasants did so, when, to their utter astonishment, the unscrupulous cleric cast all the documents into a fire. But he had reckoned without his host. The angry tenants, with shouts of “Thou an Archbishop! Nay! thou art a scorch-villein,” broke through the ring of servants, and would have mobbed the archbishop or fired the house over his head, had he not come to terms with them. So ended the first recorded agrarian riot in Ireland.

In these and other similar disputes the municipality took the side of the tenants, and incurred in consequence all the thunders of the Church. The city was on one occasion laid under an interdict, which was only removed by the intercession of the reigning viceroy.

In 1251 a new coinage was struck in Dublin, bearing the King’s head inside a triangle, which is believed to be a rude representation of the traditional Irish harp.

In 1308 Dublin obtained its first public water supply. A three-mile conduit was constructed from the Dodder across the fields by Dolphin’s Barn and into the city, where it flowed like an ordinary brook down the main street. Citizens were permitted to connect their houses with this stream by means of pipes, which were on no account to exceed the thickness of a goose quill.

John le Decer, the then mayor or provost, as he was called, built a marble cistern in the centre of the town to store the overplus brought down by occasional floods. The watercourse was the apple of the municipal eye for centuries. Proclamations were continually issued against its pollution by offal, or the secret diversion of its waters by unauthorised branches.

On one point, however, in connection with the system, Dublin retrograded. At first the pipes laid by the Corporation to supply the side streets were of lead, but in the seventeenth century, on the plea of economy, these were replaced by wooden ones made of elm, which existed until some 80 years ago.

The anarchy in Ireland increased during the long weak reign of Henry III. His son Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., was granted the island as an appanage, but never troubled himself with his charge. Even when he came to the throne, he was too busy with Scotland and Flanders to pay any attention to Ireland. The insecurity of life and property there had, by the year 1285,** **increased to such an extent that the five leading towns, Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Drogheda formed a confederation in defence of their liberties. It was a counterpart of the Hanseatic league on the Continent. The delegates from each city were to meet at Kilkenny and contributions were to be made to a joint fund. Combinations such as these are sure tokens of a disturbed country and a weak central government.

Edward II. succeeded his father in England and again Scotch wars occupied the royal councils to the exclusion of Irish affairs. His favourite, De Gaveston, exiled by the barons, came over as viceroy in 1308** **and helped the Dublin citizens to a victory over their enemies the Wicklow clans. He rebuilt the fortresses of Newcastle and Castle-Kevin, which had been destroyed by the Irish, and cut roads through the woods towards Glendalough. The authorities in Ireland, during the long campaigns which culminated at Bannockburn, were able to send strong contingents to the English armies in Scotland. Robert Bruce took a terrible revenge for the assistance thus given to his enemies.

Soon after the great battle of 1314** emissaries from the unsubdued Irish of Ulster came to the Bruce, asking him to send his brother Edward to be king over them. The Scotch king was glad to occupy the hands of his enemies and to provide for a relation at the same time. In 1315 **Edward Bruce landed at Lame and commenced to overrun the country.

He met with the most complete success everywhere, except at Carrickfergus Castle, where the garrison held out desperately, even resorting to cannibalism, as the tale goes, rather than surrender. They are said to have devoured the bodies of the Scots, who fell in the assault. Bruce defeated in turn Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, Roger Mortimer, the celebrated paramour of Edward II.’s queen, and Sir Edmund Butler, the viceroy.

The whole country from one end to the other was devastated by the Scots or the armies sent against them. In 1316** Carnckfergus Castle capitulated on a promise that the lives of the defenders should be spared. Early in the next year Edward was joined by his brother King Robert, and their joint forces, numbering 20,000 **men, marched on Dublin ravaging as they went.

The Scottish leaders encamped at Castleknock, four miles from the city across the wooded uplands which now form the Phoenix Park. The citizens prepared for a desperate resistance. The suburbs in the direction of Thomas Street were burned so as not to provide cover for the attack. Even S. Patrick’s was not exempted; it was sacrificed to the necessities of the time. An abbey was pulled down to furnish material for building a new wall along the river front of the city.

Richard de Burgh, lately defeated in the field and suspected of a secret understanding with the enemy, was arrested in S. Mary’s Abbey and confined in the Castle. The Bruces turned aside when they saw the resolute attitude of the townsmen and marched away towards Limerick. The famine which their depredations had caused now began to affect its creators. Limerick was also fully equipped for a siege and the Scots were compelled to retreat, suffering greatly from hunger and disease.

It was the beginning of the end. Robert returned to Scotland. In 1318** **Edward was defeated and slain at Faughart, near Dundalk. He perished at the hands of one Sir John Malpas, who essayed with more success the feat attempted by the “fierce De Boune,” of Scott’s poem at Bannockburn. Malpas rushed at Bruce and killed him in the midst of his array. His body, pierced with many wounds, was found after the battle lying on the corpse of the Scottish leader.

The remains of the fallen foe were treated with shameful disrespect by the victors. The body was quartered and hung up in Dublin and other towns, while the head was preserved in salt and sent to Edward II. At the English court it was utilised, as the story goes, for a ghastly practical joke. In ignorance of his fate, some ambassadors from Scotland were demanding Ulster as a kingdom for the younger Bruce, when, to their utter dismay and horror, the head of that warrior was flung on the table before them.

English Decline. 1318-1399. To Chart Index. Home.