and Richard, eager to avenge him, at once prepared a second expedition against Ireland, from which he was to be recalled to find that his crown had been seized by . Henry of Bolingbroke, who reigned as Henry IV. He again landed at Waterford, in May, 1399, and began the march to Dublin. Art MacMurrogh and his Irish army, as before, opposed him at every step of the way. Richard left the open marshy country and entered the forests that stretched down from the Wicklow mountains. Art Richard's disastrous march. MacMurrogh quickly took advantage of this error. He led his three thousand men through the woods, steadily retiring before Richard, subjecting him to numberless harassing attacks, but never giving him battle in the open. The English king was ill supplied with provisions; he was perplexed by the difficulties of the country, where forests and marshes alternated, and compelled to meet incessant attacks. Richard completely lost his way, and his army was on the verge of starvation, when he finally emerged at a point on the Wicklow coast, far to the south of Dublin. Here three ships from Dublin brought provisions, which were the means of saving the army, Richard followed the coast northward toward Dublin, with Art MacMurrogh's army still hovering close by, and attacking him at Conference every opportunity. MacMurrogh agreed to meet one of Richard's representatives, but a rogh and Gloucester. discussion held between him and the Earl of Gloucester was without result. Richard was wroth, and swore he would never leave Ireland until he had captured MacMurrogh, but, on his arrival at Dublin, he was met by the news of Bolingbroke's uprising, and returned to England to find that he had lost his throne. of MacMur 117. Close of Art MacMurrogh's career. After the departure of the English king, Art MacMurrogh became so formidable that the government decided to attempt a reconciliation, and agreed to compensate him for the forfeiture of his wife's estates. The restless Leinster chief MEETING OF ART MACMURROGH KAVANAGH AND GLOUCESTER From manuscript mentioned on page 131. MacMurrogh is here described as large man wonderfully active. To look at him he seemed very stern and fierce and an able man" a fine remained at peace for a short period, but his love of war soon got the better of his pacific resolutions, and he renewed his raids, plundering Carlow and Castledermot in 1405, and continuing through Wexford. In a battle near Callan in Kilkenny, in 1407, he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the lord lieutenant, Sir Stephen Scroope. Art MacMurrogh remained quiet for a short time after this defeat, but in 1413 he was once more in the field. He attacked the colony of Wexford in this year, and again, three years later, won a decisive battle over the combined forces of the English. This was his last fight, as he died in 1417. Art MacMurrogh Kavanagh had ruled the Irish of Leinster for forty-two years, and, in spite of all efforts to subdue him, had maintained his power and authority close to the English Pale. This is an accurate measure of the extent of England's power in the Ireland of the fourteenth century. 118. Conditions under Henry V and Henry VI, 1413-1461. For the next thirty years, the condition of Ireland remained much the same. The kings of England were still too completely engrossed by the Hundred Years' War with France to pay much attention to Ireland. The authority of the Dublin government dwindled to almost nothing. The great barons were stronger than before. The native chiefs, as of old, were fighting among themselves and against the English lords. During the Sir John reign of Henry V, Sir John Talbot was sent over, and temporarily subdued four troublesome chiefs O'Moore, MacMahon, O'Hanlon, and O'Neill. He quartered his soldiers on the people of the Pale, however, and thus caused them as much suffering as they would have endured from the raids of the Irish chieftains. Talbot. : After the accession of Henry VI, in 1422, a quarrel cf twenty years' duration broke out between the Butlers and the Talbots, which brought the English settlement to the verge of ruin. Confusion and corruption were rife in the Pale. Debts remained unpaid, and extortions of all kinds were inflicted on the poor people by the officials. A short respite was enjoyed, in the York. year 1450, when Richard Plantagenet, duke of York, was lord lieutenant. He made the great innovation of adopting fair measures toward both parties, and was deservedly popular. His appointment had been Duke of for ten years, but Jack Cade's insurrection, breaking out in England in the following year, compelled his return. Butlers. 119. The Wars of the Roses. The Wars of the Roses, which began in England in 1455, between the rival houses of Lancaster and York, having as their emblems the Red and the White Rose, were destined to last for thirty years. In Ireland, the Geraldines took the side of the House of York, while the Butlers sided with the House of Lancaster. Not only did Geraldines these great Norman lords fight in Ireland, but and they even went to England, carrying Irish armies with them, to fight for the rival princes. Their absence gave the Irish chiefs fresh opportunities to reassert themselves, and to recover still more of their former power. The two factions also fought several battles on Irish soil. Among the captives at one of these battles was MacRichard Butler, whose ransom consisted of two Irish manuscripts, the Psalter of Cashel and the Book of Carrick. A part of the Psalter of Cashel still exists in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and an account of this incident is recorded on one of its pages. 120. Thomas, earl of Desmond, 1463–1467. Thomas Fitzgerald, eighth earl of Desmond, was appointed lord lieutenant in 1463. He was popular with both factions, was a patron of learning, and founded and endowed the college of Youghal in Cork. He exercised his authority for four years, and somewhat mitigated the evils which existed in and beyond the Pale. Edward IV, against the wishes of many of his friends, had refused to marry a princess of France, and thus strengthen his throne. He had wedded a lady of noble though not of royal blood, and this had caused Warwick the king-maker to quarrel with him. The Earl of Desmond incautiously criticised Executed. 1467. the queen, and his words, reported to King Edward, were made the basis of a charge of high treason. Desmond was arrested, condemned for his words. concerning the queen, and also for a breach of the Statute of Kilkenny, in making alliances with the native Irish chiefs, and executed in 1467. Garrett Fitzgerald, the eighth earl of Kildare, called the Great Earl, succeeded him as lord lieutenant. 121. Conditions within the Pale. When Henry II visited Ireland, he laid the foundation of the future Irish Parliament, by calling an assembly of the Norman barons, to whom he had granted lands. These powerful tenants of the crown, together with the English archbishops and bishops, formed the kernel of the future parliament, which gradually gained authority, and acquired the right to vote supplies of money for the king, and to make laws for the English colonists in Ireland. These colonists were grouped within the Pale, which had gradually been diminished in area until it included only Louth and parts of Dublin, Meath, and Kildare, and was now wholly unable to cope with its assailants. Failing in armed force, the Dublin government tried to assert itself by Acts of Parliament, which were very often unjust to the Irish. For example, in 1465 the Dublin Parliament passed an act ordering every Irishman within the Pale COSTUME OF THE NATIVE IRISH feet below the surface of a bog in |