England. Richard had left as his viceroy the young Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, who was the recognised heir to the throne of England. In this prince was united some of the most famous blood of both England and Ireland, including that of the Mac Murroughs themselves. Descended from the Mortimer who was Viceroy at the time of the Bruce Invasion (page 152) he traced his ancestry on one side to Hugh De Lacy, and on the other to Eva Mac Murrough and Strongbow. His mother was the daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and through her he was not only heir apparent to the English Crown, but also heir to the remote titles of De Burgh and De Courcey. The Earl gathered an army to meet his distant kinsman Art Mac Murrough "Caomhanach." The latter now controlled not only all South Leinster, but also the south of Osraidhe, and it was in the latter territory, away beyond the Nore, that the two armies met at Kells. The English were defeated, and the Earl of March was slain (1398). The loss of Richard's accepted heir in this battle was a chief cause of the "Wars of the Roses," which for thirty years made all England a battlefield.

Richard's Second Expedition.-Richard at once determined upon a second expedition to chastise the Irish, and again landed at Waterford (June 1399). With an army nearly as large as on his first visit, he proceeded to Kilkenny, and from that city he marched directly against Mac Murrough. Slowly retreating across the Barrow and the Slaney, Art kept up a continuous opposition to the English King's advance. Richard burned the villages on his way, and forced the peasantry to cut passages through the woods. But his army was harassed and tormented by Mac Murrough's active warriors, who constantly hovered around it, obstructing its progress, cutting off supplies, and defeating scattered parties. To a conciliatory message from Richard, the defiant reply of Art was "that he was rightful King of Leinster, and would never cease from war and the defence of his country until his death." The starving and disheartened English army laboriously toiled through the mountains, and at length reached the coast near Arklow. There ships came with provisions, and so famished were the soldiers that they rushed into the sea to seize the food.

Return and Fate of Richard.-Richard then made his way to Dublin, Mac Murrough's little army of 3,000 men, still intact, skirmishing on his flanks. Then, to the "great joy of the English camp," Art sent in an ambassador and the Earl of Gloucester was sent to treat with him. The meeting took place in a mountain glen not far from the sea, supposed to be the "Vale of Avoca." But the Earl returned without profit, for Art would consent to no terms but unconditional peace and pardon, and Richard continued his march to Dublin. From that city he dispatched his army in three divisions against Mac Murrough and offered a reward for

his head. For six weeks he vainly waited in Dublin for some result. Suddenly came the news that his cousin Henry, Duke of Lancaster, had landed in England and claimed the throne. Gathering in most of his forces, Richard sailed for England (September 1399), there to be captured, deposed, and murdered.

Advance in Leinster and Meath.-Mac Murrough, say the Annals, had been "brought low" by Richard's formidable army. But the Irish quickly recovered. The O'Byrnes, although defeated by the Dublin citizens at Bray, captured Newcastle, which guarded the coast road, while the O'Moores also defeated the English. Art captured Enniscorthy and other castles, drove Ormende out of all the northern part of County Wexford, and then, moving to the other side of the mountains, captured the important centre of Castledermot (1405). He soon received a check, however, when his ally O'Carroll of Eile suffered a severe defeat at Callan* (1407). But he soon recovered, and next year he defeated the future Henry V at Kilmainham under the very walls of Dublin (1409). All this time Murrough O'Connor and his son Calvagh were capturing towns and castles from the English of Meath and Kildare. The army of Meath was defeated in 1411 and the Sheriff of Meath captured, and two years later, in a decisive battle at Killucan, many important prisoners fell into the hands of the midland clans. At length the inhabitants of Meath purchased peace by the payment of " black rent" to O'Connor.

Deaths of Mac Murrough and O'Connor. The last years of MacMurrough and O'Connor were spent in comparative peace, little disturbed even by the arrival of the able and vigorous Sir John Talbot as Lord Deputy. In 1417, Art Mac Murrough died (it is suspected from poison), and four years later his ally of Uí Failghe passed away. Most of Leinster had been re-conquered. A small portion near Dublin and a few isolated towns on the coast still remained to the Crown; the Earl of Kildare still ruled from the Liffey to the Barrow; Ormonde still occupied the lands around Wexford. But elsewhere Art had won back their ancient lands into the possession of the clans that obeyed the " King of Laighin." He was "the ablest, the most skilful, the most successful chief whom Ireland had sent to combat the English."+

The "English Pale."-North, west and south, the English power had now been driven back into a thin strip of country, which stretched from the south of Dublin to Dundalk, and whose greatest width was twenty miles. Two-thirds of their old lands were occupied by the Irish; most of the remainder were ruled by the three Earls, who professed a nominal allegiance to the English King, but who were

It is said that Mac Murrough was defeated in a second battle near the same place, and on the same day, but in this the annalists do not agree.

† Rev. Dr. Dalton.

practically independent. In Meath alone no great noble stood between the Crown and the smaller nobility. Even in Meath the nobility of the western part followed the example of their Norman neighbours of Connacht, and like them threw off allegiance. But those on the east of the Boyne became, like the settlers around Dublin, the immediate dependents of the Crown (page 131), and formed with them the English Pale." Only in that little district-equivalent to the modern counties of Dublin, Louth, and half of Meath-were English laws enforced or the orders of the English King obeyed.

The "Black Death" and Other Plagues.-During all this period Ireland, like the rest of Europe, was repeatedly scourged by fearful plagues. These commenced during the time of the Bruce Invasion, but they recurred on numerous occasions. The worst of them was the "Black Death," which swept over Europe, carrying off, it is calculated, onethird of its inhabitants, and which reached this country in 1348. Both before and after it similar pestilences afflicted the country, and both native annalists and English writers record long lists of prominent people who "died of the plague " in various years.

CHAPTER IV

GAELIC FEUDALISM (A.D. 1417–1530)

SECTION I. NATURE OF THE PERIOD

End of Re-conquest.-The successful careers of Niall Mór O'Neill, Art Mac Murrough, and Murrough O'Connor mark at once the completion of the absorption of the Normans and the end of Irish re-conquest. Henceforward, little change in territory took place. The recent conquests were held, but no new ones of importance were made. Indeed, there was but little left to win. The Pale continued to shrink into even smaller dimensions, but the process was gradual, and was due more to internal weakness than to external attack. An effort would have extinguished it, but no such effort was made, and it was allowed to exist on sufferance.

Impotence of the Crown.-The collapse of English influence was much more striking than the shrinkage of the Pale. Little as had been the power of the Crown since the time of Bruce, it practically vanished in the fifteenth century. The reign of Henry V of England (1413-22) was taken up by the conquest of the northern half of France; that of Henry VI (1422-61) was distracted at first by the loss of the French conquests (due to the efforts of Jeanne d'Arc), and afterwards by the Wars of the Roses, in which for thirty years (1455-85) rival factions devastated England with civil war. In such circumstances little attention could be given to Ireland. The English Crown in Ireland was impotent. An occasional weak effort was the only sign of its claim to govern or of the exercise of the responsibilities of government. But almost purely nominal as was its existence, it was sufficient to prevent the development of any other central authority, and it continued in its narrow limits until an opportunity came to re-assert itself. Nor was there any disposition, apparently, amongst chiefs or lords to remove a merely nominal sovereignty, for one which, even if native, would keep them under control.

No Central Government.-The chiefs and lords, in fact, enjoyed their freedom from control. During all this period they ruled Ireland unchecked by any central Government, and they did not desire to be

otherwise. Lords and chiefs, great and small, Irish and Norman, governed their clans or followers and fought their rivals without any interference. To a few of the great Norman lords, of course, the office of Lord Deputy with the control of the Dublin officials was an asset which they were always ambitious to secure. But, apart from its value as a personal chattel, they paid little respect to the position, and a Lord Deputy broke the laws against fosterage and Irish alliances and "coyne and livery" and private wars as easily as if he were not the King's representative. And, on the other hand, his viceregal position never brought him immunity from war, capture, or imprisonment, at the hands of another nominal subject of the King. No King's sheriff and no King's judge now dreamt of collecting taxes or administering law in the lands which English Kings had "granted" to their followers.

The "Government."-In Dublin a miniature Government, modelled on that of England, had its seat. There was a Viceroy, called the Lord Lieutenant or the Lord Deputy (the former title was held more honourable) and a council, consisting mainly of the chief officials and one or more of the Archbishops. The defence of the people, whether from civil injustice or from the hostility of armed foes, was little attended to. The administration of justice was feeble and corrupt; the Viceroy held that, when he had made reprisals on the Irish who raided the Pale by counter expeditions into their territories, and had perhaps recaptured a few cows, he had done all that could reasonably be expected of him. Round the Viceroy and his council was a crowd of officials and clerks, excessively numerous for the work that had to be done. There was a Treasurer, a Lord Chancellor, a Master of the Rolls, and Justices of the King's Bench, as well as lesser judges.

The full rights of English law were for those of English blood alone. The mere Irish could not claim them, unless they had taken out " papers of denization," that is to say become what we should now call naturalised English subjects, or belonged to "the five bloods "-five families held to be of the race of the ancient provincial Kings. At this period, however, a mere Irishman" residing within the Pale could no longer be slain by an Englishman with impunity, as had been the case in the earlier colony days.

The "Parliament."-A little Parliament held Sessions in Dublin, or in some other part of the Pale, or in one of the southern cities. There was a Commons' House, in which sat representatives of the counties and boroughs of the Pale, and occasionally some representative of places more remote. Also there were two clerical proctors from each diocese under the English influence. The House of Lords was poorly attended; sometimes scarcely a dozen temporal peers were present at a session.