The young king prepared Christmas court at Winchester; Thomas was ordered back, obeyed under protest, and excommunicated the De Brocs on Christmas Day. The elder king kept feast at Bures, where the three bishops prostrated themselves. Roger spoke for all. Henry exclaimed: “What a parcel of fools and dastards have I nurtured, that none can avenge me on this one upstart clerk!”
Four knights—Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, Reginald Fitz-Urse, Richard le Breton—took the words as warrant. That Christmas Eve they vowed the murder, left secretly, crossed by different routes, and met at Saltwood. On December 29, after a scene in his hall, Thomas was butchered at the altar’s foot.
The news shocked Henry at Argentan. All Christendom rang with execration; the Pope ordered an interdict, excommunicated the murderers, sparing Henry only on his promise of compurgation. Two cardinal-legates, Albert and Theodwine, were sent. Henry had already left after Duke Conan’s death (February 1171) gave him Britanny; he secured Geoffrey as duke, called an Argentan council, and announced his Irish expedition. As legates arrived he closed ports, landed at Portsmouth in early August, saw dying Bishop Henry of Winchester, plunged into South Wales, and on October 16 sailed from Milford Haven to Waterford.
For five months contrary winds cut off communication. Henry returned May 1172, offering obedience of his realms with Ireland’s (secured by Adrian’s bull). At Avranches on May 21 he purged himself, promised expiation, and abjured the “customs,” his eldest son joining. Young Henry and Margaret were crowned at Winchester August 27. The Norman primate returned to Avranches where, two days before Michaelmas, a great council witnessed Henry’s public purgation and final absolution.
CHAPTER III. (Part 1 of 3)
English contact with Ireland began peacefully in the ninth century, ending when Bishop Colman left for Iona after Whitby (664). Northern pirates established Dublin, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick by mid-century; under Olaf the Fair Dublin headed a confederacy supporting Danish conquests in England for a hundred years.
Wiking invasion proved more disastrous to Ireland than to Britain or Gaul. The Irish, hemmed in geographically, remained tribally organized; provincial kings of Ulster, Connaught, Leinster, and Munster were chieftains, with the Ard-Righ at Tara holding little more than honor. No central unity met the northmen; learning perished with Bangor, Kildare, Clonmacnoise, and Armagh. No Wessex or Alfred arose.
Munster kings established overlordship over Limerick and Waterford; in 989 Malachi II blockaded Dublin, taking tribute. Six years later he carried off the Ostmen’s ring of Tomar and sword of Carl; in 999–1000 renewed strife sacked Dublin but cost Malachi the monarchy. Brian Boroimhe displaced him and fell at Clontarf (1014); Malachi resumed and died 1022, ending Irish monarchy. The Ostmen thereafter featured in O’Brien-O’Neill strife.
The Ostmen never gained Norman-style footing; they were coastal settlements holding by force. Acknowledging English overlordship when the Danelaw submitted to Eadgar, trade grew chiefly in slaves. In 1151 Dermot Mac-Maelnambo sheltered Harold and Leofwine, renewing political alliance.
Ostmen conversion, completed early in the eleventh century, owed more to England than Irish clergy. About 1040 they set up Dublin’s bishopric; after Bishop Donatus died 1074 they chose Patrick and sent him to Canterbury. Lanfranc consecrated him; for seventy-eight years Dublin bishops were Canterbury suffragans. Waterford’s 1096 bishop likewise sought Anselm.
Through these suffragans Canterbury cultivated Irish princes. After Dermot Mac-Maelnambo’s death, Terence O’Brien and his son Murtogh corresponded with Lanfranc and Anselm. Murtogh died 1119; Terence O’Conor of Connaught became monarch until 1127, when a rising freed O’Lochlainn and O’Conor. By 1150 all provincial kings gave Murtogh hostages; by 1154 the Ostmen accepted him; he was sole monarch till his death 1166.
The Irish Church mirrored political anarchy. Dioceses were undeveloped; bishops headed mission-stations with little authority. Armagh had been held since 927 by local chieftains usurping revenues. Clergy lived on fees; the Church had known no monastic reform, no celibacy struggle, no investiture controversy.
Reform began through the Ostmen. Lanfranc urged Terence O’Brien to remedy canonical marriage and titular bishops; Anselm pressed Murtogh. The Pope appointed Gilbert, first bishop of Limerick, legate. In 1118 Gilbert’s synod at Rathbreasil attempted diocesan mapping. In 1134 S. Malachi was elected primate of Armagh, breaking hereditary tradition. After three years he retired to Down, then in 1139 went to Rome for pallia. Innocent II granted Cashel’s pallium and transferred legatine commission to Malachi. Malachi died at Clairvaux 1148; S. Bernard forwarded his petition to Eugene III, resulting in John Paparo’s legatine mission. Paparo reached Ireland through Scotland in late 1151, holding a synod at Kells in March 1152. Four archbishoprics were fixed: Armagh (primacy over Ulster and Meath), Tuam (Connaught), Cashel (Munster), and Dublin with a fourth pallium (Leinster), settling Armagh-Canterbury rivalry.
Bernard and Eugene had hoped for a united nation on a free Church, but both died. Henry II proposed even before coronation to reduce Ireland to English pattern. Pope Adrian IV, needing justification, found it in the Donation of Constantine, claiming sovereignty over all islands. Henry’s 1155 proposal via John of Salisbury offered to enlarge the Church, restrain vice, and pay Peter-pence. Adrian gave him a bull and gold ring; the Empress Matilda’s objection postponed the crusade, and the bull was stored away.
This was the famous bull “Laudabiliter,” recognizing that Ireland and all Christian islands belong of right to S. Peter and the Roman Church, acknowledging Henry’s zeal for enlarging the Church’s borders, restraining vice, and planting virtue, and authorizing him to enter the island “to bring that people under law and root out the plantations of vice,” on condition he preserve church rights and pay yearly one penny from every house. With the bull Adrian sent a gold ring set with a precious emerald as symbol of investiture with Ireland’s government. This crusade was postponed for Matilda’s objections; the bull and ring lay unused in the English chancery for years.
The opportunity came from Irish politics. In 1152 Dermot MacMurrough abducted Dervorgil, wife of Tighernan O’Ruark of Breffny, earning lifelong vengeance. For fourteen years, while Murtogh O’Lochlainn struggled, Tighernan’s swords decided issues. In 1166 Murtogh blinded the king of Uladh, violating his pledge to Armagh’s archbishop; Ulster, Meath, Leinster, and Dublin rose. Murtogh was defeated and slain at the Fews; Roderic was acknowledged. Dermot submitted in vain and was banished; he fled to Bristol, sheltered by Robert Fitz-Harding at S. Augustine’s priory. Late 1166 he went to Normandy, did homage to Henry in Aquitaine, and received a letter licensing English, Norman, Welsh, Scottish, or Angevin subjects to join him.
In Bristol Dermot found allies among the Norman lords of the Welsh border. Richard de Clare (“Strongbow”), earl of Striguil, promised aid for Dermot’s daughter’s hand and the Leinster succession. Maurice Fitz-Gerald and his half-brother Robert Fitz-Stephen, sons of Gerald constable of Pembroke by Nest, secured Wexford. Dermot returned in August 1167 with Fitz-Stephen, was defeated by Roderic and O’Ruark, wintered at Ferns, and in spring sent his bard to claim Welsh aid.
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