longed to St. Peter and the holy Roman church, as the king himself well knew; and that he therefore granted him his petition, and approved his design of invading Ireland for the above purposes, and making himself master of that island, upon condition of causing a penny a house to be yearly paid to St. Peter, and his preserving entire the rights of the church.*

3. The year of Christ 1152 is the epoch, at which all our writers, from archbishop Usher down to Dr. Leland, fix the full and unequivocal submission of the Irish church to the see of Rome.† Usher has laboured to prove a difference in the Irish church from the church of Rome before this period, in doctrine, discipline, and communion; yet he and all other writers admit, that at the synod at Kells, where there were three thousand of the clergy with several princes and nobles convened, to express their entire union and communion in all things with the see of Rome, the four archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, formally received the pall from cardinal Paperon. He was admitted into Ireland with a legantine commission for this special purpose; and thenceforth the Irish prelates submitted to and recognized the spiritual supremacy of the bishop of Rome.

Cod. Vatican apud Bar. ad an. 1159, tom. x. Concil. Radulph. de. Dicet. in Imagin. Hist. p. 529. Matth. Paris ad ann. 1159. Gerald. Cambrens. 1. ii. e. x. &c.

Dr. Leland says, p. 7: Thus was the correspondence opened with the church of Ireland and the pre-eminence of Rome formally acknowledged. From the unaccountable and perhaps unjustifiable purport of this bull, breve, or letter of Adrian, by which he gave Ireland to Henry the second, some catholic writers have conceived it impossi ble that it should have really issued from the holy see. Father Alford, an English jesuit, strongly denied its authenticity (Bow. Hist. of Popes, vol. vi. p. 108); and Abbé Geoghegan most strenuously labours to prove it a forgery, from a variety of reasons which he works up into a dissertation upon the subject. One of the chief grounds of his assertion is the profligate character of Henry, which rendered him unfit for an apostle. He contends, that the pope was misinformed as to the state and cultivation of religion in Ireland; he denies his holiness's assumption of a right to dispose of all islands, that ever had received the light of christian faith; and concludes, that it was a forgery from its not having been published till the year 1171, although it bear date in December 1154. (Vide Geog. Hist.vol. i. p. 438 to 462.) The abbé also draws another reason in support of his favourite thesis from its appearance in Baronius without a date. But, assuredly, an author of Baronius's credit and respectability, possessing the readiest means of ascertaining the truth, never will be suspected of having published a forgery as an authentic act of the sovereign pontiff.

4. It appears incredible, that so very soon after this solemn treaty with, and unequivocal submission of the Irish clergy in all matters of discipline to the see of Rome, this singular bull or donation of Adrian should have issued to a christian prince. For the purpose of this history, the specific date of Adrian's bull is not material. It must have been written between 1154, when he was elected, and 1159 when he died. But the confirmation of this bull by his successor

* The following is a translation of the bull of Adrian, and the confirmation of it by his successor Alexander III.

The Bull of ADRIAN IV. by which he granted Ireland to HENRY II.

ADRIAN the bishop, the servant of the servants of God, to his most dear son in Christ, the noble king of England, sendeth greeting and apostolick benediction. Your magnificence hath been very careful and studious how you might enlarge the church of God here in earth, and increase the number of saints and elect in heaven, in that as a good catholic king you have and do by all means labour and travel to enlarge and increase God's church, by teaching the ignorant people the true and christian religion, and in abolishing and rooting up the weeds of sin and wickedness. And wherein you have, and do crave, for your better furtherance, the help of the apostolic see (wherein more speedily and discreetly you proceed) the better success, we hope, God will send; for all they, which of a fervent zeal and love in religion, do begin and enterprize any such thing, shall no doubt in the end have a good and prosperous success. And as for Ireland, and all other islands, where Christ is known and the christian religion received, it is out of all doubt, and your excellency well knoweth, they do all appertain and belong to the right of St, Peter, and of the church of Rome; and we are so much the more ready, desirous and willing, to sow the acceptable seed of God's word, because we know the same in the latter day will be most severely required at your hands. You have (our well beloved son in Christ) advertised and signified unto us, that you will enter into the land and realm of Ireland, to the end to bring them to obedience unto law, and under your subjection, and to root out from among them their foul sins and wickedness; as also to yield and pay yearly out of every house, a yearly pension of one penny to St. Peter, and besides also will defend and keep the rites of those churches whole and inviolate. We therefore, well allowing and favouring this your godly disposition and commendable affection, do accept, ratifie, and assent, unto this your petition, and do grant that you (for the dilating of God's church, the punishment of sin, the reforming of manners, the planting of virtue, and the increasing of christian religion) do enter to possess that land, and there to execute according to your wisdom, whatsoever shall be for the honour of God, and the safety of the realm. And further also we do strictly charge and require, that all the people of that land do with all humbleness, dutifulness, and honour, receive and accept you as their liege lord and sovereign, reserving and excepting the right of holy church to be inviolably preserved, as also the yearly pension of Peter-pence out of every house, which we require to be truly answered to St. Peter and to the church of Rome. If therefore you do mind to bring your godly purpose to effect, endea

Alexander III. is still more astonishing; for in this latter the Irish are most contumeliously mentioned as barbarians, and christians only in name. Many Irish historians, tender of the honour of the see of Rome, have attempted to represent them as spurious. But Henry having published them during the life of Alexander, and complaints of them having been made by the Irish clergy to his legate Vivian, and their having been printed by Baronius, leave no doubt but that they are genuine.

5. Imagination can scarcely invent a pretext for the bishop of Rome exceeding the line of his spiritual power, by the formal assumption of temporal authority over independent states. Such acts of usurped extraneous power have however been most unwarrantably exercised by Roman pontiffs, and most unaccountably submitted to by tem-' poral sovereigns. Adrian IV. was an Englishman, and therefore the more blameable for prostituting the spiritual supremacy to the wicked purpose of forwarding the ambition and unjust policy of his own sovereign. The Irish nation, though faithful to the spiritual primacy of their chief bishop, drew the proper line between the spiritual and tem

vour to travail to reform the people to some better order and trade of life, and that also by yourself and by such others as you shall think meet, true and honest in their life, manners, and conversation, to the end the church of God may be beautified, the true christian religion sowed and planted, and all other things done, that by any means shall or may be to God's honour and salvation of men's souls, whereby you may in the end receive of God's hands the reward of everlasting life, and also in the mean time, and in this life carry a glorious fame and an honourable report among all nations.

The Confirmation of the former Grant by ALEXANDER IH.

ALEXANDER the bishop, the servant of the servants of God, to his dearly beloved son, the noble king of England, greeting, grace, and apostolic benediction. For as much as things given and granted upon good reason by our predecessors are to be well allowed of, ratified and confirmed, we well considering and pondering the grant and privilege for, and concerning the dominion of the land of Ireland to us ap pertaining, and lately given by Adrian our predecessor, we, following his steps, do, in like manner, confirm, ratifie, and allow the same; reserving and saving to St. Peter, and to the church of Rome, the yearly pension of one penny out of every house, as well in England as in Ireland. Provided also, that the barbarous people of Ireland, by your means, be reformed and recovered from their filthy life and abominable conversation; that as in name, so in life and manners, they may be Christians, and that as that rude and disordered church, being by you reformed, the whole nation may also with the possession of the name be in acts and deeds followers of the same.

HIST. IREL. VOL. I.

poral power, by resisting this futile donation of their kingdom to a foreigner. Nothing can more strongly paint the abusive profanation of religion, than Henry's attempt to varnish with spiritual sanction his infamous support of an adulterous tyrant, and the iniquitous efforts of his own ambition and usurpation.

6. This conduct of Henry cannot be impartially stated without previously describing the character of Diarmuid Mac Murchad, or Dermod Mac Morough, king of Leinster, whose cause he pretended to espouse, but which he rendered ancillary to his ambitious views of acquiring possession of that country. According to the Irish annals of these latter times, in the reign of Roderick O'Connor, the last king of Ireland, Teighernan O'Rourke, king of Briefne, had married a lady of lascivious disposition, who, renouncing all the fidelity and esteem due to her husband, had resolved to seize the first opportunity of quitting him. The name of this lady was Dearbhforguill, the daughter of Mortough Mac Floinn, king of Meath, and not the wife of that prince, as Giraldus Cambrensis falsely asserts. In order to accomplish her designs, she sent a private message to Diarmuid Mac Morough, with whom she was in love, and entreated him to rescue her from the embraces of a husband she hated, and use any methods, either of stratagem or force, to carry her away and to favour her escape, the messenger was to acquaint the king of Leinster, that he might safely remove to Conatch, and continue there till her husband should set out upon his pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Purgatory, which he proposed to undertake in a short time; so that, if he profitted of this opportunity, he might easily convey her to Leinster, where they might both gratify with security those desires which her forced marriage with the king of Briefne had prevented her from indulging.

7. Diarmuid received this message with all the joy of a transported lover, and immediately prepared to accomplish an amour which, by some untoward accidents, had been hitherto crossed and disappointed. He ordered a party of horse to attend him; and arriving at the appointed place, found the lady ready to receive him. He caught her in his arms, and mounted her on horseback behind one of his superior officers, who soon reached his palace in Leinster. The lady affected not to be concerned in this design; for, when she was seized, to throw a deeper colour over her escape, she cried out for help. The king of Briefne was at that time

D

upon his pilgrimage; but on his return understanding that his wife had been carried off by force by the king of Leinster, (the lady, by her outcries, had deceived her attendants) he instantly meditated revenge, and applied to Roderick, king of Ireland, for assistance; he likewise instigated the nobility and gentry of his own country to undertake his quarrel, and to chastise the ravisher for an outrage which so sensibly affected his honour and that of his wife and family.

8. It has been heretofore observed, that the courtly prelate Cambrensis had endeavoured, as he was commissioned, to render history palatable to the court of Henry. It was consequently a part of his function to display, in the most flattering garb, this protegé of his monarch. His ingenuity (for the age he wrote in he had an uncommon share) suggested nothing more plausible, than a charge of equal forwardness in the lady and the gallant. Rapta nimirum fuit, quia et rapi voluit.* As, however, Cambrensis was not only a cotemporary, but a personal acquaintance of this boisterous Irish chieftain, whose cause king Henry affected to espouse, his description of him will create an interesting curiosity in most, though it should not command implicit belief from all.t "Dermod Mac Morough was a tall man of stature, and of a large and great bodie; a valiant and a bold warrior in his nation; and by reason of his continuall halowing and crying, his voice was hoarse; he rather chose and desired to be feared than to be loved; a great oppressor of his nobilitie, but a great advancer of the poor and weake. To his own people he was rough and grievous, and hatefull unto strangers; he would be against all men, and all men against him.'

9. Besides this outrage to the king of Briefne, the oppression of Dermod Mac Morough stirred up the resentment of Roderick O'Connor, king of Ireland, who invaded the province of Leinster: and so unpopular had its sovereign made himself, by his manifold acts of tyranny, that his vassals deserted him in the hour of his distress, and took that opportunity of avenging the grievances which they had for

* The Irish nation was not at this time so inured to the frequency, as to make light of conjugal infidelity. The preservation of the Milesian dynasty, in the hereditary line, was one of their fundamental institutions; and by a law of their wise and favourite legislator, Ollam Fodbla, the offering violence to a woman was made punishable with death, and out of the monarch's power to pardon,

+ Camb. Hib. Expugn. p. 764.