taining, that a short time before Turlough's death, William Rufus, who was then on the throne of England, sent to request that he would furnish him with timber from the Irish forests for the roof of the palace he was then erecting at Westminster.*

After a severe and lingering illness, brought on by a fright, attended with circumstances so marvellous, that it would not be easy to detail them with due historic gravity,† Turlough, whose sway was acknowledged through the greater part of Ireland, died at Kincora, the royal palace of the O'Brians, in the month of July, 1086, in the 77th year of his age, and the 22d of his reign. Of this prince, as well as of most of the other pretenders to the monarchy, our means of knowledge are far too scanty and uncertain to admit of our forming, even conjecturally, any estimate of his character. Those lights and openings by which the historian gains an insight into royal councils, are of course not to be looked for in such times; but even of ordinary public events, there occurs, with the exception always of battles and deaths, so rare a sprinkling throughout our annals, that the reign of Turlough, for instance, which extended through a period of two and twenty years, supplies not a fact from which the character of the man himself can be judged, or a single glimpse into the interior of his domestic life obtained.

In this dearth of all native testimony on such points, there is extant a foreign tribute to his character, in no ordinary degree flattering, being a letter addressed to him personally by the learned Lanfranc, then archbishop of Canterbury, wherein some charges brought by that prelate against the church of Ireland, accusing it of laxity of discipline, and uncanonical practices, are prefaced by expressions of the warmest eulogy upon the monarch Turlough himself. "That God was mercifully disposed towards the people of Ireland," says the archbishop, "when he gave to your excellency royal power over that land, every intelligent observer must perceive. For, so much hath my brother and fellow-bishop Patrick reported to me, concerning your pious humility towards the good, your severe justice on the wicked, and the discreet equity of your dealings with all mankind, that, though it has never been my good fortune to see you, I yet love you as if I

had."

This letter of Lanfranc is addressed "To the magnificent king of Hibernia, Tirdelvac;" and though, at home, Turlough's claim to the title of monarch was in some quarters opposed, the fact of its recognition in other countries may be concluded, not only from this letter of the English primate, but also from another addressed to him, a few years after, by Gregory VII., in which he is styled, "The illustrious king of Ireland." There is yet a farther tribute to his rank and fame to be found in the deputation sent to him from the nobles of Man and the other Isles, requesting that he would send them some member of his family to be their ruler until the young heir of the crown of Man should come of age. Turlough complied, it is added, with their request, and sent a prince of the blood-royal of Ireland, to be their regent. As a slight, but additional proof of his rank in Ireland having been known and recognised in other countries, we find mention of the arrival of five Jews, from some part of the continent, bearing

Hanmer:-"The fair green, or Commune (says Hanmer.) now called Ostmontowne Greene, was all wood, and hee that diggeth at this day to any depth, shall finde the ground full of great rootes. From thence, anno 1098, King William Rufus, by license of Murchard, had that frame which made up the roofe of Westminster Hall, where no English spider webbeth or breedeth to this day."-Chronicle of Ireland.

It appears that, some years before (1073.) when Connor O'Melachlan, King of Meath, had been murdered, the monarch, Turlough, who had borne this prince a most deadly aversion, carried off forcibly the head of his corpse from the abbey of Clonmacnois on a Good Friday, and had it buried near his own palace of Kin. kora. On the following Sunday, however," through a miracle, as we are told, of God and St. Ciaran," the head was found again in its tomb at Clonmacnois, with two collars of gold around the neck. But the chief cause of the monarch's alarm was, that, on his taking up the skull in his hand to examine it, there jumped a small mouse suddenly out of it into his bosom. Of the fright this incident gave him, he never after, say the Four Masters, recovered.

Vet. Epist. Hibernic. Sylloge. Ep. 28. What Lanfranc complains of in this letter is, I. That in Turlough's kingdom men quit, without any canonical cause, their rightful wives, and take others, without any regard to the prohibited degrees of consanguinity; marrying sometimes even women that had been in like manner deserted by their husbands. 2. That bishops were consecrated by one bishop. 3. That infants were baptised without consecrated chrism. 4. That holy orders were given by bishops for money. Of these charges, the first and fourth are the only ones of real importance; the two others relating but to points of discipline, and admitting easily of explanation and defence, as the reader will find on referring to Lanigan, Eccles. Hist. c. xxiv. § 12.

Sylloge, Epist. 29. Thus headed:-"Gregorius Episcopus, servus servorum Dei; Terdelvacho inclyto Regi Hiberniæ, Archiepiscopis, episcopis," &c. "This letter is much in the style (says Dr. Lanigan) of several others which Gregory wrote to various kings, princes, &c., for the purpose of claiming not only a spiritual, but likewise a temporal and political superiority over all the kingdoms and principalities of Europe."-Lani. gan, Eccles. Hist. c. xxiv. § 14. The pope more than insinuates, in this letter, his double claim over Ireland; and concludes by saying, Si qua vero negotia penes vos emerserint, quæ nostro digna videantur auxilio, jucunctanter ad nos dirigere studete: et quod juste postulaveritis, deo auxiliante, impetrabis."

Chronic. Manniæ, ad an. 1075. This application is stated by the chronicler to have been addressed to Murkertach, the successor of Turlough; but the date alone proves the event to have occurred during the reign of this latter prince.

valuable presents for Turlough, as the reigning king of the country. From some repugnance, however, on the part of the monarch, to an offering of gifts from such hands, these Jews, with their presents, were, by his order, dismissed from the kingdom.*

The hospitality, however, of the nation to strangers was, more than once, experienced in the course of his reign, by some fugitive Welsh princes who sought for refuge on these shores. One of these, Gryffyth ap Conan, was, by the aid of the princes of Ulster, restored to his dominions; and there seems to break upon us, in the midst of all this gloom and barbarism, a refreshing gleam of civilized life, when informed that Gryffyth, on his return to Wales, was accompanied, by a number of Irish bards and harpers, whom he had selected for the purpose of improving the taste of his countrymen in music.t

CHAPTER XXIV.

Munster divided between the three sons of Turlough.-Contest between Murkertach and Dermod for that throne.-Dermod assisted by O'Lochlin, prince of Alichia.-O'Lochlin competitor with Murkertach for the sovereignty.-Interposition of the ecclesiastical authorities.-Grant of the city of Cashel to the church.-Invasion of Ulster.-Destruction of the palace of the princes of Alichia.-Ireland threatened with invasion by Godred Crovan. -Descent of Magnus on her shores.-Marriage of his son with Murkertach's daughter.— Defeat and death of Magnus.-Arnulf de Montgomery assisted by Murkertach in his rebellion against Henry I.-Marries a daughter of Murkertach.-Attack and defeat of O'Lochlin! -Death of Murkertach.-Affairs of the church.-Bishops of the Danish sees in Ireland consecrated by the archbishop of Canterbury.-Correspondence of the Irish kings with the two prelates, Lanfranc and Anselm.-St. Bernard's gloomy picture of the state of Ireland. -Synod held at Fiodh-Engusa.-Synod of Rath-Breasail for the regulation of the Dioceses.

A. D.

On the death of Turlough, the kingdom of Munster was divided equally between his three sons, Teige, Murkertach, and Dermot. But, in the course of the same year, the eldest, Teige, having died "in the bed," says the chronicler," of his father, at Kincora," Murkertach banished his brother Dermot into Connaught, and took sole possession of the throne. Between these two brothers some years of fierce and obstinate 1086. contention ensued; the younger, Dermot, being aided in the struggle by the kings of the other three provinces, whom Murkertach's pretensions to the supreme sovereignty had provoked thus to coalesce against him. Among these opponents of the new king of Munster, by far the most formidable in strength of title as well as of sword, was Domnal M'Lochlin, prince of Alichia, the acknowledged head of the royal Hy-Niell line, and therefore entitled, by a right transmitted through a long race of monarchs. In opposition to this plea of prescription, Murkertach stood forward on the grounds of the new constitution or order of things, by which a right so long, and, as he maintained, unjustly withheld, had been thrown open to the provincial princes.

Whatever was the weight in reality attached, by either of these contending parties to the important principles involved in their respective claims, the field of battle was, as usual, the tribunal to which both resorted eagerly for the decision of them. Under A. D. the pretence of assisting Dermot to recover his hereditary rights, M'Lochlin, chief 1088. of the Hy-Niells, took the field, in the year 1088, and, joined by the troops of the king of Connaught, whom he had compelled to render him homage, invaded Munster with their united force. The burning of Limerick, the spoliation and waste of the fertile plain of Munster, " as far," it is stated, "as Imleach-Ibar, the castle of Ached and Loch

Inisfall. ad an. 1078.

t "Even so late as the eleventh century the practice continued among the Welsh bards, of receiving instruction in the bardic profession from Ireland. In 1078, Gryffyth ap Conan brought over with him from Ireland many Irish bards for the information and improvement of the Welsh."-Warton's History of English Postry.

Inisfall. (Cod. Bodleian.) ad an. 1069 (æræ com. 1086.)

§ Ibid.

A. D.

Gar,"* and finally the utter destruction of Kincora,† the palace of the Momonian kings, were among the first and chief results of this invasion. Nor was Murkertach slow in retaliating the aggression; but, sailing with a numerous fleet of boats up the Shannon, he proceeded, in wanton imitation of the heathen warfare of the Danes, to despoil all the churches upon the isles and along the shores of the lakes. Then, carrying his arms also into Leinster, and making himself master of that province and of Dublin, he, for the second time, supplanted Godfred in the government of the city, and, compelling him to fly from the kingdom, took upon himself the joint sovereignty of Leinster and Dublin. As it soon became manifest that, between two such active competitors, so nearly balanced in territorial power, military talents, and resources, there was but little chance of a speedy termination of the contest, measures were taken for an amicable 1090. arrangement of their differences, and a convention was held by them on the banks of Lough Neagh, near a spot venerable as the site of an ancient Druidic monument, where the two princes, pledging themselves by most solemn oaths "upon the relics of the saints of Erin," and "by the crosier of St. Patrick," agreed to divide the kingdom of Ireland between them; the southern half, or Leath Mogh, to remain under the dominion of Murkertach, and the northern, or Leath Cuinn, to be subject to the power of O'Lochlin. Besides the two contracting parties themselves, there were also present at this meeting Maoleachlan, prince of Meath, and Roderic O'Connor, king of Connaught; and it is stated, as bearing on the question of supremacy, then at issue, that to O'Lochlin all the other princes present, including Murkertach himself, delivered hostages in token of fealty and submission. Whatever conclusions, however, may have been drawn from this homage, as recognising in the blood of the Tyrone Hy-Niells a paramount claim to the sovereignty, will be found to be neutralized by a similar concession, on the part of O'Lochlin, in the course of the very same year, when the two rivals, notwithstanding their late solemn pledges of peace, having come again into collision, the fiat of fortune was pronounced in favour of Murkertach, and the head of the Hy-Niells was forced, in his turn, to proffer fealty and deliver hostages. T

Not to pursue any farther the details, as monotonous as they are revolting, of the long and fierce struggle between these ambitious rivals, suffice it to say that the contest was continued by them, with equal fury and the like ebb and flow of success, through the next eight and twenty years; and that while they, in their more exalted regions of power, were thus dealing havoc around them, all the minor dynasts of the land each in his own little orbit of misrule, was pursuing a similar career of discord and devastation, making the whole course of affairs throughout the country one constant succession of blood and rapine, such as, even in the dry, uncoloured records of the annalist, it is sufficiently heart-sickening to contemplate;-if, indeed, the recital be not rendered more shocking by that tone of cool and official statement, in which such horrors are, as mere matters of course, commemorated and chronicled.

In the midst of this constant storm of warfare, the Church, though herself but too much infected with the same combative spirit, presented also, from time to time, the only check, or breakwater, by which the onset of regal violence could be moderated or turned aside. One of the occasions of this sort of interference occurred in the year 1099, when A. D. Murkertach, having with a large and threatening force marched into Ulster, was 1099. met, near the mountain Fuad, by the Hy-Niell, at the head of his Ultonians, and the two armies, front to front, were waiting for the signal to engage, when the primate of Armagh, interposing between them, succeeded by his remonstrances in preventing an appeal to arms.** In several other instances where these two kings were, in like manner, on the point of commencing a combat, the meditation of the vicar of St. Patrick produced the same calming effects; and the truces concluded on such occasions were in general intended to continue in force for a year.

There can be little doubt that the temporal power attained by the Church, in the

IV. Mag. ad an 1088.

†The name of this celebrated palace, or fortress, is spelled indifferently Kincora, Ceancora, or Cancora, and its site is thus described by Seward, Topograph Hibern. "Cancora, a rath or castle, near Killaloe, in county Clare, province of Munster. The only remains now visible of this ancient royal palace are the ramparts and fosse of the rath."

Mag. ad an. 1089.

Inisfall. (Cod. Bodleian.) ad an 1074 (æræ com. 1090.)

IV. Mag. 1090. "En itaque (says Dr. O'Connor) dominium O'Niallorum Septentrionalum, i. e. Tironensium, de tota Hibernia jure hereditario à principibus Hibernis recognitum seculo ximo," &c. In the very next page to this boast of the supremacy of the Hy-Niells is recorded the submission of the Hy-Niells to the blood of Brian in their turn.

IV Mag. 1090. ** IV. Mag. ad an. 1099.

middle ages, conduced, by the check which it opposed to the encroachments of kings, to advance considerably the cause of civil and political liberty.* But in Ireland, where, owing to the disorder that had so long prevailed as well as to the decline of discipline and dignity in the Church itself, the power of the spiritual arm was far less strong than in most other countries of Europe, this useful barrier against the self-willed violence of kings and dynasts was in a great measure wanting. Frequently, indeed, even those public and solemn oaths by which, under the very eyes of their spiritual directors, these warriors pledged themselves to preserve peace towards each other, were, on the first opportunity of conflict, forgotten and violated.

It will be found that most of the great impulses given to the course of human affairs, whether for good or for evil, have been the direct consequences of reaction;, and the usurpation, in those times, of temporal dominion by ecclesiastics, was but a counter-abuse to that of the numerous lay princes and nobles who had been so long intruding themselves into the possessions and privileges of the Church. To such an extent did this latter abuse prevail in Ireland that the bishopric of Armagh, the great primatial see of the kingdom, was for no less than two hundred years in the possession of one powerful family; during a great part of which period, the succession passed through the hands of lay usurpers, who, retaining regular bishops to act for them, as suffragans, continued to enjoy the church livings themselves. Thus, while the clergy of other countries were ambitiously extending the range of their jurisdiction, and aiming at honours and possessions beyond their due sphere, those of Ireland, on the contrary, lowered from their true station, found themselves despoiled of emoluments and dignities legitimately their own; nor was it till so late as the twelfth century that, chiefly, as it appears, through the indignant expostulation of a foreign ecclesiastic,f attention was drawn to this gross abuse, and the succession to the see of St. Patrick was brought back into a pure and legitimate channel.

That notwithstanding all this, there, must still have been preserved among the people of this country-a people once so conspicuous throughout Europe for their piety-a strong and pervading religious feeling, however imbued with the general darkness of the times, and allowed to run wild for want of culture and discipline, is sufficiently apparent on the very face of our native annals, even in this dim and agitated period. The number of pious and, according to the standard of their age, learned ecclesiastics who are recorded in the annals of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries as passing their whole lives in works of devotion and charity, among the ruins of once flourishing monasteries, could not but cherish, in the popular mind, a fond remembrance of the early saints of the land, and keep alive, like the small spark beneath the embers, some remains of the faith of better days.

It is also to be considered that, though but too many of the native princes were seen to tread in the steps of their heathen invaders, and, with far worse than heathen rage, to apply the torch to the temples of their own worship, there were among the monarchs a few who, towards the close of their tempestuous careers, sought, in the humble garb of penitents, the sheltering bosom of the Church. Among the warmest promoters of ecclesiastical interests was reckoned the monarch Murkertach, who, in the year 1001, having convoked a great assembly of the people and clergy, made over by solemn donation to the Church, that seat of the Momonian kings, the city of Cashel, dedicating it to God and St. Patrick.

Soon after this munificent act of piety,-"such an offering," say the Four Masters, "as never king made before," we find him, with the inconsistency but too often abservable in the acts of such pious heroes, taking revenge, in cold blood, upon his great rival, O' Lochlin, for the destruction of Kincora by the latter near twenty years before. Invading Ulster with a large force, and leading his troops into the peninsula of Inisowen, where stood the palace of the royal Hy-Niells, called Aileach, or the Eagle's Nest, he, in bitter remembrance of the fate of Kincora, razed that structure to the ground, and devastated also the greater number of the churches in its neighbourhood. It is added that he

*See, for some admirable remarks to this effect, an able article in the Edinburgh Review, No. 52. "On the Constitution of Parliament," written, it is generally supposed by Mr. Allen. † St. Bernard.

Inisfall. ad ann. 1001.

This celebrated fortress, of which remains are still existing, was situated in the county of Donegal on the summit of a small mountain which rises from the southern shore of Lough Swilly. A detailed description of this remarkable historical monument, which still bears the name of the Grianan of Aileach, will be found in the Ordnance Survey of the County of Londonderry. The result of the inquiries of the ingenious author of the account referred to is as follows:-"Be this as it may, the notices of Aileach preserved in the authentic annals, and historical poems, as well as the Lives of Saints and genealogical tracts, show that it was the seat of the kings of the northern portion of Ireland, as Tara was of the southern, from a period considerably antecedent to the introduction of Christianity down to the close of the 12th century."

gave orders to his soldiers not to leave in the palace of Aileach a single missile stone, but to carry them all away to Limerick; in reference to which circumstance a distich of those times is cited, saying, "Let not the Congregations of Saints hear what has reached the ears of the Congregations of Warriors,—that all the stones of Alichia were heaped on the packhorses of the angry king."

During the period comprised in the reigns of Murkertach and his predecessor, Turlough, Ireland was more than once threatened with invasion from the shores of Norway and the Isles, and under leaders whose fame for prowess had inspired a general terror of their arms. One of these chiefs, named Godred Crovan, said to have been the son of Harold the Black, of Iceland,* succeeded in possessing himself of Dublin and a great part of Leinster; having also previously reduced so low the naval power of the British Scots, that no shipbuilder among them durst use more than three bolts in the construction of any vessel. It seems probable, however, that this Northman's possession of his conquests in Ireland was but temporary, and that the notion of his having reigned for sixteen years in Dublin, arose from a confusion between him and a Danish ruler of Dublin, named Godfred, who died in the year 1075.

The other assailant, by whom for a time this country's independence seemed to be threatened, was the powerful Norwegian king, Magnus, who was also ruler over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man; and as may be collected from Scandinavian as well as from Irish authorities, entertained seriously the project of adding Ireland also to the number of his conquests. The marriage of his son, Sigurd, whom he had then newly appointed king over the Isles, with the daughter of the Irish monarch, Murkertach, formed, as it appears, a part of the policy by which he hoped to effect his object; and this event, according to the northern chroniclers, took place some time in the years 1098 and 1099, while the Norwegian king was wintering in the Western Isles. According to our own annals, however, it was not till A. D. 1102, that this prince commenced his operations by a hostile descent upon Dublin, where he was met, on his landing, by a large army of the natives; but no action thereupon ensuing, a pacific arrangement was forthwith entered into, in consequence of which Murkertach bestowed his daughter's hand on the son of Magnus, presenting him, at the same time, with many rare and costly gifts. In the following year, the Irish monarch having violated, as we are told, his engagements,|| Magnus, with a fleet of fifteen ships, invaded this country; but being, with a part of his force, inveigled into an ambuscade by the natives, he was attacked by them in great numbers, his retreat to his ships cut off, and himself killed in the action. This invader was buried, says the chronicler of Man, in the church of St. Patrick, at Down.

The desire manifested by the king of Norway for an alliance by marriage with the family of Murkertach, is not the only proof we possess of the consideration in which this monarch was held by contemporary princes. Not to dwell on the alleged application to him from the nobles of Man, requesting him to send them some member of his family to be their ruler, an occurrence which in reality, as we have shown, took place in the reign of his predecessor, Turlough,—it is certain that, at the time of the rebellion against Henry the I. by Robert de Belesme, earl of Shrewsbury, that nobleman's brother, Årnulf de Montgomery, who was then in Wales collecting forces, despatched an envoy to king Murkertach, to solicit the hand of his daughter in marriage. By such a request was generally understood, in those times, a desire for military as well as matrimonial alliance; and Arnulf himself is said by the Welsh chroniclers to have passed over to Ireland, for the purpose of receiving both the hand of the lady, and the aids and supplies for the

Chronic. Man. ad ann. 1047. Langebek proposes to read here "Harold the Black of Ireland," conceiving Godfred to have been an Irish Dane descended from that Anlaf who was defeated by Athelstane, at the battle of Brunanburgh. See his Schema Agnationis to this effect. As a farther confirmation of this supposition, he finds in the name Crovan a similitude to many of our Irish names. "Ad hæc cognomen Crovan idiotismum Hiberniæ prodere videtur; ibi enim homines cognominatos Conellan, Callean, Brogan, &c. invenimus."

† By Selden, in his Mare Clausum, this law, respecting the construction of the vessels, is explained, as merely signifying that Crovan, by his dominion over those seas, had confined within certain limits the naval power of the Scots. A similar explanation of the passage has been given by the learned Murray of Gottengen.-Nov. Comment. Gotting, tom. iii. p 2.

"Ann. ab Incarnat. Dom. 1098. Magnus Olavi Noricorum regis filius contra Irenses insurrexit et clas sem LX navium, supra illos navigaturus, præparavit...... Hic filiam regis Irlandæ uxorem duxerat. Sed quia rex Irensis pactiones quas fecerat non tenuerat, Magnus rex stomachatus filiam ejus remiserat. Bellum igitur inter eos ortum est."-Orderic. Vital. The chronicler here, as Langebek remarks, has mistakenly made Magnus himself the husband of the Irish princess instead of his son Sigurd. The Welsh chronicler, Caradoc, is more accurate. "Magnus," he says, "returning to the Isle of Man, which he had got by conquest, built there three castles, and then sent to Ireland to have the daughter of Murckart to his son, which being obtained, he created him King of Man.”—Ad ann. 1100.

§ IV. Mag. ad ann. 1102.

Chron. Man.

Arnulph, Earl of Pembroke, sent Gerald, his steward, to Murckhart, King of Ireland, desiring his daughter in marriage, which was easily granted."-Caradoc, ad ann. 1100.