"Notwithstanding his promise of supporting me in the possession of my wealth and dignities, he has sent robbers to invade my patrimony. Avaricious and sparing of his own possessions, he is lavish of those of others, and thus enriches libertines and profligates who have consumed the patrimony of their fathers in debauchery."
This manly protest was answered by the stroke of a dagger from the hand of Raymond Legros, and, after being beheaded, 0'Melachlin was buried feet upward as a rebel.
The monarch himself, Roderic O'Connor, finally appeared on the scene, beat the English at Thurles, and, marching into Meath, laid the country waste.
Henry at last saw the necessity of adopting a milder policy, and O'Connor dispatching to England Catholicus O'Duffy, Archbishop of Tuam, Lawrence O'Toole, of Dublin, and Concors, Abbot of St. Brendan, the Treaty of Windsor was concluded, which was really a compromise, and yet remained the true law of the land for four hundred years. It may be seen in Rymer's "Foedera."
Sir John Davies justly remarks that by the treaty "the Irish lords only promised to become tributaries to King Henry II.; and such as pay only tribute, though they are placed by Bodin in the first degree of subjection, yet are not properly subjects, but sovereigns; for though they be less and inferior to the princes to whom they pay tribute, yet they hold all other points of sovereignty.
"And, therefore, though King Henry had the title of Sovereign Lord over the Irish, yet did he not put those things in execution, which are the true marks of sovereignty.
"For to give laws unto a people, to institute magistrates and officers over them, to punish or pardon malefactors, to have the sole authority of making war or peace, are the true marks of sovereignty, which King Henry II. had not in Ireland, but the Irish lords did still retain all those prerogatives to themselves. For they governed their people by the Brehon law; they appointed their own magistrates and officers; . . . . they made war and peace one with another, without control; and this they did not only during the reign of Henry II., but afterward in all times, even until the reign of Queen Elizabeth."
By an article of the treaty the Irish were allowed to live in the Pale if they chose; and even there they could enjoy their customs in peace, as far as the letter of the law went. Many acts of Irish parliaments, it is true, were passed for the purpose of depriving them of that right, but without success.
Edmund Spenser, himself living in the Pale in the reign of Elizabeth, speaks as an eye-witness of "having seen their meeton their ancient accustomed hills, where they debated and settled matters according to the Brehon laws, between family and family, township and township, assembling in large numbers, and going, according to their custom, all armed."
Stanihurst also, a contemporary of Spenser, had witnessed the breaking up of those meetings, and seen "the crowds in long lines, coming down the hills in the wake of each chieftain, he the proudest that could bring the largest company home to his evening supper."