The war, as we said, was incessant. England finally so despaired of conquering the country, that some lords of the court of Henry VI. caused him to write letters to some of his "Irish enemies," urging the latter to effect the conquest of the island in the king's name. This was assuredly a last resource, which history has never recorded of any other nation warring on a rival. But even in this England failed. Those lords—the "Irish enemies" of King Henry VI.—sent his letters to the Duke of York, then Lord- Lieutenant, "and published to the world the shame of England."— (Sir John Davies.)
The result was that, at the end of the reign of Henry VI., the Irish, in the words of the same author, "became victorious over all, without blood or sweat; only that little canton of land, called the English Pale, containing four small shires; maintained yet a bordering war with the Irish, and retained the form of English government."
Feudalism was thus reduced in Ireland to the small territory lying between the Boyne and the Liffey, subject to the constant annoyance of the O'Moores, O'Byrnes, and O'Cavanaghs. And this state of affairs continued until the period of the so-called Reformation in England.
Ireland proved itself then the only spot in Western Europe where feudal laws and feudal customs could take no root. Through all other nations of the Continent those laws spread by degrees, from the countries invaded by the Northmen, into the most distant parts, modified and mitigated in some instances by the innate power of resistance left by former institutions. In this small island alone, where clanship still held its own, feudalism proved a complete failure. We merely record a fact, suggestive, indeed, of thought, which proves, if no more, at least that the Celtic nature is far more persevering and steady of purpose than is generally supposed.
But a more interesting spectacle still awaits us—that of the English themselves morally overcome and won over by the example of their antagonists, renouncing their feudal usages, and adopting manners which they had at first deemed rude and barbarous.
The treaty of Windsor, which was subsequently confirmed by many diplomatic enactments, obliged King Henry III. of England to address O'Brien of Thomond in the following words: "Rex regi Thomond salutem." The same English monarch was compelled to give O'Neill of Ulster the title of Rex, after having used, inadvertently perhaps, that of Regulus.—(Sir John Davies.) Both O'Brien and O'Neill lived in the midst of a thickly populated Irish district, with a few great English lords shut up in their castles on the borders of the respective territory of the clans.
The Norman lords in many parts of the country lived right in the midst of an Irish population, with its Brehon judges, shanachies, harpers, and other officers, attached to their customs of gossipred, fostering, tanistry, gavelkind, and other usages, which the parliaments of Drogheda, Kilkenny, Dublin, Trim, and other places, were soon to declare lewd and barbarous. The question of the moment was: Which of the two systems, clanship or feudalism, brought thus into close contact and antagonism, was to prevail?
Ere long it began to appear that the aversion first felt by the English lords at such strange customs was not entirely invincible, and many of them even went so far as to choose wives from among the native families. In fact, there lay a great example before their eyes from the outset, in the marriage of Strongbow with Eva, the daughter of McMurrough. Intermarriage soon became the prevailing custom; so that the posterity of the first invaders was, after all, to have Celtic blood in its veins.
Hence, a distinction arose between the English by blood and the English by birth. The first had, indeed, an English name; but they were born in the island, and soon came to be known as degenerate English.—That degeneracy was merely the moral effect of constant intercourse with the natives of their neighborhood. - -The others were continually shifting, being always composed of the latest new-comers from England.
It is something well worthy of remark that a residence of a short duration sufficed to blend in unison two natures so opposed as the Irish and the English. The latter, not content with wedding Irish wives, sent their own children to be fostered by their Irish friends; and the children naturally came from the nursery more Irish than their fathers. They objected no longer to becoming gossips for each other at christenings, to adopt the dress of their foster-parents, whose language was in many cases the only one which they brought from their foster-home.