♦The Domesday shires.♦
Setting aside these new creations, all the existing shires of England were in being at the time of the Norman Conquest, save those of Lancaster, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Rutland. The boundaries were not always exactly the same as at present; but the differences are commonly slight and of mere local interest. ♦Two classes of shires.♦ The shires, as they stood at the Conquest, were of two classes. ♦Ancient kingdoms and principalities.♦ Some were old kingdoms or principalities, which still kept their names and boundaries as shires. Such were the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, and Essex, and the East-Anglian, West-Saxon, and Northumbrian shires. Most of these keep old local or tribal names; a few only are called from a town. ♦Mercian shires mapped out in the tenth century.♦ In Mercia on the other hand, the shires seem to have been mapped out afresh when the land was won back from the Danes. They are called after towns, and the town which gives the name commonly lies central to the district, and remains the chief town of the shire, except when it has been outstripped by some other in modern times.[92] Both classes of shires survived the Conquest, and both have gone on till now with very slight changes.
On the Welsh border, all the shires, for reasons already given, stretch further west in Domesday than they do now. ♦Cumberland and Westmoreland.♦ On the Scottish border Cumberland and Westmoreland were made out of the Cumbrian conquest of William Rufus, enlarged by districts which in Domesday appear as part of Yorkshire. ♦Lancashire.♦ Lancashire was made up of lands taken from Yorkshire and Cheshire, the Ribble forming the older boundary of those shires. The older divisions are marked by the boundaries of the dioceses of York, Carlisle, and Lichfield or Chester, as they stood down to the changes under Henry the Eighth. ♦Rutland.♦ In central England the only change is the formation of the small shire of Rutland out of the Domesday district of Rutland (which, oddly enough, appears as an appendage to Nottinghamshire), enlarged by a small part of what was then Northamptonshire.
§ 3. Ireland.
♦Ireland the first Scotland.♦
The second great island of the British group, Ireland, the original Scotia, has had less to do with the general history of the world than any other part of Western Europe. Its ancient divisions have lived on from the earliest times. ♦The five provinces.♦ The names of its five great provinces, Ulster, Meath, Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, are all in familiar use, though Meath has sunk from its old rank alongside of the other four. The Celtic inhabitants of the island remained independent of foreign powers till the days of Scandinavian settlement. Just like the English kingdoms in Britain, the great divisions of Ireland were sometimes independent, sometimes united under the supremacy of a head king. ♦Settlement of the Ostmen.♦ Gradually the Northmen, called in Ireland Ostmen, settled on the eastern coast, and held the chief ports, as Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, two of which names bear witness to Teutonic occupation. ♦Irish victory at Clontarf. 1012.♦ The great Irish victory at Clontarf weakened, but did not destroy, the Scandinavian power. ♦Increasing connexion with England.♦ And, from the latter half of the tenth century onward, the eastern coast of Ireland shows a growing connexion with England. Any actual English supremacy seems doubtful; but both commercial and ecclesiastical ties became closer during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. ♦The English conquest, 1169-1652.♦ This led to the actual English conquest of Ireland, begun under Henry the Second, but really finished only by Cromwell. ♦1171.
Fluctuations of the Pale.♦ All Ireland admitted for a moment the supremacy of Henry; but, till the sixteenth century, the actual English dominion, called the Pale, with Dublin for its centre, was always fluctuating, and for a while it fell back rather than advanced.
♦Kingdom and Lordship of Ireland.♦
In the early days of the conquest Ireland is spoken of as a kingdom; but the title soon went out of use. The original plan seems to have been that Ireland, like Wales afterwards, should form an appanage for a son of the English King. It became instead, so far as it was an English possession at all, a simple dependency of England, from which the King took the title of Lord of Ireland. ♦1542.
Relations of Ireland to England.♦ Henry the Eighth took the title of King of Ireland; but the kingdom remained a mere dependency, attached to the crown, first of England and then of Great Britain. ♦1652.
1689.♦ This state of things was diversified by a short time of complete incorporation under the Commonwealth, and a short time of independence under James the Second. ♦1782-1800.♦ But for the last eighteen years of the last century, Ireland was formally acknowledged as an independent kingdom, connected with Great Britain only by the tie of a common king. ♦1801.♦ Since that time it has formed an integral part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.