- [363] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 350. Gir. Cambr., Expugn. Hibern., l. i. c. 36 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 284).
- [364] R. Diceto (as above), p. 351.
- [365] Gesta Hen. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 28.
- [366] Ep. dcclxxi.–dcclxxiv. (Robertson, Becket, vol. vii. pp. 513–522). MS. Lansdown. (ib. vol. iv.), pp. 173, 174.
- [367] Gesta Hen. (as above), p. 31; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 34; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 237. R. Diceto (as above), p. 352, makes it August 21.
- [368] Gesta Hen. (as above), pp. 32, 33. Rog. Howden (as above), pp. 35–37. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 238. These three are the only writers who mention this purgation in September, and they say nothing of the one in May. That it took place is however clear from the letter of the legates themselves (Ep. dcclxxiv. Robertson, Becket, vol. vii. p. 521), giving its date, “Vocem jucunditatis,” i.e. Rogation-Sunday. On the other hand, the MS. Lansdown. (ib. vol. iv. pp. 173, 174) mentions only one purgation, and this clearly is the earlier one, for it is placed before the re-crowning of young Henry. The explanation seems to be that this was a private ceremony between the king and the legates, with a few chosen witnesses; the legates say in their letter that Henry promised to repeat it publicly at Caen; he probably did so at Avranches instead. On the other hand, Rob. Torigni (a. 1172) says: “Locutus est cum eis primo Savigneii, postea Abrincis, tercio Cadomi, ubi causa illa finita est;” and seems to make the Michaelmas council at Avranches a mere ordinary Church synod, where moreover “obsistente regis infirmitate parum profecerunt.” To add to the confusion, Gir. Cambr. (Expugn. Hibern., l. i. c. 39; Dimock, vol. v. p. 289) says the purgation was made at Coutances.
CHAPTER III.
THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND.
795–1172.
Map III.
Wagner & Debes’ Geogˡ. Estabᵗ. Leipsic.
London, Macmillan & Co.
It is in the history of the settlements formed on the Irish coast by the northern pirates in the ninth century that we must seek for the origin of those relations between England and Ireland which led to an English invasion of the latter country in the reign of Henry II. The earliest intercourse between the two islands had been of a wholly peaceful character; but it had come utterly to an end when Bishop Colman of Lindisfarne sailed back to his old home at Iona after the synod of Whitby in 664. From the hour when her missionary work was done, Ireland sank more and more into the isolation which was a natural consequence of her geographical position, and from which she was only roused at the opening of the ninth century by the coming of the wikings. In the early days of the northmen’s attack upon the British isles it was the tradition of Ireland’s material prosperity and wealth, and the fame of the treasures stored in her religious houses, that chiefly tempted the “white strangers” from the Norwegian fiords across the unknown perils of the western sea; and the settlement of Thorgils in Ulster and those of his fellow-wikings along the eastern and southern coasts of Ireland formed a chief basis for the operations of the northmen upon Britain itself. The desperate fighting of the Irish succeeded in freeing Ulster after Thorgils’s death; but by the middle of the ninth century the wikings were firmly established at four points on the Irish coast, Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick.[369] Under the leadership of Olaf the Fair, Dublin became the head of a confederacy which served as a starting-point and furnished a constant supply of forces for the Danish conquests in England;[370] and for a hundred years afterwards, throughout the struggle of the house of Ælfred for the recovery of the Danelaw, the support given by the Ostmen or wikings of Ireland to their brethren across the channel was at once the main strength of the Northumbrian Danes and the standing difficulty of the English kings.[371]