war immediately ensued between the two chiefs, and Dermot A.D.} was expelled from his territories and forced to take 1167. refuge on the continent. In order to gain a powerful protector, he did homage for his possessions to Henry II.; and having obtained from him permission to raise troops in England, Richard de Clare, surnamed Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, with two brothers, named Robert Fitzstephen and Maurice Fitzgerald, agreed to espouse his cause. In the beginning of May, Fitzstephen landed in the bay of Bannow, followed by about 500 men, of whom 140 were knights; and being joined by Dermot with a body of Irish, he took the city of Wexford. The victors next attacked and defeated Donald, prince of Ossory, and savagely raised a bloody trophy with the heads of the slain. Elated by his success, Dermot now aspired to the sovereignty of the whole island, and anxiously waited for the expected reinforcements from England. At length Fitzgerald landed near Waterford, with twenty knights and 200 archers, where he defeated 3000 men under O'Phelan. He was followed by Strongbow, who brought with him 1200 followers, a force which the undisciplined Irish were unable to meet in the open field. Waterford was carried by assault, and Dublin, to which Dermot laid siege, surrendered after a feeble resistance. Here terminated the career of the King of Leinster: he died after having rewarded his auxiliaries by extensive donations of land. But Strongbow, who had married his daughter Eva, inherited his ambition: he usurped his authority, and ordered fortresses to be constructed according to the Norman custom. The Irish then perceived with sorrow that the foreigners whom they had called to their assistance considered themselves lords of the country, and that they were determined to maintain possession of it by force. The princes around Leinster therefore united to repel the invaders, and made the greatest exertions to recover Dublin. The ostman Asculf, seconded by a Norwegian squadron of sixty sail, Roderick, king of Connaught, with a considerable army, and lastly O'Ruarc aided by the people of Meath, successively besieged the capital, but one after the other were utterly defeated (1171).

7. Henry's jealousy was roused on hearing of Strong

bow's rapid success, and he not only forbade any of his subjects to cross over to Ireland, but summoned all his liegemen to return into England by the festival of Easter, under penalty of banishment. The earl, who found himself thus suddenly paralyzed in his actions, hastily sent messengers to Henry to do homage for his conquests; but the king refused to listen to them, and confiscated Strongbow's possessions. The latter hesitated no longer, but prostrated himself at his sovereign's feet, and resigned all the conquests he had made. Henry in return confirmed the title of the adventurers to their lands in Ireland, which they now held as fiefs of the crown, and conferred the title of seneschal on the Earl of Pembroke.

Henry next prepared to visit his new dominions in person, and a fleet of 400 sail carried him from Milford Haven to Waterford with 500 knights and a strong body of archers. He received the princes of the country as a sovereign receives his vassals, placed garrisons in their towns, and invited all who recognised his power to visit him in Dublin, where a large wooden palace had been hastily constructed for his reception. Many chiefs appeared, were admitted to his table, and were struck with admiration at the sight of the brilliant arms of the courtiers, the splendid equipments of their horses, and the gold which glittered on their vestments. But O'Connor, the venerable ard-riagh of Ireland, refused to attend, and the princes of Ulster imitated his example. Only the southern part of the country recognised the King of England; all the north, from the mouths of the Shannon and the Boyne, preserved its independence. Henry II., desirous of combining the assent of the ecclesiastical with that of the lay lords, convoked a synod at Cashel, where he induced the bishop to sign a formal recognition of his sovereignty, and prescribed divers canons which placed them under the same discipline as the clergy of England. These regulations prohibited marriages within the sixth degree of relationship, stipulated that baptism should be performed by the priests in the churches, and never by laymen in private houses, established the regular payment of tithes, and arranged certain interests of the court of Rome.

8. Henry reaped little solid advantage from the occu

pation of Ireland, and his attention was soon urgently directed to other parts of his dominions. He now began to experience from his own children that spirit of rebellion which seemed hereditary in the descendants of the Conqueror, and which was encouraged by their mother, the jealous and vindictive Eleanor. His eldest son Henry declared war against him, and raised his subjects of Poitou and Aquitaine in opposition to his authority in Normandy. The kings of France and Scotland eagerly seized upon this opportunity of weakening their powerful neighbour; but their enterprise was unfortunate: Louis and his confederates were defeated, and the King of Scotland being made prisoner, was compelled to do homage to the King of England. Although Prince Henry died not long after, his spirit of unnatural hostility was perpetuated in the other members of the royal family. Geoffrey, as duke of Brittany, made war on his father; and Richard Cœur de Lion also revolted against him, and was supported by the King of France. Last of all, John, his darling son, "the child of his heart,' proved ungrateful, and the shock to the father's feelings was too great for his exhausted frame. He sank into a deep melancholy, which was succeeded by fever, and at Chinon on the Loire his malady took a fatal turn. His deathbed was comforted by the unwearied attention of his natural son Geoffrey; but in the wanderings of his mind he was heard exclaiming, "Cursed be the day on which I was born, and cursed of God the children I leave behind me."

year.

He died on the 6th July 1189, in his fifty-seventh

9. COMMERCE AND TRADE.-During this reign the commerce of England was greatly extended, partly by increased communication with France, the coast of which country from the mouth of the Seine to the Pyrenees was subject to the English crown. The chief imports into the city of London were gold, spices, and frankincense from Arabia; precious stones from Egypt; purple cloths from India; palm-oil from Bagdad; furs and ermines from Norway and Russia; and wine from France. The exports were of great value. Germany annually received by way of the Rhine large cargoes of flesh and fish, especially herrings and oysters. The roofs

of the principal buildings in Europe were covered with English lead, and the tin of Cornwall and Devonshire long continued to furnish a considerable portion of the royal revenue. Hides, skins, and cloth were largely exported, and generally paid for in the precious metals: hence the abundance of silver in England, and the purity of its early coinage. It was in this reign that London became the capital of England: hitherto Winchester had been the seat of royalty; but that city suffered so much during the civil wars in Stephen's reign, that it never recovered its former importance. At this time London with its suburbs contained thirteen large conventual churches and 126 parochial ones. Each trade had its distinct quarter for business, and every Friday a cattle-market was held in Smithfield. Ludgate was its boundary on the west, and the space between that barrier and Westminster was occupied by fields and gardens; Moorfields was a lake; the high ground of Islington and Pentonville was covered with rich harvests, and beyond was an extensive forest, where the citizens of London used to hunt the wild boar and other animals of the chase.

Richard I. (Coeur de Lion), A. D. 1189-1199.

10. Having made the necessary arrangements for the government of his continental dominions, this young monarch crossed over to England, and was crowned in the abbey of Westminster, with great ceremony and magnificence, on the 3d of September.

Richard and Philip Augustus of France had taken the cross at the same time, and proposed to raise the siege of Tyre, the only city then remaining in the hands of the Christians, and to recover Jerusalem, where the renowned Saladin had restored the mosques and worship of Mahomet. For such an expedition large sums of money were required, to raise which the king had recourse to various scandalous expedients. He sold his own estates and castles, the domains of the crown and of private individuals. A number of towns, built on the crown lands, redeemed themselves by an annual rent charge, and became free boroughs. He conceded the county of Northumberland to the Bishop of Durham for 1000 pounds, and for

the trifling sum of 20,000 marks renounced all feudal supremacy over the King of Scotland, and delivered up the fortresses that had been surrendered to Henry II. But his most fruitful source of revenue was a massacre of the Jews, which he tolerated, if he did not order.

11. PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.-The fanatical and ignorant populace of the middle ages regarded the Israelitish race as an accursed people, whom it was lawful to insult and abuse. Yet to the Jews were they indebted for nearly all the comforts and luxuries of civilized life, they being the principal traffickers between the countries. of Europe and Asia, and the bankers of all the Christian states. Their profits as money-lenders were enormous; and in England they had grown rich under the protection of the late king. At the accession of Philip to the throne of France, they had been banished from that country, and, fearful of a similar fate in England, they endeavoured to gain the favour of Richard by valuable presents. A proclamation had been issued forbidding their presence at the ceremonies of his coronation; but the delegates, hoping that their magnificent offerings would propitiate the king's good-will, ventured to approach the hall in which he was dining. The guards, however, drove them away, and the populace, easily excited, caught up the cry that Richard had ordered the Jews to be massacred, and their property to be seized. The mob immediately attacked their houses, killed the inmates, and then set fire to the buildings, after stripping them of every thing valuable. From London the contagion spread into the provinces: in Lincoln, Edmondsbury, Lynn, Stamford, and Norwich, the atrocities of the capital were renewed; while in the city of York they were greatly exceeded, and ended in a frightful catastrophe. The people began by murdering the wife and children of a Jew who had perished in London, and after pillaging his house, they burnt it to the ground. Another of the doomed race, forewarned of his danger, took refuge in the castle with his family and treasure, whither he was followed by about five hundred of his brethren, with their wives and children. The governor, who at first had cordially received these unhappy people, afterwards deserted them, and rousing the