w
feeble struggles the contest ceased. Ireland is a basin, the centre a
fertile undulating plain, the edges a fringe of mountains that form an
almost unbroken coast line. Into these highlands the Irish tribes were
driven, where they were allowed to retain a partial independence, under
condition of paying tribute; the Norman immigrants dividing among
themselves the inheritance of the dispossessed inhabitants.[280]
Strongbow and his companions became the feudal sovereigns of the island,
holding their estates under the English crown. The common law of England
was introduced; the king's writ passed current from the Giant's Causeway
to Cape Clear;[281] and if the leading Norman families had remained on
the estates which they had conquered, or if those who did remain had
retained the character which they brought with them, the entire country
would, in all likelihood, have settled down obediently, and at length
willingly, under a rule which it would have been without power to
resist.

[Sidenote: Two causes of the decline of their authority.]

[Sidenote: Absenteeism.]

An expectation so natural was defeated by two causes, alike unforeseen
and perplexing. The Northern nations, when they overran the Roman
Empire, were in search of homes; and they subdued only to colonize. The
feudal system bound the noble to the lands which he possessed; and a
theory of ownership of estates, as consisting merely in the receipt of
rents from other occupants, was alike unheard of in fact, and repugnant
to the principles of feudal society. To Ireland belongs, among its other
misfortunes, the credit of having first given birth to absentees. The
descendants of the first invaders preferred to regard their inheritance,
not as a theatre of duty on which they were to reside, but as a
possession which they might farm for their individual advantage. They
managed their properties by agents, as sources of revenue, leasing them
even among the Irish themselves; and the tenantry, deprived of the
supporting presence of their lords, and governed only in a merely
mercenary spirit, transferred back their allegiance to the exiled chiefs
of the old race.[282] This was one grave cause of the English failure,
but serious as it was, it would not have sufficed alone to explain the
full extent of the evil. Some most powerful families rooted themselves
in the soil, and never forsook it; the Geraldines, of Munster and
Kildare; the Butlers, of Kilkenny; the De Burghs, the