nce and barbarity.
There seem to have been two reasons why the inhabitants of that island
continued so long uncultivated; first, their subjection or vassalage to
so many petty kings, whereof a great number is mentioned by authors,
besides those four or five usually assigned to the several provinces.
These princes were engaged in perpetual quarrels, in doing or revenging
injuries of violence, or lust, or treachery, or injustice, which kept
them all in a continual state of war. And indeed there is hardly any
country, how renowned soever in ancient or modern story, which may not
be traced from the like original. Neither can a nation come out from
this state of confusion, until it is either reduced under one head at
home, or by force or conquest becomes subject to a foreign
administration.

[Footnote 48: The Irish had been very learned in former ages, but had
declined for several centuries before the reign of Henry II. _Vide_
Bede. [D.S.]]

The other reason why civility made such late entrances into that island,
may be imputed to its natural situation, lying more out of the road of
commerce or conquest than any other part of the known world. All the
intercourse the inhabitants had, was only with the western coasts of
Wales and Scotland, from whence, at least in those ages, they were not
like to learn very much politeness.

1155.

The King, about the second year of his reign, sent ambassadors to Pope
Adrian, with injunctions to desire his licence for reducing the savage
people of Ireland from their brutish way of living, and subjecting them
to the crown of England. The King proceeded thus, in order to set up a
title to the island, wherein the Pope himself pretended to be lord of
the see; for in his letter, which is an answer and grant to the King's
requests, he insists upon it, that all islands, upon their admitting the
Christian faith, become subject to the See of Rome; and the Irish
themselves avowed the same thing to some of the first conquerors. In
that forementioned letter, the Pope highly praises the King's generous
design,[49] and recommends to him the civilizing the natives, the
protection of the Church, and the payment of Peter-pence. The ill
success of all past endeavours to procure from a people so miserable and
irreligious this revenue to the holy see was a main inducement with the
Pope to be easy and liberal in his grant; for the King professed a
design of securing its regular payment. However, this exped