turned
to the only people who could have helped them--the Normans settled in
Ireland; and they failed them. Other Nationalist writers have on
the other hand declaimed with equal vehemence against the tyranny of
England in forcing an alien system of law on an unwilling people. To
this the answer is that nothing of the kind occurred. It is true that
petitions were sent from Ireland to the King urging him to introduce
English law; but these petitions came mainly from the poorer classes
of English settlers who found that instead of attaining greater
liberty in their new home they were being ground down to the miserable
position of the native Irish. The King issued proclamations directing
the English barons to permit the Irish to be governed by the law of
England; but his orders were totally disregarded; many of the unhappy
English settlers fled from the country and returned to England;
the barons supplied their places with native retainers. Thus the
Ersefication of the degenerate Normans became complete; they
"donned the saffron"--that is, they adopted the yellow dress of the
Celts--abandoned their original language, and gave themselves up to a
life of constant plunder and rapine.

Early in the fourteenth century the Irish septs united so far as to
form a joint effort to expel the English. The incident is specially
interesting, in the light of later history. Robert Bruce, a Norman
knight, had recently consolidated the Scottish tribes into a kingdom
and succeeded in shaking off the English yoke. The Irish Celts
resolved to imitate his example. King Robert was shrewd enough to see
that by aiding them he could attack his enemy at the most vulnerable
point; consequently, when the chiefs offered the Crown of Ireland to
his brother Edward if he would come and help them, he gladly accepted
the invitation. For three years a devastating war raged over a large
part of Ireland; the Scotch went from the North of Ulster almost to
Limerick, burning, slaying, plundering, sacking towns, castles and
churches; and a terrible famine ensued. But the Irish chiefs were no
more energetic in supporting Edward Bruce than their ancestors had
been in supporting Brian; he and his chief officers fell in a battle
against the English near Dundalk, and the rest of his followers
escaped to Scotland. The coalition fell to pieces; and the only result
of the Scotch invasion was to increase the misery of the people,
especially of the unhappy English settlers,