ir country for the sake of tithes. But tithes had
already been enacted, and the Irish clergy were very far from conceding
Henry's claims in the manner which some historians are pleased to
imagine.

It has been already shown that the possession of Ireland was coveted at
an early period by the Norman rulers of Great Britain. When Henry II.
ascended the throne in 1154, he probably intended to take the matter in
hands at once. An Englishman, Adrian IV., filled the Papal chair. The
English monarch would naturally find him favourable to his own country.
John of Salisbury, then chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, was
commissioned to request the favour. No doubt he represented his master
as very zealous for the interests of religion, and made it appear that
his sole motive was the good, temporal and spiritual, of the barbarous
Irish; at least this is plainly implied in Adrian's Bull.[294] The Pope
could have no motive except that which he expressed in the document
itself. He had been led to believe that the state of Ireland was
deplorable; he naturally hoped that a wise and good government would
restore what was amiss. There is no doubt that there was much which
required amendment, and no one was more conscious of this, or strove
more earnestly to effect it, than the saintly prelate who governed the
archiepiscopal see of Dublin. The Irish clergy had already made the most
zealous efforts to remedy whatever needed correction; but it was an age
of lawless violence. Reform was quite as much wanted both in England and
in the Italian States; but Ireland had the additional disadvantage of
having undergone three centuries of ruthless plunder and desecration of
her churches and shrines, and the result told fearfully on that land
which had once been the home of saints.

Henry's great object was to represent himself as one who had come to
redress grievances rather than to claim allegiance; but however he may
have deceived princes and chieftains, he certainly did not succeed in
deceiving the clergy. The Synod of Cashel, which he caused to be
convened, was not attended as numerously as he had expected, and the
regulations made thereat were simply a renewal of those which had been
made previously. The Primate of Ireland was absent, and the prelates who
assembled there, far from having enslaved the State to Henry, avoided
any interference in politics either by word or act. It has been well
observed, that, whether "piping or mourning,"