ndeavouring to repress the vices of the
Anglo-Norman and Welsh clergy, many of whom were doing serious injury to
the Irish Church by their immoral and dissolute lives.[309]

Henry now became jealous of the Archbishop, and perhaps was not
overpleased at his efforts to reform these ecclesiastics. Roderic
O'Connor had asked St. Laurence to undertake a mission on his behalf to
the English court; but the King refused to listen to him, and forbid him
to return to Ireland. After a few weeks' residence at the Monastery of
Abingdon, in Berkshire, the saint set out for France. He fell ill on his
journey, in a religious house at Eu, where his remains are still
preserved. When on his deathbed, the monks asked him to make his will;
but he exclaimed, "God knows that out of all my revenues I have not a
single coin to bequeath." With the humility of true sanctity, he was
heard frequently calling on God for mercy, and using the words of the
Psalmist, so familiar to ecclesiastics, from their constant perusal of
the Holy Scriptures. As he was near his end, he was heard exclaiming, in
his own beautiful mother-tongue: "Foolish people, what will become of
you? Who will relieve you? Who will heal you?" And well might his
paternal heart ache for those who were soon to be left doubly orphans,
and for the beloved nation whose sorrows he had so often striven to
alleviate.

St. Laurence went to his eternal reward on the 14th of November, 1180.
He died on the _feria sexta_ at midnight.[310] His obsequies were
celebrated with great pomp and solemnity, and attended by the Scotch
Legate, Alexis, an immense concourse of clergy, and many knights and
nobles. His remains were exposed for some days in the Church of Notre
Dame, at Eu.

Henry immediately despatched his chaplain, Geoffrey de la Haye, to
Ireland, not with a royal message of consolation for the national
calamity, but to sequester the revenues of the archiepiscopal see of
Dublin. He took care to possess himself of them for a year before he
would consent to name a successor to the deceased prelate. St. Laurence
had happily left no funds in store for the royal rapacity; the orphan
and the destitute had been his bankers. During a year of famine he is
said to have relieved five hundred persons daily; he also established an
orphanage, where a number of poor children were clothed and educated.
The Annals of the Four Masters say he suffered martyrdom in England. The
mistake arose in consequence of a