had only satin shirts:--

"Unequal they entered the battle, The Galls and the Irish of Tara; Fair
satin shirts on the race of Conn, The Galls in one mass of iron."

He further deplores the removal of the chief's noble face from Down,
lamenting that his resurrection should not be from amongst the
limestone-covered graves of the fathers of his clan at Armagh.

[333] _MacCarthy_.--Four Masters, vol. iii. p. 389.

[334] _Ulster_.--The Annals of Innisfallen say he obtained this title in
1264, after his marriage with Maud, daughter of Hugh de Lacy the
younger.

[335]

_Ladies_.--"Tantz bele dames ne vi en fossee, Mult fu cil en bon sire
nee, Re purreit choisir a sa volonte."

[336]

_Clergy_.--"E les prestres, quant on chante, Si vont ovrir au fosse, E
travellent mut durement, Plus qe ne funt autre gent."

This ballad has been published, with a translation by W. Crofton Croker.

CHAPTER XXI.

Reign of Edward I.--Social State of Ireland--English Treachery--Irish
Chieftains set at Variance--The Irish are refused the Benefit of English
Law--Feuds between the Cusacks and the Barretts--Death of Boy
O'Neill--The Burkes and the Geraldines--Quarrel between FitzGerald and
De Vesci--Possessions obtained by Force or Fraud--Why the Celt was not
Loyal--The Governors and the Governed--Royal Cities and their
Charters--Dublin Castle, its Officers, Law Courts--A Law Court in the
Fourteenth Century--Irish Soldiers help the English King--A Murder for
which Justice is refused--Exactions of the Nobles--Invasion of
Bruce--Remonstrance to the Pope--The Scotch Armies withdrawn from
Ireland.

[A.D. 1271--1326.]

It was now nearly a century since the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland.
Henry III. died in 1272, after a reign of fifty-six years. He was
succeeded by his son, Edward I., who was in the Holy Land at the time of
his father's death. In 1257 his father had made him a grant of Ireland,
with the express condition that it should not be separated from England.
It would appear as if there had been some apprehensions of such an event
since the time of Prince John. The English monarchs apparently wished
the benefit of English laws to be extended to the native population, but
their desire was invariably frustrated by such of their nobles as had
obtained grants of land in Ireland, and whose object appears to have
been the extermination and, if this were not possible, the depression of
the Irish race.

Ireland was at this time