sometimes grew to the size of small towns, counting their inhabitants by hundreds and even thousands, and were fountains of religious and intellectual light. In them the Scriptures were diligently studied, as well as all the knowledge of the age. Painting and poetry were not neglected, and music-which was loved everywhere in Ireland—was eagerly cultivated. From these seats of learning missionaries were sent to foreign lands. Among the most remarkable of these apostles of the Cross was St. Columba, who founded the famous religious house at Iona, off the coast of Scotland.

But by the eighth century there was a melancholy change, and civilization declined; for the masses of the people, but slightly influenced by the new teaching, soon lost much of what they had gained. The Northmen-or as they were called by the Irish, the Ostmen, because Scandinavia lay to the east of Ireland-landed there as well as everywhere else, driving the natives towards the interior, and wasting the land with fire and sword throughout the greater part of the ninth and tenth centuries. The invaders being the smaller number, however, became by degrees subject to the Irish princes. Of these there were five, governing the provinces of Ulster, Leinster, Connaught, Munster, and Meath; one of the kings being acknowledged as their superior by the other four.

Next in rank to the kings were the heads of the septs or clans. A very peculiar law of inheritance, called tanistry, prevailed in the island, by which it was ordained that the chieftainship should descend to the worthiest of the family, with a preference for the eldest. If the best could really have been elected by this plan, it would have been a capital one; but the inevitable consequence of such a system was a difference of opinion respecting the merits of those eligible for the dignity, and thus it opened the way for endless quarrels and wars. These were ruinous to the country, and made her at last an easy prey to the invader.

The judges were called Brehons, and sat in every sept on benches of turf to decide disputes. Murder was punished by a fine, the amount being divided between the judge and the kinsfolk of the murdered person. When a man of property died, his lands were shared among his children; and sometimes a fresh division of all the land in the district was made by the head of the sept. This custom, which rendered everybody's holding insecure, was most injurious in its effects. Some idea of the lawlessness and violence which reigned in the island at this time may be formed when we are told that out of 200 kings, 170 died by a violent death.

It was an Irish prince, Dermot Mac Morrough, King of Leinster, who took the first step towards handing over his country to the English. After years of warfare he had been driven from her shores, a fate which he seems to have richly deserved; and then betaking himself to the English court, he offered to do homage to Henry II. if he would assist him to recover his forfeited crown. Henry had already thought about seizing Ireland, and indeed it had been granted to him by Adrian IV., the only Englishman who was ever pope. then, however, Henry was engaged in a war with the French; but though unable to render personal assistance, he gave leave to his subjects to aid the Irish king.

Just

Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, surnamed Strongbow, was the most influential of those who availed themselves of this permission, and he carried a large body of troops with him. Dermot not only promised to reward his services with large tracts of land, but to make him heir to the throne of Leinster, and to bestow on him the hand of his beautiful daughter Eva. They were married immediately after a victory, and with the deadly traces of battle all around them. While Ireland was being rent in pieces by the struggle, Dermot died. Strongbow then assumed the sovereignty of Leinster; on hearing which, Henry resolved to visit the island in person.

He landed at Waterford and marched to Dublin,

receiving submission on his way; for the population was then far below the English in civilization, and quite unable to encounter Henry's better disciplined army, so that his was an easy triumph. He held his court in Dublin, and liberally granted Irish estates to his nobility, just as William the Conqueror had done in England. Roderick O'Connor, the chief king of Ireland, submitted; keeping, by Henry's leave, his former position towards the inferior princes.

The conquest of Ireland is dated from this year, 1172. But though in its beginning it caused incomparably less suffering and resistance than the Norman conquest in England, yet it would be a great mistake to infer from this that the painful consequences were more speedily effaced in Ireland. Far otherwise; for in fact it was not Henry at all who subdued what had once been the Isle of Saints. Strongbow and other knights had done this, and they chose to enjoy the fruits of their success; and thus the greater part of the island was before long parcelled out among a few English noblemen. They were anxious for their own countrymen to settle on their new estates, and drove away the natives, who grew more and more uncivilized in the bogs and mountains where they sought shelter.

For several centuries the kings of England had very little power in Ireland; and though they often showed a willingness to do justice to the Irish chieftains who appealed to their protection, yet they were constantly thwarted by those who were the real masters of the country. To make matters worse, the Irish had obtained a promise from Henry II. that they should be governed by their own laws; and while this held good they could not have the benefits of English law, which applied only to the English colonists. So if one of the latter killed an Irishman, the murderer escaped with a fine, as that was the Brehon custom. But by degrees many of the natives claimed to be under the law of England.

One remarkable result of the conquest was this,—that

the new rulers, instead of leavening the barbarism of Ireland with what they possessed of civilization, began to imitate the manners of the conquered. They spoke the Irish language and wore the Irish dress; they adopted every form of Irish tyranny with which to oppress their unhappy tenants, and thus put the finishing stroke to the degradation of the country. They could not make themselves Irishmen, either good or bad, but they became what they were called, "degenerate English.”

The later history of Ireland, for a long period, is too often a record of wild savage uprisings on the part of her people, and fierce revenge on the side of England. After the Reformation, religious differences still further embittered the feeling between the two countries; for by far the larger portion of the Irish have always been Roman Catholics, and for a considerable time all such suffered from most harsh and partial laws, branding them as inferior to their Protestant brethren. Their mutual enmity reached its height in the rebellion of 1798, when abominable cruelties disgraced the troops engaged, whether English or Irish, Roman Catholic or Protestant.

Those days are over now; and in reading the long catalogue of Ireland's woes,--some self-inflicted, some caused by her victors,-we must remember that there was not in this case that close relationship which existed between the Normans and those they conquered in England, which made the two insensibly combine as one nation. The impulsive, excitable Irish,-Celts instead of Teutons,-could not possibly exactly resemble the English, and neither side learnt this lesson quickly. But whatever the humiliating errors of the past, even-handed justice is now meted out to Ireland.

QUESTIONS-Say what you can about the early history of Ireland. How was the country divided and governed? What led to the con quest of the island? Who headed the invaders?

MAGNA CARTA.

Ir was the custom in the days of feudalism, when vassals obtained from their lord the acknowledgment of some old, but often disregarded right, or the bestowal of some new privilege, for the grant to be made in writing, in the form of a letter or charter. Thus we hear of a charter from William the Conqueror, and a more important one from his son, Henry I. Of this description was the Great Charter which the barons of England forced from the unwilling hand of that craven king whose reign it renders memorable.

The seventeen years in which John disgraced the throne, he filled with crime, loss, and degradation. The vast continental possessions which he had inherited slipped from his hold; he laid his own, and what was far worse, his country's honour in the dust before the Pope; and, as if to leave no stone unturned by which he could add to his people's hatred, he slighted his own nobility of England for the Angevin nobles of the duchy whence the House of Plantagenet sprang.

When his tyranny had become intolerable, the barons determined to obtain from him a charter which should be some security for the future. Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, is nobly conspicuous in this brave band; so are the Earl of Pembroke, Eustace de Vescy, and Robert Fitzwalter.

At Bury St. Edmunds there was then a large and splendid abbey, dedicated to St. Edmund, whose monks had already shown that they dared to oppose the king. It was on the 20th of November, the day of its patron saint, when the Abbey was visited by crowds of pilgrims, that the barons, mingling with the throng, strode up the aisle, and stepping forward one by one, they each, in turn, laid their hands on the high altar, and swore that if the king refused their just demands they would make war upon him until he should give a charter which would secure their rights.

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