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When Gerald of Wales came to speak of Henry II’s conquest of Ireland, it was in panegyric terms. Addressing the king, Gerald spoke of how his victories were known throughout the globe. ‘Our western Alexander’, Henry had established domains which spanned the known world. This is the language of courtly sycophancy. And as the remarks about Alexander reveal, Gerald was not so much describing Henry’s achievements as setting up a flattering (and suitably learned) comparison between the English monarch and his Classical forebears.1
Gerald’s aims are all too familiar: personal advancement. He was an ambitious churchman, keen to curry favour with the king. Yet precisely on this account, Gerald provides privileged access to feelings at and around the English court in Henry II’s reign. For in taking Ireland, the new Angevin (or Plantagenet) monarch had indeed exceeded the achievements of his predecessors. Almost from the moment of victory at Hastings, the Normans had begun their claim to wider dominion within the British Isles. William had been swift to secure the submission of the neighbouring Welsh and Scottish kings. And such ambitions sometimes extended further to Ireland. In its epitaph for the Conqueror, the E version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that William would have taken the island, had he but lived two years longer. This is an exaggeration. But it points to a deeper truth. For in conquering England, William found he had inherited political interests spanning the Isles.2
In practice, royal interest in Ireland was intermittent, much as it was in Wales and Scotland. The Conqueror and his sons typically had bigger fish to fry, not least in mainland Europe, where their French and Angevin neighbours were a constant threat. Nevertheless, when circumstances allowed, the Anglo-Norman kings certainly indulged in dreams of a wider dominion. Upon sighting Ireland from the Welsh coast, Rufus is reported to have wanted to build a pontoon bridge to storm it. And though Henry I cut an altogether more down-to-earth figure, he too is said to have been feared by the king of Munster in the south.3
If royal interest in Ireland proved fleeting and quixotic, the demands of the Church were a different matter. A central justification for William’s conquest of England had been the need to reform the English Church. And similar pretexts were soon given for the introduction of Francophone churchmen to Wales and Scotland. Norman settlement was often conceived as part of a civilising mission; and in Ireland, this was doubly true. Here Anglo-Norman settlement came later, but was followed by more sustained reforming efforts within the Church.
Signs of interest in Ireland can already be seen during the pontificate of Lanfranc, the Conqueror’s chosen archbishop of Canterbury. Lanfranc was a reformer in the continental vein. The sins of the English, in his view, were bad enough, but as nothing compared to those of the Welsh, Scottish and Irish. The archbishop’s central interest here lay in asserting his see’s primacy – that is, Canterbury’s right to ecclesiastical authority over the entire British Isles. And his immediate focus was control of northern England, where the archbishopric of York threatened to diminish Canterbury’s powers. But Lanfranc was well aware of the wider implications of his claims, particularly at a time when Norman influence was starting to extend beyond the traditional English frontiers.
The Church hierarchy we take for granted – with archbishoprics overseeing bishoprics – was a product of developments during the Middle Ages. The office of archbishop had only emerged slowly in England and mainland Europe, over the course of the eighth and ninth centuries. Wales, Ireland and Scotland harked back to an earlier age here. Church structures remained fluid, without the kind of stable and defined hierarchy characteristic of other regions. Only occasionally are archbishops attested for these regions (mostly in Wales and Ireland).4 For the new archbishop of Canterbury, this presented a unique opportunity.
A central plank of Lanfranc’s claims was that Canterbury had been founded as primate – a super archbishop, if you will – of the entire British Isles in 597. As archbishop, Lanfranc was the rightful ecclesiastical lord not only of the province of York, but also of the neighbouring churches of Wales, Scotland and Ireland. When the opportunity arose for the primate to flex his muscles, Lanfranc and his successors were therefore only too happy to oblige.5
Circumstances in Ireland played into his hands. Here the eleventh century had seen the foundation of a new bishopric at Dublin, the most important Viking settlement on the island’s eastern coast. Little is known about the first bishop, Dúnán. But in 1074 his successor, Gilla Pátraic (Patrick), was consecrated by Lanfranc at St Paul’s, swearing an oath of obedience. An Irishman, Gilla Pátraic had apparently been trained at Worcester under the saintly bishop Wulfstan. And when Gilla Pátraic returned to Dublin, it was with letters from Lanfranc to his secular overlords, urging them to reform the wayward ways of their people.6 After Gilla Pátriac’s death, his successor Donngus sought consecration from the archbishop of Canterbury. And when Donngus died in late 1096, Lanfranc’s successor Anselm went on to consecrate the next bishop of Dublin, Samuel. Anselm had also just consecrated the first bishop of Waterford in 1095. The common denominator here is that, like Gilla Pátriac, these bishops were all English educated.
Subsequent years saw Canterbury’s influence ebb, as York challenged its claims to primacy in England and the political instability of Stephen’s reign distracted attention from wider ambitions. There were also increasingly successful efforts in Wales, Ireland and Scotland to establish (or re-establish) independent national churches – efforts which took direct aim at Canterbury. On their own, Canterbury’s ambitions were never likely to gain much traction. But they ensured that earlier claims to secular dominion were kept alive. And when the English rulers started to prove more amenable in the later twelfth century, the archbishops were waiting in the wings.
In 1154, Empress Matilda’s son Henry had succeeded Stephen as Henry II, laying the foundations for a cross-Channel empire even larger than that of the Conqueror. Henry’s first priority was to re-establish royal power in southern England. But a sense of bustle and ambition is clear from the start; and earlier claims to imperial dominion over the Isles were now back on the agenda, with an eye firmly trained on Ireland. The Norman chronicler Robert of Torigny reports that in 1155 Henry considered conquering Ireland, in order to grant it to his younger brother William (whose own ambitions had hitherto been stymied). And while modern historians have often doubted how serious such plans were, a contemporary Flemish chronicler states that an army was raised and readied, but then used to face down a more immediate threat from the French king.7
It’s in this context that an extraordinary document was solicited from Pope Hadrian IV, the only Englishman to occupy the throne of St Peter. This is the text known as Laudabiliter, after the first word of the Latin original (meaning ‘commendably’). The document survives embedded within Gerald of Wales’ account of the English conquest of Ireland, a particularly jingoistic (and tendentious) narrative intended to justify the incursion and amplify the contribution of Gerald’s own relatives. There is good reason to believe that, in the form it takes there, Laudabiliter has been tampered with by Gerald, in order to make it a blueprint for the later invasion. The document, in its original form, issued at some point between late 1155 and 1159, was striking enough, however. It granted Henry the right to intervention in Ireland only if he could secure local support for the venture. This was an attempt to discourage an English invasion, since an open invitation hardly seemed likely.8
Laudabiliter demonstrates that royal intervention in Ireland was on the cards early in Henry’s reign. It also reveals that the reformist ideals which had underpinned Canterbury’s claims to primacy were central to this – the hypothetical conquest was to be another civilising mission, endorsed by the pope. Yet like Canterbury’s earlier claims, little came of these efforts, presumably because of the pope’s hesitancy. Henry was, in any case, soon distracted by more pressing concerns elsewhere. It would take over a decade before the king was in a position to turn his attention back to the Emerald Isle. And then, it was not by choice.
The crucial developments here came not in Canterbury, Rome or Anjou, but in those parts of eastern Ireland which had long been in contact with the Anglo-Norman world. For it was not an act of political aggrandisement which launched the English invasion, but an invitation from the native Irish rulers, much as in Scotland, Byzantium and (to an extent) Italy. The key figure was Diarmait Mac Murchada. Diarmait was the king of Leinster in the east, who’d extended his control over the nearby city of Dublin. Thanks in part to their proximity to this burgeoning metropolis, the rulers of Leinster had long enjoyed ties to Wales, the West Country and the West Midlands. It had been to Leinster that Harold Godwinson had fled in 1051, when his family was exiled; it may also be from here that Ælfgar of Mercia drew support in 1058, during a similar episode.
It is therefore unsurprising that Diarmait turned to his Welsh and English allies, when in 1166 he was driven from his domains by Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, the ruler of Connacht to his west. Ruaidrí had long been a powerful presence on the Irish political scene. Shortly before ejecting Diarmait, Ruaidrí had secured the high kingship of Ireland. This was not so much a formal office as an honorary title, accorded to those who managed to achieve hegemony over their neighbours. Still, it indicated a significant degree of power and influence. The high kingship was sometimes passed from father to son or brother to brother, but was also frequently contested between dynasties. In Ruaidrí’s case, he’d violently succeeded his old rival Muircheartach Mac Lochlainn of Tír Eoghain (Tyrone) earlier in the year, thanks in part to support from Tigernán Ua Ruairc, the ruler of Breifne. Diarmait himself was a long-time ally of Muircheartach, who’d previously abducted the wife of Tigernán. Not surprisingly, he was now first on Ruaidrí’s hit list.
Unable to rally friends and allies in Ireland, Diarmait looked across the sea for succour. He first turned to the court of King Henry, whose interest in Ireland had not passed unnoticed. Diarmait had every reason to expect a warm reception. Not only had Henry been looking for an excuse for intervention in Ireland for some time, but just the previous year Diarmait had provided naval support for the king’s (abortive) Welsh campaign. Yet Henry was now occupied with pressing matters on his continental frontiers and could ill afford the distraction of an Irish expedition. He therefore granted Diarmait permission to recruit men from within his domains, but otherwise left the Irish king to his own devices.
The only assistance Henry offered was a base in Bristol.9 Bristol was the natural place from which to launch a bid for restitution. The city lay directly across the Irish Sea from Dublin and had long been the most important English port for Irish trade. Bristol was also well-placed from the perspective of recruitment. It lay just across the Bristol Channel from the southern Welsh marches, whose lords were known for their violence, bravery and acquisitiveness.
Diarmait’s search for supporters soon proved a success. A group of Pembrokeshire Flemings entered his employ; and with their assistance, he was able to re-establish himself in his ancestral domains in southern Leinster the following year (1167). The Flemings were an important feature of Norman conquest and colonisation in Britain and Ireland. They were to be found in large numbers in parts of England and southern Wales, and were also a growing presence in Scotland. Now they began to make their mark on Ireland.10
Of more lasting consequence was a second (larger) group of recruits, which started to arrive two years later. These consisted of marcher lords and their men, drawn by the prospects of conquest and settlement. The leader of this contingent was Richard de Clare (Richard of Strigoil), better known to posterity as Strongbow. Richard came from a prominent marcher family. His father had been the first earl of Pembroke in south-western Wales, and it’s no coincidence that Diarmait’s Flemish recruits hailed from his domains: these were largely Richard’s men, intended to lay the groundwork for his later invasion. Yet though a great lord by inheritance, Richard had struggled for advancement. His father had been made earl by Stephen, Henry II’s old rival. And Henry treated Richard with suspicion, denying him his father’s title and referring to Richard as the ‘son of Earl Gilbert’ in official documents – a pointed snub.11 Local political considerations also made a foreign venture appealing to Richard at this juncture. Stephen’s reign had seen Norman enchroachment into Wales falter; and while Henry had managed to stabilise the ship, there was little prospect of further gain. For men first lured to Wales by the hope of riches, Diarmait’s invitation was most welcome. In Richard’s case, the earl may also have hoped to leverage such prospects for his own benefit. When Diarmait wrote to Richard in 1170, requesting his assistance, Richard is said to have gone first to King Henry, asking that he restore him to his father’s domains. Only when this request went unanswered did Richard commit fully to the Irish venture.
The plan had always been that Diarmait’s restitution would proceed in stages. Richard and the greater marcher lords needed time to prepare. And by returning with a small force in 1167, Diarmait was able to establish a base of operations in his old Uí Chennselaig homelands of southern Leinster. The first larger contingent joined him here in May 1169, swiftly establishing Diarmait’s authority over the rest of Leinster. More men came under Raymond ‘le Gros’ (‘the fat’) the following year. They captured Waterford, another foundation with longstanding political (and ecclesiastical) ties to England and Wales. It was only once these foundations had been laid that Richard himself arrived in August 1170. All was going to plan. And soon after his arrival, Richard married Diarmait’s daughter Aífe, as per prior arrangement.
While the Anglo-Norman arrival in 1169 has come to take on an iconic quality in Irish history, there was little indication at the time that this would mark a sea change in the island’s politics. Diarmait’s first group of recruits was small. And even once reinforced, they hardly comprised an invincible force. Irish annalists note the presence of the incomers, but do not accord them any particular significance. At this stage, they were just another group of mercenaries on an island which had seen their likes before. There was every reason to believe that they would soon return home or settle down, much as the Vikings of previous years had done.
It was Diarmait’s death in early May 1171 which ensured that the Anglo-Norman presence would become permanent. In 1167, he’s already reported to have promised Strongbow succession to the kingdom of Leinster. And while we may doubt how seriously Diarmait meant this – exiled men may promise many things, and Diarmait had three sons of his own – Richard clearly understood the offer to have been made in earnest. The timing of Diarmait’s death played into Richard’s hands. In spring 1171, Richard stood at the head of a large and well-trained force; he’d also just married Diarmait’s daughter. Succession to the throne in Ireland normally passed through the male line, but practices were fluid and open to manipulation.12 In Strongbow’s case, it was less that marriage to Aífe gave him formal rights of inheritance than that it sweetened what might otherwise have been a bitter pill.13 As with Guiscard’s union with Sichelgaita (and Cnut’s with Emma), this was an olive branch to the native aristocracy.
That many of the local Leinster magnates chose to work with Strongbow should not come as a surprise. Even more than Wales, Ireland was politically divided, with local rivalries running deep.14 Any leader who offered the prospect of victory over old foes was welcome, even if he was – as Irish sources put it – a Saxanach (‘an Englishman’). For Diarmait’s kin, the best prospects now lay in sup-porting the newcomers. Richard was family by marriage; but if he failed, they’d be on hand to reassert themselves. This is not to say that everyone was happy with the arrangement. Diarmait’s son Domnall threw in his lot with Strongbow, but his brother Murchad now claimed the Uí Chennselaig lands for himself, joining forces with the same Ruaidrí who’d expelled Diarmait back in 1166. This sort of dispute was common in Ireland, and as Murchad’s alliance with Ruaidrí reveals, should be seen in dynastic terms. This was not an Irish nationalist stand against foreign influence, but a conflict between competing branches of the Leinster royal family.
By involving Ruaidrí, Murchad put Richard in a corner. A large Irish force soon had Richard and his men penned up in Dublin, in a siege which would last two months. Ruaidrí offered to accept Richard’s submission, but only if the earl and his men would settle for control of the coastal towns of Dublin, Wexford and Waterford, leaving Leinster to Murchad. Richard refused. Shortly thereafter, his men dealt Ruaidrí a major blow. A sudden sortie caught the Irish off guard, driving them from their camp. Realising that Richard’s bite could match his bark, Ruaidrí now withdrew, leaving the Normans in control of Leinster.
Richard looked well on course to create a march on the Welsh model – or possibly even an independent realm of his own. Much like Bernard de Neufmarché, he’d used a combination of military force and local alliance-building to establish himself as the ruler of one of the island’s traditional kingdoms. Yet with success came scrutiny, above all that of the English king. Henry had much to gain from the restoration of his old ally Diarmait; he had less interest in one of his own men setting up shop across the Irish Sea. This threatened the territorial integrity of Henry’s domains and the king would not wait long to react.