fell upon the pavement, which was dirtied with his blood and
brains.
It is an awful thing to think of the murdered mortal, who had so
showered his curses about, lying, all disfigured, in the church,
where a few lamps here and there were but red specks on a pall of
darkness; and to think of the guilty knights riding away on
horseback, looking over their shoulders at the dim Cathedral, and
remembering what they had left inside.
PART THE SECOND
WHEN the King heard how Thomas a Becket had lost his life in
Canterbury Cathedral, through the ferocity of the four Knights, he
was filled with dismay. Some have supposed that when the King
spoke those hasty words, ‘Have I no one here who will deliver me
from this man?’ he wished, and meant a Becket to be slain. But few
things are more unlikely; for, besides that the King was not
naturally cruel (though very passionate), he was wise, and must
have known full well what any stupid man in his dominions must have
known, namely, that such a murder would rouse the Pope and the
whole Church against him.
He sent respectful messengers to the Pope, to represent his
innocence (except in having uttered the hasty words); and he swore
solemnly and publicly to his innocence, and contrived in time to
make his peace. As to the four guilty Knights, who fled into
Yorkshire, and never again dared to show themselves at Court, the
Pope excommunicated them; and they lived miserably for some time,
shunned by all their countrymen. At last, they went humbly to
Jerusalem as a penance, and there died and were buried.
It happened, fortunately for the pacifying of the Pope, that an
opportunity arose very soon after the murder of a Becket, for the
King to declare his power in Ireland – which was an acceptable
undertaking to the Pope, as the Irish, who had been converted to
Christianity by one Patricius (otherwise Saint Patrick) long ago,
before any Pope existed, considered that the Pope had nothing at
all to do with them, or they with the Pope, and accordingly refused
to pay him Peter’s Pence, or that tax of a penny a house which I
have elsewhere mentioned. The King’s opportunity arose in this
way.
The Irish were, at that time, as barbarous a people as you can well
imagine. They were continually quarrelling and fighting, cutting
one another’s throats, slicing one another’s noses, burning one
another’s houses, carrying away one another’s wives, and committing
all sorts of violence. The country was divided into five kingdoms
– DESMOND, THOMOND, CONNAUGHT, ULSTER, and LEINSTER – each governed
by a separate King, of whom one claimed to be the chief of the
rest. Now, one of these Kings, named DERMOND MAC MURROUGH (a wild
kind of name, spelt in more than one wild kind of way), had carried
off the wife of a friend of his, and concealed her on an island in
a bog. The friend resenting this (though it was quite the custom
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of the country), complained to the chief King, and, with the chief
King’s help, drove Dermond Mac Murrough out of his dominions.
Dermond came over to England for revenge; and offered to hold his
realm as a vassal of King Henry, if King Henry would help him to
regain it. The King consented to these terms; but only assisted
him, then, with what were called Letters Patent, authorising any
English subjects who were so disposed, to enter into his service,
and aid his cause.
There was, at Bristol, a certain EARL RICHARD DE CLARE, called
STRONGBOW; of no very good character; needy and desperate, and
ready for anything that offered him a chance of improving his
fortunes. There were, in South Wales, two other broken knights of
the same good-for-nothing sort, called ROBERT FITZ-STEPHEN, and
MAURICE FITZ-GERALD. These three, each with a small band of
followers, took up Dermond’s cause; and it was agreed that if it
proved successful, Strongbow should marry Dermond’s daughter EVA,
and be declared his heir.
The trained English followers of these knights were so superior in