Chapter VIII: The Pope and the Conquest of Ireland

One of the hottest historical controversies that this generation has known has been waged around a certain document popularly but erroneously styled “the Bull Laudabiliter.” Duly found in the Roman Bullarium (1739) and in the Annals of Baronius, its authenticity had remained unshaken by sundry spasmodic attacks, and, some thirty years ago, it was virtually accepted as genuine by Roman Catholic and by Protestant historians alike. But since its learned examination and rejection by Dr. (since Cardinal) Moran in November, 1872,[357] the tide of battle has surged around it, the racial and religious passions it aroused imparting bitterness to the strife.

“It is a question with me,” Mr. Gladstone wrote, of Adrian’s alleged donation, “whether as an abnormal and arbitrary proceeding, it did not vitiate, at the fountain head, the relation between English and Irish, and whether it has not been possibly the source of all the perversions by which that relation has been marked.... In Ireland the English fought with an unfair advantage in their hands; they had a kind of pseudo-religious mission, a mission with religious sanctions but temporal motives. I do not see how this could work well.”[358]

It may be as well to explain at the outset that, as befits an Irish controversy, the famous “Bull” in dispute is not really a Bull at all, and that of the two assertions for which it is so furiously assailed, the one is not to be found in it, but comes from another source, while the other rests upon documents which even an assailant of the Bull admits to be “certainly authentic.” But amidst the smoke and dust of battle, these elementary points seem to have been hopelessly obscured.

For the benefit of those who may not be acquainted with “the Bull Laudabiliter,”[359] I may explain that the document in question is inserted in the ‘Expugnatio Hibernica’ of Giraldus Cambrensis,[360] published in or about 1188, and is asserted by him to be the document brought from Rome by John of Salisbury in 1155. He also gives with it a confirmation of it by Alexander III., obtained, he states, by Henry II. after his visit to Ireland.

Apart altogether from these two documents are three letters from Alexander III., which are, similarly, only known to us at second hand, being transcribed in what is known as the Black Book of the Exchequer.[361] Broadly speaking, for the moment only, the main difference between these letters and “the Bull Laudabiliter” is that while, in the latter, Pope Adrian commends the intention of king Henry to go to Ireland and reform the gross scandals prevailing there, Pope Alexander, in the three letters, commends the action of the king in having gone there for that purpose.

Having thus given a general idea of the five documents to be considered, I must now glance at the motives that have animated the attack on the “Bull.” The first of these is the reluctance of the Irish, as Roman Catholics, to believe that it was the Pope who authorized an English king to reign over Ireland; the second is their refusal to admit that the state of things in Ireland is truly described in the “Bull.”

Taking these reasons for attack separately, the first, as I hinted at the outset, is a curious misconception. I need only, to prove that it is so, print side by side the words of two bitter assailants of the Bull--Father Gasquet and Father Morris.

FATHER GASQUET. FATHER MORRIS.

By this instrument ... The document by which Pope
Adrian IV. gave the sovereignty Adrian is supposed to have made
of the island to our English over Ireland to Henry
king Henry II.... From time Plantagenet....
to time the ‘fact’ that an
English Pope made a donation of In this letter there is not one
Ireland to his own countrymen word which suggests the idea of
is used ... for the purpose temporal domination.[363]
of trying to undermine the
inborn and undying love and
devotion of the Irish people for
the sovereign Pontiffs....
(But) Dr. Moran, the learned
Bishop of Ossory, adduced many
powerful, if not conclusive,
reasons for rejecting the ‘Bull’
as spurious.[362]

The fact is that the unfortunate document, denounced for its sanction of Henry’s enterprise, does little, if anything, more than the three Black Book letters, which emphatically approve that enterprise, when undertaken, and sanction its results. Yet these letters are accepted, we shall see, while the Bull is denounced as “spurious.”

So, also, the general charges against the character and morals of the Irish people at the time, implied by the words of the ‘Bull,’ are actually eclipsed by those formulated in the Black Book letters. And yet the authenticity of the ‘Bull’ is assailed on the ground of these charges while that of the letters is either accepted or discreetly let alone.

It may have been observed that, in my opinion, these letters have by no means played that important part in the controversy to which they are entitled. The reason, perhaps, may be found in the fact that while the defenders of the documents in the ‘Expugnatio Hibernica’ are conscious that these letters by no means help their case, the assailants would rather ignore evidence which confirms those statements in the “Bull” that have specially aroused their hostility and forced them to denounce it as ‘spurious.’

Father Gasquet, for instance, only refers to these letters as affording “some very powerful arguments against the genuineness of Pope Adrian’s Bull,”[364] and is careful not to commit himself, personally, to their authenticity.

The vigorous attack by Father Morris, in his “Adrian IV. and Henry Plantagenet,”[365] on “the document by which Pope Adrian IV. is supposed to have made over Ireland to Henry Plantagenet” is painfully disappointing. For he tells us, at the outset, in his Introduction that

were it not for the argument which it is supposed to carry with
it against the character of the Irish Church in the twelfth
century, the document itself would not have much importance (p.
xxxii.).

It is, therefore, his avowed aim to redeem the character of that church, and his attack on Adrian’s “Bull” is only undertaken to that end. He wishes to destroy the “impression that the Church in Ireland in the twelfth century was corrupt and disorganized”; he repels “the accusation that Ireland, in the 12th century had lapsed into barbarism, and had so far lost her place in the Christian commonwealth that the Pope was in a way compelled to come to the rescue.”[366] To prove his case he is bound, of course, to deal with and reject the three letters of Alexander III. (1172), which contained so detailed and fearful an indictment of the state of morals and religion in Ireland at the time. What, then, is our astonishment when he abruptly observes:

Our inquiry comes down no farther than Pope Adrian. Subsequent
letters of Roman pontiffs on the subject of Ireland stand by
themselves (p. 141).

Is it possible that he felt himself estopped by the verdict of his predecessor, Cardinal Moran, whose “judicial spirit” he commends,[367] and who, while rejecting “Laudabiliter,” accepts as “certainly authentic” these awkward letters. It seems to me equally uncandid in Miss Norgate to avoid discussing the “Privilegium” of Alexander III., and in Father Morris to ignore his letters in the ‘Liber Niger’ which affect so gravely his case, and indeed impugn his arguments.

In their blind animosity to the “Bull,” its Roman Catholic opponents have been led into most astounding, and indeed contradictory, assertions. Father Gasquet, for instance, prints side by side with “Laudabiliter” the letter of Adrian to Louis VII., in order to prove that their opening passages are “almost word for word the same.”[368] Yet Father Morris, who appeals to this letter, and assures us that “there is no question as to the authenticity of this document,”[369] insists that the style of “Laudabiliter” is “in glaring contradiction to all the authentic ‘Bulls’ of Adrian IV.”[370] It may be retorted that the letter to Louis was not a “Bull.” But, then, no more was ‘Laudabiliter’: the two documents belong to precisely the same class. Stranger still, in assailing what he terms “the spurious letter,” he points out, as a flaw, that

in the supposed commission to Henry the judge comes, as it
were, with lance in rest, as if he were charging the Moslem,
without any reference to those “undiminished rights (_jura
illibata_) of each and every church,” in the defence of
which, as we have seen, Pope Adrian was ever inexorable.[371]

It will scarcely be believed that the “spurious letter” contains the very words for the omission of which it is condemned (“jure nimirum ecclesiarum illibato et integro permanente”), and that the test of Father Morris thus recoils against himself. It is difficult to treat seriously so careless, or so reckless, a controversialist.

* * * * *

Having now briefly explained on what documents the controversy turns, I may mention that my own reason for joining in so fierce a dispute is that I hope to be able to contribute towards its decision two facts which, so far as I know, have as yet escaped notice.

Wishful to approach the subject from an independent standpoint, I have not studied the German papers dealing with the subject, but have contented myself with those of Cardinal Moran (1872), the Analecta Juris Pontificii (1882), Father Gasquet (1883), Father Malone and Father Morris (1892), with Miss Norgate’s _résumé_ of the case and unhesitating defence of ‘Laudabiliter’ in the ‘English Historical Review’ (1893).[372]

Miss Norgate, in her lengthy article,[373] defended the “Bull” with some warmth, recapitulating and answering the arguments of its various assailants. There are, however, involved two distinct questions, which, to quote a phrase of her own, “have been somewhat mixed up”[374] by her. For clearness’ sake, I give them thus:

(1) Did John of Salisbury obtain from Pope Adrian in 1155 a
document which “gave Ireland,” as he expressed it, “to
king Henry”?

(2) If so, was it the document set forth _verbatim_ by
Giraldus in his ‘Expugnatio Hibernica’?

I have read through, not once or twice, but time after time, with the greatest care, Miss Norgate’s article defending the authenticity of the “Bull,” and I cannot find that this distinction has even dawned upon her mind. Yet, to adapt her closing words, “one who fully accepts the first” of these propositions “may yet dare to say” of the other, _non sequitur_.

To the first of the above questions I give no negative answer: I merely quote the two passages on which the assertion rests:

Ad preces meas illustri regi (privilegium) quod idem rex
Anglorum Henrico secundo ab Adriano papa Alexandri
(Adrianus) concessit et dedit decessore antea perquisierat, per
Hiberniam jure hereditario Johannem Salesberiensem,
possidendam; sicut literæ ipsius postmodum episcopum Karnotensem,
testantur in hodiernum diem. Romam ad hoc destinatum. Per
Nam omnes insuæ, de jure quem etiam idem papa Anglorum
antiquo, ex donatione regi annulum aureum in
Constantini ... dicuntur ad investituræ signum præsentavit;
Romanam ecclesiam pertinere. qui statim, simul cum privilegio,
Annulum quoque per me transmisit in archivis Wintoniæ repositus
aureum, smaragdo optimo fuerat.[375]--GIRALDUS
decoratum, quo fieret CAMBRENSIS.
investitura juris in gerenda
Hibernia; idemque adhuc annulus
in curiali archivo publico
custodiri jussus est.--JOHN OF
SALISBURY.

As I only described, at the outset, the documents, I have not hitherto touched on the passage in the ‘Metalogicus.’ But it should be observed that just as Miss Norgate confuses two distinct questions, so Father Gasquet attacks “Laudabiliter” for a statement found, not in that document, but in this passage from the pen of John of Salisbury.[376]

It is with the second of the above two questions that I am immediately concerned. Assuming for the present that a document was actually granted by Adrian, what ground have we for believing that the text in the ‘Expugnatio’ is authentic? Between the appearance of her ‘England under the Angevin Kings’ and that of her article in the ‘Review,’ Miss Norgate seems to have discovered from Pflugk-Harttung, that there was no copy of it, as she had imagined, “in the Vatican archives.”[377] She admitted, therefore, that “the letter actually rests upon the testimony of Gerald of Wales and the writer of the last chapter of Metalogicus.” But here we see that confusion of thought of which I have spoken above. The authenticity of the letter given in the ‘Expugnatio’ rests on the authority of Gerald, and on his alone.

Let us then enquire what credence we should give to those documents he professes to quote _verbatim_. The two which naturally occur to one for comparison with “Laudabiliter,” are the letter of Dermot to “Strongbow” summoning him to Ireland,[378] and the “privilegium” of Alexander III. confirming that of Adrian.[379] The former begins with a normal address, and then--breaks at once into a quotation from Ovid![380] This gives us a clear issue. Does Miss Norgate believe, or does she not, that a warrior (and a savage) summoning a warrior, in the days of Henry II., would parade his classical erudition by dragging in tags from Ovid? And if she does not, how can she ask us to accept as genuine a document because it is given by Giraldus. As to the other test document, the “privilegium” of Alexander III., Miss Norgate is curiously shy of touching it; I can only find an incidental allusion to “the letter whereby Alexander III. is said to have confirmed the favour granted by his predecessor to Henry,” and even this mention of it is merely introduced to protest against arguments “which are only appropriate to” that letter being used as fatal to the authenticity of “Laudabiliter” also.[381] Indeed, by writing as she does of “the silence of Alexander III.” as to Adrian’s letter,[382] she implies that the document given by Giraldus as his is an absolute imposture; and she uses, we shall find, in another place, an argument directly fatal to the authenticity of its contents.[383] And yet Giraldus sets forth these two “privilegia” together as jointly constituting the title to Ireland derived by Henry from Rome. The two must stand or fall together; if Gerald was capable of composing the one, he was certainly capable of composing the other.

* * * * *

Having now shown that the fact of a document being found in the pages of Giraldus Cambrensis is no proof of its authenticity, I turn to the first of the two points that I hope to establish.

The publication, in Ireland, of “the Bull Laudabiliter” is thus dealt with by Miss Norgate:

It is acknowledged on all hands that there is no sign of any
attempt on Henry’s part to publish the letter in Ireland ...
before 1175. In that year Gerald states that the letter was
read before a synod of bishops at Waterford (Opp. v. 315–6).
This statement, however, rests upon Gerald’s authority alone;
beyond this there is no direct evidence that the letter was ever
formally published in Ireland at all.[384]

In another passage she admits, I understand, that it does not appear to have been published by Henry until 1175 at the earliest.[385] Now it is true that this date is so generally accepted that Father Gasquet in assailing, and Father Malone in defending, the authenticity of the Bull, are both agreed upon this point. The former, indeed, boldly writes: “It is a matter beyond dispute that no mention whatever was made by Henry of this ‘grant’ of Ireland by the Pope till at earliest A.D. 1175.”[386] Father Morris similarly adopts “1175” as the date when “Henry is said to have exhibited it at a synod held at Waterford.”[387] Yet, when we turn to the passage referred to by Miss Norgate, we find that no year is named by Giraldus himself. Mr. Dimock appended the marginal date “1174 or 1175,” and this was also the date he adopted in his Introduction. It was doubtless from him that Professor Tout adopted this date in his life of William Fitz Audelin:

Fitzaldhelm[388] was also sent in 1174 or 1175 ... to produce
the bull of Pope Adrian.... He soon left Ireland, for (_sic_)
he appears as a witness to the treaty of Falaise in October,
1174.[389]

If William was sent to Ireland, as alleged, in 1175, it is obvious that he cannot have returned thence by October, 1174. It is clear, in any case, that, on examination, the date accepted “on all hands,” as a fixed point, is a guess. Let us then see if, from other sources, light can be thrown on William’s mission. There is an entry on the Pipe Roll of 1173, which reads thus:

In Passagio Willelmi filii Aldelini et sociorum suorum et
Hernesiorum suorum in Hyberniam xxvii sol. et vi den. per breve
Ricardi de Luci (p. 145).

Professor Tout oddly assigns it to an alleged despatch of William to Ireland in 1171; for in that case it would duly have been entered on the Pipe Roll of that year.[390] It must, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, be held to refer to a mission of William between Michaelmas, 1172, and Michaelmas, 1173. Is it then possible that this was the date of the mission of which we are in search, and not 1175, or even 1174? The answer, we shall find, involves more than a mere question of chronology.

“Gerald,” Miss Norgate writes, “is certainly no chronologist.”[391] Mr. Dimock was even more emphatic: “There can be no worse authority than Giraldus wherever a date is concerned.”[392] In this case, however, as I have said, Giraldus does not even commit himself to a date: he merely uses the vague “interea.” We must therefore deduce the date from the sequence as he gives it himself. And that sequence is perfectly clear. He takes us straight back to the Council of Cashel,[393] and tells us that the document despatched by William and his colleague to Ireland had been sent by the Pope in reply to the report of the proceedings at that Council. Here are his own words:

(COUNCIL OF CASHEL.)

Ubi, requisitis et auditis publice terræ illius et gentis tam
enormitatibus quam spurcitiis, et in scriptum etiam sub sigillo
legati Lismoriensis, qui ceteris ibidem dignitate tunc præerat,
ex industria redactis, etc. (v. 280).

(ALEXANDER’S ‘PRIVILEGIUM.’)

Cum, _prænotatis_ spurcitiarum literis in synodo
Cassiliensi per industriam quæsitis, directis ad curiam Romanam
nunciis, ab Alexandro tertio tunc præsidente privilegium
impetravit, etc. (v. 315).

Miss Norgate, both in her History and in her article, seems to have overlooked this latter important passage, doubtless from its occurring in another part of Gerald’s work. She has thus not only missed his sequence, but has failed to adduce his direct testimony to the despatch of documents to Rome after the Council of Cashel. Roger Hoveden is the only chronicler she quotes as an authority for the statement that “the bishops joined with Henry in sending to Rome a report of his proceedings and their own.[394] Now the ‘Gesta Henrici’ is a better authority to quote from here than Hoveden; and from it, therefore, I take the following statements”:

(1) The Irish kings “seipsos ei et ejus dominio dederunt
et homines ejus devenerunt de omnibus tenementis suis, et
fidelitates ei juraverunt” (i. 25).

(2) The prelates “eum in regem et dominum susceperunt et
fidelitates eo juraverunt contra omnes homines. Et inde recepit
ab unoquoque Archiepiscopo et episcopo litteras suas in modum
cartæ, extra sigillum pendentes, et confirmantes ei et heredibus
suis regnum Hyberniæ, et testimonium perhibentes ipsos eum et
heredes suos sibi in reges et dominos constituisse imperpetuum”
(i. 26).

(3) “Cum autem hoc factum fuisset predictus rex Angliæ misit
nuncios suos ad Alexandrum summum pontificem cum litteris
archiepiscoporum et episcoporum Hyberniæ ad confirmandum sibi et
heredibus suis regnum Hyberniæ, sicque factum est. Nam summus
pontifex, auctoritate apostolica, confirmavit ei et heredibus
suis regnum illud, et eos imperpetuum reges constituit” (i. 28).

We have then the independent evidence of Gerald and of the ‘Gesta’--

(_A_) That Henry sent “nuncii” to Rome after going to
Ireland.

(_B_) That these “nuncii” took with them documentary
evidence, in the form, according to Gerald, of “letters” from
the Legate and prelates at Cashel, but according to the ‘Gesta’
of sealed recognitions, by the several Irish prelates of Henry
and his heirs as kings (of Ireland).

(_C_) That the Pope in reply, according to Gerald, sent a
“privilegium” empowering Henry to rule the Irish, and reform
their ecclesiastical condition,[395] but, according to the
‘Gesta,’ confirmed Henry in possession of the kingdom of
Ireland, and appointed him and his heirs kings thereof for ever.

Here we have sufficient discrepancy to mark the independence of the writers, combined with a distinct agreement to the effect that Henry sent “nuncii” to Rome, that they took something with them to support the king’s petition, and that the Pope, in reply to it, sent something back.

What was it?

Here we must turn to a third quarter, where the evidence is wholly independent. This is the Black Book of the Exchequer in which are entered the three letters from Pope Alexander, all of them dated from Tusculum, 20th September, 1172. Miss Norgate, in her History, referred to them as documents of undoubted authenticity;[396] but in her article, though stoutly maintaining that their evidence was not hostile to the genuineness of the “Bull,” she seems to have felt uneasy on the subject, for she changes her tone, and writes that they “purport to have been written by Pope Alexander III.,”[397] nay, even speaks of them as Alexander’s letters, “if they indeed are his.”[398]

To these letters, which Cardinal Moran pronounced “certainly authentic,” I now invite attention. The first, which is addressed to Christian bishop of Lismore (the legate), the four archbishops (by name), and their suffragans the bishops, speaks of the “vitiorum enormitates” made known to the writer by their letters (“ex vestrarum serie literarum,” “ex vestris literis”) and the “abominationis spurcitiam.”[399] No more exact agreement could be found than this document presents with the statement of Giraldus that the Legate’s letters, on behalf of the assembled prelates, recited “tam enormitates quam spurcitias” of the Irish. Again, the third letter, “to the kings and princes of Ireland,” similarly charges the Irish with “enormitatem et spurcitiam vitiorum”; and it confirms not only Giraldus but the ‘Gesta’ by its words: “in vestrum Regem et dominum suscepistis et ei fidelitatem jurastis ... vos voluntate libera subdidistis ... fidelitatem quam tanto Regi sub juramenti religione fecistis.” Their “juramenti debitum et fidelitatem predicto Regi exhibitam” is spoken of also in the letter to the prelates. Passing now to the second letter, which is to Henry himself, it introduces a new element; for while that to the prelates had referred to their letters and “aliorum etiam veridica relatione,” a vague phrase which, in the letter to the princes, reappears as “communi fama et certa relatione,” the Pope, in writing to the king, gives as his sources of information, first, the letters from the Legate and Prelates, and then the _viva voce_ statements of Ralf archdeacon of Llandaff.[400] Now we know from the ‘Gesta’ that this Ralf was sent by Henry to hold the Council of the Irish Prelates at Cashel;[401] and we further know that the king had sent him to Rome as an envoy in the Becket business some two years before.[402] We have then, in this letter, confirmation of the fact that Henry sent a mission, with the prelates’ letter, to Rome, while the envoy it names is the very one whom he was specially likely to send.

So far, then, we find a most convincing agreement. Pope Alexander relied mainly for information as to the state of Ireland and as to the action of Henry on the written report of his Legate and the other prelates of Ireland, and on the personal statements of the king’s envoy who came with it. As to these points, there can really be no question.

But the best proof, to my mind, of the authenticity of these letters is that neither Giraldus nor any of the chroniclers used them, and that, so far at least as the ‘Gesta’ and Hoveden are concerned, they must have been purposely kept back. For the points of discrepancy are even more instructive than the points of agreement. It may have been observed that the ‘Gesta’ speaks of the documentary evidence as consisting of the prelates’ sealed letters appointing Henry and his heirs kings of Ireland. Giraldus, on the contrary, makes it consist of a report from the Council of Cashel on the State of Ireland. The letters explicitly confirm the latter statement, and wholly ignore the evidence described in the former. Moreover, the assertion in the ‘Gesta’ that the Pope made Henry and his heirs, in reply, kings of Ireland for ever is at direct variance with the letters, which do nothing of the kind. We must, then, it seems to me, conclude that the ‘Gesta’ and Roger Hoveden deliberately strove to represent the Pope as doing what he did not do, and dared not, therefore, quote the letters, knowing them to be not at all what was wanted.[403]

It seems to me a strong argument in favour of the letters to Henry himself, and one which may have been overlooked, that Pope Alexander pointedly speaks of Henry’s fresh expedition as undertaken, like a crusade, by way of penance for his sins:

Rogamus itaque Regiam excellentiam, monemus et exhortamus
in Domino, atque in remissionem tibi peccatorum injungimus
quatinus, etc ... ut sicut pro tuorum venia peccatorum adversus
eam tantum laborem (ut credimus) assumpsisti, etc.

Even if the words do not imply that Henry himself had so represented it, they afford an answer to those who urge that the Pope could not have approved of such an enterprise by one who was himself at the time under a grave cloud.

Broadly speaking, they express the Pope’s warm approval of Henry’s expedition--as a missionary enterprise. It is as the champion of the church, and especially of St. Peter and his rights, that they praise him for what he has done. Specially significant is the fact that the rights claimed by Rome, under the Donation of Constantine, over all islands are not asserted (as by John of Salisbury) as justifying the grant of Ireland to Henry, but as entitling the Papal see to claim there rights for itself.[404]

Accepting, then, these letters as genuine, let me briefly recapitulate how the case stands. Their contents agree, we have seen, independently, in the most indisputable way, with the narrative of Giraldus. Moreover, that narrative, when carefully examined, leads us to infer that the Pope’s answer was despatched in reply to Henry’s mission; and with that inference the date of these letters (20th Sept., 1172) agrees fairly enough. Such a date as 1174 or 1175 would not agree with it at all. Lastly, Giraldus tells us that the Pope’s confirmation was despatched to Ireland with William Fitz Audelin; and, indeed, we should naturally expect that Henry, when he had succeeded in getting it, would lose no time in publishing the fact. Both the statement of Giraldus and that expectation are confirmed by the Pipe Roll entry, which proves that William Fitz Audelin did visit Ireland between Michaelmas, 1172, and Michaelmas, 1173, which is just the time that he must have done so, if he went there in charge of the Pope’s letter (or letters).

But now comes the hitch. If Giraldus had given us the text of the letter which the Pope really sent, and which is entered in the Black Book, it would have agreed with and confirmed his narrative in every respect. Instead, however, of doing this, he gave a letter, which even his champions do not venture to defend as authentic, a letter which does not agree with his narrative--for it ignores the legate’s report and the other information supplied--a letter which, for all we can find in it, was written in complete ignorance, not only of Henry’s visit to Ireland, but of every other fact in the case. In short, it is a mere general confirmation of Adrian’s famous “Bull,” and might as well have been issued before as after the king’s expedition. And so clumsily is it introduced that Giraldus does not even make the king ask for anything of the kind.

I have said that even his champions do not defend its authenticity. Miss Norgate, who defends with equal fervour Giraldus and “Laudabiliter,” admits that its critics are right in stating that the Pope’s letters in the ‘Liber Niger’

make no mention of any papal grant, nor of the tribute of
Peter-pence, which “Laudabiliter” expressly states that Henry
had undertaken to establish in Ireland.[405]

But, she urges, it was most improbable that the Pope would refer to Peter-pence in 1172:

It would have been much more surprising, because highly
derogatory to his tact, wisdom, and justice, if he had mentioned
it at that moment.... To expect that he should assail them with
an instant demand for money before they had time to settle
down in their new relations, would be to charge him with equal
recklessness and rapacity.[406]

I do not say that I agree with the argument: it could, I think, scarcely be weaker. But the point is that Pope Alexander, in the letter given by Giraldus, and asserted by him to have been sent in reply to the letters from the Council of Cashel (1171–2), is represented as confirming the “Bull of Adrian” “salva beato Petro ... de singulis domibus annua unius denarii pensione.” That is to say that, if the letter is genuine, he did exactly what Miss Norgate assures us he would not have done. It follows then, from her own argument, that the letter cannot be genuine.[407]

I must here again remind the reader of the cardinal point in my case, namely, that Giraldus has been misunderstood as assigning to “1175” the despatch of the Pope’s “privilegium,” whereas his narrative clearly shows that he treats that “privilegium” as obtained by Henry in reply to the report of the Council of Cashel (1171–2) and as the Papal sanction of what he had done in Ireland. That the king was anxious to obtain this sanction, and to publish it, when obtained, as soon as possible, we may readily believe. But that he obtained it as soon as possible, and, having done so, made no use of it till he suddenly, in “1175,” despatched it to Ireland _à propos de bottes_, is an unintelligible hypothesis. In any case, we are confronted with the fact that both the “privilegium”[408] and the Black Book letter purport to have been despatched from Rome in reply to Henry’s mission. But they could not both be the Pope’s reply: one or the other must be false. This being so, we need not hesitate to decide in favour of the Black Book letter; for the “privilegium” given by Giraldus is virtually abandoned, we have seen, even by Miss Norgate.

The conclusion, then, at which we arrive is that Giraldus substituted for the true reply of the Pope a false one merely confirming the “Bull” Laudabiliter. From this conclusion we advance to the question whether, if he was capable of concocting (or giving it currency when concocted) a spurious letter of Alexander, he was not also capable of concocting (or giving it currency when concocted) that letter of Adrian, which he published with it, in the ‘Expugnatio,’ and which, in fairness, must be treated as inseparable from it.[409]

We saw clearly at the outset that he can have had no scruple as to inserting in his narrative--I will not say a forged document, but one of which the text was the work of his own pen. On this point, therefore, we need not hesitate. We may proceed then to enquire whether Henry II. was likely to keep silence as to Adrian’s “Bull” when he entered Ireland--the very time when he might be expected to make use of it--and then produce it at a subsequent time with no particular reason. Two propositions are here involved. As to the first Father Gasquet has observed:

It was of vital importance when he went over to receive the
homage of the Irish, and could never have been withheld or
concealed at the Council of Cashel in 1172, at which the Papal
legate presided.[410]

Father Burke, whom he quotes, has bluntly insisted on the fact; and Father Morris has similarly dwelt on the king’s suspicious silence. So great, indeed, is the difficulty of supposing that Henry made no mention of the “Bull” at the very time when, if ever, he was likely to make use of it, that Miss Norgate wrote as follows, in her ‘England under the Angevin Kings’ (ii. 115):

We hear not a word of Pope Adrian’s bull, but we can hardly
doubt that its existence and its contents were in some way or
other certified to the Irish prelates before ... they met in
council at Cashel in the first weeks of 1172.

Going even further, in another passage (ii. 81), she boldly spoke of Henry’s “conquest won with Adrian’s bull in his hand.” And yet, when afterwards, in her article, she wished to deny the difficulty, she could turn round and confidently urge that “Henry said nothing about the Pope’s letter, because it was a matter of no practical consequence whatever.”[411] Such a _volte-face_ as this does not tend to inspire confidence in her arguments. But even if we accept this, her later conclusion, it only increases the difficulty of explaining why Henry II. formally made the “Bull” public a year or two later (and still more, why he should have done so, as she holds he did, in “1175”). And this difficulty, so far as I can find, she does not attempt to meet.

Everything then, it seems to me, points to the clear conclusion that Giraldus substituted for the genuine letters from the Pope, in the ‘Liber Niger,’ a concocted confirmation of an equally concocted “Bull” from his predecessor Adrian.

Having arrived at this conclusion, I propose to ask three questions:

(1) Why did Giraldus do this?
(2) How were his documents concocted?
(3) Was there a conspiracy, in which Giraldus
joined?

As to the Welshman’s motive, it has been urged by his critics that he wished to gratify the king. Miss Norgate retorts:

At no period of his life is it likely that Gerald would have
had any personal interest in putting in circulation, for King
Henry’s benefit, a document which he knew or suspected to be
forged; least of all would he have cared to do it for the sake
of bolstering up Henry’s claims upon Ireland.[412]

But whatever may have been his personal feelings towards Henry II. his eagerness to prove the right of the English Crown to Ireland is one of the leading features of his ‘Expugnatio Hiberniæ.’ He sets forth more than once the arguments on which he bases it, and he treats the Papal action as the crowning argument of all:

Et quod solum sufficere posset ad perfectionis cumulum et
absolutæ consummationis augmentum, summorum pontificum, qui
insulas omnes sibi speciali quadam jure respiciunt, totiusque
christianitatis principum et primatum confirmans accessit
auctoritas (v. 320).

The reference, in this passage, to the Donation of Constantine, and therefore to “Laudabiliter,” is clear.

I pass to my second question: ‘How were the documents concocted?’ The unfortunate theory was advanced by the ‘Analecta’ writer that “Laudabiliter” was adapted from a genuine letter of Adrian written, in 1158, to Henry of England and Louis of France, forbidding them to enter Ireland, as they proposed to do, in conjunction. It was urged that this genuine letter had been altered into the ‘Bull’ Laudabiliter, and thus made to bear the very reverse of its meaning. It was necessary, for this solution, to hold that the genuine letter did not refer, as had been supposed, to Spain (_H[ispania]_) but to Ireland (_H[ibernia]_). Although this bold theory was adopted by Father Gasquet,[413] he seems to have been conscious of its weakness; for he leaves it with the words: “Whether this theory as to the origin of the Bull be correct or not,” etc., etc. The words “pagani” in the genuine letter are of themselves fatal to the theory, and Father Malone had no difficulty in showing that it was preposterous.[414] It is true that, as Miss Norgate admits,[415] “between the introductory sentences of the two letters there is certainly a close verbal similarity,” but even if this letter, relating to the Spanish crusade was placed under contribution by the concocter of our document, I should none the less advance as my own theory the view that Gerald employed, largely at any rate, the genuine letters of Alexander III., entered in the ‘Liber Niger.’ In support of this theory I might adduce certain suggestive parallels:

THE LETTER. THE “BULL.”

sicut ... comperimus, ... ad Significasti ... nobis ... te
subjugandum tuo Dominio gentem Hiberniæ insulam ad subdendum
illam et ad extirpandum tantæ illum populum legibus et vitiorum
abominationis spurcitiam ... plantaria exstirpanda velle,
tuum animum erexisti. intrare.

Christianæ religionis suscipiat crescat fidei Christianæ religio,
disciplinam ... ita etiam et quæ ad honorem Dei et salutem
de suæ salutis perfectu coronam pertinent animarum taliter
merearis suscipere sempiternam. ordinentur, ut a Deo sempiternum
mercedis cumulum consequi
merearis.

quia, sicut tuæ magnitudinis sane Hiberniam et omnes insulas
excellentia [? cognoscit], ... ad jus beati Petri et
Romana ecclesia aliud jus habet sacrosanctæ Romanæ ecclesiæ,
in Insula quam in terra magna quod tua etiam nobilitas
et continua, etc. recognoscit, non est dubium
pertinere.

The very fact that these coincidences are rather suggestive than verbal, favours, I think, the theory of concoction. But I am chiefly influenced by the fact that “Laudabiliter” does little more than paraphrase and adapt the contents of Alexander’s letter. Even its clause as to Peter’s pence might be based on Alexander’s insistence that Henry was not only to guard “jura beati Petri,” but “si etiam ibi non habet (jura)”--as was the case with Peter’s pence--to establish them himself.

And now as to my third question: ‘Was there a conspiracy?’ I doubt if sufficient attention has been paid to the remarkable words of the ‘Gesta Henrici,’ followed as they were by Hoveden.[416] That they were introduced of set purpose is evident from their repetition.[417] It should be observed that the story told in the ‘Metalogicus’ of Adrian and in the ‘Gesta’ of Alexander is to the same effect:

METALOGICUS. GESTA HENRICI.

regi Anglorum Henrico secundo summus pontifex ... confirmavit
(Papa) concessit et dedit ei et heredibus suis regnum
Hiberniam jure hæreditario illud, et eos imperpetuum
possidendam. reges constituit.

Neither the letters in the ‘Liber Niger’ nor even the documents given by Giraldus can justify these expressions. Yet this must have been what we may term the view officially adopted. As the Black Book letters of Alexander III. could not be made to support this view, its upholders preferred to fall back on the alleged grant by Adrian, as the source of Henry’s title, and to pretend that his successor Alexander had merely confirmed it. “Laudabiliter” did not, it is true, go so far as was required, but it carried back the title to Adrian’s action, and, so far, supported the story.

* * * * *

The subsequent attitude of Rome towards the English story is a matter of obvious interest, but, as yet, of much obscurity. Cardinal Moran relied on the personal information of Theiner for the statement that

nowhere in the private archives, or among the private papers of
the Vatican, or in the ‘Regesta’ which Jaffé’s researches have
made so famous, or in the various indices of the Pontifical
letters, can a single trace be found of the supposed Bulls of
Adrian and Alexander.[418]

In the strict sense of the words, no doubt the above statement may be absolutely true. But in the document below, from Theiner’s own work,[419] we have, surely, in the words “de voluntatis sedis ipsius,” a most distinct reference, at least, to Adrian’s alleged action. In the preamble to a Papal dispensation of the 13th century, we find these words:

Exposita siquidem nobis dilecti filii nobilis viri Galfridi de
Ianvilla patris tui, fili Symon, petitio continebat quod cum
terra Ybernie ac eius incole, ut tenentur, nec sedi eidem, nec
Regi Anglie obedirent, sed velut effrenes per campum licentie
ducerentur, clare memorie Henricus olim Rex Anglorum de
voluntate sedis ipsius armata manu terram predictam intravit, et
eam ac habitatores ipsius ad ejusdem sedis obedientiam suaque
(_sic_) pro posse reduxit, et tam idem Rex quam ejus successores
in regno prefato probos viros nationis alterius studuerunt
successu temporis in terra memorata Ybernie ad continuandam
inibi sedis ejusdem obedientiam collocare.

The words of this preamble should be most carefully studied; for though, as I have said, it clearly refers to the action of Pope Adrian, in its statement that Henry invaded Ireland “at the wish of the Papal see,” yet the words “velut effrenes per campum licentie ducerentur” must, surely, be derived from the “tanquam effrenis passim per abrupta deviat viciorum” of Alexander’s letter to Henry entered in the ‘Liber Niger.’ If so, they are evidence, even though they stand alone, that the existence and contents of this letter were known in Ireland at the time.

There is another and far later reference to ‘Laudabiliter’ in a Papal document, which I have not seen mentioned, although the document is one of great consequence for Irish history. When Innocent X. despatched Rinuccini as Papal Nuncio to Ireland (1645) he gave him formal instructions, in which was comprised a brief outline of past events. In it we find this definite and most striking passage:

For a long period the true faith maintained itself, till the
country, invaded by the Danes, an idolatrous people, fell for
the most part into impious superstition. This state of darkness
lasted till the reigns of Adrian IV. and of Henry II., king of
England. Henry, desiring to strengthen his empire, and to secure
the provinces which he possessed beyond sea in France, wished to
subdue the island of Ireland; and, to compass this design, had
recourse to Adrian, who, himself an Englishman, with a liberal
hand granted all he coveted.

The zeal manifested by Henry to convert all Ireland to the faith
moved the soul of Adrian to invest him with the sovereignty of
that island. Three important conditions were annexed to the
gift. 1st. That the king should do all in his power to propagate
the Christian religion throughout Ireland. 2nd. That each of his
subjects should pay an annual tribute of one penny to the Holy
See, commonly called Peter’s pence. And 3rd. That civil liberty
should be guaranteed, and the privileges and immunities of the
Church be held inviolate.[420]

This clear testimony to the Pope’s belief, in 1645, that Adrian had, by ‘Laudabiliter,’ invested Henry II. with the sovereignty of Ireland can hardly be agreeable reading to Father Gasquet and his friends.