After this, Brian made what may be called a royal progress through the country, receiving the submission of the chiefs and inferior kings, and forcing them to acknowledge his authority.  In speaking of him as king of Ireland, which in a sense he undoubtedly was, we must be careful of letting our imaginations carry us into any exaggerated idea of what is meant by that word.  His name, “Brian of the Tribute,” is our safest guide, and enables us to understand what was the position of even the greatest and most successful king under the Celtic system.  It was the exact opposite of the feudal one, and this difference proved the source in years to come of an enormous amount of misconception, and of fierce accusations of falsehood and treachery flung profusely from both sides.  The position of the over-king or Ard-Reagh was more nearly allied to that of the early French suzerain or the German emperor.  He could call upon his vassal or tributary kings to aid him in war times or in any sudden emergency, but, as regards their internal arrangements—­the government, misgovernment, or non-government of their several sub-kingdoms—­they were free to act as they pleased, and he was not understood to have any formal jurisdiction.

For all that Brian was an unmistakable king, and proved himself to be one.  He defeated the Danes again and again, reducing even those inveterate disturbers of the peace to a forced quiescence; entered Dublin, and remained there some time, taking, say the annalists, “hostages and treasure.”  By the year 1002 Ireland had a master, one whose influence made itself felt over its whole surface.  For twelve years at least out of its distracted history the country knew the blessings of peace.  Broken by defeat the Danish dwellers of the seaport towns began to turn their energies to the milder and more pacific activities of trade.  The ruined monasteries were getting rebuilt; prosperity was beginning to glimmer faintly upon the island; the chiefs, cowed into submission, abstained from raiding, or confined their raids to discreeter limits.  Fortresses were being built, roads made, and bridges repaired in three at least of the provinces.  Another twenty years of Brian’s rule and the whole future history of Ireland might have been a different one.

[Illustration:  Doorway of Killeshin Church, Co.  Carlow. (From a Photograph.)]

It was not to be however.  The king was now old, and the work that he had begun, and which, had he been followed by a successor like himself, might have been accomplished, was destined to crumble like a half-built house.  The Danes began to stir again.  A rebellion had sprung up in Leinster, the coast-line of which was strong-holded at several points with Danish towns.  This rebellion they not only aided with their own strength, but further appealed for assistance to their kinsmen in Northumbria, Man, the Orkneys, and elsewhere, who responded by sending a large force under Brodar, a Viking, and Sigurd Earl of Orkney to their aid.