The idea of an Ard-Reagh, or Over-lord, was no new one, as we have seen, to any of them.  Theoretically they had always acknowledged one, although, practically, he had rarely exercised any authority save over his own immediate subjects.  Their feeling about Henry was doubtless the same.  They were as willing to swear fealty to him as to Roderick O’Connor, more so in fact, seeing that he was stronger than Roderick, but that was all.  To Henry and to his successors this recognition carried with it all the complicated dependence of feudalism, which in England meant that his land and everything else which a man possessed was his only so long as he did service for it to the king.  To these new Irish subjects, who had never heard of feudalism, it entailed nothing of the sort.  They regarded it as a mere vague promise of adhesion, binding them at most to a general muster or “hosting” under his arms in case of war or some common peril.  This was an initial misconception, which continued, as will be seen, to be a deeper and deeper source of confusion as the years went on.

In the meanwhile Henry was established in Dublin, where he kept Christmas in high state, occupying a palace built in the native fashion of painted wicker-work, set up just outside the walls.  Here he entertained the chiefs, who were naturally astonished at the splendour of his entertainments.  “They learnt,” Giraldus observes with satisfaction, “to eat cranes”—­does this mean herons?—­“a species of food which they had previously loathed;” and, in general, were suitably impressed with the greatness and glory of the conqueror.  The bishops were most of them already warmly in his favour, and at a synod shortly afterwards held at Cashel, at which all the Irish clergy were represented, the Church of Ireland was solemnly declared to be finally united to that of England, and it was laid down that, “as by Divine Providence Ireland has received her lord and king from England, so she should also submit to a reformation from the same source.”

The weather that winter was so rough that hardly a ship could cross the channel, and Henry in his new kingdom found himself practically cut off from his old one.  About the middle of Lent, the wind veering at last to the east, ships arrived from England and Aquitaine, bearers of very ill news to the king.  Two legates were on their way, sent by the Pope, to inquire into the murder of Becket, and armed in case of an unsatisfactory reply with all the terrors of an interdict.  Henry hastily made over the government of Ireland to Hugo de Lacy, whom he placed in Dublin as his representative, and sailed from Wexford upon Easter Monday.  He never again revisited his new dominions, where many of the lessons inculcated by him—­including possibly the delights of eating cranes—­were destined before long to be forgotten.

XII.

EFFECTS OF THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION.