remained, with hardly an exception, loyal adherents of the English Crown.  Their most important representative was the “great duke” as he was called, James, Duke of Ormond, who bore an important part in the civil wars of Charles I., and is perhaps the most distinguished representative of all these great Norman Irish houses, unless indeed one of the greatest names in the whole range of English political history—­that of Edmund Burke—­is to be added to the list, as perhaps in fairness it ought.

Troublesome as it is to keep these different houses in the memory, it is hopeless to attempt without doing so to understand anything of the history of Ireland.  In England where the ruling power was vested first in the sovereign and later in the Parliament, the landowners, however large their possessions, rarely attained to more than a local importance, save of course when one of them chanced to rise to eminence as a soldier or a statesman.  In Ireland the parliament, throughout nearly the whole of its separate existence, was little more than a name, irregularly summoned, and until the middle of the sixteenth century, representing only one small corner of the country.  The kings never came; the viceroys came and went in a continually changing succession; practically, therefore, the great territorial barons constituted the backbone of the country—­so far as it could be said to have had any backbone at all.  They made war with the native chiefs, or else made alliances with them and married their daughters.  They raided one another’s properties, slew one another’s kerns, and carried one another away prisoner.  Sometimes their independent action went even further than this.  The battle of Knocktow, of which we shall hear in due time, arose because the Earl of Kildare’s daughter had quarrelled with her husband, the Earl of Clanricarde, and her father chose to espouse her quarrel.  Two large armies were collected, nearly all the lords of the Pale and their followers being upon one side, under the banner of Kildare, a vast and undisciplined horde of natives under Clanricarde upon the other, and the slaughter is said to have exceeded 8,000.  Parental affection is a very attractive quality, but when it swells to such dimensions as these it becomes formidable for the peace of a country!

XV.

EDWARD BRUCE IN IRELAND.

One of the greatest difficulties to be faced in the study of Irish history, no matter upon what scale, is to discover any reasonable method of dividing our space.  The habit of distributing all historical affairs into reigns is often misleading enough even in England; in Ireland it becomes simply ridiculous.  What difference can any one suppose it made to the great bulk of the people of that country whether a Henry, whom they had never seen, had been succeeded by an Edward they had never seen, or an Edward by a Henry?  No two sovereigns could have been less alike in character or aims than Henry III. and Edward I., yet when we fix our eyes upon Ireland the difference is to all intents and purposes imperceptible.