conquest, and the allegiance of the conquerors.  The fame of so great a force arriving under a prince dreaded by all Europe very soon disposed all the petty princes, with their King Roderic, to submit and do homage to Henry.  They had not been able to resist the arms of his vassals, and they hoped better treatment from submitting to the ambition of a great king, who left them everything but the honor of their independency, than from the avarice of adventurers, from which nothing was secure.  The bishops and the body of the clergy greatly contributed to this submission, from respect to the Pope, and the horror of their late defeats, which they began to regard as judgments.  A national council was held at Cashel for bringing the Church of Ireland to a perfect conformity in rites and discipline to that of England.  It is not to be thought that in this council the temporal interests of England were entirely forgotten.  Many of the English were established in their particular conquests under the tenure of knights’ service, now first introduced into Ireland:  a tenure which, if it has not proved the best calculated to secure the obedience of the vassal to the sovereign, has never failed in any instance of preserving a vanquished people in obedience to the conquerors.  The English lords built strong castles on their demesnes; they put themselves at the head of the tribes whose chiefs they had slain; they assumed the Irish garb and manners; and thus, partly by force, partly by policy, the first English families took a firm root in Ireland.  It was, indeed, long before they were able entirely to subdue the island to the laws of England; but the continual efforts of the Irish for more than four hundred years proved insufficient to dislodge them.

Whilst Henry was extending his conquests to the western limits of the known world, the whole fabric of his power was privately sapped and undermined, and ready to overwhelm him with the ruins, in the very moment when he seemed to be arrived at the highest and most permanent point of grandeur and glory.  His excessive power, his continual accessions to it, and an ambition which by words and actions declared that the whole world was not sufficient for a great man, struck a just terror into all the potentates near him:  he was, indeed, arrived at that pitch of greatness, that the means of his ruin could only be found in his own family.  A numerous offspring, which is generally considered as the best defence of the throne, and the support as well as ornament of declining royalty, proved on this occasion the principal part of the danger.  Henry had in his lawful bed, besides daughters, four sons, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, and John, all growing up with great hopes from their early courage and love of glory.  No father was ever more delighted with these hopes, nor more tender and indulgent to his children.  A custom had long prevailed in France for the reigning king to crown his eldest son in his lifetime.  By this policy, in turbulent