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| The English Invasion |
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| 1. Henry II Visits Waterford |
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When the "ice was broken" by Strongbow it became an easy task for King Henry II., to visit Waterford, bringing with him 500 knights and 4,000 men-at-arms, on the 18th October, 1171. The story that an Ostman Lord drew a chain across the harbour to prevent his entry looks a myth, and indeed the Ostman who would dream of such a mode of warfare would be entirely unworthy of his Danish descent, Waterford, the first city which was entered by Henry, appeared quite a proud inheritance even in the royal estimation, and was regarded, it would seem, as a city of great antiquity. This statement of its antiquity looks rather in contradiction to those in which the same chroniclers tell us that Waterford was founded about 200 years before the Norman invasion, by Sitric, the Dane, showing Waterford to be a modern city. Thus they appear to forge through their prejudices, that the Irish even existed there before the Danish invasion. The Earl of Pembroke, of course, succumbed to royalty, and handed over the city, with all its fates, to the royal visitor, as he would a bouquet of autumn flowers upon that October morning. The records go on to say that the people of Wexford, and Dermot MacCarthy, King of Cork, made submission to Henry, and that as the King marched to Lismore and thence to Cashel, Daniel O'Brien, Prince of Limerick, did likewise, as well as Daniel, Prince of Ossory, O'Faolan, Prince of Decies, and other great men of Munster. Still with all this seeming obedience, it appears strange that in one year after, Raymond le Gros led an army into the Decies to plunder it. As they passed through Ossory the whole native forces were up in arms, in fact "the Irish began to rise everywhere". After a stay of six months the King quitted our shores without, it is thought, increasing even in a very small way the allegiance which comes otherwise than by the formal utterances of revengeful princes.
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| Author : P. M. Egan Published Online : 20 November 2004 |
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