00 FOUKTH PERIOD. A.D. 590 TO 1049.
and with a strong military force easily subdued the whole Irish nation, weakened and distracted by civil wars, to British rule, which has been maintained ever since. A Synod at Armagh regarded the subjugation as a righteous judgment for the sins of the people, and especially for the slave trade. The bishops
"Full laudably and profitably has your magnificence conceived the design of propagating your glorious renown' on earth, and of completing your reward of eternal happiness in heaven, whilst as a Catholic prince you are intent on enlarging the borders of the Church, teaching the truth of the Christian faith to the ignorant and rude, extirpating the nurseries of iniquity from the field of the Lord, and for the more convenient execution of this purpose, requiring the counsel and favor of the Apostolic See. In which the maturer your deliberation and the greater the discretion of your procedure, by so much the happier, we trust, will be your progress, with the assistance of the Lord ; because whatever lias its origin in ardent faith and in love of religion always has a prosperous end and issue.
"There is indeed no doubt but that Ireland and all the islands on which Christ the Sun of Righteousness has shone, and which have received the doc trines of the Christian faith, belong to the jurisdiction of St. Peter and of the holy Roman Church, as your Excellency also acknowledges. And therefore we are the more solicitous to propagate a faithful plantation among them, and a seed pleasing to the Lord, as we have the secret conviction of conscience that a very rigorous account must be rendered of them.
"You then, most dear son in Christ, have signified to us your desire to enter into the island of Ireland that you may reduce the people to obedience to laws, and extirpate the nurseries of vice, and that you are willing to pay from each house a yearly pension of one penny to St. Peter, and that you will preserve the rights of the churches of this land whole and inviolate. We, therefore, with that grace and acceptance suited to your pious and laudable design, and favorably assenting to your petition, hold it good and acceptable that, for ex tending the borders of the church, restraining the progress of vice, for the cor rection of manners, the planting of virtue, and the increase of the Christian religion, you enter that island, and execute therein whatever shall pertain to the honor of God and welfare of the land ; and that the people of that land receive you honorably, and reverence you as their lord — the rights of their churches still remaining sacred and inviolate, and saving to St. Peter the annual pension of one penny from every house.
"If then you are resolved to carry the design you have conceived into effect ual execution, study to train that nation to virtuous manners, and labor by yourself and others whom you shall judge meet for this work, in faith, word, and life, that the church may be there adorned ; that the religion of the Chris tian faith may be planted and grow up, and that all things pertaining to the honor of God and the salvation of souls be so ordered that you may be entitled to the fulness of eternal reward in God, and obtain a glorious renown on earth throughout all ages."
\ 17. THE CONVERSION OF SCOTLAND. Cl
were the first to acknowledge Henry, hoping to derive benefit from a foreign regime, which freed them from petty tyrants at home. A Synod of Cashel in 1172, among other regulations, ordered that all offices of the church should hereafter in all parts of Ireland be conformed to the observances of the Church of England. A papal legate henceforward was constantly residing in Ireland. Pope Alexander III. was extremely gratified with this extension of his dominion, and in September, 1172, in the same tone of sanctimonious arrogance, issued a brief confirming the bull of Adrian, and expressing a hope that " the barbarous nation" would attain under the government of Henry "to some decency of manners;" he also wrote three epistles — one to Henry II., one to the kings and nobles of Ireland, and one to its hier archy — enjoining obedience of Ireland to England, and of both to the see of St. Peter.1