s
itself on your happy beginning,--will find much more glory in the
Lord, in your happier end. Finally, we request of your Paternity, with
full confidence, that you will be pleased to remember us, our family,
and kingdom, especially in your prayers and vows." [1]

A few months after the receipt of this letter,
Adrian was visited by his renowned countryman, John of
Salisbury,--afterwards bishop of Chartres,--who arrived in a diplomatic
capacity, from king Henry, to procure the papal sanction to a projected
conquest of Ireland, by England.

The motives to this ambitious scheme,--which William the Conqueror,
and Henry I., had also entertained,--were alleged to be the
civilisation of the Irish people, and the reformation of the Irish
Church; both of which were represented as given over to barbaric
anarchy, and the most crying abuses. And, indeed, such was the real
state of civil and religious affairs in that country in the 12th
century,--as will be shown lower down,--that the motives in question,
derived the greatest weight from the circumstance, and induced the
pope to give the sanction requested. This he did in the following
brief:

"Adrian, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his most dear son
in Christ, the illustrious king of the English, health and apostolical
benediction.

"Thy Magnificence thinketh, praiseworthily and fruitfully, touching
the propagation of thy glorious name over the earth, and the laying up
a reward of eternal felicity in heaven, when, like a Catholic prince,
thou dost project the extension of the boundaries of the Church, the
proclamation of the Christian faith to ignorant and rude people, and
the extirpation of the weeds of vice from the Lord's vineyard; and
when, to the better execution hereof, thou dost request the advice and
favour of the Apostolic See. In which matter, we feel confident that,
as thou shalt proceed with higher counsel, and greater discretion, so
thou wilt make, under the Lord's favour, the happier progress, seeing
that those things usually reach a good issue, which have sprung out of
an ardour for the faith and love of religion. Certainly, there can be
no doubt that Ireland, as well as all the isles, which Christ the Sun
of justice hath illuminated, and which have borne testimony to the
Christian Faith, are subject to St. Peter, and the most Holy Roman
Church. On which account, we are all the more ready to plant therein,
the plantation of the Faith, and the seed w