being burned on the forehead,
and then whipped through the streets. They seemed to exult in their
sufferings, and as they went along sung the beatitude, "Blessed are ye,
when men hate you and persecute you."[**]

[* Gervase, p. 1399. M. Paris, p. 74.]

[** Neubr. p. 391. M. Pang, p. 74. Heining. p.
494.]

After they were whipped, they were thrust out almost naked in the midst
of winter, and perished through cold and hunger; no one daring, or
being willing, to give them the least relief. We are ignorant of the
particular tenets of these people; for it would be imprudent to rely on
the representations left of them by the clergy, who affirm, that they
denied the efficacy of the sacraments and the unity of the church. It is
probable that their departure from the standard of orthodoxy was still
more subtile and minute. They seem to have been the first that ever
suffered for heresy in England.

As soon as Henry found that he was in no immediate danger from the
thunders of the Vatican, he undertook an expedition against Ireland; a
design which he had long projected, and by which he hoped to recover his
credit, somewhat impaired by his late transactions with the hierarchy.

CHAPTER IX.

HENRY II.

{1172.} As Britain was first peopled from Gaul, so was Ireland probably
from Britain; and the inhabitants of all these countries seem to have
been so many tribes of the Celtae, who derive their origin from an
antiquity that lies far beyond the records of any history or tradition.
The Irish, from the beginning of time, had been buried in the most
profound barbarism and ignorance; and as they were never conquered or
even invaded by the Romans, from whom all the western world derived its
civility, they continued still in the most rude state of society, and
were distinguished by those vices alone, to which human nature, not
tamed by education or restrained by laws, is forever subject. The small
principalities into which they were divided, exercised perpetual rapine
and violence against each other: the uncertain succession of their
princes was a continual source of domestic convulsions; the usual title
of each petty sovereign was the murder of his predecessor; courage and
force, though exercised in the commission of crimes, were more honored
than any pacific virtues; and the most simple arts of life, even tillage
and agriculture, were almost wholly unknown among them. They had felt
the invasions of th