e Danes and the other northern tribes; but these
inroads, which had spread barbarism in other parts of Europe, tended
rather to improve the Irish; and the only towns which were to be found
in the island, had been planted along the coast by the freebooters of
Norway and Denmark. The other inhabitants exercised pasturage in the
open country, sought protection from any danger in their forests and
morasses, and being divided by the fiercest animosities against each
other, were still more intent on the means of mutual injury than on the
expedients for common or even for private interest.

Besides many small tribes, there were in the age of Henry II. five
principal sovereignties in the island, Minister, Leinster Meath, Ulster,
and Connaught; and as it had been usual for the one or the other of
these to take the lead in their wars, there was commonly some prince,
who seemed, for the time, to act as monarch of Ireland. Roderic
O'Connor, king of Connaught, was then advanced to this dignity;[*] but
his government, ill obeyed even within his own territory, could not
unite the people in any measures, either for the establishment of order,
or for defence against foreigners.

[* Hoveden, p. 527]

The ambition of Henry had, very early in his reign, been moved, by the
prospect of these advantages, to attempt the subjecting of Ireland;
and a pretence was only wanting to invade a people who, being always
confined to their own island, had never given any reason of complaint to
any of their neighbors. For this purpose he had recourse to Rome, which
assumed a right to dispose of kingdoms and empires; and not foreseeing
the dangerous disputes which he was one day to maintain with that see,
he helped, for present, or rather for an imaginary convenience, to give
sanction to claims which were now become dangerous to all sovereigns.
Adrian III., who then filled the papal chair, was by birth an
Englishman; and being on that account the more disposed to oblige Henry,
he was easily persuaded to act as master of the world, and to make,
without any hazard or expense, the acquisition of a great island to his
spiritual jurisdiction. The Irish had, by precedent missions from the
Britons, been imperfectly converted to Christianity; and, what the pope
regarded as the surest mark of their imperfect conversion, they followed
the doctrines of their first teachers, and had never acknowledged any
subjection to the see of Rome. Adrian, therefore, in the