d. Then was the Lord Butler chosen Lord Justice, who made the Earl
of Ulster and the Geraldines friends, and reconciled himself with Sir
John Mandeville, thus seeking to preserve the residue of the realm which
Edward Bruce meant wholly to conquer, having caused himself to be
crowned King of Ireland.'

"Dundalk was heretofore the stronghold of the English power, and the
head-quarters of the army for the defence of the Pale. At the north, as
Barbour preserves in his metrical history of Robert Bruce:

"'At Kilsaggart Sir Edward lay,
And wellsom he has heard say
That at Dundalk was assembly
Made of the lords of that country.'

"It was not, however, within this town that the ceremony of Bruce's
coronation took place, but, according to the best avouched tradition, on
the hill of Knock-na-Melin, at half a mile's distance.

"Connaught the while was torn with dissensions and family feuds, of
which availing himself, 'the Lord Justice' (to resume the narrative of
Hollinshed) 'assembled a great power out of Munster and Leinster, and
other parts thereabouts; and the Earl of Ulster, with another army, came
in unto him near unto Dundalk. There they consulted together how to deal
in defending the country against the enemies; but, hearing the Scots
were withdrawn back, the Earl of Ulster followed them, and, fighting
with them at "Coiners," he lost the field. There were many slain on both
parts; and William de Burgh, the Earl's brother, Sir John Mandeville,
and Sir Alan FitzAlan were taken prisoners.' Bruce's adherents
afterwards ravaged other parts of the Pale, Meath, Kildare, &c., but met
with much, resistance. At length 'Robert le Bruce, King of Scots, came
over himself, landed at Cragfergus, to the aid of his brother, whose
soldiers most wickedly entered into churches, spoiling and defacing the
same of all such tombs, monuments, plate, copes, and other ornaments
which they found and might lay hands on.' Ultimately 'the Lord John
Bermingham, being general of the field, and having with him divers
captains of worthy fame, namely--Sir Richard Tuiyte, Sir Miles Verdon,
Sir John Cusack, Sirs Edmund, and William, and Walter Bermingham, the
Primate of Armagh, Sir Walter de la Pulle, and John Maupas (with some
choice soldiers from Drogheda), led forth the King's power to the number
of 1,324 able men, against Edward Bruce, who had, with his adherents
(the Lord Philip Moubray, the Lord Walter Soulis, the Lord Allan Stuart,