of things.
Since the recall of Richard and his army in 1399 English sovereignty over
the island had dwindled to a shadow. For a hundred years the native
chieftains had ruled without check on one side the Pale, and the lords of
the Pale had ruled with but little check on the other. But in 1494 Henry
took the country in hand. Sir Edward Poynings, a tried soldier, was
despatched as deputy to Ireland with troops at his back. English officers,
English judges were quietly sent over. The Lords of the Pale were scared
by the seizure of their leader, the Earl of Kildare. The Parliament of the
Pale was bridled by a statute passed at the Deputy's dictation; the famous
Poynings Act, by which it was forbidden to treat of any matters save those
first approved of by the English king and his Council. It was this new
Ireland that the pretender found when he appeared off its coast. He
withdrew in despair, and Henry at once set about finishing his work. The
time had not yet come when England was strong enough to hold Ireland by
her own strength. For a while the Lords of the Pale must still serve as
the English garrison against the unconquered Irish, and Henry called his
prisoner Kildare to his presence. "All Ireland cannot rule this man,"
grumbled his ministers. "Then shall he rule all Ireland," laughed the
king, and Kildare returned as Lord Deputy to hold the country loyally in
Henry's name.

[Sidenote: Henry and Scotland]

The same political forecast, winning from very danger the elements of
future security, was seen in the king's dealings with Scotland. From the
moment when England finally abandoned the fruitless effort to subdue it
the story of Scotland had been a miserable one. Whatever peace might be
concluded, a sleepless dread of the old danger from the south tied the
country to an alliance with France, and this alliance dragged it into the
vortex of the Hundred Years War. But after the final defeat and capture of
David on the field of Neville's Cross the struggle died down on both sides
into marauding forays and battles, like those of Otterburn and Homildon
Hill, in which alternate victories were won by the feudal lords of the
Scotch or English border. The ballad of "Chevy Chase" brings home to us
the spirit of the contest, the daring and defiance which stirred Sidney's
heart "like a trumpet." But the effect of the struggle on the internal
developement of Scotland was utterly ruinous. The houses of Douglas and of
March which