polygamy was still practised, and where dead bodies were not always buried. {172} But Henry did not attempt to impose the English laws upon his new subjects. That portion of Ireland occupied by the Normans was alone assimilated to England; the rest of the country remained subject to its old customs. When Henry returned from thence on the 17th of April, 1173, nominating Hugh de Lacy governor of Ireland, he left behind him territories which his armies had not overrun, and an undisciplined population, who took advantage of his absence to rebel. The jealousies of the English noblemen established in Ireland still further complicated the difficulties of the government. Harassed by their mutual recriminations, the king would depose, replace, or recall the rivals; disorder reigned in all parts, when, in 1185, the king, having obtained from the Pope the investiture of Ireland for his son John, sent the young prince there with his court. The arrogance, the severity, and the follies of the new sovereign soon caused fresh insurrections. John grew alarmed and returned precipitately to England, leaving to Sir John de Courcy the care of pacifying Ireland; the lieutenant succeeded in this, and, having become Earl of Ulster, he governed the new kingdom with as much firmness as good sense, until, at the end of the reign of Henry II., a prosperous state of affairs was inaugurated, to which Ireland had not been accustomed under native kings. Henry had begun to appropriate Ireland to himself, but without being able to give his personal attention to that country. He was a prey to bitter and ever-increasing embarrassments. The crowning of his son, Prince Henry, had excited in the young man an ambitious spirit which his father-in-law, Louis VII., constantly encouraged. He asked for the immediate cession of Normandy or even of England, in order to be able, he said, to maintain his position and that of the queen his wife. {173} "Wait until my death," replied the king, "you shall have wealth and power enough." He intended to bequeath England to Henry as well as Normandy, Anjou, and Maine. Aquitaine he designed for Richard, Brittany for Geoffrey, and Ireland for John. The young princes had even already been invested with these magnificent provinces; but, encouraged by their mother, the vindictive Eleanor, to whom Henry II. had always been a good husband, they plotted to seize their inheritance beforehand. In March, 1173, Prince Henry, who had slept with his father at Chinon, found a means of escaping during the night, and of reaching the territory of the King of France. A few days afterwards, his two brothers, Richard and Geoffrey, also escaped, and Queen Eleanor prepared to follow her sons; but she was captured by her husband's emissaries and brought back to England, where she was imprisoned until King Henry's death.