A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — CompleteMcGee, Thomas D'Arcy
History
A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — Complete
McGee, Thomas D'Arcy
Ireland -- History
Six days after his arrival, which was on the 1st of June, King Richard
marched from Waterford "in close order to Kilkenny." He had now the
advantage of long days and warm nights, which in his first expedition
he had not. His forces were rather less than in 1394; some say twenty,
some twenty-four thousand in all. The Earl of Rutland, with a
reinforcement in one hundred ships, was to have followed him, but this
unfaithful courtier did not greatly hasten his preparations to overtake
his master. With the King were the Lord Steward of England, Sir Thomas
Percy; the Duke of Exeter; De Spencer, Earl of Gloucester; the Lord
Henry of Lancaster, afterwards King Henry V.; the son of the late Duke
of Gloucester; the son of the Countess of Salisbury; the Bishop of
Exeter and London; the Abbot of Westminster, and a gallant Welsh
gentleman, afterwards known to fame as Owen Glendower. He dropped the
subterfuge of bearing Edward the Confessor's banner, and advanced his
own standard, which bore leopards and flower de luces. In this order,
"riding boldly," they reached Kilkenny, where Richard remained a
fortnight awaiting news of the Earl of Rutland from Waterford. No news,
however, came. But while he waited, he received intelligence from
Kildare which gratified his thirst for vengeance. Jenico d'Artois, a
Gascon knight of great discretion and valour, who had come over the
preceding year with the Duke of Surrey, marching towards Kilkenny, had
encountered some bands of the Irish in Kildare (bound on a like errand
to their prince), whom he fought and put to flight, leaving two hundred
of them dead upon the field. This Jenico, relishing Irish warfare more
than most foreign soldiers of his age, continued long after to serve in
Ireland—married one of his daughters to Preston, Baron of Naas, and
another to the first Lord Portlester.
On the 23rd of June, "the very vigil of St. John," a saint to whom the
King was very much devoted, Richard, resolving to delay no longer, left
Kilkenny, and marched directly towards Catherlough. He sent a message
in advance to McMurrogh, "who would neither submit nor obey him in
anyway; but affirmed that he was the rightful King of Ireland, and that
he would never cease from war and the defence of his country until his
death; and said that the wish to deprive him of it by conquest was
unlawful."
Art McMurrogh, now some years beyond middle age, had with him in arms
"three thousand hardy men," "who did not appear," says our French
knight, "to be much afraid of the English." The cattle and corn, the
women and the helpless, he had removed into the interior of the
fastnesses, while he himself awaited, in Idrone, the approach of the
enemy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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