Thomas of Lancaster, who had refused to join in the late campaign, took
advantage of its results to place the king once more in complete
tutelage. His household was dismissed, he was bidden to live as best he
could on an allowance of £10 a day, and all his ministers and officials
were changed. For more than three years Lancaster practically reigned in
his cousin's name; it was soon found that the realm got no profit
thereby, for Earl Thomas, though neither so apathetic nor so frivolous
as Edward, was not a whit more competent to conduct either war or
domestic administration. The Scots swept everything before them,
ravaging the north at their will, and capturing Berwick. They even made
a great expedition to Ireland, where Bruce's brother Edward was
proclaimed king by the rebellious Celtic septs, and rode across the
whole island, exterminating the Anglo-Irish population in many districts
(1315-1317). But the colonists rallied, and cut to pieces a great Irish
army at Athenry (1316), while in the next year Roger Mortimer, a
hard-handed baron of the Welsh march, crossed with reinforcements and
drove back Edward Bruce into the north. Resuming his advance after a
space, the rebel king was routed and slain at Dundalk (Oct. 14, 1318)
and the insurrection died out. But it had had the permanent result of
weakening the king's grip on the north and west of Ireland, where the
Englishry had been almost exterminated. From this time forth until the
reign of Henry VIII. the limit of the country in full subjection to the
crown was always shrinking, and the Irish chiefs of the inland continued
to pay less and less attention to orders issued from Dublin or London.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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