[495] “Duce Johanne agnomine the Wode,” Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 21 (p. 264). “Johan le Devé,” Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 108. It is there added that, “solum les Yrreis,” he was a nephew of the king of “Norwiche,” _i.e._ Norway. The Four Masters, a. 1171 (as above, p. 1185) describe him as “Eoan, a Dane from the Orkney Islands.” [496] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), p. 116. Gir. Cambr. as above. [497] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 111–114. Gir. Cambr. as above. [498] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 109–111, 115. [499] _Ib._ p. 117. [500] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 117, 118. (On his captor cf. _ib._ p. 111). Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. i. c. 21 (Dimock, vol. v. pp. 264, 265). [501] Anglo-Norm. Poem (Michel), pp. 116, 118. The date of this siege is given by Gir. Cambr. (as above, p. 263) as “eâdem fere tempestate” (_i.e._ about the time of Dermot’s death), “circa Pentecosten.” This would be at the beginning of May. In the Poem it comes much later in the year. There seems however no reason to upset Gerald’s arrangement of events. See Mr. Dimock’s remarks, Gir. Cambr. as above, note 2. The garrison of Dublin fought in truth even more desperately than their assailants; for they were fighting for their all. A remonstrance addressed by some of the Irish princes to the king of England against the aggressions of his subjects[502] can hardly have been needed to open Henry’s eyes to the danger gathering for him and his realm beyond the western sea. This little band of adventurers, almost all bound together by the closest ties of kindred,[503] were conquering Leinster neither for its native sovereign nor for their own, but were setting up a new feudal state independent of all royal control, under the leadership of a disgraced English baron. Such a state, if suffered to grow unhindered, would soon be far more dangerous to England than to Ireland, for it would be certain to play in every struggle of the feudal principle against the royal authority in England the part which the Ostmen had played of old in the struggles of the Danelaw. At the beginning of the year 1171 therefore Henry issued an edict prohibiting all further intermeddling of his subjects in Ireland, and bidding those who were already there either return before Easter or consider themselves banished for life.[504] Not a man went back; Richard of Striguil sent Raymond over to Normandy with a written protest to the king, pleading that his conquests had been undertaken with the royal sanction and that he was ready to place them at the king’s disposal;[505] but the “Geraldines,” as the kindred of Maurice Fitz-Gerald called themselves, seem to have at once accepted their sentence of exile and resolved to hold by their swords alone the lands which those swords had won.[506]