This scheme might perhaps have answered at least as well as a similar plan had answered during a few years in South Wales, had it not been for the disturbed condition of the English settlement. The death of Richard of Striguil in 1176[911] left the command in the hands of his brother-in-law and constable, Raymond the Fat, who for some years had been not only the leader of his forces, but also his chief adviser and most indispensable agent in all matters political and military.[912] A jealous rival, however, had already brought Raymond into ill repute at court,[913] and the king’s seneschal William Fitz-Aldhelm was sent to supersede him.[914] William appears to have been a loyal servant of the king, but his tact and wisdom did not equal his loyalty. At the moment of landing his suspicions were aroused by the imposing display of armed followers with which Raymond came to meet him; the muttered words which he incautiously suffered to escape his lips--“I will soon put an end to all this!”--were enough to set all the Geraldines against him at once; and the impolitic haste and severity with which he acted upon his suspicions, without waiting to prove their justice,[915] drove the whole body of the earlier settlers into such a state of irritation that early in the next year Henry found it necessary to recall him.[916] Meanwhile the aggressive spirit of the English settlers had made Henry’s treaty with Roderic almost a dead letter. In defiance of the rights which that treaty reserved to the Irish monarch, they had profited by the mutual dissensions of the lesser native chieftains to extend their own power far beyond the limits therein laid down. A civil war in Munster had ended in its virtual subjugation by Raymond and his Geraldine kinsfolk;[917] a like pretext had served for an invasion of Connaught itself by Miles Cogan;[918] John de Courcy was in full career of conquest in Ulster.[919] Henry could scarcely have put a stop to all this, even had he really wished to do so; and by this time he was probably more inclined to encourage any extension of English power in Ireland, for he had devised a new scheme for the government of that country. [911] Gir. Cambr. _Expugn. Hibern._, l. ii. c. 14 (Dimock, vol. v. p. 332). R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 407. Four Masters, a. 1176 (O’Donovan, vol. iii. p. 25). _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 125. [912] Gir. Cambr. as above, cc. 1–3 (pp. 308–313). [913] _Ib._ cc. 10, 11 (pp. 327, 328). [914] _Gesta Hen._ as above. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 100. [915] Gir. Cambr. as above, c. 15 (pp. 334–337). [916] _Ib._ c. 20 (p. 347). Gerald gives no date for the recall of William; but it seems to have been before the nomination of John as king of Ireland in May 1177; see below, p. 184. [917] Gir. Cambr. as above, cc. 7, 12, 13 (pp. 320–323, 329–332).