POPE ADRIAN’S “gift” of Ireland to Henry II, absurd as it may appear in this age, was not without precedent in the Middle Ages, when the Roman Pontiff was regarded as supreme arbiter by nearly all of Christendom. Such “gifts” had been made before the time of Adrian, and some afterward, but they were not considered bona fide by the countries involved. So also with the Irish people as a majority. They respected, as they still respect, the Pope in his spiritual capacity, but rightly conceived that he had no power whatever to make a present of their country to any potentate, whether native or alien, without their consent. An influential minority held otherwise, with most unfortunate results, as we shall see. Some superzealous Catholic writers have sought to discredit the existence of the “bull” of Adrian, but weight of evidence is against them, and, in any case, it was “confirmed,” at Henry’s urgent request, by Pope Alexander III. The king was engaged in civil war with his own sons—in every way worthy of their rapacious father—during most of his reign, for he held under his sway Normandy, Aquitaine, and other parts of France, which they wanted for themselves. Thus no chance to push his long meditated Irish scheme presented itself until about A. D. 1168. Fifteen years prior to that date, Dermid, or Dermot, MacMurrough (Mac Murro), King of Leinster, a very base and dissolute ruler, had carried off the wife of O’Ruarc, Prince of Breffni, while the latter was absent on a pious pilgrimage. The lady was a willing victim, and added the dowry she brought her husband to the treasure of her paramour. When Breffni returned to his castle and found that his wife had betrayed him, he was overpowered by grief and anger, and, not having sufficient military force himself to punish his enemy, he called on Turlough Mor O’Conor, then titular Ard-Righ, to assist him in chastising MacMurrough. O’Conor did so to such purpose that, according to Irish annals, Dervorgilla, which was the name of O’Ruarc’s wife, together with her dowry, was restored to her husband, who, however, discarded her, and she died penitent, it is said, forty years afterward in the cloisters of Mellifont Abbey. But Dermid’s evil conduct did not end with his outrage against O’Ruarc. He entertained the most deadly animosity to the O’Conor family on account of the punishment inflicted on him by Turlough Mor, and when on the death in battle of Ard-Righ Murtagh McLaughlin, Roderick, son of Turlough Mor, claimed the national crown, MacMurrough refused him recognition, although nearly all the other sub-kings had acknowledged him as supreme ruler of Ireland. Incensed at his stubbornness, King Roderick, who had with him O’Ruarc and other princes of Connaught, marched against Dermid, who, seeing that he was overmatched, burned his palace of Ferns, and, taking to his galley, crossed the Irish Sea to England and sought out King Henry II at his Court of London. On arriving there he was informed that the king was