this good and noble but irresolute monarch surrendered his soul to God. He was not buried at Cong, as some annalists have asserted, but in the chancel of the Temple Mor, or Great Church, of Clonmacnois, in the present King’s County, where he was educated. Tradition has failed to preserve the location of the exact place of sepulture within the ruined shrine. And so ended the last Ard-Righ, or High King, that had swayed the sceptre of an independent Ireland. King Henry’s claim that the Irish Church needed great reformation is disproved by the enactments of his own reign in that connection, viz.: 1. That the prohibition of marriage within the canonical degrees of consanguinity be enforced. 2. That children should be regularly catechized before the church door in each parish. 3. That children should be baptized in the public fonts of the parish churches. 4. That regular tithes should be paid to the clergy, rather than irregular donations from time to time. 5. That church lands should be exempt from the exaction of livery and other burdens. 6. That the clergy should not be liable to any share of the eric, or blood fine, levied off the kindred of a man guilty of homicide. 7. A decree regulating the making of wills. Surely, this was small ground on which to justify the invasion of an independent country and the destruction of its liberty! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XII Prince John “Lackland” Created “Lord” of Ireland—Splendid Heroism of Sir Armoricus Tristram HENRY II, whatever may have been his original intentions toward Ireland and the Irish, soon after his return to England assumed the tone of a conqueror and dictator. He forgot, or appeared to forget, the treaty he had concluded with King Roderick’s representatives at Windsor, which distinctly recognized the tributary sovereignty of the Irish monarch, and left the bulk of the Irish people under the sway of their own native laws and rulers. Now, however, he, in defiance of the commonest law of honor, proclaimed his weakest and worst son, the infamous John, “Lord” of Ireland—a title retained by the English kings down to the reign of Henry VIII, who, being a wily politician, contrived to get himself “elected” as “King of Ireland.” This title remained with the English monarchs until January 1, 1801, when the ill-starred legislative union went into effect, and George III of England became king of the so-called “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”