On March 31, 1185, the King knighted John at Windsor, and on April 24 the latter, who was in his nineteenth year, sailed from Milford Haven, with 300 knights and a large body of troops. The expedition reached Waterford in safety next day, and the neighbouring chiefs flocked to do honour to the King's son, and to give him the kiss of peace. The Anglo-Norman courtiers--young men mostly--pulled their long beards, and they at once departed to the hostile chiefs, Roderic O'Connor, Donnell O'Brien, and Dermod MacCarthy. All chance of conciliating the more powerful and distant potentates was thus taken away. Giraldus Cambrensis was present at Waterford, and he likens John to Rehoboam. The Irish, who had adhered to the invaders since Fitz-Stephen's first landing, were deprived of their lands; the castles were given up to favourites, who did nothing but eat, drink, and plunder; the worst officers were put in the best places, and the men, as a natural consequence, were as bad as their masters, devoted to Venus and Bacchus, but neglectful of Mars. Hoveden adds that John put all the profits of government into his own pocket, and that his soldiers being unpaid were useless in war. The three castles projected by his father were built; but he lost many to the Irish, and De Lacy was suspected of intriguing against him. It is clear that there could be no confidence in a prince whose chief care was to rob and displace the men who had won his principality for him. The disastrous experiment lasted only eight months, when John returned to England, leaving the government to John de Courcy, who retained power until the death of Henry II. The Lough Cé annalists, who wrote beyond the Shannon, give the following account of John's expedition:--'The son of the King of the Saxons came to assume the sovereignty of Erin ... afterwards he went across to complain of Hugo de Lacy to his father; for it was Hugo de Lacy that was King of Erin when the son of the King of the Saxons came, and he permitted not the men of Erin to give tribute or hostages to him.' To the Irish bordering on Meath no doubt De Lacy seemed a veritable king. The Four Masters, who were better acquainted with the English theory of government, repeat this; but soften Hugo's title of king into that of the King of England's deputy. [Sidenote: Murder of Hugh de Lacy. The colony continues to extend.]