On April 24 John sailed from Milford[78] with a fleet of sixty ships,[79] which carried some three hundred knights, a large body of archers, and a train of other followers. Next day they all landed at Waterford.[80] There the neighbouring Irish chieftains came to salute the son of the English king. The knights of John’s suite, young and reckless like himself, jeered at the dress and manners of these Irishmen, and even pulled some of them by their beards, which they wore long and flowing according to their national custom. The insulted chieftains reported to their brethren in more remote districts the indignity with which they had been treated; and in consequence, the kings and princes of Munster and Connaught not only refused to attend John’s court, but agreed among themselves to oppose him by force.[81] Archbishop Cumin, who had been sent over on purpose that he might set an example of clerical submission and lend John the support of his countenance as spiritual head of the province over which John was to be the secular ruler, of course welcomed the lad as his sovereign and gave him his homage and fealty, and so did the lay barons who owed their possessions in Ireland to King Henry; but among the survivors and representatives of the original Norman-Welsh conquerors the king’s son--like the king himself fourteen years before--evidently received but a half-hearted welcome;[82] and John did nothing to gain their confidence or their respect. He ordered castles to be built at Lismore and at two places on the Suir, Ardfinnan and Tibraghny;[83] beyond this he seems to have taken no measures to oppose the threatened coalition of the Irish princes and people; and while they were openly joining hands against him, he was spending in riotous living the money which had been destined for the pay of the soldiers who had come with him from England. When these soldiers demanded their wages, he met them with a refusal.[84] Some of them, whom he had left to garrison the new castles at Ardfinnan and Tibraghny, provided for themselves by making plundering raids into Munster, till they were defeated with great slaughter by the king of Thomond, Donell O’Brien;[85] most of the others refused to serve John any longer, and went over to the Irish.[86] Such was the characteristic beginning of John’s public life. Equally characteristic was the facility with which he escaped from the consequences of his criminal folly. In September, finding himself on the verge of ruin, he hurried back to his father’s court and laid the blame of his ill-success upon Hugh de Lacy, whom he accused of plotting with the Irish against him.[87] The task of repairing the mischief wrought by his five months’ stay in Ireland was entrusted by Henry to John de Courcy as governor-general.[88] [Sidenote: 1186–1187]