To say that the Anglo-Norman settlement, with its conquest, or rather half conquest, of the country, proved a blessing to Ireland, is a proposition that no one, probably, would care to maintain. Why this should have been so is one of those fascinating problems that must ever arouse the speculation and stir the interest of the student. The far earlier Scandinavian settlements in Normandy and in Eastern England have little in common with the exploits of Strongbow’s daring band. Sicily in every way affords a closer parallel. Nearer in time to the events we have discussed, its conquest, also, was no less essentially a private enterprise. What the sons of Tancred had accomplished in the south, the children of Nesta well might hope to bring to pass in the west. Indeed the adventurers of the 11th century had faced a task, to all seeming, harder than that which confronted the adventurers of the 12th. Some might hold that the Norman race was no longer in its prime, that its great conquering and governing powers were already impaired. That its enterprise was less ardent, that in England it was settling down, is, no doubt, the case: from the turbulent regions of Wales adventurers were still forthcoming, but the pioneers of Irish conquest were not supported by that inflow from England which was needed for so great an undertaking, and which, in earlier days, would probably have hastened to their support. But this was only one among the causes of the great Irish failure. Sicily, like England, fortunate in its kings, was fortunate also in that position of isolation which enabled its Norman conquerors to work out their own destiny. If only Ireland had enjoyed the same geographical advantage, if it had been far enough distant from England, its invaders might, in the same fashion, have established a dynasty of their own, and have quickly accommodated themselves, with the marvellous adaptability of their race, to those native ways to which indeed many of them did, ultimately, so strangely conform. It is now recognised that the kings of England did not, and could not, become true English kings till the loss of their Norman possessions drove them to find in England their true home and country. Giraldus was right when he urged that his friends should have been let alone, or the royal power, if brought into play, exercised in full force. One can, indeed, imagine what might have been the fate of England, if, half conquered by adventurous bands of Normans, she had then been half governed, from abroad, by a Norman duke.