So, also, the general charges against the character and morals of the Irish people at the time, implied by the words of the ‘Bull,’ are actually eclipsed by those formulated in the Black Book letters. And yet the authenticity of the ‘Bull’ is assailed on the ground of these charges while that of the letters is either accepted or discreetly let alone. It may have been observed that, in my opinion, these letters have by no means played that important part in the controversy to which they are entitled. The reason, perhaps, may be found in the fact that while the defenders of the documents in the ‘Expugnatio Hibernica’ are conscious that these letters by no means help their case, the assailants would rather ignore evidence which confirms those statements in the “Bull” that have specially aroused their hostility and forced them to denounce it as ‘spurious.’ Father Gasquet, for instance, only refers to these letters as affording “some very powerful arguments against the genuineness of Pope Adrian’s Bull,”[364] and is careful not to commit himself, personally, to their authenticity. The vigorous attack by Father Morris, in his “Adrian IV. and Henry Plantagenet,”[365] on “the document by which Pope Adrian IV. is supposed to have made over Ireland to Henry Plantagenet” is painfully disappointing. For he tells us, at the outset, in his Introduction that were it not for the argument which it is supposed to carry with it against the character of the Irish Church in the twelfth century, the document itself would not have much importance (p. xxxii.). It is, therefore, his avowed aim to redeem the character of that church, and his attack on Adrian’s “Bull” is only undertaken to that end. He wishes to destroy the “impression that the Church in Ireland in the twelfth century was corrupt and disorganized”; he repels “the accusation that Ireland, in the 12th century had lapsed into barbarism, and had so far lost her place in the Christian commonwealth that the Pope was in a way compelled to come to the rescue.”[366] To prove his case he is bound, of course, to deal with and reject the three letters of Alexander III. (1172), which contained so detailed and fearful an indictment of the state of morals and religion in Ireland at the time. What, then, is our astonishment when he abruptly observes: Our inquiry comes down no farther than Pope Adrian. Subsequent letters of Roman pontiffs on the subject of Ireland stand by themselves (p. 141). Is it possible that he felt himself estopped by the verdict of his predecessor, Cardinal Moran, whose “judicial spirit” he commends,[367] and who, while rejecting “Laudabiliter,” accepts as “certainly authentic” these awkward letters. It seems to me equally uncandid in Miss Norgate to avoid discussing the “Privilegium” of Alexander III., and in Father Morris to ignore his letters in the ‘Liber Niger’ which affect so gravely his case, and indeed impugn his arguments.