Although Giraldus has been bitterly assailed for criticising with no sparing hand the undoubted failings of the Irish, he showed, we think, on the contrary, far more fairness than might reasonably be expected from a writer in his position. But he did far more than this. It might indeed be truly said of him ‘Rem acu tetigit’: he boldly gave the reasons why the conquest of Ireland was a failure, and added frank and shrewd advice as to its government in the future. Even as we have been often told that Cromwell would have settled the Irish question, had only his ‘thorough’ policy been relentlessly pursued, so Giraldus justly reminds us that the first flood of conquest was checked by Henry II., when the work was only half done, and that Henry himself, in like manner, only put his hand to the plough to turn back at once and leave the work to others. Those others, again, were commissioned only to be recalled: the strong centralized administration that was shaping the English realm was never organized in Ireland; the Crown harassed, but it did not govern. The four prophets of Ireland, he wrote, had duly foretold that the island would not be mastered by the English till the eve of the day of judgment. If he accused the Irish of shiftiness and treachery, as the failings that accompanied their natural quickness, he sternly rebuked his own countrymen for despoiling their native allies of their lands, and wantonly insulting the native chieftains when they came to pay their respects to John as lord of Ireland. He even charges them with being corrupted by their intercourse with the natives into sometimes imitating their treachery. That this charge was not without foundation we learn from the French poem, which gives a spirited description of the action of Maurice de Prendergast--one of its heroes--when he brought his ally the king of Ossory to the English camp, having pledged his word for his safety. The king of Munster urged that his rival should be treacherously seized, “E li baruns, san mentir, le voleient tuz consentir.” But Maurice, indignantly denouncing their contemplated breach of faith, swore by his sword that he would cleave the head of the first man who should dare to lay a hand upon the king.