The king who presided over these assemblies was not a ruler in the Teutonic military sense. Ireland was free from two sources of military rule—the danger of conquest, and the fear of any attempt to force on the people a new and alien law. Protected by distance and the ocean, the island was long secured from foreign conquest: nor did the Irish need a central military power to enforce a native code which was already strong in the allegiance of the people. In this situation of comparative security the natural aim of the Irish was to preserve their local freedom. They objected, as the English after them have done, to military establishments and to compulsory service as systems which were a danger to liberty—and “liberty,” as the English officials complained, “was the only thing that Scots and Irish constantly contended for.” Herdsmen and ploughmen who carried on the business of the country refused to serve as soldiers for more than a few weeks in the year, and that only after sowing and reaping was done, and the cattle driven to pasture. Ireland was not in fact a military country. The dangers to peace lay mainly in the Gaelic law of succession to kingship and chieftainship, according to which the best man of the ruling kindred was elected by the freemen. Such a system provided frequent occasions of fighting—in rivalries of candidates and revolts of ambitious aspirants to power, all too ready to look for outside support, no matter where, from a neighbouring chief, a Norman baron, or an English deputy. From such variety of petty conflicts the feudal law of primogeniture saved other countries to some extent, though, as we know, that too was very far from insuring peace or harmony at all times. Ireland no doubt suffered under this very conservative system of election, come down from the honoured past. The evils, however, were not incurable in a country left to itself. An attempt was already made to lessen them by the custom of electing along with the chief a Tanist or successor; and we can trace in Ireland also the growing custom of inheritance from father to son. The way of natural development was closed, not by the incompetence of the Irish, but by foreign enemies, who were careful to aggravate the mischief. It was the Danish wars and their results, and far more the wars of the English lord deputies, which made the very life of the tribe depend on military leadership and on that alone. The danger of local strife among independent states was in like manner exaggerated beyond measure when the deputies adopted the ferocious policy of advancing the English conquest by isolating the territories, and forcing them, on one plea or another, into civil war with their neighbours. Every territory had to maintain a retinue of soldiers out of all proportion to the normal state. Natural conditions were overturned, and statesmen then as now crippled the communities they governed with preparations for war in the interests of peace.