CHAPTER IX.
HENRY II.
{1172.} As Britain was first peopled from Gaul, so was Ireland probably from Britain; and the inhabitants of all these countries seem to have been so many tribes of the Celtae, who derive their origin from an antiquity that lies far beyond the records of any history or tradition.
The Irish, from the beginning of time, had been buried in the most profound barbarism and ignorance; and as they were never conquered or even invaded by the Romans, from whom all the western world derived its civility, they continued still in the most rude state of society, and were distinguished by those vices alone, to which human nature, not tamed by education or restrained by laws, is forever subject.

The small principalities into which they were divided, exercised perpetual rapine and violence against each other: the uncertain succession of their princes was a continual source of domestic convulsions; the usual title of each petty sovereign was the murder of his predecessor; courage and force, though exercised in the commission of crimes, were more honored than any pacific virtues; and the most simple arts of life, even tillage and agriculture, were almost wholly unknown among them.

They had felt the invasions of the Danes and the other northern tribes; but these inroads, which had spread barbarism in other parts of Europe, tended rather to improve the Irish; and the only towns which were to be found in the island, had been planted along the coast by the freebooters of Norway and Denmark.

The other inhabitants exercised pasturage in the open country, sought protection from any danger in their forests and morasses, and being divided by the fiercest animosities against each other, were still more intent on the means of mutual injury than on the expedients for common or even for private interest.
Besides many small tribes, there were in the age of Henry II.

five principal sovereignties in the island, Minister, Leinster Meath, Ulster, and Connaught; and as it had been usual for the one or the other of these to take the lead in their wars, there was commonly some prince, who seemed, for the time, to act as monarch of Ireland.