Strongbow's Conquest of Ireland by Francis Barnard

Author:Francis Barnard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors

A DESCRIPTION OF FITZ-ALDELM.

..................

GIRALD. CAMBR. EXPUG. HIBENI. LIB. II. CAP. XVI.

THIS FITZ-ALDELM WAS A STOUT man, yet neither in height nor build much above the ordinary size. His tastes were sumptuous, his manners those of a courtier. But whenever he was unusually polite, you might be sure that he had some snare or trick on hand. In the honey he offered there was poison; the snake in the grass was the type of his mind. Without he appeared an open-hearted and kindly man, but within—

There was more gall than honey in his soul.

Always he—

Wears placid and fair-seeming brow, and greets with smiles and smirks,

While hidden in his hollow heart the fox’s cunning lurks.

Always he—

Proffers some deadly draught in cup with honied rim.

“His words were softer than oil, Yet were they drawn swords.” Those whom to-day he treated with respect, to-morrow he would calumniate or plunder. A bully to the defenceless, before those who faced him without flinching he cringed like the coward he was. Lording it over the abject, to real force of character he bowed in all submission. An enemy in arms he would meet with blandishments, but crushed with brutal severity a beaten foe. In the former he inspired no fear, with the latter he kept no faith. A trickster, a flatterer, and a craven; a slave, moreover, to wine and venery. Greedy of gold, as he was, and a seeker after court favour, it is hard to say whether avarice or servility predominated in his soul.

(In 1177 John de Courci ventured on an expedition into Ulster on his own account: it was the first time an English force had penetrated into that province. After marching for three days through Meath and Uriel, on the fourth day [Feb. 1st] he reached Down, the capital of Ulidia, and not being expected by the natives entered the city with little opposition [Gerald says without any]. The country, however, soon armed against him, and five battles were fought, the first two and the last of which he won. The mixed races of north Ireland seem to have fought better than their Kelt-Iberian fellow-countrymen of the south, for they beat the invaders twice, and this is noted by Gerald in connection with the campaign and again below [chap. 20]. In the Irish hero-tales Ulster is always more than a match for the rest of Ireland.)

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