Lawrence was quite two years old, the Castle was deserted, and the Earl and all his family had removed to Ludlow. Thence came rumours from time to time of their doings. A daughter was born, in honour of whom a holiday was given to the villeins; and two years later, a son, for whom they had a great feast. But immediately after that came sadder news, for the royal mother, yet only twenty-two, survived her boy's birth scarcely six weeks. All the bells of Usk tolled in mourning, catafalques of black and silver were in every church, and the chant of doleful litanies for the dead floated through the perfumed aisles. And after the death of the young Countess, the Earl and Countess Dowager returned no more to Usk; for two years later, the Earl was made Viceroy of Ireland, and removed thither, while his mother and children remained at Wigmore.

The connection between England and Ireland had hitherto been disastrous to both parties. Had the Pope intended by his gift of that island to punish all the royal dynasty for their sins, past and future, he could not have succeeded better; and had he desired to visit on the Green Isle the penalty for all her crimes, he could scarcely have devised a sorer punishment than the infliction of such rulers as England sent her for several hundred years. The conquerors and the conquered understood each other as little as Celt and Teuton commonly do: and what was still worse, they did not try to do so. The English notion of governing was first to kill off the Irish chieftains, and then to divide the land among a quantity of Norman adventurers whose capacity for "land-hunger" was something remarkable. When Earl Edmund of March assumed the government, it was only seventeen years since the passing of the Statute of Kilkenny, which forbade marriage between the English and the Irish, and commanded the use of the English language and customs on pain of death. Even Lionel, Duke of Clarence, who was considered one of the gentlest of men, had, as his first step on landing in Ireland, forbidden any Irishman to approach his camp. His son-in-law was a wiser man. There was Irish blood in his own veins—in small proportion to the English, it is true; still, he was the descendant of an Irish King, and the pedigree-loving Celts were not likely to forget it. He began by showing a strong hand upon the reins, and in six months had Ireland at his feet. Then he laid aside whip and spur, and permitted his natural character to take its course. The result was that he became exceedingly popular, as a ruler usually is in Celtic nations who ordinarily exhibits himself in an amiable light, and yet shows that he has power, and can use it when required. Earl Edmund shut himself up from no one. Any Irishman who pleased could have access to him at any time, and his native eloquence recommended him strongly to their easily touched feelings. But his beneficent reign did not last long, and perhaps his short tenure of power was quite as well for his popularity. Human nature, in all countries, is apt to become accustomed to kindness, and to take advantage of it. And doubtless the Earl's popularity was partly due to the fact that he succeeded rulers harsher and less attractive than himself.

One great disadvantage on the part of England was that while she realised to the full the inferior civilisation of the Irish, she failed to discover that they possessed a faith purer than her own. The true old and Catholic religion implanted by St. Patrick and others of his type had received far less corruption from Rome than the religion of England. But the English were much more concerned in improving the manners of the Irish nobles than in improving their own spirituality. That an Irish king wore no trousers, and that his attendant minstrel shared his plate and glass, struck them infinitely more than the condition of his morals. When once they had satisfied themselves that the Irish believed in the Triune God, and had heard of the existence of a Bishop at Rome who was the Pontiff of Western Christendom—points apparently of equal importance to them—they gave themselves no further trouble on the religious question. Political and social questions came nearer and pressed more heavily.

With the usual individuality of our race, they resented the use of a separate language, to which the Irish, as individual in their way, clung as for very life. If, instead of trying to suppress the venerable and beloved tongue, England had given Ireland an open Bible in it—if she had insisted on the study of Holy Writ, and had left the manners to take care of themselves under its influence, what a different future there might have been!

Are we still as blind as five hundred years ago, or shall we some day see that peace for Ireland, as for every other land and soul, must come through the teaching of the Spirit, and the blood of the Cross?

CHAPTER II.

WATCHWORDS.

"Then out and spake a gude auld man—

A gude death micht he dee!—

'Whatever ye do, my gude maister,

Take God your Guide to be.'"

—OLD BALLAD.

While Earl Edmund was governing across the sea, his little son Roger grew in health and stature under the loving care of his grandmother at Wigmore. The Earls of March had many castles and seats, but Wigmore Castle was the family seat of the Mortimers. The old Countess was extremely anxious that the boy should grow up a good man; the rather because she recognised in him a quality beyond her own energy and activity—that passionate, impetuous nature which belonged to his mother's blood. She brought him up on a course of philosophy, and above all of Scripture, in the hope of calming it down. The eradication was hopeless enough; but the Scripture sank deep. Young as he was when he lost her, Roger Mortimer never forgot those lessons at his grandmother's knee. But the quiet years of holy teaching were not long. In the spring of 1381, Earl Edmund sent letters to his mother, requesting that his eldest son might be sent over to him, as he wished him to make acquaintance with the tenants on his Irish lands. The whole province of Ulster would lie one day at the pleasure of its future Earl.

Sir Thomas Mortimer, a distant relative of the Earl, brought his noble kinsman's letters. He was appointed the governor of little Roger, and was to take care of him on his perilous journey. In order to impress the Irish with a sense of the child's grandeur and importance, he was to have a distinct establishment; and the Earl had suggested that the majority of the new servants had better come from his Welsh estates. Two Celtic races, which centuries ago were one, would, as he thought, be more likely to amalgamate with each other than either with the Saxon. Perhaps he forgot that the meeting of two fires will scarcely extinguish a conflagration.

Sir Thomas therefore had come through Usk, where he had imparted the Earl's commands to the keeper of the Castle, ordering him to have ready by a certain day, to meet him at Holyhead, such and such persons—so many men and boys to fill so many offices—much as he might have ordered as many garments or loaves of bread. The villeins were bound to serve in the menial offices; and for higher places, the neighbouring gentry and their sons would only be too glad to hear of the