Page 139 - Demo

Chapter Five 139
When O Rourke returned and found his wife gone, he appealed and got the assistance of the High-King Rory, to make war upon Diarmuid. And then, having stirred up Diar- muids’ own subjects against him, ‘with ease’, it is said, the two allies next raised a massive army and marched against him. Diarmuid’s small force was no match for the might of the combined opposition and unsurprisingly he was soundly defeated, after which his royal dún, or fort, at Ferns, in county Wexford was captured. In 1166, smarting from this humiliating defeat, Diarmuid, who may have been disguised as a monk, and accompanied by his daugh- ter Aoife, was compelled to ly the country.
But the exiled Diarmuid did not journey very far-in fact he only made his way, irst to England, then to Aquitaine in France, to seek aid from the Norman King, Henry 11.
As we referenced in Chapter 3, the Normans were a race of Scandinavian pirates, who, towards the end of the ninth century settled in that part of northern France now called Normandy-the descendants of the feared Northmen who invaded Ireland. It is known that in 911 the then King of the French, Charles 111, overcame the Northmen, who were led by the warrior-prince Rollo, and following the defeat, Charles gave the conquered invaders a province, on condition that they ceased to raid the rest of France. The invaders who quickly adopted the language and religion of the French also in a short time became very powerful and as a result became known and feared as Normans. Reckless, ruthless, and adventurous like their Viking forefathers, it is said that these Normans‘made war their trade, and ne- glected no opportunity of adding to their territories by conquest.’
By his victory over the English King Harold, sometimes called ‘Harold the Liar’, at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William Duke of Normandy, better known to us as William the Conqueror, became ruler of England. According to tradition, and as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, Harold was killed in the battle by an arrow in the eye. Whether he did, indeed, meet his death in this manner (a death associated in the middle-ages with perjurers-hence the epithet Liar), or whether he was killed by the sword, will never be known. However, what is known is that Harold’s face was disigured in the engagement and afterwards, his wife Edith was called upon to identify the body, which she did by some private mark known only to herself.
In any case, the victory of Hastings not only placed a Norman prince on the English throne, it also set up powerful Norman barons and knights as the new ruling class in England.