the tale of their accumulated wrongs and discontents.  All Christendom had been watching the strife; all Christendom was outraged at its close.  The Pope shut himself up for eight days, and refused to speak to his own servants.  The king of France,—­who had now a cause more powerful than any he had ever dreamt of,—­Theobald of Blois, and William of Champagne, the Archbishop of Sens, wrote bitterly to Rome that it was Henry himself who had given orders for the murder.  The king’s messengers sent to plead with the Pope found matters almost desperate.  Alexander had determined to excommunicate him at Easter, and to lay an interdiction on all his lands.  In their despair, and not venturing to tell their master what they had done, they swore on Henry’s part an unreserved submission to the Pope, and the excommunication was barely averted for a few months, while a legation was sent to pronounce an interdiction on his lands, and receive his submission.  Henry, however, was quite determined that he would neither hear the sentence nor repeat the oath taken by his envoys at Rome.  Orders were given to allow no traveller, who might intend evil against the king, to cross into England; and before the legates could arrive in Normandy Henry himself was safe beyond the sea.  On the 6th of August, as he passed through Winchester, he visited the dying Henry of Blois, and heard the bishop’s last words of bitter reproach as he foretold the great adversities which the Divine vengeance held in store for the true murderer of the archbishop.  But England itself was no safe refuge for the king in this great extremity.  Hurrying on to Wales, he rapidly settled the last details of a plan for the conquest of Ireland, and hastened to set another sea between himself and the bearers of the papal curse.  As he landed on Irish shores on the 16th of October, a white hare started from the bushes at his feet, and was brought to him as a token of victory and peace.  Here at last he was in safety, beyond the reach of all dispute, in a secure banishment where he could more easily avoid the interdict or more secretly bow to it.  The wild storms of winter, which his terrified followers counted as a sign of the wrath of God, served as an effectual barrier between him and his enemies; and for twenty weeks no ship touched Irish shores, nor did any news reach him from any part of his dominions.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND

Nearly a hundred years before William Rufus once stood on the cliffs of Wales, and cried, as he looked across the waters towards Ireland, “For the conquest of that land I will gather together all the ships of my kingdom, and will make of them a bridge to cross over.”  The story was carried to a king of Leinster, who listened thoughtfully.  “After so tremendous a threat as that,” he asked, “did the king add, if the Lord will?” Being told that Rufus used no such phrase, “Since he trusts