3 - Ascendancy: Lordship in Ulster, 1205–10

Summary

According to the Manx chronicle, it was only the timely intervention of Walter de Lacy and the barons of Meath which prevented the nascent earldom of Ulster from meeting with an early disaster:

In the year 1205 John de Courcy regained his strength and collected a very large force; he took Reginald (Rögnvaldr), king of the Isles, with him to Ulster with about one hundred ships. On landing at the port of Strangford he showed little enthusiasm to besiege the castle of Rath (Dundrum, co. Down). A large army under the command of Walter de Lacy took them by surprise and routed them completely.

One of the most serious threats faced by new lords was the ‘hovering presence’ of the men they had replaced. If, on this occasion, de Courcy was forced to abandon his bid for restoration ‘without obtaining power’, but while he remained at large under the protection of Manx and Irish allies he would continue to represent an alternative focus of fidelity for the barons of Ulster. Royal endorsement could only go so far in recommending Hugh de Lacy to his new tenants, many of whom had arrayed against him during the conflict of 1204–05. The earl may well have been conscious of the warning from history provided by his English consanguineus, Ibert II de Lacy, who assumed control of the honor of Pontefract in 1135 after tenants loyal to Ibert's father, Robert, took advantage of the death of King Henry I to murder the lord imposed on them by the crown. Many of Ulster's churchmen also had strong ties to the previous regime, having either been transplanted to Ulster by de Courcy or having benefited from his energetic patronage. The quality of de Lacy's dominical lordship may have been especially impaired by the sentence of excommunication likely to have been pronounced against him by the primate of Ireland and partisan of John de Courcy, Archbishop Eugenius of Armagh.

In his study of William Marshal's lordship in England and Ireland, David Crouch outlined two broad types of strategy utilised by lords consolidating themselves in new acquisitions.