seated upon a white horse,’ carried about with him on his conquering progress certain prophecies of Columba, in which he claimed it was foretold.
After his victory at Down, De Courci pushed his conquests with varying success for some years, fighting no fewer than five battles, the fifth of them ‘apud pontem Iuori’ (identified by O'Donovan with Newry Bridge) ‘in reditu ab Angliâ.’ Eventually he obtained a substantial hold on Ulster (Ulidia), or, more correctly, on the province of Uladh, the district bounded by the Newry and the Bann, and now comprising Down and Antrim. In accordance with the unvarying Norman practice he secured his hold upon the land by building castles as he advanced, and in these he placed his followers and his kinsmen, who, as his ‘barones’ or feudal tenants, became known as ‘the barons of Ulster.’ In their midst he kept at Down his own feudal court. His marriage (about 1180) with a daughter of Godred, king of Man (Chronicle of Man), brought him within the circle of the reigning houses, and he is accordingly spoken of by Roger of Hoveden (iv. 25) as ‘prince of the kingdom of Ulster,’ and similarly by his panegyrist, Jocelin the monk, as ‘Joannes de Cursi, Ulidiæ Princeps’ (Prologus Jocelini in vitam S. Patricii). It was while he thus reigned at Down that he replaced the secular canons of its abbey by monks from St. Werburgh's, Chester, and placed it under the patronage of St. Patrick (in the place of the Holy Trinity), for whom he professed a fervent adoration.
On the failure of John's expedition to Ireland (1185) recourse was had to John de Courci, and the island placed in his charge. He accordingly witnesses three charters as ‘justiciar’ (Cartulary of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, i. 125, ii. 4, 21). It is always stated that on the accession of Richard he was displaced in favour of Hugh de Lacy; but this is not so, for one of these documents is demonstrably of Richard's reign. By his expression elsewhere, ‘dum eallirus fui domini mei comitis’ (ib. ii. 12), he appears to imply that in this reign he acted as deputy for John (Count of Mortain). So obscure is Irish history for these years that for a while he is almost lost to view. We gather, however, that like his fellows he took part in the terrible struggles for the succession between the sons of Roderic O'Connor, and was on one occasion signally defeated by the allied forces of the Irish chieftains while attempting to invade Connaught. In 1193 his wife, Affreca, founded the beautiful ‘Grey Abbey’ for Cistercian monks on Strangford Lough, and four years later (1197) his brother Jordan was slain by a native retainer, his death being furiously avenged by John himself upon the natives (Rog. Hov. iv. 25).
Though the records available for the following reign enable us closely to follow his career, it is difficult to explain their opening allusion (4 Sept. 1199) to his having in some way acted with W. De Lacy ‘ad terram nostram Hiberniæ destruendam’ (Obl. 1 John, m. 16 dors.) It would seem that, whatever their offence had been, William de Lacy made his peace, and thenceforth proved his loyalty to the crown by becoming the enemy of John de Courci, who refused to ‘come in’ and defied its power. We accordingly find that the following year (1200) he succeeded with his brother, by a treacherous invitation, in making John his prisoner (Rog. Hov. iv. 176). But this attempt (which probably suggested the legendary tale of his capture at Downpatrick in 1203) was foiled by the loyalty of his adherents, who at once rose and rescued him. Meanwhile his small estate in England (the only hold which the crown had on him) was forfeited (Rot. Canc. 3 John). Our next glimpse of the struggle is in 1203, when Hugh de Lacy (who had charge of Meath during his brother's absence in England) raided into Ulster, attacked John, beat him out of Down, and ‘banished’ him from the province (Annals of Four Masters, Clonmacnois, and Loch Cé). He failed, however, in his main object, that of securing John's person. The royal offer (21 Sept.) of a safe-conduct (Pat. 5 John, m. 6) failed to lure him from his retreat, and on the return of the invading force he was soon back in Down.
But in the spring (1204) Hugh de Lacy returned to the attack, and this time with complete success. The forces of Ulster were utterly defeated and John himself taken prisoner (Annals of Loch Cé, i. 135; Chronicle of Man). It is to this battle that reference is made in the grant of Ulster to Hugh de Lacy (29 May 1205), ‘as John de Curcy held it on the day when Hugh conquered and took him prisoner in the field’ (Cart. 7 John, m. 12). So erroneous are the histories of this warfare that Mr. Gilbert represents this battle as a victory for John de Courci (Viceroys, p. 61). Meanwhile John had secured his release (Chronicle of Man), whether, as implied by the ‘Annals of Loch Cé’ (but the passage is obscure), by submitting to take the cross, or, as distinctly asserted in the records, by swearing to submit to the crown, and giving hostages as a pledge for his doing so (‘sic se venturum [in servitium nostrum] juravit et unâ obsides suos dedit’). A list of these hostages is preserved in the Patent Rolls (Pat. 1 John, m. 6 dors.), and, though assigned in both the official calendars to 1205, is not later
