WI the Pope had not given Ireland to England?

recidivist

In 1171, Pope Adrian IV 'gave' Ireland to England, sending a Papal Bull to King Henry II, who subsequently invaded Ireland. A translation of that Bull:
"Adrian, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our well beloved son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English greeting and Apostolic Benediction. Laudably, and profitably, does your majesty contemplate spreading the glory of your name on earth and laying up for yourself the reward of eternal happiness in heaven, in that as becomes a Catholic Prince, you propose to enlarge the boundaries of the Church, to proclaim the truths of the Christian religion to a rude and ignorant people to root out the growth of vice from the field of the Lord; and the better to accomplish this purpose you seek the counsel and goodwill of the Apostolic See. In pursuing your object the loftier your aim and the greater your discretion, the more prosperous we are assured with God's assistance will be the progress you will make: for undertakings commenced in the zeal of faith and the love of religion are ever wont to attain to a good end and issue. Verily as your excellency doth acknowledge, there is no doubt that Ireland, and all the islands on which Christ the sun of righteousness has shone, and which have accepted the doctrines of the Christian faith, belong to the blessed Peter and the Holy Roman Church, wherefore the more pleased are we to plant in them the seed of faith acceptable to God, inasmuch as our conscience warns us that in their case a stricter account will hereafter be required of us.
Whereas then well beloved son in Christ you have expressed to us your desire to enter the island of Ireland in order to subject its people to law and to root out from them the weeds of vice and your willingness to pay an annual tribute to the blessed Peter of one penny from every house, and to maintain the rights of the Churches of that land whole and inviolate. We therefore meeting your pious and laudable desire with due favour, and according a gracious assent to your petition, do hereby declare our will and pleasure, that with a view to enlarging the boundaries of the Church, restraining the downward course of vice, correcting evil customs and planting virtue and for the increase of the Christian religion you shall enter that island and execute whatsoever may tend to the honour of God, and the welfare of the land; and also that the people shall receive you with honour and revere you as their Lord: provided always that the rights of the Churches remain whole and inviolate and saving to the blessed Peter and the Holy Roman Church the annual tribute of one penny for every house. If then you should carry your project into effect, let it be to your care to instruct that people in good ways of life ... that the Church there may be adorned, that the Christian religion may take root and grow ... that you may deserve at God's hands the fulness of an everlasting reward and may obtain on earth a name renowned throughout the ages."

What if Adrian had chosen - or been pressurised into choosing - a country other than England? Suggestions on which country and resultant effects would be appreciated.
 
Not much change, except the butterflies

It looks like the Catholic church was given money in exchange for supporting a war of England against Ireland. So the choice would not have been who invades Ireland (it wasn't like a partition of Europe similar to the partition of the new world between Portugal and Spain), but whether to invade it with or without holy backing. Without the backing, other (Catholic) countries might have felt more free to support Irish resistance against the English - with the backing, that would have amounted to helping the nonbelievers fight the believers, which would have made any king rather unpopular.

No backing might have meant that the Irish might have been able to muster some help and repeal an invasion. I'm not sure whether that would have had much chances of success, though - but it might have weakened England enough to be subject to invasions from other powers.
 

Thande

Donor
It might be worth pointing out that Adrian IV was, purely coincidentally of course ;), the only English Pope in history.

Your POD could be someone else being elected Pope instead, perhaps. Of course Ireland is most probably going to end up being colonised by England in this period anyway (not necessarily successfully), but the Papal bull granted a certain legitimacy to the English presence, at least until the Reformation when everything got a lot more complicated.
 
Y'know...this is probably the most misunderstood document in Irish history.

The purpose wasn't to give Henry dominion over Ireland...it was to spread the reformed Roman version of the church to Ireland and ensure that the uncivilised Irish conformed to civilised ways. As such, it was a quid pro quo between Henry and the Pope. Henry got to claim overlordship of Ireland, just as his predecessors claimed to be overlords of Wales and Scotland, and Adrian got to claim the Donation of Constantine made the Pope the temporal lord of Western Europe.

To draw a direct line from Laudabiliter, the bull in question, to Henry becoming Lord of Ireland is really a case of reading history backward. It might also be worth pointing out that Laudabiliter was issued in 1155 and that Henry did absolutly nothing with it until he felt the need to be not-in-England when the papal nuncios were cming to talk to him about the Beckett thing. That and the fact that he didn't want a separate Anglo-Norman dominated Kingdom seeting up shop right beside him, especially if someone like Strongbow was to be the king.


David
 

recidivist

Thanks for the comments. It seems that there's no viable subistitute for England as the invading power.
 
Geography just plays against you with Ireland, I'm afraid.

Beyond English the two most viable possibilities are

1) the Scots (maybe have a stronger monarchy emerge and gain vontrol of the Lordship of the Isles earlier and then slowly extend south from Ulster

2) a coordinated Norwegian effort, expanding into the hinterlands from Dublin and the other Norse towns sometime after Clontarf.

Either are vaguely possible but both depend on the English not getting their noses out of joint at one of the others trying.

You might try one of those,

David
 
Strongbow is a good point. The Normans were already there, they were going to rule it whatever happened (to say England was ruling Ireland is a bit iffy as it wasn't even ruling itself), it was just a question of which one.
It could be interesting to have a independant Norman Ireland...Would indeed ceratinly worry England a lot.
 
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