19. =Popular Indignation. 1171.=--Archbishop Thomas did not die as a martyr for any high or sacred cause. He was not a martyr for the faith, like those who had been thrown to the lions by the Roman emperors. He was not a martyr for righteousness, like Archbishop Ælfheah. He was a martyr for the privileges of his order and of his see. Yet if he sank below the level of the great martyrs, he did not sink to that lowest stage at which men cry out for the preservation of their own privileges, after those privileges have ceased to benefit any but themselves. The sympathy of the mass of the population shows the persistence of a widespread belief that in maintaining the privileges of the clergy Thomas was maintaining the rights of the protectors of the poor. This sentiment was only strengthened by his murder. All through Europe the news was received with a burst of indignation. Of that indignation the Pope made himself the mouthpiece. In the summer of =1171= two Papal legates appeared in Normandy to excommunicate Henry unless he was able to convince them that he was guiltless of the murder. Henry was too cautious to abide their coming. He crossed first to England and then to Ireland, resolved to have something to offer the Pope which might put him in a better humour.
20. =State of Ireland.=--In the domain of art, Ireland was inferior to no European nation. In metal-work, in sculpture, and in the skilful illumination of manuscripts it surpassed them all. It had no mean school of music and song. In political development it lagged far behind. Ireland was still in the tribal stage, and had never been welded into unity by foreign conquerors, as Gaul had been welded into unity by the Romans, and as England had been welded into unity by the Normans. Tribe warred with tribe and chief with chief. The efforts of chiefs to attain supremacy over the whole island had always ended in partial or complete failure. The Danes had made settlements in Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick, but though the native Celtic population was not strong enough to expel them, neither were they strong enough to conquer the Celts. The Church was as disorganised as the State, and there was little discipline exercised outside the monasteries. For some time the Popes and the Archbishops of Canterbury had been anxious to establish a better regulated Church system, and in =1154= Adrian IV.--the only Englishman who was ever Pope--hoping that Henry would bring the Irish Church under Papal order, had made him a present of Ireland, on the ground that all islands belonged to the Pope.