means simply "Servants of God,") as a married clergy; so
far is this from the truth, that we now know, no woman
was allowed to land on the island, nor even a cow to be
kept there, for, said the holy Bishop, "wherever there
is a cow there will be a woman, and wherever there is a
woman there will be mischief."

In the reign of King Hugh, three domestic questions arose
of great importance; one was the refusal of the Prince
of Ossory to pay tribute to the Monarch; the other, the
proposed extinction of the Bardic Order, and the third,
the attempt to tax the Argyle Colony. The question between
Ossory and Tara, we may pass over as of obsolete interest,
but the other two deserve fuller mention:

The Bards--who were the Editors, Professors, Registrars
and Record-keepers--the makers and masters of public
opinion in those days, had reached in this reign a number
exceeding 1,200 in Meath and Ulster alone. They claimed
all the old privileges of free quarters on their travels
and freeholdings at home, which were freely granted to
their order when it was in its infancy. Those chieftains
who refused them anything, however extravagant, they
lampooned and libelled, exciting their own people and
other princes against them. Such was their audacity, that
some of them are said to have demanded from King Hugh
the royal brooch, one of the most highly prized heirlooms
of the reigning family. Twice in the early part of this
reign they had been driven from the royal residence, and
obliged to take refuge in the little principality of