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Fitz-Ralph promptly obeyed the summons, but before the cause could be finally decided he died at Avignon in 1361. His body was removed from thence to Dundalk in 1370 by Stephen de Valle, Bishop of Meath. Miracles were said to have been wrought at his tomb; a process of inquiry into their validity was instituted by order of Boniface IX., but abandoned without any result being arrived at.
The great majority of the Anglo-Irish lords, spiritual and temporal, favoured his cause, and he was accordingly crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, with a diadem taken from an image of our Lady, on the 24th of May, 1487; the Deputy, Chancellor, and Treasurer were present; the sermon was preached by Pain, Bishop of Meath.
With such aspirations as these, it is not surprising that she rejected the offers of those comfortable fellows in Meath, or Louth, whose military glories were militia drills, and whose eloquence was confined to the bench of magistrates.
Having thus kindled the war, in the very heart of Leinster, Bruce retraced his march through Meath and Louth, and held at Dundalk that great assembly in which he was solemnly elected King of Ireland.
Mary's Abbey, Dublin, was the first to adopt that rule, and the great monastery of Mellifont, placed under the charge of the brother of the Primate, sprung up in Meath, three years later. The Abbeys of Bective, Boyle, Baltinglass, and Monasternenagh, date from the year of Malachy's second journey to Rome, and death at Clairvaux A.D. 1148.
In spite of this Brian by degrees prevailed. With doubtful patriotism he left the Danes for a while unpursued, attacked Meath, overran and wasted Connaught, and returning suddenly burnt the royal stronghold of Tara. After a long and wearisome struggle, Malachy yielded, and allowed Brian to become Ard-Reagh in his place, retaining only his own ancestral dominions of Meath.
The principal Danes, with Hasculph, their Danish governor, escaped to their ships and sailed hastily away for the Orkneys. Meath was the next point to be attacked.
We need hardly be surprised, therefore, to find that the military operations in this county were all over in ten days or a fortnight; when those who had neither surrendered nor fallen, fell back into Meath or Connaught, or effected a junction with the Wicklow rebels in their mountain fastnesses. Their struggle, though so brief, had been creditable for personal bravery.
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the English power in that island was constantly declining, and in the days of Henry the Seventh, sank to the lowest point. The Irish dominions of that prince consisted only of the counties of Dublin and Louth, of some parts of Meath and Kildare, and of a few seaports scattered along the coast.
Many of the Meath and Leinster Irish, under their native commanders, the Kavanaghs and Nugents, carried their swords into the service of William's ally, the Emperor of Austria, and distinguished themselves in all the campaigns of Prince Eugene.
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