On the north-western frontier of Christendom the same story repeats itself. The first chapter is the peaceful conversion of the English by a band of Roman missionaries, but this is followed by the coercion of the Far Western Christians by a series of turns of the screw which began with the decision of the Synod of Whitby in A.D. 664 and culminated in the armed invasion of Ireland by Henry II of England, with Papal approval, in 1171. Nor is this the end of the story. Habits of 'frightfulness', acquired by the English in their prolonged aggression against the remnants of the Celtic Fringe in the Highlands of Scotland and the bogs of Ireland, were carried across the Atlantic, and practised at the expense of the North American Indians. (p. 473)
as quoted in Arnold Toynbee's 'A Study of History, Volume 1'
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