GIFT OF 
 SEELEY W. MUDD 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE 1. CUC H RAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 DR.JOHNR. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 JAMKS R. MARTIN MRS.JUSEPH F.SARTURI 
 
 to tkt 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 SI'OTTISWOODE AS1) CO., NEW-STREET .-',': AKL 
 LOXDW
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS 
 
 WITH A SUCCINCT ACCOUNT OF THE 
 EARLIER HISTORY 
 
 BY 
 
 EICHARD BAGWELL, M.A. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 
 
 1885 
 
 80535 
 
 A U fights reserved
 
 335 
 
 yy 
 
 ' 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ' IRISH POLICY/ said Mr. Disraeli in the House of Commons, 
 
 ' is Irish history, and I have no faith in any statesman, who 
 
 attempts to remedy the evils of Ireland, who is either 
 
 ignorant of the past or who will not take lessons from it.' 
 
 This is most true, and history, if it is to be of any use, should 
 
 be written for instruction, and not merely for the confirma- 
 
 5 tion of existing prejudices. This is especially so in the 
 
 ^present case, for, as Sir George Stanley told Cecil in 1565, 
 
 ^ ' the practises of Ireland be great, and not understood to all 
 
 men that seem to have knowledge thereof.' The writer who 
 
 ^ enters the arena as an advocate may produce an interesting 
 
 , party pamphlet, but he will hardly make the world either 
 
 4 wiser or better. The historian's true office is that of the judge, 
 
 whose duty it is to marshal all the material facts with just so 
 
 much of comment as may enable his hearers to give them 
 
 their due weight. The reading public is the jury. 
 
 Starting with this conception of the task before me, I 
 have not attempted to please any party or school. The 
 history of Ireland is at the best a sad one ; but its study, if 
 it be really studied for the truth's sake, can hardly fail to 
 make men more tolerant. In Ireland, as in other countries, 
 a purely Celtic population was unable to resist the impact 
 of the Teutonic race. First came the pagan Northmen, with 
 power to ruin, but without power to reconstruct. Then 
 followed the Anglo-Normans, seeking for lands and lordships, 
 but seeking them under the patronage of the Catholic Church.
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 For a time it seemed as though the conquest would be 
 complete ; but the colony proved too weak for its work, and 
 the mail-clad knights failed almost as completely as the 
 Scandinavian corsairs. 
 
 The main cause of this second failure was the neglect 
 or jealousy of the kings. They feared the growth of an 
 independent power within sight of the English shore, and 
 they had neither means nor inclination to do the work of 
 government themselves. Little gain and less glory were to 
 be had in Ireland, and Scotch, Welsh, or Continental politics 
 engrossed their attention in turn. They weakened the colony, 
 partly of set purpose, and partly by drawing men and supplies 
 from thence. In short, they were absentees; and, to use 
 an expression which has gained currency in modern times, 
 they were generally content to look upon Ireland as a mere 
 drawfarm. 
 
 The Wars of the Roses almost completed the ruin of the 
 work which Henry II. had begun. For a moment it seemed 
 d,s if the colony was about to assert its independence. But 
 this could not have been done without an understanding with 
 the native race, and it does not appear that any such 
 understanding was possible. The upshot was that Yorkist 
 and Lancastrian parties were formed in Ireland, that the 
 colony was thus still further weakened, and that the English 
 language and power seemed on the point of disappearing 
 altogether. 
 
 The throne of Henry VIII. was erected on the ruins of 
 mediaeval feudalism, and guarded by a nation which longed 
 for rest, and which saw no hope but in a strong monarchy. 
 The King saw that he had duties in Ireland. Utterly 
 unscrupulous where his own passions were concerned, the 
 idea of a patriot King was not altogether strange to him. 
 Irish chiefs were encouraged to visit his court, and were 
 allowed to bask in the sunshine of royal favour; and it is 
 conceivable that the ' Defender of the Faith/ had he con-
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 tinued to defend it in the original sense, might have ended by 
 attaching the native Irish to the Crown. By respecting for 
 a time their tribal laws, by making one chief an earl and 
 another a knight, by mediating in their quarrels, and by 
 attending to their physical and spiritual wants, a Catholic 
 Tudor might possibly have succeeded where Anglican and 
 Plantagenet had failed. The revolution in religion changed 
 everything, and out of it grew what many regard as the in- 
 soluble Irish question. 
 
 Henry II. had found Ireland in the hands of a Celtic 
 people, for the intermixture of Scandinavian blood was slight 
 and partial. Henry VIII. found it inhabited by a mixed 
 race. From the beginning there had been rivalry and ill- 
 feeling between men of English blood born in Ireland, and 
 those of English birth who were sent over as officials or who 
 went over as adventurers. During the fifteenth century 
 England did nothing to preserve the ties of kinship, and the 
 Celtic reaction tended to swallow up the interlopers. The 
 degenerate English proverbially became more Irish than the 
 Irish themselves, but the distinction would scarcely have 
 been so nearly obliterated had it not been for the change in 
 religion. The nobles of the Pale, the burghers of the walled 
 towns, and the lawyers in Dublin were equally disinclined to 
 accept the new model. Neither Irish chieftains nor Anglo- 
 Irish lords found much difficulty in acknowledging Henry's 
 supremacy both in Church and State ; but further than that 
 they would not go. The people did not go so far, and, in the 
 words of the annalists, regarded the Reformation simply as a 
 ' heresy and new error.' 
 
 Religion itself was at an extremely low ebb, and only the 
 friars preserved the memory of better days. Henry may 
 have imagined that he could lead the people through the 
 bishops and other dignitaries : if so, he was entirely mistaken. 
 The friars defied his power, and the hearts of the poor were 
 with them. In Ireland, at least, it was Rome that under-
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 took the work of popular reformation. The Franciscans and 
 Jesuits endured qold and hunger, bonds and death, while 
 courtly prelates neglected their duties or were distinguished 
 from lay magnates only by the more systematic nature of 
 their oppressions. And thus, as the hatred of England daily 
 deepened, the attachment of the Irish to Rome became daily 
 closer. Every effort of Henry to conciliate them was frus- 
 trated by their spiritual guides, who urged with perfect truth 
 that he was an adulterer, a tyrant, and a man of blood. 
 Holding such cards as these, the friars could hardly lose the 
 game, and they had little difficulty in proving to willing ears 
 that the King's ancestors received Ireland from the Pope, and 
 that his apostasy had placed him in the position of a default- 
 ing vassal. 
 
 Henry's vacillations and the early deaths of Edward and 
 Mary for a time obscured the true nature of the contest, but 
 it became apparent in Elizabeth's time. She was an excom- 
 municated Queen. From a Catholic point of view she was 
 clearly illegitimate. Many English Catholics ignored all this 
 and served her well and truly, but those who carried dogmas 
 to their logical conclusions flocked to the enemy's camp. 
 Spain, Belgium, and Italy were filled with English refugees, 
 who were willing enough that the Queen should be hurt in 
 Ireland, since England was beyond their reach. But even 
 here national antipathies were visible, and Irish suitors for 
 Spanish help came constantly into collision with Englishmen 
 bent upon the same errand, 
 
 Desmond, Shane O'Neill, and Hugh O'Neill seem to have 
 cared very little for religion themselves. The first was a 
 tool of Rome ; the two latter rather made the Church sub- 
 servient to their own ambition. But in these cases, and in a 
 hundred others of less importance, the religious feeling of the 
 people was always steadily opposed to the English Crown. 
 Elizabeth was by nature no persecutor, yet she persecuted. 
 Her advisers always maintained, and her apologists may still
 
 PEEFACE. ix 
 
 maintain, that in hanging a Campion or torturing an 
 O'Hurley she did not meddle with freedom of conscience, 
 but only punished those who were plotting against her 
 crown. The Catholics, on the other hand, could plead that 
 they had done nothing worthy of death or of bonds, nor 
 against lawful authority, and that they suffered for conscience ' 
 sake. And the Continental nations, who were mainly Catho- 
 lic, sided on the whole with the refugees. Ireland, it is true, 
 was only a pawn in their game, and Philip IT. was probably 
 wrong in not making her much more. At Cork or Galway 
 the Armada might have met with scarcely any resistance, and 
 a successful descent would have taxed Elizabeth's resources 
 to the utmost. 
 
 The poverty of the Crown is the key to many problems 
 of the Elizabethan age. The Queen had to keep Scotland 
 quiet, to hold Spain at bay, and to maintain tolerable rela- 
 tions with France. She saw what ought to be done in 
 Ireland, but very often could not afford to do it. The ten- 
 dency to temporise was perhaps constitutional, but it was 
 certainly much increased by want of money. Her vacillating 
 policy did much harm, but it was caused less by changes of 
 opinion than by circumstances. When the pressure at other 
 points slackened she could attend to her troublesome king- 
 dom ; when it increased she was often forced to postpone her 
 Irish plans. Ireland has always suffered, and still suffers 
 sorely, from want of firmness. In modern times party exi- 
 gencies work mischief analogous to that formerly caused by 
 the sovereign's necessities. 
 
 The dissolution of the monasteries was followed by no 
 proper provision for education. In the total absence of 
 universities and grammar-schools, certain monks and nuns 
 had striven nobly to keep the lamp of knowledge burning, 
 but they were ruthlessly driven from house and home. 
 Elizabeth was alive to all this, but she could not give Ireland 
 her undivided attention, and such remedies as were applied
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 came too late. The oppressed friars kept possession of the 
 popular ear, and the Jesuits found the crop ready for their 
 sickle. Denied education at home, many sons of good 
 families sought it abroad, and the natural leaders of the Irish 
 acquired habits of thought very different from those of 
 English gentlemen. Archbishop Fitzgibbon, one of the 
 most important champions of Catholic Ireland, saw clearly 
 that his country could not stand alone. He would have 
 preferred the sovereignty of England, but she had become 
 aggressively Protestant, and he turned to Spain, to France, 
 to Rome, anywhere rather than to the land whence his own 
 ancestors had sprung. The lineage of the United Irishmen 
 and their numerous progeny may be easily traced back to 
 Tudor times. 
 
 A few words now to the critics whom every writer hopes 
 to have. The spelling both of Irish names and English 
 documents has throughout been modernised, from regard to 
 the feelings of the public. Irish history is already sufficiently 
 repulsive to that great unknown quantity the general reader, 
 and it would be cruel to add to its horrors. Etymologists 
 will always go for their materials to originals, and not to 
 modern compositions. When, therefore, such names as 
 Clandeboye or Roderic O'Connor are met with in the text, 
 it is not to be supposed that I have never heard of Clann- 
 Aedha-Buidhe or Ruaidhri O'Conchobair. 
 
 Of the first 123 pages of this book, I need only say that 
 original authorities have as much as possible been consulted. 
 In the third and four following chapters, much use has been 
 made of Mr. Gilbert's 'Viceroys,' a debt which I desire to 
 acknowledge once for all. In so succinct a review of more 
 than three centuries, it has not been thought necessary to 
 quote the authority for every fact. 
 
 For the reign of Henry "VTIL I have chiefly relied on the 
 second and third volumes of the ' State Papers,' published in 
 1834. They are sometimes cited as ' S. P.' or ' State Papers,'
 
 PKEFAOE. xi 
 
 and when only the date of a letter or report is given it must 
 be understood that this collection is referred to. The great 
 calendar of letters and papers begun by Dr. Brewer and 
 continued by Mr. Gairdner contains some items not included 
 in the older publication ; it is referred to as Brewer. Other 
 sources of information have not been neglected, and are 
 indicated in the footnotes. 
 
 The account of the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and 
 Elizabeth is chiefly drawn from the ' State Papers, Ireland ' 
 all documents preserved in the Public Record Office and 
 calendared by Mr. Hans Claude Hamilton. How excellently 
 the editor has done his work can only be appreciated by one 
 who has entered into his labours as closely as I have done. 
 Except where a document has already been printed, I have 
 nearly always referred to the original MS. All documents 
 cited by date or number without further description must be 
 understood as being in this collection. The late Dr. Brewer's 
 calendar of the Carew MSS. at Lambeth often fills up gaps 
 in the greater series ; it is referred to as Carew. Many 
 papers, both in Fetter Lane and at Lambeth, are copies ; but 
 their authenticity is not disputed. The Carew calendar is on 
 so full a plan that it has not been thought necessary to 
 consult the manuscripts; indeed, except for local purposes, 
 it is not likely that they will be much consulted in the 
 future. Other collections are referred to in their places, but 
 it may be well to mention specially the journal of the Irish 
 (Kilkenny) Archgeological Society, whose editor, the Rev. 
 James Graves, has done as much as any man to lay a broad 
 foundation for Irish history. 
 
 O'Donovan's splendid edition of the ' Four Masters ' has 
 generally been consulted for the Irish version of every impor- 
 tant fact. O'Clery and his fellow-compilers wrote under 
 Charles I., and are not therefore strictly contemporary for 
 the Tudor period. They appear to have faithfully transcribed 
 original annals, but to this one important exception must be
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 made. The old writers never hesitated to record facts dis- 
 agreeable to the Church ; the later compilers were under 
 the influence of the counter-reformation which produced 
 Jesuitism. Making some allowance for this, the 'Four 
 Masters ' must be considered fair men. Michael O'Clery 
 spent much time at Louvain, but he wrote in Ireland, and 
 had native assistants. Philip O'Sullivan, on the other hand, 
 was a Spanish officer, and published his useful but untrust- 
 worthy ' Compendium ' at Lisbon. The ' Annals of Lough Ce ' 
 are preferable in some ways to the ' Four Masters,' but they 
 do not cover so much ground. All the native annalists are 
 jejune to an exasperating degree. Genealogy seems to have 
 been the really important thing with them, and they throw 
 extremely little light on the condition of the people. We 
 are forced therefore to rely on the accounts, often prejudiced 
 and nearly always ill-informed, of English travellers and 
 officials. 
 
 The Anglo-Irish chronicles in ' Holinshed ' were written 
 by Richard Stanihurst, who dedicated his work to Sir Henry 
 Sidney, for the reign of Henry VIII., and after that by John 
 Hooker. Stanihurst, a native of Dublin, was not born till 
 1545. He has been thought an unpatriotic writer, and 
 excited the violent antipathy of O'Donovan ; but he appears 
 to have been pretty well informed. The speeches which he 
 puts into the mouths of his characters must be considered 
 apocryphal, but as much may be said of like compositions in 
 all ages. Hooker was an acior in many of the events he 
 describes. He was a Protestant and an Englishman, pre- 
 judiced no doubt, but not untruthful, and his statements are 
 often borne out by independent documents. Edmund Cam- 
 pion, the Jesuit, wrote in Ireland under Sidney's protection ; 
 his very interesting work is less a history than a collection of 
 notes. 
 
 Other books, ancient and modern, are referred to in 
 the footnotes. Among living scholars, I desire to thank
 
 PREFACE. xiii 
 
 Dr. W. K. Sullivan, of Cork, who had the great kindness to 
 correct the first chapter, and to furnish some valuable notes. 
 Hearty thanks are also due to the gentlemen at the Public 
 Record Office, and especially to Mr. W. D. Selby and Mr. 
 J. M. Thompson. 
 
 In making the index a few errors were discovered in the 
 text, and these have been noted as errata. Some mistakes 
 may still remain unconnected, but I am not without hope that 
 they are neither many nor of much importance. 
 
 MAKLFIELD, CLONMKL : 
 August 13, 1885.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIKST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Early notices of Ireland 1 
 
 The Celtic constitution .... 2 
 
 The tribal system 5 
 
 The Celtic land law 7 
 
 Common origin of Celtic and Teutonic institutions . . . .11 
 
 The ancient Irish Church ,12 
 
 Gradual introduction of Roman ecclesiastical polity ... 14 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 
 
 First inroads of the Northmen , . ,17 
 
 Turgesius . , . . 17 
 
 Danes and Norwegians < . .18 
 
 Danish power in Ireland . . 15) 
 
 Its limits 4 21 
 
 Revival of the Celts .... - 22 
 
 Brian Borumha 23 
 
 Battle of Clontarf 28 
 
 Conversion of the Danes 29 
 
 Superiority of their civilisation 30 
 
 Brian's monarchy not permanent 31 
 
 Danish Christianity in Ireland . 32 
 
 Conflict between Canterbury and Armagh 33 
 
 Papal supremacy fully established 34
 
 xvi CONTENTS OF 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY II. 
 
 P1O* 
 
 Ireland given to England by the Popes 37 
 
 First interference of Henry II 39 
 
 An Anglo-Norman party in Ireland 40 
 
 Strongbow 41 
 
 Anglo-Norman invasion . . . . . . . . .42 
 
 Henry II. in Ireland 47 
 
 Difficulties of the invaders 49 
 
 Henry was unable to carry out his own policy 62 
 
 An Irish kingdom contemplated 54 
 
 Viceroyalty of John 55 
 
 No conquest of Ireland under Henry II 56 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM JOHN'S VISIT IN 1210 TO THE INVASION BY THE BRUGES 
 
 IN 1315. 
 
 John Lord of Ireland . 58 
 
 King John in Ireland 59 
 
 Leinster divided after Strongbow's death ...... 61 
 
 The De Burgos in Connaught 61 
 
 The colony declines under Henry III 62 
 
 Results of Edward I.'s policy 64 
 
 The Bruces invade Ireland 65 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM THE INVASION OF THE BRUCES TO THE YEAR 1346. 
 
 Why the Bruces failed 69 
 
 Decline of the colony 70 
 
 The colonists become Hibernis ipsis Hibemiores 71 
 
 Creation of the great earldoms 71 
 
 Irish corporate towns 73 
 
 Anglo-Norman families 75 
 
 Further decline of the colony under Edward III. , . 76 
 
 Dissensions among the colonists 77 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1346 TO THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VII. 
 
 Lionel, Duke of Clarence 80 
 
 The statute of Kilkenny 81 
 
 Its effect in dividing the rival races 83 
 
 lUchard II.'s first visit 85
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. xvii 
 
 PAGB 
 
 His second visit 86 
 
 His complete failure 87 
 
 Henry IV. and V. neglect Ireland 87 
 
 Foreign wars fatal to Ireland 89 
 
 Richard of York made Lord-Lieutenant 90 
 
 A Yorkist party in Ireland . . 91 
 
 The colony reduced to the utmost . .93 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 
 
 A close copy 94 
 
 Growth of representative institutions 95 
 
 The sphere of English law contracted under Edward III. ... 96 
 
 The Parliament of Kilkenny not representative of Ireland . . . 97 
 
 The peerage 98 
 
 The clergy as an estate 99 
 
 The Viceroy 100 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. 
 
 The Fitzgeralds were Yorkists, the Butlers Lancastrians . . . 102 
 Lambert Simnel crowned in Ireland . . . . . . . 104 
 
 The Irish Yorkists cut to pieces at Stoke 105 
 
 Mission of Sir Richard Edgcombe 106 
 
 The Irish nobility in England 108 
 
 The Butlers and Geraldines 109 
 
 Perkin Warbeck 110 
 
 Sir Edward Poynings holds a Parliament at Drogheda . . . . Ill 
 
 Poynings' Acts 112 
 
 Second visit of Perkin Warbeck 113 
 
 Weakness of the Government .114 
 
 Third visit of Perkin Warbeck 115 
 
 Power of the Kildare family 115,117-120 
 
 Battle of Knocktoe 120 
 
 Henry VII. wished to separate the two races . . . . .122 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OP HENRY VIII. TO THE YEAR 1534. 
 
 The Kildare family in power 124-128 
 
 The Ormonde family much reduced 125 
 
 Viceroyalty of Surrey 128-139 
 
 The Pale a very small district 129 
 
 VOL. I. a
 
 xviii CONTENTS OF 
 
 PAOR 
 
 Misery of the country . . . . . I :< 1 
 
 O'Donnell and O'Neill 132 
 
 Desmond and the MacCarthies 133 
 
 Policy of Henry VIII ... 134 
 
 Unsteadiness of English policy 136 
 
 The Irish constantly at war . . . . 140 
 
 The Butlers and Geraldines were scarcely more peaceable . . .145 
 
 Wolsey's policy 148 
 
 A Viceroy captured by the Irish 150 
 
 The rivalry between Ormonde and Kildare 149-152 
 
 Skeffington Viceroy 152 
 
 Overshadowed by Kildare 154 
 
 Results of the Kildare power 154-158 
 
 Fall of Kildare 161 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE GERALDINE REBELLION SKEFFINGTON's ADMINISTRATION, 
 1534-1535. 
 
 The Geraldine rebellion 163 
 
 Loyalty of the Butlers 164 
 
 Geraldine siege of Dublin 166 
 
 Failure of the rebellion 169 
 
 Surrender of Kildare 177 
 
 The Desmonds and MacCarthies 180 
 
 Desmond intrigues with France 181 
 
 The Butlers and the Desmond Geraldines 182 
 
 Desmond intrigues with Charles V .184 
 
 State of the South of Ireland 189 
 
 Modern spirit of the Tudor monarchy shown by promoting new men . 194 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 
 
 Administration of Lord Leonard Grey 195-220 
 
 The royal supremacy established by law 196 
 
 The Act of Absentees 197 
 
 The O'Neills . .' . . 198 
 
 Poverty of the Crown 199 
 
 Grey in the West of Ireland 200 
 
 Want of money 204 
 
 Grey and the O'Connors 206 
 
 Vague good intentions of Henry VIII. 210 
 
 The O'Neills and O'Donnells 212 
 
 Grey and the O'Connors 213 
 
 Seizure of the five Geraldines 215 
 
 Eclipse of the Kildare family 216
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. xix 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ormonde proposes to reform his country 221 
 
 Grey almost constantly engaged in war 222 
 
 His quarrel with the Butlers . . 223 
 
 The O'Carrolls 223 
 
 The O'Mores 224 
 
 Hash expedition of Grey 226 
 
 His dispute with the Butlers . . 7 229 
 
 The revenue 233 
 
 Cromwell's Irish policy 234 
 
 The royal' supremacy acquiesced in 236 
 
 A Catholic movement nevertheless makes itself felt . . . . 238 
 
 Grey routs the O'Neills 240 
 
 Fall and fate of Grey 243 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1540 AND 1541. 
 
 Confusion after Grey's recall 247 
 
 Sir Anthony St. Leger Lord Deputy 249-261 
 
 His policy 250 
 
 Case of the O'Tooles 251 
 
 The Bong will not allow a military brotherhood 254 
 
 Desmond abjures {he Pope 255 
 
 Success of St. Leger with the Irish chiefs 256 
 
 Henry VIII. made King of Ireland by Act of Parliament . . . 259 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 St. Leger Lord Deputy 262-287 
 
 O'Donnell abjures the Pope 262 
 
 O'Neill abjures the Pope 264 
 
 Other chiefs follow suit 266 
 
 The Munster nobles do likewise 267 
 
 O'Neill made Earl of Tyrone 268 
 
 O'Brien made Earl of Thomond 270 
 
 MacWilliam Burke made Earl of Clanricarde 271 
 
 The MacDonnells in Antrim 271 
 
 Financial dishonesty 274 
 
 An Irish contingent in Scotland 276 
 
 And in France 277 
 
 Dissensions between St. Leger and Ormonde 278 
 
 An English party in Scotland 279
 
 XX CONTENTS OF 
 
 FAOK 
 
 The Lord of the Isles in Ireland 280 
 
 Abortive attempt to invade Scotland from Ireland 281 
 
 Intrigues of Irish officials St. Leger and Ormonde .... 282 
 
 Ormonde is murdered in England 285 
 
 Permanent causes tending to weaken Irish Governments . . . 286 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 
 
 Points at issue between King and Pope 288 
 
 See of Armagh 289 
 
 Dublin 290 
 
 Meath 290 
 
 Cashel 291 
 
 Tuam 292 
 
 Remoter sees 292 
 
 King and Pope in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught .... 293 
 
 Corrupt state of the Church 294 
 
 Miserable condition of four sees particularly described . . . 295 
 
 General corruption of the clergy 296 
 
 Evils of Papal patronage 297 
 
 Many of the religious houses out of order 298 
 
 Excellent service rendered by others 299 
 
 Ecclesiastical legislation in 1536 300 
 
 The Crown could procure the passing of Acts, but the people re- 
 mained unaffected by them 301 
 
 Archbishop Browne 302 
 
 His quarrel with Bishop Staples ........ 303 
 
 Lord Leonard Grey gave general offence 303 
 
 Images, relics, and pilgrimages 304 
 
 The Munster bishops conformed 305 
 
 But this does not prove any real conversion 306 
 
 Origin of a double succession 306 
 
 Wauchop made Primate by the Pope . 306 
 
 First appearance of the Jesuits 307 
 
 The friars oppose the royal supremacy 310 
 
 The Reformation hateful to the Irish 311 
 
 Henry attacks the monasteries 312 
 
 Account of the different orders 313 
 
 Cistercian abbeys . 314 
 
 Hospitallers . 315 
 
 Pensions to monks 317 
 
 The monks were not really driven out 317 
 
 Property of the religious houses . 318 
 
 The mendicant orders 319 
 
 Their suppression scarcely decreased the number of friars . . . 320 
 
 The plunder of the monasteries shared by all classes . . . . H20
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. xxi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The educating monasteries not replaced ........ .321 
 
 Early attempts at an Irish university 321 
 
 Archbishop Browne .... 322 
 
 Bishop Staples . . 323 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 
 
 St. Leger still Deputy . . . .--,.. -. . . . 325 
 
 Education of Irish nobles at Court . ... . . .. . . 326 
 
 Sir Edward Bellingham Lord Deputy ...... 327-345 
 
 His efforts to protect the Pale 328 
 
 Pirates on the Irish coast 329 
 
 Bellingham puts down the 'Mores. . . . , . . . 331 
 
 And the O'Connors 332 
 
 He bridles Connaught 333 
 
 A remarkable adventure 334 
 
 The Irish mint 335 
 
 Bellingham's haughty bearing towards great men .... 337 
 
 He offends his own council 339 
 
 He tames Desmond . . . 339 
 
 Ireland quiet 340 
 
 The Eeformation Browne and Staples 341 
 
 Bellingham and Dowdall 342 
 
 The royal supremacy 343 
 
 Death and character of Bellingham 344 
 
 Lord Justice Bryan 345 
 
 Lord Justice Brabazon 346 
 
 Foreign intrigues 347 
 
 St. Leger Lord Deputy 348-353 
 
 His conciliatory policy . . . 349 
 
 The Reformation hangs fire 349 
 
 Causes of this 350 
 
 Want of money 351 
 
 The French discourage the Irish refugees 352 
 
 English settlers not always a civilising influence 353 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 
 
 St. Leger Lord Deputy . 354-359 
 
 Protestantism officially promulgated 354 
 
 Doctrinal conference . 355 
 
 Browne and Dowdall \ . . 355 
 
 Tolerant views of St. Leger 357 
 
 Sir James Croft Lord Deputy . . . . . . , . 359-383 
 
 Colonisation projects . . ... . . . , t 360 
 
 The Ulster Scots ... 361
 
 xxii CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 The O'Neills 362 
 
 Shane O'Neill and his competitors 363 
 
 Another doctrinal conference 365 
 
 The primacy removed to Dublin ........ 367 
 
 Church patronage 368 
 
 The coinage 370 
 
 Sufferings from a debased currency 371 
 
 Attempts at mining 372 
 
 French and Scotch intrigues . 373 
 
 Connaught 374 
 
 Leinster 375 
 
 Ulster . . . 376 
 
 Protestant bishops 379 
 
 Bale 381 
 
 Catholic reaction after Edward's death 382 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 
 
 St. Leger is again Lord Deputy 384-396 
 
 The succession 384 
 
 The Queen and the Pope 386 
 
 Bishop Bale at Kilkenny 386 
 
 The Primacy is restored to Armagh 391 
 
 Restoration of Kildare 392 
 
 The Pope and the kingdom of Ireland 393 
 
 Mary's notions of prerogative 394 
 
 Recall of St. Leger his accusers 396 
 
 Sussex (then Lord Fitzwalter) made Lord Deputy .... 396 
 
 Ulster 397 
 
 The King's and Queen's Counties 3(9 
 
 The monastic lands not restored 401 
 
 Catholicism re-established 401 
 
 Military operations of Sussex . . 402 
 
 O'Neills and O'Donnells 404 
 
 Sir Henry Sidney Lord Justice 405 
 
 General disaffection 406 
 
 Mary's ideas on Irish policy 407 
 
 Sussex in Munster . . 408 
 
 And in Thomond and Connaught 410 
 
 Abortive expedition to the Hebrides 411 
 
 State of the Protestants under Mary . . - 413 
 
 INDEX . 415 
 
 Errata. 
 
 Page 140, for Bishop of Kildare read Bishop of Killaloe. 
 305-6,. for Michael Comyn read Nicholas Comyn. 
 317, for Nicholas Walsh read Nicholas Fagan.
 
 MAPS. 
 
 IRELAND IN 1172. ... . To face page 37 
 
 ABOUT 1300 . . . . 69 
 
 1500 . . ., 124 
 
 IRELAND, ECCLESIASTICAL 288
 
 Erratum. 
 Page vii. line 6, for Anglican read Angevin
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE main object of this book is to describe in some detail, CHAP, 
 and as impartially as possible, the dealings of England with .._ ' 
 Ireland during the reigns of Henry VIII. and his three Scope of 
 children. As an introduction to the study of that period, 
 it seemed desirable to give some account of the course of 
 government during those 340 years which had elapsed since 
 the first Anglo-Norman set foot upon the Irish shore. And, 
 seeing that Teutonic invaders had effected a lodgment about 
 three centuries and a half before Henry II. 's accession, it 
 was hardly possible to avoid saying something about the 
 men who built the towns which enabled his subjects to keep 
 a firm grip upon the island. Lastly, it seemed well at the 
 very outset to touch lightly upon the peculiarities of that 
 Celtic system with which the King of England found himself 
 suddenly confronted. 
 
 Agricola took military possession of south-western Scot- The 
 land partly in the hope of being able to invade Ireland. He period. 
 had heard that the climate and people did not differ much 
 from those of Britain, and he knew that the harbours were 
 much frequented by merchants. He believed that annexation 
 would tend to consolidate the Roman power in Britain, Gaul, 
 and Spain, and kept by him for some time a petty Irish king 
 who had been expelled by his own tribe, and to whom he 
 professed friendship on the chance of turning him to account. 
 VOL. I. B
 
 The Celtic 
 polity. 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Agrioola thought there would be no great difficulty in con- 
 quering the island, which he rightly conjectured to be smaller 
 than Britain and larger than Sicily or Sardinia. 
 
 ' I have often,' says Tacitus, ' heard him say that Ireland 
 could be conquered and occupied with a single legion and a few 
 auxiliaries, and that the work in Britain would be easier if the 
 Roman arms could be made visible on all sides, and liberty, as 
 it were, removed out of sight.' Agricola, like many great men 
 after him, might have found the task harder than his barbarous 
 guest had led him to suppose ; and in any case fate had not 
 ordained that Ireland should ever know the Roman Peace. 
 It was reserved for another petty king, after the lapse of 
 nearly 1,100 years, to introduce an organised foreign power 
 into Ireland, and to attach the island to an empire whose 
 possessions were destined to be far greater than those of 
 Imperial Rome. 
 
 Setting aside all ethnological speculations as foreign to 
 the scope of this work, it may be sufficient to say that the 
 inhabitants of Ireland at the dawn of authentic history were 
 Celts, of the same grand division as the bulk of the Scots 
 Highlanders, but differing considerably from the people of 
 Wales. Their organisation in the twelfth century had not 
 passed beyond the tribal stage. 1 
 
 1 As to the divisions and sub-divisions of the ancient Irish people, I 
 prefer to give the following statement of Dr. Sullivan : ' The unit territory 
 was the Tuath, each of which had a Ri, or chief. Three, four, or even 
 more Tuatha were connected together for military and other purposes as a 
 M6r Tuath ; the king or chief of the confederacy, who acted as Commander- 
 in-Chief, was the Hi Mor Tuatha, or great chief. This group corresponded 
 to the Gothic Thiuda, old Norse Thjoth. The Irish unit Tuath corresponded 
 to the Norse Fylh, the Teutonic Gam or Gav, the Greek Phylc, and the old 
 Latin Tribits ; it was at first genealogical, but acquired a geographical and 
 political signification. The tribe or Tuath consisted in some cases of a 
 Claim, the progeny or descendants of a chief. Sometimes a Claim em- 
 braced several TuatJia. Clann was strictly genealogical, Tuath both genea- 
 logical and geographical. The Clann consisted of families or houses called 
 Fine, equivalent to Cognatio the Anglo-Saxon Macgth. The head 'of a 
 Fine was the Cendfinne or chieftain. The Fine was a sept. The Clnnn 
 therefore consisted of several septs, and the land of the tribe or Tuath was 
 divided between the septs or Fine composing it. The Fine or sept is one 
 of the most important parts of the Irish organisation, but the word is used 
 in several senses: thus, the relatives (if a chief or other tribesman to the
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 There was a monarch of all Ireland, who had Meath CHAP 
 the Middle as his official appanage, and who 'reigned origi- \' _. 
 nally at Tara. There were provincial kings of Ulster, The Irish 
 
 -in- " T -i r-i t Monarchy 
 
 Munster, Lemster, and Connaught. A primacy was given or Pent- 
 to the race of Niall, who lived presumably in the fourth and 
 fifth centuries, and from whom the O'Neills, O'Donnells, and 
 others trace their descent. The theory is thought to have 
 been pretty closely adhered to until the desertion of Tara in 
 the sixth century of our era. After that the over-king lived 
 in his own territory ; but his authority was often disputed, 
 especially by Munster, the revolt of which province finally 
 broke up the old order. 1 
 
 Wars were frequent, and Irish Brehons, who were rather Weakness 
 legal experts than judges, exerted themselves to define rights Brehon 
 and liabilities, and to establish a peaceful polity. Perhaps in " 
 laying down the law they sometimes rather stated their own 
 conception of what it ought to be than described the actual 
 state of things ; much as Brahminical writers propounded a 
 theory of caste which cannot be reconciled with historical 
 truth. Neither the Church nor the Law had always original 
 power sufficient to enforce steady obedience. The Law might 
 be clear enough, but the central government was often too 
 weak to secure respect for the opinion of experts. Portia 
 might have argued like a very Daniel, but she could have 
 done nothing without the Duke behind her. In the absence 
 
 fifth degree constituted the true Cognatio or Geilfine, i.e. Hand-fate. The 
 Fine or sept was in fact an independent unit, which paid Erics for all its 
 members, and received Erics or fines for the killing of one of its own 
 members, and also took possession of the Dibod or property of its deceased 
 members. But when the sept did not fulfil its obligations, the Ri of the 
 Tooth was bound to enforce justice. So when the Tiioth itself failed in its 
 obligations and duties, the Ri MOT Tuatfta or superior chief was bound to 
 enforce justice in the recalcitrant tribe. The Ri M6r Tuatka, or Ri buiden, 
 or king of companies, corresponded to the Anglo-Saxon Heretoga or Dux. 
 The King of the Great Tribe received hostages from the sub-reguli of his 
 territory for their Ceilsine or fealty, and he might call upon them to support 
 him with a levy of their tribes.' 
 
 1 ' The existence of the Irish Pentarchy,' says Dr. Sullivan, ' was as real 
 as that of any similar confederacy among nations in a tribal stage, and the 
 means of enforcing the orders of the over-king were not very different or 
 less effective than in many federal states ancient, mediaeval, and modern.' 
 
 B 2
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 1. 
 
 Ireland 
 was out- 
 side the 
 imperial 
 system. 
 
 of such an overpowering authority, the decisions of the 
 Brehons were little more than arbitrations which might be, 
 and probably often were, accepted as final, but on which 
 neither party could be compelled to act. 1 
 
 In the treatise called the ' Senchus M6r ' there is a passage 
 which may be as old as the fourteenth century, in which it 
 is allowed that the nature of Irish royalty varied considerably 
 from time to time. ' The King of Erin without opposition,' 
 says the writer or interpolator, ' received stock from the 
 King of the Romans ; or it was by the successor of Patrick 
 the stock is given to the King of Erin, that is, when the 
 seaports of Dublin, and Waterford, and Limerick, and the 
 seaports in general, are subject to him.' There is here an 
 attempt at once to bring Ireland within the pale of the 
 Empire, and to show that the Irish Church was independent. 
 It was natural that the Brehons should seek to introduce 
 their country into the circle of nations, but we know as a 
 matter of fact that the Empire never had anything to do with 
 Ireland. The passage quoted may have been inspired by a 
 wish to deny English supremacy by attorning, as it were, to 
 the superior lord. It is a tribute to the greatness of the 
 
 1 ' It is quite true,' says Dr. Sullivan, ' that the central power was not 
 always strong enough to enforce rights, and in many instances was defeated 
 in its attempt to do so. But in what does this differ from other federal 
 states, ancient and modern ? The Emperors of Germany were not always 
 able to subdue and to enforce their decrees against the princes and nobles 
 of the Empire, and in numerous instances the decisions of the imperial 
 chancery might be regarded in precisely the same light as mere arbitra- 
 tions. To say there was no law, properly speaking, seems to me wholly irre- 
 concilable with actual facts, and especially with the ex-istence of a rich and 
 elaborate nomenclature of native terms not borrowed from Poinrtn larr. This 
 nomenclature implies an equally elaborate machinery. It was the existence 
 of this legal system which kept out the canon law, which never, for instamv, 
 succeeded in suppressing or even modifying the marriage customs. In 
 discussing the laws and institutions of early nations we are liable to go to 
 one or other of two extremes : (1) We represent the laws, &c., in terms of 
 modern law, by which we make inchoate institutions full-grown, while the 
 germs of a legal system are represented as a fully developed code ; or (2) 
 we deny the existence of all law and legislation. You are right I thipk 
 as regards the Church ; for owing to the organisation of the old Celtic 
 Church it was perfectly acephalous. Whatever influence it did exert was 
 individual and never official, and, therefore, not continuous it might he 
 described in fact as sporadic influence.'
 
 INTRODUCTOEY. 5 
 
 Empire more than anything else, and it was not thought of CHAP, 
 until the Brehon law schools had fallen from their high ^_ _,' . 
 estate. 
 
 It was by giving stock that an Irish chief showed his The tribal 
 
 1/0 system. 
 
 power and added to his wealth. There were lands attached The chief, 
 to his office, but his capital consisted of kine, and he ex- 
 tracted a sort of rent by obliging his inferiors to give them 
 pasture. The number of cattle which he 'grazed without 
 loss ' upon other people's ground was the measure of his 
 power and popularity. There were free tribesmen the 
 amount of whose obligation to their chief was strictly laid 
 down, though a greater quantity of stock might be volun- 
 tarily taken under certain restrictions. But there were also 
 servile or semi-servile classes whose comparatively unpro- 
 tected condition placed them more or less in the power of 
 the chief to whose sept they were attached. An ambitious 
 chief would always have opportunities of aggrandisement, 
 and his wealth enabled him to support a mercenary force, and 
 to grow strong at the expense of his own and other tribes. 
 Broken men who had lost their own tribal position would 
 always flock to an ambitious chief, and the disturbing influ- 
 ence of such retainers was often too strong for Brehons or 
 priests. But the growth of power by means of mercenaries 
 was not peculiar to Ireland, and was perhaps less frequent 
 than is commonly supposed. 1 
 
 1 ' All through the laws,' says Dr. Sullivan, ' there is ample evidence to 
 prove that the tribesmen, or Aires, were bound to take stock from the Mi, 
 or chief, only. The amount of this stock, called Saer, or free-stock, is 
 strictly laid down, and the amount of the tribute payable for this stock, 
 called Sestigi, or house-refection, or tribute, is also strictly laid down. But 
 if the Ri were wealthy he might offer more stock to his Ceiles, clients or 
 vassals, on condition of paying him certain dues, called Biatad. The 
 stock so given was called Doer, or base-stock ; and its acceptance by a 
 tribesman made a Daer-ceile of him, and placed him very much in the 
 power of the Ri, or chief. No tribesman could accept Doer-stock without 
 the consent of his fine, or sept, which would be bound by the acts of 
 its members. A tribesman, with the consent of his Fine, might accept 
 Doer-stock from any Flath, or lord, in his own Tuath, or tribe. All the 
 above applies to the tribesmen, or Aires, who alone constituted the free 
 class. But besides the Ceiles, or clients, or free tribesmen, or Aires, ther 
 was another class, called Fuidirs. The markland of the tribe and the land
 
 of war. 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Whatever the advantages of a pure Celtic system, it did 
 not secure general peace. There is no period of which Celtic 
 Frequency Ireland may be more justly proud than that between the 
 death of St. Columba in 597 and the death of St. Gall about 
 640. It was the age in which the Irish saint Columbanus 
 bearded Thierri and Brunehaut, in which Ireland herself was 
 a noted seat of learning, and in which the monasteries of 
 Luxueil, of St. Gall, and of Bobbio were founded by Irishmen. 
 Yet, under thirty years out of forty-four either battle or 
 murder is recorded in the Chronicon Scotorwm. In some 
 years there were several battles and several murders. 
 
 In 628 Leinster was devastated. Quarrels between near 
 relations were frequent, and often ended in murder. When 
 we consider that the deaths of important people only are 
 recorded, we cannot pronounce the Ireland which sent forth 
 Aidan, and Adamnan, and Columbanus to have been at all a 
 peaceful country. Christianity was then established, and no 
 Scandinavian irruption had yet hindered the development of 
 purely native ideas. But Irish chroniclers, perhaps owing 
 to their genealogical turn, give a disproportionate space to 
 deaths; and it may be admitted that the number of homicides 
 was not greater in Ireland than in some parts of Germany in 
 feudal times. 1 
 
 held in severalty of the Hi, and the similar land of the Ccndfinne, or chief- 
 tain (or captain, as he is called in the Scottish Highlands) of a sept \\.-is 
 let out to various classes of Fuidirs. Some were Saer, or free Fuidirs, and 
 others Doer, or base Fuidirs. The Saer-fuidirs, again, were of two sorts 
 broken tribesmen who went into another Tuath and got stock as well as 
 land from a Hi, or FlatU, and Saer-fuidirs who possessed some stock of 
 their own which they grazed on land of a chief or of a Flath, Some of 
 these free Fvidirs entered into doer, or servitude, by accepting stock under 
 certain conditions. The Fuictir classes were the true tenants at will. The 
 Aires were of the clan, the Fuidiw, Hottacks, or cottiers, and other servile 
 classes, belonged to the clan. The giving and taking of Daer-xtock depended 
 upon the impoverishment of a sept through cattle murrain, the levying of 
 blood-fines on account of the misconduct of some of its members, &c. 
 But the whole thing was voluntary, and depended on the poverty of a sept 
 and the wealth and ability of the Si, or Flatk.' 
 
 1 Dr, Sullivan does not think Christianity was fully established by the 
 middle of the seventh century. ' The Irish Church organisation,' he says, 
 ' was ill calculated to influence the social habits arid the political life of 
 the people ; unlike the diocesan and centralised system of the Latin
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Primogeniture, which is practically incompatible with the 
 tribal stage of political organisation, was perhaps formally 
 acknowledged at a very remote period, but was unknown as Celtic law 
 a rule of succession to Irish chiefries in the ages with which sion. 
 this book chiefly deals. In those comparatively modern times 
 a vacancy was filled from the same family, but the person 
 chosen was generally a brother or a cousin of the deceased. 
 It seldom happened, perhaps, that an Irish chief, who was 
 necessarily a warrior, attained threescore and ten years, and 
 on an average a son would be less likely to make an able 
 leader than one of an older generation. To avoid disputed 
 successions, an heir-apparent, called the tanist, was chosen 
 before a vacancy actually occurred, and sometimes probably 
 against the wish of the reigning chief. Very often the sons 
 refused to accept the tanist, and bloody quarrels followed. 
 This system stank in the nostrils of the Tudor lawyers ; but 
 in the twelfth century the true principle of hereditary suc- 
 cession was not fully understood. It was, perhaps, a suspicion 
 that his eldest son might not succeed him quietly that in- 
 duced Henry II. to crown him in his lifetime. A later and 
 much stronger analogy may be found in the history of the 
 Empire. Charles V. procured the election of his brother 
 Ferdinand as king of the Romans, and he was actually 
 crowned. Many years later Charles wished to substitute his 
 son Philip ; but Ferdinand refused to yield, and he was sus- 
 tained by the electors, who had no mind to see the Empire 
 become an appendage of the Spanish monarchy. The influ- 
 ence of the Irish Brehons probably tended to prevent chiefries 
 from becoming hereditary. In such cases as the earldom of 
 Desmond we have a mixture of the two systems ; the earls 
 were chiefs as regarded the Irish; but their succession to the 
 honour, and through it to the quasi-chiefry, was regulated by 
 feudal rules. 
 
 As the chief was elected by his tribe from among a limited Tudor 
 number, so was the land distributed among the tribesmen 
 
 law. 
 
 Church. Hence a high spiritual life and intellectual cultivation within 
 the numerous coenobiums was quite compatible with practical paganism 
 and disorder outside.'
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 Septs. 
 
 Lord and 
 
 tauist. 
 
 Tanistry 
 and gavel- 
 kind. 
 
 No estate of 
 inheritance. 
 
 within certain fixed limits. As it is with England's treat- 
 ment of Ireland that we have to do, it may be as well to let 
 Sir John Davies himself say how the matter appeared to the 
 Tudor lawyers : 
 
 ' First be it known that the lands possessed by the mere 
 Irish in this realm were divided into several territories or 
 countries ; and the inhabitants of each Irish country were 
 divided into several septs or lineages.' 
 
 ' Secondly, in every Irish territory there was a lord or 
 chieftain, and a tanist who was his successor apparent. And 
 of every Irish sept or lineage there was also a chief, who was 
 called Canfinny, or head of a " cognatio." ' 
 
 1 Thirdly, all possessions in these Irish territories (before 
 the common law of England was established through all the 
 realm as it now is) ran at all times * in course of tanistry, or 
 in course of gavelkind. Every lordship or chiefry, with the 
 portion of land that passed with it, went without partition to 
 the tanist, who always came in by election, or by the strong 
 hand, and never by descent. 2 But all the inferior tenancies 
 were partible among the males in gavelkind.' 3 
 
 ' Again, the estate which the lord had in the chiefry, or 
 that the inferior tenants had in gavelkind, was no estate of 
 inheritance, but a temporary or transitory possession. For 
 
 1 ' At all times ' must be understood to refer only to those comparatively 
 modern ages above mentioned. 
 
 2 ' The election,' says Dr. Sullivan, ' was always from the Geilfine, or 
 relatives within the fifth degree. Should the Geilfine fail, or be all killed 
 in battle, the Derbfine, or relatives from the fifth to the ninth degree, 
 came in.' 
 
 1 ' This,' says Dr. Sullivan, ' is not right. There was the "joint undi- 
 vided family " formed by the Bo-aire class, or freemen possessed of cattle. 
 The poorer Flaths, or heads of septs, did not gavel their possessions, but 
 either elected a tanist or formed a "joint undivided family." When the 
 property of an Aire was not sufficient to gavel, so as to qualify one or more 
 Aires, the division of the inheritance did not take place, but the parties 
 agreed to form a "joint undivided family." In such a family one was head, 
 and as such was an Aire. So-aires of this class, to avoid the gavelling of 
 their property, elected a Tanixt the Tanaisc Bo-aire. Poor and broken 
 tribesmen, not having sufficient wealth to qualify them as Aires, formed a 
 "joint-family," or Congilda. Every Flath, or head of a sept, had a tanist 
 also. The Irish " joint-family" was an institution of great importance and 
 of surpassing interest in the comparative history of the Aryan family.'
 
 INTEODUCTOEY. 
 
 just as the next heir of the lord or chieftain would not inherit 
 the chiefiy, but the eldest and worthiest of the sept (as was 
 before shown in the case of tanistry), who was often removed 
 and expelled by another who was more active or stronger 
 than he : so lands in the nature of gavelkind were not par- 
 tible among the next heirs male of him who died seised, but 
 among all the males of his sept, in this manner : 
 
 ' The Canfinny, or chief of a sept (who was commonly the Partitions 
 most ancient of the sept) made all the partitions at his dis- i an d! a 
 cretion. This Canfinny, after the death of each tenant 
 holding a competent portion of land, assembled all the sept, 
 placed all their possessions in hotchpotch, and made a new 
 partition of the whole ; in which partition he did not assign 
 to the sons of the deceased the portion which their father 
 held, but allotted the better or larger part to each one of the 
 sept according to his antiquity.' 1 
 
 ' These portions being thus allotted and assigned were Effect of 
 possessed and enjoyed accordingly until the next partition, 
 which, at the discretion or will of the Canfinny, might be 
 made at the death of each inferior tenant. And thus by these 
 frequent partitions and the removals or translations of the 
 tenants of one portion or another, all the possessions were 
 uncertain, and the uncertainty of possession was the very 
 cause that no civil habitations were erected, and no enclosure 
 or improvement of lands made, in the Irish countries where 
 that custom of gavelkind was in use ; especially in Ulster, 
 which seemed everywhere a wilderness before this new plan- 
 tation made there by the English undertakers. And this was 
 the fruit of this Irish gavelkind.' 
 
 ' Also by this Irish custom of gavelkind bastards took Position of 
 their shares with the legitimate, and wives, on the other aniunlaa- 
 hand, were quite excluded from dower, and daughters took tard Bona ' 
 nothing, even if their father died without issue male. So 
 
 1 ' This account of Davies,' says Dr. Sullivan, ' is entirely wrong. The 
 law of the distribution of the property of a deceased tribesman was most 
 carefully laid down. No doubt then as now, and naturally more frequently 
 then than now, a chief, or head of a sept, or of a 1'reb (homestead) might 
 usurp po\ver he did not possess, and do wrong.'
 
 10 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 that this custom differed from Kentish gavelkind in four 
 points.' l 
 Four points The four points were the certainty of estate in each share, 
 
 peculiar to , . . . 
 
 Irish the exclusion of bastards, the admission of a widow to one 
 
 moiety, and the admission of females in default of issue male. 
 For which reasons, says Sir John, the Kentish custom was 
 always held good and lawful by the law of England. He 
 admits, however, that the Irish custom had a counterpart 
 in North Wales, which had been totally abolished by Henry 
 VIII., along with other usages resembling those of Ireland. 
 Edward I. had only ventured to exclude bastards, and to 
 give widows their dowry. 2 
 
 Sir John Notwithstanding the above decision, it is probable that a 
 
 nouxhaust description of tanistry and gavelkind does not exhaust the 
 the subject. su bj ec t. The theoretical division among all the males of a 
 sept is not at all likely to have been carried out, except in 
 very early times. Human nature was against it. From the 
 twelfth century the example of the Anglo-Normans, which 
 cannot have been altogether without weight, was against it. 
 The interest of the chief was everywhere against it, because it 
 would deprive him of the means of rewarding his friends, and 
 because he was always tempted to seize lands to his own use. 
 The tendency to private property would be always asserting 
 itself, but the exact historical truth can never be known. 
 Before the close of the mediasval period, a great part of 
 Ireland had been re-conquered by the tribes from Anglo- 
 Norman hands. Is it possible that the Irish land system can 
 have been anywhere restored in its integrity ? On the whole, 
 
 1 ' Marriages in Ireland,' says Dr. Sullivan, ' were not regulated by canon 
 law. The Irish marriage customs were in full force long after the Norman 
 conquest. According to these customs, which appear to have been wholly 
 uninfluenced by the canon law, bastardy was entirely different from \\\\ni 
 that term implied in countries under canon law, and in modern times. The 
 Irish marriage customs should consequently be taken into account here, as 
 they sanctioned a kind of polygamy, divorce, &c. See also the excommu- 
 nication in 1282, by the Archbishop of Canterbury against Llewellyn, 
 Prince of Wales, at the request of Edward I., in which the marriage 
 customs of the Welsh, identical with those of the Irish, constitute one of 
 the charges.' 
 
 * Le Ilfgolatwii tics justice* tmtcliant le Irish customc dc 
 Reported by Sir John Davius, A.G., o Jac. i.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 11 
 
 it is at least probable that English statesmen in the sixteenth CHAP. 
 
 century made as many mistakes about tenures in Ireland as > r 
 
 their representatives in the eighteenth and part of the nine- 
 teenth made about tenures in India. Good faith may be 
 generally granted in both cases, but the blunders made were 
 no less disastrous. It is at all events clear that primoge- 
 niture was no Celtic usage, that it is no part of the law of 
 nature, and that the Tudor lawyers treated it as an end in 
 itself, and almost as a necessary element in the eternal fitness 
 of things. In the twelfth century Irish practice may have 
 come much nearer to theory than in the sixteenth; at all 
 events, Henry II. 's grants to individuals were absolutely 
 opposed to Celtic notions of justice. 
 
 The Irish admitted composition for murder. This blood- Compo- 
 fine, called an eric, was an utter abomination to the English ^rder?* 
 of the sixteenth century, who had quite forgotten the laws Celtic 
 and customs of their own Teutonic ancestors. To men long 
 used to a strong central government such a custom seemed 
 impious. It was nevertheless part of the common heritage of 
 the Aryan race, and had been in vogue among the peoples 
 from whom the later English sprung. The Njal Saga illus- 
 trates its use among the Icelanders by many famous cases 
 strictly in point. The feudal system and the canon law had 
 caused the Teutonic nations to abandon a usage which they 
 once had in common with the Irish. Celtic Ireland had never 
 had a very strong central government, and such as it was it 
 had sustained serious damage. Homicide was still considered 
 a personal injury. The rule was not a life for a life, but 
 adequate damages for the loss sustained. The idea of public 
 justice, irrespective of private interests, was far in advance 
 of the stage which had been reached by the Irish Celts. 
 Irish history cannot be understood unless the fact is clearly 
 grasped, that the development of the tribal system was 
 violently interrupted by a feudal half-conquest. The Angevin 
 and Plantagenet kings were strong enough to shake and 
 discredit the native polity ; but they had neither the power 
 nor the inclination to feudalise a people which had never 
 gone through the preliminary stages. When the Tudors
 
 12 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, brought a more steadfast purpose and better machinery to 
 
 ' r the task, they found how hard it was to evolve order out of 
 
 The conflict the shattered remnants of two systems which had the same 
 
 of laws is 
 
 the key to origin, but which had been so brought together as to make 
 Irish his- complete fusion impossible. From the first the subjects of 
 England and the natives of Ireland had been on entirely 
 different planes. Even for us it is extremely difficult to 
 avoid confusion by applying modern terms to ancient things. 
 The Tudor lawyers and statesmen could hardly even attempt 
 to look at jarring systems from the outside. They saw that 
 the common law was more advanced than that of the Brehons, 
 but they could not see that they were really the same thing 
 at different stages. In fact, plain Englishmen in the sixteenth 
 century could not do what only the most enlightened Anglo- 
 Indians can do in the nineteenth. They were more civilised 
 than the Irish, but they were not educated enough to 
 recognise the common ancestor. That there was a common 
 ancestor, and that neither party could recognise him, is the 
 key to Anglo-Irish history both before and after the Tudor 
 times. 
 
 Origin of The early history of the native Irish Church is shrouded 
 
 Church. in much obscurity. The best authorities are disposed to 
 Cofumba nd accept St. Patrick as the apostle of Ireland, the fifth century 
 as the period of his labours, and Armagh as his chief seat. 
 He was not a native of Ireland ; so much seems certain. A 
 more interesting, because a more clearly defined figure, is 
 that of Columba or Columkille, who was born in Donegal in 
 521. The churches of Derry, Durrow, Kells, Swords, Raphoe, 
 Tory Island, and Drumcliff, claim him as their founder; but 
 it is as the apostle of North Britain that he is best known. 
 He was religious from his youth, but a peculiarly serious 
 tinge was given to his mind by a feeling of remorse for 
 bloodshed which he had partly caused. He had surrepti- 
 tiously transcribed a psalter belonging to another saint, who 
 complained of this primitive infringement of copyright. A 
 royal decision that ' to every cow belongs her calf ' was given, 
 Exile of and was followed by an appeal to arms. Exile was then im- 
 posed as a penance on Columba, whose act had been the
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 original cause of offence. Such was long the received legend, CHAP. 
 
 but perhaps the exile was voluntary. 1 Whether his departure r ' 
 
 was a penance or the result of a vow, tradition says that he 
 was bound never to see Ireland again, that he landed first 
 on Oronsay, but found that Erin was visible from thence, 
 and refused to rest until he had reached lona. His supposed 
 feelings are recorded in a very ancient poem : 
 
 ' My vision o'er the brine I stretch 
 From the ample oaken planks ; 
 Large is the tear of my soft grey eye 
 When I look back upon Erin. 
 Upon Erin my attention is fixed.' 
 
 Columba was the Paul of Celtic Christianity. By him and 
 his disciples a great part of Scotland was evangelised, and it 
 was to him that the British Church looked as a founder when 
 the time came to decide between the relative pretensions of 
 the Celtic and the Norman type of religion. St. Bridget or Saint 
 Bride, who died four years after Columba's birth, is scarcely 
 less celebrated. She was born near Dundalk, and her chief 
 seat was at Kildare. She was the mother of Irish female 
 monachism, and in popular estimation is not less famous than 
 Patrick, and perhaps more so than Columba. 2 
 
 Irish Christianity was at first monastic. A saint obtained The Irish 
 a grant of land from a chief. A church was built, and a originally 
 settlement sprung up round it. The family, as it was called, monastic> 
 consisted partly of monks and partly of dependents, and the 
 abbot ruled over all as chief of a pseudo-tribe. Like a lay 
 chiefry the abbacy was elective, and the abbots wielded con- 
 siderable power. These ecclesiastical clans even made war 
 with each other. Thus, it is recorded that in 763 the family 
 of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise fought with the family of St. 
 Columba of Durrow, and that 200 of the Columbides fell. 
 
 1 Dr. Sullivan believes the story of the decision against Columba to be 
 a mere myth. 
 
 2 ' The Irish Church,' says Dr. Sullivan, had undoubtedly two distinct 
 phases of monasticism : one that of the Patrician period an obscure but 
 highly important and interesting phase; the other, that of the sixth and 
 subsequent centuries, to which the Irish missionaries belonged.'
 
 14 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 The early 
 Church was 
 episcopal, 
 but not ter- 
 ritorially 
 
 Ireland 
 
 gradually 
 
 conformed 
 
 l(> l.'iPIIIIHl 
 
 usa-re. 
 
 The head of such a confraternity was called coarb, or suc- 
 cessor of the founder, and Irish writers sometimes called the 
 Pope 'coarb of Peter.' In course of time the coarb of 
 Patrick crystallised into the Archbishop of Armagh, and 
 the coarb of Columba into the Bishop of Deny. Other 
 saints were revered as the founders of other sees. Very 
 often at least the abbot was chosen from among the founder's 
 kin. 
 
 Episcopal orders were acknowledged from the first, but 
 it was long before the notion of a territorial bishop prevailed. 
 In early days there were many bishops, wanderers some- 
 times, and at other times retained by the abbot as a necessary 
 appendage to his monastery. The bishop was treated with 
 great respect, but was manifestly inferior to the head of a 
 religious house. St. Patrick was said to have consecrated 
 350 bishops, founded 700 churches, and ordained 5,000 
 priests ; a mere legend, but perhaps tending to show that 
 the episcopal order was very numerous in Ireland. Travel- 
 ling bishops without definite duties, and with orders of 
 doubtful validity, became a scandal to more regularly or- 
 ganised churches, and drew down a rebuke from Anselm as 
 late as the beginning of the twelfth century. At an earlier 
 period impostors pretending to be Irish bishops were not 
 uncommon. 1 
 
 The Irish Church long continued to keep Easter on a 
 different day from that sanctioned by Rome, and to use a dif- 
 ferent form of tonsure. But the inconvenience of such dissi- 
 dence from the general body of Western Christendom was 
 soon felt. About 630 Pope Honorius I. addressed a letter to the 
 
 1 ' Besides,' says Dr. Sullivan, the monastic bishop proper, who fur- 
 nished the wandering Scotic bishops of the Middle Ages, there Is a later 
 development of a higher church organisation in the tribal bishop, who was 
 a close approximation to a diocesan bishop. The tribal bishop was a 
 bishop who had jurisdiction over the whole of a Tiiatk, and sometimes 
 even a M6r Tuath. The growth of territorial jurisdiction is well marked 
 by the prestige attached to the office the bishop ranked in fact almost on 
 a level with the chief, and was entitled to the same legal retinue. Many 
 of the ancient dioceses, and some of the existing ones, e.g. Ross, Kilmac- 
 duagh, Kilfenora, represent ancient Tuaths, or tribe territories. Several 
 deaneries were former dioceses, and are co-extensive with ancient Tvaihu.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 Irish Church, in which he reminded the clergy that they were CHAP. 
 a scanty company inhabiting a remote region, and that it - - ' r 
 could not be for their interest to remain isolated. Cummian, 
 afterwards seventh abbot of lona, warmly espoused the papal 
 cause. c Rome errs,' he said with great scorn, ' Jerusalem 
 errs, Alexandria errs, Antioch errs, the whole world errs the 
 Britons and Irish are the only right-minded people.' The 
 southern Irish followed Cummian, but the northern rejected 
 his advice, and some even called him a heretic ; yet this did 
 not prevent his being elected to fill Columba's chair. Adam- 
 nan, ninth abbot of lona, and biographer of the great founder, 
 was no less earnest on the Roman side than Cummian had 
 been. At the Synod of Whitby in 664 Wilfred discomfited 
 Colman of Liiidisfarne, and settled the question so far as 
 England was concerned. Adamnan lived till 704, and suc- 
 ceeded in converting nearly all the Irish churches, except those 
 subject to his own monastery. 
 
 In 716, under Duncadh, the eleventh abbot, lona con- Close of the 
 formed, and the Paschal controversy came to an end, after CO n S t ro - 
 lasting 150 years. The coronal tonsure was adopted three vers y 716< 
 years later. The supremacy of Rome was thus acknowledged, 
 but circumstances long prevented the Irish from adopting the 
 Roman plan of Church organisation. 
 
 The Scandinavian inroads began towards the close of the influence 
 century which witnessed the submission of lona. It is pro- 
 
 bable that the influx of pagan Northmen kept Ireland apart vian inva - 
 
 m -i n-n sions on the 
 
 from the rest of Christendom. The ninth century produced Church. 
 Erigena and other eminent Irishmen, but a country in which 
 Christianity was fighting for bare life was not a promising 
 field for Church reformers or systematisers. It was not until 
 Clontarf had finally decided the cause in favour of Chris- 
 tianity that Ireland had again leisure to think of ecclesiastical 
 polity. Gillebert of Limerick, an Ostman, was the first papal 
 legate, and as such presided at the synod of Rathbreasil in or 
 about 1118, where the first serious attempt was made to 
 divide all Ireland into dioceses. The great influence of 
 Malachi of Armagh was exerted in the same direction. He 
 was the friend of Bernard of Clairvaux, and he introduced the
 
 16 
 
 IRELAND UNDER TIIE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 |JL 
 
 " , 
 
 The 
 
 Eucjenian 
 Constitu- 
 tion, 1151. 
 
 Cistercian order into Ireland. Pope Eugenius III., himself 
 a Cistercian, finished the work, and in 1151 Ireland accepted 
 fonr archiepiscopal palls from Rome. From that date the 
 Irish Church must be held to have fully accepted not only 
 papal supremacy but Roman organisation. That she had not 
 done so long before seems due to accident more than anything 
 else. From mere remoteness of position Ireland had escaped 
 the dominion of Imperial Rome. From the same remoteness 
 she was comparatively slow to feel the influence of Papal 
 Rome. Still, it can scarcely be doubted that had it not been 
 for the Scandinavian intrusion, the Ireland which adopted the 
 Roman Easter and the Roman tonsure before the middle of 
 the eighth century, would have gladly accepted the palls long 
 before the middle of the twelfth. 1 
 
 1 Dr. Sullivan warns me not to attribute too much influence to the 
 Danish Church. ' The tribe-bishop,' he says, ' was a much earlier develop- 
 ment, and proves the growth of diocesan jurisdiction and the consequent 
 merging of the Irish Church in the Latin Church. The acceptance of the 
 Roman time for celebrating Easter by the Irish Church and the constant 
 intercourse between Ireland and the Continent had brought the Irish Church 
 fully under Roman supremacy three and a half centuries earlier. What 
 really took place in the early part of the twelfth century was the more com- 
 plete adoption of the organisation of the Western Church, and of the 
 principles of the canon law ; and especially the granting of lands and 
 charters to the Church in the same way as in feudal lands. The marriage 
 of Irish princes with Saxon and other foreign princesses, and the growth 
 of towns which helped to relax its rigid tribal system, did more than the 
 Danish Church.' The chief towns were, however, of Danish origin.
 
 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 
 
 NORWEGIAN ships began to appear on the Irish coast in 795, CHAP 
 
 one year after the destruction of the church at Lindisfarne. ^ t ' _. 
 
 The islands were harried, Lambay being perhaps the first to First p- 
 
 suffer ; everything of value was taken, and the hermits and the North- 
 
 anchorites were killed or carried away. lona, where the 
 
 greatest of Irish saints had founded a new Church, was burned 
 
 or plundered in 802 and 806. About twelve years after their 
 
 first visit the Scandinavians began to venture inland, sacking 
 
 the monasteries, which contained such wealth as Ireland then 
 
 possessed, and slaughtering the monks. The famous religious 
 
 community at Bangor, in Down, was thus destroyed about 
 
 824. The first permanent settlement of the northern invaders 
 
 was perhaps in the neighbourhood of Limerick. They had a 
 
 fort at Cork before 848, and at Dublin before 852. There 
 
 were also forts on Lough Foyle and at Waterford. The flat 
 
 coast between Dublin and the borders of Meath lay open to 
 
 a floating enemy, and early obtained the name of Fingal, or 
 
 the land of the stranger. 
 
 In or about 830 a chief arrived who pursued a more am- Turgesius, 
 bitious policy. He is called Turgeis or Turgesius by the 830 ' 
 Irish, and by the Irish only : this may be a form of Thorkils 
 or Trygve, and may perhaps be a name applied to the myste- 
 rious hero whom the Scandinavians call Ragnar Lodbrok. 
 Turgesius landed in Ulster, and planned the complete subju- 
 gation of Ireland. He burned Armagh and drove out St. 
 Patrick's successor, and then took up a central position 
 near Athlone, whence his flotillas could act on Lough Ree 
 and Lough Dearg. We know that the Northmen dragged 
 ships or boats overland to Loch Lomond, and similar feats 
 VOL. i. c
 
 18 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDOES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 II. 
 
 A.D. 852. 
 
 The Black 
 and White 
 Gentiles. 
 
 may have been performed in Ireland. There was another 
 plundering station on Lough Neagh about the same time. 
 
 Turgeis mastered the northern half of Ireland, and made 
 frequent incursions into the other half. Against the Church 
 he showed peculiar animosity, and his wife used the high 
 altar at Clonmacnoise as a throne when she gave audience ; 
 perhaps she uttered oracular responses from it. In the south 
 Turgeis was less powerful, for the dispossessed abbot of 
 Armagh took refuge at Emly in Tipperary. But the whole 
 coast was attacked by innumerable corsairs, who sometimes 
 made raids far into the central districts. Dublin was fortified 
 by the Norwegians about 840, and became the chief seat of 
 the Scandinavian power. Turgeis did not live to unite the 
 various bands, but fell into the hands of Malachi, King of 
 Meath, in 845, and was drowned in Lough Owel. The North- 
 men of Limerick were defeated in the same year at Roscrea, 
 and their earl, Olfin, was slain. 1 
 
 Seven years after the death of Turgeis came the Black 
 Gentiles, who are generally supposed to have been Danes, 
 as the White Gentiles were certainly Norwegians. Whether 
 the colour of their armour or their complexion was 
 referred to is doubtful. The new-comers made themselves 
 masters of Dublin, and of the plunder which the first inva- 
 ders had accumulated from all the Irish churches. Before 
 one of the battles fought to decide whether Black or White 
 Pagans were to enjoy this property, Horm, or Gorm, the 
 Danish chief, is said to have invoked St. Patrick, a singular 
 confusion of ideas, which may have resulted from intercourse 
 with Christians in England. Victory followed. The Black 
 Gentiles seem to have retained their supremacy ; but the dis- 
 tinction becomes partly obliterated, and the Danes, of whom 
 we read later, were probably intermingled with Norwegians. 
 It is recorded that Amlaf, son of the King of Norway, came 
 to Ireland in 852 or 853, that all the foreigners of Erin sub- 
 mitted to him, and that the Irish also paid tribute. The 
 
 1 The account which Giraldus gives of Turgcsius is funny, but 
 worthless
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 19 
 
 name of the Black Gentiles is believed to be preserved in the CHAP. 
 little town of Baldoyle. A' 
 
 Amlaf and his sons were not satisfied with the spoils of Forty 
 thrice plundered churches, but everywhere violated tombs in ^^1 
 search of gold ornaments. Another great chief was Ivar, 
 who appears to have been Ivar Beinlaus, son of Ragnar 
 Lodbrok, and founder of the Northumbrian kingdom, which 
 was afterwards closely connected with the Irish Dane's. To 
 the Norwegians who fled to Ireland from the iron rule of 
 Harold Harfager, the King of Dublin was one of the chief 
 sovereigns on earth. Carrol, lord of Ossoiy, was in alliance 
 with Amlaf and Ivar, and ruled Dublin after their deaths ; 
 but he died about 885, and a Norse dynasty was then re-esta- 
 blished by force. A dozen years later another Carrol drove 
 the foreigners across the Channel, but Sitric, king of North- 
 umberland, regained the fortress in 919, and the Celts do not 
 appear to have recaptured it. For a period of some forty 
 years, ending about 916, Ireland is said to have had a little 
 rest. The enemy may have had enough to do elsewhere, but 
 their predatory expeditions did not entirely cease. There were 
 perhaps no fresh invasions in force, but former settlers held 
 their own against the Irish, with whom they were generally 
 at war. 
 
 Whatever may have caused the period of comparative rest, Renewed 
 the Danish incursions began again with renewed vigour. A gi 31 ' 
 great host came to Waterford in 916, defeated the men of 
 Leinster, and harried all the south of Ireland ; churches, as 
 usual, attracting their Special attention. Ragnal, Ivar's grand- 
 son, represented by the Ulster annalists as king of all the Irish 
 Scandinavians, was the chief leader, and he afterwards led 
 his men to Scotland, where the great but indecisive battle of 
 Tynemoor was fought. 1 Sitric, Eagnal's brother, took Dublin 
 from the Irish, who had, perhaps, held it since 902, and on 
 Ragnal's death succeeded to the royal title. The natives 
 had occasional successes, but on the whole they were con- 
 spicuously inferior in the field, and Nial Glundubh, King of 
 Ireland, who headed a great confederacy, fell in the attempt 
 
 1 Seeves's Adamnan, p. 332 n. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CH VP. to recover Dublin. Twelve chiefs or kings of northern and 
 
 * ' central tribes are said to have died at the same time. After 
 
 this reverse all serious attempt to check the invaders seems 
 to have been given up, and fleet after fleet brought hordes of 
 oppressors to the ill-fated island. Munster suffered especially, 
 and the general nature of a Danish invasion cannot be better 
 apprehended than by transcribing the chronicler's words : 
 f And assuredly the evil which Erin had hitherto suffered was 
 as nothing compared to the evil inflicted by these parties. 
 Severe All Munster was plundered by them on all sides and devas- 
 
 treatment 
 
 of the tated, and they spread themselves over Munster and built 
 earth-works and towers and landing-places over all Erin, so 
 that there was no place in Erin without numerous fleets of 
 Danes and pirates ; so that they made spoil-land and sword- 
 land and conquered-land of her throughout her breadth and 
 generally ; and they ravaged her chieftainries, privileged 
 churches, and sanctuaries, and demolished her shrines, reli- 
 quaries, and books. They wrecked her beautiful ornamental 
 temples : for neither veneration, nor honour, nor mercy for 
 holy ground, nor protection for church or sanctuary, for God 
 or man, was felt by this furious, ferocious, pagan, ruthless, 
 wrathful people. In short, until the sand of the sea, the 
 grass of the field, or the stars of heaven are counted it will 
 not be easy to recount or enumerate or relate what the Gaedhil, 
 all, without distinction, suffered from; whether men or women, 
 boys or girls, laics or clerics, freemen or serfs, young or old ; 
 indignity, outrage, injury, and oppression. In a word, they 
 killed the kings and the chieftains, the heirs to the crown, and 
 the royal princes of Erin. They killed the brave and the 
 valiant, the stout knights, champions, soldiers, and young 
 lords, and most of the heroes and warriors of all Ireland ; 
 they brought them under tribute and reduced them to bond- 
 age and slavery. Many were the blooming, lively women ; 
 the modest, mild, comely maidens ; the pleasant, noble, stately, 
 blue-eyed young women ; the gentle, well-brought-up youths ; 
 and the intelligent, valiant champions, whom they carried to 
 oppression and bondage over the broad green sea. Alas ! 
 many and frequent were the bright eyes that were suffused
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 21 
 
 with tears and dimmed with grief and despair at the separa- 
 tion of son from father, and daughter from mother, and brother 
 from brother, and relatives from their race and from their 
 tribe.' 1 
 
 The Irish Danes became strong enough to interfere with The Xorth- 
 effect in English politics, and Olaf Cuaran, or Sitricson, found'" 
 King of Dublin, was a general of the great Scandinavian 
 army which Athelstane overthrew at Brunanburgh. The 
 Danes were much fewer than the Irish, but their general 
 superiority during the tenth century was incontestable ; and 
 had the invaded people been of kin to them the kingdom of 
 Canute might have had a counterpart in Ireland. Irish Celts 
 were only too ready to call in Scandinavian allies in their 
 internal quarrels, but they could never amalgamate with 
 them. Occasionally a confederation of tribes would gain a 
 great success, as at the battle of Tara, where King Malachi 
 defeated the Dublin Danes under Athelstane's old opponent, 
 Olaf Cuaran. After great slaughter on both sides the Dublin 
 men had the worst, and were forced to release Donnell, King 
 of Leinster, who was then in their hands. A great part of 
 Ireland was at this time subject to the Danes, and the battle 
 of Tara has been called the end of the ' Babylonish captivity 
 of Ireland, inferior only to the captivity of hell.' King Olaf 
 went on a pilgrimage to lona, where he died in the following 
 year. Thirty-seven years had passed since his acceptance of 
 Christianity, at least in name ; yet the Danes plundered the 
 sacred isle only five years later, in 986, and killed the abbot 
 and fifteen of his monks. It is to be noted that the Scan- 
 dinavian treatment of churches reacted on the Irish, and 
 that many native warriors came to regard saints and sanc- 
 tuaries with as little respect as Turgesius himself. 
 
 Munster seems to have been more completely subdued Their 
 than any other part of Ireland. The Danish stations at 
 Waterford, Cork, and Limerick made invasion at all times Munstcr - 
 easy, and the sons of Ivar bid fair to found a lasting dynasty 
 at the latter place. There was a tax-gatherer in every petty 
 district, a receiver to intercept the dues of every church, a 
 1 Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gaill, chap, xxxvi.
 
 22 ICELAND UNDER THE TUDOKS. 
 
 soldier billeted in every house, ' so that none of the men of 
 Erin . . . had power to give even the milk of his cow, nor 
 as much as the clutch of eggs of one hen in succour or in 
 kindness to an aged man, or to a friend, but was forced to 
 preserve them for the foreign steward, or bailiff, or soldier. 
 And though there were but one milk-giving cow in the house 
 she durst not be milked for an infant of one night, nor for a 
 sick person, but must be kept for the steward, or bailiff, or 
 soldier of the foreigners. And however long he might be 
 absent from his house, his share or his supply durst not be 
 lessened ; although there was in the house but one cow, it 
 must be killed for the meal of the night, if the means of a 
 supply could not be otherwise procured.' 1 
 
 Succession At last a deliverer arose. According to the will of Olioll 
 kingdom of Olum, King of Munster in the third century such is the 
 theory the sovereignty of Cashel, that is of Munster, was to 
 belong alternately to the races of his two sons, Eoghan Mor 
 and Cormac Cas. The Eoghanachts and Dal Cais are generally 
 Anglicised as the Eugenians and Dalcassians ; the strength 
 of the former and much stronger triba being in Cork, 
 Limerick, and Kerry that of the latter in Clare. The 
 Eugenian Fergraidh was king in 967, when he was murdered 
 by his own people. Mahon the Dalcassian then became 
 king, in compliance with the constitutional theory, but not 
 without a struggle. Urged on by his brother Brian, he 
 attacked the Danish settlements up and down the country, 
 and became master of Cashel, when Ivar, finding his supre- 
 macy threatened, summoned all that would obey him to root 
 out utterly the whole Dalcassian race. 
 
 Moiloy, The tribes of Western Munster generally were disposed 
 
 and BriVn. to follow Mahon, but Moiloy, King of Desmond, and some 
 
 others, adhered to the Dane rather than admit the supremacy 
 
 of a local rival. A pitched battle took place at Solloghead, 
 
 near Tipperary, in which the foreigners and their allies were 
 
 totally defeated. Moiloy and other chiefs who had taken 
 
 the losing side were forced to give hostages to the victor. 
 
 Mahon burned Limerick and drove away Ivar, who returned 
 
 1 Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gaill, chap. xL
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 23 
 
 after a year with a great fleet, and fixed his head -quarters on 
 Scattery Island, where St. Senanus had so sternly resisted 
 the blandishments of a female saint. 
 
 For some years Mahon reigned undisputed King of Murder of 
 Munster, but his successes only stimulated the jealousies of Brian suc- 
 Molloy and the other Eugenian chiefs, who saw their race 
 reduced to play an inferior part. They accordingly con- 
 spired with Ivar, and Molloy procured the treacherous murder 
 of Mahon. The crime was useless, for Brian was left, and 
 he immediately succeeded both to the leadership of his own 
 tribe and to the kingdom of Munster, Molloy having certainly 
 forfeited all moral claim to the alternate succession. Brian pur- 
 sued the Danes to their strongholds, slew Ivar and his sons, and 
 carried off the women and the treasure. There was, how- 
 ever, still a Scandinavian settlement at Limerick, and we 
 find a grandson of Ivar afterwards in Brian's service as one of 
 the ten Danish stewards whom he employed. He was ambitious, 
 and he had experience of the skill of such officers in extorting 
 contributions from unwilling subjects. Molloy and his chief 
 allies were slain ; and Brian, having reduced the Limerick 
 Danes to insignificance, turned his arm against those of 
 Waterford, whose territory he ravaged, and whose Celtic 
 allies, inhabiting the modern county of Waterford, he easily 
 subdued. Brian was acknowledged as supreme in Munster, 
 and took security from the principal churches not to give 
 sanctuary to thieves or rebels. As the consequence of fur- 
 ther expeditions Leinster also became tributary ; and thus, 
 in eight years after his brother's death, Brian was admitted 
 to be supreme in the southern half of Ireland. 
 
 In his further expeditions, undertaken with a view of Brian aims 
 becoming King of all Ireland, the Danes of Waterford some- Kin"of 
 times accompanied Brian ; but his progress towards the ^ Ireland - 
 desired goal was arrested for a while by a prudent treaty 
 with Malachi II., head King of Ireland, whom he acknow- 
 ledged as undisputed sovereign of the northern half, and by 
 a revolt of the Leinster men, who were allied with the Danes 
 of Dublin, the united forces of Brian and Malachi having 
 overthrown the Leinster Danes at Glenmama, near Dunlavin,
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Dublin fell an easy prey. The spoils taken are represented as 
 enormous, and the mention of carbuncles and other precious 
 stones, of buffalo-horns, goblets, and many-coloured vestures, 
 betoken some degree of luxury and much commercial activity 
 among the Danes. It is to be observed that Brian and his 
 followers, though Christians, had no scruple about making 
 slaves. His panegyrists simply say that the Danes by their 
 cruelty and oppression had deserved no better treatment. 
 Threshing and other rough work was done by the male pri- 
 soners. Menial work, including the severe labour of the 
 hand-mill, was done by the women. 'There was not,' we 
 are told, ' a winnowing sheet from Howth to the furthest 
 point of Kerry that had not a foreigner in bondage on it, 
 nor was there a quern without a foreign woman.' The fairer 
 and more accomplished of the Danish women of course 
 underwent the fate of Chryseis. 
 
 Brian and Having in vain sought a refuge with the northern Irish, 
 Gorm- ne Sitric was forced to submit to Brian, who reinstated him at 
 flaith. Dublin as a tributary king. Sitric's mother, Gormflaith, or 
 Kormlada, was sister to Maelmordha, King of Leinster, and 
 her husband, King Olaf, having been dead many years, she 
 was free to marry Brian, which she did soon after, 
 while Brian's daughter married Sitric. Wielding thus the 
 whole force of southern Ireland, Brian called upon Malachi 
 to acknowledge his supremacy. The King of Ireland sought 
 aid in vain from his kinsmen, the northern Hy Neill, whose 
 king Aedh, or Hugh, sarcastically remarked that when his clan 
 had held the chief kingship they had known how to defend 
 their own. No help coming from Connaught either, Malachi 
 was forced to submit to Brian's power, and though no 
 formal cession took place the King of Ireland quietly sub- 
 sided into King of Meath. 
 
 Brian.King Brian was henceforth reckoned as monarch of Ireland, 
 and, 1002. He invaded Connaught with a flotilla on the Shannon and 
 an army marching on land, and the chiefs of the western pro- 
 vince were glad to give hostages. The Ulster potentates 
 falling out among themselves, the north also was easily sub- 
 dued, and Brian became the actual lord paramount of Ireland.
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 25 
 
 After this he made a tour round the island, starting from CHAP. 
 
 the Shannon and marching through Roscommon and over > 1 ' 
 
 the Curlew mountains into Sligo. Hugging the coast by 
 Ballyshannon to Donegal, he crossed Barnesmore Gap into 
 Tyrone, and then passing the Foyle, near Lifford, he went 
 through Londonderry, Antrim, Down, and Louth, to the 
 neighbourhood of Kells. In a previous expedition he had 
 visited Armagh and laid twenty ounces of gold on the altar. 
 A fleet, manned by the Danes of Dublin, Limerick, and 
 Waterford, seems to have circumnavigated Ireland while he 
 was making the circuit by land. 
 
 The supremacy of Brian was no doubt an extremely loose Brian's 
 one. He had made no real impression on the northern tribes, a^slTorL 
 and they only waited a favourable opportunity to cast off the Gonn- 
 nominal yet galling yoke. But for about seven years there intrigues, 
 seems to have been no serious attempt against him, and he 
 was able to turn his attention to the building of churches and 
 bridges. It was during this period that a lone woman is 
 said to have walked unmolested from the Bloody Foreland to 
 Glandore with a gold ring at the end of a wand. Peace, 
 however, there was not ; for Brian was engaged in at least 
 two warlike expeditions to Ulster, and there was a fair amount 
 of murder and private war among the minor chiefs. Brian 
 had repudiated Gormflaith, Maelmordha's sister and Sitric's 
 mother, and probably not without good reason, for her moral 
 character was by no means on a par with her beauty and 
 talents, since she had been married successively to Olaf 
 Cuaran and to Malachi II., and had been repudiated by both. 
 * She was,' says the Saga, ' the fairest of all women, and best 
 gifted in everything that was not in her power, but it was 
 the talk of men that she did all things ill over which she had 
 any power.' Brian afterwards married a daughter of the 
 King of Connaught, and when she died, Gormflaith may have 
 sought to be reinstated. At all events she was at Kincora 
 when her brother arrived, bringing with him the tribute of 
 Leinster. Her taunts, and a quarrel which he had with 
 Murrough, Brian's eldest son, provoked Maelmordha to leave 
 Kincora in anger, and to raise the standard of revolt.
 
 26 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. < Gonnflaith,' says the Saga, ' was so grim against King 
 - 1 - ' Brian after their parting, that she would gladly have him 
 dead, and egged on her son Sitric very much to kill him.' 
 Sitric readily agreed to Machnordha's proposal, and so did 
 the northern Hy Neill, who had never been really conquered, 
 and who at once invaded Meath. After a gallant struggle 
 against Leinster and Ulster, Malachi was overpowered, and 
 called upon Brian for help. The King of Ireland, to whom 
 the men of Connaught remained faithful, accordingly 
 ravaged the country between his own district and Dublin, 
 but was obliged to retire from before its walls for want of 
 provisions. 1 
 
 triTand f Sitric and Gormflaith made use of the breathing space 
 Gormflaith allowed them to organise a powerful confederacy against 
 
 aeainst * 
 
 Brian. Brian. Sitric himself went to Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, who, 
 after many refusals, at last agreed to join, on condition of 
 receiving the Crown of Ireland and Gormflaith's land. ' All 
 his men,' says the Saga, ' besought Earl Sigurd not to go 
 into the war, but it was all to no good.' Gormflaith was well 
 pleased at the prospect before her, and advised large prepara- 
 tions for the inevitable struggle. 
 
 Sigurd was nominally a Christian, but he reposed his 
 chief trust in the raven banner which his mother had woven 
 with mighty spells ; and many Scandinavian warriors were 
 still fanatically attached to Thor and Woden. The Vikings, 
 Ospak and Brodir, were lying off Man, and to them Sitric 
 next addressed himself in person. The Norsemen do not 
 seem to have insisted on youth in their wives, for Brodir was 
 induced to join by the same promises which had been made 
 to Sigurd, and Gormflaith's first husband had been dead 
 thirty-three years. ' Brodir,' says the Icelandic account, 
 ' had been a Christian man and a mass deacon, but he had 
 thrown off his faith and become God's dastard, and now 
 worshipped heathen fiends, and was of all men most skilled 
 in sorcery. He had the coat of mail on which no steel 
 would bite. He was both tall and strong, and had such long 
 
 Sitric's 
 Sigurd. 
 
 The quotations are from Burnt Njal, chap, cliii.
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 27 
 
 locks that he tucked them under his belt. His hair was 
 black.' 
 
 Ospak, who had leanings towards Christianity, refused to Conflict 
 
 between 
 
 attack Brian ; indeed, he went over to him, and, according Christi- 
 
 ,..-! {, anity and 
 
 to Norse accounts, was baptized. An immense lorce was, p a g a nism. 
 however, gradually collected, and Scandinavian contingents 
 are mentioned from Northumbria, under two Earls, from 
 Norway, from Orkney and Shetland, Skye and Lewis, from 
 Cantire, Argyle, and Galloway. Welshmen from Pembroke- 
 shire and Cornwall, Frenchmen, that is in all probability 
 French Normans, under Karl and Ebric, and some Flemings 
 under a knight are also spoken of. Romans even are men- 
 tioned, but this may be mere magniloquence. To oppose 
 this motley host Brian had the men of Munster, Meath, and 
 South-eastern Connaught, and the Danes of Limerick and 
 probably of Waterford. He may have had the numerical supe- 
 riority, for Sigurd told his mother, the wise woman, that he 
 expected to be outnumbered seven to one. The eve of the 
 battle of Clontarf was signalised, according to the annalists, 
 by various supernatural occurrences. A messenger from St. 
 Senanus appeared to the king, and prophesied his death as 
 the penalty due for violating the sanctuary on Scattery 
 Island thirty-seven years before. The interests and prejudices 
 of monastic chroniclers may account for this story, but it is 
 not so easy to explain the firm belief in pagan deities, in 
 fairies, in demons, and in satyrs shown by two independent 
 historians. It is evident that the oracles of heathenism were 
 not supposed to have been dumb more than 500 years after the 
 death of Patrick, and 400 after that of Columba. Nor was 
 there any lack of marvels on the Danish side. Brodir, who had 
 already been plagued by showers of boiling blood, by super- 
 natural noises, by deaths among his men, and by ravens with 
 beaks and claws of iron, ' tried by sorcery how the fight 
 would go. And the answer ran, that if the fight were on 
 Good Friday, King Brian would fall but win the day ; but if 
 they fought before, they would all fall that were against him.' * 
 
 1 Burnt Njal, chap. cliv. 
 
 2 Ibid:, chap. clvi. Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gaill, chaps, xcviii, 
 and xcix. Annals of Lougli Ce, pp. 7-13.
 
 28 
 
 IK ELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Battle of 
 Clontarf, 
 1014. 
 
 Death of 
 Brian. 
 
 The Danes 
 were not 
 expelled. 
 
 The battle was fought upon the fateful Friday, and Brian 
 refused to take part in it because the day was holy. He 
 remained in the rear protected by a ring of soldiers with 
 their shields locked together. It was observed that the 
 successive bearers of the raven banner all fell, and Hrafn 
 the red, who was called by Sigurd to the dangerous duty, 
 refused, saying, ' Bear thine own devil thyself.' ' "Tis fittest 
 that the beggar should bear the bag,' answered the Earl, and 
 put the banner under his cloak. Sigurd fell, and Sitric had 
 to retire before Ospak. Hrafn the red flew to a river into 
 which the devils wished to drag him, but a spoken spell 
 dispersed them. ' Thy dog,' he cried, ' Apostle Peter, hath 
 run twice to Rome, and he would run the third time if thou 
 gavest him leave.' Of Thorstein we are told that he inter- 
 rupted his flight to tie his shoe. Kerthialfad, Brian's foster 
 son, asked him why he lingered at such a critical moment, 
 and the Northman returned an answer worthy of Sparta's 
 best days 'Because I can't get home to-night, since I am at 
 home out in Iceland.' 1 
 
 In the moment of victory Brian was left behind, and 
 Brodir, who had lingered for a time in a thicket, broke 
 through the line of shields and hewed off the king's head. 
 The Viking was taken and disembowelled alive, according to 
 the Norse account, but the Irish writers say that he fell by 
 Brian's hands. Sigurd being already dead, Gormflaith lost 
 all chance of a royal husband, and it is only further recorded 
 of her that she died sixteen years later. Many other chiefs 
 fell, including Maelmordha, and Murrough, Brian's favourite 
 son, and the fight was followed, as it had been heralded, 
 by many signs and wonders both in the Celtic and in the 
 Scandinavian world. 
 
 The popular delusion that the battle of Clontarf caused the 
 expulsion of the Danes from Ireland must be pretty well 
 dissipated by this time. Sitric remained with reserves 
 within the fortress, and thus saved his kingdom ; nor do the 
 annalists cease to make frequent mention of the foreigners. 
 But the defeat was great, and may have had considerable in- 
 1 Burnt Xjal, chap. clvi.
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 29 
 
 fluence in deciding those who were already hovering between CHAP. 
 
 Woden and Jesus. Fourteen years after Clontarf we find ^- 
 
 Sitric going to Rome, and his son Olaf was killed in England 
 when attempting the same pilgrimage. These facts lend 
 some countenance to the legend that Sitric founded Christ 
 Church in 1038 ; for the Roman court well knew how to im- 
 press the rude northern warriors, and to profit in various ways 
 by their simple faith. We are told that Flosi the Icelander 
 went to Rome to cleanse himself from the stain of blood-guilti- 
 ness, ' where,' says the Njal-Saga, ' he gat so great honour 
 that he took absolution from the Pope himself, and for that 
 he gave a great sum of money.' 
 
 Without actually amalgamating, the Danes seem to have But they 
 drawn gradually closer to the native Irish. A royal heir of cepted" 
 Ulster received the name of Ragnal less than half a century Ch . ri?ti - 
 after Clontarf, and in 1121 a bishop seems to have been tem- 
 porarily appointed at Dublin by the joint election of Irish 
 and Danes. But quarrels were frequent even after the Danes 
 had become fully Christianised ; and when the men of Munster 
 invaded Fingal in 1133, they burned the church of Lusk when 
 it was full of people and treasures. Nor did fresh invasions 
 quite cease, for Magnus, King of Norway, made two expe- 
 ditions to Ireland, in the latter of which, in 1103, he lost his 
 life. The separate history of the Irish Ostmen was drawing to 
 a close, even at the date of the Anglo-Norman invasion ; but 
 they have left indelible traces upon the map of Ireland and 
 on the traditional lore of her people. 
 
 Giraldus informs us that the Scandinavians who settled The Danes 
 at Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick, came under pretence of traders, 
 peaceful trading. The Irish, he says, were prevented by their 
 innate sloth from going down to the sea in ships, but were 
 ready to welcome those who would trade for them, and thus 
 allowed the fierce strangers to get a strong footing. However 
 this may be, it is certain that the Irish are deficient in mari- 
 time enterprise, and equally certain that the Northmen had 
 a constant eye to trade as well as to war and plunder. Un- 
 erring instinct pointed out the best stations, and on the sites 
 thus chosen the chief cities of Ireland were reared. The
 
 30 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Kaupmannaeyjar or merchant isles, probably those now called 
 the Copelands, may have been a rendezvous for passing ves- 
 sels. Arabic coins, of which more than 20,000 pieces from 
 more than 1,000 different dies are preserved at Stockholm, 
 have been found in Ireland, and the Irish Northmen certainly 
 had a coinage of their own, when the native princes had none. 
 Pieces have been found which were struck by, or at least for, 
 a Scandinavian king of Dublin as early as the ninth century, 
 and all coins minted in Ireland up to the Anglo-Norman in- 
 vasion were perhaps of similar origin. Many such pieces 
 have been found in the Isle of Man, and some as far off as 
 Denmark. 1 
 They were The Irish annalists constantly dwell on the superiority of 
 
 superior to _ . 
 
 the Irish in JNorse arms and armour as a reason tor their success in war. 
 
 artsf ' Ringmail in particular shows a high degree of manufacturing 
 skill, and they wore it at Clontarf both in brass and iron, 
 while none is mentioned in the pompous Irish catalogue of 
 the arms worn by Brian's troops. Nor was this costly harness 
 worn only by the Scandinavian leaders, for they are said to 
 have had 1,000 coats of mail in that one battle. Danish 
 swords which have survived from Brian's days are of superior 
 workmanship to Irish blades of the same date; and the 
 Northmen had perhaps a superiority in bows also, though on 
 this point the annalists are less explicit. The turgid ver- 
 bosity of these writers makes it doubtful whether the Danes 
 used poisoned arrows, but no such thing is mentioned in the 
 
 They built The flotillas which Brian maintained on inland waters, 
 cities an( ^ the sea-going vessels which attended his army in the 
 Dublin, North, were all manned by Danes, and a mercantile marine 
 
 Waterforcl. ; 
 
 has in every age been the best nursery of naval power. No 
 doubt the Irish felt the advantage of having commercial em- 
 poriums on their coast, as other shore-going people profited 
 by Greek and Phoenician colonies. The analogy might easily 
 be carried further, and Dublin and Waterford might be repre- 
 sented as standing between the Anglo-Normans and Celts of 
 Ireland, as Massilia stood between the Romans and Celts of 
 1 Many details about the Hiberno-Norse coins are to be found in Worsaae.
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 31 
 
 Gaul. It is at all events clear that the Scandinavians built 
 the first cities and coined the first money in Ireland. 
 
 High as Brian towers above other mediaeval Celts one Brian's 
 annalist calls him the Charlemagne of North-western Europe "oiTfeil to 
 it cannot be said that he laid the foundation of an Irish P ieces - 
 monarchy. He lived to be eighty, yet none of his work lasted. 
 Malachi received the honorary office of chief king, from which 
 his rival's personal prowess had driven him, and the years of his 
 reign are counted by some annalists without noticing Brian's 
 intervention, as in the modern case of Charles II. Brian was 
 indeed doubly a usurper, in wresting Munster from the race 
 of Eoghan, and in wresting Ireland from the race of Nial, in 
 whom royalty had been vested for centuries. With all his 
 ceaseless exertions he was little more than a levier of black 
 mail, who left intact the internal government of weaker 
 princes. Borumha, or the tribute-taker, if that be really the 
 meaning of the term, describes his position with sufficient 
 accuracy. When he died Donnchadh, or Donogh, his son by 
 Gormflaith, became head of his tribe, and claimed the suc- 
 cession to the Irish monarchy. The Eugenians repudiated his 
 claim, alleging that their turn, which had been wrongfully 
 passed over, had now come to reign in Munster. Not satisfied 
 with this, their two principal chiefs fell out among them- 
 selves. The Ossorian followed suit, and thus Brian's creation 
 crumbled at once into dust. 
 
 More than 150 years elapsed between the battle of Clon- 
 tarf and the landing of the first Anglo-Norman, and they 
 were years of almost constant war and confusion. Had 
 Ireland been left to herself a prince might in time have arisen 
 strong enough to establish such a monarchy as Brian failed 
 to found. The Danes had ceased to be a seriously disturbing 
 influence, but there is no evidence that any such process of con- 
 solidation was going on, and a feudal system, which had lost 
 none of its vigour, was at last confronted with a tribal system 
 which had lost none of its inherent weakness. 
 
 It is impossible to fix the exact date when Christianity Progress of 
 began to make head against the Irish Ostmen. When 
 St. Anschar obtained from the Swedes a place for his God in
 
 32 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, the northern pantheon, and when Guthrum and his ofl'nvr* 
 
 > ,1 ' submitted to baptism in Wessex, a foundation had been laid 
 
 for a general Scandinavian conversion. But neither Norway 
 nor the Norwegian colonies in Iceland, Shetland, Orkney, or 
 the Hebrides, yielded so soon. Irish anchorites spent some 
 time in Iceland about 795, and when Ingulf and Lief landed 
 in 870 they found that Irish priests had lately been there, 
 and had left behind them books, bells, and croziers. The 
 second batch had probably fled from Ingulfs congeners in 
 Ireland. Olaf Trygvesson, the first Christian king of Norway, 
 was educated at Athelstane's court, and the nominal conver- 
 sion of Norway may date from the year of his accession. 
 Five years later, in 1000, Christianity was established by 
 law in Iceland. Removed as she was from English or Roman 
 influences, Ireland remained a stronghold of paganism after 
 the Danes of England had been generally converted ; and the 
 Irish being on the whole weaker in war, were scarcely in a 
 position to prove that Woden and Thor had nothing to say 
 for themselves. Olaf Cuaran was baptized in England. It is 
 clear that the Irish Danes remained generally pagan through- 
 out the tenth century, and that the confederacy which failed 
 at Clontarf had to a great extent been formed against Christi- 
 anity. The story of Ospak and Brodir shows that some of 
 the fiercest Danes were beginning to waver, the question at 
 issue being the relative power of two deities, rather than the 
 relative merit of two systems. After Clontarf Woden seems 
 to have been looked upon as beaten. He had been tried and 
 found wanting, like Baal on Mount Carmel, and the defeated 
 party went over to the stronger side. 
 
 The Danish The connection of the Dublin Danes with their brethren 
 f i n England had long been very close, and it was to Canter- 
 bury and Rome rather than to Armagh that they naturally 
 turned. Sitric and Canute were perhaps in the Eternal City 
 together ; their visit was at least almost simultaneous, and we 
 cannot doubt that every means were taken to prejudice the 
 powerful neophyte against the pretensions of St. Patrick's suc- 
 cessor. An Ostman named Dunan or Donat is reckoned the first 
 Bishop of Dublin, and is credited with the foundation of Christ
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 33 
 
 Church. A tradition which may be true, but which is not 
 supported by contemporary evidence, makes Sitric the joint 
 founder. From an expression in the celebrated letter of the 
 Dublin burgesses to Archbishop Ralph d'Eures it may be 
 fairly inferred that Donat had his succession from Canterbury, 
 and he certainly corresponded with Lanfranc on the subject 
 of infant baptism. He was succeeded by Patrick or Gilla- 
 patrick, an Ostman, who was consecrated by Lanfranc in St. 
 Paul's at the instance of Godred Crovan, king of Man, who was 
 then supreme at Dublin. Godred's reign is rather shadowy, 
 but Lanfranc's letter to him has always been considered 
 genuine, and it addresses him as king not only of Dublin, but 
 of Ireland. Lanfranc also wrote to Tirlogh, who had acquired 
 the supreme kingship, like his father, Brian Borumha. It is 
 not unlikely that the curious poem which represents St. 
 Patrick as blessing Dublin and its Danish inhabitants, and 
 cursing the Hy Neill, was forged at this time, partly in the 
 Munster interest and partly to prove that Dublin was not 
 subject to Armagh. 1 
 
 In his letters Lanfranc insists much upon Catholic unity. 
 According to modern ideas, the heaviest of the charges which 
 he brings against the Irish Church is the levity with which terburyand 
 
 repudiates 
 
 they regarded the marriage tie. It appears that men even Armagh, 
 exchanged wives. Bishop Patrick promised ecclesiastical 
 fealty to the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Primate of the 
 British Isles. Lanfranc had obeyed the order of his old 
 pupil Alexander II., who was prompted by the deacon Hilde- 
 brand, and had gone to Rome to receive his pall. But in hia 
 dealings with Dublin he acted independently, and he was 
 ready to give advice to Irish prelates, though without claim- 
 ing direct jurisdiction over them. In doctrinal matters he 
 was an ally of Rome. Himself an Italian, he espoused the 
 dogma of transubstantiation in opposition to the Irishman 
 Erigena, and the Frenchman Berengarius ; and on the great 
 question of clerical celibacy he was a follower, though not an 
 extreme one, of the uncompromising Hildebrand. The ever- 
 watchful Roman Court probably espied the germ of a Western 
 
 1 Booh of Eights, pp. 225 sqq., and O'Donovan's preface. 
 VOL. I. 1)
 
 34 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Lanfranc 
 and An- 
 sel in. 
 
 Ralph of 
 Canterbury 
 consecrates 
 Gregory, 
 who re- 
 ceives the 
 pall from 
 Pope 
 Eugenius. 
 
 patriarchate, and was thus moved to annex Armagh as a 
 counterpoise to the dangerous primacy claimed under a 
 grant of Gregory the Great by the successors of Augustine. 
 Gregory VII., in addressing the kings, nobles, and prelates 
 of Ireland, took care to claim absolute sovereignty by divine 
 right ; and here he ran little risk of such a rebuff as William 
 the Conqueror administered. 1 
 
 Patrick's successor was Donat O'Haingly, an Irishman, 
 but a Benedictine monk of Canterbury, who was consecrated 
 by Lanfranc, to whom he had been recommended by King 
 Tirlogh. He was succeeded by his nephew Samuel, a Bene- 
 dictine of St. Albans, who was consecrated by Anselm. That 
 great archbishop was not altogether pleased with his Irish 
 brother, whom he chid for alienating vestments bestowed on 
 the Church of Dublin by Lanfranc, and for having the cross 
 borne before him, although he had never received the pall. A 
 further element of confusion was introduced, probably in 
 1118, by the Irish synod of Rathbreasil, which declared 
 Dublin to be in the diocese of Glendalough ; and it seems 
 that the Irish inhabitants submitted, while those of Danish 
 origin refused to do so. 
 
 On the death of Bishop Samuel O'Haingly, the Irish 
 annals inform us that ' Cellach, comarb of Patrick, assumed 
 the bishopric of Ath-cliath, 2 by the choice of foreigners and 
 Gaeidhil.' If there be any truth in this it was a bold stroke 
 on the part of Armagh to exercise jurisdiction in Dublin, and 
 was probably the act of the Irish as opposed to the Danish 
 party. In the same year, or the next, the burgesses and 
 clergy of Dublin wrote to Ralph of Canterbury, begging him 
 to consecrate their nominee Gregory. They reminded him that 
 their bishops originally derived their dignity from his prede- 
 cessors, and that the bishops of Ireland were very jealous of 
 them ; and especially he of Armagh, because they preferred 
 the rule of Canterbury. Ralph consecrated Gregory, and he 
 
 1 See Hook's Lives of Lanfranc, Anselm, and Ralph tCEvre*. Transla- 
 tions of the letters ment ioned in the text may be found in King's Primer of 
 the Irish Church ; most of the originals are printed in Ussher's Si/lliii-. 
 
 2 The Irish always called Dublin Ath-cliath, or the Ford of Hurdles.
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENT. 35 
 
 governed the see for forty years. To his lot it fell to receive CHAP. 
 the pall sent by Pope Eugenius, who was too politic to insist -- ^ 
 on a visit to Home. For the moment it was enough to assert 
 the necessity of the pallium and its papal origin. The legate 
 Paparo ignored the pretensions of the bishop whose church 
 in the mountains had the name of city, and divided the diocese 
 into two parts : the bishop with the Cantuarian succession 
 being made Metropolitan, and the Irishman at Glendalough 
 being reduced to the position of a suffragan, St. Lawrence 
 O'Toole, who was the second Archbishop of Dublin, derived 
 his succession from Armagh, and the Scandinavian Church of 
 Dublin ceases to have a separate history. 
 
 Of far less importance than that of Dublin, the early See of 
 history of the see of Waterford is proportionately obscure. 
 Malchus, a Benedictine of Winchester, who seems to have 
 been the first bishop elected by the Ostmen, was consecrated 
 by Anselm ; to whom he promised canonical obedience, and 
 with whom he corresponded. It seems likely that he was 
 afterwards translated to Lismore, or he may have held both 
 sees together, as they were held in after years. It is pro- 
 bable that the great Malachi of Armagh studied under him. 
 Maelisa O'Hanmire appears next in succession, but we know 
 nothing of him. He may have represented a reaction against 
 the dominion of Canterbury. The next name preserved is 
 that of Tosti, who was, of course, a Dane, and who assisted 
 in the establishment of the papal or Eugenian constitution. 
 Tosti's successor, Augustine O'Sealbhaigh, was practically 
 appointed by Henry II., and he attended the Lateran Council 
 in 1179. 
 
 The tradition which connects St. Patrick with Limerick See of 
 is of the vaguest kind : practically, the first recorded bishop GiUebert." 
 is Gillebert. He was an Irishman. Cellach of Armagh acted 
 with the Bishop of Limerick on this occasion ; but while 
 both were anxious to parcel out Ireland into dioceses, neither 
 ventured to interfere with Dublin, which was under the 
 powerful patronage of Canterbury. Gillebert resigned both 
 the legatine authority and his own bishopric before his 
 death, which took place in or about 1145. His successor 
 
 n 2
 
 36 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Patrick, having been elected by the Ostmen, was consecrated 
 in England by Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom 
 he promised canonical obedience. The three following bishops, 
 Harold, Turgeis, and Brictius, who may be Elbric or Eric, 
 were doubtless all Ostmen. Very little is known of them, 
 except that the last named attended the Lateran Council in 
 1179 and 1180. 
 
 See of Cork. Cork was often plundered by the Northmen, and they 
 settled there permanently early in the eleventh century. But 
 they found themselves confronted by a strong monastic 
 organisation, under the successor of St. Finbar, whereas at 
 Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick the field had been clear. 
 Around the abbey a native town had sprung up, which was 
 strong enough to maintain itself by the side of the Scandina- 
 vian garrison. Once, with the help of a force from Carbery, 
 they defeated a confederacy of Danes belonging to Cork, 
 Waterford, and Wexford. The Ostmen were in quiet posses- 
 sion of Cork for a period long preceding the Anglo-Norman 
 invasion, but they were probably content to take their 
 Christianity from their neighbours, for we do not find that 
 any bishop of this see sought consecration at Canterbury. 1 
 
 1 The great mine of knowledge about the Irish Scandinavians is Todd's 
 Wars of the Gaedhill with tfie Gaill,m the Record series. I have also used 
 Dasent's Story of Burnt Njal, and Anderson's Orkncyinga Saga. Haliday's 
 Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin, edited by Mr. J. P. Prendergast, is a 
 good modern book. Worsaae's Danes and Norwegians is said to be some- 
 what fanciful, but it contains information not readily accessible elsewhere.
 
 Vdl.l. to &x -page S, 
 
 London,: Longmans & C?
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY II. 
 
 THE claims of the Kings of England to Ireland were very CHAP. 
 vague. They sometimes acted as patrons of the Irish Ost- ^ _ 
 
 men, who were not unwilling to follow the example of their England 
 Northumbrian kinsmen, but they performed no real function to Ireland, 
 of sovereignty. William the Conqueror and his sons had 115 * 
 not time to attend to Ireland, and this applies in an even 
 greater degree to Stephen. Henry II. ascended an undis- 
 puted throne, and in the first year of his reign turned his 
 thoughts to the fertile island of the West. Being badly in 
 want of a title, he sent John of Salisbury to Rome for leave 
 to conquer Ireland, to root up the saplings of vice there, and 
 to bring the wild Irish into the way of the true faith. The 
 Pope was Nicholas Breakspeare, known in history as Adrian 
 IV., the only Englishman who ever filled the papal chair. 
 The popes were usually ready to grant boons to kings, if by 
 so doing they could extend their own power, and an English 
 pope must have felt a double pride in conferring favours on a 
 king of England. The mission of John of Salisbury was 
 successful. He brought back the Bull Laudabiliter and a 
 gold ring containing a very fine emerald, intended to be 
 used in Henry's investiture. Empress Maude objected to an 
 Irish expedition, and nothing was done until long after 
 Adrian's death. Henry took the precaution of having the 
 grant confirmed by Alexander III., and there is ample evi- 
 dence that he annexed Ireland with the entire approbation 
 of that Pope. 1 
 
 Irish scholars, torn asunder by their love of Rome and Adrian IV 
 their love of Ireland, formerly attempted to prove that, fand t 8 re 
 
 Henry U 
 1 Matthew Paris calls the Irish ' bestiales.' 
 
 80535
 
 38 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. Adrian's bull was not genuine ; but its authenticity is no 
 < r ' longer disputed. The momentous document runs as fol- 
 lows : 
 Adrian's < Hadrian the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to 
 
 bull. . A . 
 
 his very dear son in Christ, the illustrious King of the 
 English, health and apostolic benediction : 
 
 * Your magnificence praiseworthily and profitably takes 
 thought how to increase a glorious name on earth and how 
 to lay up a reward of everlasting happiness in heaven, while 
 you are intent, like a Catholic prince, on enlarging the 
 bounds of the Church, on declaring the truth to unlearned 
 and rude peoples, and on uprooting the seedlings of vice from 
 the Lord's field. The better to attain that end you have 
 asked counsel and favour of the apostolic see. In which 
 action we are sure that, with God's help, you will make happy 
 progress in proportion to the high design and great discretion 
 of your proceedings, inasmuch as undertakings which grow 
 out of ardour for the faith and love of religion are accus- 
 tomed always to have a good end and upshot. There is no 
 doubt and your nobility acknowledges that Ireland, and all 
 islands upon which Christ the sun of justice has shone, and 
 which have received the teachings of the Christian faith, 
 rightfully belong to the blessed Peter and the most holy 
 Roman Church. We have, therefore, the more willingly 
 made a faithful plantation among them, and inserted a bud 
 pleasing to God, in that we foresee that it will require a 
 careful internal watch at our hands. However, you have 
 signified to us, my dear son in Christ, that you wish to enter 
 the island of Ireland, in order to reduce that people to law, 
 and to uproot the seedlings of vice there, and to make a 
 yearly payment of a denarius to the blessed Peter out of 
 each house, and to preserve the rights of the churches of 
 that land whole and undiminished. 
 
 ' We, therefore, seconding your pious and laudable desire 
 with suitable favour, and giving a kindly assent to your peti- 
 tion, do hold it for a thing good and acceptable that you 
 should enter that island for the extension of the Church's 
 borders, for the correction of manners, for the propagation
 
 THE KEIGN OF HENRY II. 39 
 
 of virtue, and for increase of the Christian religion ; and 
 that you should perform that which you intend for the 
 honour of God and for the salvation of that land ; and let 
 the people of that land receive you honourably and venerate 
 you as their lord ; the ecclesiastical law remaining whole 
 and untouched, and an annual payment of one denarius 
 being reserved to the blessed Peter and to the most holy 
 Roman Church. But if you shall complete the work which 
 you have conceived in your mind, study to mould that race 
 to good morals, and exert yourself personally and by such of 
 your agents as you shall find fit in faith, word, and living, 
 to honour the Church there, and to plant and increase the 
 Christian faith, and strive to ordain what is for the honour 
 of God and the safety of souls in such a manner that you 
 may deserve at God's hands a heap of everlasting treasure, 
 and on earth gain a glorious name for ages yet to come.' 
 
 The right of the Pope to dispose of islands rested upon The papal 
 the donation of Constantine, which is now admitted to be 
 as certainly spurious as Adrian's bull is certainly genuine. 
 Adrian may have believed the donation authentic, but in 
 any case, as Irish scholars point out, Constantine could not 
 give what he had never possessed. It is true that Ireland 
 never really formed part of the Roman Empire, but so strong 
 was the idea of an ecumenical sovereignty that Celtic lawyers 
 imagined a state of things in which Ireland would be tribu- 
 tary to the King of the Romans. This was a mere fiction, 
 but it was one of which Rome would readily take advantage, 
 and the Pope who insisted so sturdily on Barbarossa hold- 
 ing his stirrup was not the one in whose hands any available 
 weapon would be allowed to rust. 1 
 
 Henry II. was the most powerful prince in Europe, and Henry 11. 
 sooner or later he was almost sure to have a reason for inter- text for iu- 
 feriiig in Ireland. The opportunity was at last afforded by terftrence - 
 Dermod MacMurrough, King of Leinster, who aspired to 
 reign over all Ireland with the help of Anglo-Norman arms. 
 As early as 1152 Dervorgil O'Melaghlin, wife of Tiernan 
 O'Rourke, Prince of Brefny, being ill-treated by her husband, 
 1 See the Senchus Nor, ii. 225.
 
 40 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, left him, and placed herself, her cattle, and her furniture 
 >- T * under the protection of Dermod. Dervorgil was forty-four 
 and Dermod sixty-two, so that the affair, in spite of a 
 beautiful poem on the subject, was not what would be com- 
 monly called romantic. Yet Cleopatra was thirty-nine, when 
 Antonius, at the age of fifty-three, refused to survive her. 
 O'Rourke felt the insult and the loss of the lady, or, at least, 
 of her property, and appealed to Tirlogh O'Connor, King of 
 Connaught and titular King of Ireland. Dermod was com- 
 pelled to abandon Dervorgil, who survived her husband eleven 
 years, and died as late as 1193, during a pilgrimage to 
 Mellifont Abbey. On the death of Tirlogh O'Connor his 
 son Roderic became a candidate for the chief sovereignty, 
 but Dermod espoused the cause of the O'Neill candidate, 
 who was successful. The flight or abduction of Dervorgil 
 was certainly not the proximate cause of the Norman inva- 
 sion, but by placing Dermod in permanent opposition to 
 O'Connor and O'Rourke, it probably contributed to bring it 
 about. 
 
 Dermod In 1166 Dermod, who had made himself odious by his 
 
 Murrough. tyranny, was expelled from Leinster by O'Connor and 
 O'Rourke, who demolished his stronghold at Ferns, and 
 transferred his kingship to the next-of-kin. The clergy 
 appear to have been generally favourable to Dermod ; and as 
 Adrian's bull, even if not published, could hardly be a secret, 
 it may have been their advice which induced him to go to 
 Henry II. Dermod, though seventy-seven years old, was 
 still active and enterprising, and he sought the king in 
 Aquitaine or Guienne. Henry was too busy to think of 
 going to Ireland himself, but he gave the suppliant a kind 
 of letter of marque in the following terms : ' Henry, King 
 of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count 
 of Anjou, to all his faithful English, Norman, Welsh, and 
 Scots, and to all nations subject to his jurisdiction, greeting : 
 When these present letters reach you you will know that 
 we have received into the bosom of our grace and favour 
 Dermod, prince of the Leinstermen. If anyone, therefore, 
 within the bounds of our power wishes to help his restoration
 
 THE KEIGN OF HENKY II. 41 
 
 as our man and liege subject, let him know that he has our 
 licence and favour for the purpose.' ' 
 
 Thus armed, Dermod returned to Bristol, which was much Dermod 
 frequented by ships from Leinster, and he appears to have ^England. 
 been supplied with money by his partisans there. His pro- 
 mise of gold and land at first attracted little attention, but 
 after two or three weeks he was visited by Richard Fitz- 
 Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Chepstow. Earl Richard, whose 
 father had lost most of his lands, lent a favourable ear to 
 Dermod, and undertook to bring an army to Ireland in the 
 spring of 1169. The Irishman promised to give him his 
 daughter Eva, his only legitimate child. According to Norman 
 law Eva would bring the kingdom of Leinster to her husband 
 and children. According to Celtic law the lands belonged 
 to the tribe, and the royal dignity was elective. In this 
 singular contract between MacMurrough and Fitz-Gilbert, 
 we have the key to most of the problems which have made 
 Ireland the despair of statesmen. 
 
 Dermod, however, did not rest his hopes of success upon Earl 
 Earl Richard alone. He went to St. David's, so as to be as ^^ 
 near Ireland as possible, and made friends with the bishop, f ends. 
 who had two brothers admirably suited for the work in hand. 
 Nesta, the beautiful daughter of Rice ap Tudor, Prince of 
 South Wales, is reported to have been the mistress of Henry 
 I., and to have had two sons by him. The younger of these 
 had also two sons, the Robert and Meiler Fitz-Henry who 
 played a prominent part in the conquest of Ireland. Nesta 
 afterwards married Gerald of Windsor, by whom she had 
 three sons and one or two daughters, and from one or other 
 of her children all the Fitzgeralds, Barrys, Carews, and 
 Cogans are descended. After the death of Gerald, Nesta 
 married Stephen, the castellan of Abertivy, and by him had 
 one son, the famous Robert Fitz-Stephen. Giraldus, who 
 must have known, twice states expressly that Fitz-Stephen 
 had no legitimate child. The historian himself was Nesta's 
 grandson, through her daughter Angareta, who married 
 William de Barry. Robert Fitz-Stephen, and his half-i 
 1 Giraldus, Ex. Hib. lib. i. cap. 2.
 
 42 IRELAND UNDER THE TULORS. 
 
 CHAP, brother, Maurice Fitzgerald, listened readily to MacMur- 
 v. ^- ' rough, who promised them Wexford and two cantreds of 
 
 land, if they would help him conquer Leinster. 1 
 
 i;itz- Robert Fitz-Stephen was a desperate man. Betrayed by 
 
 and others his own followers, he had suffered three years' imprisonment 
 land/iico? among the Welsh, had been released on promising to servo 
 Rice Fitz-Griffith against Henry II., and had agreed to hold 
 Abertivy for the Cambrian and not for the Angevin. Dermod 
 now offered him a loophole to escape from, and he agreed to 
 accept his offers and to invade Ireland. His half-brother, 
 Maurice Fitzgerald, consented to accompany him. Dermod 
 then slipped over to Ireland and sought a refuge among the 
 clergy of Ferns, who entertained him, as the Archdeacon of 
 St. David's carefully notes, to the best of their small ability. 
 It was in the winter of 1168 that MacMurrough returned 
 to Ireland, and in. May 1169 Fitz-Stephen and his brother 
 followed with thirty knights of their own kinfolk, sixty men- 
 at-arms, and 300 archers, picked, as Giraldus says, from 
 among the youth of Wales. Three ships carried them all, 
 and they landed safely in Bannow Bay, a shallow inlet which 
 they had probably mistaken either for Waterford or Wexford. 
 The brothers were accompanied by Hervey de Montmorency, 
 who was sent by his nephew, Earl Richard, rather as a spy 
 than as a soldier. On the following day Maurice de Pren- 
 dergast, whose name still lives at Haverfordwest, brought 
 ten knights and a number of archers from Milford, and 
 landed not far from the same place. As soon as Dermod 
 heard of the adventurers' arrival he sent his son Donald with 
 500 men to welcome them, and soon followed himself. 
 Donald, surnamed Kavanagh, from having been fostered at 
 Kilcavan, was illegitimate ; but that was a matter little con- 
 sidered among the old Irish, and he became the ancestor of 
 those Kavanaghs or MacMurroughs who afterwards claimed 
 the kingship of Leinster and even of Ireland, and who baffled 
 Richard II. and his great army. 
 
 1 In Webb's Compendium of Irish Riorjraphy is a carefully compiled 
 catalogue of Nesta's children and grandchildren. I have gpnerally followed 
 it, noting, however, that Fitz- Stephen's children cannot be held legitimate 
 in the face of Giraldus' distinct statement.
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY II. 43 
 
 After a smart conflict Fitz-Stepheii and MacMurrough CHAP. 
 mastered Wexford, which was a Danish town. The Irishman's - <-'- 
 
 readiness to grant Wexford to the adventurers was very 
 probably caused by the fact that the town had never been 
 really in his power. Perhaps he hoped to get rid of the 
 Normans when he had used them to subdue his enemies. It 
 was evident that Fitz-Stephen and his company could do 
 little more than hold Wexford. If Leinster was to be con- 
 quered it could only be by a much larger force. Nevertheless, 
 Fitz-Stephen decided to advance into the country, and was 
 joined by the Wexford Danes, who probably were not slow 
 to learn that the Normans were their kinsmen. With a 
 heterogeneous army of 3,000 men, Dermod and his allies 
 marched towards Ossory. There was a battle in open ground 
 with the Ossorians, and the mail-clad stranger had an easy 
 victory. Among the slain was a personal enemy of Dermod, 
 and we are told that that savage, ' lifting up the dead man's 
 head by hair and ears, cruelly and inhumanly tore away the 
 nostrils and lips with his teeth.' In the meantime King 
 Roderic had set his army in motion against the invaders, and 
 easily penetrated to the neighbourhood of Ferns. The mon- 
 astery was surrounded by woods and bogs, and Fitz-Stephen, 
 who was an adept in Welsh warfare, taught the Leinsterrnen 
 how to make it impregnable with ditches and abattis. 
 Neither party were very anxious to fight, and Dermod made 
 a treaty with Roderic, in which he acknowledged him as chief 
 king, in consideration of being allowed to enjoy Leinster in 
 peace. Giraldus says there was a secret understanding that 
 the adventurers should be sent home as soon as they had 
 pacified Leinster, and that no reinforcements should be 
 brought over. 
 
 Whatever understanding he might have with O'Connor, Earl 
 Dermod did not soon abandon the hope of more help from 
 Wales. ' We have,' he wrote to Earl Richard, ' observed the His friends 
 
 tftkp 
 
 storks and swallows ; the summer birds have come, and with Waterford. 
 this west wind have returned. Neither Favonius nor Eurus 
 has brought us your much-desired and long-expected pre- 
 sence.' The Earl had waited for the return of Hervey de
 
 44 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. Montmorency, and when he brought a favourable report it 
 
 ^ - was still necessary to make at least some show of consulting 
 
 Henry II. The King had forbidden him to go to Ireland, but 
 he now sought an audience and begged either the restoration 
 of his estates or leave to carve out a new one for himself. 
 Henry gave an ambiguous answer, which the Earl chose to 
 interpret in his own favour. In May 1170 he sent out 
 Hervey again, accompanied by Raymond Fitzgerald, called 
 Le Gros, a creature of Fitz-Stephen and Maurice, with 
 twenty knights and seventy archers. Raymond landed at 
 the south-eastern angle of the modern county of Kilkenny, 
 just at the point where the united Nore and Barrow flow into 
 the Suir. He intrenched himself at once, and was soon 
 attacked by the Waterford Danes. If Giraldus is to be 
 believed, a panic siezed the assailants, of whom 500 were 
 killed, and many taken. Among Raymond's followers 
 was a leper named William Ferrand, who performed pro- 
 digies of valour, ' choosing rather to die gloriously than to 
 endure the burden of his disease.' A question arose as to the 
 disposal of the prisoners. Raymond was for sparing, Hervey 
 for slaying. ' The opinion of the latter,' says Giraldus, ' pre- 
 vailed ; the citizens were condemned, and, their limbs having 
 been broken, they were cast headlong into the sea.' 
 
 Earl Earl Richard landed near Waterford on August 23, 1170. 
 
 lands, 1170. The city was taken soon afterwards, and Reginald's tower is 
 particularly mentioned as forming part of the defences. That 
 tower still stands with one of Cromwell's cannon balls sticking 
 in the wall -a monument of three distinct invaders : the 
 Pagan Northman, the Catholic Anglo-Norman, and the Puritan 
 Englishman. ' Earl Strongbow,' say the Lough Ce annalists 
 with pathetic brevity, 'came into Erin to Dermod Mac- 
 Murrough to avenge his expulsion by Roderic, son of Tir- 
 logh O'Connor ; and Derinod gave him his own daughter 
 and a part of his patrimony ; and Saxon foreigners have been 
 in Erin since then.' 
 
 The adven- Waterford and Wexford having fallen, and his daughter 
 C Eva having been married to Earl Richard, Dermod, who now 
 aspired to the crown of all Ireland, felt himself strong enough
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY II. 45 
 
 to attack Dublin. The Earl had brought 200 knights and CHAP. 
 
 1,000 other soldiers, so that the allied force was a considerable ^ - 
 
 one. MacMurrough led the army safely through the Wicklow 
 mountains, which were the scene of more than one disaster 
 to Elizabeth's officers. Dermod's auxiliaries had been trained 
 in Wales ; and probably understood mountain warfare much 
 better than those who had served in the Netherlands, or even 
 on the Scottish border. Lawrence O'Toole, Archbishop of 
 Dublin, a man revered both by Danes and Irishmen, attempted 
 to make peace between the citizens and their assailants ; but 
 Raymond and Milo de Cogan, while their elders parleyed, led 
 a chosen band to the assault. They soon mastered the place ; 
 and Hasculph, with a number of followers and some treasure, 
 escaped to the Orkneys, whence he went to Norway for help. 
 Meath, which for some unexplained reason was in O'Rourke's 
 possession, was next invaded, and Roderic then wrote to 
 upbraid Dermod with having broken his oath by interfering 
 outside the bounds of Leinster. MacMurrough shortly an- 
 swered that he meant to be monarch of Ireland, and Roderic 
 then killed his son, who was with him as a hostage. The 
 clergy of Armagh assembled in their synod saw or suspected 
 that the invasion was different from all former invasions. 
 They agreed that Ireland had brought a curse on herself by 
 keeping Englishmen in slavery, and they ordered the libera- 
 tion of all such bondsmen. Henry II. also saw that some- 
 thing extraordinary had happened. He had no fancy for 
 having an independent Norman principality within sight of 
 Snowdon, and he ordered the adventurers to return, strictly 
 forbidding all communication with them in the meantime. 
 Fitz-Gilbert wrote to the King, who was in Aquitaine, pro- 
 testing that he believed he had the royal licence for what he 
 had done, and that he was ready to be his vassal for all he 
 might gain in Ireland. Raymond was sent with the letter, 
 but Henry kept him a long time in suspense. 
 
 At Whitsuntide, 1171, while Earl Richard was waiting The Danes 
 for the King's answer, Hasculph returned with sixty ships, atteiif tto 
 containing a well-armed force, under a berserker called John retak . e 
 the Mad. Milo tie Cogan had been left governor of Dublin,
 
 46 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 and he and his brother Richard succeeded after a short fi.trht 
 in routing their assailants. John the Mad was killed, and 
 Hasculph taken while trying to escape across the slob to his 
 ships. The prisoner annoying him by threats of another and 
 more formidable attempt, Milo ordered him to be beheaded. 
 He had, however, spoken truth, for Godred, King of Man, soon 
 appeared with thirty ships, and blocked the mouth of the 
 Liffey, while Roderic, having collected a great army from 
 all parts of Ireland, except the extreme north and south, 
 besieged the city by land. The Earl and his followers being 
 thus shut up in Dublin, Dermod's local enemies besieged 
 Fitz-Stephen in the castle which he had built at Wexford. 
 No help, as the Irish well knew, could be expected from 
 England while Henry II. frowned, and the Normans at 
 Dublin resolved on a great effort to relieve Fitz-Stephen. A 
 sally was arranged, and Roderic's army was dispersed. The 
 Irish had trusted entirely to their numbers, and kept no 
 watch and no order. Such stores of provisions fell into the 
 victors' hands that there was no need to victual Dublin 
 for a year afterwards. Fitz-Stephen, however, was not 
 relieved. By force or stratagem, Giraldus says it was by 
 perjury, the Wexford people obtained possession of his 
 person, and killed or captured his men. Hearing of the 
 disaster at Dublin, the victors burned their town and with- 
 drew with their prisoners to an island in the middle of the 
 harbour. Earl Richard arrived too late for his immediate 
 purpose, and continued his journey to Waterford, whence he 
 made his way to the King, whom he met near Gloucester. 
 Henry was at first obdurate, but it was finally agreed that 
 Dublin and all other port towns, with the lands adjoining, 
 should be handed over to the King, and that the Earl and his 
 heirs should hold all their other conquests of him and his 
 heirs. While preparations were being made for a royal 
 expedition, O'Rourke once more attacked Dublin, but the 
 Cogans again surprised the Irish camp, and the city was 
 never again seriously threatened by the natives. 
 
 The last attack on Dublin was about September 1,1171, and 
 on October 16 the King sailed from Milford Haven with 400
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY II. 47 
 
 ships, containing 4,000 men, of whom 400 or 500 were knights. 
 He landed next day at Crook, on the right bank of the Suir, 
 some miles below Waterford, which he entered on the 18th. 
 The Wexford men saw that the game was up, and brought 
 Fitz-Stephen to the King, expecting thanks for surrendering 
 the man who had dared to make war without the royal licence. 
 Henry spoke sharply to the prisoner, and ordered him to be 
 kept safely in Reginald's tower. Dermod MacCarthy, chief 
 of Desmond and Cork, did homage at Waterford. Thence 
 Henry went to Lismore, where he stayed two days. From 
 Lismore he went to Cashel, where Donald O'Brien, chief of 
 Thomond and Limerick, followed MacCarthy's example. The 
 minor chiefs of Munster also made their submission, the only 
 one mentioned by Giraldus being O'Phelan, who ruled a great 
 part of the county of Waterford. Dermod's old antagonist, 
 Donald of Ossory, also did homage. Henry placed governors 
 both in Cork and Limerick, but it is not clear that he visited 
 either of those cities. He then returned along the Suir to 
 Waterford, where he took Fitz-Stephen into favour, and 
 restored Wexford to him. During this progress the King 
 selected three sites for fortresses, which were afterwards built 
 by his son John Lismore on the Blackwater, and Ardfinnan 
 and Tibraghny on the Suir. The first and last were intended 
 to command the upper tidal waters of the Blackwater and 
 Suir ; Ardfinnan secured a passage from the southern sea- 
 board into Central Ireland, and Cromwell recognised its im- 
 portance nearly five hundred years afterwards. 
 
 Leaving a governor in Waterford, Henry then led the Henry II. 
 bulk of his army to Dublin, where he received the submit 
 sidns of O'Rourke and of the chiefs of Leinster and Uriel. 
 Hugo de Lacy and William Fitz-Adelm were sent to meet 
 Roderic at the Shannon, and the monarch of Ireland acknow- 
 ledged himself a tributary and vassal of the King of England. 
 Ulster still held out ; for the submission of the nominal head 
 king can in no way be held to bind the chiefs, much less the 
 people, of his own province, and certainly not those of all 
 Ireland. Giraldus does not venture to advance any such 
 theory, and yet Hooker, who translated his work in Elizabeth's
 
 48 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 III. 
 
 Henry's 
 warlike 
 prepara- 
 tions. He 
 distrusts 
 the adven- 
 turers. 
 
 time, coolly interpolates the statement that ' by him and his 
 submission all the residue of the whole land became the 
 King's subjects, and submitted themselves.' The synod 
 which met at Cashel under the legate's presidency did what 
 was possible for the Church to do in strengthening Henry's 
 pretensions. The King held a court at Dublin during the 
 winter of 1171 and 1172. His temporary palace, erected 
 outside the walls on the ground now occupied by the southern 
 side of Dame Street, was built of polished wicker-work, after 
 the manner of the country. Here he kept Christmas in 
 state, and in\ itei the Irish chiefs to share his feast. They 
 admired the King's grandeur, and were by him persuaded to 
 eat crane's flesh, which the Normans thought a delicacy, but 
 which the Irish had hitherto loathed. The winter was so 
 stormy that there was scarcely any communication with 
 England, and Henry's pleasure in his new acquisition must 
 have been darkened by the sense of impending retribution for 
 the recent murder of Becket. 
 
 From the preparation which he made for the invasion of 
 Ireland, it seems clear that the King profoundly distrusted the 
 adventurers who had insisted on winning him a new realm. 
 Vast stores of provisions, a great number of handmills, 
 artisans for building bridges, horses, and tools for building or 
 trenching, might indeed have been required for a war against 
 the natives. But the Irish had no fortresses, and wooden 
 castles, of which we also read, can only have been intended 
 for attacking the port-towns which Earl Richard had pro- 
 mised to give the King, and which were already in Norman 
 hands. Henry saw enough of Ireland to know that he had 
 really nothing to fear from the adventurers. DermodMac- 
 Murrough was dead before his arrival, and it was clear that 
 Earl Richard would have enough to do in maintaining his 
 wife's monstrous claim without doing anything to offend his 
 own sovereign. 
 
 When, therefore, shortly before Easter, 1172, news came 
 from Aquitaine and Normandy that the legates were on their 
 way to inquire into the Canterbury tragedy, Henry lost no 
 time in appointing Hugode Lacy his representative at Dublin,
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY II. 49 
 
 and in arranging for the safe keeping of Waterford and CHAP. 
 
 Wexford. He sailed from the latter port on Easter Monday ^ 
 
 1172, having been in Ireland exactly six months. 1 
 
 Before leaving the country Henry granted to Hugo de Henry 
 Lacy all the territory of Meath, by the service of fifty knights. j^ s ^J 
 This included Westmeath, with parts of King's County and ?[ an ,^ , 
 Longford, and was about 800,000 acres in extent. De Lacyj De Lacy. 
 to whom Hoveden gives the title of justiciar, must be con- 
 sidered as the first Viceroy of Ireland, and he lost no time 
 in advancing a claim which, if successful, would make him 
 one of the most important vassals of the Crowm Tiernan 
 O'liourke, the one-eyed King of Meath, consented to meet 
 the Pretender at the Hill of Ward. The conference ended in 
 a quarrel, and O'Rourke was killed. Giraldus charges treason 
 upon the Irishman, and the Irish annalists charge it upon the 
 Norman. The important point is that De Lacy was able to 
 make head against the Irish, and that a powerful Norman 
 colony was established by him in the fertile central tract of 
 Ireland. Earl Richard was rather less successfully engaged 
 in fighting for Leinster, which Henry had granted him by 
 the service of one hundred knights, when he was summoned 
 to Normandy, where he did such good service that the King 
 made him Viceroy in De Lacy's room. This was in 1173. 
 It was in the next year, or perhaps in 1175, that Henry had 
 the bulls or privileges of Adrian IV. and Alexander III. pro- 
 mulgated in Ireland. We can hardly suppose that they were 
 previously unknown to the clergy, who so manifestly favoured 
 the Anglo-Normans all through. Perhaps the King's main 
 object in publishing them at this time was to make his own 
 peace with Rome, by ostentatiously announcing that he held 
 Ireland of the tiara, and not in right of his 'own sword. 
 
 When Earl Richard returned to Ireland he found that Difficulties 
 he had lost ground. The Irish were beginning to re- venturers* 
 cover confidence, and Hervey and Raymond were quarrel- 
 ling bitterly* The latter was the favourite of the soldiers, 
 who insisted on having him for leader, and he gained some 
 
 1 The details of Henry's preparations may be studied in Sweetman's 
 Calendar of Documents. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, successes over the Danes of Cork and over the MacCarthys. 
 
 ^- ' Believing himself worthy of the highest rewards, Raymond 
 
 asked for the Constableship of Leinster, and for the hand of 
 Basilia, the earl's sister. The new Viceroy was disinclined 
 to grant these terms, and Raymond, whose father had just 
 died, went over to Wales to look after his old inheritance. 
 Hervey thus became second in command, and planned a 
 campaign in concert with the Dublin garrison. Earl Richard 
 accompanied him to Cashel, but the intended junction was 
 not effected. Donald O'Brien's homage to Henry II. did 
 not prevent him from hindering his representative, and at 
 Thurles he surprised and totally defeated the Dublin division. 
 No less than 400 Danes are said by Giraldus to have fallen, 
 which shows that a portion of that nation had accepted the 
 alliance of their Teutonic kindred. The O'Briens were aided 
 by a large contingent from Connaught, but it does not 
 appear that Roderic was himself present. The immediate 
 result of this defeat was the recall of Raymond and his mar- 
 riage to Basilia. He easily put down a partial revolt of the 
 Waterford and Wexford Danes ; and, finding himself indis- 
 pensable, remained at Wexford until his bride was brought 
 to him. The honeymoon was scarcely begun when news 
 came that Roderic was wasting Meath, and had penetrated 
 nearly to Dublin. Raymond hastened thither, and the Con- 
 naught men retired before him. Castles, according to Giral- 
 dus, were already built at Trim and Duleek ; but they had 
 not proved strong enough to resist Roderic, and Raymond's first 
 care was to restore and strengthen them. The adventurers, 
 most of whom were already nearly related, were still more 
 closely united by the marriage of Hervey to Raymond's sister 
 Nesta, and of Earl Richard's daughter Aline to William Fitz- 
 gerald* 
 
 The advcn- Donald O'Brien was not left long to enjoy his victory. 
 
 lolioM* 1 ' Limerick was taken by a sudden onslaught under Raymond, 
 
 Limerick. an( j ^ e bounds of the colony were advanced as far as they 
 
 William 
 
 I- itx-Adeim had yet been. Raymond still lingered on the Shannon, 
 
 roy. where he received a loving letter from his wife, in which she 
 
 informed him ( that the great molar tooth, which had been
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY II. 51 
 
 hurting her so much, had now fallen out.' He could not CHAP. 
 
 ill. 
 read, but his chaplain secretly imparted the contents of the -^ 
 
 paper, and he guessed that Basilia alluded to the death of 
 her brother, who had been for some time ill. He hurried to 
 Dublin, and found that Earl Richard was indeed dead. Death of 
 Deprived of their leader, and probably hard pressed by the 
 Irish, the Normans thought it prudent to evacuate Limerick. 
 It was surrendered to Donald O'Brien, who set fire to the 
 city in four places as soon as they were gone. When the King 
 heard of this he remarked that the abandonment of Limerick 
 was the only wise thing that had been done concerning it. 
 The Normans chose Raymond their governor in Earl Richard's 
 room ; but he was quickly superseded by William Fitz-Adelm 
 de Burgh, whom Henry sent over as Viceroy with large 
 powers. 
 
 According to Giraldus, the new governor did all in his 
 power to depress the adventurers of Nesta's stock. Ray- theadveu 
 mond came to meet him with a chosen band of his relations lurers * 
 and friends finely mounted and armed. Instead of being 
 conciliated, the Viceroy muttered to his suite, ' I will soon 
 cut short this pride and disperse these shields.' According 
 to the same authority, he took advantage of the death of 
 Maurice Fitzgerald to defraud that leader's children. Giral- 
 dus is partial, but it is easy to see that official governors Were 
 from the first jealous of the local magnates, and were dis- 
 posed to engross all influence. Fitz-Adelm did little or 
 nothing to increase the Norman power in Ireland, and he 
 was recalled in 1177. 
 
 In October 1175, not long before the death of Earl Treaty 
 Richard, Henry II. made a treaty with Roderic O'Connor, Henrv IT. 
 which must be understood as a kind of declaration of policy. 
 The commissaries who attended at Windsor on Roderic's part 
 were Catholicus, or Keyly O'Duffy, Archbishop of Tuam, the 
 Abbot of Ardfert, and the King of Connaught's Brehon, 
 whom Giraldus calls his Chancellor. The Archbishop of 
 Dublin, St. Lawrence O'Toole, was among the witnesses to 
 the instrument by which Henry granted < to his liege man 
 Roderic, King of Connaught, as long as he should serve 
 
 K 2
 
 52 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, faithfully, to be King under him, ready to serve him as his 
 
 r^ ' man, and to hold his land well and peacefully, as he held it 
 
 before the King of England's entry into Ireland, paying him 
 tribute.' Should he be unable to maintain his authority, the 
 King's forces were to help him. The tribute was to be one in 
 every ten marketable hides. Roderic was not to meddle with 
 those lands which the King held in his own hands, or in those 
 of his barons : that is to say, Dublin with its appurtenances ; 
 Meath with its appurtenances, in as ample a manner as 
 Murchat O'Melaghlin had held it ; Wexford with its appur- 
 tenances, and all Leinster ; Waterford and Dungarvan with 
 its appurtenances, and all the lands between the two places. 
 Irish fugitives willing to return into the King's land were to 
 have peace on paying the aforesaid tribute, ' or by performing 
 the ancient accustomed services for their lands.' Those who 
 would not return were to be coerced by the King of Con- 
 naught, who was to take hostages from all whom the King 
 granted to him, and to give hostages on his own part wher- 
 ever the King required him. No refugees from the King's 
 lands were to be entertained by Irishmen under any pretence. 
 At the same time, as if to mark the fact that Irishmen were 
 his own subjects as well as Normans, Henry appointed 
 Augustine O'Sealbhaigh to the bishopric of Waterford, and 
 sent him, in charge of the Archbishop of Dublin, to be conse- 
 crated by the Archbishop of Cashel. This was a confirmation 
 of the Eugenian constitution, and put an end to the succes- 
 sion of the Danish bishops through Canterbury. Henry 
 had no wish to have future Beckets interfering in Ireland. 
 Canterbury was near and Rome was far. 
 
 Henry's The treaty with Roderic, if we accept it as Hoveden and 
 
 policy frus- Benedict have handed it down, shows that a full conquest 
 of Ireland was not intended by Henry II. The pos- 
 session of the port-towns gave him the command of St. 
 George's Channel, and a control over the trade of the island. 
 He had seen enough to know that a permanent conquest was 
 beyond the power of a feudal army, and his policy was to 
 balance the adventurers, his own creation De Lacy, and the 
 native princes against each other. Fitz-Adelm, a subtle
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY II. 53 
 
 intriguer with an eye for money, probably seemed a fitter CHAP. 
 
 instrument for his purpose than any enterprising soldier. ^ 
 
 But Fitz-Adelm brought with him to Ireland one of those 
 restless and unscrupulous men of action, who sometimes 
 disconcert the best laid plans of statesmen. John De Courcy 
 is represented by Giraldus as a tall, fair man, of immense 
 strength and extraordinary audacity, an experienced warrior, 
 though often more of a partisan than a general ; but religious 
 in his way, and ever ready to ascribe to God the glory of any 
 successful exploit. He was the patron of the monk Jocelin, 
 who wove such a tangled web about St. Patrick, and he 
 carried with him everywhere a tract of St. Columba, which 
 was supposed to point him out as the destined conqueror of 
 Ulster. Seeing that neither gain nor glory could be had 
 under the Viceroy, De Courcy, in January 1177, boldly 
 marched into Ulster with twenty-two knights and 300 chosen 
 men. Among the knights were Almaric St. Lawrence, 
 ancestor of the Howth family, and Roger le Poer, apparently 
 a collateral ancestor of the Powers and Eustaces. In the 
 course of a year or two, though by no means always suc- 
 cessful in battle, De Couroy made himself supreme in eastern 
 Ulster. Where they had the advantage of the ground, 
 the natives were too much for the adventurers; but in a 
 fair field a hundred Normans, at least under such a leader 
 as De Couroy, were more than a match for 1,000 Irish. 
 Discipline and steadiness soon gave them the coast, and the 
 castles which they built everywhere enabled them to make 
 war or peace as they pleased. Downpatrick was John de 
 Courcy's capital. 
 
 O'Donlevy, chief king of Uladh, or that part of Ulster now DC Courcy 
 comprised in Antrim and Down, had done homage to Henry II., jj, d Lacv 
 
 and imagined that he would be thus secured from invasion. V*% 1 *- 
 . building. 
 
 But the King evidently understood the matter differently, for 
 De Courcy had a grant from him of such northern lands as 
 he could conquer. Fitz-Adelm having failed as a Viceroy, 
 Henry now fell back upon Hugo de Lacy, who perhaps dreamed 
 of making himself independent. He distinguished himself 
 by good government from 1177 to 1181, and by showing
 
 54 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, favour to the Irish ; and he married a daughter of 
 
 * ^ O'Connor without the King's consent. Henry accordingly 
 
 sent for De Lacy to England, and gave the viceregal authority 
 to John, Constable of Chester. The Lord of Meath succeeds I 
 in making his peace, and was soon restored to the govern- 
 ment ; Robert of Salisbury, a priest, being sent as a spy upon 
 him. De Lacy covered his own district with castles, Trim 
 being his capital. Delvin he granted to William Nugent, 
 his sister Rose's husband, who became the ancestor of the 
 Earls of Westmeath. Other estates he gave to his friends 
 and followers, who founded many of the families of the Pale. 
 The Flemings, Lords of Slane, became the most important of 
 these. Other barons followed the example of De Lacy ; and 
 Giraldus mentions that by the year 1182 castles were built 
 at or near New r town Barry, Castle Dermot, Leighlin, Timahoe, 
 Athy, Narragh, and other places. The Meath castles, says 
 the chronicler, were too many to mention by name. 
 John desig- As early as 1177 Henry had nominated his son John 
 King of King of Ireland. For this he had the leave of Alexander III., 
 Ireland. an( j j n HQQ Urban III. actually sent a crown of peacock's 
 feathers set in gold for the King to crown one of his sons, 
 the choice being left to him. The intervening Pope, Lucius 
 III., had opposed the plan, and this may have been the 
 reason why it was never carried out. Or the King may have 
 hesitated to repeat even in John's favour an experiment 
 which had succeeded so ill in the case of his eldest son. 
 The Oxford nomination of 1177 was allowed to take effect 
 only so as to constitute John Lord of Ireland, and this title 
 was afterwards assumed by the Kings of England. In the 
 sixteenth century it was by some taken as evidence that the 
 crown in Ireland was subject to the popes. But the idea of 
 a separate, though subordinate, kingdom was very nearly 
 realised. The acts of the colony were from the date of the 
 Oxford Council executed in the name of 'John, Lord of 
 Ireland, son of the King of England,' and the first Anglo- 
 Norman coinage bore his face. 
 
 John sent On March 31, 1185, the King knighted John at Windsor, 
 
 s viceroy. an d on April 24 the latter, who was in his nineteenth year,
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY II. 55 
 
 sailed from Milford Haven, with 300 knights and a large CHAP, 
 body of troops. The expedition reached Waterford in safety ,-X- 
 next day, and the neighbouring chiefs flocked to do honour 
 to the King's son, and to give him the kiss of peace. The 
 Anglo-Norman courtiers young men mostly pulled their 
 long beards, and they at once departed to the hostile chiefs, 
 Roderic O'Connor, Donnell O'Brien, and Dermod MacCarthy. 
 All chance of conciliating the more powerful and distant 
 potentates was thus taken away. Giraldus Cambrensis was 
 present at Waterford, and he likens John to Rehoboam. The 
 Irish, who had adhered to the invaders since Fitz-Stephen's 
 first landing, were deprived of their lands ; the castles were 
 given up to favourites, who did nothing but eat, drink, and 
 plunder ; the worst officers were put in the best places, and 
 the men, as a natural consequence, were as bad as their 
 masters, devoted to Venus and Bacchus, but neglectful of 
 Mars. Hoveden adds that John put all the profits of govern- 
 ment into his own pocket, and that his soldiers being unpaid 
 were useless in war. The three castles projected by his 
 father were built; but he lost many to the Irish, and De 
 Lacy was suspected of intriguing against him. It is clear 
 that there could be no confidence in a prince whose chief care 
 was to rob and displace the men who had won his principality 
 for him. The disastrous experiment lasted only eight months, 
 when John returned to England, leaving the government to 
 John de Courcy, who retained power until the death of 
 Henry II. The Lough Ce annalists, who wrote beyond the 
 Shannon, give the following account of John's expedition : 
 ' The son of the King of the Saxons came to assume the 
 sovereignty of Erin .... afterwards he went across to com- 
 plain of Hugo de Lacy to his father ; for it was Hugo de 
 Lacy that was King of Erin when the son of the King of the 
 Saxons came, and he permitted not the men of Erin to give 
 tribute or hostages to him.' To the Irish bordering on Meath 
 no doubt De Lacy seemed a veritable king. The Four Masters, 
 who were better acquainted with the English theory of 
 government, repeat this ; but soften Hugo's title of king into 
 that of the King of England's deputy.
 
 56 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. In or out of office, De Lacy continued to increase his do- 
 
 III. . . 
 
 minion in Meath, but his career was cut short not long after 
 
 J nn ' 8 departure. Having encroached upon the lands of the 
 Lacy. The O'Caharneys, he was murdered while building a castle at 
 tinues to Durrow by a foster-relation of the injured clan. His death 
 was a great blow to the colonists, but his son Hugo succeeded 
 to scarcely diminished power, and is accused by Giraldus of 
 systematically thwarting De Courcy. Fitz-Stephen mean- 
 while was carving out a principality in Munster, where he 
 would be tolerably free from official interference. He and 
 Milo de Cogan were joint grantees of Cork, and the latter 
 married his daughter Catherine to Maurice, son of Raymond 
 le Gros, to whom Dermod MacCarthy had given a portion of 
 North Kerry. From this alliance the Fitzmaurices sprung. 
 It is probable that in granting the land of the O'Connors to 
 a stranger, Dermod gave that over which he had no real 
 authority. The territory immediately round the city of Cork 
 was divided between Fitz-Stephen and Cogan, the former 
 taking that lying to the east, and the latter that lying to the 
 west. Fitz-Stephen's share passed to his sister's son, 
 Philip de Barry. Before the death of Henry II. the country 
 about Cork was studded with castles, but it is impossible to 
 say how far it was really conquered. Intermarriages with the 
 Irish were no doubt common from the first. The example set 
 by Strongbow and by Hugo de Lacy was not likely to want 
 imitators. 
 
 The conquest of Ireland by Henry II., as it used to be 
 called, amounts on the whole to this. The coast from 
 Larne to Cork harbour was, at the date of the King's death, 
 strongly held by the invaders, all the ports being in their 
 hands, and the principal points being defended by castles. 
 They were also pretty firmly established on the south side of the 
 Shannon estuary. The rivers of Leinster were in their hands, 
 and the central plain almost, if not quite as far west as the 
 Shannon. De Courcy had begun to assert his dominion over 
 Monaghan and Armagh. All the Danish towns except 
 Limerick were fully possessed by the conquerors. On the 
 other hand, the Irish were not expelled from any part of the 
 
 under 
 ^ '
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENEY II. 57 
 
 island. The mountains which extend almost uninterruptedly CHAP. 
 
 from Dublin to Waterford still sheltered the O'Tooles, the < ^ 
 
 O'Byrnes, the MacMurroughs, the 'Nolans, and other clans. 
 Fitz-Stephen had begun the conquest of what is now the 
 county of Cork, but the Irish were still in force on all sides of 
 the city. The natives generally had recovered in some degree 
 from their first alarm. The first invaders had been trained in 
 mountain warfare, but those who succeeded them were often 
 quite unfit to dispute the possession of hills and woods with 
 the light-armed natives. And there were jealousies between 
 Normans, English, and Welsh, which went far to neutralise the 
 strength of the colony. Had it not been for the dissensions of 
 the Irish themselves, it is probable that they would have con- 
 fined the invaders to the east coast. It was a quarrel between 
 Dermod MacCarthy and his son which brought the Geraldines 
 to Kerry; disputes among the O'Connors introduced De 
 Cogan, De Lacy, and De Courcy into Connaught ; and, 
 though they effected nothing, they paved the way for the De 
 Burgos, to whose founder, William Fitz-Adelm, Henry granted 
 the whole of the western province. The King's troubles with 
 his own sons, with the Holy See, and with France, prevented 
 him from attending to Ireland. It would have been better 
 for the peace of mankind had he made a real conquest, 
 instead of leaving it to barons, who lost much of their old 
 civilisation, and who disdained to learn anything from the 
 weaker people whom they oppressed. 1 
 
 1 In narrating the events of Henry II.'s reign, I have generally followed 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, checking him by references to Hoveden and Eegan. 
 The Expv.gna.tio may be considered a fanciful book in some ways. But if 
 we eliminate everj'thing supernatural, and make some allowance for the 
 writer's prejudices, I see no reason to question his good faith. Of the 
 native Irish he knew little, but the invaders were his neighbours, friends, 
 and relations. Fitz-Stephen and the other descendants of Nesta may be 
 unduly praised, Fitz-Adelm perhaps unduly blamed ; but, after all, this is 
 no more than may be said against most historians of their own times, 
 Giraldus was undoubtedly an observer of first-rate power.
 
 58 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FROM JOHN'S VISIT IN 1210 TILL THE INVASION BY 
 THE BRUGES IN 1315. 
 
 RICHARD I. did not interfere with his brother's jurisdiction 
 over Ireland, and this may be the reason why the records of 
 the colony during his reign are so scanty. The invaders, 
 though they fought a good deal among themselves, continued 
 to extend their power, and gained a firm footing in Con- 
 naught. Some years before the death of Henry II., Roderic's 
 sons had invited the Anglo-Normans into his kingdom, and 
 in 1183 the last monarch of Ireland retired to the abbey of 
 Cong, where he died in 1198. His brother Cathal Crovdearg, 
 or Charles of the Red Hand, about whom many marvellous 
 stories are told, ultimately made himself supreme; but not 
 without the help of William Fitz-Adelm, who lost no oppor- 
 tunity of advancing the claim given him by Henry's 
 thoroughly unjustifiable grant. Fitz-Adelm, who had made 
 himself master of Limerick, at first opposed Cathal Crovdearg, 
 but joined him in 1201 and enabled him to triumph over all 
 competitors. The accession of John to the crown of England 
 put an end to the separate lordship of Ireland, but his suc- 
 cessors, until the time of Henry VIII., continued to call 
 themselves only lords of Ireland. If Berengaria had had 
 children, it is possible, and even probable, that Ireland 
 would have passed to John's issue as a separate, or at the 
 most a tributary kingdom. The early years of John's reign 
 were much disturbed by a violent feud between the De Lacies 
 and De Courcy. The King favoured the former party, and 
 in 1205 created the younger Hugo Earl of Ulster and 
 Viceroy. He proved an oppressive governor, over-taxing the 
 King's subjects to provide means for his foreign enterpri:-^.
 
 RICHARD I. TO EDWARD II. 59 
 
 The southern colonists, in alliance with some of the natives, CHAP. 
 
 defeated the Viceroy near Thurles, and the King began to fear , * 
 
 that he had given too much power to one family ; for Walter 
 de Lacy continued to rule Meath, while his brother was all- 
 powerful in the north and east. A royal army was accord- 
 ingly levied, and John prepared to revisit the lordship where 
 he had so signally failed twenty-five years before. 
 
 The excommunicated King sailed from Mil ford Haven King John 
 with a motley army of mercenaries, under command of h-eiand. 
 Fair Rosamond's son, William Long- sword, and landed on 
 June 20, 1210, at the same place as his father had done. 
 Among his train were John de Grey, Bishop of Norwich, 
 whom Innocent III. had refused to make Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, and John de Courcy, who had been captured and 
 given up by the De Lacies, and who had suffered a rigorous 
 imprisonment, but was now again in favour with the King. 
 John did not let the grass grow under his feet. On the 
 eighth day after his arrival he was at Dublin, having travelled 
 by Ross, Thomastown, Kilkenny, and Naas. The first effect 
 of his presence was to separate the two De Lacies, and the 
 Lord of Meath sent him the following message : ' Walter 
 salutes the King as his liege lord, of whom he holds all he 
 possesses ; and prays the King to relax his ire, and suffer 
 Walter to approach his presence ; Walter will not plead 
 against the King, but places all his castles and lands in the 
 hands of the King as his lord, to retain or restore as he 
 pleases.' The messenger added that Walter had lost much 
 by his brother Hugo, and that he left him to the King's 
 pleasure. It is possible that this was said in consequence of 
 an arrangement between the two brothers. John was not 
 pacified, and prepared to invade both Meath and Ulster, 
 Trim was reached by July 2, and Kells by the 4th, and the 
 Kings of Connaught and Thomond were summoned to take 
 part in the expedition to Ulster. Cathal Crovdearg and 
 Donough O'Brien both obeyed the King's order, and the 
 royal army proceeded by Dundalk, Carlingford, and Down- 
 patrick to Carrickfergus. The latter place was taken and 
 garrisoned. Hugo de Lacy had already fled into Scotland,
 
 60 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. The King stayed eight or nine days at Carrickfergus, where 
 - ^ ' he was visited by Hugh O'Neill, who does not appear to have 
 made any real submission, and then marched by Holywood, 
 Downpatrick, Banbridge, and Carlingford to Drogheda. From 
 Drogheda he again entered Meath, visited Duleek and Kells, 
 and seems to have penetrated as far west as Granard. He 
 was in Dublin by August 18, and back to England before 
 the end of the month, having spent sixty-six days in Ireland. 
 On his return from Ulster he had summoned Cathal Crovdearg 
 a second time, bidding him bring his son ' to receive a charter 
 for the third part of Connaught.' Over-persuaded by his wife. 
 Cathal went to the King alone. John's object may have been 
 to make a hostage of the boy, and he seized instead Mac- 
 Dermot of Moylurg, O'Hara of Sligo, and two other men of 
 importance in Connaught. Carrying these chiefs with him 
 to England, the King left the government of Ireland to 
 Bishop de Grey, who signalised his advent to power by 
 building a castle and bridge at Athlone. William de Braose, 
 who had enormous estates in Ireland, was driven into exile 
 by John, who starved his wife and son to death, and gave 
 his castle of Carrigogunnel on the Shannon to Donough 
 O'Brien. 
 
 The Anglo- The Anglo-Norman barons of Ireland flocked to Dublin 
 flockTo'the while John was there, and swore to obey the laws of England. 
 
 erects He ^e -^ n divided their country into twelve counties : Dublin, 
 twelve Kildare, Meath, Uriel or Louth, Carlow, Kilkenny, and Wex- 
 ford in Leinster ; and Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and 
 Tipperary in Munster. Every knight's fee was bound to 
 supply a well-armed horseman, and inferior tenants were 
 bound to provide foot-soldiers. The Viceroy was to give a 
 notice of forty days when the feudal array was to muster at 
 Dublin, and serve against the King's enemies for forty days in 
 each year. Ulster and Connaught were not shired, but were 
 afterwards sometimes regarded as counties. Perhaps the 
 nobles of these provinces were supposed to be constantly 
 employed against the Irish. The native chiefs were con- 
 sidered as tributary subjects, but not as tenants. In 1215 
 John ordered the Archbishop of Dublin to buy enough scarlet
 
 RICHARD I. TO EDWARD II. 61 
 
 cloth to make robes for the Kings of Ireland ; and it is clear CHAP. 
 
 IV. 
 that they were expected to serve, though the exact measure ^ 
 
 of the aid rendered may have been left to themselves. 
 
 When Strongbow died without a son the principality of ^. ei ?, st ^ r ^ 
 Leinster fell to his eldest daughter Isabel, who became a after Earl 
 ward of the Crown. In 1189 the minor was given in mar- death, 
 riage to William Earl Marshal, who thus became Earl of 
 Pembroke and Strigul, and lord of a territory in Ireland, cor- 
 responding nearly to the counties of Wexford, Kildare, Car- 
 low, Kilkenny, and part of the Queen's County. He built a 
 castle and incorporated a town at Kilkenny, and died in 1219, 
 transmitting his honours and great power to his son William. 
 The younger William was Viceroy in 1224, and depressed 
 the De Lacies, allying himself generally with Cathal Crov- 
 dearg O'Connor. He died in 1231, leaving all to his brother 
 Richard, who made good his position, although Henry III.'s 
 foreign advisers plotted his destruction. Strongbow's grand- 
 son was killed in 1234 by the feudatories who were bound 
 to defend him, and the colony never recovered the blow. 
 
 Fitz-Adelm's son, Richard de Burgo, generally called TheDe 
 MacWilliam by the Irish, married Una, Cathal Crovdearg's ctonnau 
 grand-daughter, and procured from Henry III. a grant of all 
 Connaught, except five cantreds reserved for the support of 
 the post at Athlone. From the first the position of the Anglo- 
 Normans in Connaught differed from their position^in other 
 parts of Ireland. They were there rather as allies of the 
 native chiefs than as conquerors, and the easy lapse of their 
 descendants into Irish habits is the less to be wondered at. 
 Richard de Burgo obtained a confirmation of his grant in 1226, 
 through the favour of his kinsman, the great justiciar, Hubert, 
 and he soon afterwards made himself master of Galway, 
 which he fortified strongly, and made the chief place of Con- 
 naught. After his time the O'Connors never regained pos- 
 session of it, and the importance of the royal tribe steadily 
 diminished during the whole of the thirteenth century. 
 Richard de Burgo's eldest son Walter married Maud, 
 daughter and heiress of the younger Hugo de Lacy, who 
 died in 1243, and he thus became Earl of Ulster as well as
 
 62 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 en \r. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Poverty of 
 the colony 
 under 
 Henry III. 
 
 Edward 1. 
 had not 
 time to 
 attend to 
 Ireland 
 personally. 
 
 Lord of Connauglit. His son Richard, commonly called the 
 Red Earl, advanced the power of the Anglo-Norman state to 
 the furthest point which it ever attained. 
 
 Constant war is not favourable to the production of wealth, 
 and it seems probable that no very considerable progress was 
 made in the arts of peace. Tallage was first imposed on 
 Ireland in 1217, in the name of Henry III., but it seems to 
 have yielded little, and a generation later there was equal 
 difficulty in collecting a tithe for the Pope. Innocent IV. 
 ordered that a sum should be so raised for the liberation of 
 the Holy Land, and very stringent letters were sent to Ire- 
 land in 1254; but collector Lawrence Sumercote declared 
 that the difficulties were insuperable. The Irish, he explained, 
 never saved anything, but lived riotously and gave liberally 
 to all, and he professed that he would ' rather be imprisoned 
 than crucified any longer in Ireland for the business of the 
 Cross.' The plan of drawing upon Ireland for English or 
 Continental wars was, however, largely practised during the 
 reign of Henry III., and it tended to sap the strength of the 
 colony. Ready money might be scarce, but there were men, 
 and they could be ill-spared from the work of defending their 
 lands against a native race who were ever on the watch to 
 take advantage of their absence or neglect. 
 
 A vast number of documents remain to show that Edward I. 
 took great pains about Ireland. Phelim O'Connor, who died 
 in 1265, may be regarded as the last King of Connaught. 
 His son Hugh did indeed assume the title, and, according to 
 the annalists, ' executed his royal depredations on the men of 
 Offaly, where he committed many burnings and killings ;' but 
 his kingship does not appear to have been officially recognised, 
 and the De Burgos were the true rulers. The Red Earl was 
 supreme in the northern half of Ireland ; but O'Neill was 
 recognised as King of Tyrone, while his claim to be head of 
 all the Irish in Ireland was denied. O'Cahan was also some- 
 times given the title of king. O'Donnell was treated with 
 less respect, and a price was set upon his head, which appears 
 to have been actually brought to Dublin in 1283. In 1281 
 Hugh Boy O'Neill, whom the annalists call ' royal heir of all
 
 RICHARD I. TO EDWARD II. 63 
 
 Erin, head of the hospitality and valour of the Gael/ sided 
 with the English against Donnell Oge O'Donnell, who is called 
 ' King of the north, the best G ael for hospitality and dignity ; 
 the general guardian of the west of Europe, and the knitting- 
 needle of the arch sovereignty, and the rivetting hammer of 
 every good law, and the top-nut of the Gael in valour.' A 
 battle was fought near Dungannon, and O'Donnell, who had 
 under him the O'Rourkes and MacMahons, and ' nearly the 
 majority of the Irish of Connaught and Ulster,' was defeated 
 and slain. Two years later Hugh Boy was killed by the 
 MacMahons. The story of this contest is a good illustration 
 of the hopeless incapacity of the natives for anything like a 
 national combination. If Edward I. had been able to attend 
 to Ireland personally, it is at least probable that he would 
 have conquered the country as completely as Wales. 
 
 In 1275, Edward granted the whole of Thomond to Frequency 
 Thomas de Clare, who took advantage of the dissensions amongthe 
 among the O'Briens, and built the strong castle of Bunratty colomsts - 
 to dominate the district. The conquest of Thomond was, 
 however, never completed, or nearly completed, nor did the 
 De Clares succeed in establishing themselves like the De 
 Burgos. They might have done so had they not come so late 
 into the field, and their failure was certainly not owing to 
 any exceptional power of combination shown by the Irish. 
 It was rather due to quarrels among the colonists, whose 
 strength was being constantly sapped by taking part in 
 Edward's Scotch wars, and who were not recruited by any- 
 considerable immigration. In 1245, the male line of the 
 Earl Marshal was finally extinguished, and the inheritance 
 of Strongbow fell to five sisters, the great grand-daughters of 
 Dermod MacMurrough. Matilda, the eldest, obtained Carlow 
 and carried the hereditary office of Earl Marshal to her 
 husband, Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk. Joan, the second, 
 received Wexford. Isabella, the third, had Kilkenny, which 
 her descendants sold to the Ormonde family. Sibilla, the 
 fourth, had Kildare for her share. Eva, the youngest sister, 
 married William De Braose ; and through her daughter, who 
 was married to Roger Mortimer, became ancestress of most of
 
 64 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Edward I. 
 the a coi"ny 
 
 supplies 
 
 the royal houses of Europe. As the five daughters of William 
 Earl Marshal were all married, and had all children, the history 
 of Leinster becomes very confusing. Had it remained in one 
 strong hand the Irish would hardly have recovered their 
 ground. But, as Giraldus points out, the ' four great pillars 
 of the conquest, Fitz-Stephen, Hervey, Raymond, and John 
 de Courcy, by the hidden but never unjust judgment of God, 
 were not blessed with any legitimate offspring.' A similar 
 fatality attended many others, including Earl Richard, to 
 whom, and not to Fitz-Stephen, common fame, more true in 
 this case than contemporary history, has attributed the real 
 leadership among the Anglo-Norman invaders of Ireland. 
 
 In his great campaign of 1296 Edward had much help 
 from Ireland. The Earl of Ulster was among those who led 
 contingents to Scotland, and the names of Power, Butler, 
 Fitzthomas, Wogan, Rocheford, Purcell, Cantoke, and Barry 
 appear among the leaders. The whole force from Ireland 
 consisted of 310 men-at-arms, 266 hobelers or horsemen 
 with unarmoured horses, and 2,576 foot, including many 
 archers and cross-bowmen. All who went received pardons, 
 but some refused or neglected to obey the royal summons. 
 In 1298 Edward drew provisions from Ireland. His requi- 
 sition included 8,000 quarters of wheat, chiefly fine flour in 
 casks ; 10,000 quarters of oats ; much bran, bacon, salt beef, 
 and salt fish ; and 10,000 casks of wine. If so much wine 
 could not be got in Ireland, then the Viceroy was to agree 
 with some merchant to bring it from Gascony as quick as 
 possible. Edward used Ireland as a base for operations, or as 
 a recruiting ground, but he never had time to give it much 
 of his personal care. First Wales, then Gascony, then 
 Palestine, then Scotland engrossed his vast energies; but 
 Ireland was left to herself. Without the means to keep order 
 themselves, Viceroys found it necessary to preserve the colony 
 by stirring up dissensions among the Irish. The justiciar, 
 Robert d'Ufford, was sent for by Edward and charged with 
 this evil policy. He answered, .that to save the King's 
 coffers, and to keep the peace, he thought it expedient to 
 wink at one knave cutting off another. ' Whereat,' says
 
 'RICHARD I. TO EDWARD II. . 65 
 
 an old author, ' the King; smiled, and bade him return to CHAP. 
 
 IV. 
 Ireland.' , -' 
 
 John's imperfect partition of Ireland into shires was still Disorders 
 
 i f' jir t,hfi 
 
 more imperfectly carried out. At the death of Edward I. four death of 
 out of his grandfather's twelve counties namely, Meath, kdxvard ** 
 Wexford, Carlow, and Kilkenny were liberties or exempt 
 jurisdictions in the hands of what Davies calls ' absolute 
 palatines,' claiming and exercising almost every attribute of 
 sovereignty. The Fitzgeralds had acquired similar authority 
 over a portion of Desmond, and the De Clares over a portion 
 of Thomond. Connaught and Ulster were under the De 
 Burghs, in so far as they had been reduced at all, and Ros- 
 common was a royal castle and the head of a separate county. 
 At Randon on Lough Ree was another royal castle, and these 
 were almost the only strongholds of the Crown in Connaught ; 
 for Galway was quite subject to the De Burghs. Within 
 their palatinate jurisdictions, the great nobles made barons 
 and knights, appointed sheriffs, and executed justice. The 
 King's writ only ran in the Church lands, and was executed 
 by a separate sheriff. So complete was the distinction, that 
 in the mediaeval parliaments knights were separately returned 
 for the counties and for the ' crosses,' as the ecclesiastical 
 jurisdictions were called. The inherent weakness of such 
 a polity was probably aggravated by the suppression of the 
 Templars, who always kept a strong armed force. In 1308 
 Edward II. called for an account of their lands and revenues, 
 and the barons of the exchequer answered that they could 
 make no proper inquisition. ' On account,' they wrote, ' of 
 the long distances, and of the feuds between certain of the 
 magnates of Ireland, we do not dare to visit the places 
 named, and jurors of the country cannot come to us for the 
 same reason.' 
 
 Dissensions among the barons, caused by the weakness Reasons 
 and absence of the Crown, were one great cause of the decline Colony de 
 of the colony. Another was the policy of Edward I., which jjj^ ^ e 
 left him little time to attend to Ireland, and tempted him vade Ire - 
 constantly to draw supplies of men from thence. A third 
 was the battle of Bannockburn, which allowed victorious 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. Scotland to compete with England for the dominion of the 
 
 ' r^ ' neighbouring island ; and the Irish themselves were not slow 
 
 to adopt the principle that England's difficulty is Ireland's 
 opportunity. In 1315 Edward Bruce landed near Larne 
 with 6,000 men, including some of the best knights in Scot- 
 land. Having been joined by O'Neill and the chiefs depend- 
 ing on him, Bruce twice defeated the Red Earl of Ulster, 
 occupied the strongholds of Down and Antrim, and wintered 
 in Westmeath. In the spring he overthrew the Viceroy, Sir 
 Edmund Butler, at Ardscull, for the Earl of Ulster disdained 
 to serve under the King's representative, and the English 
 armies were therefore beaten in detaiL Bruce gained another 
 battle at Kells, wasted all northern Leinster, and then re- 
 turned to Carrickfergus, where he was joined by King Robert 
 with reinforcements. The Scots went almost where they 
 liked, and Robert Bruce is said to have heard mass at 
 Limerick on Palm Sunday, 1317. They did not cross the 
 Shannon, and seem not to have gone further south than 
 Cashel. Dublin was not attacked, though the invaders came 
 as near as Castleknock. On Easter Thursday, 1317, Roger 
 Mortimer landed at Youghal with 15,000 men and full 
 viceregal powers, and the Bruces retired before him into 
 Ulster. They had devastated the country, and lost many men 
 from the famine which they themselves had caused. 
 The Bruces The Bruces were descended from Strongbow and from 
 conquer Dermod MacMurrough, and Robert's wife was descended 
 Ireland. f rom R O( j er i c O'Connor. The true principles of hereditary 
 succession were not fully accepted, and they might pretend 
 some right to interfere in Ireland. They had been invited 
 by the De Lacies of Meath, who for want of male heirs saw 
 their territory divided between De Verdon and De Mortimer. 
 In the first flush of his victorious advance from the south, 
 Roger Mortimer called the De Lacies before him. They 
 refused to appear, and were proclaimed traitors, but con- 
 tinued to adhere to Edward Bruce's fortunes. The invader, 
 after his brother's departure, remained for more than a 
 year at Carrickfergus, in hopes of being able to take the 
 offensive again, and still retaining the title of King, which
 
 RICHARD I. TO EDWARD II. 67 
 
 he had assumed after his first successes. He had been so CHAP. 
 
 IV. 
 
 often victorious in battle that he despised the colonists, and, 
 against the advice of his Irish allies, resolved to fight once 
 more without waiting for reinforcements from Scotland. John 
 de Bermingham, at the head of an army which greatly outnum- 
 bered the Scots, forced an engagement between Faughard 
 and Dundalk, and Bruce and most of his officers were killed. 
 The remnant of his army, with Walter and Hugo de Lacy, 
 managed to escape to Scotland. The sovereignty of the 
 English Crown in Ireland was never again seriously dis- 
 puted ; but the feudal organisation was shattered by Bruce's 
 invasion, which did nothing to compose the differences al- 
 ready existing among the colonists. John de Bermingham 
 received a grant of Louth with the title of earl, but his 
 great services were soon forgotten, and eleven years after the 
 battle of Dundalk he was murdered by the English of his 
 own earldom. 
 
 English and Irish are agreed as to the cruelty and ferocity Horrible 
 of the Bruces. Clyn the Franciscan records, in terse and 
 vigorous Latin, that ' Robert Bruce, who bore himself as King 
 of the Scots, crossed Ireland from Ulster, where he landed, 
 almost to Limerick, burning, killing, plundering, and spoiling 
 towns, castles, and even churches, both going and returning.' 
 Clyn was an English partisan, but the same cannot be said 
 of the Lough Ce annalists, who record that ' Edward Bruce, 
 the destroyer of all Erin in general, both foreigners and 
 Gaels, was slain by the foreigners of Erin, through the power 
 of battle and bravery at Dundalk ; and MacRory, King of 
 the Hebrides, and MacDonnell, King of Argyll, together 
 with the men of Scotland, were slain there along with him ; 
 and no better deed for the men of all Erin was performed 
 since the beginning of the world, since the Formorian race 
 was expelled from Erin, than this deed ; for theft, and 
 famine, and destruction of men occurred throughout Erin 
 during his time for the space of three years and a half; and 
 people used to eat one another, without doubt, throughout 
 Erin.' 
 
 There can, however, be no doubt that Edward Bruce 
 
 F 2
 
 68 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, came to Ireland on the invitation of the Irish. Donnell 
 
 IV 
 
 i ^ O'Neill, claiming to be the true heir to the chief kingship, 
 
 The Irish an( j the other chiefs, in the famous remonstrance which they 
 
 fail to give " 
 
 the Bruces addressed to John XXII., informed that Pope that they felt 
 support. helpless for want of a leader, but were determined no longer 
 to submit like women to Anglo-Norman oppression, and that 
 they had therefore invited over 'the brother of the most 
 illustrious Lord Robert, by the grace of God King of the 
 Scots, and a descendant of the most noble of their own 
 ancestors,' and that they had by letters patent constituted 
 him king and lord. The blood of Roderic O'Connor and of 
 Eva evidently went for something, but the chiefs also believed 
 that Edward Bruce was ' a person of piety and prudence, of 
 a chaste and modest disposition, of great sobriety, and alto- 
 gether orderly and unassuming in his demeanour.' Scottish 
 historians are not entirely of the same opinion. It is in- 
 deed probable that Bruce had no other idea than to carve 
 out a kingdom with his sword, like a genuine Norman as he 
 was. He had the memory of Earl Richard, of Fitz-Stephen, 
 and of De Courcy to guide him; and if a more modern 
 instance was required, there could be none better than that 
 of his brother Robert.
 
 London*:
 
 D6V6T 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FROM THE INVASION OF THE BRUGES TO THE YEAR 1346. 
 
 THE Irish invited Bruce, but they made no regular or general 
 effort in his favour. Their total incapacity for anything like 
 national organisation had forbidden the idea of a native 
 sovereign, and perhaps the majority of them thought one united. 
 Norman baron no better than another. The year 1316, in n orsare R 
 which Bruce landed, witnessed the almost total destruction str^edlT 
 
 of the O'Connors, the tribe which had last held the chief the 
 
 l)e Burgo. c . 
 kingship. Their relationship with the De Burgos, Berm- 
 
 inghams, and other Anglo-Normans may be traced in great 
 detail in the annalists. Felim O'Connor, whom the Connaught 
 historiographers call undisputed heir presumptive to the 
 sovereignty of Erin, formed one of those great confederacies 
 which occur so frequently in Irish history, and which so 
 seldom had any results. The O'Kellys, MacDermods, 
 O'Maddens, O'Dowds, O'Haras, O'Kearneys, O'Farrells, 
 MacMahons, and many others were represented ; and the 
 Anglo-Normans, who also mustered in great force, were com- 
 manded by the Red Earl's brother, Sir William de Burgo, 
 and by Richard Bermingham, fourth baron of Athenry, at 
 the gate of which town the decisive struggle took place. The 
 Irish were defeated with the loss of something like 10,000 
 men. Felim O'Connor fell, and his tribe never recovered its 
 position in Connaught. In late times we have O'Connor Don 
 and O'Connor Roe in Roscommon, O'Connor Sligo, O'Connor 
 Kerry near the mouth of the Shannon, and O'Connor Faly 
 in what is now the King's County, but the De Burgos 
 became supreme in Connaught. 
 
 In other parts of Ireland the Celts were more successful. The Irish 
 In 1317 or 1318 the O'Carrolls gained a victory over Sir
 
 70 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Edmund Butler, but Clyn places his loss at about two hundred 
 only. More important was the battle of Disert O'Dea, in 
 which Richard de Clare was defeated and slain. This fight 
 destroyed the pretensions of the De Clares, and the O'Briens 
 remained supreme in Thomond as long as such supremacies 
 lasted anywhere. In Leinster, too, the Irish became more 
 and more troublesome, and Clyn unwillingly records successes 
 of the O'Nolans and O'Tooles over the Poers and other settlers. 
 The dissensions of the colonists were yet more fatal than the 
 prowess of the natives. Eva's descendants were for ever 
 fighting among themselves, and it was the Red Earl's 
 jealousy of Sir Edmund Butler which prevented a united 
 effort from being made against Bruce. ' After having 
 violently expelled us,' wrote the Irish to John XXII., ' from 
 our spacious habitations and patrimonial inheritances, they 
 have compelled us to repair, in the hope of saving our lives, 
 to mountains and woods, to bogs and barren wastes, and to 
 the caves of the rocks, where, like the beasts, we have long 
 been fain to dwell.' The close of Edward II. 's reign saw them 
 everywhere ready to descend from their hills, and to emerge 
 from their woods. For nearly two hundred years the history 
 of Ireland is in the main a history of Celtic gains at the 
 expense of Anglo-Normans and Englishmen ; if, indeed, 
 anarchy can rightly be accounted gain to any race or com- 
 munity of men. 
 
 The last In 1326 the Red Earl of Ulster retired into the monastery 
 
 Ulster" is of Athassel, where he died soon afterwards. His great power 
 i333 dei The descended to his grandson William, who was murdered at or 
 De Burgos ne ar Carrickfergus in 1333 by the Mandevilles and other 
 
 and other * 
 
 Angio-Xor- Ulster colonists. By his wife, Maud Plantagenet, great- 
 sume Irish grand-daughter of Henry III., he left one child, Elizabeth, 
 w h was om< y a f ew months old at the date of his murder. 
 Twenty years afterwards she married Lionel Duke of Cla- 
 rence, and became ancestress of the Tudors and Stuarts. The 
 Earldom of Ulster thus ultimately merged in the Crown. 
 But the Irish De Burgos refused to acknowledge a baby, who, 
 as a royal ward, would be brought up independently of them ; 
 and they preferred to follow the sons of Sir William, the Red
 
 EDWARD II. AND EDWARD III. 71 
 
 Earl's brother. William the elder assumed the title of Mac- CHAP. 
 William Uachtar, or the Upper, took all Galway for his 
 portion, and became ancestor of the Clanricarde family. His 
 brother, Sir Edmund, as Mac William lochtar, or the Lower, 
 took Mayo, and founded the family which bears that title. 
 They threw off their allegiance to England, and became more 
 Irish than the Irish. They reappear in the sixteenth century 
 under the modern name of Burke. About the same time 
 several other Anglo-Normans assumed Irish names. The 
 Stauntons became Mac Aveelys; the Berminghams MacFeoris ; 
 the D'Exeters, MacJordans ; the Barretts, MacAndrews, Mac- 
 Thomins, MacRoberts, and MacPaddins ; the Nangles, Mac- 
 Costelloes ; the Mayo Prendergasts, MacMaurices. The De 
 Burgos themselves had many subordinate branches, each with 
 its peculiar Irish name, as MacDavid, MacPhilbin, Mac- 
 Shoneen, MacGibbon, Mac Walter, and MacRaymond. Nor 
 was the practice confined to Connaught. Some of the 
 Leinster Fitzgeralds became MacThomases and MacBarons ; 
 and some of the same house in Munster were transfigured 
 into MacGibbons, MacThomaisins, and MacEdmonds. Many 
 other Anglo-Normans or English families were more or less 
 completely transformed in the same way. It is only neces- 
 sary to mention that the Wesleys or Wellesleys, who gave 
 England its greatest captain, were sometimes called Mac- 
 Fabrenes ; and that the Bissetts of Antrim, whose connections 
 in Scotland gave the Tudors such trouble, may still be traced 
 as Makeons. In the district near Dublin, which got the 
 name of the English Pale, some Irish residents took English 
 names, and the practice was encouraged by a statute of 
 Edward IV. There is probably no country in Europe where 
 the population is so thoroughly mixed as it is in Ireland. 
 
 As the Earls of Ulster disappear, other families attain Edward 
 prominence, and the earlier Tudor history is mainly occupied 
 with the struggles of three earldoms, created in the first half earldoms : 
 
 Kildare, 
 
 of the fourteenth century. The name Geraldine, to which Desmond, 
 Giraldus Cambrensis gave a more extended signification, was Ormonde. 
 in later times confined to the descendants of Maurice Fitz- 
 gerald, one of Nesta's many sons. One branch was firmly
 
 72 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, settled in Kildare before the death of Henry II., and in the 
 
 * r - reign of Edward I. the head of it was John Fitz-Thomus, 
 
 whose dissensions with William de Vesci, Lord of Kildare, 
 ended in an appeal to the King, and a challenge to the trial by 
 combat. Fitz-Thomas was the challenger, and on his adver- 
 sary failing to appear, he received a royal grant of De Vesci's 
 lands. In 1316 Edward II. created him Earl of Kildare, and 
 the Duke of Leinster is descended from him. During most 
 of the fifteenth century, and for the first third of the six- 
 teenth, this was on the whole the most powerful family in 
 Ireland. The Earls of Kildare commanded the whole strength 
 of that county, and its proximity to Dublin often enabled 
 them to control the government. Meath was too much divided 
 for its proprietors to act as a counterpoise, and the strength 
 of the rival house of Ormonde lay at a distance from the 
 capital, and was exposed to attacks from another branch of 
 the Geraldines, whose chief was created Earl of Desmond in 
 1329. The Desmonds first rose at the expense of the ^l;u-- 
 Carthies in Kerry. A marriage with the heiress of Fitz- Anthony 
 brought them the western half of the county Waterford and 
 other large estates. This lady's son married the heiress of 
 the Cogans, and her great property in Cork was added to 
 the rest. The Desmonds never became quite so completely 
 Hibernicised as the De Burgos ; but they attained something 
 very like independence, and more than once proved too strong 
 for the government. The third great earldom was founded 
 in the person of Edmund Butler, who was created Earl of 
 Carrick in 1315 ; the better known title of Ormonde being 
 conferred on his son James in 1328. The founder of the 
 family was Theobald Fitz- Walter, who accompanied Henry II. 
 to Ireland, and was by him made hereditary butler with a 
 grant of the prisage of wines. The name of office was adopted 
 by his descendants, who derived great advantage from the 
 grant. Ormonde is properly the northern part of Tipperary, 
 but the earls became palatine lords of nearly all the county, 
 and owners of vast estates in Kilkenny and Wexford. Their 
 principal castles were Kilkenny, Gowran, Carrick-on-Suir, 
 and Arklow. The possession of the latter place gave them
 
 EDWAED II. AND EDWAED III. 73 
 
 ready access to England, and through all turns of weal and CHAP, 
 woe they ever remained faithful to the Crown. If regard be r - 
 had to the length of time that it retained eminence, or to 
 the average ability of its chiefs, or to its comparative civilisa- 
 tion in rude times, the House of Ormonde must be accounted 
 the most distinguished of the Anglo-Norman families of 
 Ireland. 
 
 The native Irish had no regular towns. The Anglo-Nor- Towns in 
 mans took possession of those founded by the Ostmen, which Dublin ' 
 were all on the coast, and founded many others, of which only j^ da r s " 
 three or four, and those not the most important, were at a 
 distance from navigable rivers. Athassel in Tipperary is 
 sometimes called a town, but it never became a municipality, 
 and can have been little more than an aggregation of poor 
 houses about the great monastery, and there may have been 
 other similar cases. Dublin obtained its first charter from 
 Henry II. in 1171 or 1172, and Drogheda from Henry III. 
 in 1229. 
 
 ' Dublin and Drogheda,' says the historian of the Irish 
 capital, ' were neither distinctly English nor Irish. Their 
 citizens, as tax-contributing and acknowledged subjects of 
 England, relied on her for protection against oppressive 
 Anglo-Norman nobles and hostile natives. The Irish unless 
 Anglicised had no legal part in these communities, but 
 continuous mutual intercourse was sustained by the advan- 
 tages derived from traffic.' * In our documents,' adds the 
 same writer, ' Scandinavians or Ostmans but rarely appear, 
 although in 1215 the latter people were of sufficient import- 
 ance to have been associated with the English of Dublin by 
 King John as parties to an inquiry held there by his justi- 
 ciary. The proportion of the various national elements can- 
 not be absolutely determined by the forms of names ; ' for 
 many names originated in personal peculiarities, many were 
 translated from one language to another, and many Irishmen 
 became denizens, and adopted an English patronymic. The 
 ' Irish town ' which exists outside the old bounds of Dublin, 
 Limerick, Kilkenny, Clonmel, and other places, doubtless 
 perpetuates the memory of a time when the natives congre-
 
 74 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 V. 
 
 Other 
 towns: 
 Limerick, 
 Waterford, 
 and Cork 
 the chief. 
 
 Galway. 
 
 gated in the neighbourhood of civic communities to which 
 they did not belong. 1 
 
 What has been said of Dublin and Drogheda applies to 
 the other cities and towns of Ireland. Limerick received its 
 first charter from John in 1197, Waterford from the same 
 prince in 1206, and Cork from Henry III. in 1242. These 
 were the chief centres of trade and of English law in the 
 south of Ireland. The less important municipalities owed 
 their origin generally to some great noble, the Crown after- 
 wards adopting them and granting fresh privileges. Kilkenny 
 received a charter from the Earl Marshal between 1202 and 
 1218. New Ross, well situated at the junction of the Nore 
 and Barrow, belonged to the same great man, and excited the 
 jealousy of Waterford at least as early as 1215. Clonmel 
 was included in a grant made by Henry II. to Otho de 
 Grandison. It passed into the hands of the De Burgos, who 
 probably incorporated it, and who received a royal grant to 
 hold a fair there in 1225. Fethard, Callan, Gowran, and 
 other inland towns were of less consequence, but were still 
 distinctly English in origin and character. Youghal and 
 Kinsale were also corporate towns. The latter received a 
 charter from Edward III. in 1333, and the former, which had 
 been long identified with the Desmond family, seems not to 
 have been regularly incorporated till 1462. The Kinsale 
 charter recites that the town was surrounded by Irish enemies 
 and English rebels, and that the burgesses were worn out in 
 repelling the same. The mediaeval kings commonly granted 
 the customs and tolls of loyal towns to be expended by the 
 inhabitants in repairing their walls. 
 
 Galway has a history of its own. The O'Connors had a 
 fortified post there before the Anglo-Norman invasion, and 
 it soon attracted the attention of the invaders. In 1232 
 it was for the first time taken by Richard de Burgo, who 
 lost it once, but recovered it and made it the capital of his 
 province. The building of the walls was begun about the 
 beginning of the reign of Edward I., and murage charters 
 
 1 The quotations are from Gilbert's Historic and Municipal Docunicntt 
 of Ireland, pp. xxviii. and xxx.
 
 EDWAED II. AND EDWAKD III. 75 
 
 were granted probably by that king, and certainly by Edward CHAP. 
 III. and Richard II. A charter of incorporation was granted - '<- 
 in 1396, but the names of certain chief magistrates, provosts, 
 portreeves, and sovereigns, are preserved from 1274 to 1485, 
 when the first mayor took office. Fourteen English families, 
 afterwards known as the tribes of Galway, engrossed civic 
 power, and from 1485 to 1654 every mayor, with a single 
 doubtful exception, was chosen from among them. When the 
 De Burgos turned Irish and renounced their allegiance, the 
 loyal citizens soon learned to treat them as enemies, and in 
 1518 the corporation resolved that no inhabitant should receive 
 into his house ' at Christmas, Easter, nor no feast else, any of 
 the Burkes, Mac Williams, the Kellys, nor no sept else, with- 
 out licence of the mayor and council, on pain to forfeit 5Z. that 
 neither nor Mac shall strut nor swagger through the streets 
 of Galway.' Their great enemies were the OTlaherties of 
 lar-Connaught, and it is said the prayer ' from the ferocious 
 O'Flaherties, good Lord, deliver us,' was once inscribed over 
 the west gate of the town. Athenry, which was built by the 
 Bermingham family, was long and closely connected with 
 Galway. It received a murage charter in 1312. 1 
 
 Besides the three great earldoms, there were several Anglo- 
 Anglo-Norman families who continued to have considerable f a mjije" f 
 importance in Tudor times. Robert le Poer, or De Poher, importance, 
 received a grant from Henry II., which made his descendants, 
 now generally called Power, supreme in the eastern half of 
 the county Waterford. In the middle ages they were often 
 at war with the citizens of Waterford. Their chief seat was 
 Curraghmore, and they are represented, through a lady, by 
 the Marquis of Waterford. The western half of the same 
 county, which came by marriage to the Desmonds, fell to the 
 descendants of the seventh earl's second son, known as the 
 
 1 Hardiman's History of Galrvay contains as much as most readers will 
 care to know about that town. The following distich makes it possible to 
 remember the tribes: 
 
 A thy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, Deane, Darcy, Lynch, 
 Joyce, Kirwan, Martin, Morris, Skerrett, French. 
 To which Ffont or Faunt must be added.
 
 76 IRELAND UNDER TIIE TUDORS. 
 
 CHA.P. Fitzgeralds, of Decies, and seated at Dromana. Tlie Fitz- 
 
 > r ' maurices, descended from Raymond le Gros, occupied that 
 
 part of north Kerry which is still called Clanmaurice. They 
 became Barons of Lixnaw, and are represented by the 
 Marquis of Lansdowne. The family of the White Knight 
 was descended from Gilbert, eldest son of John More Fitz- 
 gerald by his second wife, Honora O'Connor ; his half brother 
 by Margery Fitz-Anthony being the first Earl of Desmond. 
 The White Knights were called Macgibbon and Fitzgibbon, 
 and their memory is preserved by the barony of Clangibbon, 
 in the county of Cork. From John, the second of Honora 
 O'Connor's sons, is descended the Knight of the Valley, 
 or of Glin on the Shannon. Maurice, the third brother, was 
 the first Knight of Kerry. Another branch of the Fitz- 
 geralds, known as hereditary seneschals of Imokilly, were 
 settled in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries at Castle 
 Martyr. The Barrys, descendants of Nesta as well as the 
 Geraldines, were settled in that part of the county of Cork 
 called Barrymore ; and the Roches were established soon after 
 the first invasion about Castletown-Roche, and Fermoy. Of 
 the families who obtained portions of De Lacy's great terri- 
 tory, the most important were the Nugents, Barons of Delvin, 
 and the Flemings, Barons of Slane on the Boyne. The 
 Plunkets, who are supposed to be of Danish origin, were in 
 the middle ages settled chiefly in Meath ; and there they are 
 still. They became Barons of Killeen, Dunsany, and Louth. 
 The Prestons, Viscounts of Gormanston, and the Barnewalls, 
 Barons of Trimleston, may also be noticed; but all the 
 families of the Pale were overshadowed by the House of 
 Kildare. 
 
 The colony So far as the English colony in Ireland is concerned, the 
 ciinesmidcr ^ on e reig 11 of Edward III. must be regarded as a period of 
 Edward decay. The murder of the last Earl of Ulster in 1333, and 
 the consequent secession of the De Burghs, hastened the de- 
 struction of a fabric which had always hung loosely together. 
 The sons of Hugh Boy O'Neill, who was killed in 1283, 
 established themselves firmly in Eastern Ulster, and undid 
 nearly all the work of De Courcey and his successors. They
 
 EDWARD II. AND EDWARD III. 77 
 
 gave to Antrim the name of Clan-Hugh-Boy, or Clandeboye, 
 as it is now written. Only the Savages maintained them- 
 selves in Ardes ; and the MacQuillins, a family of Welsh ori- 
 gin, between the Bush and the Bann, in the district afterwards 
 called the Route. The three royal fortresses which bridled 
 Connaught, Athlone, Roscommon, and Randon, all fell into 
 the hands of the Irish. In Leinster also the natives rapidly 
 gained ground. Lysaght O'More formed a confederacy of 
 nearly all the midland tribes, and expelled the settlers from 
 the district between the Barrow and the Shannon. His 
 career was short, but his work was lasting. 'In 1342,' says 
 Clyn, ( he was killed when drunk by his own servant. He 
 was a rich and powerful man, and honoured among his own 
 people. He expelled nearly all the English from his lands, 
 and burned eight of their castles in one evening. He de- 
 stroyed Roger Mortimer's noble fortress of Dunamase, and 
 usurped the lordship of his own country. He was a servant, 
 he became a lord; he was a subject, he became a prince.' 
 Bunratty Castle in Clare was dismantled by the O'Briens and 
 Macnamaras, and a branch of the former established them- 
 selves in Tipperary. Of William Carragh O'Brien, of 
 Aherlow, one of the chiefs of this sept, Clyn gives a very 
 unflattering account. ' He was,' he declares, ' a bad and 
 perverse man who lived ill and died ill, passing all his time 
 in waylayings, thefts, spoils, and murders.' 
 
 The constant quarrels of the colonists, and the corruption Dissension ' 
 of their officials, laid them open to the attacks of the natives, the coio- 
 and the state of Ireland attracted so much attention that the n 
 Parliament held at Westminster in 1331 advised the King 
 to cross the Channel himself. Edward III. never had much 
 time to attend to Ireland, but he seems to have been aware 
 that he had duties in the matter. In 1338 he decreed that 
 none but Englishmen born should fill legal offices ; but this 
 did not mend matters, and the administration of justice 
 continued to be as corrupt as ever. The new comers 
 married in Ireland, and were as ready to job for their 
 children as if they had been descended from the first 
 colonists. In 1341 the King ordered that Englishmen with
 
 78 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 estates in England should be preferred, but the supply of 
 such men was necessarily limited. The main cause of the 
 corruption prevalent was no doubt the poverty of the Crown. 
 Officials were ill paid, or not paid at all, and they supported 
 themselves by embezzling funds or by selling justice. An 
 unjust proposal to increase the revenue by resuming royal 
 grants naturally aggravated every evil, and the English by 
 blood were arrayed against the English by birth. Sir John 
 Morris, the deputy who was ordered to carry out the new 
 policy, summoned a Parliament to meet at Dublin in October, 
 1341. But Maurice Fitz-Thomas, first Earl of Desmond, 
 persuaded a large section of the nobility to ignore the writs, 
 to attend a rival assembly at Kilkenny, and to draw up a re- 
 monstrance addressed to the King. The malcontents wished 
 to be informed how a governor without military skill could 
 rule a land where war never ceased, how an official could 
 become quickly rich, and how it came about that the King 
 was never the richer for Ireland ? Edward abandoned the 
 intention of resuming the grants, but subsequent events show 
 that he did not really forgive Desmond. 
 
 Ralph d'Ufford had married Maud Plantagenet, widow 
 of the murdered Earl of Ulster, and in 1344 he was sent over 
 recover the ag yj cerov w ith very large powers. One of his objects was to 
 resume possession of Ulster for the benefit of his step- 
 daughter, the royal ward ; but he totally failed in obtaining 
 rent out of the lands, or in ousting those who had seized 
 them. After chastising the Irish in the neighbourhood of 
 Dublin, d'Ufford resolved to invade Ulster with a regular 
 army. The MacArtanes attacked him at the Moyrie Pass, 
 and he narrowly escaped annihilation. Having cut his way 
 through with the help of the settlers in Louth and Monaghan, 
 he made his way into the northern province, but no permanent 
 results followed. Desmond and others having refused to 
 attend his Parliament, the Viceroy went to Kerry, took Castle 
 Island, and hanged its principal defenders. He imprisoned 
 the Earl of Kildare and seized his estates, and then took 
 action upon a bond executed in 1333, by which twenty-six of 
 the chief men of the colony became bound for Desmond's 
 
 D'Ufford's 
 futile at- 
 tempts to 
 
 Earldom of 
 Ulster.
 
 EDWARD II. AND EDWARD III. 79 
 
 good behaviour. Many of the sureties had aided the Viceroy, 
 but he, nevertheless, seized their lands. The Earl of Ormonde 
 and two more were the only exceptions. The ruin caused 
 by this policy was out of all proportion to the good, and in 
 the history of the English in Ireland no one has a worse name 
 than Sir Ralph d'Ufford, except perhaps his high-born wife, 
 whose resentments were supposed to guide him. His hand 
 was as heavy against the Church as against the temporal 
 nobles. The annalist Pembridge, who was a contemporary, 
 declares that he brought bad weather to Ireland, and that it 
 lasted all his time. ' On Palm Sunday,' says the same writer, 
 'which was on April 9, 1346, Ralph d'Ufford died, whose 
 death was very much lamented by his wife and family ; but 
 the loyal subjects of Ireland rejoiced at it, and both the clergy 
 and laity for joy celebrated a solemn feast at Easter. Upon 
 his death the floods ceased, and the air again grew wholesome, 
 and the common people thanked God for it.'
 
 80 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1346 TO THE ACCESSION OP HENRY VII. 
 
 CHAP. THE Crown did nothing for Ireland. Torn by intestine 
 
 ^ ' quarrels, and denied a just government, the colony grew 
 
 Duke of vear ly weaker. Many of the settlers found their position 
 
 Clarence, is intolerable, and, in spite of severe ordinances, absenteeism 
 
 not more ' t A 
 
 successful constantly increased. In 1361 Edward summoned to West- 
 
 D'Uffbrd. minster no less than sixty-three non-resident landowners, 
 
 including the heads of several great abbeys, who derived 
 
 revenues from Ireland and gave nothing in return. They 
 
 were ordered to provide an army suitable for the King's son 
 
 Lionel, Duke of Clarence and Earl of Ulster by marriage, 
 
 who proceeded to Ireland as Viceroy. He was accompanied 
 
 by his wife, but failed, as D'Ufford had done, to obtain any 
 
 profit from her lordship of Ulster, and was scarcely successful 
 
 even against the clans near Dublin. The O'Byrnes and 
 
 O'Tooles cut off many of his English soldiers, and the Duke 
 
 was obliged to seek aid from the more experienced colonists. 
 
 Like many governors who have come to Ireland with great 
 
 pretensions, Lionel found his position most humiliating, and 
 
 he spent a great part of his time in England. His authority 
 
 was delegated to deputies, and the feuds between English by 
 
 blood and English by birth ran higher than ever. In 1367 
 
 Lionel he returned and summoned a Parliament, whose enactments 
 
 liament at' g ave legal sanction to the fact that the King was no longer 
 
 Kilkenny, j or( j o f more than a comparatively small portion of Ireland. 
 
 The statute of Kilkenny contains a great many rather 
 heterogeneous rules. What makes it of such great import- 
 ance is its formal recognition of the existence of an English 
 Pale, and of a hostile Irish people outside it. The word
 
 FROM EDWARD III. TO RICHARD III. 81 
 
 Pale may not have been in use for a century later, but the CHAP. 
 thing was fully established. ^ ' 
 
 The Parliament of Kilkenny did not, however, confine 
 its attention to the narrow limits of the ' four obedient shires.' 
 The distinction between English and Irish land was conceded, 
 but it was still hoped that most of the shireland would be 
 preserved to English law. The sheriffs or seneschals of ten 
 counties or liberties, comprising all Leinster, except the 
 modern King's and Queen's Counties, as well as Tipperary 
 and Waterford, were required to produce their accounts at 
 Dublin ; but those of Connaught, Kerry, Cork, and Limerick 
 were excused on account of distance, and were required only 
 to attend commissioners of the exchequer when they came to 
 their bailiwicks, and to render an account to them. Ulster, 
 the Duchess of Clarence's patrimony, is not even mentioned 
 by her husband's Parliament. Of the composition of that Compo- 
 assembly we have no record, but it was attended by the Arch- thePariia- 
 bishops of Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, and by the Bishops *"?"* of 
 of Waterford and Lismore, Killaloe, Ossory, Leighlin, and 
 Cloyne. The Archbishops of Cashel and Tuam and the Bishop 
 of Killaloe were Irishmen ; the rest were of English race, and 
 some of them born in England. 
 
 The statute begins by reciting that for a long time after The 
 the conquest the English in Ireland spoke English, and in Kilkenny 
 general behaved like Englishmen ; but that of late years many t" separate 
 had fallen away and adopted the Irish language and habits, the two 
 
 . . races. 
 
 whereby the King's authority and the English interest were 
 depressed, and the Irish enemy ' against reason ' exalted. In 
 order to remedy this marriage, fosterage, gossipred, and 
 even concubinage with the Irish was declared high treason. 
 Supplying horses and armour to Irishmen at any time was 
 visited with like penalties, and so was furnishing them with 
 provisions in time of war. Englishmen and even Irishmen 
 living among the English were to speak English, to bear 
 English names only, and to ride and dress in the English 
 fashion, on pain of forfeiture until they should submit and find 
 security. If they had no lands they might lie in prison till 
 security was forthcoming. Special penalties were 1 provided for 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 82 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 The 
 
 Statute of 
 Kilkenny 
 respects the 
 Church, 
 but makes 
 distinc- 
 tions. 
 
 offenders who had 100Z. a year in land. The English born in 
 Ireland and in England were to be in all respects equal, and 
 were not to call each other English hobbe or Irish dog, on pain 
 of a year's imprisonment and a fine at the King's pleasure. 
 War with the Irish was inculcated as a solemn duty, and the 
 practice of buying off invasions was condemned. The end 
 aimed at was that Irish enemies should be finally destroyed, 
 and many minute rules were made for arming the colony pro- 
 perly. The rude Irish game of hurling was discountenanced, 
 and the borderers were enjoined to make themselves fit for 
 constant war by practising such gentlemanlike sports as 
 archery and lance-play. Imprisonment and fine were to follow 
 a neglect of these precepts. Provision was made to prevent 
 the Irish from forestalling the markets by establishing fairs 
 of their own, and from grazing their cattle in the settled dis- 
 tricts. Very severe regulations were made against Irish 
 hangers-on pipers to wit, story-tellers, babblers, and rhymers, 
 all of whom acted habitually as spies. The keeping of kerne 
 and idlemen, armed or unarmed, at the expense of other 
 people, was sternly forbidden, and qualified as open robbery. 
 It became, nevertheless, the greatest and commonest of all 
 abuses. Private war among the English was to be punished 
 as high treason, and so was the common practice of enticing 
 friendly Irishmen to acts of violence. 
 
 The rights and privileges of Holy Church were jealously 
 guarded by the. Parliament of Kilkenny. Persons excom- 
 municated for infringing her franchises were to be imprisoned 
 by the civil power until restitution was made. Tithes were 
 specially protected, and the excommunicated were not to be 
 countenanced by King or people. But the distinction between 
 the hostile races was maintained in matters ecclesiastical. 
 No Irishman was to be admitted by provision, collation, or 
 presentation among the English. Such preferments were 
 declared void, and the next presentation was to lapse to the 
 Crown. Religious houses situated among the English were 
 strictly forbidden to receive Irishmen, but Englishmen by 
 birth and by blood were given equal rights. The Irish 
 prelates present probably found no difficulty in accepting
 
 FROM EDWARD III. TO RICHARD III. 83 
 
 these principles, for they might, and did, retaliate by refusing CHAP, 
 to receive English clerks in Irish districts. The Archbishops >- ^ 
 and Bishops assembled at Kilkenny lent a special sanction to 
 the statute by agreeing to excommunicate all who broke it, 
 and they declared such offenders duly excommunicated in 
 advance. 
 
 Sir John Davies, with less than his usual accuracy, has Effects of 
 declared that ' the execution of these laws, together with the of Kfl- U 
 presence of the King's son, made a notable alteration in the kenn y- 
 state and manners of the people within the space of seven 
 years, which was the term of this prince's lieutenancy.' Now, 
 the Statute of Kilkenny was not passed till 1367, and Lionel 
 died in 1368. The Act of Henry III., on which Davies chiefly 
 founded his statement, says the land continued in prosperity 
 and honour while the Kilkenny laws were executed, and fell 
 to ruin and desolation upon their falling into abeyance. But 
 the annalists tell a different story, and it is not easy to say 
 what those fat years were. In 1370, only three years after 
 the passing of the much vaunted statute, the Earl of Desmond 
 and others were taken prisoners by the O'Briens and Mac- 
 namaras, and the deputy, Sir William de Windsor, was 
 obliged to leave the O'Tooles unchastised in order to hurry 
 to the defence of Munster. Newcastle, within a day's ride 
 from Dublin, was taken and dismantled. The judges could 
 not get as far as Carlow. In 1377 the O'Farrells gained a 
 great advantage over the English of Meath. The general 
 result of the fighting during the ten years which followed the 
 Parliament of Kilkenny was that the Irish retained possession 
 of at least all which they had previously won. What the 
 statute really did was to separate the two races more com- 
 pletely. 
 
 Edward III. repeated his grandfather's mistake, and drew Edward 
 away many of the colonists to his Scotch and Continental weakens 
 wars. An Anglo-Irish contingent fought at Halidon Hill, {^S, 
 and it was while making preparations for that campaign P enfroin 
 that the Earl of Ulster lost his life. Ireland was also well 
 represented at Crepy, and many brave men fell victims to 
 disease at Calais. The Viceroys sent over from time to time 
 
 G 2
 
 84 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 VI. 
 
 Richard II. 
 determines 
 to visit 
 Ireland. 
 
 seem to have been regarded as licensed oppressors, and 
 it is recorded of many that they left Dublin without paying 
 their debts. Sir Thomas Rokeby, who was Deputy in 1349 
 and 1356, is praised by the contemporary chronicler Pern- 
 bridge for beating the Irish well, and for paying his way 
 honestly. ' I will,' he said, ' use wooden cups and platters, 
 but give gold and silver for my food and clothes, and for the 
 men in my pay.' That this golden saying, as Davies calls it, 
 should have been thought worth recording shows what the 
 general practice was. The three great pestilences which 
 ravaged England ran their course in Ireland also. It was 
 to the first of these visitations that the annalist Clyn suc- 
 cumbed. ' I have,' he records, ' well weighed what I have 
 written, as befits a man who dwells among the dead in daily 
 expectation of death ; and lest the writer should perish with 
 the writing, and the work with the workman, I leave parch- 
 ment for a continuation, if by chance any of the race of 
 Adam should escape this plague and resume my unfinished 
 task.' On the whole, the reign of Edward III. must be 
 regarded as one of the most disastrous in the annals of the 
 English in Ireland. 
 
 The reign of Richard II. is mainly remarkable for the 
 King's two visits to Ireland. But that step was not taken 
 until many others had failed. James Butler, third Earl of 
 Ormonde, was Viceroy when the old King died. He continued 
 in office, and held a Parliament at Castle Dennot, whose 
 deliberations were interrupted by an invasion of Leinster on 
 the western side. The O'Briens were bought off with 100 
 marks, but there were only nine in the treasury, and the residue 
 was supplied by individuals who gave horses, a bed, or mode- 
 rate sums of money. Ormonde resigned an office which there 
 was no means of supporting properly, and the Earl of Kil- 
 dare refused the post. In 1380 Edmund Mortimer, Earl of 
 March, who claimed Ulster through his wife Philippa, the 
 daughter of Duke Lionel, agreed to accept the burden for 
 three years. He covenanted for 20,000 marks and for abso- 
 lute control over the revenue of Ireland. The Irish scarcely 
 ventured to oppose him openly ; and he recovered Athlone,
 
 FROM EDWARD III. TO RICHARD III. 85 
 
 built a bridge at Coleraine, put down rebels in southern CHAP. 
 
 Leinster, and might have extended his power still further had > ,_' 
 
 he not died of a chill, caught in fording a river near Cork. 
 Ormonde and Desmond refused to accept the vacant govern- 
 ment, and the Irish continued to enlarge their borders. In 
 1385 Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the King's favourite 
 and grandson of Ralph d'Ufford and the Countess of Ulster, 
 was appointed Viceroy for life, and created first Marquis of 
 Dublin, and then Duke of Ireland. All the attributes of 
 royalty, such as the right to coin money and issue writs in 
 his own name, were conferred on him, and he undertook to 
 pay the King 5,000 marks a year, which the latter agreed to 
 remit until the conquest of Ireland was complete. De Vere 
 did not visit Ireland ; but the government was carried on in 
 his name for some years, during which the colony grew 
 weaker and weaker. Nor did his disgrace make any more 
 difference than his appointment had done. Limerick and 
 Cork could scarcely defend themselves. Waterford was 
 harassed by the Le Poers and their Irish allies. Towns in 
 Kildare were burned, and the English Bishop of Leighlin 
 was unable to approach his diocese. Gal way threw off its 
 allegiance, and sought the protection of Mac William. In 
 1391 the Earl of Ormonde was again persuaded to undertake 
 the government with a salary of 3,000 marks ; but he could 
 do little more than temporise. Payments to the Irish were 
 frequent, and as they constantly advanced the dispossessed 
 settlers carried the story of their woes to England. Procla- 
 mations against absentees were of small effect, and at last the 
 King determined to go himself. He landed at Waterford on His first 
 October 2, 1394, with 4,000 men at arms and 30,000 archers. visit> 1394 ' 
 As soon as Art MacMurrough, whom the Leinster Irish 
 accepted as their king, heard of Richard's arrival, he attacked 
 New Ross, ' burned its houses and castles, and carried away 
 gold, silver, and hostages.' 
 
 Richard II.'s army, augmented as it was by the forces Richard 
 of the colony, was the largest seen in Ireland during the J|^ 1 g Ut 
 middle ages, and has hardly been exceeded in modern times, success. 
 William III. had about 36,000 at the Boyne. Nothing was
 
 86 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDOR8. 
 
 CHAP. 
 VI. 
 
 The Irish 
 
 tinually 
 stronger. 
 Richard's 
 second 
 visit, 1399. 
 
 performed worthy of so great a host or of the King's presence. 
 One division of the royal army was defeated with great loss 
 by the O'Connors of Offaly, and another by the O'Carrolls. 
 Richard saw that his troops were unfit for war in bogs and 
 mountains, and could not but confess that the natives had 
 many just causes of complaint. He adopted a conciliatory 
 policy, and induced O'Neill, O'Connor, MacMurrough, and 
 O'Brien, as representatives of the four royal Irish races, to do 
 homage and to receive the honour of knighthood at his hands. 
 These four, and a great number of other chiefs, bound them- 
 selves to the King by indenture ; but no money was actually 
 paid, and for all practical purposes Caligula's shells were 
 quite as good a badge of conquest. The German princes had 
 a right to say that Richard was not fit for empire, since he 
 had been unable to subdue his rebellious subjects of Ireland. 
 He remained nine months in the island, and left the govern- 
 ment to Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, heir-presumptive to 
 the Crown, and claiming to be Earl of Ulster in right of his 
 mother, the only child of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. 
 
 Besides the earldom of Ulster, Mortimer claimed enormous 
 estates all over Ireland, but possession had been completely 
 divorced from feudal ownership. He attacked the Wicklow 
 clans, but was defeated with loss. In 1398 he made a final 
 attempt to recover some portion of his Leinster inheritance, 
 but was defeated and slain in Carlow by the O'Tooles, 
 O'Nolans, and Kavanaghs. In the following year Richard 
 again visited Ireland in person. His army was nearly as 
 large as on the first occasion, and vast quantities of stores 
 had been collected. The Crown jewels were carried with the 
 King, as was a yet more precious flask of oil which had 
 been transmitted straight from heaven to Archbishop Becket 
 while praying at the shrine of Columba. But neither arms, 
 nor gems, nor even the sacred chrism had any effect upon 
 Art MacMurrough. The King again landed at Waterford, 
 and after a few days' rest moved forward to meet the redoubt- 
 able Irishman, who was posted in a wood with 3,000 men. 
 An open space having been secured by burning houses and 
 villages, Richard knighted young Henry of Lancaster, the
 
 FROM EDWARD III. TO RICHARD III. 87 
 
 future victor of Agincourt, and ordered a large number of CHAP. 
 
 labourers to fell the wood which sheltered the enemy. Aided ^ 
 
 by the ground, MacMurrough held the royal army in check 
 for eleven days. The communications were cut, and the men 
 at arms had nothing but green oats for their horses. It was 
 early in July ; but the weather was wet, and the whole army 
 suffered from exposure and hunger. A convoy which arrived 
 at Waterford rather added to the disaster. ' Soldiers,' says a 
 contemporary chronicler, ' rushed into the sea as if it were 
 straw.' Casks were broached, and more than 1,000 at a time 
 were seen drunk with the Spanish wine. Abandoning the 
 hope of attacking the Kavanaghs in their fastnesses, Richard 
 made his way to Dublin, the Earl of Gloucester having failed 
 to treat with MacMurrough. 
 
 The Leinster chieftain had married an Anglo-Norman Richard'* 
 heiress, and through her claimed the barony of Narragh in failure - 
 Kildare. He demanded to be put in full possession of his 
 wife's lands, and to be left unmolested to enjoy his chiefry. 
 Otherwise he refused to come to any terms with the King. 
 Richard threatened, but his Irish plans were interrupted by 
 the news that Henry of Lancaster had landed in England. 
 He lingered for some weeks in Ireland, and that delay was 
 fatal to him. He reached Milford only to find that he had 
 no longer a party, and thus Art MacMurrough may be said 
 to have crowned the House of Lancaster. The Irish chief 
 continued irreconcilable, and defied the Government until 
 his death in 1417. 
 
 With a bad title and an insecure throne Henry IV. could Ireland 
 not be expected to pay much attention to Ireland. The by g< 
 strength of the colony continued to decline during his reign. * 
 He made his second son, Thomas, Viceroy, but a child in his 
 twelfth year was not the sort of governor required. The 
 treasury was empty, and the young prince's council had soon 
 to announce that he had pawned his plate, and that not 
 another penny could be borrowed. The soldiers had deserted, 
 the household were about to disperse, and the country was so 
 much impoverished that relief could scarcely be hoped for. 
 The settlement was only preserved by paying black mail to
 
 88 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Henry V. 
 makes 
 Talbot 
 Viceroy. 
 
 the Irish. The towns defended themselves as they best could, 
 and sometimes showed considerable martial enterprise. Thus 
 Waterford was several times attacked by the O'Driscolls, a 
 piratical clan in West Cork, who habitually allied themselves 
 with the Le Poers. In 1413 the citizens assumed the 
 offensive, and armed a ship, in which the mayor and bailiffs 
 with a strong band sailed to Baltimore, where they arrived on 
 Christmas Day. A messenger was sent to say that the Mayor 
 of Waterford had brought a cargo of wine, and admission was 
 thus gained to the chiefs hall. ' The Mayor,' we are told, 
 ' took up to dance O'Driscoll and his son, the prior of the 
 Friary, O'Driscoll's three brethren, his uncle, and his wife, 
 and having them in their dance, the Mayor commanded every 
 of his men to hold fast the said persons ; and so, after sing- 
 ing a carol, came away bringing with them aboard the said 
 ship the said O'Driscoll and his company, saying unto them 
 they should go with him to Waterford to sing their carol and 
 make merry that Christmas ; and they being all aboard 
 made sail presently, and arrived at Waterford, St. Stephen's 
 day at night, where with great joy received they were with 
 lights.' 
 
 This exploit seems to have tamed the O'Driscolls for a 
 time, but they invaded Waterford in 1452 and 1461. On the 
 first occasion the citizens had the worst, but on the second 
 they gained the victory, and took the chief with six of his 
 sons. 1 
 
 In the first year of his reign Henry V. made the famous 
 Sir John Talbot Viceroy. He was entitled to lands in West- 
 meath in right of his wife, and the lordship of Wexford had 
 devolved upon his elder brother. He adopted the plan by 
 which Bellingham and Sidney afterwards reconquered the 
 greater part of Ireland. The array of the counties was called 
 out under heavy penalties, and Talbot remained six days in 
 Leix, which he so ravaged as to bring O'More to his senses. 
 The bridge of Athy, which had been of use to none but the 
 
 1 The quarrels of Waterford with the O'Driscolls are given in the Calendar 
 of Caren MSS., Mitcettancmis vol. p. 470. Smith refers to a MS. in Trinity 
 College.
 
 FROM EDWAED III. TO RICHARD III. 89 
 
 assailants of the Pale, was rebuilt and fortified, so that the 
 cattle of loyal people might graze in safety, which they had 
 not done for thirty years. Passes were cut in the woods 
 bordering on the settled districts, and there seemed some hope 
 for the shrunken and shattered colony. But Talbot's salary 
 of 4,000 marks fell into arrear, and his unpaid soldiers 
 became a worse scourge than the Irish had been. The Vice- 
 roy and his brother, the Archbishop of Dublin, were constantly 
 at daggers drawn with the White Earl of Ormonde, and the 
 feud continued nearly till the Earl's death in 1450. It was, 
 however, due both to Sir John Talbot and to Ormonde, his 
 antagonist, that the Irish were kept at bay. Shakespeare's 
 hero was the bugbear with which French mothers quieted 
 naughty children, and he was no less feared in Ireland. 
 With the colonists he was not popular, because the Crown 
 refused him the means of paying his debts, and Irish writers 
 stigmatise him as the worst man who had appeared in the 
 world since the time of Herod. 
 
 ' France,' says Sir John Davies, ' was a fairer mark Drain of 
 to shoot at than Ireland, and could better reward the con- toth* 8 * 1 
 queror.' The latter part of his statement is questionable, K n lish 
 
 r ' civil wars. 
 
 but such was the view taken by the kings of England from 
 Henry II. to Henry VII. Thomas Butler, Prior of Kil- 
 mainham, who ought to have been engaged in the defence 
 of the Pale, took 1,500 men to help Henry V. at the siege 
 of Rouen in 1418. The contemporary chronicler, Robert 
 Redman, says they did excellent service with very sharp 
 darts and cross-bows. Trained in the irregular warfare of 
 Ireland, they easily outran the Frenchmen, to whom they 
 showed extraordinary animosity, but were less honourably 
 distinguished by their practice of kidnapping children and 
 selling them as slaves to the English. James, Earl of 
 Ormonde and Wiltshire, also raised troops in Ireland for 
 foreign service, and it is probable that many other contin- 
 gents were furnished of which no record has been preserved. 
 These forces consisted of Anglo-Irish, or at least of Irishmen 
 settled in obedient districts, and their absence from home 
 must have had a constant tendency to weaken the colony.
 
 90 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. In 1449 Richard of York visited Ireland as Viceroy. He 
 
 VI. 
 
 ^ accepted the office for ten years, in consideration of 4,000 
 
 Richard of mar k s for the first, and 2,OOOZ. for each succeeding year, and 
 
 York made 3 J 
 
 Lord- of the whole local revenue. Richard was Earl of Ulster, but 
 for ten he preferred conciliation to any attempt at re-conquest, and 
 arS)1 49 ' was, consequently, able to command the services of many 
 Irish clans, including Magennis, MacArtane, MacMahon, and 
 O'Reilly. The O'Byrnes were put down with the help of the 
 Northern chiefs, O'Neill himself sent presents to the Duke, 
 and most of the central districts became tributary. The 
 Anglo-Normans of Munster, who had partially degenerated, 
 renewed their allegiance, and it was generally supposed that 
 the task of making Ireland English would at last be accom- 
 plished. The Viceroy's son George, the ' false, fleeting, per- 
 jured Clarence,' of later years, was born in Dublin, and his 
 sponsors were Ormonde and Desmond. But very soon the 
 fair prospect was clouded. The stipulated salary was not paid. 
 The Irish discovered that Richard had no greater force than 
 his predecessors, and the MacGeohegans, who had submitted, 
 openly defied his power. He left Ireland suddenly in the 
 autumn of 1450, and did not return for nine years. 
 Richard is Richard had not done much to increase the King's power 
 
 anlTcreates i n Ireland, but he created a Yorkist party there. At the 
 a a rt rkist time he was accused of prompting Cade's rebellion, and Jack 
 Ireland himself was said to be a native of Ireland. The fact that both 
 
 almost in- 
 dependent. Simnel and Warbeck afterwards found their best support 
 
 among the Anglo-Irish seems to show that the Kildare and 
 Desmond partisans were already familiar with the notion of 
 a Yorkist pretender. It is very probable that the adherents 
 of the White Rose saw their opportunity in the fact that the 
 Earldom of Ulster belonged to their chief, and Cade must 
 have had an object in calling himself Mortimer. All this is 
 plausible conjecture ; but about the significance of Richard's 
 second viceroyalty there can be no reasonable doubt. In 
 1459, after Salisbury's defeat at Blore Heath, the Duke of 
 York was forced to fly, and he took refuge in Ireland, where 
 he seized the government in spite of the Coventry Parliament. 
 The local independence of Ireland was now for the first time
 
 FROM EDWARD III. TO RICHARD III. 91 
 
 seriously attempted. Richard held a Parliament, which CHAP. 
 
 acknowledged the English Crown while repudiating the ^ 
 
 English Legislature and the English Courts of Law. The 
 Duke of York's person was declared inviolable, and rebellion 
 against him was made high treason. The royal privilege of 
 coining money was also given to him. William Overy, a 
 squire of the Earl of Ormonde, who was already acknowledged 
 as head of the Irish Lancastrians, attempted to arrest the 
 Duke as an attainted traitor and rebel ; but he was seized, 
 tried before Richard himself, and hanged, drawn, and 
 quartered. After the victory of his friends at Northampton 
 the Duke returned to England. He took with him a con- 
 siderable body of Anglo-Irish partisans, and he committed 
 the government to the Earl of Kildare. 
 
 Richard of York fell at Sandal Hill, but the popularity The York 
 which he had gained in Ireland descended to his son. In the headed bv 
 bloody battle of Towton the flower of the Anglo-Irish Lan- KUdare! f 
 castrians fell, and their leader, the Earl of Ormonde, was 
 taken and beheaded. His house suffered an eclipse from 
 which it was destined to emerge with greater brilliancy than 
 ever, and the rival family of Kildare became for a time 
 supreme in the Pale. The native Irish everywhere advanced, 
 and English law rapidly shrunk within the narrowest limits. 
 A Parliament, held by the Earl of Desmond in 1465, enacted 
 that every Irishman dwelling among the English in Dublin, 
 Meath, Louth, and Kildare, should dress in the English 
 fashion, shave his moustache, take the oath of allegiance 
 within a year, and assume as a surname the name of a town, 
 of a colour, or of a trade. In the Parliament of 1480, held by 
 the Earl of Kildare, all trade between the Pale and the Irish 
 was forbidden by law. The Parliament of Drogheda in 1468 
 had already passed an Act which declared that the castle of 
 Ballymore Eustace, ' lying between the counties of Dublin 
 and Kildare, among the O'Byrnes and O'Tooles, Irish enemies,' 
 should be garrisoned by Englishmen only. The Eustaces, it 
 was explained, had given it in charge to ' one Lawrence 
 O'Bogan, an Irishman both by father and mother, who by 
 nature would discover the secrets of the English.' Other
 
 92 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 George, 
 
 Clarence, 
 
 Viceroy. 
 
 Execution 
 
 Desmond, 
 
 Acts to a similar effect might be cited, and it may be said 
 that the main object of Edward IV.'s government in Ireland 
 was to separate the two races more completely. 
 
 George, Duke of Clarence, was Viceroy from 1461 to 1470, 
 and again from 1472 till his mysterious death in 1478. 
 Though born in Dublin, he never visited Ireland as a man, 
 and the government was administered by a succession of 
 Deputies. The fate of one of these Deputies, Thomas, eighth 
 Earl of Desmond, deserves particular mention. John Tiptoft, 
 Earl of Worcester, whose beautiful Latinity had moved Pope 
 j^Eneas Sylvius to tears, was entrusted with the government 
 in 1467, and he assembled a Parliament in which Desmond 
 and Kildare were attainted. Kildare escaped to England, 
 and procured a reversal of the attainder, but Desmond was en- 
 ticed to Drogheda, and there beheaded. The ostensible cause 
 f r t^ 8 severity is declared by an unpublished statute to have 
 b een ' alliance, fosterage, and alterage with the King's Irish 
 enemies, and furnishing them with horses, harness, and arms, 
 and supporting them against the King's loyal subjects.' The 
 Anglo-Irish tradition attributes it to the vengeance of Queen 
 Elizabeth Woodville, whose marriage Desmond had opposed. 
 According to Russell, he told Edward that Sir John Grey's 
 widow was too mean a match for him, that he needed allies 
 sorely, and that he had better cast her off and link himself 
 with some powerful prince. By this account the Queen stole 
 the royal signet, and transmitted a secret order for the Earl's 
 death to Ireland. Three years later Worcester was taken 
 and beheaded during the short Lancastrian restoration ; and 
 this quite disposes of Russell's statement that King Edward 
 ' struck his head from his neck to make satisfaction to the 
 angry ghost of Desmond.' What is historically important in 
 Desmond's execution is that it gave his successors an excuse 
 for not attending Parliaments or entering walled towns. Their 
 claim to legal exemption was not indeed allowed, but it may 
 have had considerable effect on their conduct. 1 
 
 After the death of Clarence, Edward made his sons, 
 
 1 Besides those in the Statute Book many Irish Acts of Edward IV.'s 
 reign may be studied in Hardiman's Statute of KUkenny.
 
 FROM EDWARD III. TO RICHARD III. 93 
 
 George and Richard, Viceroys, and Richard III. conferred the 
 same office on his infant son Edward. The government was 
 carried on by Deputies, and during the last twenty years of Edward IV 
 the Yorkist dynasty almost all real power centred in the and 
 
 * J . Richard 
 
 House of Kildare. It was the seventh Earl who established in. the 
 the brotherhood of St. George for the defence of the Pale. Kildare is 
 The thirteen members of this fraternity were chosen from f u ]~ p xhe~ 
 among the principal landowners of the four obedient shires, Butlers 
 thus excluding the Butlers, who formed a small Pale of their shadowed. 
 own about Kilkenny. The brothers of St. George had rather 
 more than 200 soldiers under them, who were paid out of 
 the royal revenue ; and that constituted the entire standing 
 army. The cities and towns maintained a precarious ex- 
 istence by themselves. In the charter which Richard III. 
 granted to Galway it was specially declared that the Clanri- 
 carde Burkes had no jurisdiction within the town which their 
 ancestors had taken and fortified. An Act passed in 1485 
 declares that various benefices in the diocese of Dublin were 
 situated among the Irish, that English clerks could not serve 
 the churches because they could not be understood or because 
 they refused to reside, and that it was therefore necessary to 
 collate Irish clerks ; and power was given to the Archbishop 
 to do so for two years. The statute of Kilkenny and the 
 Acts subsidiary to it had had their natural effect. The 
 English, in trying to become perfectly English, had shrunk 
 almost to nothing; and the Irish, by being held always at 
 arm's length, had become more Irish and less civilised than 
 ever.
 
 94 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 
 
 CHAP. THE history of the Irish Parliament in the middle ages 
 
 r-1 ' corresponds pretty closely with that of England. The idea 
 
 The Irish o f the three estates is plainly visible as early as 1204, when 
 
 Parliament . . . 
 
 a close John asked an aid from the archbishops, bishops, abbots, 
 
 priors, archdeacons, and clergy, the earls, barons, justices, 
 sheriffs, knights, citizens, burgesses, and freeholders of Ire- 
 land. The Common Council of the King's faithful of Ireland 
 is afterwards often mentioned, and in 1228 Henry III. 
 ordered his justiciary to convoke the archbishops, bishops, 
 abbots, priors, earls and barons, knights and freeholders, 
 and the bailiffs of every county, and to read Magna Charta 
 to them. 1254 has been fixed as the date at which two 
 knights from each shire were regularly summoned to the 
 English Parliament. In the confusion which followed, the 
 precedent slept for a while, but in Simon de Montfort's 
 famous Parliament in 1264 burgesses as well as knights had 
 seats. The evidences of regular election in Ireland are scanty 
 at this early period ; but legislative enactments and pecu- 
 niary aids were more than once made by the whole community 
 of Ireland before the close of Henry III.'s reign. The germs 
 of a Parliamentary constitution were not planted in purely 
 Irish districts ; but it is probable that ecclesiastics attended 
 Parliament even from them, and that the natives were thus 
 in some degree represented. In 1254 the King called by name 
 upon the Kings O'Donnell, O'Neill, O'Reilly, and O'Flynn, upon 
 MacCarthy of Desmond, O'Brien of Thomond, O'Phelan of 
 Decies, and fourteen other Celtic chiefs, to help him against 
 the Scots. He confides in their love for him to furnish such
 
 THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 95 
 
 help, and promises them thanks ; pointedly separating their CHAP, 
 case from that of his lieges of Ireland. 1 >- ^ 
 
 Accepting 1295 as the date at which English Parliament- Growth of 
 ary representation settled down into something like its modern tative in- 
 shape, we find that the great Plantagenet was not unmindful s 
 of Ireland. In that same year the justiciary Wogan issued 
 writs to the prelates and nobles, and also to the sheriffs 
 of Dublin, Louth, Kildare, Waterford, Tipperary, Cork, 
 Limerick, Kerry, Connaught, and Roscommon, and to the 
 seneschals of the liberties of Meath, Wexford, Carlow, Kil- 
 kenny, and Ulster. The sheriffs and seneschals were ordered 
 to proceed to the election of two good and discreet knights 
 from each county or liberty, who were to have full power to 
 act for their districts. It does not appear that cities and 
 boroughs were represented on this occasion ; but in 1300, 
 Wogan being still justiciary, writs were directed to counties 
 for the election of three or four members, and to cities and 
 boroughs for the election of two or three. The King's 
 principal object was to get money for his Scotch war ; and, 
 with this view, Wogan visited Drogheda and other places 
 and extorted benevolence before the Parliament met. A 
 certain supremacy was not denied to the English Parliament, 
 for in 1290 a vast number of petitions were made to the 
 King in Parliament at Westminster. Among the petitioners 
 was the Viceroy, John Sandford, Archbishop of Dublin, 
 who begged the King to consider the state of Ireland, of 
 which he had already advised him through Geoffrey de 
 Joinville, a former Viceroy, who was sitting in Parliament 
 with others of the King's Council in Ireland. Edward I. 
 answered that he was very busy, but that he had the matter 
 much at heart, and that he would attend to it as soon as he 
 could. 2 
 
 Of the Parliament of 1295 a particular record has for- Parliament 
 tunately been preserved. Each sheriff was ordered to make 
 his election in the full county court, and each seneschal in 
 
 1 Stubbs's Const. Hist., chap. xv. ; Lynch's Feudal Dignities, chaps, iii. 
 and xi. 
 
 2 Sweetman's Calendar of Documents, 1289 ; Lynch, supra.
 
 96 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, the full court of the liberty, and they were to attend Parlia- 
 T-^ ment in their proper persons to verify the returns no 
 doubt. The personal attendance of the sheriffs was required 
 in England until 1406. The magnates who were summoned 
 to Wogan's Parliament behaved as we might expect to find 
 them behave. The Bishops of the South and East came. The 
 Archbishop of Armagh and his suffragans sent proctors with 
 excuses for non-attendance. The Archbishop of Tuam and 
 his suffragans neither came nor apologised. The absence of 
 Hugo de Lacy, one of those elected by the county of Limerick, 
 is particularly noted, whence we may infer that the other 
 shires and liberties were duly represented. Richard, Earl of 
 Ulster, was present. This Parliament principally occupied 
 itself with making regulations as to the treatment of the 
 Irish, and in devising means for checking their inroads upon 
 the colonised districts. The descendants of the first con- 
 querors were already beginning to adopt Celtic customs. 1 
 Parlia- Under Edward II. Parliaments were frequent ; and writs 
 
 are extant which show that he, as well as Edward III., in- 
 Bended them to be held annually. Cases occur of bishops, 
 priors, and temporal peers being fined for non-attendance in 
 this reign, and there is good reason to believe that those who 
 were summoned to Parliament generally came. In 1311 
 writs for a Parliament to be held at Kilkenny were issued by 
 the justiciary Wogan to Richard, Earl of Ulster, and eighty- 
 seven other men of name, to the prelates and ecclesiastical 
 magnates, and to the sheriffs. The sheriffs were ordered to 
 summon two knights from every county, and two citizens or 
 burgesses from every city or borough, who were to have full 
 power to act for their several communities in conjunction 
 with the magnates, lay and clerical. Owing probably to the 
 shape which Brace's invasion gave to the English colony, the 
 Parliaments of Edward III. are more strictly confined to the 
 districts where the King had real as well as nominal authority. 
 The murder of the last Earl of Ulster in 1333, and the con- 
 version of the De Burghs into Irishmen, almost completed 
 
 1 The record is printed from the Black Book of Christ Church, in tl>e 
 Miscellany of the Irish Archaeological Society.
 
 THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 97 
 
 the work of destruction which Bruce had only just failed to CHAP. 
 
 VII. 
 effect. To the Parliament of 1360, the Archbishops of - ^ ' 
 
 Dublin and Cashel, the Bishops of Meath, Kildare, Lismore, 
 Killaloe, Limerick, Emly, Cloyne, and Ferns, and the Abbots 
 of St. Mary's and St. Thomas's at Dublin were the only pre- 
 lates summoned. The Earls of Kildare and Desmond and 
 eight knights were called up by name. Writs for the election 
 of two knights were issued to the sheriffs of the counties of 
 Dublin, Carlow, Louth, Kildare, Waterford, Limerick, and 
 Cork, and of the crosses of Meath, Kilkenny, Wexford, and 
 Tipperary ; and to the seneschals of the liberties of Kilkenny, 
 Meath, Tipperary, and Wexford. Writs for the election of 
 citizens and burgesses were no longer directed to the sheriffs, 
 but the mayor and bailiffs of Dublin, Drogheda, Cork, Water- 
 ford, and Limerick, the sovereign and bailiffs of Kilkenny and 
 Ross, and the provost and bailiffs of Clonmel and Wexford were 
 ordered to return two members each. The sheriff of Kildare 
 and the seneschal of the liberty of Kilkenny were told what 
 individuals they were expected to see elected. The House 
 of Commons was then supposed to consist of twenty-eight 
 knights and twenty-four citizens and burgesses ; but the 
 counties of Dublin and Carlow were 'justly excused' on 
 account of the war, and the members for Drogheda, who 
 omitted to come, were summoned before the Council under 
 a penalty of 40L 1 
 
 The famous Parliament which Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Parliament 
 held at Kilkenny in 1367 was probably attended by repre- 
 sentatives from a very limited district ; for there were but 
 forty members of the House of Commons in March 1374, and 
 of these four came from the county of Dublin. But in 
 November 1374 the number was fifty-four ; in 1377 it rose 
 to sixty-two; and in 1380 and 1382 it was fifty-eight. We 
 may, therefore, take the number of county and borough 
 members at the close of the fourteenth century as about sixty. 
 The counties generally represented were Dublin, Kildare, 
 Carlow, Meath, Louth, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and Wex- 
 
 1 Lynch, nt 
 VOL. I.
 
 98 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Hereditary 
 peers. 
 
 Spiritual 
 peers. 
 
 ford, the liberties of Ulster, Meath, Tipperary, Kerry, and 
 Kilkenny, and the crosses of Ulster, Tipperary, Kilkenny, and 
 Kerry. The cities were Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny, 
 and Limerick, and the towns were Drogheda, Youghal, Ross, 
 Wexford, Galway, and Athenry. Longford was a county in 
 1377, but was not maintained as shire ground. Many Parlia- 
 ments met during the fifteenth century, but their action was 
 more and more confined to the district round Dublin, which 
 about the middle of the century came to be called the Pale. 1 
 
 1295 will probably be accepted as the date when English 
 barons who had once sat in Parliament claimed an hereditary 
 right to their writs of summons. It would seem that the origin 
 of the Irish peerage, using the word in its modern sense, must 
 be referred to a somewhat later date ; for eighty-seven persons, 
 who were perhaps all tenants of the Crown, were summoned 
 by name to the Kilkenny Parliament in 1311. The subject 
 is not of great historical importance, because the period of 
 transition coincides with that in which the encroachments of 
 the natives reduced feudal Ireland to its lowest estate. In 
 the sixteenth century the title of baron was still popularly 
 given to the heads of some families who had formerly been 
 barons by tenure, but who had lost all Parliamentary rights. 
 As in England, the knights of the shire had become the 
 proper representatives of the gentry, and peerage grew to be 
 the special creation of the Crown. In the Parliament of 
 1560 there were twenty-three temporal peers, and of these 
 eight had been created within the century. It will be safe 
 to assume that the number of temporal peers sitting in the 
 Irish Parliament at any time during the one hundred years 
 preceding Elizabeth's accession was well under thirty. 2 
 
 The number of spiritual greatly exceeded the number of 
 temporal peers. There were four archbishops from the first 
 sending of the palls in 1151. If we take the year 1500, after 
 some unions had been effected and before the great quarrel 
 
 1 Lynch, ut supra ; Lodge's Register ; Hardiman's Statute of Kilkenny. 
 
 2 The names of those summoned to the Parliament of 1311 are printed 
 by Lynch, chap. ii. ; the names of those who attended in 1560 are in Tracts 
 Relating to Ireland, vol. ii., Appendix II.
 
 THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 99 
 
 between King and Pope, we find that there were twenty-six CHAP. 
 
 bishops in Ireland. Some of the more distant ones were ' 
 
 perhaps never summoned to Parliament, and long before the 
 close of the fifteenth century we cannot doubt that many had 
 ceased to attend the shrunken legislature of the Pale. In 1293 
 John, Bishop of Clonfert, an Italian and the Pope's nuncio, 
 was fined for non-attendance ; and similar penalties were im- 
 posed on Bishops of Ferns, Ossory, Cork, Ardfert, Limerick, 
 Down, and Ernly, during the reigns of Edward II., Edward 
 III., and Richard II. There were thirteen mitred Abbots of 
 the Cistercian order, ten mitred Priors of Augustinian canons ; 
 and the Grand Prior of Kilmainham, who represented the 
 wealth and importance of the proscribed Templars as well as 
 of the Hospitallers, had always a seat in Parliament. The 
 Prior of Kilmainham was so important a person that upon 
 the suppression of the -order of St. John, Henry VIII. made 
 its last chief a peer. The Abbot of St. Mary's and the Prior 
 of St. Thomas's were always summoned, but it is clear that 
 in earlier days all the mitred heads of houses were considered 
 real as well as nominal spiritual peers. The Prior of Athassel 
 was fined for non-attendance in 1323, the Abbot of Owney in 
 1325, and the Abbot of Jerpoint in 1377. Much obscurity 
 hangs over the mediaaval House of Lords in Ireland ; but it 
 must generally have rested with the Viceroy whether the 
 temporal or spiritual peers should be most numerous in any 
 particular Parliament. 1 
 
 The existence of the clergy as a separate estate in Ireland The clergy 
 is less clear than in England ; but they had the right of *ate "tote, 
 taxing themselves, for in 1538 the Lords Spiritual were Proctors - 
 thanked by Henry VIII. for granting him an annual 
 twentieth of all their promotions, benefices, and possessions. 
 Proctors of the clergy attended the Lower House, and when 
 Henry VIII. undertook his ecclesiastical innovations, they 
 claimed the right to veto bills. It was, however, easily shown 
 that their consent had not formerly been held necessary ; 
 
 1 Cotton's Fasti; Alemand's Histmre j\f on antique ; Lynch, chaps, iii. 
 and vii. 
 
 u 2
 
 100 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, and in 1537 an Act was passed declaring the proctors to 
 ,-1 be no members of Parliament. The preamble states that 
 two proctors from each diocese had been usually summoned 
 to attend Parliament ; but that they had neither voice nor 
 vote, and were only ' counsellors and assistants upon such 
 things of learning as should happen in controversy to declare 
 their opinions, much like as the Convocation within the 
 realm of England.' Their pretensions to a veto were formally 
 pronounced baseless, and it was declared once for all that the 
 assent or dissent of the proctors could have no effect on the 
 action of Parliament. 1 
 
 The Vice- The representative of the King in Ireland was generally 
 
 styled justiciar for a long time after the first invasion. His 
 powers were analogous to that of the great officer of State in 
 England who had the same title, and who acted as regent 
 during the frequent absences of the kings. The title of 
 justiciar continued to be given to the Irish viceroys long 
 after the English justiciarship changed its character that 
 is, about the close of Henry III.'s reign. The first person 
 who had the title of Lord Lieutenant, if we except the early 
 case of John de Courcy, appears to have been Lionel, Earl of 
 Ulster and Duke of Clarence, who was sent to Ireland in 1361. 
 Afterwards it became a common practice to make one of the 
 royal family Lord Lieutenant, the duties being usually per- 
 formed by a deputy. But the title of Lord Lieutenant, 
 though considered higher than any other, was not confined 
 to princes. In time the title of Deputy was given to Gover- 
 nors of Ireland, even when no Lord Lieutenant intervened 
 between them and the King. Richard of York was the last 
 Lord Lieutenant of royal blood who actually ruled at Dublin. 
 After his time the real government was in the hands of the 
 Earls of Kildare, who were Lords Deputy, with but brief 
 intervals, from 1478 to 1526. During that period the title 
 of Lord Lieutenant, but the title only, was enjoyed by 
 Edward, Prince of Wales, by John de la Pole, Earl of 
 Lincoln, by Jasper, Duke of Bedford, and by Henry VIII. 
 
 1 Irixh Statute*, 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.
 
 THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 101 
 
 before his accession to the Crown. In the meantime, the CHAP. 
 
 VII. 
 
 word justiciar, or Lord Justice, had come to mean a temporary * , 
 
 substitute for the Deputy or Lieutenant. When a sovereign 
 died, or when a viceroy suddenly left Ireland, it became the 
 business of the Council to elect some one in his room. When 
 giving leave to a governor to leave his post, the sovereign 
 sometimes named the Lord Justice. Lord Capel, who was 
 appointed in 1695, was the last chief governor who had the 
 title of Deputy. Since the Revolution, the head of the Irish 
 Government has always been a Lord Lieutenant, and during 
 his absence one, or two, or three Lords Justices have been 
 appointed by the Irish Privy Council. 1 
 
 1 See the list of chief governors in Harris's Ware; Borlase's Reduction 
 of Ireland ; Lodge's Patentee Officers ; and Gilbert's Viceroys.
 
 102 
 
 IRELAND UXDKK THK TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 VIII. 
 
 Accession 
 of Henrv 
 VII., 1485. 
 
 The Or- 
 monde 
 family. 
 Sir Piers 
 Butler. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. 
 
 IRELAND was destined to give the victor of Bosworth much 
 trouble, but his accession made little immediate difference 
 to the Anglo-Irish community. Kildare continued to act 
 as Chief Governor, and on the nomination of Jasper, Duke 
 of Bedford, to the Lord Lieutenancy, he was formally ap- 
 pointed Deputy under him. His brother Thomas was 
 allowed to retain the Great Seal. While thus leaving the 
 administration of the island to the Yorkist Geraldines, Henry 
 lost no time in restoring the rival House, which had suffered 
 in defence of the Red Rose. Sir Thomas Butler was by 
 Act of Parliament at once restored in blood, became seventh 
 Earl of Ormonde, and was taken into high favour. The 
 practical leadership of the Irish Butlers was, however, never 
 held by him, and the disputes concerning it had no doubt 
 great effect in consolidating Kildare's power. 
 
 John, sixth Earl of Ormonde, who never lived in Ireland, 
 appointed as his deputy his cousin, Sir Edmund Butler. 
 Earl John dying in Palestine, his brother Thomas succeeded 
 him, and continued Sir Edmund in the custody of the Irish 
 estates. Sir Edmund by will granted to his son Piers the 
 same power as he had himself held, but it does not appear 
 that this curious bequest was acknowledged either by the 
 Earl of Ormonde or by the people of Kilkenny and Tipperary. 
 Sir James Ormonde, as he is called, a bastard son of the fifth 
 Earl, became the real chief of the Butlers, and is often called 
 Earl by Irish writers ; the rules of legitimate descent being 
 then very lightly regarded in Ireland. Sir James received a 
 regular commission from Thomas, Earl of Ormonde, as his 
 deputy, supervisor, 'and general and special attorney' in
 
 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VII. 103 
 
 Kilkenny. Strong in the confidence of the rightful Earl and CHAP. 
 
 in the estimation of the people, Sir James became Kildare's ^ 
 
 chief opponent ; who to weaken him espoused the cause of 
 Sir Piers, to whom he gave his daughter Lady Margaret in 
 marriage. ' By that means and policy,' says the ' Book of 
 Howth,' ' the Earl of Wormond (i.e. Sir James) was so occu- 
 pied in his own country that he could not attend to do 
 any damage to the Earl of Kildare nor any of his friends.' 
 And the chronicler Stanihurst, a Geraldine partisan, would 
 have us believe that the successful career of Sir Piers was 
 wholly due to the ' singular wisdom ' of his wife. An emi- 
 nent modern antiquary tells us that her fame still lives among 
 the peasantry of Kilkenny, while the Red Earl is forgotten ; 
 that she is remembered as Magheen, or little Margaret, and 
 that she is the traditional castle-builder of the district. 1 
 
 It has been generally stated that Henry, before he had Kildare 
 been a year on the throne, heard that Kildare was plotting of S pk>ts. 
 against him. From what happened later, it is likely that 
 such a report would not have been without foundation. 
 Perhaps there was some evidence of his complicity in Lord 
 Level's abortive insurrection, and it is highly probable that 
 he was a party to the plot which the Duchess of Burgundy 
 was hatching against the King of England. 2 Except on the 
 supposition that he had already been admitted to the con- 
 spirator's confidence, it is hard to see how Kildare can have 
 received Lambert Simnel and his promoter, a young and 
 undistinguished priest, without hesitation or inquiry. There 
 was no Lancastrian party in Dublin, and Henry's politic 
 exhibition of the real Earl of Warwick had no effect upon 
 men who were determined to accept the counterfeit. In 
 
 1 History of St. Canwe, by Graves and Prim, especially pp. 187 and 193 ; 
 also Mr. Graves's Presentments, p. 79; Archdall's Lodge's Peerage, art. 
 1 Mount Garrett.' 
 
 2 It is hard to say whether the instructions for John Estrete, attributed 
 by Mr. Gairdner to the very beginning of Henry's reign, are by him or by 
 Richard III. Henry would hardly have promised to make Kildare Deputy 
 for ten years on condition of his going to Court, and the allusions to Edward 
 IV. are more likely to have been made by Richard. Letters of Richard III. 
 and Henry VII., vol. i. p. 91. The three letters in the Appendix cannot be 
 earlier than 1488.
 
 104 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP common with almost every temporal grandee, the Archbishop 
 
 < f-^- of Dublin and the Bishops of Meath and Kildare espoused 
 
 the pretender's cause ; but Octavian, Archbishop of Armagh, 
 a Florentine, and well informed, remained firm, and was 
 supported by the Bishop of Clogher. Henry afterwards 
 asked the Pope to excommunicate the prelates who had 
 favoured the pretender, and it is remarkable that he mentions 
 the Archbishop of Armagh as one of them. Among the 
 temporal peers, Lord Howth had the sense to see that Henry 
 would be victorious, and he kept him well informed of all 
 that went on in Ireland. 1 
 Simnelis Simnel remained in Ireland, and published acts were 
 
 crowned _ _ . 
 
 Kiug. done in his name as King until the arrival of Lincoln and 
 
 Lovel, with Martin Swart, an experienced German leader, 
 and 2,000 veterans of his nation, sent by Margaret of 
 Burgundy. Lambert was crowned in Christ Church with 
 a diadem borrowed for the occasion from a statue of the 
 Virgin, and was shown to the people borne aloft on the 
 shoulders of Darcy of Flatten, the tallest man of his time 
 details which bespeak the poverty of the country. A corona- 
 tion sermon was preached by the Bishop of Meath. 2 
 
 Kildare ordered the citizens of Waterford to join him 
 with all their forces, but the mayor, who was a Butler, filled 
 the town with the vassals of the House of Ormonde, and the 
 clans depending on it, and returned for answer that they held 
 all as traitors who had taken any part in the mock corona- 
 tion. Kildare hanged the poor groom who had brought this 
 message, an act of barbarity with which the Archbishop was 
 much offended, and then repeated his summons. The herald, 
 who bore the Geraldine arms on his tabard, was refused ad- 
 mission to Waterford, and summoned the citizens from a boat, 
 ordering them instantly to proclaim King Edward VI. on 
 pain of being hanged at their own doors. With becoming 
 
 1 Writing to Morton or Fox, Octavian says, ' Profano coronationis pueri 
 in Hibernia sceleri, me solo excepto, nullus obstitit manifeste.' This hardly 
 gives due credit to the Bishop of Clogher. Letters of Richard III. and 
 Henry VII., vol. i. p. 383. Henry's letter to Pius II. is at p. 94. 'Arma- 
 chanensis ' must be a mistake on the King's part. 
 
 Lambert was crowned May 2, 1487.
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. 105 
 
 spirit the chief magistrate replied, that they would not give CHAP. 
 
 the Earl so much trouble, that they looked on all his parti- , L- ' 
 
 sans as traitors, and that they were ready to give him battle 
 thirty miles away. Kilkenny, Clonmel, Callan, Fethard, and 
 other towns followed the example of Waterford. 1 
 
 There was some division of opinion between the partisans Battle of ^ 
 of Simnel as to whether England should be immediately 
 invaded. Two reasons in favour of this course prevailed over 
 those for establishing a separate government in Ireland. 
 The country was too poor to support 2,000 German mer- 
 cenaries, and the Irish followers of Kildare, who cared little 
 for either rose, promised themselves much pleasure from 
 fighting and plundering in hated England. Accordingly, 
 just a month after the mock coronation, Lambert and his 
 friends left Dublin and landed at Foudray in Lancashire, 
 where they were joined by Sir Thomas Broughton and some 
 of his tenants. ' But their snowball,' in Bacon's phrase, ' did 
 not gather as they went,' and they advanced as far as Newark 
 without materially increasing their force. The popularity 
 which Henry had gained during his late stay at York, and 
 the general pardon which he had given, went far to break up 
 the Yorkist party in the North, ' and it was an odious thing 
 to Englishmen to have a King brought in to them upon the 
 shoulders of Irish and Dutch.' At Stoke, the pretender's 
 motley host came into collision with the far more numerous 
 royal army. The Germans fought well, and so did their 
 few English allies ; ' neither did the Irish fail in courage or 
 fierceness, but being almost naked men, only armed with 
 darts and skeaiis, it was rather an execution than a fight 
 upon them.' At least 4,000 of the pseudo-Yorkists fell, 
 including Martin Swart, the Earl of Lincoln, and Kildare's 
 brother, the Irish Chancellor, Thomas Fitzgerald. Lord 
 Lovel and Sir Thomas Broughton may have escaped for a 
 time, but they were never heard of again. It appears from 
 a passage in the ' Annals of Ulster,' where Henry VII. is con- 
 temptuously mentioned as ' the son of a Welshman,' that 
 
 1 Book of Hoivth, and an account in Carerv (followed by Smith), iv. p. 473.
 
 106 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 vm. 
 
 Loyalty of 
 Waterford. 
 
 Mission of 
 Sir Richard 
 Edgcombe, 
 1488. 
 
 the native Irish believed Simnel to be what he pretended to 
 be the last prince of the blood royal. 1 
 
 The loyalty of Waterford deserved special thanks, and 
 Henry sent a letter to the mayor and citizens, in which he 
 expressed his hearty gratitude. To show his perfect confi- 
 dence he commanded them to pursue and harass the Earl of 
 Kildare and the citizens of Dublin, both by sea and land. 
 The trade of the Irish capital was placed at their mercy, and 
 they were exhorted not to desist from hostilities until ' our 
 rebel, the Earl of Kildare,' who was also our Deputy 
 and his Dublin allies were brought to due obedience. Kildare 
 sent messengers to England to make his peace, and the citi- 
 zens of Dublin did likewise. ' We were daunted,' said the 
 latter plausibly enough, ' to see not only the chief governor, 
 whom your Highness made ruler over us, to bend or bow to 
 that idol whom they made us to obey, but also our Father of 
 Dublin, and most of the clergy of the nation.' After some 
 hesitation, Henry resolved to pardon all the Irish conspirators, 
 and even allowed Kildare to remain in the office of Deputy. 
 In return for their pardons the nobility were required to take 
 the oath of allegiance ; and to secure its proper administra- 
 tion the King resolved to send a special commissioner to 
 Ireland. Sir Richard Edgcombe, Controller of the Household, 
 whom he had already employed on a diplomatic mission to 
 Scotland, was the person chosen for this delicate duty. 2 
 
 Sir Richard sailed from Fowey with a squadron of four 
 vessels containing 500 men ; and having tried in vain among 
 the Scilly Islands and in the Bristol Channel to surprise 
 certain pirates who infested those seas, he reached Kinsale on 
 the fifth day, where he again failed to apprehend a notable 
 pirate. Lord Barry Oge came on board to take the oath 
 of allegiance. Edgcombe then landed, was met by Lord 
 Courcy and the townsmen of Kinsale, received the keys of 
 the town, and administered the oath to all persons of irnport- 
 
 1 Bacon ; Book of Horvth ; O'Donov&n'sIbvr Masters, ad ann. 11B5. The 
 battle of Stoke was fought June 16, 1487. 
 
 2 Henry's letter to Waterford is in Smith's Waterford ; the letter of the 
 Dublin people in Ware's Annals.
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VII. 107 
 
 ance. Having granted a royal pardon, lie sailed for Water- CHAP. 
 
 ford, where he was loyally welcomed. Hearing that he had , 1 < 
 
 brought a pardon for Kildare, the citizens reminded him that 
 the Earl was their bitterest enemy, and begged to be exempted 
 from any jurisdiction which he or any other Irish lord might 
 claim as Deputy. Sir Richard promised to advance the in- 
 terests of Waterford at Court, and then went on to Dublin. 
 Kildare kept the royal commissioner waiting for eight days, 
 during part of which time he was entertained at Malahide, 
 by a lady of the Talbot family. At last the Earl came to 
 Thomas Court with 200 horse, and sent the Bishop of Meath 
 and the Baron of Slane to conduct Sir Richard thither. On 
 entering the room Edgcombe made no bow to the Lord 
 Deputy, but bluntly delivered the King's letters. Five days 
 more were given for the rest of the lords to make an appear- 
 ance, and Kildare retired to Maynooth to digest the letters 
 and verbal messages. On the fourth day Sir Richard came 
 by pressing invitation to Maynooth, and the Earl promised 
 that he would do everything required of him ; but he con- 
 tinued to interpose delays in coming to any official decision. 
 Sharply reprimanded by the royal commissioner, the lords at 
 last agreed to take the oath of allegiance ; but refused to 
 enter into recognisances for the forfeiture of their estates in 
 case they should again lapse from their duty, plainly declaring 
 that they would rather become Irishmen, every one of them. 
 With an oath of allegiance Sir Richard was fain to be con- 
 tent, and he drew one in very stringent form, Henry being 
 specially described as the ' natural and right-wise ' King of 
 England. To prevent tricks, the host, upon w T hich the oath 
 was taken, was consecrated by Edgcombe's own chaplain. The 
 nobility present, and the principal ecclesiastical dignitaries 
 about Dublin, were sworn or did homage, and particularly 
 bound themselves to support and execute the censures of the 
 Church, as pronounced by the Bull of Innocent VIII. upon 
 those who should rebel against the King of England. In 
 that instrument the Pope had declared his belief that the 
 Crown belonged to Henry by inheritance, by conquest, and 
 by election, independently of, and in addition to his claim in
 
 108 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, right of Elizabeth of York. Among the commoners whom 
 
 r-^' it was thought necessary to swear specially was Darcy of 
 
 Flatten, the tall man who had borne Lambert on his shoulders. 
 The civic authorities of Dublin, Drogheda, and Trim, having 
 been sworn before him in their own towns, Sir Richard 
 embarked at Dalkey on the thirty-fourth day after his ar- 
 rival at Kinsale. Of all Simnel's partisans, Keating, Prior 
 of Kilmainham, was the only one who did not receive a 
 pardon. 1 
 
 The Irish Kildare sent the Bishop of Meath to England to watch 
 
 summoned his interests, and Octavian also sent an agent to procure for 
 
 I489. gland> him the Custod 7 of tne Great Seal - The Primate complained 
 that Kildare, despite his recent oath, had begun plotting 
 against him before Edgcombe had reached the English shore. 
 ' 1 know,' he said, ' for certain that if the said Earl of Kil- 
 dare obtains the government of Ireland by royal authority, 
 and has the Chancellor of Ireland also at his back, that I have 
 no hope of quiet in Ireland.' Henry did not give the seal to 
 the Archbishop, but he summoned all the Irish nobility to 
 Court; and all obeyed except Desmond and Fitzmaurice of 
 Kerry. ' My masters of Ireland,' said the King, when giving 
 them audience, ' you will crown apes at length.' Afterwards 
 at dinner he gave point to this remark by ordering Lambert/ 
 Simnel to hand wine to those who had so lately crowned him 
 King. ' None would have taken the cup out of his hand, but 
 bade the great devil of hell him take, before that ever they 
 saw him.' ' Bring me the cup if the wine be good,' said the 
 Lord of Howth, being a merry gentleman, ' and I shall drink 
 it off for the wine's sake, and mine own sake also, and for 
 thee, as thou art, so I leave thee, a poor innocent.' Henry 
 kept the lords .at Court long enough for them to feel the ex- 
 pense burdensome, and then despatched them, making Lord 
 Howth, who had alone remained loyal, a present of 30(K in 
 gold, and the robe which he wore at the reception. Some 
 of the others had expected little less than the axe for their 
 reward. 2 
 
 1 Sir Richard Edgcombe's voyage, in Harris's Hibcrnica. 
 
 2 Hook of Howth ; Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII., vol. i. p. 384.
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. 109 
 
 The influence of Kildare was not much shaken by his 
 complicity in Simnel's adventure, and it was not till 1492 that 
 he was deprived of the office of Deputy. It was conferred y tm 
 on Walter Fitz-Simons, Archbishop of Dublin. About the 1492. 
 
 ; Butlers 
 
 same time Rowland Fitz-Eustace, Baron of Portlester, the and Gerai- 
 Earl's uncle, who had been Lord Treasurer for thirty-eight 
 years, was suddenly removed and threatened with a hostile 
 inquiry into his accounts during the whole period. Sir 
 James Ormonde, knighted by Henry in person, for his services 
 against Lambert, was appointed in his room, and another 
 Butler was made Master of the Rolls. The quarrel between 
 the two Houses blazed up fiercely ; and Kildare, to reassert 
 his influence, summoned a great meeting of citizens on 
 Oxmantown Green. 
 
 The two factions came to blows, some lives were lost, and 
 Kildare attempted to seize the city by a sudden movement. 
 The gates were, however, shut in time ; but Ship Street, then 
 outside the walls, was burned. The Geraldines wasted the 
 Butler territory, and the Butlers in their turn ravaged Kil- 
 dare and encamped in great force on the southern side of 
 Dublin. A meeting of the two chiefs in St. Patrick's 
 Cathedral was then arranged. A riot took place in the 
 church, a flight of arrows was discharged, and Sir James, 
 suspecting treason, barred himself into the Chapter-house. 
 The Earl came to the door with offers of peace, and a hole 
 was cut in the timber through which the rivals might shake 
 hands. Sir James hesitated to risk his hand, but Kildare 
 settled the question by putting in his own. The door was 
 then opened, they embraced each other, and peace followed 
 for a time. To make amends for the desecration of the 
 church, the Pope ordered that the mayor should go barefoot 
 through the city on Corpus Christi day, and this practice 
 was continued till the Reformation. The door with the hole 
 in it is still preserved, or was so until very lately. 1 
 
 ' Ireland at this time,' says Ware, ' was as it were a Perkin 
 theatre or stage on which masked princes entered, though Warbeck 
 
 1 Tfut Earls of Kildare; Harris's Dublin ; Four Mastt-rs, ad aim. 1492.
 
 110 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 HAP. soon after, their visors being taken off, they were expulsed 
 
 ^ < the stage.' Perkin Warbeck landed at Cork late in 1491, 
 
 lands 1491, or ear iy { n 1492 and was entertained by John Walters, an 
 
 but leaves * * 
 
 the next eminent merchant and future mayor. The citizens from the 
 year. . ... . 
 
 beginning insisted on regarding him as a royal personage, 
 
 first as a son of Clarence, afterwards as a bastard of Richard 
 III., and finally as Richard, Duke of York, Edward IV.'s 
 younger son. Having adopted the latter character, Perkin 
 wrote letters, extant in Ware's time, in which he sought 
 help from the Earls of Desmond and Kildare. The former 
 at once espoused his cause ; the latter, according to his own 
 account, would have nothing to do with ' the French lad.' 
 Desmond joined Perkin in soliciting the aid of James IV. 
 of Scotland, and he remained for about a year at Cork, learn- 
 ing English, but apparently without exciting any anxiety 
 in England. Towards the close of 1492 he withdrew to 
 France, where Charles VIII. received him as a prince, and 
 where he was joined by disaffected Yorkists. Henry having 
 made a successful campaign in France, Perkin was dismissed 
 and went to Flanders, where Margaret of Burgundy acknow- 
 ledged him as her nephew, and no doubt instructed him how 
 to fill the part. 1 
 Parliament In 1493 the Archbishop of Dublin held a Parliament, 
 
 of 1493. 
 
 where many things were done unfavourable to the Geral- 
 dine faction ; and on August 12, John Walters and other 
 accomplices of the pretender were summoned to surrender. 
 The Archbishop shortly went over to England, where he 
 made Henry clearly acquainted with the state of affairs in 
 Ireland, and was followed by Kildare, who had an opportunity 
 of telling his own story. In consequence of what he had 
 learned, the King resolved to appoint a Deputy unconnected 
 with any Irish party ; and fixed upon Sir Edward Poynings, 
 whom he had already employed as envoy to the Archduke 
 Philip, when remonstrating against the countenance given 
 to Perkin in Flanders. While Archbishop Fitz-Simons was 
 in England, Viscount Gormanston filled the office of Deputy, 
 
 1 Ware ; Gairdner's Life of liichard III. ; Letters of Richard III. and 
 J/enry VII., ii. 55.
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. Ill 
 
 and even ventured to summons a Parliament ; but the Duke CHAP. 
 
 VIII. 
 of Bedford having in the meantime resigned the lieutenancy, ^ ' 
 
 his substitute's action was afterwards declared null and void. 
 
 Poynings landed at Howth on October 13, 1494, with SirEdward 
 1,000 men. He was accompanied by Henry Dean, Bishop Deputy" 
 of Bangor and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, as 
 Chancellor, by Sir Hugh Conway as Treasurer, and by three 
 other Englishmen appointed to the chief places in the three 
 common law courts. Joining his forces with those of Kildare 
 and of Sir James Ormonde, Poynings immediately undertook 
 an expedition to Ulster, with a view of chastising O'Donnell, 
 who had lately been honourably received in Scotland, and 
 was probably implicated in Perkin's project. When the 
 army reached O'Hanlon's county, Sir James Ormonde per- 
 suaded the Deputy that Kildare was plotting with the Irish 
 against his life, and some colour was given to the charge by 
 the conduct of the Earl's brother James, who seized Carlow 
 Castle, mounted the Geraldihe banner, and refused to 
 surrender when summoned in the King's name. Having 
 with difficulty reduced Carlow, Poynings repaired to Drog- 
 heda, where he held a Parliament, whose legislation was 
 destined to have a momentous effect on Irish history. The 
 invasion of Ulster was abandoned, and Bacon, with the 
 experience of the next century, summarily disposes of it as 
 ' a wild chase on the wild Irish.' 
 
 The Acts of this Parliament of 1494 are numerous, many Parliament 
 of them being intended to make the administration more heda'W94. 
 directly dependent on the Crown. Thus, the judges and 
 other high officials were made to hold at the King's pleasure, 
 instead of by patent as had been customary heretofore. It 
 was made illegal for great men to retain free citizens and 
 burgesses in their pay, or for anyone to make war without 
 the governor's licence, or for anyone to stir up the Irish 
 against the English. It was made unlawful to keep firearms 
 without the Deputy's licence. The Statutes of Kilkenny 
 were confirmed or re-enacted, with the exception of those 
 against using the Irish language and those obliging every 
 subject to ride in a saddle. Family war cries, such as
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 (HAP. 
 VIII. 
 
 Poyni tigs' 
 Acts. 
 
 Attainder 
 of Kildare. 
 
 ' Butleraboo ' and ' Croraaboo,' were strictly prohibited. Coyne 
 and livery were visited with severe penalties ; but advanta- 
 geous terms were fixed, upon which the King might obtain 
 provisions for his soldiers. All Acts against papal provisions 
 theretofore made, either in England or Ireland, were de- 
 clared to be in full force, though the Government had no 
 means whatever of preventing them, or of making other 
 arrangements for the vast majority of Irish benefices. 1 
 
 The statutes known in after days as Poynings' Acts 
 were two in number. By the first it was enacted that no 
 future Parliaments should be held in Ireland, ' but at such 
 season as the King's Lieutenant and Council there first do 
 certify the King under the great seal of that land (Ireland), 
 the causes and considerations, and all such acts as tlit-m 
 seemeth should pass in the same Parliament.' Should the 
 King in Council approve them, then the Irish Parliament 
 should be summoned under the great seal of England, and not 
 otherwise. By the second Act it was provided that all public 
 statutes c late made within the said realm of England ' should 
 be in force in Ireland. The lawyers decided that this applied 
 to all English Acts prior to the tenth year of Henry VII. 
 And thus the dependence of the Irish Parliament on that of 
 England was established in the fullest degree. 2 
 
 Kildare was attainted by the Drogheda Parliament, the 
 Act stating that he had provoked Irish enemies and English 
 rebels to levy war against the King, that he had conspired 
 with O'Hanlon to kill the Deputy, that he had caused his 
 brother James to seize Carlow and hold it against the King, 
 that he had used coyne and livery, and that he had conspired 
 with the King of Scots and the Earl of Desmond for an 
 invasion of Ireland. The Earl was arrested and sent to 
 England, there to await Henry's own judgment on these 
 and other matters. The chief of the southern Geraldines 
 had in the meantime again given his adhesion to the cause 
 of Perkin Warbeck. 3 
 
 1 Irigh Statute.*, 10 Henry VII., Dec. 1, 1494. 
 
 * Ibid., chaps, iv. and xxii. 
 
 * Gilbert's r/<v/v//.v, p. 4~l, :m<l Ware. The Act is not in the printed 
 statutes.
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. 113 
 
 Less than three weeks after his disgraceful failure in CHAP. 
 
 Kent, Perkin was with Desmond in Munster. Eleven ships, -_ , ' 
 
 of which some were Scotch, attacked Waterford from the Second 
 
 visit of 
 
 river, while Desmond and his Irish allies with 2,400 men Perkin 
 threatened the city from the southern side. Poynings sie-e of ' 
 marched against the invaders in person ; but the real work 
 was done by the mayor and citizens, who dammed the stream 
 called John's River, so as to prevent Desmond from joining 
 Perkin : while they battered the fleet with cannon planted 
 on Reginald's Tower. They made several sallies, killed their 
 prisoners, and stuck their heads on stakes in the market- 
 place. When the siege had lasted eleven days one of 
 Perkin's ships was sunk by the fire from the town, and the 
 adventurer then fled precipitately. At least three vessels 
 fell into the hands of the besieged or their allies, and the 
 citizens followed Perkin to Cork, where his friends protected 
 him. Afterwards he made his way to Scotland, where James 
 IV. received him with the honours due to a prince, and gave 
 him the hand of his cousin, Lady Catherine Gordon. James, 
 who was of an ambitious and visionary turn of mind, may 
 perhaps have thought it possible to restore the days of Bruce, 
 and to conquer some part of Ireland for himself. Two suc- 
 cessive O'Donnells acknowledged themselves his subjects, 
 and with their help and that of sailors like the Bartons, 
 Scotland might have disputed with England the possession 
 of Northern Ireland at least. The elder Hugh O'Donnell, 
 who died in 1505, was a man of considerable ability, the 
 annalists, with their usual magniloquence, styling him the 
 1 Augustus of the North of Europe ;' and with more truth 
 asserting that he was the most powerful person in the North 
 of Ireland. 1 
 
 Poynings quitted Ireland in January 1496, leaving the 
 government in the Bishop of Bangor's hands. Important as 
 was the recent legislation, it cannot be said that Henry had 
 made any real change in the system of government. His 
 
 1 Letters of Ricliard III. and Henry VII., vol. ii. pp. Lxxvi. 237, 242, 
 299 ; Histories of Waterford, bj' Smith and Rylands ; Four Masters and 
 Annals of Lmujli Ce ad ann. 1505. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, great idea, like that of his descendants, was to make Ireland 
 ' - r ^ pay her own expenses, and for that purpose he sent over two 
 able officers, with instructions to overhaul the entire system 
 of government. Plenty of zeal seems to have been shown, 
 but the result was not encouraging. No year passed in Ire- 
 land without some small war, and the established custom of 
 hiring native mercenaries tended to prevent any improvement. 
 Sir James Ormonde and other leaders found their account in 
 constant disturbance, and expense always more than kept 
 pace with revenue. 1 
 
 Friars em- The accounts of Vice-Treasurer Hattecliffe, to whom Henry 
 the'Govern- committed the control of Irish finance, seem to show that 
 Poynings and others found a difficulty in obtaining the aid of 
 subordinate officers. They had, however, a resource which 
 Elizabeth lacked, in the power of employing priests and 
 friars. Thus we find a Franciscan of Dublin sent to spy out 
 the manners of the people inhabiting the marches of the Pale, 
 and again acting as a messenger between the Council in 
 Dublin and the Deputy in the field. A canon named John 
 Staunton was sent to act as a spy ' in Munster and elsewhere 
 about the Earl of Desmond, Perkin Warbeck, and other 
 rebels.' On another occasion a Carmelite was the means of 
 communication between the Government and Sir James 
 Ormonde, and it is probable that many more of the mes- 
 sengers were clergymen, though the fact is not so mentioned. 2 
 Turbulence That there was no peace, and consequently no diminution 
 Geraidines. of expense, is not to be altogether attributed to the rapacity 
 
 f Sir James Ormonde and other leaders of kerne and gallow- 
 dare, 1496. gl asse s. The Geraidines took care that the country should be 
 disturbed during the Earl's absence, as we find by the follow- 
 ing significant entry : ' Two shillings to Philip Messanger 
 for carrying the Lord Justice's letters directed to Richard 
 Paynteneye of Carbury, Edward Dowdall of Slane, to the 
 sovereign of Athboy, and others, ordering them to have sundry 
 fires made on sundry mountains viz. the mountains of Tara, 
 
 1 Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII., vol. ii. pp. 64 and 67. 
 
 2 Hattecliffe's accounts in Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII., vol. 
 ii. pp. 297-318.
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VII. 115 
 
 Lyons, Athboy, and Slane, to warn the King's lieges in case CHAP. 
 
 James, the Earl's son, and others the King's Irish enemies, r-^ 
 
 should bring a power to invade the English districts.' 
 Several other payments were made to the same messenger for 
 services in connection with these Geraldine inroads, and 
 .Henry came gradually to think that Kildare did more harm 
 as a prisoner than he could possibly do if he were at liberty. 
 Whether the account of the Earl's behaviour at Court, which 
 has been copied from the ' Book of Howth ' into most histories, 
 be true or not, there can be little doubt that Henry thought 
 it better that he should rule all Ireland, than that he should 
 have further opportunities of showing that all Ireland could 
 not rule him. The gravest charge against him was that of 
 conspiring with O'Hanlon to murder Poynings, and this was 
 disposed of by the evidence of O'Hanlon. Prince Henry 
 became titular Lord-Lieutenant, the attainder was reversed 
 by the English Parliament, and Kildare received a commission 
 as Lord Deputy under the King's son. His first wife, Alison 
 Eustace, is said to have died through the agitation caused 
 by his imprisonment, and he now added to his influence by 
 marrying Elizabeth St. John, the King's first cousin. Leaving 
 his son Gerald as a hostage at the English Court, he returned 
 to Dublin as soon as possible, received the sword from Deane, 
 successfully invaded the O'Briens and Macnamaras, and was 
 fully reconciled to the Archbishop of Armagh. The Great Seal 
 was given to Fitzsimons, Archbishop of Dublin, a prelate 
 who had the courage to tell Henry that a certain courtly 
 orator flattered him too much. ' Our father of Dublin,' 
 replied the King, 'we minded to find the same fault our- 
 selves.' l 
 
 On July 20, 1497, Perkin Warbeck again made his ap- Warbeck's 
 pearance at Cork. He got no help this time from Desmond, \ 4 ^ 7 Vlslt> 
 who had been pardoned, and who had perhaps made up his mind 
 that the adventurer was an impostor. Sir James Ormonde was 
 accused of favouring him. The citizens of Waterford at once 
 gave Henry notice, and with four ships fitted out by them- 
 selves gave chase to Perkin, who found no encouragement 
 
 1 Ware ; Hattecliffe's Accounts ; Earls of Kildar 
 VOL. i. * i 2
 
 116 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, 
 
 Considera- 
 
 sTmneTan 
 Warbeck. 
 
 in Ireland, and lost no time in going to join the Cornish 
 malcontents. Narrowly escaping capture at sea, he managed 
 to raise a force of 6,000 or 7,000 men, besieged Exeter and 
 Taunton unsuccessfully, and then ran away without striking 
 a blow, and took sanctuary at Beaulieu, in Hampshire. The 
 inglorious close of his career is unconnected with Ireland, and 
 he seems on this last occasion to have had no Irish allies. The 
 citizens of Waterford received from the King a cap of main- 
 tenance to be borne on certain occasions before the mayor, and 
 the title of Urbs intacta, in which the city still glories. The 
 sum of 1,000 marks which he had promised for the capture of 
 Perkin was not, strictly speaking, earned by the Waterford 
 men ; and their loyal and, doubtless, very costly exertions 
 received no money recompense from the frugal King. 1 
 
 The modern historian, whose fortune it has been to clear 
 U P a ^ Doubts a bout Perkin Warbeck, takes Lord Bacon to 
 task for overrating the excellence of the pretender's acting. 
 But Bernard Andreas, the principal if not the only contem- 
 porary writer, certainly gives one to understand that he 
 played his part veiy plausibly. 
 
 ' Carried to Ireland by a fair wind he suborned with his 
 very cunning temptations a great part of the barbarians of 
 that island. For he unfolded and retold from his ready 
 memory all the times of Edward IV., and without book 
 repeated the names of all his familiars and servants as he had 
 been taught them from a boy. He habitually added circum- 
 stances of time, place, and person, with which he very easily 
 persuaded the levity of those men. And with the help of 
 such figments the matter grew so important, that men of 
 prudence and high nobility were induced to believe the same. 
 What followed ? Certain prophecies concerning him were 
 scattered far and wide by false prophets, which completely 
 blinded the mental perceptions of the common people.' 
 
 It must be admitted that Lord Bacon did not speak with- 
 
 1 Gairdner's Richard III.; Smith's Waterford, where is given the 
 correspondence between Henry and the city ; Carerv, vol. v. p. 472, where 
 the events of 1487, 1495, and 1497 are mixed up; Sir Piers Butler to 
 the Earl of Ormonde, in Graves 's St. Canice, p. 193.
 
 THE REIGN OF HENKY VII. 117 
 
 out considerable authority. A contemporary French poem, CHAP. 
 
 which was probably also written by Bernard Andreas, gives > 1-^ 
 
 a very unflattering account of Ireland as a cave of robbers, 
 ' where is neither peace, love, nor concord, but only treasons 
 and the foulest deeds.' Such material help as the pretender 
 received was entirely among the Anglo-Irish. The native 
 annalists do not mention him, whereas Simnel is, at least by 
 one writer, spoken of as an undoubted prince of the blood 
 royal. 1 
 
 Sir James Ormonde, whose mother was an O'Brien, used sir Piers 
 the help of his Irish connections to oppress Sir Piers Butler, fif j"^" 8 
 whom he imprisoned, but afterwards released at Desmond's , r oade ' 
 
 ' 1497. 
 
 request, ' upon trust that he should have married the Earl's 
 daughter.' One of Kildare's first acts after his restoration 
 was to summon Sir James to Dublin, and to proclaim him 
 outlaw on his refusal. But this scarcely lessened his power 
 in the Butler country, and did not even prevent him from 
 assuming the title of Earl of Ormonde. Driven to great 
 straits, Sir Piers asserted that his rival had imprisoned him 
 ' contrary to his oath and promise made upon the holy cross 
 and other great relics .... and that the same Sir James, 
 not pondering his said oath and promise, showed openly that 
 wheresoever he would find me he would kill me.' After this 
 Sir James, for the second time, refused to appear before the 
 King. The two Butlers met accidentally in the open field 
 between Dunmore and Kilkenny, and after a short struggle 
 Sir James was slain. 2 
 
 According to some accounts this encounter or murder, Consequent 
 whichever it may be thought, was caused by Lady Margaret P e j* ce 
 Butler's complaint that she could get no wine, though in Butlers and 
 delicate health. ' Truly, Margaret,' he answered, ' thou shalt 
 have store of wine within this four and twenty hours, or else 
 thou shalt feed alone on milk for me.' One writer says that 
 there were desperate odds against Sir Piers ; and if this be 
 
 1 Four Masters, with O'Donovan's notes, under 1485. The 'Annals' of 
 Andreas and the ' Douze triomphes de Henri VII.,' are in Memorials of 
 Henry VII., ed. Gairdner. 
 
 2 Sir Piers Butler to the Earl of Ormonde, in Graves's St. Canice, 
 p. 193. Stanihurst says Sir Piers waylaid his enemy.
 
 118 IEELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, true, and considering the then state of Ireland, the guilt of 
 
 * , ^ ' murder can hardly attach to him. The death of Sir James 
 
 was decidedly beneficial to Ireland, for it made peace between 
 the Houses of Kildare and Ormonde. 1 
 
 Parliament In 1498 Kildare received a commission to hold a Parlia- 
 ment which was not to last for more than six months. The 
 first Act of this Parliament was to confirm the reversal of the 
 Lord Deputy's attainder, who by a singular anomaly thus 
 exercised viceregal authority, notwithstanding the corrup- 
 tion of his own blood ; the last to attaint Lord Barrymore 
 and John Waters for their dealings with Perkin Warbeck. 
 Waters was caught, found guilty by a Westminster jury, and 
 hanged at Tyburn, alongside of the pretender. Lord Barry- 
 more escaped arrest, but was murdered by his brother, the 
 Archdeacon of Cork. Kildare visited and garrisoned Cork, 
 forcing the chief inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance to 
 Henry, and to give bonds for future good behaviour. Of the 
 other Acts passed, the most important was one for the dis- 
 couragement of Irish habits and weapons. Henceforth 
 dwellers within the Pale were enjoined to wear only English 
 dress, and to wield only ' English artillery,' such as swords, 
 bucklers, pavesses, bows, arrows, bills, crossbows, guns, or 
 such hand weapons darts and spears being prohibited ; and 
 they were to ride in saddles in the English fashion. 2 
 Kildare'a It was Kildare's fortune not only to give trouble himself, 
 
 but to be the progenitor of those who were to give trouble 
 in future - The rebellion of his grandson Thomas Fitzgerald 
 was to cause the eclipse of his house. The descendants of 
 his daughter Alice were to be the chief disturbers of the 
 Elizabethan monarchy in Ireland. She had married Con 
 More O'Neill, who was naturalised by Act of Parliament, 
 and this gave her father a fair excuse for interfering in the 
 affairs of Ulster. Con More had been treacherously killed 
 by his brother Henry in 1493, and the murderer fought for 
 
 1 All the authorities bearing on this event are collected in Graves's St. 
 Canice, pp. 193-198. 
 
 2 The Acts of this Parliament (supposed lost) are printed by Mr. Gilbert 
 in his Facsimiles of Iriih National MSS., vol. iii., from the English Patent 
 Rolls. Ware ; Four Masters.
 
 THE KEIGN OF HENEY VII. 119 
 
 supremacy with his brother Donnell. Henry was at first CHAP. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 successful, and Donnell, whom Lady Alice appears to have r 
 favoured, could only keep up a desultory opposition. In 
 1497 a peace or truce was made, but in the following year 
 Tirlough and Con, Lady Alice's two young sons, killed 
 Henry in revenge for their father's death, and invited Kil- 
 dare to come himself into Ulster. Besides his grandsons, 
 the Lord Deputy had the help of Donnell O'Neill, of 
 Maguire, of O'Donnell, and of most of the neighbouring 
 clans against Henry O'Neill's sons and partisans. Cannon 
 were brought against Dungannon, which soon surrendered. 
 Omagh was afterwards taken, and Donnell was established 
 as chief of Tyrone. Firearms were perhaps first brought to 
 Ireland in 1483, when six muskets, considered a great rarity, 
 were sent from Germany as a present to Kildare, and were 
 borne by his guards more for show than for use. In 1487 
 an O'Donnell was killed by a cannon or musket shot in a 
 local broil, and in the following year Kildare brought ord- 
 nance against Balrath Castle. In 1495, as we have seen, 
 heavy guns were successfully used for the defence of Water- 
 ford, and the mention of firearms in the Act of 1498 shows 
 that their importance was quickly recognised. Cannon came 
 in time to be the peculiar weapons of the King, their great 
 expense putting them out of the reach of private combatants, 
 and no doubt it was gunpowder that caused the downfall 
 both of the feudal and of the tribal systems. 1 
 
 In 1499 the Lord Deputy, who acted pretty much as Kildare's 
 if there were no King in England, made an excursion into Connaught 
 Connaught, and garrisoned certain castles. About the same and Ulster - 
 time Piers Butler was defeated in battle by the O'Briens, 
 but the causes of neither quarrel have been handed down to 
 us. It was the policy of the Anglo-Norman nobles in Ireland 
 to make themselves allies among the Irish, and in pursuance 
 of this idea the Earl gave up his son Henry to be fostered 
 by his late ally, Hugh Roe O'Donnell, who came to visit him 
 in the Pale. Kildare afterwards held a Parliament at Castle 
 
 1 Four Masters and O'Donovan's notes, under 1487, 1488, and 14'J8.
 
 120 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 VIII. 
 
 Kildare in 
 
 England, 
 
 1503. 
 
 Battle of 
 
 Knocktoe, 
 
 1504. 
 
 Derraot ; but its acts had no political significance, unless 
 the punishment of certain nobles for not wearing Parliament- 
 robes, and for not using saddles, be considered an exception. 
 
 Donnell O'Neill and his nephews did not long remain at 
 peace, and O'Donnell, siding with the latter, expelled Donnell 
 from Dungannon. Kildare again invaded Tyrone, in con- 
 junction with O'Donnell, and took Kinard Castle, which he 
 handed over to his grandson Tirlough ; but six weeks later 
 it was retaken by Donnell O'Neill. For more than two years 
 after this no event of any importance is recorded ; there were 
 ceaseless wars among the Irish, but the Lord Deputy does not 
 seem to have interfered with them. 
 
 In 1503 Kildare visited England by the King's orders, and 
 remained there three months. Having licence from Henry 
 to appoint a substitute, he selected his old antagonist the 
 Archbishop of Dublin to act as Lord Justice in his absence. 
 The Earl remained three months in England, and was 
 allowed to bring back his son Gerald, who had been a 
 hostage for eight years. Gerald, who was accompanied by 
 his bride, Elizabeth Zouche, received his appointment as 
 Lord Treasurer of Ireland a few months later. 1 
 
 In 1504 a quarrel arose between Kildare and Ulick 
 Mac William Burke, Lord of Clanricarde, who had married 
 his daughter, Lady Eustacia. The only cause assigned by 
 any of the authorities is, that MacWilliam ill-treated his 
 wife. He had, however, seized the town of Galway, and 
 that might be provocation enough for a Lord Deputy. Two 
 great armies were collected MacWilliam having the O'Briens 
 and Macnamaras, the Coimaught O'Connors, and the !Mnc- 
 Briens, O'Kennedys, and O'Carrolls on his side. With the 
 Deputy were a portipn at least of the O'Neills, O'Dounell, 
 MacDermot, Magenuis, O'Connor Faly, O'Ferrall, MacMahon, 
 O'Reilly, O'Hanlon, and some of the Mayo Burkes, the 
 Mayor of Dublin, the Earl of Desmond, and the Lords 
 Gormanston, Slane, Delvin, Killeen, Dunsany, Trimleston, and 
 Howth. Notwithstanding this formidable array of names, 
 
 1 Ware ; Four Master*.
 
 THE KEIGN OF HEN BY VII. 121 
 
 i 
 
 Kildare's army was far inferior to MacWilliam's in point of CHAP. 
 
 numbers. Both bishops and lawyers appeared at the council , 
 
 of war which preceded the battle : Art O'Neill objecting 
 to the former and O'Connor Faly to the other. The one 
 declared that the bishops' duty was ' to pray, to preach, and 
 to make fair weather, and not to be privy to manslaughter ;' 
 and the other expressed great contempt for pen and ink and 
 for ' the weak and doubtful stomachs of learned men.' ' I 
 never,' he said, ' saw those that were learned ever give good 
 counsel in matters of war, for they were always doubting, 
 and staying, and persuading, more in frivolous and uncertain 
 words than Ector or Launcelot's doings.' Lord Gormanston 
 was unwilling to risk so much without first knowing the 
 King's pleasure ; but Lord Howth, as represented by the 
 family chronicler, saw that good advice might come too late, 
 and that being in the field they must fight. He proposed 
 that they should conquer or die, having first placed their 
 sons in safety, so as to secure vengeance in case of defeat. 
 This plan was frustrated by young Gerald's refusal to retire. 
 MacWilliam's army made certain of victory, and spent the 
 night drinking, playing cards, and arranging about the 
 custody of prisoners. The battle took place at Knocktuagh 
 or Knocktoe, now generally written Knockdoe, a hill near 
 Clare Galway. Kildare is said to have reminded his follow- 
 ers that the enemy, though very numerous, were ill-armed, 
 many with one spear only and a knife, and ' without wisdom 
 or good order, marching to battle as drunken as swine to 
 a trough.' When the fighting began ' Great Darcy ' the 
 man who had borne Lambert Simnel on his shoulders 
 appeared as one of the chief champions on the Deputy's side. 
 Kildare gained a complete victory. The ' Book of Howth ' 
 represents the gentry of the Pale as sustaining the brunt of 
 the battle, while the ' Four Masters ' tell the story as if both 
 armies consisted of aboriginal Irishmen only. According to 
 the former authority, Lord Gormanston made the following 
 speech to the Lord Deputy : ' We have done one good 
 work, and if we do the other we shall do well. We have for 
 the most number killed our enemies, and if we do the like
 
 122 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, with all the Irishmen that we have with us, it were a Rood 
 vn r 
 
 Till. -] j , 
 
 , deed. 
 
 Galway and Athenry were occupied without difficulty after 
 the battle, and the Lord Deputy's Irish allies withdrew to 
 their own countries. The arduous task remained of pereuad- 
 .ing Henry VII. that all had been done in his interest. 
 Kildare sent his old antagonist the Archbishop of Dublin to 
 Court, who performed his mission so well that the King 
 professed himself quite satisfied, and soon afterwards made 
 his Deputy a Knight of the Garter. Perhaps Henry was 
 not really deceived, but thought it good policy to make his 
 great subject's victories his own. Sixty years afterwards, 
 when Sir Henry Sidney solicited a garter for another Earl of 
 Kildare, he urged his suit in these words : ' King Henry 
 VII. made his grandfather, and wist full what he did when 
 he did so ; he enlarged the Pale, and enriched the same more 
 than 10,OOOZ. worth.' 1 
 
 Parliament Of the remaining years of Henry VII.'s reign but little 
 seems to be recorded, except that the chronic war among the 
 native tribes did not cease. Kildare held a Parliament in 1508, 
 in which a subsidy of 13s. 4>d. was granted out of every 
 ploughland, whether lay or clerical. About the same time 
 a party of the O'Neills took Carrickfergus Castle, and carried 
 off the mayor. In 1509 Kildare again invaded Tyrone in 
 the interests of his grandsons, and demolished Omagh. 
 When the King died he was in full possession of the govern- 
 ment, and without a rival in those parts of Ireland which 
 were in any real sense subject to the English Crown. 2 
 
 Henry en- It was the decided policy of Henry VII. to act in the 
 spirit of the Statute of Kilkenny, and to separate the English 
 
 1 Sidney to Leicester, March 1, 1566, in the Irish State Papers. The ac- 
 count of the battle of Knocktoe is made up from Ware, Stanihurst, the Four 
 Masters, and the Book of Hoivth. The Four Masters seem to have thought 
 that the forces of the Pale were not engaged, and O'Donovan rather coun- 
 tenances them, but the Annals of Lough Ce say Kildare mustered ' all the 
 foreigners and Irish of Leinster and of Northern Ireland.' (Ad ann. 1504.) 
 The details in the Book of Howtli may not be all correct, though there is 
 nothing antecedently improbable in Lord Gormanston's truculent speech. 
 
 2 Irish Statutes, 24 Hen. VII. ; Letters and Papers of Henry VI II., Oct. 
 7, 1515.
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENKY VII. 123 
 
 and Irish districts. The well-known name of the Pale, or CHAP. 
 
 VIII. 
 the English Pale, seems to have come into general use about , ' 
 
 the close of the fifteenth century. A great number of ordi- t se P arate 
 nances remain to prove how necessary it was for the Englishry races, 
 to bear arms, and the practice of fortifying the home district 
 against the Irish became a subject of legal enactment at 
 least as early as 1429. An Act of the Parliament of 1475 
 declares that a dyke had been made and kept up from Tallaght 
 to Tassagard, at the sole cost of four baronies Coolock, 
 Balrothery, Castleknock, and Newcastle and provision was 
 made by statute for its future maintenance. This was an 
 inner line for the defence of Dublin only, but the Parlia- 
 ment of Drogheda made a similar provision for the whole 
 Pale. It was enacted that every inhabitant of the marches 
 or inland borders of Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Louth, 
 should, under a penalty of 40s., make and maintain ' a 
 double ditch of six feet above ground, at one side, which 
 meareth next unto Irishmen,' the landlord forgiving a year's 
 rent in consideration of this work. The legal provision was 
 afterwards enforced by writs addressed to the sheriffs and 
 justices, and the name of Pale was perhaps first given to 
 the district so enclosed. The building of this Mahratta 
 ditch may be considered to mark the lowest point reached 
 by the English power in Ireland. 1 
 
 1 The statutes referred to are printed in Hardiman's Statute of Kil- 
 kenny. See Gilbert's Viceroys, p. 459.
 
 124 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. TO THE YEAR 1534. 
 
 CHAP. HENRY VIII. was proclaimed without opposition, and amid 
 -- ^ great rejoicings in all the principal towns, but his accession 
 Accession ma ^ e no immediate difference to Ireland. Kildare prepared 
 
 of Henry 
 
 vin.,1509. to go to the new King, but the Council, who felt their help- 
 remains in lessness without him, chose him Lord Justice, and con- 
 strained him to stay. His patent as Lord Deputy was not 
 long withheld, and other official men were for the time con- 
 tinued in authority. The Earl was summoned to Court, but 
 excused himself on the grounds that he could not be spared, 
 and, as the Council sustained him, the King made no objec- 
 tion. Attended by the chief men of the Pale he invaded 
 Munster, and, being joined by O'Donnell, penetrated into 
 Desmond and took Castlemaine, as well as the so-called 
 palace of the MacCarthies near Killarney. He met with 
 scarcely any resistance, and seems to have had no higher 
 object than plunder. Near Limerick, Kildare was joined by 
 Desmond's eldest son with the main force of the southern 
 Geraldines and the MacCarthies of Carbery and Musketry. 
 The Lord Deputy passed into Clare by a wooden bridge 
 which the O'Briens had erected near Castleconnell, and 
 which he broke down behind him. Here he was met by 
 Tirlough O'Brien, the chief's son, accompanied by the Mac- 
 namaras and the Clanricarde Burkes. The hostile armies 
 bivouacked at such close quarters that they could hear each 
 other talking at night. At daybreak Kildare retired along 
 the right bank of the Shannon, and reached Limerick in 
 safety with the bulk of his plunder. The Munster Geral- 
 dines, with their Irish auxiliaries, marched in the van as
 
 Vol.]. to face page 124. 
 
 London-: Longmans & C?
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 125 
 
 not being over trustworthy. In the rear, the post of honour CHAP. 
 
 in a retreat, were the O'Donnells and the men of the Pale. > ^- ' 
 
 Such was the settlement of differences between Geraldines 
 and De Burgos, which the chief governor had alleged as the 
 main obstacle to his attendance upon his sovereign. It was 
 indeed his interest to be always at war, for he had obtained 
 a grant in tail of all such possessions as he could recover 
 from any rebel in Ireland. 1 This method of paying a viceroy 
 with letters of marque cost the Crown nothing, but the 
 greatest ingenuity could hardly have devised a plan more 
 fatal to an unfortunate dependency. 
 
 During the next year Kildare kept pretty quiet, but was Activity of 
 soon again in the field. Crossing the Shannon at Athlone, Sw^siS. 
 he plundered and burned all before him to Roscommon, 
 where he placed a garrison, and then prolonged his destroy- 
 ing course to Boyle. Here he met O'Donnell, who came to 
 him over the Curlew Mountains. This chief had lately made 
 a pilgrimage to Rome, and spent four months in London 
 going and as many more on his return. He was well re- 
 ceived by Henry VIII., but we have unfortunately no details. 
 In this same year Kildare invaded Ulster, took the castle of 
 Belfast, and spoiled the land far and wide. In the following 
 summer he marched against Ely O'Carroll, but while water- 
 ing his horse in a stream near his own castle of Kilkea he 
 was shot by one of the O'Mores, and died soon afterwards. 2 
 His son Gerald was at once chosen Lord Justice by the 
 Council, and the King continued him in authority 3 on the 
 ame terms, and with a similar grant of all lands he could 
 recover from the rebels. 
 
 The rival house of Ormonde was at this time depressed TheEari- 
 by the loss of its head without male issue. Early in 1515 ormondein 
 died Thomas, the seventh Earl, the only Irish peer whom abeyance. 
 Henry VII. or Henry VIII. called to the English House of 
 Lords, who was reputed the richest subject of the Crown, and 
 
 1 See his patent of Nov. 8, 1510. Council of Ireland to the King, June 
 8, 1509, in Bremer ; Fow Masters ; Annals of Lmigli Ce. 
 
 2 Earls of Kildare, p. 69 ; Ware ; Four Masters. Kildare died Sept. 3, 
 1513. 
 
 * See the grant in Brewer, Dec. 2, 1513, and again, March 24, 1516.
 
 126 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, is said to have left the enormous sum of 40,0002. in money 
 
 r besides jewels. He had two daughters, who inherited his 
 
 personal property and seventy-two manors in England. Ann, 
 the eldest, was married to Sir James St. Leger, Margaret, 
 the younger, to Sir William Boleyn, by whom she had Sir 
 Thomas, who became grandfather to Queen Elizabeth. Sir 
 Piers Butler, a descendant of the third Earl, was heir male 
 to the title and to the settled Irish estates, which at once 
 became matters of dispute between him and the ladies St. 
 Leger and Boleyn. With the full approval of the Irish 
 Butlers, Sir Piers at once assumed the title of Earl. He had 
 married Lady Margaret Fitzgerald, sister of the new Lord 
 Deputy Kildare, a woman of lofty character and stature, to 
 whom Irish tradition, with an endearing irony, has given the 
 name of Magheen, or Little Margaret. In compliance with 
 letters from the King, Sir Piers was ordered to appear before 
 his brother-in-law and the Irish Council; but he sent his 
 wife instead, to urge that he was busy fighting. The lady, 
 who must have had a delicate task between her husband and 
 her brother, procured an adjournment, and it was stipulated 
 that no rents should be paid in the meantime. The late 
 Earl's daughters appeared by counsel in due course, and it is 
 evident that Henry leaned strongly to their side. They 
 offered evidence of title, but Sir Piers staid away and left all 
 to his wife and his lawyers. The latter contented them- 
 selves with practically demurring to the jurisdiction, and 
 prayed to have the case tried at common law ; which would 
 probably have secured a decision for their client. The Lord 
 Deputy referred all back to the King, and the tenants con- 
 tinued to pay no rent. Kildare wished to command Sir 
 Piers on his allegiance to appear before the King in England 
 on a certain day ; but he was overruled by the Council, who 
 believed that this would drive Butler into rebellion ; and, as 
 its acknowledged chief, he could command all the forces of 
 his family. He chanced, moreover, to be at peace with the 
 reigning Desmond, and he had strengthened himself by 
 alliances among the Irish. These considerations prevailed 
 with the King or with Wolsey, and the case remained in
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 127 
 
 abeyance ; but it had gone far enough to cause an irreparable CHAP. 
 breach between Kildare and the rival chief. 1 >- ^ - 
 
 Meanwhile, the Lord Deputy trod in his father's footsteps. Kildare 
 He made successful raids on the O'Mores and O'Reillys, and England iu 
 for slaying many of the latter had a grant of the customs of res tiess 
 Strangford and other places in Down. A visit to England P hc y- 
 in 1515 resulted in permission to hold a Parliament in the 
 following year, but it produced no legislation of importance. 
 He took and dismantled Leap Castle, the stronghold of the 
 O'Carrolls, which his father had failed to gain, and he sur- 
 prised Clonmel by a sudden march, though we know not 
 what offence that town had given him. When he was busy 
 in the north, where he destroyed O'Neill's castle at Dun- 
 gannon and stormed Dundrum, which was defended by 
 Magennis, the O'Carrolls rose again and invaded Meath. 
 Again Kildare visited Ely and destroyed another castle. 
 The history of two viceroyalties may indeed be told in a 
 single sentence. Every year or two the Earl of Kildare 
 harried some Irish country, and then reported such and such 
 execution done upon the King's enemies. There was no 
 attempt to keep the peace among the natives, the highest 
 policy being the setting of one chief against another. The 
 O'Neills and O'Donnells continued their everlasting feuds, 
 and nearly every tribe was constantly at war. Occasionally 
 they made foreign alliances, as in the case of O'Donnell, who 
 was a travelled man. A French knight coming on a visit to 
 St. Patrick's Purgatory was hospitably received by the chief, 
 and offered to recover Sligo from the O'Connors. The offer 
 was accepted, and in due course an armed vessel appeared in 
 Killybegs Harbour. Sligo was battered from the sea, the 
 O'Donnells co-operating by land, and the castle surrendered. 
 We hear no more of the mysterious Frenchman. 2 Ware says 
 that Ireland was peaceable during the year 1518, but the 
 Irish annalists tell a very different story. 3 
 
 The chiefs of English race were almost as restless as the 
 
 1 Kildare to the King, Dec. 1, and Archbishop Rokeby to Wolsey, Dec. 
 12, 1515, both in Brewer. 
 
 2 Four Masters, 1516. 3 Ibid.
 
 128 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TCDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 IX. 
 
 Miserable 
 state of the 
 country. 
 
 Thomas, 
 Earl of 
 Surrey, 
 Lord- Lieu- 
 tenant, 
 1520. 
 Anarchy. 
 
 Celts whom they affected to despise, nnd the state of the 
 Pale was as bad as bad could be. John Kite, a Londoner, who 
 had been promoted to the throne of Armagh by Wolsey's 
 influence, informed his patron that he tried to comfort the 
 people by promising that the King would soon come to 
 reform the land. He insisted very reasonably that the King 
 was as much bound to maintain order and justice in Ireland 
 as in England herself. The sea was no safer than the land, 
 and the ship which brought the Archbishop from Chester 
 had been attacked by two pirates ; but the men of Drogheda 
 no thanks to the Government had captured the rovers. 
 Even the Countess Dowager of Kildare, who was the 
 daughter of an English knight, complained that her stepson 
 allowed O'Neill to levy tribute on her lands, and that her 
 property and that of her dependents was laid waste. Portions 
 that had escaped the Irish were seized by the Earl's own 
 steward. Kildare had many other accusers, and was at 
 length summoned over to give an account. He was allowed 
 to appoint a Deputy, and nominated his cousin, Maurice 
 Fitzgerald of Lackagh, who was soon afterwards killed by the 
 O'Mores. But the cry of the land had been heard at last, 
 and Henry resolved to send over a governor whom he could 
 trust. The lot fell upon Thomas, Earl of Surrey, the son 
 and companion in arms of the victor of Flodden, whose 
 influence at Court probably made his absence desirable to 
 Wolsey. 1 
 
 The first thirty pages of the printed State Papers are 
 taken up with a report to the King on the state of Ireland, 
 founded on an earlier document, but corrected and brought 
 down nearly to the date of Surrey's appointment. It dis- 
 closes a state of things calculated to try the ablest governor. 
 In Ulster and Connaught, in the counties of Waterford, 
 Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick, Kerry, Carlow, Westmeath, and 
 Wicklow, and in parts of Kildare and Wexford, there was 
 neither magistrate nor sheriff. Districts wholly or partially 
 
 1 Kite to Wolsey, May 1 and June 7, 1514, R.O. ; Lady Kildare's 
 Article* of Complaint, 1515, R.O. : Ware's Aniwh.
 
 FEOM 1509 TO 1534. 129 
 
 peopled by men of English race were under black-rent to CHAP. 
 
 the native chiefs. This odious tax was paid by the Savages ^ ' 
 
 of Lecale in Down to the O'Neills of Clandeboye. The 
 great chief of Tyrone levied his dues in Louth. Meath and 
 Kildare were tributary to O'Connor Faly, Wexford to the 
 Kavanaghs, Kilkenny and Tipperary to O'Carroll, Limerick 
 to the O'Briens, and Cork to the MacCarthies. MacMurrough 
 Kavanagh, who in the eyes of the natives represented the 
 ancient royalty of Leinster, actually received eighty marks 
 out of an almost empty exchequer. The sum of the several 
 black-rents amounted to 740Z., and this was at a time when 
 a soldier received fourpence a day. Dublin was in constant 
 danger, and one of Henry's first acts was to grant 20Z. a year 
 to the citizens for repairing their walls, which had crumbled 
 through decrease of population, pestilence, and Irish violence. 
 A line drawn from Dundalk to Kells, from Kells to Kilcullen 
 Bridge, and thence by Ballymore Eustace, and Tallaght 
 to Dalkey, enclosed the whole actual Pale, upon which fell 
 all the expenses of an establishment intended to meet the 
 wants of all Ireland. The King's taxes had to be paid, coyne 
 and livery were extorted, horses and carriages were requisi- 
 tioned for the public service ; and with all this the Govern- 
 ment could give no protection, no judge went circuit, and 
 black-rent was perforce paid in addition. ' The King's army 
 in England,' said Henry's informant, ' is the commons, the 
 King's army in Ireland is such as oppress the commons.' 
 The nobility and gentry copied the Government, and it was 
 more than suspected that they dreaded any reform which 
 would force them to obey the law ; ' for there is no land in 
 all this world that has more liberty in vices than Ireland, 
 and less liberty in virtue.' The Church showed no better 
 example than the lay magnates ; ' for there is no archbishop 
 nor bishop, abbot nor prior, parson nor vicar, nor any other 
 person of the Church, high or low, great or small, that useth 
 to preach the Word of God, saving the poor friars' beggars.' 
 Some Irish chiefs kept better order than the Government ; 
 ' but not to the intent that his subjects should escape harmless, 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 IX. 
 
 Remedies 
 suggested. 
 
 but to the intent to devour them by himself, like as a greedy- 
 hound delivereth the sheep from the wolf.' 
 
 Ireland has never lacked physicians, though she has often 
 been nothing bettered by them. The most obvious means 
 to strengthen the English power was to make the men of 
 the Pale keep arms and practice their use ; and this had been 
 the constant cry of governors and legislators for many gene- 
 rations. Henry had directed Kildare to get an Act passed 
 obliging every merchant trading from England to Ireland 
 to bring a pound's worth of bows and arrows for every 20J. 
 of wares, so as to prevent the King's subjects from applying 
 themselves to Irish archery. Patrick Finglas, Baron of the 
 Exchequer, was less sanguine than the writer of the State 
 Paper which has been so largely quoted. That reformer 
 ventured to prophesy that if his advice were taken the war 
 of Ireland would cease for ever, the King would recover 
 Constantinople and die Emperor of Rome, and Ireland once 
 reduced to order would be ' none other than a very paradise, 
 delicious of all pleasance.' But Finglas admitted that reform 
 must necessarily be gradual, and advised the King to confine 
 himself at first to the reclamation of Leinster. He recom- 
 mended that the chief abbeys and castles should be entrusted 
 to Englishmen, from Bray Head round the coast to Dun- 
 brody on the Suir, and inland from Baltinglass and Carlow 
 along the Barrow to Ross. The Wicklow Highlanders 
 would be thus bridled and unable to attack Kildare. Athy 
 and other places were to be held against the O'Connors and 
 O'Mores. The Butlers seem to have been thought able to 
 take care of themselves. It would not do to give up the 
 castles to men who had great possessions in England, and 
 who would never encourage English farmers to become their 
 tenants. At first settlers would have to be protected, but 
 in time would take care of themselves. There would be no 
 difficulty about tilling the soil, 'for there be no better 
 labourers than the poor commons of Ireland, nor sooner will 
 be brought to good frame, if they be kept under a law.' ' 
 Besides the payment of black-rent, the commons of Ire- 
 1 The tract by Finglas is in Carew, under 1515.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 131 
 
 land were oppressed by innumerable exactions, of which the CHAP. 
 
 principal may be described once for all. Bonaght was a tax ^- ' 
 
 imposed by a chief for the support of his mercenary horse- Insh 
 men, gallowglasses, and kerne. The name was often trans- 
 ferred from the tax to those who were maintained by it, and 
 Bonaght, or Bony, became the generic name for an Irish 
 mercenary or for one from the Scotch isles. Sorohen was 
 an obligation on certain lands to support the chief with his 
 train for twenty-four hours once a quarter, or, according to 
 another account, as often as once a fortnight. Coshery was 
 the chief's right to sponge upon his vassals with as many 
 followers as he pleased. Cuddies, or night-suppers, were 
 due by certain lands upon which the chief might quarter 
 himself and his train for four days four times a year. Shragh 
 and mart were yearly exactions in money and kine respec- 
 tively, apparently imposed at the will of the chief. Worse 
 than any of these was coyne and livery that is, the taking 
 of horse-meat and man-meat from everyone at the will of the 
 chief; in other words, the right of the strongest to take 
 what he liked. Coyne and livery were not the invention of 
 an Irish chief, but of one of those Anglo-Normans who knew 
 how to better native instruction. Maurice Fitz-Thomas, Earl 
 of Desmond, is said to have begun it under Edward II. as 
 the only available means of coping with Edward Bruce. 
 Originally a contrivance for carrying on war at the enemy's 
 expense, it came to be used by all great men at all seasons. 
 James, the ninth Earl of Desmond, has the credit of first 
 imposing it on loyal subjects, but the Crown was primarily 
 to blame for neglecting to keep order. Lords Deputies 
 showed no better example than private oppressors. 1 
 
 Surrey landed with his family at Dublin on May 23, Surrey 
 bringing 100 men of the royal guard as a peculiar mark of 
 favour. He found the country in rather more than its usual 
 confusion. He sent Archbishop Eokeby to Waterford, who 
 
 1 For further details of Irish exactions see Ware's Antiquities, and Pre- 
 sentments of Iriih Grand Juries in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Hore and 
 Graves, p. 266, sqq. Articles by Sir William Darcy, June 24, 1515, in 
 Carem. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 succeeded in preventing Sir Piers Butler from fighting with 
 Desmond, and he himself marched into Leix with his 
 English soldiers, 120 Irish mercenaries, and 300 kerne. 
 The English of the Pale, who, from love or fear of Kildare, 
 usually mustered so strong on these occasions, contributed, 
 only forty-eight horse and 120 foot. Surrey made war in the 
 usual Irish fashion, and burned Connell O'More's country. 
 He was joined by Sir Piers Butler, who brought a strong 
 contingent, including Mulrony O'Carroll, whom he induced 
 to take the oath of allegiance. O'Carroll had latterly done 
 great harm in the Pale, and he was considered the best 
 leader among the Irish. He refused to take the oath until 
 Surrey rashly promised that Kildare should never be Deputy 
 again. On being pressed about a letter which the Earl was 
 said to have written to him, he at first said that he would not 
 inform even were he to receive the viceregal pavilion full of 
 gold ; but in spite of all this bravado he allowed his brothers 
 to be examined, and they both swore that they had stood by 
 and heard the letter read. Surrey never saw the document 
 itself, nor has it been preserved. According to the report 
 which we have, Kildare had directed O'Carroll to keep the 
 peace till the arrival of an English Deputy, and then to 
 make war on all Englishmen except the writer's friends. 
 The object was to make all government but his own impos- 
 sible. 1 
 
 O'Donneii On his return to Dublin, Surrey found O'Donnell waiting 
 
 for him. That chief had probably pleasant recollections of 
 his visit to the 'English Court, and was not unwilling to 
 strengthen himself against his rival O'Neill. He told Surrey 
 that his powerful neighbour had urged him to make war on 
 the Pale, and had declared his own intention of doing so, in 
 compliance with Kildare's directions. O'Donnell promised 
 to invade Tyrone if the Lord-Lieutenant would do likewise 
 from the opposite quarter, and remarked emphatically that 
 if the King ever set Kildare in authority again he might as 
 well convey Ireland to him and his heirs for ever. 
 
 1 The paper printed by Leland, ii. 1 32, contains only Donogh O'Carroll 's 
 recollections. Surrey to Wolsey, September 6, 1520.
 
 FKOM 1509 TO 1534. 133 
 
 Early in August, Surrey, accompanied by Sir Piers Butler CHAP. 
 
 and his forces, entered Farney and punished MacMahon > ,-! - 
 
 for the assistance given to O'Neill in his attacks on the O'Neill 
 
 . _ temporises. 
 
 Pale. O'Neill made some sort of verbal submission, and 
 the Lord-Lieutenant returned to Dublin, where he detected 
 a conspiracy among his soldiers, some of whom found life 
 intolerable in Ireland. Their plan was to seize a small vessel 
 in the river, and by her means a larger one on the high seas, 
 and so to become rovers. The Irish lawyers held that the 
 Viceroy could not hang them ; for they had committed no 
 overt act, and his patent did not authorise him to proceed 
 by martial law. It is clear that the Crown was held capable 
 of dispensing with the common law, at least in the case of 
 soldiers. 1 
 
 In September an important private war was waged in Desmonds 
 Munster. James, Earl of Desmond, according to the usual Carthies. 
 practice of his family, made a perfectly unprovoked attack 
 upon Cormac Oge MacCarthy, the chief of Muskerry . Having 
 secured the assistance of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, the Earl's 
 uncle and his own sister's husband, and of his kinsman 
 MacCarthy Reagh, Cormac Oge defeated Desmond in a 
 pitched battle near Mourne Abbey, to the south of Mallow. 
 The messenger who brought the news to Dublin reported 
 that the Earl had lost 1,500 foot and 500 horse. The Lord- 
 Lieutenant was not sorry, for he had straitly charged Des- 
 mond to leave the MacCarthies alone. The fate of the Des- 
 monds has excited much not very well directed sympathy : 
 it would better become Irishmen to remember that they were 
 the worst oppressors of their Celtic neighbours. 
 
 When Surrey visited Munster soon after, Desmond met 
 him at Clonmel, and was as loyal in words as Sir Piers 
 Butler had been in deeds. At Waterford he met MacCarthy 
 Reagh and Cormac Oge, who were adherents of Sir Piers, and 
 who had come on his invitation. They spoke fairly, bound 
 themselves to keep the peace and professed themselves loyal, 
 so that they might be protected. Surrey wished to make 
 
 1 The Lord- Lieutenant and Council to the King, August 25 ; Surrey to 
 Wolsey, August 27 ; Surrey to the King, July 29, 1521.
 
 134 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. Cormac Oge a Privy Councillor and a Baron of Parliament, 
 
 ^ and he calls him a ' sad wise man.' Cormac produced a 
 
 charter under the Great Seal, a copy of which was sent to 
 
 England with an assurance that it comprised no lands to 
 
 which the King was entitled. 1 
 
 Henry It was probably to Cormac Oge that Henry wrote a 
 
 boidiv to remarkable letter, which shows his intentions at this time, 
 the insh. rpj^ jj.^^^ whether Cormac Oge or another, was willing 
 to surrender his lands and take an estate tail from the Crown 
 at a fair rent. It was the interest of native chieftains to do 
 this, because it secured them as against the Government, 
 while it enabled them to transmit to their children a property 
 which was not theirs at all, but held in trust for the clan at 
 the election of the clansmen. The one fear of Henry's cor- 
 respondent was that he should after all be abandoned to 
 Kildare's vengeance, and he counselled the employment of 
 a large army. To this the King answered that he had no 
 intention whatever of giving up his plans for the reduction 
 of Ireland, that he would not remove Surrey, and that he 
 would not reinstate Kildare in the government. When 
 peaceful means failed it would be time to put forth his 
 strength. In language which reminds us of the royal speech 
 in the ballad of ' Chevy Chase,' he remarked that this Irish 
 enterprise was a trifle compared with those which he had in 
 hand against France and Scotland. This was politic lan- 
 guage in dealing with a half-civilised MacCarthy, but Henry 
 spoke very differently to his own servants. There was talk 
 of an alliance between Argyll and O'Neill, and of a Scotch 
 descent upon Ireland. The Continent was disturbed, and 
 the burden of three armies would be intolerable. And yet 
 he would try to do justice to Ireland. He was an absolute 
 monarch and above legal trammels, but might even con- 
 descend to consider himself bound, if by so doing he could 
 induce Irish chiefs to live by law. If that of England proved 
 too strong for weak stomachs, they might even retain some 
 
 1 The Lord-Lieutenant and Council to the King, October 6; Surrey to 
 Wolsey, November 3 ; Surrey to Wolsey, April 27, 1621.
 
 FKOM 1509 TO 1534. 135 
 
 of their native customs. The Earldom of Ulster was legally CHAP. 
 his own, but he would not willingly take it by force. If >- ^ - 
 clemency failed, in the last resort he would try the strength 
 of his hand, for realms without justice were but tyrannies, 
 communities of beasts rather than reasoning men. Brave 
 words ! but woefully belied in action. 1 
 
 Surrey was not to be deceived, and steadily refused to Surrey is 
 prophesy smooth things. He believed that Ireland could gu ine. 
 only be reduced by conquest, and that the easiest method 
 was to master one district at a time, gradually pushing for- 
 ward the frontier until the whole country was obedient. A 
 permanent army of 500 men might perhaps effect this, while 
 at least 6,000 would be required for a rapid conquest. 
 Edward I. had taken ten years to subdue Wales, and that 
 great king had given almost constant personal attention to 
 the work. Yet Wales was unprotected by the sea, and was 
 not a fifth part the size of Ireland. All artillery and muni- 
 tions of war would have to be brought from England, and 
 fortresses must be built to bridle each tract of country suc- 
 cessively occupied. Nor could a military occupation endure 
 unless accompanied by a large plan of colonisation. Thus 
 only could the natives be brought to labour and settled 
 order. We can see, though Henry VIII. could not, how 
 justly Surrey estimated the magnitude of England's task in 
 Ireland. 2 
 
 In July 1521 the Irish bordering on the Pale took their Activity of 
 usual advantage of the season. O'Connor, O'More, and 
 O'Carroll, the latter all unmindful of his last year's oath and 
 of more recent promises, collected a great host and prepared 
 to attack the Pale. Surrey, who had lately prorogued his 
 Parliament after a ten days' session, was in Dublin, and by 
 his promptitude averted the danger. O'Connor's castle, near 
 Edenderry, was soon in his hands, being unable to resist the 
 
 1 The King to Surrey, No. 12 of the printed State Papers; the King to 
 an Irishman, No. 14 of the same; Instructions for Sir John Petchie, No. 18 
 of the same. 
 
 2 Surrey to the King, July 31, 1521.
 
 136 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 fire of three pieces of heavy ordnance for a single day. It 
 became an axiom in Irish warfare that the Government could 
 always make its way with artillery. Surrey proposed to 
 hold O'Connor's stronghold permanently, and to use it 
 against the Irishry as Berwick was used against the Scots. 
 He destroyed all the corn far and wide, the people with 
 their cattle flying before him, while Sir Piers Butler played 
 the like part in Ely O'Carroll. The vigour shown by the 
 Lord-Lieutenant had the effect which vigour generally has 
 in Ireland, and the confederacy gave him little further trou- 
 ble. Meanwhile, the North was in a blaze. O'Donnell pro- 
 fessed loyalty, but was not trusted by Surrey, who, however, 
 thought it wise to humour him. O'Neill was willing to be 
 on good terms with the Government, and was on his way to 
 Dundalk accompanied by Magennis and a large force, when 
 the O'Donnells attacked him in the rear. Fifteen hundred 
 cows were driven off and seventeen of the Magennis' villages 
 burned, so that the allies were forced to retrace their steps. 
 The chief of Tyrconnell feared that if his great neigh- 
 bour were once at peace with the Pale he would be too 
 strong for him in the everlasting private war of Northern 
 Ulster. 1 
 
 Upcer- It is not the least of Ireland's misfortunes that her rulers 
 
 English have ever been subject to hot and cold fits. In the autumn 
 of 1521 Henry suddenly changed his mind. Disgusted at 
 the apparently almost fruitless expense, he not only relieved 
 Surrey at his own earnest request, but also abandoned his 
 policy. War broke out between Charles and Francis, and 
 the reformation of Ireland, which had but lately seemed so 
 necessary a work for a Christian king, was lightly postponed 
 to a more convenient season. Surrey is the first of a long 
 series of able men whose efforts, generally very ill seconded 
 at home, in the end brought Ireland under the English 
 sceptre. His means were inconsiderable. In the expedition 
 against O'More, which he undertook very soon after land- 
 ing, his whole force seems not to have exceeded 700. He 
 
 1 Stile to Wolsey, July 30, 1571 ; Surrey to the King, July 2D and 
 September 14 ; Ware.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 137 
 
 then asked the King for eighty horsemen from the North of C ^AP. 
 
 England, and for leave to discharge as many of the guards- 
 
 men as he might think fit. Many of these were well-to-do 
 householders, and liked Ireland so little that they were con- 
 tent to leave it on receiving twopence, or even a penny, a 
 day. One hundred horsemen were accordingly sent, under 
 the command of Sir John Buhner, who was Surrey's per- 
 sonal friend, and fifty more were added from Wales. The 
 captain received half-a-crown and the lieutenant eighteenpence 
 a day. On their arrival 117 guardsmen were discharged 
 upon a penny a day. Fourpence appears to have been a 
 soldier's ordinary pay in Ireland, and Surrey maintained 
 that this was not enough. Neither Welshmen nor Northum- 
 brians proved to his taste, most of them being mounted 
 archers and not spearmen. He thought better men might 
 be had in the country, and Henry was willing to give him 
 much latitude, though he cautioned him against employing 
 too many Irishmen, lest the sword should hurt his hand. 
 The King gave his Viceroy the power of life and death, re- 
 serving noble personages, and the right of making knights. 
 A golden collar was sent for O'Neill, and it was supposed that 
 such cheap defences would avail against a chief who could 
 easily raise 1,600 men. Of two evils Surrey chose the less ; 
 he discharged most of Bulmer's men, whom he pronounced 
 ill-looking, worthless rascals, and took Englishmen of the 
 Pale in their places. The difficulty of buying forage was 
 thus obviated, as native horsemen could find it for them- 
 selves. 1 
 
 A Parliament sat in Dublin for ten days in June 1521, Parliament 
 and after many prorogations was not finally dissolved till 
 March 1522, when Surrey had left Ireland. There appears 
 to be no record of the peers who attended, or of the places 
 represented, and so little mention is afterwards made of this 
 Parliament that the interest attaching to it was probably 
 slight. Acts were passed making arson treason, forbidding 
 
 1 The King to Surrey, May 1520 ; Surrey to Wolsey, September 6 and 
 25 ; the King to Surrey, S.P. No. 12 ; Surrey to Wolsey, November 3 ; 
 Surrey to the King, September 14, 1521.
 
 138 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 IX. 
 
 Want of 
 money. 
 
 Surrey re- 
 called at 
 his own 
 request. 
 1521. 
 
 the exportation of wool as the cause of a ' dearth of cloth 
 and idleness of many folks,' and providing against the failure 
 of justice through lack of jurors. 1 
 
 The Irish Government had no command of money, the 
 judicious employment of which might enable them to dis- 
 pense with troops. Surrey's expedition to Munster was near 
 failing for want of means to pay his men. Before the end 
 of August the exchequer was habitually empty ; no taxes 
 were due till Michaelmas, nor leviable till Christmas; and 
 nothing was to be had except for ready money. 2 The King 
 sent 4,OOOZ., but would not face the necessities of the case. 
 It seemed to him monstrous to have to spend 1,600. or 
 1,700Z. a year merely for the defence of the Pale. His re- 
 mittances were mere palliatives, and Surrey was in difficulties 
 during his whole term of office. 
 
 Surrey had to cope with disease as well as poverty. It 
 was scarcely possible to find healthy quarters for soldiers, 
 and the people fled everywhere into the fields, leaving un- 
 buried bodies behind them. No place in Ireland was safe, 
 and the Lord-Lieutenant, who lost three of his servants, was 
 anxious about his wife and children. Sir John Bulmer never 
 had a day of health in Ireland, and was glad to get home 
 safe without having seen any service. In the second year of 
 his government, Surrey himself was affected with the fever 
 and diarrhoea which have often been fatal to the English in 
 Ireland, but his prayers were heard at last, and he was 
 recalled in time to save his life. He was much regretted by 
 the inhabitants of the Pale, who recognised his good nature, 
 integrity, and ability. Those who best knew the subject 
 believed that he really saw how the country might be re- 
 duced to order, and it was hoped that he would return with 
 sufficient means. Meanwhile, the Irish Council entreated 
 Wolsey to be guided by his advice. 3 
 
 1 Irish Statute.*, 13 Henry VIII. 
 
 2 The Lord-Lieutenant and Council to the King, August 25, 1520. The 
 King to Surrey, Nos. 12 and 19 in the printed S.P. 
 
 8 Surrey to the King, September 16, 1521 ; to Pace, December 2. The 
 latter letter was written in bed. Surrey to Wolsey, August 2 and November 
 3, 1520.
 
 FKOM 1509 TO 1534. 139 
 
 Beloved by the King's subjects and feared by rebels, 
 Surrey left one of the fairest names among those who have 
 ruled Ireland. He paid in full for everything, so that the 
 market followed him wherever he went, and he declared that reputation, 
 he would rather eat grass than feast with the curses of the 
 poor. His retinue had orders to behave in Ireland as they 
 would at home. So generous was he that the common 
 people thought him the King's son. Nor was he less just, 
 for he gave full notice of his intended departure, and dis- 
 charged all debts due by him or his. It was thought that 
 he never offended within the compass of the seven deadly 
 sins during his stay in Ireland ; tradition, with a fine con- 
 tempt for facts, adds that ' in his time was corn, cattle, fish, 
 health, and fair weather, that the like was not seen many 
 years before.' We know from his own letters that corn was 
 dear and sickness prevalent, and we may be very sure that 
 the weather was not always fair. 1 
 
 Henry had too much respect for Surrey's opinion to hand sir Piers 
 back Ireland at once to Kildare; but he had resolved to m adel!ord 
 reduce expenses, and was therefore obliged to place the P t - ( : 2 p 2 uty ' 
 government in the hands of someone who had the strength 
 to make authority respected. No one satisfied this condition 
 except Sir Piers Butler, and Surrey was allowed to appoint 
 him Deputy, retaining the office of Lord-Lieutenant himself. 
 There were objections to Sir Piers, as to every Irish governor. 
 The Butlers would not take the field except under him or 
 his eldest son, and he was generally laid up with gout all 
 the winter. Lord James, as the heir was called, was active 
 enough, but young and inexperienced. The choice, however, 
 lay between Ormonde and Kildare, and Sir Piers was so 
 cautiously handled, that he abstained from driving a hard 
 bargain. 
 
 The experiment was not very successful ; for the Ger- The ex- 
 aldines were all-powerful in the Pale, and the new Lord [ s e " ent 
 Deputy, when in Dublin, was separated from his own country successful, 
 
 1 The Council of Ireland to Wolsey, December 21 and February 28, 1522 ; 
 Dowling's Annals, 1519 ; Sir John Davies' Discovery ; the Book of Horvth.
 
 140 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 by his rival's dominions. He took the oath on March 26, 
 1522, but the O'Mores, who had heard that Kildare was 
 on k* s wa j to restore the good old times, soon began 
 O'Doimelis. to threaten the Pale. In the North a war broke out on 
 such an unusually large scale as to make it probable that 
 O'Neill had promised Kildare to give the new Deputy as 
 much trouble as possible. Indeed, when Kildare did actu- 
 ally return, he at once went to O'Neill's aid. The chief of 
 Tyrone may have required little persuasion to attack his here- 
 ditary foes, but the number of his allies was very uncommon. 
 Mac William of Clanricarde, Tirlough O'Brien, Bishop of 
 Kildare, with many of his clansmen, O'Connor Don and 
 O'Connor Roe, Mac William of Mayo, and MacDermot of 
 Moylurg, all agreed to assemble on the southern border of 
 Donegal. O'Neill brought to the trysting place Magennis, 
 O'Rourke, and MacMahon, and many Scottish mercenaries 
 in the hereditary service of his family. ' Great numbers,' 
 we are told, ' of the English of Meath, and the gallowglasses 
 of the province of Leinster, of the Clan-Donnell and Clan- 
 Sheehy, also came thither, from their attachment to the 
 daughter of the Earl of Kildare, who was O'Neill's mother.' 
 To oppose this vast host, O'Donnell had only the clans im- 
 mediately subject to him, O'Boyle, O'Gallagher, O'Dogherty, 
 and the three septs of MacSwiney, hereditary gallowglasses 
 of Tyrconnell. He mustered his forces near Trim, on the 
 Tyrone side of the Finn, and there awaited the onset. But 
 O'Neill adopted tactics very usual in Irish warfare, passed 
 by the northern shore of Lough Erne, reached Bally- 
 shannon without fighting, and slaughtered the garrison of 
 MacSwineys there. O'Donnell retaliated by sending his son 
 Manus to ravage the nearest districts of Tyrone, and himself 
 hurried in pursuit of O'Neill across the pass now called 
 Barnesmore Gap. Again declining battle, O'Neill turned back, 
 spoiled the country between Donegal and Letterkenny, and 
 encamped on the hill which overlooks Strabane. O'Donnell 
 returned very quickly over Barnesmore, and, having been 
 rejoined by his son, faced the enemy near Lifford. There he 
 held a council of war, and his followers in desperation re-
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 141 
 
 solved on an immediate fight. Leaving their horses behind, CHAP, 
 the O'Donnells crept up unperceived, drove in the outposts, < ^ ' 
 and entered the camp pell-mell. In the darkness and con- 
 fusion faces could not be distinguished, and many O'Neills 
 fell by the hands of their brethren. Nine hundred dead 
 bodies were counted in the morning, including many of the 
 Leinster men who had come for the love of Kildare. Celtic 
 war always presents the same features, and the victorious 
 O'Donnells quickly disbanded with the horses and armour, 
 the strong liquors and the rich drinking vessels of the van- 
 quished. 1 
 
 When he had again collected his men, O'Donnell recrossed O'Donneii 
 Barnesmore, passed between Lough Melvin and the sea, and than ' 
 encamped at the foot of Benbulben, the bold hill which tour- ' Nei11 - 
 ists admire from Sligo. The Connaught men were besieging 
 that place when they heard of O'Donnell's victory, and of his 
 near approach. They offered to negotiate, and, having thus 
 gained time, they broke up from Sligo and retreated rapidly 
 to the Curlew mountains, where they separated. The pane- 
 gyrists of the O'Donnells sing pasans over two victories ob- 
 tained without the help of English or Scotch allies, and 
 remarkable in Irish warfare, the one for its slaughter, the 
 other for its bloodlessness. Next year O'Donnell carried the 
 war into Tyrone, which he ravaged as far as Dungannon. 
 At Knockinlossy he destroyed a beautiful herb-garden, which 
 must have been a rare thing in those days, and from Tulla- 
 hogue, where he established a temporary camp, he spoiled 
 the land far and wide. All the plunder was carried off safely, 
 and the invaders then returned for more ; but peace was 
 made instead, and they turned their arms against O'Rourke. 
 Fermanagh was wasted as Tyrone had been, and we cannot 
 be surprised that chiefs who thus preyed on each other should 
 fail to make head against the English Government. 2 
 
 During his short tenure of office, Sir Piers Butler under- Sir Piers 
 took but one warlike expedition. He chastised the O'Briens, 
 
 1 Fowr Masters ; Annals of Lough Ce, 1522. Stile to Wolsey, April 
 25, 1522. 
 
 2 Four Masters, 1522 ; Annals of Lough Ce.
 
 142 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, and killed one of their leaders at the ford of Camus on the 
 IX 
 
 Suir. But Kildare had returned to Ireland, and was active 
 
 * n tne ^ e ^j acting at first in apparent unison with the Lord 
 Geraldines. Deputy. Supported by O'Neill, to whose arbitration differ- 
 ences were submitted, he reduced to quiet the clans on the 
 border of the Pale. With both Butlers and Geraldines, the 
 main object was to enlarge and secure their hereditary 
 territories; but the former sought support in England, the 
 latter among the wild tribes of Ulster. Lady Kildare, a 
 daughter of Grey, Marquis of Dorset, whom the Earl had 
 married during his late visit to England, complained bitterly 
 to Wolsey that Sir Piers oppressed her husband, spoiled his 
 tenants and friends, and made alliances with the wild Irish. 
 She attributed this to Kildare's refusal to act partially in the 
 dispute with the Boleyn family. Sir Piers Butler had married 
 Kildare's sister, and he might not unreasonably count upon 
 his brother-in-law's assistance ; but throughout the contests 
 of this century personal considerations were of little power 
 compared with those of clanship and family pride. Kildare's 
 brother James killed Robert Talbot of Belgard, on his way 
 to Kilkenny, and it seems that the Geraldines regarded all 
 gentlemen of the Pale who opposed them as no better than 
 spies. But Sir Piers was naturally incensed at the outrage 
 on his friend and visitor. 1 
 
 Kildare in The general lawlessness is well shown by an expedition 
 which Kildare undertook against O'Neill of Clandeboye, 
 partly, as he owned, in revenge of the damage done to his 
 property there, and partly, as he told the King, to punish 
 attacks upon English merchants. At Carrickfergus he found 
 a Breton ship which had just landed a cargo of Gascon wine 
 England and France were at peace, but the foreigners were 
 fain to avoid capture by putting to sea without having been 
 paid for their goods. The taste for claret was early developed 
 in Ireland, and this relief from payment may have had a 
 charm like the exemption from legal duties in more modern 
 times. A Scotch vessel laden with provisions, which lay out 
 
 1 Ware ; Lady Kildare to Wolsey, May 25, 1523.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 143 
 
 in Belfast Lough, was attacked by the Geraldines in boats CHAP. 
 
 and forced ashore. Hugh O'Neill, who had 1,500 Scots with < ^ 
 
 him, rescued the crew, and in revenge Kildare destroyed 
 Belfast and two other castles, and burned the country for 
 twenty-four miles round. The Mayor of Carrickfergus and 
 three of the chief townsmen were sent prisoners to England 
 for trading with the French and Scots. If we are to believe 
 Kildare's account, the Lord Deputy took the opportunity of 
 handing over his castles to the O'Connors, of making a league 
 with O'Carroll, and of carrying off 500 stud mares and colts 
 from the county of Kildare. 1 
 
 It became evident at last that Sir Piers Butler was not Kildare is 
 strong enough to govern without Kildare's help, and Henry 
 reverted to his father's policy of entrusting all Ireland to the 
 man whom all Ireland could not govern. One more effort 
 was made to reconcile the rivals by sending over royal com- 
 missioners, who prevailed upon them to make an agreement 
 under seal as the basis of mutual concession. Kildare's stud 
 mares had been taken by a namesake of his own, but Sir 
 Piers covenanted to give them up if they came within his 
 power. The subsidy payable by Tipperary to Kildare when 
 he was Deputy was forgiven, as was half the subsidy paid by 
 the county of Kildare to Butler during his tenure of office. 
 In general, everyone was to behave well, to keep the peace, 
 and not to make friends with Irish rebels. 2 
 
 Butler and Kildare, and the principal gentlemen living on Arrange- 
 . ~ , i ments for 
 
 the marches of the Pale, were bound at this time to adopt a local go- 
 certain order in their countries, the two greater chiefs under ven 
 penalties of 1,000 marks each, and the others in sums varying 
 from 200 marks to 40Z. They made themselves liable in 
 general for their own acts and for those of their sons and 
 brethren, covenanting not to use the Brehon law nor those 
 Irish exactions which usually accompanied it, and to repress 
 crime as far as their power reached. Kildare, on his appoint- 
 
 1 Kildare to the King, May 24, 1523. 
 
 2 Indentures between Kildare, Ormond (sic), the King's Commissioners, 
 and others, July 28, 1524. The Commissioners were Sir A. Fitzherbert, 
 Ralph Egerton, and James Denton, Dean of Lichfield. Kildare to the 
 King,- May 24, 1523.
 
 144 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 menfc as Deputy, covenanted with the King not to make war 
 IX. or peace with Irishmen at the public charge without consent 
 of the Council. This was intended to prevent another 
 Knocktoe. Coyne and livery for the public service were to 
 be reduced to fixed rules. Householders were to be allowed 
 to compound by paying twopence a meal for a footman, and 
 threehalfpence for a horseman or groom ; twelve sheaves of 
 oats for a trooper, and eight for a draught horse was to be the 
 allowance, and not more than one boy was to accompany each 
 horse. If the Earl travelled on private business, or on his 
 way to attend Parliament, he was not to take coyne and livery 
 save from his own tenants; and in no case except for the 
 actual use of soldiers, nor for more than one night in one 
 place, nor for successive nights within a distance of nine 
 miles. It had been the custom to charge the farmers for 
 ' black men,' that is, for soldiers who only existed in name 
 and as a means of extortion. Treaties with Irishmen were 
 not to be made to prejudice the Crown, nor were pardons to 
 be given without the consent of the Council. The King's 
 castles were to be kept in repair, and the Earl was to do his 
 best to make the people of the Pale speak, dress, and shave 
 like Englishmen. The salaries of the judges were to be paid ; 
 and Kildare promised if possible to have sheriffs, escheators, 
 and coroners appointed in Meath, Dublin, Louth, Wexford, 
 Kilkenny, Tipperary, and Waterford, and to provide for the 
 holding of Quarter Sessions in due course. 1 It is noteworthy 
 that the counties of Kildare and Cork are not mentioned, and 
 that Tipperary is ; the probability being that the two former 
 were purposely excluded as being under Geraldine influence. 
 As to the Butler Palatinate of Tipperary, it is possible that 
 only the ecclesiastical portion or cross was intended, but it is 
 more likely that Kildare purposely placed his rival's district in 
 a worse position than his own or those of Desmond. On the 
 other hand, he promised not to go to war with the Butlers, or 
 with their allies the Darcys and Nugents, without the consent 
 of the Council. The new Lord Deputy promised not to pur- 
 chase during his tenure of office any lands of which the title 
 ' Indentures as above ; Recognisances for the Marchers, July 12, 1524.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 145 
 
 was in dispute. James Fitzgerald was carried to England to 
 answer for the death of Talbot, and led through the streets of 
 London with a halter round his neck ; but was pardoned in 
 defiance of Wolsey's opinion at the intercession of Denton, 
 Dean of Lichfield, who had been one of the commissioners 
 lately sent to Ireland. 1 
 
 In spite of all precautions, the perennial quarrel of Butlers The Butlers 
 and Geraldines was not stopped by the appointment of Kil- Geraidines 
 dare. Sir Piers sent his son James to London to watch the quarrel, 
 family interests there, in which task he was to be guided by 
 Robert Cowley. Kildare even asserted that Sir Piers had 
 given a signet to his trusty adherent, with the aid of which 
 he might attest any written statement he chose to make. 
 James Butler was either really too much occupied with the 
 pleasure of the Court, or was crafty enough to appear so, 
 while waiting for an opportunity. ' Surely,' his father wrote, 
 ' unless I see your time better employed in attendance of my 
 great business, than ye have done hither, I will be well 
 advised or I do send you any more, to your costs.' A chief 
 part of the business was the prisage of wines, especially at 
 Waterford, which had always formed an important part of 
 the Butler revenue. Kildare, as Lord Deputy, had insisted 
 that an account should be given into the Exchequer, and Sir 
 Piers argued that this was done merely to annoy him, and 
 not at all out of regard to the King's revenue. He declared 
 that the indentures which the new Deputy had executed 
 were ' in no point observed,' and, in particular, that coyne and 
 livery were ruthlessly exacted, two villages in Kilkenny having 
 to maintain no less than 420 gallowgl asses. The Butler 
 tenants were so impoverished that they could pay no rent 
 and, moreover, the Deputy had not paid the half-subsidy of 
 800Z. as he had bound himself to do. The King peremptorily 
 ordered payment, but the claim was still disputed, and it does 
 not appear that the money was ever handed over. Mean- 
 while, Lord Leonard Grey, the Deputy's brother-in-law, pressed 
 many grave complaints upon the royal attention. Sir Piers 
 
 1 Indentures between Kildare and the King, August 4, 1524. Recogni- 
 sances for the Marchers, July 12, 1574. Ware. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 
 
 IRKLAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 IX. 
 
 Recrimi- 
 nations. 
 Great 
 
 disorders. 
 
 was accused of levying coyne and livery for craftsmen as well 
 as soldiers, and for his hunting establishment. There were 
 separate packs for hare, stag, and martin, and no less than 
 sixty greyhounds ; the whole charge on Kilkenny and Tip- 
 perary amounting to 2,000 marks. 1 
 
 Sir Piers was further accused of illegally occupying Callan 
 and other royal manors in Kilkenny and Tipperary, but these 
 lands were soon afterwards specially granted to him and his 
 wife, and to their heirs male. Kildare charged his rival with 
 helping O'Carroll and lending him cannon to defend Leap 
 Castle against him. The fact was hardly disputed, but it had 
 occurred as far back as 1516, and it was alleged in answer 
 that the attack on O'Carroll was wanton and unprovoked. 
 There were also accusations of intriguing with the O'Mores, 
 of spoiling a village in Kildare and slaughtering the people 
 even at the altar, of using the Castle of Arklow to rob the 
 lieges by land and sea, of levying illegal taxes, and, in short, 
 of behaving as Anglo-Irish noblemen generally did. A far 
 graver charge against Sir Piers was the not having punished 
 certain of his servants who were present at the barbarous 
 murder of Maurice Doran, Bishop of Leighlin. The murderer 
 was Maurice Kavanagh, his own Archdeacon, whom the 
 Bishop had reproved for his crimes. It was said, moreover, 
 that the churches in Tipperary and Kilkenny were ruinous, 
 and that Sir Piers was in all things under the influence of his 
 wife, the Lord Deputy's sister. It is satisfactory to know 
 that the Bishop's tonsured assassin did not escape, for Kil- 
 dare had him hanged and disembowelled at the scene of the 
 murder : he was a near relation of Sir Piers Butler, which 
 may account for the Lord Deputy's anxiety to do justice in 
 this particular case. 2 
 
 Kildare never ceased to harass such Irish chiefs as he 
 
 1 The King to Kildare, May 20, 1525 ; Articles on behalf of Kildare, No. 
 42 in printed State Papers ; Presentments of\thc County and City of A'i/- 
 kenny, 1537, ed. Hore and Graves ; Sir Piers Butler to his son, April 22, 
 1524. 
 
 2 Articles on behalf of Kildare, No. 42 in the printed State Papers ; 
 Bowling's Annals, 1522-1524 ; Hibernia Dominicana. Bishop Doran, 
 ' eloquentissimus praedicator,' was killed in 1525.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 147 
 
 chose to consider his enemies. In the autumn of 1524 he 
 led an army to help his kinsman O'Neill against O'Donnell, 
 and encamped near Strabane. Manus O'Donnell, who had Kil( * ar . e 
 
 again in 
 
 iust returned from Scotland, wished to attack at once with Ulster, 
 
 1524. 
 
 his strong force of Macdonnells ; but he was overruled by his 
 father, who feared the Deputy's artillery. Flights of arrows 
 were directed against the intrenchments all night, and in the 
 morning Kildare thought it prudent to make peace and to 
 depart without fighting. His old enemy Hugh O'Neill 
 attempted to intercept him, but was killed in the skirmish 
 which ensued. After this Kildare seems to have kept quiet 
 for some months, and to have endeavoured to make peace 
 among the Ulster clans. O'Neill and O'Donnell, or O'Don- 
 nell's son Manus, visited Dublin ; but all efforts to reconcile 
 them were ineffectual, * so that they returned to their homes 
 in strife, and the war continued as before.' l 
 
 In September 1526 Sir Piers Butler went to England JJ^jgJJ 
 to press his various suits, and to complain of Kildare's con- 1526. 
 duct. At Bristol he was in great danger of his life, the sent for the 
 citizens having quarrelled with his retinue, who were pro- 
 bably for the most part Irish in speech and habits. Accord- 
 ing to Sir Piers the townsmen were the aggressors, and no 
 provocation was given to the 600 men who surrounded his 
 lodgings and threatened to set the house on fire. In spite of 
 the interposition of the mayor and of some of the King's 
 officers, Sir Piers was obliged to surrender certain of his men 
 and to find securities for the rest. A grant of considerable 
 possessions in Ireland rewarded him for the troubles and 
 dangers of the journey to Court. He accused Kildare of 
 conspiring with Irish enemies to help Desmond in the 
 foreign intrigues which he was undoubtedly carrying on, 
 and of neglecting to arrest him when ordered to do so by 
 special letters from the King. It was said that he entered 
 Munster for the ostensible purpose of effecting this arrest, 
 but sent private word to Desmond to avoid him, and to plead 
 his privilege not to attend Parliament or enter walled towns. 
 It was scarcely fair to expect that the head of one branch 
 1 Four Matters, 1525 and 1526 ; Ware, 1526. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 of the Geraldines should willingly imprison the head of 
 the other ; but Kildare was also accused of employing Irish 
 enemies to oppress the Butlers, was summoned to London, 
 and was at once committed to the Tower. He was soon 
 brought before the Council, and Wolsey is said to have 
 assailed him in a violent speech, calling him King of Ireland, 
 a king who was able to bring back his own from the furthest 
 edge of Ulster, but who would do nothing against a rebellious 
 lord who had defied the Crown of England. After a time 
 Kildare interrupted the Cardinal, saying that he was no 
 orator, and that if he did not answer each charge in detail as 
 it was uttered, his memory would fail him and his case would 
 thus be prejudiced. This was considered reasonable, and the 
 Earl hastened to ridicule the notion that Desmond's liberty 
 depended on him. ' Cannot,' he asked, 'the Earl of Des- 
 mond shift, but I must be of counsel ? Cannot he hide him 
 except I wink ? ' Then he turned round upon Wolsey, whom 
 he averred to be quite as much king in England as he was in 
 Ireland. Indeed, he would willingly change places for one 
 month, and would engage to pick up more crumbs in that 
 time than could he bought with all the revenues of his Irish 
 earldom. 'I slumber,' he continued, ' in a hard cabin, when 
 you sleep in a soft bed of down ; I serve under the King his 
 cope of heaven, when you are served under a canopy; I 
 drink water out of my skull, when you drink wine out of 
 golden cups ; my courser is trained to the field, when your 
 genet is taught to amble ; when you are begraced and be- 
 lorded, and crouched and kneeled unto, then find I small 
 grace with our Irish borderers, except I cut them off by the 
 knees.' Wolsey broke up the Council in high dudgeon, and 
 sent the Earl back to the Tower until further evidence 
 should arrive from Ireland. Before leaving Dublin, Kildare 
 had taken the precaution of seeing each Councillor separately 
 and binding him by oath to write in his favour. 1 
 
 Wolsey Wolsey is said to have taken it upon himself to send a 
 
 accused of death-warrant to the Governor of the Tower, which arrived 
 
 1 Stanihurst ; Lord James Butler to his father, Dec. 27, 1H27, in Brtrrer ; 
 Ware; Russell.
 
 FEOM 1500 TO 1534. 149 
 
 while that officer was playing shovel-board with his prisoner. CHAP. 
 On reading it the Lieutenant sighed, and Kildare remarked, >- ^ 
 * By St. Bride, there is some mad game in that scroll, but P 1 ?* 1 ^ 
 
 * . fo Kildare's 
 
 fall how it will this throw is for a huddle.' On learning death. 
 
 the contents of the paper he begged his gaoler to go straight 
 to the King and ask his real pleasure. Unwilling to offend 
 Wolsey, but still more unwilling to obey him, the Lieutenant 
 repaired to Whitehall and was at once admitted, though it 
 was ten o'clock at night. The King immediately respited 
 the execution, and is said to have used strong language, call- 
 ing Wolsey a saucy, over-officious priest, and threatening 
 him with unpleasant consequences. 1 
 
 Such is the received story. Yet Wolsey, who is repre- But the 
 sented as thirsting for Kildare's blood, was not even disposed has perhaps 
 to remove him from the viceroyalty. This forbearance arose 
 from no love for the troublesome Earl, but it was thought 
 that if he were detained in England and treated with some 
 show of favour, his Irish adherents would be afraid to move. 
 In case the King should nevertheless resolve to remove 
 Kildare, then Wolsey advised that Sir Piers should again be 
 made Deputy, the real government being in the hands of his 
 son. Henry, however, thought that James Butler was too 
 young for so great a charge, and that the noblemen of 
 Ireland would disdain to be led by one who was junior to 
 them all. 2 
 
 While Kildare's fortunes were thus clouded, his rival was The Eari- 
 at Court looking after his own interests. The Earldom of 
 Ormonde, to which he was the true heir male, had been con- 
 ferred, together with that of Wiltshire, on Sir Thomas 
 Boleyn, grandson, through his mother, of the late Earl. Sir 
 Piers, who was too prudent to oppose the father of Anne and 
 Mary Boleyn, and who perhaps thought one earldom nearly as 
 good as another, was content to accept the title of Ossory. 
 Five years before, Henry had thought to reconcile the rival 
 claimants by marrying Jumes Butler to Anne Boleyn, but 
 
 1 Stanihurst ; Russell. 
 
 2 Consideration by Vannes and Uvedale, No. 52 in the printed State 
 Papers.
 
 150 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Sir Piers 
 Butler is 
 created 
 Earl of 
 OsBory. 
 
 The Vice- 
 Deputy 
 Delvin is 
 captured 
 by the 
 O'Connors, 
 1528. 
 
 the negotiation had come to nothing, and the King now des- 
 tined the lady for himself. 1 
 
 The new creation was made at Windsor with great pomp. 
 Arriving late in the evening from London, Sir Piers, who 
 was in delicate health, lay at his own lodgings in the town, 
 as being warmer and more comfortable than the rooms of the 
 Lord Chamberlain, with whom he breakfasted next morning. 
 We are particularly told that good fires were lit after mass. 
 The Marquis of Exeter and the Earl of Oxford led the new 
 peer into the presence chamber, the Earl of Rutland bearing 
 the sword. The grandees dined together at the King's 
 expense after the investiture, and then, having changed his 
 dress, the Earl was again conducted into the royal presence 
 by the Marquis of Exeter. Having taken leave of Henry 
 and of the Queen and Princess, and having duly feed the 
 waiters, Ossory returned to London, where he paid a parting 
 visit to Wolsey, and then returned into his own country. 2 
 
 Leaving Kildare in the Tower, we must now go back to 
 Ireland, where Richard Nugent, seventh Baron of Delvin, 
 had been acting as Vice-Deputy, Sir James Fitzgerald, whom 
 Kildare had left in charge, having been superseded by the 
 Irish Council. When Archbishop Inge and Chief Justice 
 Bermingham heard of Kildare's imprisonment, they wrote 
 to Wolsey regretting the Earl's absence, and expressing 
 their doubts as to whether he was guilty of any such prac- 
 tices as were charged against him. They considered Delvin 
 incompetent, for he had no great fortune of his own to eke 
 out the scanty revenue of Ireland. The people were more 
 heavily taxed than ever, and they were not defended ; for 
 the armed bands which were always at Kildare's beck and 
 call would serve no one else. As the Pale was desolated by 
 the absence of one Earl, so were Tipperary and Kilkenny by 
 the absence of another ; and the worst was to be feared un- 
 less they both speedily returned. These gloomy forebodings 
 were soon fulfilled; for Delvin, against the advice of the 
 
 1 See Brewer, introduction to vol. iv., p. 238, where there is a confusion 
 between Sir Piers and his son. 
 
 2 Car em, Feb. 22, 1528.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1634. 151 
 
 Council, withheld the black-rent which O'Connor, Rildare's CHAP. 
 
 IX. 
 
 son-in-law, had been used to receive from Meath. The - ^ 
 aggrieved chief surprised the Vice-Deputy on the march, 
 killed most of his men, and took him prisoner. Lord Butler, 
 who was present, had prudently provided himself with a safe- 
 conduct ; he lodged that night with the victorious O'Connor, 
 and was allowed to have an interview with his distinguished 
 prisoner. The chief and his brothers were present, and 
 the two noblemen were not allowed to speak English nor to 
 confer in private. Speaking in Irish, O'Connor insisted on 
 having his black-rent again, or being paid a ransom for the 
 Vice-Deputy, and on receiving a distinct promise that the men 
 of the Pale should not avenge his overthrow. But Butler's 
 diplomacy was not yet exhausted. By the advice of a Mr. 
 White, who was among O'Connor's guests, he sought a 
 private interview with Cahir, the chief's brother, who of 
 course had a party of his own among the clansmen. Cahir 
 readily agreed to escort Lord Butler out of his brother's 
 country, and was afterwards persuaded to visit Lord Ossory 
 at Kilkenny. He professed loyalty and was ready to prove 
 it by his actions, if only he could be sure that Kildare would 
 not sooner or later return and have his revenge that was his 
 only fear. 1 
 
 While his son was thus by policy undermining the Irish The Geral- 
 enemies of his house, Ossory was busy looking about for Irish ' 8 * 
 
 allies. Hard pressed by the Desmonds and O'Briens, he ascendant - 
 wished to avoid a rupture with the O'Connors, and tried the 
 efficacy of smooth speeches. As the price of an alliance 
 against this possible foe O'Carroll demanded 40L, besides 
 anything that the King or Deputy might give. O'More 
 claimed the help of the Butlers against Kildare, and a money 
 reward also. MacGilpatrick stipulated that Ossory should 
 release him from debts amounting to 400 marks. The Earl 
 agreed to these terms ; but his immediate object was not 
 attained, for Delvin remained a prisoner until early in the 
 following year. In the meanwhile Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, 
 
 1 Inge and Bermingham to Wolsey, Feb. 23, 1528 ; to Norfolk, May 15 ; 
 the Council of Ireland to Wolsey, same date ; Lord Butler to Inge, May 20.
 
 152 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 - ^ 
 Kildare 
 
 The Duke 
 mondLord- 
 
 s* e *vr'ir 
 Skeffing- 
 
 Kildare's brother, acted as Deputy, and the Geraldine policy 
 was practically successful. 1 
 
 The late Lord-Lieutenant, now Duke of Norfolk, attri- 
 buted all the woes of Ireland to the quarrel between Butlers 
 an< ^ Gferaldines, and he was on the whole in favour of main- 
 taining the latter faction in power. Ossory and his son 
 were loyal enough, but they could scarcely hold their own 
 against the Desmonds and O'Briens, and could do nothing in 
 the Pale, where they had no natural authority and where 
 public opinion was against them. They would be entirely 
 dependent on their own followers, who would eat more than 
 their services were worth. On the other hand, Robert 
 Cowley, Ossory's faithful agent, was always at hand to pre- 
 vent Henry and Wolsey from yielding too completely to 
 Norfolk's advice. It is said that on one occasion he com- 
 plained of Kildare to the Council, and that he shed tears 
 in the course of his speech ' for pity,' as he said, ' upon hia 
 father's son.' ' He is,' retorted the Earl, ' like the plover 
 taken in setting his snares, and waiting for his desired pur- 
 pose, his eyes being against the wind and the water dropping 
 out. So many plovers as he taketh he knocketh their brains 
 out with his thumb, notwithstanding his watery tears of con- 
 templation. Even like doth Mr. Cowley with me ; his tears 
 cometh down ; he layeth shrewd matters or articles to my 
 charge.' 2 
 
 If this story be true we must assign it to the autumn of 
 1528, when Cowley was certainly in London. O'Connor had 
 J us ^ invaded the Pale, and evidence afterwards came to light 
 which connected Kildare with his son-in-law's proceedings. 
 Early in August, Kildare's daughter Alice, the wife of Lord 
 Slane, came to Ireland and went straight to O'Connor's 
 house. Sir Gerald MacShane Fitzgerald afterwards swore 
 before the Irish Council that Melour Faye had revealed to 
 him a secret agreement between himself and Kildare, and 
 
 1 The Council of Ireland to Wolsey, May 15 ; Ossory to Inge, May 21 ; 
 to the King, June 10. 
 
 * Cowley had been in the service of the late Earl of Kildare. Book of 
 Howth.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 153 
 
 that Lady Slane's arrival was the preconcerted signal that CHAP. 
 her father was detained in England. Ossory was at war ^ 
 
 with Desmond when O'Connor made his attack, but aban- 
 doned his expedition and hurried off to defend the Pale. 
 He took occasion to remind Wolsey of the hereditary policy 
 of the house of Kildare. By stirring up rebellion in Ireland 
 when he was detained at Court the late Earl had made him- 
 self chief governor for life ; his son had followed suit, and 
 the Pale had practically transferred its allegiance from the 
 King of England to the Earl of Kildare. Henry thought it 
 prudent to give the Earl his liberty, but resolved to have a 
 Viceroy who should hold Ireland for the Crown only. He 
 made his son, the Duke of Richmond, Lord-Lieutenant, 
 thereby giving the Emperor great offence, and assigned him 
 as Deputy Sir William Skeffington, a Leicestershire man, 
 who had been long in the public service. Meanwhile the 
 sovereign had frowned. In the month following that in 
 which Skeffington was appointed, Wolsey saw Henry at 
 Grafton for the last time, and three weeks later he was 
 indicted in the King's Bench. Kildare remained in London, 
 for he was one of those who signed the famous letter to 
 Clement VII., in which the English notables reproached the 
 Pope for his partiality, and laid upon him the responsibility 
 of a disputed succession, with all its terrors and troubles. 1 
 
 Skeffington had long served as Master of the Ordnance, skeffing- 
 whence the Irish, who may have been offended at the 
 appointment of a commoner, gave him the name of ' the 
 gunner.' He was accompanied by Edward Staples, a Lin- 
 colnshire man, whom the King had appointed Bishop of 
 Meath, and brought with him 200 horse and a sum of money. 
 He was instructed in the first place to reconcile, if possible, 
 the conflicting interests of the Earls of Kildare, Ossory, and 
 Desmond. He was not to make any serious attack on the 
 wild Irish without the consent of the majority of the Council, 
 
 1 Instructions for the Lord Cardinal, No. 56 in the printed State Papers ; 
 Ossory to Wolsey, Oct. 14, 1528 ; Instructions by Charles V. to Gonzalo 
 Fernandez in Carew, Feb. 24, 1530 (should be 1529). The letter to the 
 Pope was July 30, 1530.
 
 154 IRELAND UNDER THE TtJDORS. 
 
 CHAP, especially when it would involve charging the country with 
 
 ^ the support of an army. The established custom of taking 
 
 provisions for the ordinary movements of troops was, however, 
 allowed. Skeffington was to hold a Parliament, but was to 
 get all the money he could by way of subsidy before it met, 
 and to pay the gross levy into the Vice-Treasurer's hands. 
 Kildare's loyal promises were to be taken as sincere, and the 
 Deputy was enjoined to help him in his enterprises as if they 
 were undertaken in the King's name. The Earl might re- 
 tain half the proceeds, provided the remainder were handed 
 over to the Vice-Treasurer. 1 
 
 !"! . Kildare returned to Ireland gome months after Skeffiner- 
 
 O'Tooles 
 
 chastised, ton's arrival, and his first exploit was to chastise the O'Tooles, 
 
 1530 
 
 Ulster with the help of 200 archers supplied by the city of Dublin. 
 1531. G ' Next year Ulster was invaded. A treaty had already been 
 Submission concluded at Drogheda, by which O'Donnell promised the 
 O'Donnell. King allegiance, and bound himself to assist Skeffington 
 against all hia Majesty's enemies. He covenanted for 
 O'Reilly, Maguire, and MacQuillin, as well as for himself, 
 and Skeffington bound himself to give them such help and 
 protection as was due to the King's subjects. In pursuance 
 of this agreement Skeffington, accompanied by Kildare and 
 Ossory, ravaged Tyrone on both sides of the Blackwater, 
 from Clogher to Caledon, and penetrated to Monaghan, 
 which was undefended. There O'Donnell and some malcon- 
 tent O'Neills met them, but they did not venture to meet 
 the tyrant of the North in the field, a measure of the weak- 
 ness of government at that time. 2 
 Skeffington It clearly appeared that the Lord Deputy was in a false 
 
 is over- -T-t 
 
 shadowed position as regards Kildare. When the Butlers were out on 
 
 " a foray, the Geraldines attacked their camp, killed the officer 
 
 on guard, and carried off horses, arms, and provisions. It 
 
 1 Instructions to Skeffington, No. 57 in the printed State Papert. He 
 landed near Dublin, August 2, 1529. 
 
 J Submission of O'Donnell, May 6, 1531. O'Donnell ' publice proposuit 
 et fatebatur dominum suum fuisse et esse tidelem et ligeum subditum 
 Domini Regis ;' Four Masters, 1531. In his Instructions for Cromwell, Jan. 
 2, 1532, Ossory notes that his contingent was better than Kildare's, and 
 that he bore the whole cost himself.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 155 
 
 was even said that the Earl of Kildare displayed his banner CHAP. 
 
 openly, and led his men to the attack. With great difficulty > , ~> 
 
 and at Skeffington's earnest request, Ossory prevented his 
 followers from retaliating, but he poured complaints into 
 Cromwell's attentive ears. Kildare allowed his adherents to 
 seize the titular Baron of Burntchurch in Kilkenny, while 
 passing through Castledermot, on his way to attend Parlia- 
 ment. The Baron was a Fitzgerald, but on friendly terms 
 with Ossory, who would have rescued him in spite of Kildare 
 but for the Lord Deputy's express prohibition ; as it was, the 
 poor man lost his horse, money, and apparel without redress. 
 ' This,' said Ossory, ' is a good encouragement to malefactors 
 to commit spoils, having the advantage thereof without punish- 
 ment or restitution.' It was not the first nor the last time in 
 Ireland that the friends of law and order have been less safe 
 than its enemies, and that the Government has hampered those 
 whom it could not protect. Indeed, the Kilkenny borough 
 members fared no better than their neighbours, for they were 
 seized at the gate of Athy by Murtagh MacOwney, who 
 wished that he had the King in the end of a handlock, and 
 the Deputy in the other end, as surely as he had the worthy 
 burgesses. In fact, Skeffington had scarcely any power. 
 Kildare detained the hostages of the natives, in spite of direct 
 orders to send them to Dublin, and thus let it be clearly seen 
 that the King's representative was a mere instrument in his 
 hands.' 1 
 
 It was commonly said in Ireland that all the parchment K^are 
 and wax in England would not bring the Earl of Kildare | oes 1 to d 
 thither again ; but this saying turned out not to be true. So 1532, and 
 well had the Earl managed his affairs, that he ventured across favour, 
 the Channel early in 1532, and, after a six months' residence 
 at Court, returned with the legal as well as the real power of 
 a Chief Governor. Sir John Rawson, Prior of Kilmainham, 
 and Chief Justice Bermingham, supported Kildare's counter- 
 charges against Ossory, and accused Skeffington of partiality 
 in his favour. There was an attempt to show that Ossory's 
 
 1 Ossory to Cromwell, January 2, 1532.
 
 156 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, hostility arose from the fear that Kildare would support Wilt- 
 ' r ' shire's claims upon the Ormonde estates. But Ossory main- 
 tained that he had long since compromised all claims against 
 his property, that Kildare's advocacy of Wiltshire's preten- 
 sions was collusive and fraudulent, and that the King would 
 be the real loser of the possession, if such castles as Arklow 
 and Tullow were given to the too powerful Geraldine under 
 colour of another man's sham title. Anne Boleyn's star was 
 now at its zenith ; her father was fond of money, and perhaps 
 saw a chance of extorting it from opposite quarters. It is 
 clear that any claim of his was likely at this time to be 
 favourably regarded, and it may be in this way that the lately 
 waning influence of Kildare was restored. 
 
 Kildare Having secured the much-coveted patent, Kildare hastened 
 
 Deputy, to Dublin and relieved Skeffington, who, having arrears of 
 business to transact, was allowed to dance attendance among 
 other suitors in his successor's ante-chamber. On the very 
 day of his arrival, the new Lord Deputy took the Great Seal 
 from his enemy Archbishop Alen, and gave it to the Primate 
 Cromer. As a sop to the opposite faction, Lord Butler was 
 made Lord Treasurer by the King; but the Deputy was 
 supreme in the Council, and those who were not his friends 
 thought only of saving themselves from his anger. Thus re- 
 lieved from all restraint, and perhaps thinking himself indis- 
 pensable, as indeed he well might, the Earl turned upon his 
 hereditary enemy. While his brother Sir John Fitzgerald 
 was helping O'Neill to ravage Louth, the lawful guardian of 
 the Pale devastated Kilkenny; his men were allowed to 
 plunder the peaceable folk resorting to Castledermot Fair, and 
 to murder a due proportion. He used the sword which the 
 King had committed to him ' utterly to extinguish the fame 
 
 and honour of any other noble man within that land 
 
 shadowed with that authority, so that, whatever he did, it 
 should not be repugned at.' l 
 
 The There was at this time a fierce dispute as to who should 
 
 } 8 * succeed Mulrony O'Carroll, who among southern chiefs in his 
 
 1 Report to Cromwell, No. 64 of the printed State Papers ; Lodge's 
 Peerage by Archdall, art. ' Duke of Leinster.' Ware ; Stanihurst.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 157 
 
 time ' destroyed most in regard to foreigners and improved CHAP. 
 
 most in regard to Gaedhill.' A brother would in the usual ' 
 
 course have succeeded to these glories ; but there was always 
 a strong tendency to substitute the hereditary for the elective 
 principle, and a claim was advanced on behalf of Mulrony's 
 son Fergananim, to whom Kildare, choosing his time, had just 
 given his daughter. Ossory of course espoused the cause of 
 the brothers, but was defeated with the loss of several small 
 pieces of cannon. On the same day the old chief died, and, 
 as he favoured his son's pretensions, this was numbered 
 among his victories. Having been a man of blood, and having 
 lavished some of his plunder upon the clergy, he was re- 
 warded after death with hyperbolical praises. ' He was,' the 
 ' Four Masters ' inform us, ' a protecting hero to all ; the guid- 
 ing firm helm of his tribe ; a triumphant traverser of tribes ; 
 a jocund and majestic Munster champion ; a precious stone ; 
 a carbuncle gem ; the anvil of the solidity, and the golden 
 pillar of the Elyans.' Fergananim was at first acknowledged as 
 chief, but his uncle soon occupied Birr and other castles, and 
 ravaged the country from thence. The Lord Deputy came 
 in person before Birr, and received a bullet wound in the 
 side. As he groaned with the pain, a kerne is reported to 
 have encouraged him by saying that he himself had three 
 bullets in him, and felt none the worse. ' I wish,' replied the 
 Earl, ' you had this one along with the others.' l He was less 
 fortunate than his follower, for the bullet, which came out of 
 itself some months later, lamed him for life, and affected his 
 speech. Birr Castle was, however, taken. 2 
 
 Kildare held a Parliament in Dublin in 1533, but we know Parliament 
 nearly as little about it as about that held by Surrey. The Miserable 
 most important law passed appears to have been one for the country* ' 
 punishment of those who stole corn under colour of taking 
 wages for harvest work in kind. This meeting of Parliament 
 
 1 Cui quidam turbarius jocose dixerat, " Domine, cur gemis tarn dire, 
 cum ego semel habui iii bulletos in me, et vides, domine, quam sanus sum ad 
 praesens ? " Cui comes mite respondit (in agonia)quod hunc etiam bulletum 
 vellet ipsum in se una cum cseteiis habuisse.' Cowling's Annals, wrongly 
 placed at 1528. 
 
 2 Four Masters, 1532. Annals of Lovgli Cf.
 
 158 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, gave rise to a renewal of the old dispute about precedency 
 
 ^ between Armagh and Dublin. Alen could no longer rely 
 
 upon the patronage of Wolsey, and it is certain that Kildare's 
 influence would be exerted against him. But the Deputy had 
 been making so many enemies, that the increased hostility of 
 Alen would not count for much. A heavy reckoning had 
 been scored up ; and John Dethyke, or Derrick, a prebendary 
 of St. Patrick, gave voice to the prevailing discontent. With 
 bitter irony he assured Cromwell that the people were ex- 
 cellently disposed and full of abstinence. Their accustomed 
 ceremony was to abstain from flesh on Wednesday, but their 
 devotion had so much increased that they now abstained like- 
 wise on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. 1 1 trust 
 to Jesu,' he continued. ' Ye shall hear that there shall be 
 many saints among them ; but they play the fox's part, shy 
 of hens when he could not reach them.' All the butchers in 
 Dublin had not as much meat between them as would make 
 a mess of broth, and those who owned no cattle were driven 
 to dry bread. Marauders entered the suburbs of Dublin, and 
 one butcher had lost 220 beasts. No one could safely ride 
 a mile out of town, and it was useless to complain ; for the 
 Deputy was visited with that distressing form of deafness 
 which affects those who do not wish to hear. The poor 
 butchers had accordingly shut up their shops, and taken to 
 making leather breeches, as if it were perpetual Lent. And 
 not only did the Viceroy do nothing, but he took the oppor- 
 tunity of removing the King's artillery from Dublin to his 
 own castles. Meanwhile, the O'Byrnes actually entered 
 Dublin Castle, and carried off prisoners and cattle, ( insomuch 
 as nightly since great watch is in the city of Dublin, fearing 
 that the same should be pilfered, prostrate, and destroyed, 
 whereof they never dreaded so much.' Even Sir James Fitz- 
 gerald complained that his brother oppressed him cruelly for 
 having done good service under Skeffington, and Norfolk's 
 tenants in Carlow were in no better plight. 1 
 
 1 Jug Primatiale Armachanum, Part I. No. 361 ; Dethyke to Cromwell, 
 Sept. 3, 1533 ; Report to Cromwell, No. 64 of the printed State Paper* ; 
 Sir James Fitzgerald to the King, August 31.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 159 
 
 The Council did not directly attack Kildare ; but they CHAP. 
 sent over Sir John Alen, the Master of the Rolls, to enlighten ^ - 
 
 Henry upon the true state of affairs. They directed Alen to 
 
 J accumulate 
 
 report that English laws and customs were unknown except against 
 within twenty miles of Dublin, and that unless something 
 were done they would soon be driven even from that con- 
 tracted area. Various errors of policy, such as the practice 
 of entrusting viceregal power to Irish lords and of giving 
 away Crown lands, had so strengthened the Irishry and weak- 
 ened the Pale, that the King would soon not have revenue 
 enough to maintain a Deputy. Two archbishops, two bishops, 
 four of the great regular ecclesiastics, two temporal peers, and 
 three judges signed the document embodying these severe 
 strictures, and they reminded Henry that unless he looked 
 the better to it, Ireland might be used against him by any 
 enterprising foreign enemy. Even more outspoken was a 
 native of Ireland, closely associated with the Master of the 
 Rolls, who declared that loyal subjects had been ill requited, 
 and that people had come to look upon the viceroyalty as part 
 of Kildare's inheritance. Everyone who opposed him suffered 
 for it, and all his offences were passed over. ' Always after 
 the malice of the Geraldines was resisted and the land staid, 
 the King withdrew his aid from thence, putting the male- 
 factors in his authority ; whereas, if he had continued the 
 same there, and suppressed the others, undoubtedly a mar- 
 vellous profit and commodity should . have issued thereby. 
 ...... What subjects under any prince in the world 
 
 would love, obey, or defend the right of that prince, which 
 (notwithstanding their true hearts and service toward him) 
 would afterwards put them under the governance of such as 
 should daily practise to prosecute and destroy them for the 
 same ? ' The question has often been asked in Ireland since 
 then. 1 
 
 The confusion between the Earl of Kildare, in his own The 
 character, and in that of Lord Deputy, was not at all con- become In- 
 ducive to good government. Private opposition to the subject tolerable - 
 
 1 Report to Cromwell, printed State Papers, vol. ii. p. 174. Instructions 
 to Sir John Alen, No. 63 in same.
 
 1GO IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 was easily represented as treason to the King in his represen- 
 tative's person, and was indeed likely enough to grow into 
 it. It was believed that the recent murder of Ossory's son 
 Thomas by Dermot Fitzpatrick was not altogether the work 
 of Irishry. Kildare and his sons and brothers provoked 
 attacks on every side. The moral effect of O'Byrne's raid 
 had of course been disastrous, and no one felt himself safe. 
 The principal remedies suggested were the appointment of 
 a Deputy for a long term, Norfolk being preferred, and after 
 him Skeffington, the abolition of Irish customs, and the 
 education of young noblemen and chiefs' sons at the English 
 Court. Local presidencies were also recommended, but the 
 first thing was to get rid of Kildare. The Geraldines indeed 
 did not conceal that their interests were not those of the 
 Crown. ' Thou fool,' said Sir Gerald MacShane to the Earl's 
 brother Thomas, who had some legal scruples, ' thou shalt be 
 the more esteemed in Ireland to take part against the King ; 
 for what hadst thou been if thy father had not done so ? 
 What was he set by until he crowned a King here ; took 
 Garth, the King's captain, prisoner ; hanged his son ; resisted 
 Poynings and all Deputies ; killed them of Dublin upon Ox- 
 mantown Green ; would suffer no man to rule here for the 
 King, but himself? Then the King regarded him, made him 
 Deputy and married thy mother to him ; or else thou shouldst 
 never have had foot of land, where now thou mayst dispend 
 400 marks by year, or above.' l 
 
 Kildare is As the result of Alen's efforts, Kildare was summoned to 
 
 toEngiand" Court. The Earl doubtless felt that his chances would be 
 small if once the Tower gates closed upon him, and he sent 
 his wife over to get the order revoked, on the old ground 
 that he could not be spared. Lady Kildare's diplomacy 
 failed, and her husband was summoned a second time ; but 
 was allowed to appoint a Vice-Deputy. This may, or may 
 not, have been a bait to induce him to go quietly, for nothing 
 less than an army could have taken him by force. Skeffing- 
 ton had been working hard against his enemy, and was in 
 
 1 Report to Cromwell, quoted above.
 
 FROM 1509 TO 1534. 161 
 
 constant communication with Cromwell, watching the port of CHAP. 
 
 Chester, so as to be in London as soon or sooner than the ^ < 
 
 Earl. He reported that Lady Kil dare's servants delayed the 
 King's letters purposely, and that he was most anxious for 
 the moment when he should at last be able to prove his 
 charges against the Lord-Deputy. 1 
 
 Kildare had now no choice but between obedience and His eldest 
 open rebellion. Before embarking at Drogheda he delivered aa Deputy. 
 the sword to his eldest son in the presence of several mem- 
 bers of Council. Thomas Lord Offaly, better known as Lord 
 Thomas and Silken Thomas, was about twenty years old, and 
 his father advised him to be guided in all things by his uncle, 
 Sir James Fitzgerald ; his cousin, Sir Thomas Eustace ; his 
 great-aunt, Lady Janet Eustace, and her husband and son, 
 Walter and James Delahide. It is impossible to pronounce 
 on the genuineness of the speech which the chronicler puts 
 into Kildare's mouth, but the advice contained in it would 
 have been well suited to the occasion. He told his son that 
 his youth should be guided by age; his ignorance by ex- 
 perience. He was, he said, putting a naked sword into a 
 young man's hand, and urged him to defer to the Council, 
 * for albeit in authority you rule them, yet in counsel they 
 must rule you.' 2 
 
 1 Skeffington to Cromwell, October 25 and November 4, 1533. 
 * Stanihurst. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1GSJ 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 X. 
 
 Kildare is 
 sent to the 
 Tower. 
 
 His death 
 prema- 
 turely re- 
 ported. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE GERALDINE REBELLION SKEFFINGTON's ADMINISTRATION, 
 
 1534-1535. 
 
 AMONG the letters which Alen brought with him from England 
 was one of thanks for past services to Connor Maguire, chief 
 of Fermanagh. Maguire belonged to the party in Ulster 
 which opposed O'Neill, and consequently Kildare ; and he 
 seems to have been in some degree under Alen's influence. 
 He now wrote to the King, adding to the already overwhelm- 
 ing case against Kildare, and praying for the appointment 
 of Skeffington. This despatch probably reached London 
 about the same time as the Earl, who was examined by the 
 Council and at once sent to the Tower. The heaviest charge 
 against him was that of fortifying his own castles with the 
 King's artillery ; and it was in fact this which enabled his 
 son to make head for a time against the Crown. He could 
 only answer that he had intended to defend the Pale against 
 the Irish : perhaps the hesitation caused by his wound was 
 taken for the confession of guilt. He was no longer the man 
 who had bearded Wolsey in his pride ; and, unfortunately, 
 his old power of repartee had descended to his son, who 
 annoyed with his taunts those whom he should most have 
 conciliated. The young Vice-Deputy made no secret of his 
 dislike to the King's policy, sought alliances with O'Brien 
 and Desmond, and gave the enemies of his House plausible 
 grounds for stigmatising him as a traitor from the very 
 first. 1 
 
 Early in the summer of 1534 a report reached Ireland 
 that Kildare was to be beheaded, and his son and brother 
 
 1 Conossius Maguire to the King, Feb. 20, 1 ~>34, in Carew. Letter from 
 the five Alens, May 17, 1534. R.O. Ireland.
 
 1534 AND 1535. 163 
 
 arrested. A poor retainer of his house living near Kilcullen CHAP. 
 is said to have brought to Lord Offaly from London a little >- ^ 
 silver-gilt heart and a pair of black dice, with a verbal 
 message from his father bidding him not to trust the Irish 
 Council, but to keep out of the way lest he should lose life 
 and liberty. About the same time a private letter from 
 Thomas Cannon, who had been in Skeffington's service, con- 
 firmed the sinister rumours already afloat. In days when 
 there were no newspapers such letters were handed about 
 freely, and this one fell into the hands of a priest who read 
 English with difficulty, and who put it aside until he had 
 time to spell out its meaning. A retainer of Offaly's, who 
 chanced to stay the night in the priest's house, used the letter 
 as a shoe-horn, and forgot to withdraw it. Undressing in the 
 evening he found the paper, read it out of curiosity, and 
 found to his dismay that it announced Kildare's death. He 
 at once took the fatal missive to James Delahide, who carried 
 it to the Vice-Deputy. Delahide was one of those whose 
 advice Kildare had directed his son to take : he now coun- 
 selled him to rebel and to avenge his father's death. 1 
 
 Though his death was at hand Kildare still lived, and His son 
 there is no reason to suspect foul play : he was old and suffer- 
 ing from wounds, and confinement or anxiety may well have 
 hastened his end. But his impetuous son assumed the worst, 
 and at once prepared for war. His Irish connections O'Neill 
 and O'Connor approved his resolution ; but the Earl of Des- 
 mond, Sir Thomas Eustace of Baltinglass, Fitzmaurice of 
 Kerry, Fleming, Lord of Slane, and most of the Anglo-Irish 
 well-wishers of his House, counselled prudence. Lord Chan- 
 cellor Cromer, a grave and learned divine, gave similar advice. 
 But Rehoboam would not be persuaded. On St. Barnabas' 
 Day he rode through Dublin with 140 armed retainers, each 
 wearing a silken fringe on his helmet, a mode of decoration 
 which gave Offaly the name by which he is best remembered. 
 Passing through Dame's Gate the Geraldines forded the Liffey 
 and rode to St. Mary's Abbey, where he had summoned a 
 
 1 Examination of Robert Eeyley, Aug. 5, 1536, in Carew, Stanihurst. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 (HAP. meeting of the Council. No sooner had the Deputy taken 
 ' r ' the chair than his armed followers invaded the council- 
 chamber, and waited with ill-concealed impatience while their 
 leader made a speech, in which he declared himself no longer 
 King Henry's officer, and called on all who hated cruelty and 
 tyranny to join him in open war. He then tendered the 
 sword of state to the Primate, who besought him with tears 
 in his eyes not to do so mad and wicked an act. ' They are 
 not yet born,' he said, ' that shall hereafter feel the smart of 
 this uproar.' The Chancellor's speech was probably unintel- 
 ligible to most of the intruders ; and the effect of it was at 
 once dispelled by au Irish bard named Nelan, who recited a 
 long heroic poem in honour of Silken Thomas, and upbraided 
 him with lingering too long. Stung by this taunt, Offaly 
 replied that he was much obliged to the Archbishop for his 
 advice, but that he came to announce his own intention and not 
 to seek counsel : he then threw down the sword and left the 
 room. He was now a subject, and the Council at once ordered 
 his arrest ; but the Mayor had no force at his command, and 
 the rebel was allowed to rejoin his forces on Oxmantown 
 Green. Archbishop Alen, who had good reasons for fear, took 
 refuge in the castle, and the Chief Baron, who accompanied 
 him, wrote to Cromwell for help. 1 
 The It was rumoured that Offaly would destroy everything in 
 
 Butlers re- i T i i p 
 
 mainloyaL the Pale, so that no support might remain for a royal army : 
 
 he gave out that he would kill or banish everyone born in 
 England, and declared forfeit the goods of all who remained 
 loyal. He wrote to his cousin Lord Butler, offering to divide 
 Ireland with him if he would help to conquer it ; but Butler, 
 one of the ablest of his race, declined with proper indigna- 
 tion. He refused to barter his truth for a piece of Ireland, 
 and was not at all disposed to hang for good fellowship. 
 ( Were it so,' he wrote ' (as it cannot be), that the chickens 
 you reckon were both hatched and feathered ; yet be thou 
 sure, I had rather in this quarrel die thine enemy than live 
 thy partner.' Ossory had left the King but a few days before, 
 
 1 Stanihurst. Finglas to Cromwell, July 21, 1534. Do wling says Offaly 
 was commonly called ' Thomas sericus.'
 
 1534 AND 1535. 165 
 
 having undertaken for himself and his son to assist to their 
 utmost power the due course of law, and above all strenu- 
 ously to resist the usurped jurisdiction of the Bishop of 
 Rome. Skeffington was again Deputy, and Ossory promised 
 to maintain his authority. The Government was in fact 
 placed to a great extent under the protection of the House of 
 Ormonde. In return for these promises, and in consideration 
 of the singular confidence and trust which the King had con- 
 ceived in the Earl and his son, and in respect of the truth 
 which always had continued in them and their blood to the 
 Crown of England, and as a token of confidence in their 
 ability, the Government of Tipperary and Kilkenny, and of 
 other districts at the Deputy's discretion, were granted to 
 Ossory and his son. They were not the men to renounce 
 such solid advantage for the shadowy realm which their rash 
 kinsman offered. 1 
 
 It would have been well for Archbishop Alen had he Murder of 
 adhered to his first resolution of remaining inside the castle 
 walls, which, as it turned out, were quite able to protect him. 
 Six weeks after the first outbreak, and while the rebels were 
 threatening Dublin, he put himself under the guidance of 
 Bartholomew Fitzgerald, a confidential servant, who brought 
 a small boat to Dame's Gate. The Archbishop embarked, but 
 the wind was contrary and perhaps the boatmen hostile ; at 
 all events, the boat stuck fast on the sands at Clontarf. The 
 fugitive took refuge in a gentleman's house at Artane ; but 
 Offaly appeared at the door next morning and ordered two of 
 his followers, John Teeling and Nicholas Wafer, to bring out 
 the Archbishop. They dragged the old man out of bed, and 
 brought him before their leader. Alen begged for mercy, 
 acknowledging that his captor had no reason to wish him 
 well, but claiming regard for his office if not for his person. 
 Offaly turned away contemptuously, and, speaking in Irish, 
 ordered his men to ' take away the churl.' Teeling and Wafer 
 immediately dashed out the Archbishop's brains. Robert 
 Reyley, who, if not actually an eye-witness, must have been 
 
 1 The King to the Earl of Ossory, No. 72 in the printed State Papers, 
 Butler's letter is in Stamhurst.
 
 166 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS, 
 
 CHAP, close at hand, was at once sent off to Maynooth with a casket 
 
 - which was found on Alen's person, and he afterwards swore 
 
 that he did not know whether Offaly ordered the murder or 
 not. The rebel chief always maintained that his intention 
 was to detain and not to kill ; but he thought it necessary to 
 send his chaplain to Rome to seek absolution. 1 
 Dublin is The sword of state which should have protected them 
 
 threatened. -i / i 
 
 having been exchanged for a rod to scourge them, the citizens 
 
 of Dublin were left to their own slender resources. Instigated 
 by Offaly, and assisted by John Burnell of Balgriffin, a gentle- 
 man of the Pale, the O'Tooles descended from their mountains 
 and ravaged the flat country to the north of the city. In an 
 attempt to intercept the raiders on their return, the citizens 
 were defeated with great loss near Kilmainham. Assuming 
 that they were at his mercy, Offaly offered the citizens their 
 lives if they would let him enter to besiege the castle. John 
 White, the Constable, who was afterwards knighted for his 
 services, made no objection provided he were allowed time to 
 victual. A spirited Alderman, John Fitzsimons, furnished a 
 great part of the provisions 2 at his own expense, and also 
 employed a smith in his own house to forge a chain for the 
 drawbridge. To such a state of destitution had Geraldine 
 ascendency brought the principal royal fortress in Ireland. 
 Another Alderman, Francis Herbert, was sent off to beg help 
 from the King. 3 
 
 Defence of White having announced himself ready, the citizens ad- 
 mitted about 100 of the rebels under the command of James 
 Field of Lusk, who had with him Teeling and Wafer, the 
 Archbishop's murderers, and three noted pirates, named 
 Erode, Rookes, and Purcell. The ordnance at Field's com- 
 mand, part of that which had been entrusted to the late Earl 
 of Kildare for the defence of the realm, was too light to make 
 
 1 Examination of Robert Reyley in Carerv, Aug. 5, 1636; Sir John Raw- 
 son to the King, Aug. 7, 1534 ; Dowling's Annals. Rawson says ' divers of 
 his chaplains and servants ' were killed with the Archbishop, and that the 
 murder was in Offaly's presence and ' by his commandment.' 
 
 2 Wine, 20 tuns; beer, 20 tuns; powdered beef, 16 hogsheads; 2,000 
 dried ling, &c. &c. 
 
 1 Stanihurst
 
 1534 AND 1535. 167 
 
 any great impression on the castle, upon whose walls it ought CHAP. 
 
 to have been mounted; and in the meantime Ossory was ' r - 
 
 sweeping away the cattle from Kildare. The temptation to 
 retaliate was too strong for Offaly, or perhaps for his men, 
 and he turned aside from Dublin to punish the Butlers. 
 Tullow Castle delayed him for five precious days, after which 
 he had the satisfaction of slaughtering the garrison, and five 
 more days were spent in inaction on the Barrow. Again did 
 Offaly offer to divide Ireland, including even his own inherit- 
 ance, with Ossory ; but the Earl refused as his son had done, 
 and only consented to a truce which would leave him free to 
 defend Tipperary against a threatened attack from Desmond. 
 The Butler forces being thus divided, and help having come 
 from O'Neill, Offaly broke the truce and began to plunder 
 Kilkenny. At Thomastown Lord Butler was wounded in a 
 skirmish, and had to retire to Dun more until cured ; while 
 Offaly, who had possession of Athy, Kilkea, Carlow, and 
 Castledermot, collected a great host of O'Mores, O'Connors, 
 Kavanaghs, and O'Byrnes. But these auxiliaries do not seem 
 to have been of much use ; for Ossory had still men enough 
 to burn and spoil the northern part of Carlow, though not to 
 attempt the relief of Dublin. 1 
 
 Francis Herbert returned very speedily from the King, The rebels 
 bringing letters in which Henry promised immediate succour. ^ ' 
 Despairing of success, Field anticipated the action of Rosen 
 at Londonderry, and threatened to expose the citizens' children 
 on the trenches, so as to prevent the garrison from using their 
 guns. Indignant at this breach of faith, and encouraged by 
 the near prospect of relief, the citizens shut their gates and 
 seized most of those who were besieging the castle. A few 
 escaped across the river, and brought the news to Offaly, who 
 returned to Dublin only to find it bent upon the most desperate 
 resistance. Having summoned the city in vain, he cut the 
 leaden pipes which supplied it with water ; but there must 
 have been wells also, for no effects followed. He then besieged 
 the castle from Ship Street, where there was cover for his men, 
 
 1 Stanihurst. Ossory to Walter Cowley, No. 93 in the printed State 
 Papert.
 
 168 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 The citi- 
 zens refuse 
 to help the 
 rebels. 
 
 but White had some fireworks, which enabled him to bum 
 down the thatched houses of the suburb and give his guns full 
 play. Herbert distinguished himself by shooting twenty-four 
 of the enemy, including one of their chief leaders. Being thus 
 driven from the castle, Offaly attempted the city wall from 
 Thomas Street, demolishing the party walls of the houses so 
 as to make two covered galleries leading up to the New Gate. 
 One of his shots pierced the gate and killed a man who was 
 trying to get water at a pipe in the middle of the Corn Market. 
 A remarkable feat is recorded of Staunton, the gaoler or warder 
 of New Gate. Having galled the rebels by his sharp-shooting, 
 he had become a particular mark for their fire, and he saw a 
 musketeer trying to cover him. He not only shot him in the 
 forehead, but, notwithstanding the hail of bullets issued from 
 the gate, stripped the dead man, and brought his gun and 
 clothes into the town. The Geraldines then tried to burn 
 the gate ; but a sally of the besieged through the smoke and 
 flame made them suppose that the city had been relieved, and 
 they withdrew precipitately, leaving a piece of artillery and 
 100 dead behind them. Offaly lingered for the night in the 
 precincts of the Grey Friary, from which Francis Street takes 
 its name, and next day rejoined his men, who had believed 
 him dead. He made no attempt to renew the siege. 1 
 
 In this, as in so many other Irish insurrections, there 
 was no want of double traitors ; of men who had neither the 
 constancy to remain loyal nor the courage to persevere in 
 rebellion. Many of the arrows shot over the walls were head- 
 less, and some bore letters which revealed to the garrison 
 every plan of the besiegers. The children of the citizens, 
 whom he had hitherto detained as hostages, could now be of 
 no use to Offaly, and he exchanged them for some of his own 
 men who had been captured. He tried to get money, ammu- 
 nition, and other help from the citizens in return for raising 
 the siege ; but the men of Dublin knew their advantage, and 
 answered that they had no money to spare. They argued 
 that if his intentions were loyal he had no need of warlike 
 stores, and that to supply him might be to make a rod for 
 
 1 Stanihurst. Brereton and Salisbury to the King, Nov. 4, 1534.
 
 1634 AND 1535. 169 
 
 their own backs. They were, however, willing to supply him 
 with enough parchment to engross his pardon upon, and to 
 join him in begging humbly for it. Having neither powder 
 nor shot, Offaly could not retort to any purpose, and he with- 
 drew to put his ancestral castle of Maynooth in a posture of 
 defence. 1 
 
 Besides retaining some of the citizens' children, the rebels Reinforce- 
 had captured Chief Justice Luttrell and Lord Howth. A arrive from 
 truce was therefore concluded for six weeks, but Offaly broke g an ' 
 it within twenty-four hours by burning corn belonging to the 
 Prior of Kilmainham. Meanwhile Skeffington had sailed 
 from North Wales. The bulk of his fleet and army were 
 intended for Waterford, but Sir William Brereton and Captain 
 Salisbury were detached with 400 men for the relief of Dub- 
 lin. Brereton took command of the city, and saw that proper 
 watch was kept. Shortly afterwards eighty Northern spear- 
 men under Musgrave and Hamerton landed or were driven 
 ashore at Clontarf, where the rebels met them in great force. 
 They were perhaps picked men, for their white coats and red 
 crosses are particularly mentioned : at all events, they made 
 a gallant resistance, and Offaly was wounded. Musgrave and 
 Hamerton were both killed, and the rebel chief is said to have 
 mourned deeply for the former, who was his cousin. The 
 main force of the insurgents hung about the Hill of Howth 
 in hope of preventing other English troops from landing, and 
 Erode, Purcell, and Rookes cruised in the offing with their 
 piratical vessels. 2 
 
 Although the wind served well for Ireland, Skeffington, Arrival of 
 who was old and delicate, delayed long at Beaumaris. The 
 North-countrymen, on whom he placed his chief reliance, 
 chafed at the delay ; and many of their horses, which were 
 perhaps not very well stowed, died from being cooped up on 
 board ship for three weeks. At last, on the very day on 
 which the siege of Dublin was raised, the Lord-Deputy 
 
 1 Stanihurst. 
 
 - Ibid. ; Bowling. According to Stanihtirst, Salisbury and Brereton 
 did not land until after the fight in which Musgrave fell, but their own 
 letter seems to contradict this.
 
 170 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS, 
 
 sailed. The fleet was driven by a gale under Lambay, whew 
 a report reached it that Dublin had fallen. The news was 
 not believed, but Brereton and Salisbury were detached. 
 They reached the Liffey without any difficulty; and there 
 was no reason why Skeffington should not have done so, but 
 that he had made up his mind to go to Waterford. As it 
 was, he was able to lie close to Skerries and to send in his 
 boats, which burned four Geraldine vessels at anchor in the 
 roads. The fleet then made sail again, and was again driven 
 under Lambay, whence two ships made chase after Erode, 
 the pirate, and drove him ashore near Drogheda. At last 
 the Lord Deputy was persuaded to take the obvious course, 
 and landed safely at Dublin more than a week after Brereton. 
 Other troops from Bristol, under Sir John St. Loo, reached 
 Waterford about the same time. Messengers were at once 
 sent to Drogheda, and Erode and his crew were brought by 
 sea to Dublin. 1 
 
 Offaly is Driven from Dublin, Oflfaly threatened Drogheda with some 
 
 a'traitor. 400 horse, but Skeffington, with unwonted energy, marched 
 the whole distance in one day, and the rebels did not venture 
 to attack him. The Geraldine chief was proclaimed traitor 
 at the market-cross, and the gentlemen of Louth and Meath, 
 finding that there was again something in the shape of a 
 government, came in fast to the Lord-Deputy. Meanwhile 
 Ossory and St. Loo were at work in the south, and agreed 
 to meet Skeffington at Kildare's castle of Kilkea. The Earl 
 and the English knight kept their appointment, but the 
 Deputy was again ill, and without artillery nothing could 
 be done. Ossory had .enough to do to keep the O'Mores 
 and Kavanaghs in check, but he gained one important ally 
 in the person of Sir Thomas Eustace, of Baltinglass, who 
 brought forty of his kinsmen and left hostages in the Earl's 
 hands. Eustace kept his word, and received a peerage for 
 his services, an honour forfeited in Elizabeth's time for a 
 
 1 John Alen to Cromwell, Oct. 4 ; Brereton and Salisbury to the King, 
 Nov. 4 ; Skeffington to the King, Nov. 1 1 ; Ossory to Mr. Cowley, No. 93 in 
 the printed State Papcrt.
 
 1534 AND 1535. 171 
 
 rebellion, which, if one of the most foolish, was also one of CHAP. 
 the least selfish of the many recorded in Irish annals. 1 ^ 
 
 During the greater part of the winter Offaly ranged up The 
 and down the Pale, not sparing the Kildare estates, which continues. 
 he was not likely ever to enjoy in peace. On one occasion 
 he came into collision with Brereton near Trim, and lost 150 
 men ; but when a garrison of forty men were left in the town 
 he had no difficulty in recapturing it, and a garrison of 
 twenty men failed to hold Kildare against him. His follow- 
 ing was reduced to 100 horse and 300 kerne, who had 
 scarcely a dozen muskets among them ; but with this band 
 he wandered where he pleased, even to the walls of Dublin. 
 Skeffington again fell sick, and the army was detained doing 
 nothing in Dublin; he could not, according to Sir John 
 Alen, do anything himself, and he would not let anyone else 
 have the credit. A truce for three weeks was concluded with 
 the rebel, and after the New Year some of the troops were 
 allowed to leave the capital. Sir Rice Maunsell with 500 
 men occupied Trim Brereton and Salisbury lay at Newcastle ; 
 and preparations were made for assuming the offensive as 
 soon as the Lord-Deputy should be able to mount a horse. 
 But there was great want of money, and the ill-paid soldiers 
 took little interest in any service which did not bring them 
 profit. They took it on themselves to find men guilty of 
 treason and to seize their goods, ' whereas,' as Alen grimly 
 suggested, ' the King might have them by another mean.' 
 Munitions of war were as scarce as money, and the bows 
 which were sent from Ludlow Castle snapped when the 
 archers tried to bend them. 2 
 
 In the meantime the ecclesiastics who administered the The Arch- 
 vacant see of Dublin pronounced sentence of excommunica- murderers 
 
 tion in its most tremendous form against the murderers of are ex om- 
 
 municated. 
 the Archbishop. Offaly himself, his uncles John and Oliver, 
 
 1 Brereton and Salisbury to the King, Nov. 4 ; Skeffington to the King, 
 Nov. 11 ; Ossory to Mr. Cowley, as above. 
 
 2 John Alen to Cromwell, Dec. 26, 1534, and Feb. 16, 1535 ; Vice- 
 Treasurer Brabazon to Cromwell, Feb. 16, 1535 ; Skeffington to Sir Edmund 
 Walsingham, March 13.
 
 172 
 
 IREIAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 X. 
 
 Death of 
 Kildare. 
 
 The new 
 Earl 
 
 seeks help 
 from 
 Emperor 
 and Pope, 
 
 and from 
 
 the 1 ri-h. 
 
 Captain Rookes, James Delahide, and Teeling and Wafer, 
 who seem to have been the actual murderers, were mentioned 
 by name. Leprosy and madness, hunger and thirst were 
 invoked upon them in this life, and eternal damnation in the 
 life to come. No house was to shelter them, no church to 
 give them sanctuary, no kind Christian to bestow on them a 
 morsel of bread when starving, nor a cup of cold water when 
 dying of thirst, on pain of being considered accessories to 
 their crime and accursed like them. They were to be par- 
 takers with Pharaoh and Nero, Herod and Judas, Dathan 
 and Abiram ; and stones were cast towards their dwellings, 
 as by Moses when he called down Divine wrath upon the 
 last named. It is said that a copy of this curse was 
 cruelly shown to the old Earl in the Tower, and that the 
 shock snapped the enfeebled thread which still bound him to 
 life. The fate of the seven excommunicated persons was 
 nearly as bad as the most vindictive priest could wish. The 
 three Geraldines were hanged at Tyburn, Rookes was hanged 
 at Dublin, Teeling and Wafer died at Maynooth of a horrible 
 disease, James Delahide escaped to Spain and gave the 
 Government some further trouble, but he died an exile in 
 Scotland. 1 
 
 The new Earl for Earl he was in spite of Stanihurst's 
 statement to the contrary took advantage of the breathing 
 space allowed him by the Deputy's inaction to cast about for 
 allies. He sent Dominick Power to the Emperor, armed 
 with gifts, and with documents going to prove that Ireland 
 was a fief of the Holy See and that it was forfeited on 
 account of Henry's heresy. Kildare was ready to hold the 
 country of Pope or Emperor and to pay tribute, in conside- 
 ration of being protected against the English schismatics. 
 Twelve hawks and fourteen hobbies, or Irish palfreys, were 
 thought suitable presents for the second Charlemagne. 8 
 
 More immediate help was sought from the O'Briens of 
 Clare and the O'Kellies. The latter were induced to threaten 
 
 1 The sentence of excommunication is printed in the State I'apers, No. 
 81 ; see No. 84 ; Stanihurst. Kildare died Dec. 12, 1534. 
 - Stanihurst ; Alen to Cromwell, Dec. 26, 1534.
 
 1534 AND 1535. 173 
 
 Westmeath, and Con O'Brien, chief of Thomond, was already CHAP. 
 in communication with Charles V., but Con's son Donogh - A- 
 had married Lady Ellen Butler, and Ossory had enough in- 
 fluence with his son-in-law to keep him to his allegiance. 
 Donogh, as was usual with the sons of Irish chiefs, had a 
 strong party of his own, and prevented the clan from stirring. 
 Ossory contrived to make the Burkes threaten the O'Kellies, 
 and they also were neutralised. 1 
 
 Skeffington, having awoke to the fact that Ireland could Many 
 not be subdued by an army which never left Dublin, allowed executed. 
 Maunsell and Brereton to divide their forces and to burn 
 most of the Geraldine villages, including Maynooth. While 
 gaining strength himself he had the satisfaction of ordering 
 several executions in Dublin. Erode, who was called the 
 traitor's admiral ; Rookes, who was captured near Wexford 
 with some of the royal ordnance in his possession ; a third 
 rover named Purcell, who had been bold enough to cut a 
 vessel out of the Thames ; and Travers, Chancellor of St. 
 Patrick's, who had been an agent in the attempted reduction 
 of Dublin, were all duly hanged, drawn, and quartered on 
 Oxmantown Green. 2 
 
 Brereton summoned Maynooth Castle, proposing to let Maynooth 
 the garrison depart with bag and baggage, and offering par- summoned, 
 dons and rewards. But they trusted in their walls, and an- rhe siege> 
 swered only with taunts and jeers. At last Skeffington left 
 Dublin and encamped before the castle, which he invested 
 closely the next day. He pronounced it to be the strongest 
 fortress which had ever been in Ireland since the English 
 first set foot there. No detailed account of the armament 
 has been preserved, but there were several pieces of cannon 
 and a garrison of over 100, of whom about one-half were 
 gunners. Christopher Paris, the Earl's foster-brother, com- 
 manded within the castle. Skeffington's batteries opened 
 on the third day after his arrival, and soon silenced the guns 
 on the north-west side of the keep. The guns were then 
 pointed against a new work on the northern side, and after 
 
 1 Ossory to Skeffington, Jan. 17, 1535. 
 
 * Alento Cromwell, Feb. 16, 1535; Stanihurst.
 
 174 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 X. 
 
 Maynooth 
 taken. 
 Story of 
 Paris. 
 
 five days' bombardment the breach was pronounced practi- 
 cable. Paris, who probably despaired of maintaining his 
 post, now thought it time to make separate terms for him- 
 self, and shot out a letter in which he offered to sell his 
 post for money. The garrison were accordingly allowed to 
 sally forth and to capture a small piece of artillery. Paris pre- 
 tended great satisfaction, and served out abundant liquor to 
 his men, who proceeded to celebrate their triumph by getting 
 drunk. In the first grey light of morning the outwork was 
 occupied almost without resistance, and the warders were 
 aroused from their slumbers by shouts of ' St. George ! St. 
 George ! ' Ladders were quickly planted against the walls 
 of the keep, and the storming party began to ascend. Cap- 
 tain Holland, who was one of the first to reach the parapet, 
 jumped down into a tub of feathers, but Brereton's company 
 had scaled the walls at another place, and the Geraldines, 
 completely surprised and only half sober, made but a short 
 stand. An arrow was discharged at Holland, the weight of 
 whose armour kept him fast in the feathers, but it missed 
 him, and he was released in time to take an active part in 
 the final struggle. Brereton himself ran up to the highest 
 turret and hoisted a flag, which told the Lord-Deputy that 
 all was over. 1 
 
 When Skeffington entered in the evening two singing- 
 men of the Earl's chapel prostrated themselves before him, 
 plaintively chanting a hymn or song called ' Dulcis arnica,' 
 which affected the victors as the verses of Euripides affected 
 the Dorians at Syracuse. They were pardoned, and Paris 
 then came forward to claim his reward. Skeffington allowed 
 that he had been useful, and promised that the King would 
 not let him starve ; he then asked what confidence the Earl 
 of Kildare placed in his foster-brother, and Paris enumerated 
 the benefits which he had received from the fallen family. 
 ' Couldst thou,' said the Deputy sternly, ' find in thine heart 
 to betray his castle who has been so good to thee ? Truly, 
 thou that art so hollow to him wilt never be true to us.' 
 Then turning to his officers he ordered them to pay down the 
 1 Stanihurst ; Lord Deputy and Council to the King, March 26.
 
 1534 AND 1535. 175 
 
 stipulated price, and to execute the traitor forthwith. ' My CHAP. 
 lord,' said the wretched man, ' had I wist you would have 
 dealt so straitly with me, your lordship should not have 
 won this fort with so little bloodshed as you did.' Among 
 the bystanders was James Boys, formerly Constable of May- 
 nooth, who had resigned his office at the breaking out of the 
 rebellion, but who may have sympathised with his old em- 
 ployers, and who muttered c too late ' in Irish, a saying which 
 became proverbial for an ineffectual repentance. Paris was 
 executed, and it does not appear that he had been promised 
 pardon, but Skeffington's action was neither honest nor politic. 
 He had profited by the treason, and to kill the traitor could 
 only tend to make other rebels desperate. About forty other 
 prisoners were taken, of whom twenty-five were executed, 
 including the Dean of Kildare and another priest named 
 Walsh. It appeared from the depositions of one prisoner, a 
 priest, that there had been negotiations with the Emperor, 
 who held out hopes of 10,000 men, and also with the King 
 of Scots. The ' pardon of Maynooth ' became a proverbial 
 expression for the gallows. 1 
 
 Kildare had in the meantime succeeded in raising an 
 
 army of 7,000 men among the O'Connors of Offaly and in f m 
 Connaught, but the news that Maynooth had fallen almost 
 dispersed it. With the men who remained he advanced to 
 Clane, where he came into collision with Skeffington, who 
 took 140 prisoners and put them to the sword, on a renewal 
 of the fight being threatened. Kildare then went into 
 Thomond, intending to sail for Spain, but sent James Dela- 
 hide and Robert Walsh, the parish priest of Loughseedy, in 
 his stead. These messengers joined Power at Cadiz, but did 
 not obtain an interview with Charles until after their chiefs 
 execution. Power was pardoned at the Emperor's request, 
 but the others were attainted by name. Kildare's allies now 
 gradually dropped away. O'More and MacMurrough gave 
 
 1 Ware ; Stanihurst ; the Lord- Deputy and Council to the King, March 
 26. The official despatch does not mention the negotiation with Paris, but 
 I see no reason to disbelieve Stanihurst. ' Too late, quoth Boys,' became 
 proverbial.
 
 176 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, security to Ossory, and the Earl's followers dwindled daily, 
 
 , ^1 , though he continued to roam about in the neighbourhood of 
 
 his ancestral estates. Maynooth was too strong to attempt, 
 but he twice took Rathangan, so that no Englishman would 
 take charge of it ; and Skeffington was forced to entrust it to 
 Sir James Fitzgerald. After this, Kildare drove a herd of 
 cattle under the walls, and by the hope of booty drew out a 
 great part of the garrison, whom he cut to pieces. On one 
 occasion, he destroyed part of the garrison of Trim by putting 
 forward some English troopers, who pretended to be Salis- 
 bury's men ; and on another, he almost succeeded in captur- 
 ing a large convoy near Naas. But such stratagems could 
 not long delay the end, and the Irish saw that the game was 
 up. O'Neill came to Skeffington at Drogheda, and took the 
 oath of allegiance. It was agreed among other things- that 
 any O'Neill who did wrong within the obedient districts 
 might be tried by English law, and that homicides should 
 not be compounded by money payments ; J but the King's 
 subjects taken in O'Neill's country were to be reserved for 
 the royal consideration, and not punished capitally by the 
 chief. O'Neill was to receive his customary black-rent, but 
 none of his clans were to levy Irish exactions, 2 or to graze 
 cattle in the English districts. All Englishmen were to 
 enjoy free trade with Tyrone, and O'Neill undertook to help 
 Skeffington in his hostings in as ample a manner as any of 
 his predecessors had helped any previous Lord-Deputy or 
 Lord-Lieutenant. 3 
 
 But O'More, an able man, who was anxious to deserve well of 
 
 makesiittie his new friends, accompanied Brabazon into the wastes of 
 progress. Alien, where Kildare was lurking. After the usual plunder- 
 ing, he advised the Englishmen to turn as if in full retreat, 
 but, in reality, to occupy all the passes, while the O'Mores 
 engaged the Earl's party in the plain. But the Northum- 
 berland moss-troopers under Dacre and Musgrave had not 
 forgotten their old habits, and made off with the booty, 
 
 1 ' Quae vulgariter dicitur a saulte.' 
 
 2 Coyne and livery, cuddies, kernaghts, ' vel talia poculenta.' 
 * The indenture is dated July 26, 1535.
 
 1534 AND 1535. 177 
 
 leaving an unguarded pass, through which the Geraldines es- CHAP. 
 caped. 1 The O'Mores would not kill Kildare's men, but were -.. V 
 very active against the O'Connors ; indeed, the Earl was believed 
 to have been in O'More's hands for a time, and to have been 
 purposely released. But Brabazon took Burnell of Balgriffiii, 
 one of the original advisers of the rebellion, and William 
 Keatinge, captain of the Keatinge kerne, who had hitherto 
 been the rebels' chief strength. The latter was released on 
 giving security, but Burnell was reserved for the scaffold. 
 The remarkable unfitness of Skeffington for the post in which 
 Henry maintained him was strikingly shown at this time. 
 He was unable to stir from Maynooth, and seemed half dead 
 if he rose before ten or eleven o'clock. Marauding bands 
 came with impunity to the castle gates, and stole the Deputy's 
 horses ; and he allowed the army to lie in the open country 
 without orders, and to consume provisions instead of fighting. 
 The sick man was jealous of Lord Leonard Grey, the marshal 
 of the army, whom rumour had designated as his successor ; 
 he was himself incapable of action, and was unwilling to let 
 others act in his stead. 2 
 
 Before his release Keatinge undertook to drive the Ger- Surrender 
 aldine chief out of Kildare. The wretched peasants crept 
 back to their fields to save what was left of the harvest ; and 
 Cahir O'Connor, who saw how things were likely to end, 
 came to Grey and Brabazon, and took an oath to defend the 
 King's interests against Kildare, and against his own brother. 
 The Earl had a stronghold in a boggy wood near Rathangan, 
 fortified with earthworks and wet ditches, and almost im- 
 pregnable had it been well manned and armed. Not being 
 defended it was easily taken, and whatever would burn was 
 burned. At last Skefiington felt well enough to take the 
 field, and advanced with Grey and Butler to the borders 
 of Offaly. Despairing of the cause, and anxious to save his 
 harvest, O'Connor came in and submitted to the Lord Deputy 
 at Castle Jordan; and Kildare, finding himself alone, then 
 
 1 Aylmer and Alen to Cromwell, Aug. 21. 
 
 2 Grey to Cromwell, August 15. Aylmer and Alen to Cromwell, Aug; 
 21 and 2 6. 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 178 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP surrendered to Butler and Grey in the presence of three wit- 
 
 ' r ' nesses. Skeffington positively asserts that no condition was 
 
 made, ' either of pardon, life, land, or goods ;' and this is 
 confirmed by a despatch from the Council sent three days 
 later and signed by Lords Butler and Delvin, Rawson, Prior 
 of Kilmainham, Saintloo, Brabazon, Aylmer, Salisbury, and 
 Sir Rice Maunsell, the last two having been present at the 
 surrender. But the councillors admitted that ' comfortable 
 words were spoken to Thomas to allure him to yield,' and 
 begged the King to spare his life according to the comfort of 
 those words. 1 
 The MIT- A great effort was made to cause a belief in England that 
 
 render was _ 
 
 uncon- the surrender was conditional, but it does not appear that 
 the prisoner himself made any such assertion. He wrote to 
 his connection Grey, confessing himself a rebel, but urging 
 that he had done all by the advice of Thomas Eustace and 
 Sir Gerald MacShane. He begged intercession for his life 
 and lands : failing the efficacy of such aid, he had, he said, 
 only to shift for himself as he best could. Writers favour- 
 able to the Geraldines have nevertheless stated that he was 
 promised his life, and this has been copied into a long suc- 
 cession of popular manuals. Even at the time, the legal 
 mind of Lord Chancellor Audeley refused to believe that the 
 Irish Council had so dealt ' with so errant and cankered a 
 traitor.' ' If this,' he added, * be intended that he should 
 have mercy, I marvel much that divers of the King's Council 
 in Ireland have so largely told the King, afore this time, 
 that there should never be good peace or order in Ireland 
 till the blood of the Garrolds were wholly extinct. And it 
 was also said that the Irishmen spared their effectual diligence 
 in the persecution of him, because they heard that he should 
 have pardon, and then he would revenge ; and now it seemeth 
 they would procure him mercy. They be people of a strange 
 nature and much inconstancy.' 2 
 
 In writing his thanks to Skeffington the King regrets 
 
 1 Skeffington to the Ring, Aug. 24 ; the Council of Ireland to the King, 
 Aug. 27. 
 
 = Audeley to Cromwell, i. S.P., p. 466; Stanihurst ; Four ^Mastert.
 
 1534 AND 1535. 179 
 
 that Kildare's capture had not been ' after such a sort as was CHAP. 
 convenable to his deservings' alluding to the report that ^ ^ 
 
 conditions had been made with him. The letter is worthy of . 
 
 * is sent to 
 
 Elizabeth at her best, and very creditable to Henry, who England; 
 declares his unabated confidence in Skeffington, and promises 
 to make every allowance for his age and infirmities. As to 
 the disposal of the prisoner, not only Audeley but Norfolk, 
 who spoke from the fulness of his Irish experience, thought 
 he should be sent to the Tower and executed in due course, 
 ' except it should appear that by his keeping alive there 
 should grow any knowledge of treasons, or other commodity 
 to the King's grace.' The Duke advised a long respite, lest 
 Lord Butler and Lord Leonard Grey should lose all their 
 credit in Ireland. The Chancellor wished to proceed in the 
 King's Bench under the new Statute of Treasons, by which he 
 considered that such offences, though committed in Ireland, 
 might be tried in an English shire. Had this opinion finally 
 prevailed, modern Ireland might be easier to govern than it 
 ever seems likely to be. Both Norfolk and Audeley allude to 
 the report that Kildare had been promised his life, but neither 
 they nor the King confirm it. 1 
 
 An account is extant showing that twenty shillings a and 
 week were allowed for Kildare's maintenance in the Tower, 
 but intercepted letters tell of great harshness. His object in tbe Tower * 
 writing was to borrow 201. from O'Brien, who had his plate, 
 and he urged that chief to help the Deputy as the best means 
 of helping him. ' I never,' he wrote to a trusty servant, ' had 
 any money since I came into prison but a noble, nor I have 
 had neither hosen, doublet, nor shoes, nor shirt but one ; nor 
 any other garments, but a single frieze gown, for a velvet 
 furred with budge, and so I have gone woolward, and bare- 
 foot and barelegged, divers times (when it hath not been very 
 warm), and so I should have done still, and now, but that 
 poor prisoners, of their gentleness, hath sometimes given me 
 old hosen, and shoes, and old shirts.' For sixteen months 
 the rash young man endured this misery, and then, an Irish 
 
 1 The King to Skeffington, ii. S.P., p. 280 ; Audeley to Cromwell, i. S.P., 
 p. 146 ; Norfolk to Cromwell, September 9, 1535. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 The Dca- 
 
 ir.nnd.s and 
 
 MneCnr- 
 
 tliies. 
 
 Act of attainder having passed in the meantime, he and his 
 five uncles were carried to Tyburn and there duly hanged, 
 drawn, and quartered. 1 
 
 Having followed the fortunes of the House of Kildare 
 until their great eclipse, we may now turn to the southern 
 Geraldines, who had also entered upon the slippery paths of 
 rebellion. The dispute between Desmond and Ormonde was 
 of old standing, the real cause of it being the fact that 
 Munster was not large enough to hold two such families. 
 In 1520 Surrey brought about a meeting at Waterford be- 
 tween James, the eleventh Earl of Desmond, and Sir Piers 
 Butler. They were solemnly sworn to keep the peace and to 
 help each other on lawful occasions. Cormac Oge MacCarthy, 
 Lord of Muskerry, and MacCarthy Reagh, who had allied 
 themselves with the Butlers as a defence against their great 
 neighbours' oppressions, were parties to this agreement. Surrey 
 took hostages from them, and reported that they were wise 
 men and more conformable than some Englishmen. If the 
 King would undertake to protect them, he thought that they 
 and many other Irishmen would be content to hold their 
 lands of him. The peace was short ; for Desmond no sooner 
 got back to his own country than he proceeded to waste 
 Muskerry with fire and sword. The two MacCarthies joined 
 their forces, and a pitched battle was fought at Mourne Abbey, 
 near Mallow. Cormac Oge placed the cavalry under the com- 
 mand of his sister's husband, Thomas Moyle Fitzgerald, who 
 was Desmond's uncle and heir presumptive ; and to his charge 
 the Geraldine partisans of course attribute the result. The 
 Earl was totally defeated : ' and of this overthrow,' wrote the 
 family historian more than a century later, ' the Irish to this 
 day do brag, not remembering how often both before and 
 after they received the like measure from the Geraldines.' 2 
 
 Two years after the fight at Mourne Abbey Desmond was 
 
 1 Feb. 3, 1537. The letter to Rothe (enclosing that to O'Brien) is in 
 S.P. ii., p. 402. 
 
 2 Surrey to Wolsey, Nov. 3, 1520 ; Rusell ; O'Daly, chap. ix. The latter 
 writer is hopelessly wrong, and makes Thomas Moyle fight on Desmond's 
 side.
 
 DESMOND POLITICS. 181 
 
 in secret communication with Francis I., the Constable CHAP. 
 
 Bourbon having at the same time similar relations with ^ 
 
 Henry VIII. The French Kinsr sent two agents to Ireland Desmond 
 
 * intrigues 
 
 Francis de Candolle, Lord of Oisy, who afterwards appears with 
 as having a relationship or connection with Desmond, and 1523. 
 Francis de Bergagni. They met the Earl at Askeaton, and 
 made a convention with him. Desmond agreed to make war 
 on the King, provided that his father-in-law Tirlough O'Brien 
 and others of that clan should be included in any peace made 
 between England and France. Francis rather oddly under- 
 took to send ships to help Desmond in collecting tribute from 
 his subjects. The Earl and his seneschal David MacMorris 
 were promised French pensions, and both Geraldines and 
 O'Briens were encouraged to expect French help in any 
 emergency. Richard de la Pole, Edward IV.'s exiled nephew, 
 was to be set up against Henry, and Desmond undertook to 
 support the Pretender with 400 horse and 10,000 foot, which 
 were to remain under his command. If he succeeded in 
 raising 15,000 foot Francis agreed to pay two angelots a 
 month for every fully armed man, and one angelot for every 
 kerne. Kinsale, Cork, or Youghal was to be held by the 
 French, and Desmond promised to use his exertions in pro- 
 viding them with horses. The convention was ratified at St. 
 Germain-en-Laye, but nothing whatever came of it. Had 
 there been any good understanding between Desmond and 
 the Scots who were threatening Ulster, a powerful diversion 
 might have been effected ; but the Earl seems to have had no 
 higher object than the enhancement of his own local authority. 
 Some years later a bill was prepared for the attainder of 
 Desmond in the Irish Parliament, which recited his treason 
 in giving aid and comfort to Frenchmen while France and 
 England were at war. But no Parliament was then held, 
 and Desmond died unattainted. 1 
 
 During his short administration after Surrey's departure 
 
 1 He is generally stated to have died June 18, 1529, but he was alive 
 Sept. 12 in that year. For his intrigues with Francis see Wise to Cromwell, 
 July 12, 1534, and the Cotton MS. quoted there ; Brewer, vol. iii., No. 3118. 
 The abortive Bill of attainder is calendared under Oct. 1528.
 
 182 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Sir Piers Butler, who had heard of Desmond's dealings with 
 France, invaded his country with the consent of many loyal 
 Geraldines. The port towns closed their gates to the rebel- 
 and the lious Earl, who turned upon Tipperary, and occupied the 
 Geraldines. strong castle of Cahir, the same which afterwards delayed 
 Essex and thus contributed to his fall. The Deputy hastened 
 to the spot, and seized the bridge leading to the fortified 
 island ; but the bridge on the other side remained open and 
 Desmond escaped. After this the O'Briens, whom many sup- 
 posed to be instigated by Kildare, laid a trap for Sir Piers 
 very like that in which his famous grandson was long after- 
 wards caught. A parley was proposed at the ford of Camus 
 on the Suir, and thither, according to his own account, Butler 
 repaired with a slender escort and the most pacific intentions. 
 The O'Briens, who were hidden in a wood, suddenly rushed 
 out and attacked him, but his men fought bravely and killed 
 Teig O'Brien, the chief's son, ' of all men of his age the most 
 dreaded by his enemies.' The Ormonde district at this time 
 lay open on account of a bridge which the O'Briens had lately 
 built over the Shannon, and one of the complaints against 
 Kildare was that he had not helped Sir Piers to destroy this 
 bridge. 1 
 
 Their dis- A war without much plan or apparent purpose continued 
 
 Bun- * to rage for years between the Butlers and the southern Ger- 
 garvan. aldines. In 1527 James Butler wrote to his father, who was 
 then in England, giving him an account of certain intrigues 
 and disturbances, and telling him plainly that it was folly 
 trying to look after Irish affairs in London. He who would 
 do the King service must do it on the spot. Sir John Fitz- 
 gerald of Decies, who had taken part against the head of his 
 house, and had in consequence lost much cattle and seen many 
 farm-houses in flames, watched his opportunity, and shut up 
 Desmond in Dungarvan. Here he was joined by Butler, and 
 by the Earl's cousin, Thomas Fitzgerald of Decies ; but the 
 castle defied anything short of a regular siege. Butler had a 
 horse shot under him, but a sally was unsuccessful, and Des- 
 
 1 Articles alleged by Ormonde against Kildare, Brewer, vol. iv., No. 
 1352 (2). Ware ; Four Masters, 1523.
 
 DESMOND POLITICS. 183 
 
 mond thought it prudent to take the sea with forty men. CHAP. 
 
 He sailed into Youghal upon the flood-tide, and Dungarvan - ^ 
 
 then offered to surrender to Sir Thomas Fitzgerald. Butler 
 refused to allow this, and Sir Thomas then joined his cousin, 
 who had begun to ravage his lands about Youghal. The prey 
 having escaped, Dungarvan was not thought worth any further 
 immediate trouble; but a grant of the offices of governor, 
 constable, and steward of the place was soon afterwards 
 passed to Sir Piers Butler on his being created Earl of Ossory. 
 The condition was imposed that the new Earl should seek 
 to recover Dungarvan out of Desmond's possession. 1 
 
 The rebel seems to have been a man of large ideas. He Desmond 
 had the Archbishop of Cashel, a natural son of Ossory, to tion into 
 watch over his interests at Court, and something amounting 
 almost to an Irish invasion of England took place under his 
 auspices. In twelve months the almost incredible number 
 of 20,000 Irishmen are said to have landed in Pem- 
 brokeshire that little England beyond Wales whence the 
 ancestors of the Geraldines had first sailed to Ireland. They 
 spread themselves over the country about Milford Haven and 
 between St. David's and Tenby, and the very corporation of 
 the latter town came under Irish influence. A townsman had 
 two large heavily armed ships manned by Irishmen : he was 
 himself Welsh, but he would have neither Welshman nor 
 Englishman on board. Throughout the country side Irishmen 
 outnumbered the natives in the proportion of four to one, and 
 many Irish vessels frequented the coast, and were employed 
 in trade or piracy, or in a mixture of both. Nearly all the 
 men they brought were from Desmond's country, and it is 
 probable that he had a share of the profits, and that h& was 
 thus enabled to keep up the contest on land. 2 
 
 The adventurous Earl had gained nothing by his alliance 
 with France ; but he did not abandon the hope of foreign 
 
 1 James Butler to his father, Brewer, vol. iv., No. 3698; to the King, 
 ib. 3699. Cormac Oge to the King, ib. 5084 ; to Wolsey, ib. 4933. Sir 
 
 Thomas Fitzgerald to ib. 3922. Archbishop Inge to Wolsey, Feb. 23, 
 
 1528. 
 
 2 R. Cowley, ii. S.P., 141 ; R. Griffiths to Wolsey, in Brener, vol. iv., 
 Nos. 3372 and 4485.
 
 184 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Desmond 
 intrigues 
 with 
 Charles V. 
 
 J'ission of 
 (innznlo 
 Fernandez 
 t Ireland, 
 1529. 
 
 intervention in Ireland, and sent a present of Irish hawks 
 and wolf-hounds to Charles V. The gifts were in charge of 
 a trusty messenger, who landed at St. Sebastian and has- 
 tened to the Imperial Court at Toledo. Wolsey's emissaries 
 were accurately informed of these movements, and one who 
 lived at Renteria recommended that a royal cruiser should be 
 sent to intercept the ambassador on his return. The man 
 himself lacked discretion, for he showed his despatches to the 
 pupal collector at Valladolid, and their contents thus became 
 known to the English agents. Desmond's great wish was for 
 artillery, which would have placed nearly every castle in 
 Munster at his mercy. Glad to find any means of annoying 
 a King who desired to repudiate his aunt, Charles sent a gold 
 cup to Desmond, and soon afterwards despatched his chaplain 
 Gonzalo Fernandez to Ireland. Fernandez, who spoke very 
 good English, was instructed to make himself thoroughly 
 acquainted with Desmond's resources, and to offer help if he 
 thought it advisable. He was authorised to promise that the 
 Earl should be included in any treaties which might be made 
 between the Emperor and Henry VIII., and to explain that 
 his master had always been most anxious for the English 
 King's friendship. Notwithstanding his former good offices 
 Henry had made an alliance with France, and now sought to 
 divorce his Queen and to give the Duchy of Ireland to his 
 bastard in disparagement of the Princess Mary. Such pro- 
 ceedings Charles was determined firmly to resist. 1 
 
 Fernandez left Toledo on March 3, the Spanish Govern- 
 ment giving out that he had gone to England to recover 
 debts due to the Emperor. He had returned by April 28. 
 On his way out he touched at Cork, where many persons 
 visited his ship, and he gathered from their conversation 
 that Desmond was not popular there. After this he was 
 driven into Berehaven, whence he wrote to the Earl ; and in 
 four days he received an answer directed to him as chaplain 
 
 1 .1. Batcock to in Brewer, vol. iv., No. 4878 ; Sylvester Darius to 
 
 Wolsey, ib. 4911 ; Ghinucci and Lee to Wolsey, ib. 4948 ; Lee to Henry 
 VIII., ib. 5002. The instructions to Fernandez are in C'artn; Feb. 24, 
 1529 (wrongly calendared under 1530).
 
 DESMOND POLITICS. 185 
 
 to ' our sovereign lord the Emperor,' Desmond striving to CHAP. 
 
 assume the position of an Imperial feudatory, instead of that , - 
 
 of an English subject. Fernandez then sailed to Dingle, 
 and before he could land Desmond sent six gentlemen on 
 board to ask his help in capturing certain English and 
 French vessels which lay near, probably at Ventry or Smer- 
 wick. Desmond had already sent his galleys, and was going 
 with 500 men to support them by land. The Spaniard, with 
 a more exact idea of an ambassador's duties than the poten- 
 tate to whom he was accredited, prudently excused himself. 
 Desmond evidently did not wish Fernandez to visit any of 
 his castles, arid preferred to meet him at the water's edge. 
 Anxious to appear a powerful independent prince, he was 
 probably unwilling that the Spaniards should see the naked- 
 ness of the land and his own rude way of life ; and perhaps 
 he shrunk from accumulating evidence against himself in 
 case submission to his lawful sovereign should after all be- 
 come expedient. 1 
 
 On April 21 Fernandez disembarked. He was well re- Fernandez 
 ceived by the inhabitants and by Desmond himself, who had it ^ unster 
 500 horse and as many gallowglasses with him. The Earl Desmond, 
 asked after the Emperor's health, and again called him his sove- 
 reign lord. Fernandez read his commission first in English. 
 Desmond then requested that it might be repeated in Latin for 
 the benefit of his Council, and when it was finished he took 
 off his cap and thanked the Emperor for his gracious conde- 
 scension, adding the reflection that his Majesty was placed 
 on earth to prevent one prince from injuring another. His 
 evident design was to acknowledge the supremacy of the 
 Empire over all the kingdoms of the world, and at the same 
 time to place himself on a level with the King of England, 
 from whom he held his lands, his title, and his jurisdiction. 
 Desmond then discharged the congenial duty of magnifying 
 himself and his ancestors. He was, he said, descended from 
 
 1 Fernandez to Charles V. in Brerctr, vol. iv. No. 5323 ; Ghinucci and 
 Lee to Wolsey, ib. 5423; Lee to Wolsey, April 19, 1529, ib. 5469; Des- 
 mond's Memorandum for the Emperor, April 28, ib. 5501 ; Froude's Pil~ 
 grim.
 
 186 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Desmond's 
 proposals 
 to the 
 Emperor. 
 
 Brito, who lawfully conquered the great .and the small 
 Britain, and reduced Ireland and Scotland under his yoke. 
 It had been prophesied that an Earl of Desmond should con- 
 quer England, and this kept the English in a constant state 
 of tremor. The fear of its fulfilment had caused the behead- 
 ing of Earl Thomas by Lord Deputy Tiptoft, and Richard, 
 ' son of the King of England,' had invaded Ireland on 
 account of his father's enmity with the reigning King. 
 Afterwards that Earl had conquered all Ireland, ' some few 
 towns only excepted.' The King of England caused the 
 Earl of Kildare to be destroyed in prison, until his kinsman 
 of Desmond forcibly liberated him and made him Viceroy 
 of Ireland. In twenty-four years, during which he had been 
 stirring up both English and Irish, first to kill Desmond's 
 father and afterwards to make war on himself, the King of 
 England had gained no advantage. The Earl's servants 
 trading in France and Flanders had been imprisoned and- 
 despoiled of 9,OOOZ. by the English King's orders. Fernan- 
 dez prudently demanded that this extraordinary farrago 
 should be written down. It is very fortunate that he was 
 unable to retain it in his memory, for no amount of mere 
 English evidence could give us such a measure of a Desmond's 
 pride, or of the nonsense which rhymers or Brehons could 
 venture to put into a Desmond's head. 1 
 
 The Geraldine addressed Charles V. as most invincible 
 and most sacred Cassar, ever august ; and described himself 
 as Earl of Desmond, Lord of Decies, of O'Gunnell. and of 
 the liberty of Kerry. He first asked for four vessels of 200 
 tons each, and six smaller ones, all well armed, and for 500 
 Flemings to work them. Fernandez objected that no con- 
 sideration was offered for so great a gift, and that Desmond 
 could give no security out of Ireland ; but ultimately an 
 article was made out in which the Earl avowed himself the 
 Emperor's subject, and promised to help him in all his enter- 
 
 1 Same authorities. Writing later to Charles V. (Sept. 2, Brener, iv. 
 6938) Desmond increases his loss by Henry's malpractices to 100,OOOJ., and 
 says he holds the chief power in all Irish harbours from the furthest point 
 of Kerry to Waterford.
 
 DESMOND POLITICS. 187 
 
 prises. Knowing that no guarantee could be given, the CHAP. 
 Spaniard wisely asked for none but his host's word of honour. ^ 
 The Earl declared his fixed intention and here at least he 
 spoke quite sincerely to use all his strength and that of his 
 friends in prosecuting the war against Piers Butler, the 
 King's Deputy, and against the cities of Limerick, Water- 
 ford, and Dublin. He begged the Emperor's help, and re- 
 newed his request for cannon ; as for men, he could bring 
 16,500 foot and 1,500 horse into the field, and his allies 
 could furnish 9,000 additional foot and 300 additional horse. 
 In enumerating his allies Desmond again drew upon his 
 imagination, for he included O'Donnell, Prince of Ulster, 
 with his 4,000 foot and 800 horse, Maguire and Magennis in 
 the distant north, as well as the MacCarthies with whom he 
 was at war, and who, about this time, defeated him in a 
 pitched battle. He also represented himself as firmly allied 
 and frequently communicating with the King of Scotland. 1 
 
 Fernandez told his master that Desmond had treated him Fernandez 
 well, and supplied his ship with fresh beef and venison. He voidable to 
 had found him full of animosity against Wolsey, and quite 1)esmond - 
 ready to forget his French connections and his former com- 
 pact with Francis. But the Earl acknowledged that Dublin 
 was the chief town of Ireland, and that he had no interest 
 there, and that his kinsman of Kildare, whom he called the 
 ruler of the capital, had been imprisoned in the Tower. 
 That he had been arrested partly on Desmond's account 
 was obviously of less importance than the fact that he could 
 be arrested at all. As to Cork, Limerick, and Waterford, 
 Desmond had some friends there, but many more enemies. 
 On the other hand, the Earl certainly had ten castles, and 
 Fernandez was made to believe that the King of England 
 had lately failed to take Dungarvan a version of the facts 
 which strained them considerably. The Spaniard could not 
 doubt that Desmond had many tributary knights, and much 
 influence among the wild Irish ; but he did not form a high 
 
 1 In the Pilgrim Wexford is substituted for Waterford. The lists of 
 chiefs in the Pilgrim and in Brewer (vol. iv. No. 5501) are not quite 
 identical.
 
 188 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, 
 
 Desmond 
 
 s to 
 e 
 
 informed 
 
 opinion of the Earl's soldiers, among whom executions for 
 theft and murder were very frequent. They performed won- 
 derful feats of horsemanship without saddle or stirrups, but 
 they had no military skill. There were some gallowglasses 
 with halberts, but the great mass had only bows and arrows. 
 Fernandez allows that the Earl kept good justice, but it is 
 clear that his general impression was unfavourable. 
 
 Desmond sent John Aslaby, Archdeacon of Cloyne, and 
 another messenger with Fernandez, and they found their way 
 to Spain. The English agents there continued to be well 
 infonned, an d they learned from one Gwyn, living at Ballin- 
 skellig, in Kerry, and trading to St. Sebastian, that Des- 
 mond had sent for 4,000 men to teach the Irish war. Gwyn 
 truly reported that Cormac Oge was warring against the 
 Earl, but that he would probably soon acknowledge himself 
 beaten. There is reason to believe that a Spanish expedi- 
 tion to Ireland was really contemplated, but that the Bis- 
 cayans intended for the service refused to go, alleging, with 
 a fine perception of the realities of Celtic diplomacy, that 
 the Irish would be sure to deceive the Emperor. At all 
 events nothing was done, and Spanish intervention in Ireland 
 was put off for half a century. Desmond was proclaimed a 
 traitor, but he died soon afterwards, and his successor fol- 
 lowed him in a few months, leaving his heritage in dispute. 
 The mission of Fernandez had no direct effect upon Ireland, 
 but it may have had a good deal to do with Wolsey's fate, 
 and with the crooked diplomacy of the divorce question. He 
 was heir to De Puebla, who had negotiated Catherine of 
 Arragon's marriages, and probably knew more than any one 
 about the brief which Julius II. was said to have sent to 
 Ferdinand the Catholic, and which, if genuine, would have 
 precluded Clement VII. from granting a divorce on the 
 ground of affinity. If the brief was forged, its spuriousness 
 could not be proved in the absence of Fernandez, and the 
 delay was fatal to the English Cardinal. 1 
 
 ' Brewer, vol. iv. No. r>G20 ; Lee to Henry VIII., July 4, 1529, ib. 5756. 
 For the question of the brief see Sren-er, Introd. to vol. iv. pp. ccccxxiii. and 
 ccccxliv.,and an excellent article in the Quarterly Review tor January 1877.
 
 DESMOND POLITICS. 189 
 
 Lord Leonard Grey was sent to England in charge of 
 Kildare, but he left his company of 100 men, under a Welsh 
 officer named Parry, with orders to attach himself to Lord 
 Butler. Parry's despatch to Cromwell is one of the very few tour in the 
 
 J . south of 
 
 contemporary documents which throw light on the state of Ireland, 
 the country. He and his men entered Ossory's district at Dungarvan 
 Leighlin Bridge, where the people were glad to see them, 
 and went on to Callan, where they found English fashions 
 generally followed. They were so well received at Callan 
 that they stayed there nine days, and they made a further 
 halt of three days at Clonmel, which also entertained them 
 hospitably. Thomas Butler, a man of great local influence, 
 who had married Ossory's daughter, and was afterwards 
 created Lord Cahir, met the troops at Clonmel and led them 
 over the mountains to Dungarvan. He spoke very good 
 English, and made himself most agreeable. Gerald MacShane 
 Fitzgerald of Decies, who was also Ossory's son-in-law, joined 
 them on the road. This gentleman could not speak a word 
 of English, but he was very civil, professed great loyalty, and 
 bound himself by hostages to act under the advice of the 
 Council. Reaching Dungarvan about the middle of Septem- 
 ber, they met Skeffington, who had made up his mind to take 
 the place, and who brought the artillery which was hence- 
 forth to play so great a part in Irish politics. The accidental 
 presence of a Devonshire fishing fleet enabled the Lord 
 Deputy to invest the castle completely. On being summoned 
 the commandant answered boldly that he held the place for 
 his master, and that he would do the best for him, as he was 
 sure Skeffington would in like case do for his master. Two 
 days were spent in preparing the battery, and at five o'clock 
 on the morning of the third the cannonade began. A breach 
 was made by eleven, and Sir John Saintloo wished to storm 
 it at once, but Skeffington's practised eye detected an inner 
 barricade. Lord Butler, who was a suitor for the castle, and 
 had no mind to be at the expense of rebuilding it, here inter- 
 fered to prevent a renewal of the fire. He sent in two of his 
 men as hostages for the constable's safety, and the latter then 
 came out. Partly by coaxing and partly by bullying, Butler
 
 190 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Desmond 
 
 dies in 1529. 
 
 Disputed 
 
 succession. 
 
 Parry's 
 
 journey. 
 
 persuaded him to surrender, and he and his men took the 
 oath of allegiance and swore to maintain the succession of 
 Anne Boleyn's child. The castle was handed over to Ossory's 
 men. 1 
 
 The Earl of Desmond whom Gonzalo Fernandez visited 
 died in 1529, leaving no male issue, and his uncle and suc- 
 cessor Thomas Moyle soon followed him. Thomas Moyle's 
 son Maurice died before his father, having married Joan 
 Fitzgerald, daughter of the White Knight, by whom he left 
 one son, generally called James Fitzmaurice. James would 
 have succeeded of course, but that the validity of his mother's 
 marriage was disputed. Failing him the next heir would be 
 his grand-uncle, John Fitz-Thomas, who was at this time a very 
 old man. To settle this question, if possible, and also, as 
 Skeffington wrote to the King, ' to execute the succession of 
 your Highness and of your most excellent Queen' Anne 
 Boleyn, the Lord-Deputy issued commissions for all the 
 southern and western counties, and in each Lord Butler was 
 named chief commissioner. But the old artilleryman would 
 not give Butler a single gun, and he continued his journey 
 without the means of taking castles. At Youghal the towns- 
 men received him well, and Parry, who evidently liked good 
 living, notes that claret sold there for fourpence a gallon. 
 Next day they encamped near Midleton, where the Butlers 
 mustered 202 horse, 312 gallowglasess, and 204 kerne, 
 besides a due proportion of the rabble which invariably ac- 
 companied Irish armies. Parry's contingent consisted of 78 
 spearmen, 24 ' long boys,' and 5 musketeers all well horsed. 
 The next day they reached Cork, and Cormac Oge appeared 
 with his host on a hill less than a mile from the city. 
 Drawing up his main body on rising ground fronting the 
 MacCarthies, Butler descended into the hollow with a few fol- 
 lowers, and the chief of Muskerry met him there similarly 
 attended. The mayor and aldermen, all in scarlet gowns and 
 velvet tippets, after the English fashion, were very glad to 
 see so many Englishmen, and ' made us,' says Parry, ' the 
 
 1 Stephen Ap Parry to Cromwell, Oct. 6, 1535; Skeffington to the 
 King, Oct. 16.
 
 DESMOND POLITICS. 191 
 
 best cheer that ever we had in our lives.' Next day Cormac 
 Oge came into the town accompanied by the young Earl, who 
 had married his daughter, and who, having been brought 
 up in England, dressed and behaved in approved fashion. 
 He acknowledged that he held all from the King, whom he had 
 never offended ; and as a true-born Englishman he was quite 
 ready to go to England and try his title before his Majesty 
 in council, provided his grand-uncle Sir John would do the 
 same. Earl or not, he was at the King's disposal for any 
 service, and to all this Cormac Oge agreed. 1 
 
 The youthful Lord Barry, who spoke very good English Journey of 
 and was full of complaints against the MacCarthies for keep- Lord 
 ing him out of his lands, also came to Lord Butler at Cork, ^he CT * 
 Cormac Oge was anxious to have all disputes referred to the O'Briens. 
 Lord-Deputy ; but his son-in-law MacCarthy Reagh, the chief 
 of Carbery, who came in upon safe-conduct, said that he 
 would do nothing of the kind, but would hold by the sword 
 what he had won by the sword. Butler was very angry and 
 told him he should repent, but MacCarthy doubtless knew 
 that, however good the will, the power to pursue him into 
 his own country was wanting. Mallow and Kilmallock, 
 which Parry found a very poor town, were next visited ; and 
 as the army approached Limerick, O'Brien evacuated two 
 castles in the neighbourhood and obstructed the passes into 
 Thomond with felled trees. Hearing that the invaders had 
 no cannon he restored his garrison, and encamped with a 
 large force three miles from the city walls. At Limerick 
 Parry also found very good cheer, ' but nothing like the cheer 
 that we had at Cork.' They then encamped at Adare, where 
 Donogh O'Brien, the reigning chief of Thomond's eldest son 
 and the husband of Lady Helen Butler, came to meet his 
 brother-in-law. The speech attributed to Donogh seems genu- 
 ine, and is not without a rude pathos : ' I have married your 
 sister; and for because that I have married your sister, I 
 have forsaken my father, mine uncle, and all my friends, and 
 my country, to come to you to help to do the King service. 
 
 1 Stephen Ap Parry to Cromwell, Oct. 6 ; Lord Butler to Cromwell, 
 Oct. 17.
 
 192 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 X. 
 
 The Des- 
 monds and 
 the Irish. 
 
 I have been sore wounded, and I have no reward, nor nothing 
 to live upon. What would ye have me to do ? If that it 
 would please the King's grace to take me unto his service, 
 and that you will come into the country, and bring with you 
 a piece of ordnance to win a castle, the which castle is named 
 Carrigogunnell, and his Grace to give me that, the which 
 never was none Englishman's these 200 year, and I will 
 desire the King no help, nor aid of no man, but this English 
 captain, with his 100 and odd of Englishmen, to go with me 
 upon my father and mine uncle, the which are the King's 
 enemies, and upon the Irishmen that never English man were 
 amongst ; and if that I do hurt or harm, or that there be any 
 mistrust, I will put in my pledges, as good as ye shall re- 
 quire, that I shall hurt no Englishman, but upon the wild 
 Irishmen that are the King's enemies. And for all such 
 land as I shall conquer, it shall be at the King's pleasure to 
 set Englishmen in it, to be holden of the King, as his plea- 
 sure shall be ; and I to refuse all such Irish fashions, and to 
 order myself after the English and all that I can make or 
 conquer. Of this I desire an answer.' 
 
 That Donogh in offering his services was going directly 
 against his own family is plain from a letter which his father 
 had written to Charles V. not much more than a year before. 
 ' We have,' he had then said, ' never been subject to English 
 rule, or yielded up our ancient rights and liberties ; and there 
 is at this present, and for ever will be, perpetual discord between 
 us, and we will harass them with continual war.' The O'Briens 
 had never sworn fealty to anyone, but he offered full sub- 
 mission to the Emperor, with 100 castles and 18,000 men. 1 
 
 Old Sir John of Desmond, the rival claimant to the title, 
 also came to Adare and spoke plainly in very good English. 
 ' What should I do in England,' he asked, ' to meet a boy 
 there ? Let me have that Irish horson, Cormac Oge, and I 
 will go into England before the King.' Parry thought him 
 as full of mischief as ever ; but he agreed to meet the young 
 Earl at Youghal, and also the obnoxious Cormac. It is 
 
 1 Parry to Cromwell as before. Con O'Brien to Charles V., July 21, 1 .">:)!. 
 printed in Froudc's Pilgrim, from the Brussels Archives.
 
 END OF SKEFFINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 193 
 
 curious to see how proud these Desmonds were of their Nor- CHAP. 
 
 man blood, and how they despised the Irish; while often *- < ' 
 
 straining every nerve against Henry II.'s successor, offering 
 their allegiance to foreign princes, and boasting to them of 
 their Irish allies. 
 
 Returning to Clonmel by Kilmallock and Cashel, Parry Parry's ob- 
 was despatched to bring Vice-Treasurer Brabazon and Chief 
 Justice Bermingham to a conference with Ossory and his son 
 at Youghal. During the whole long journey from Dungarvan 
 he had met no one who had ever seen an English soldier in 
 those parts. Some days they rode sixteen miles at a stretch 
 over what had once been really, and still remained nominally, 
 Englishmen's ground. The woods, the rivers, and the rich 
 grass lands about them excited his admiration. Nor was 
 there any want of ground suitable for corn, and the ridges 
 showed that it had once been tilled, but not a blade of oats 
 had grown there for twelve years. Parry, who had evidently 
 been very well treated by him, seems to have formed a high 
 idea of Lord Butler's qualifications. If the King would give 
 him artillery there was scarcely any limit to his possible 
 services ; for his own marriage with a daughter of Desmond 
 and the marriages of his sisters, no less than his personal 
 character, gave him great influence throughout the South of 
 Ireland. 1 
 
 Having determined to continue Skeffington in the govern- Lord 
 merit of Ireland, notwithstanding his age and bad health, Grey made 
 Henry took means to supply him with efficient subordinates, the'army? 
 Eirst among them was Lord Leonard Grey, who had returned ** e * nd , 
 
 ' Skeffington 
 
 with a new commission as marshal and with the title of disagree. 
 Viscount Grane, which, however, he never chose to assume. 
 The others were Sir John Saintloo, a brave soldier ; the Vice- 
 Treasurer Brabazon, who was already well tried; and John 
 Alen, Master of the Rolls, who had been pushing his own 
 interests at Court, and who was entrusted with the royal de- 
 spatch. Honest musters leading to a reduction of expenses 
 were the King's great object at this time ; for Kildare was 
 safe in the Tower, and it seemed that a great army was no 
 
 1 Parry to Cromwell, as before. 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Death and 
 
 longer necessary. Special care was taken to define Grey's 
 position, and Skeffington, whose supremacy as Henry's repre- 
 sentative was fully acknowledged, was reminded that royal 
 blood flowed in the marshal's veins. Discipline had been 
 much relaxed in Ireland, and no doubt reform was wanted ; but 
 Grey seems to have used his military authority with undue 
 severity. Thomas Dacre, a member of the great northern 
 family, who came in charge of some spearmen, was imprisoned 
 for eight days, though nothing had been proved against him. 
 Another Dacre was confined for seven weeks without any 
 apparent reason, and during a fortnight he had irons on both 
 arms and legs. Such proceedings certainly gave some grounds 
 for supposing that Grey was not disposed to favour those 
 who had helped to overthrow his rebellious nephew. 1 
 
 Skeffington died about two months after Grey's return. 
 Though not very brilliant, he had been on the whole success- 
 ton, 1535. ful, and had shown that a private gentleman armed with the 
 King's commission could be more than a match for the great- 
 est of Irish nobles. It was indeed part of Henry's policy, as 
 it had been his father's, to rely much upon persons of far 
 humbler birth. Fox and Wolsey were Churchmen, and the 
 tonsure had been always powerful to counteract plebeian ex- 
 traction ; but Empson the pettifogger, Cromwell the clothier, 
 Stile the scribe, and Tuke, who speculated in kerseys, with 
 many others of no higher original pretensions, were often 
 preferred for important affairs to the chiefs of the English 
 aristocracy. The business was often better done, and the 
 power of the Crown was brought into more prominent relief. 
 Skeffington may be regarded as the first of that long line of able 
 public servants who reduced Ireland to a tardy and unwilling 
 obedience. ' He was,' said Brabazon, ' a very good man of 
 war, but not quick enough for Ireland, and somewhat covet- 
 ous.' The charge was made by others also, and is easier to 
 make than to refute. But it is certain that Skeffington died 
 in difficulties, and one fact may be set against many opinions. 2 
 
 1 The King to Skeffington, No. iii. in the printed S.P. Thomas Dacre 
 lo Cromwell, Jan. 5, 15B6, printed in the Irish Archteological Journal, N.8, 
 ii., 338. Skeffington died December 31. 
 
 2 Brabazon to Cromwell, Sept. 10, 15:15. Alen to Cromwell, Feb. 16, 1. ">::.'.
 
 195 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 
 
 GREY was immediately chosen Lord Justice by the Council, CHAP. 
 and his patent as Deputy was not long delayed. He began . ' 
 badly, his temper involving him in one of those personal Lord 
 difficulties which led to his ruin. He had never been on Grey* 
 good terms with his predecessor, and was at no pains to make 
 a decent or politic show of regret. Less than a month after 
 her husband's death Lady Skeffington wrote to Anne Boleyn, 
 declaring that she was overwhelmed with debt through his 
 liberality in advancing money for the public service. She 
 had already complained to Cromwell of Grey's harshness, and 
 her son-in-law Anthony Colley went so far as to accuse him of 
 shortening the late Deputy's life. Aylmer and Alen, after- 
 wards Grey's most unrelenting enemies, were included in 
 Lady Skeffington's complaint. The Council now sustained 
 Grey, but it was not in official documents that the politicians 
 of Dublin were wont to assail a chief governor whose hand 
 might after all be heavy against them. Verbal messages and 
 innuendoes contained in private letters seldom failed to 
 undermine a man whom it might be neither safe nor decent 
 to accuse openly. Grey now contented himself with saying 
 that the late Lord Deputy had died in debt, and that his 
 property was held in pledge for his creditors. But Lady 
 Skeffington replied, and no doubt truly, that the official salary 
 had never been paid, and that she could do nothing without 
 it. Cromwell at least believed her, for he gave orders that her 
 goods should be delivered to her, and that she should be sped 
 on her homeward journey. Grey complied in the most un- 
 gracious manner, and had all the luggage and furniture 
 turned out of Maynooth Castle before carts could be provided 
 
 o 2
 
 196 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 to carry it away. It was stored in a church, and there further 
 detained by the new Deputy for a debt to the Crown. Lady 
 Skeffington was unable to leave for eight or nine months 
 after her husband's death, and obstacles were placed in her 
 way to the last. There may have been faults on both sides, 
 but had Grey been either a good-natured or a politic man he 
 might have found means to smooth matters for a widowed 
 lady whose chief desire was the very general one of wishing 
 to get out of Ireland as quickly as possible. 1 
 Parliament Grey was commissioned to summon a Parliament, which 
 
 of 153G. 
 
 accordingly met on Monday, May 1, the day before Anne 
 Boleyn was sent to the Tower. In less than three weeks a 
 number of important bills were passed, of which drafts care- 
 fully settled by Audeley himself had been sent from England. 
 The succession was secured to the issue of Anne Boleyn, as 
 Brabazon wrote only two days before that unfortunate lady's 
 execution. Before the letter . reached London Jane Seymour 
 had already been Queen a full fortnight, and Cromwell's con- 
 cern was, if possible, to stop the passing of an Act which 
 would have to be repeated so soon. It was too late to do this, 
 but the Parliament made no difficulty about enacting the 
 same stringent rule of succession for the third as they had 
 done for the second wife. They thus achieved the unique 
 distinction of passing two contradictory Acts of Settlement 
 within eighteen months. This remarkable performance does 
 not adorn the printed statute book, because that compilation 
 was made when Elizabeth was firmly seated on the throne. 2 
 The royal The bill declaring the King to be supreme head of the 
 
 iacy. Qj iurc ] :i encountered some opposition from the proctors of the 
 clergy, two of whom were summoned to Parliament from each 
 diocese. The proctors had only consultative voices, but they 
 now claimed not only to be full members of Parliament, but 
 to form a separate order whose consent would be necessary to 
 
 1 Lady Skeffington to Anne Boleyn, Jan. 26, 1536 ; to Cromwell, Aug. 1. 
 Anthony Colley to Cromwell, in Carerv, Feb. 13, 1536 ; Lord Deputy and 
 Council to Cromwell, Nov. 23. 
 
 2 28 and 29 Henry VIII. The contemporary Schedule of Acts is in the 
 8.P. ii. 526. Brabazon to Cromwell, May 17, 1536 ; Cromwell to the Lord 
 Deputy and Council, June 3.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 197 
 
 every change in the law. An Act was passed declaring them CHAP, 
 no members of the body of Parliament, as they had ' temera- ^ ' 
 riously assumed and usurpedly taken upon them to be.' In 
 spite of their opposition and of much secret discontent, a 
 series of Acts were passed to emancipate the Irish Church 
 from Roman influences, or rather for subjecting her to King 
 Stork instead of to King Log. All dues hitherto paid to 
 Rome were forbidden, and the election and consecration of 
 bishops were withdrawn from papal control. Appeals were 
 transferred from the Pope to the King. The payment of first- 
 fruits was imposed on all secular dignitaries and beneficed 
 clergymen, abbots and priors being for the time exempted. 
 The abrogation of this heavy and oppressive tax was reserved 
 for the energy of Swift or the piety of Anne. By Audeley's 
 advice the English heresy laws were not copied in Ireland. An 
 Act was passed to validate the proceedings of this Parliament, 
 though it had been held contrary to Poyning's law, but the 
 spirit if not the letter of that famous measure had been 
 observed by preparing the bills in England. Indeed, the 
 Parliament was as subservient as any official could wish. 
 ' The Common House,' wrote Brabazon, ' is marvellous good 
 for the King's causes, and all the learned men within the same 
 be very good ; so that I think all causes concerning the King's 
 grace will take good effect.' l 
 
 The weakening of the English power in Ireland by the The Act of 
 non-residence of great proprietors had long been recognised. 
 Edward III., on the occasion of his son Lionel's mission, 
 announced by proclamation that the lands of absentees would 
 be granted to Englishmen willing and able to defend them 
 against the Irish. An English Parliament under Richard II. 
 provided that in case of absenteeism the Viceroy and Council 
 might divert two-thirds of the rents and profits to the defence 
 of the country in ordinary cases ; one-third in the case of 
 students, of persons absent on the King's service, or of those 
 who had leave of absence under the great seal. Whether or 
 not this English law was ever re-enacted or obeyed in Ireland, 
 
 1 Irish Statutes, 28 and 20 Henry VIII. Brabazon to Cromwell, May 17; 
 Grey to Cromwell, May 21.
 
 198 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 forfeiture was considered an incident of non-residence, and 
 special Acts were passed to protect those who left Ireland on 
 the public service. Henry VI. made a law ordering his sub- 
 jects of Ireland to return to their own country. By Poyning's 
 Act the statute of Richard II. obtained full force in Ireland, 
 and it was shortly afterwards provided afresh that all licences 
 of absence should be under the great seal of England, ex- 
 ceptions being made in favour of the religious orders and of 
 students. The momentous Act now passed declared that 
 many great proprietors had notoriously failed to defend their 
 lands, whereby the King was forced to incur great expense 
 in bringing an army to Ireland. The persons specially 
 mentioned were Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and his 
 coparcener Lord Barkley, who claimed and held the seigniories 
 and lordships of Carlow, Old Ross, &c. ; George Talbot, Earl 
 of Waterford and Salop, who held the seigniory of Wexford ; 
 and the heirs general of the Earl of Ormonde, who held divers 
 possessions and lands. To these were added the Abbots of 
 Furness, Bristol, Osney, and Bath ; the Priors of Canterbury, 
 Lanthony, Cartmel, and Keynsham ; and the master of St. 
 Thomas of Aeon in London. All this property was resumed 
 to the Crown, saving the rights of residents in Ireland, who 
 held under the dispossessed lords. Wexford was at once 
 placed under a royal seneschal, and was so governed till the 
 reign of James I. The Crown thus became one of the 
 greatest of Irish landlords, and the foundations of a recon- 
 quest were laid. 1 
 
 The While Parliament was sitting Phelim O'Neill, chief of 
 
 Clandeboye, came to Dublin and covenanted with the Lord 
 Deputy to attend all great hostings and to make war upon 
 all enemies of the Government within a day's march of his 
 own country. He promised not to aid or harbour rebels, 
 and to submit all differences between his people and the 
 
 1 25 Henry VI., c. 5 and c. 9, and see Hardiman's Statute of Kilkenny, 
 p. 129 ; 17 Henry VI., see Carem, vol. iv. p. 457 ; 12 and 13 Henry VII. 
 For the earlier legislation, see Gilbert's Viceroys, pp. 216, 244. The Act of 
 Absentees is 28 Henry VIII., cap. 3. For the preparation of Bills in Eng- 
 land, see Audeley to Cromwell, S.P. vol. ii. p. 439.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1526 TO THE YEAR 1540. 199 
 
 King's subjects to peaceful arbitration. The great Leinster CHAP, 
 chief, Cahir MacEncross Kavanagh, also came to terms, '-^ 
 agreed to supply twelve horsemen and twenty kerne in all 
 nestings, and to employ his whole force on journeys of not 
 more than three days' duration. He promised to submit 
 disputes to the arbitration of Ossory and his son. Redmond 
 Savage, the chief of an English family in Down which had 
 long conformed to Celtic usages, made a similar agreement, 
 and also promised to pay the Lord Deputy for his friendship 
 100 fat cows and a good horse, or fifteen marks Irish. Grey 
 went himself to Dundalk, where Con O'Neill met him. The 
 chief of Tyrone renewed the promises made to Skeffington, 
 binding himself to attend all hostings and do his best against 
 Scotch intruders, but he gave no hostages, and an invasion 
 of his country was not believed to be practicable. The Lord 
 Deputy then returned to Dublin, where a new and very 
 serious danger demanded his presence. 1 
 
 ' Lack of money,' as Grey expressed it, ' after the late Want of 
 robbing and spoiling,' was the great difficulty of the English Mutiny, 
 in Ireland during the whole Tudor period. The King now 
 sent 7,0001., but that sum still left the soldiers' pay three 
 months in arrear. There were many differences among the 
 members of Council, but they all agreed in demanding more 
 money. The northern spearmen, on the report that they 
 were not to be paid in full, mutinied openly, declaring that 
 they would have all or none. They refused to hear the 
 King's letter read, threatened the lives of the Vice-Treasurer 
 and Chief Justice, declared that they would not serve with- 
 out wages, and that if they were not paid they would ' board 
 with the Council at their houses, in spite of their hearts.' 
 The astute borderers carried their point, for they received 
 full payment, while Grey's own retainers were sent empty 
 away. Saintloo's men at Waterford also showed a mutinous 
 spirit, but they were silenced for a time by receiving part of 
 what was due to them. 2 
 
 1 Grey to Cromwell, June 24, 1536, for the treaty with Con O'Neill. 
 The other treaties are in Carew, May 4, May 12, and May 31. 
 
 2 Lord Deputy and Council to Cromwell, June 1, 1536 ; Council of Ire- 
 land to Cromwell, June 30 ; William Wise to Cromwell, July 12.
 
 200 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. Parliament having adjourned to Kilkenny, Grey followed 
 
 - ^ ' it thither, the army being victualled for a month. Having 
 
 made arrangements for restoring the fortifications at Powers- 
 eouthward. court, Woodstock, and Athy, Grey left the defence of the 
 Pale to Brabazon, adjourned the Parliament to Limerick, 
 and himself set out for Desmond's country. Besides Ossory 
 and his son and the usual force of the four shires, O'Carroll, 
 MacMurrough, O'Byrne, Lord Roche, and the gentlemen of 
 Wexford and Waterford, accompanied the Lord Deputy. 
 He was also attended by William Body, a confidential ser- 
 vant whom Cromwell had sent over to gather information, 
 and whom he afterwards mentioned in his will. Body 
 travelled to Ireland with George Browne, the new Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, and first busied himself in trying to 
 arrange Grey's dispute with Lady Skeffington. He had 
 particular instructions to inquire as to the possibility of 
 increasing the Irish revenue. 1 
 
 Marching unopposed across the central plain, Grey found 
 country. the great Desmond stronghold on Lough Gur undefended, 
 the doors and windows having been carried off and the roof 
 purposely burnt. It was handed over to Lord Butler, who 
 undertook to repair and garrison it at his own expense. 
 Grey then marched to Carrigogunnell, an immense fortress 
 standing in a commanding position over the Shannon. 
 Matthew O'Brien surrendered the place on condition, as 
 was alleged by Body, that it should be garrisoned only by 
 Englishmen. An order was nevertheless given to hand it 
 over to Donogh O'Brien, Ossory 's son-in-law. This chief 
 came to Grey and renewed the offers made to Butler. He 
 was ready to serve the King against his father and all others, 
 provided he might have Carrigogunnell ; and the Council 
 considered his services more important to them than the 
 castle could be to him. But the English guard restored 
 the place to Matthew O'Brien. Donogh was certainly not 
 an Englishman, and George Woodward, ' an honest and an 
 hardy man,' may have thought himself bound in honour to 
 
 1 The Council of Ireland to Cromwell, Axig. ; Grey to Cromwell, 
 Aug. 10.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 201 
 
 restore the original situation, or he may have thought one CHAP. 
 
 O'Brien as good as another. Grey merely says that Matthew ^ 
 
 held out boldly until the battering train was in position, 
 when he was content to depart with bag and baggage. 1 
 
 The next undertaking was an attack on O'Brien's Bridge, Grey at- 
 which had long laid Limerick and Tipperary open to attack. O'Briens, 
 The bridge was of wood, with a castle at each end built in 
 the water. That near the Limerick shore was the strongest, 
 and was of hewn limestone or marble, twelve or fourteen 
 feet thick, and armed with an iron gun carrying shot as big 
 as a man's head, and two small pieces, of which one belonged 
 to some ship, and the other was of Portuguese make. The 
 garrison had also some muskets and hand-guns, and the 
 work was skilfully strengthened with wooden barriers and 
 with hogsheads full of sand. Under Donogh O'Brien's 
 guidance the Lord Deputy marched along the hilly bank 
 of the great river by devious paths, untravelled hitherto, as 
 he believed, by Englishmen or by wheels. The four land- 
 arches had been broken down, and the castle was thus sur- 
 rounded by water. The royal artillery consisted of one 
 culverin, six falcons, and one half-saker, but these were not 
 heavy enough. In a day and a half all the shot had been 
 fired away, and the walls were almost as sound as ever. No 
 baggage train had been brought, provisions were scarce, and 
 two nights had been spent on the bare ground ; it was neces- 
 sary to retire or to take the castle. Brushwood was abun- 
 dant, and Grey set his men to make fascines and to throw 
 them into the channel. Ladders were also made, but it 
 became unnecessary to use them ; for Saintloo's men advanced 
 along the frail and shifting path and carried the castle with 
 a rush. The garrison ran out at the other side, and the 
 bridge was then broken down with such tools as were at 
 hand. The army then returned to Limerick, and Lord 
 Butler went to Carrick-on-Suir for more cannon before un- 
 dertaking the recovery of Carrigogunnell, which the Irish 
 had again seized by stratagem. 2 
 
 1 The Council of Ireland to Cromwell, Aug. 9 ; William Body to Crom- 
 well, Aug. 9, in Carcw ; Grey to Cromwell, Aug. 10. 
 
 - Same authorities; also Lord Butler to Cromwell, Aug. 11.
 
 202 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. Body, with the insolence of a great man's favourite, had 
 
 * ^ throughout this expedition assumed the character of a Royal 
 
 William Commissioner, to which he had not a shadow of title. He 
 
 Body. His ' 
 
 report to associated with the loosest of boon companions, who disturbed 
 the camp by night and day and swore, with the truth born of 
 alcohol, that he was no Commissioner. At O'Brien's Bridge 
 he blamed Grey for not providing sapping tools, which must 
 have tired out the soldiers, and which would have been quite 
 useless. He was very indignant at having to sleep on the 
 ground ' from Friday inclusive until Tuesday exclusive,' but 
 no one else was better off. Grey, a thorough soldier, was at 
 no pains to conceal his contempt : 
 
 ' I desired him to be contented, for I had seen better men 
 than he was, or should be, or any that was there, lodged worse. 
 He was displeased therewith, desiring me not to judge what 
 his fortune might be. Then I said, I was sure he should never 
 be so good as the Duke of Norfolk, and Suffolk, and my lord my 
 brother (the Marquis of Dorset), whom I had seen lodged worse. 
 Whereat he took a great fume for that I should judge any im- 
 possibility what he might be ; and thereupon leaving us at our 
 coming to Limerick, departed towards Dublin in a great anger. 
 But of his gests by the way the folly of it is such, I will not 
 commit to writing, but, I assure you, like no Commissioner.' 
 
 This short experience of Irish campaigning was enough for 
 Body, who returned to Dublin and busied himself in under- 
 mining Grey's influence. Few seem to have had his good 
 word, except Ossory and his son, who took care to be civil to 
 Cromwell's confidential man. But Body was perhaps a better 
 judge of a country than of a general's qualifications. ' As 
 far as I have seen it,' he wrote, ' that is to say the counties 
 of Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Ormond, 
 Ossory, Desmond, Limerick, and Thomond, if there be any 
 paradise in this world, it may be accounted for one among 
 them, both for beauty and goodness.' l 
 
 The army which Grey had at Limerick did not much 
 exceed 2,000 men, including the Butlers and their not very 
 
 1 Body to Cromwell, Aug. 1536, in Carcm ; Grey to Cromwell, Nov. 24 ; 
 Lord Butler to Cromwell, Aug. 11.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 203 
 
 trustworthy Irish allies. The Pale had been much exhausted CHAP. 
 by the Kildare rebellion, and it was purposely spared, much - ^- 
 to the indignation of Body, who, like many other casual Th . 
 visitors, fancied he understood Ireland better than men who refuse to 
 had studied it for years. The Lord Deputy had only- 700 Shannon, 
 men of his own and had no money to pay them. Saintloo's 
 company had received some part of their money at Waterford, 
 but broke out again soon after leaving that city ; and it was 
 supposed that two subalterns, Gerbert and Powell, were the 
 true ringleaders. Grey's gunners stood firm, and by threaten- 
 ing to use the guns he kept the mutineers quiet for a time. 
 They behaved, as we have seen, with great gallantry at 
 O'Brien's Bridge ; but they refused to go beyond the Shan- 
 non, and the idea of a pursuit into Clare was therefore given 
 up. The Council thought Grey's person in danger, and he 
 owned to more peril from his soldiers than from the Irish 
 enemy. He could depend only on his own immediate fol- 
 lowers, 100 horse and as many foot, and upon one officer, 
 that Stephen Parry whom we have met before. Whenever 
 the bulk of the troops were called upon to perform a service 
 they all answered together, ' Let us have money, and we will 
 do it.' 
 
 The troops being pacified for the moment and Lord Butler The Butlers 
 having arrived with another battering piece, the garrison of o"jLiens 
 Carrigogunnell, consisting partly of Desmond men and partly Carrigo- 
 of O'Briens, were summoned to surrender on promise of their 
 lives, and warned that if the castle had to be taken by force 
 no quarter should be shown to man, woman, or child. They 
 detained the messenger and returned no answer. A breach 
 was soon made, and, after more than one failure and the loss 
 of thirty men killed and wounded, the castle was taken by 
 storm. Seventeen of the defenders were killed in the fight, 
 arid of forty-six survivors all were put to death on the spot, 
 except certain gentlemen of the O'Briens, for whom large 
 ransoms were refused, and who were taken to Limerick, tried 
 for high treason, and immediately executed. Chief Justice 
 
 1 Grey to Cromwell, Aug. 10 ; Body's letter, as above ; Lord Deputy and 
 Council to Cromwell, Nov. 23 ; Grey to Cromwell, same date.
 
 204 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Grey 
 
 cannot pay 
 bis army.. 
 
 The Duke 
 of Rich- 
 mond dies, 
 1536. 
 
 The 
 
 revenue. 
 
 Abuses. 
 
 Aylmer accompanied the army for such purposes. The castle 
 was handed over to Lord Butler, who placed it in his brother- 
 in-law's charge, and Donogh, having gained his great object, 
 became a scourge to the citizens of Limerick. 1 
 
 The troops positively refused to go into Clare without 
 receiving their arrears, and Grey had nothing to give. He 
 therefore proposed to leave them at Limerick, Cork, and Kil- 
 mallock ; giving his own and the Council's security for their 
 victualling until the King should think proper to send money. 
 They refused ; and Butler's men, after twenty days' trial of 
 Lough Gur, would stay there no longer unless the towns had 
 English garrisons. James Fitz-Maurice, whom the King ac- 
 knowledged as Earl of Desmond, and who had a party in the 
 country, was not at hand, and as no one could take his place 
 the castle was abandoned. The artillery was left at Limerick 
 and Clonmel, and the Lord Deputy went back to meet Parlia- 
 ment at Dublin. His expedition had shown that a small army 
 well led and well paid could go anywhere and do anything 
 in Ireland, and that feudal castles could do nothing against a 
 proper siege train ; but it had also shown that the necessary 
 conditions were not likely to be fulfilled under a King who 
 gave away priories while crossing passages, and who staked 
 one of the finest peals of bells in London upon a single throw 
 of the dice. 2 
 
 The death of the Duke of Richmond, whom his father no 
 doubt intended to advance and whom Charles V. even thought, 
 or professed to think, destined to succeed him, made no 
 difference to the country which he nominally governed. It 
 was indeed at first supposed that Acts of Parliament passed 
 after his death would be invalid, but the lawyers seem to have 
 decided that this was not the case. 3 
 
 The actual revenue of Ireland, derived partly from for- 
 feitures and partly from a parliamentary grant, amounted at 
 
 1 Council of Ireland to Cromwell, Aug. 22, 1536, and the notes ; Grey to 
 the King, Aug. 19. 
 
 2 Council of Ireland to Cromwell, Aug. 22. This session of Parliament 
 began Sept. 15, 1536. 
 
 1 See the State Papers, vol. ii. pp. 366, 367. The Duke of Richmond 
 died Aug. 22, 1536.
 
 FEOM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 205 
 
 this time to about 5,OOOZ., of which 1,OOOL was not paid. CHAP. 
 
 Henry, who was of course obliged to supplement this, com- ^ * 
 
 plained that he got very little for his money, and wished to 
 reduce the Irish establishment. He declared that he valued 
 an increase of income less for himself than for the common 
 good of Ireland. ' A great sort of you,' he wrote to the Lord 
 Deputy and Council (we must be plain), ' desire nothing else 
 but to reign in estimation and to fleece from time to time all 
 that you may catch from us.' He announced therefore that 
 he was about to send an independent person with ample 
 powers to inquire into Irish affairs. He gave Brabazon de- 
 tailed instructions for a survey of marsh lands, and bade 
 him go to war no more but apply himself wholly to financial 
 affairs. No salary was to be paid to any officer who acted by 
 deputy, and none but customary fees exacted. Henry said he 
 was determined to reform Ireland, and would value his ser- 
 vants there according to their merits in that behalf. ' If any- 
 one,' he wrote, ' directly or indirectly devised and practised 
 the let, hindrance, or impeachment of this our purpose for 
 any respect, whereunto we will not fail to have a special eye, 
 we shall so look upon him what degree soever he shall be of, 
 as others shall, by his example, beware how they shall misuse 
 their Prince and sovereign Lord, and transgress his most 
 dread commandment.' l 
 
 To this formidable letter Grey and his Council answered Ireland 
 that the army had never been properly paid, and had in con- governed 
 sequence often mutinied, that they had spent every farthing J^"" t 
 of revenue on public objects, and had raised large additional 
 sums on their own credit, that credit was now quite exhausted, 
 and that without money to pay off the men it was impossible 
 further to reduce the military establishment. Brabazon had 
 accounted or was ready to account for every penny, ' and as 
 to our desire to reign in estimation, it is to be thought that 
 among civil people there can no name of dignity or honour be 
 in estimation, unless thereunto be annexed rule and riches. 
 Would to God his Majesty did know our gain and riches, 
 which is so great that we of the mean sort of this Council, 
 1 The King to the Lord Deputy and Council, Feb. 25, 1537.
 
 206 
 
 IRELAND rXDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 1537. 
 
 being his Grace's officers among us all, we suppose be not 
 worth in money and plate 1,OOOZ. Irish, which is a small sub- 
 stance for us all, being in the rooms that we be under his 
 Grace. We be no such purchasers of possessions, builders, 
 dicers, nor carders, neither yet pompous householders whereby 
 we should consume our profits and gain if we had them.' ' 
 Grey at- Those best acquainted with the country at this time be- 
 
 tacks the . , . 
 
 O'Connors, heved that the necessary precedent to its reduction was a 
 thorough conquest of Leinster. The overthrow of the Kil- 
 dare Geraldines was necessary, but had its inconveniences. 
 They had been a standing menace to the Government, but 
 they had kept the Irish at bay, and their fall left the marches 
 quite open. Without security either of life or title no one 
 would work the forfeited lands, and the margin of waste 
 grew broader every day. Grey's temper and talents made 
 him prefer war to diplomacy, and he resolved to strike at 
 O'Connor, whose hostages were in his hands, and who was 
 under recognizance to deliver 800 cows to the King, but 
 who had regained complete possession of Offaly. His brother 
 Cahir had suffered the not uncommon fate of those who sup- 
 port Irish governments, and had been an exile for two years. 
 Grey, Brabazon, and Aylmer took fourteen days' provisions 
 from Dublin, and were joined on the march by Lords Delvin, 
 Slane, and Killeen, and by William Saintloo, now seneschal 
 of Wexford, with his own company and 100 kerne. They 
 passed along the southern edge of Westmeath to MacGeo- 
 hegan's countiy, the modern barony of Moycashel, and took 
 hostages from that chief and from O'Molloy, whose district 
 lay further south. On the same day Brabazon got possession 
 of Brackland Castle through the treachery of an inmate, who 
 acted in Cahir O'Connor's interest, and who was pardoned 
 while the rest of the garrison were beheaded. The soldiers 
 destroyed all that lay in their path, and on the fifth day 
 arrived before Dangan, afterwards Philipstown, which had 
 been fortified with some skill. The march was only of five 
 or six miles, but the ground was boggy, and a road had to 
 
 1 Lord Deputy and Council to Cromwell, April 20, 1537 ; to the King, 
 same date.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 15-10. 207 
 
 be made with fascines and hurdles. The ditches about the CHAP. 
 castle were filled in the same way, and the courtyard was '-^- 
 forced before nightfall. Three days were spent in waiting 
 for one large and two small pieces of artillery, and on the 
 bright May morning following their arrival fire was opened 
 upon the keep. After four hours' cannonade, resulting as 
 usual in those days with the disabling of the principal gun, 
 a breach was made and the castle at once stormed. The 
 walls were dismantled, and the heads of their twenty-three 
 defenders set on poles ' for a show to the O'Connors.' On 
 the next day Ossory's second son Eichard, afterwards created 
 Viscount Mountgarret, came to excuse his father, who had 
 been kept away by ill-health. O'Connor in the meantime 
 had fled into O'Carroll's country, ' which O'Carroll,' Grey 
 carefully notes, ' is the Earl of Ossory's friend.' The punish- 
 ment of O'Carroll for harbouring the fugitive was never- 
 theless entrusted to Richard Butler, partly to punish his 
 tardiness, and partly because Grey's fifteen days' provisions 
 were almost gone. It was an absurd expedient, and before 
 the end of the year O'Connor was back and Cahir had fled 
 the country. The sole result of the expedition was to show 
 the force of artillery ; yet Henry, unless his language be 
 thought ironical, calls it a notable exploit. ' If, however,' 
 the King added, ' he should be suffered to enter again, it 
 should but add a further courage to that traitorous malice 
 which by all likelihood is so entered, that it will not be re- 
 moved.' l 
 
 Grey had many enemies, for he was not conciliatory, and Grey makes 
 his relationship to the Geraldines laid him open to the sus- 
 picions of all who had risen on the ruins of the House of 
 Kildare. With Brabazon, the ablest man about him, he had 
 long been on cold terms, and many supposed that the Vice- 
 Treasurer thought he ought to have been Deputy himself. 
 Thomas Agard, Vice-Treasurer of the Mint, a sour but appa- 
 rently honest Puritan, hated Grey for his attachment to old 
 religious forms, and Archbishop Browne lost no opportunity 
 
 1 Grey and Brabazon to Cromwell, June 11, 1537 ; Council to Cromwell, 
 June 26 ; Thomas Alen to Cromwell, June 12, in Can-iv.
 
 208 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, of attacking him on the same grounds. Alen, Master of the 
 
 < r^ Rolls, a useful public servant, but with an inborn love of 
 
 intrigue, gave trouble to every successive chief governor. 
 Robert Cowley and his son were devoted to the House of 
 Ormonde, which Grey thought too powerful. The Deputy 
 did not favour the innovations in religion, and took no pains 
 to hide his dislike to Browne and Agard ; but with the rest 
 he was always ready to co-operate. The King, however, 
 found it hard to reconcile conflicting accounts, and resolved 
 to send over Commissioners unconnected with Irish factions 
 to report upon the actual state of affairs. The persons 
 selected were Anthony St. Leger, of Ulcombe in Kent, one 
 of the wisest statesmen who ever represented the English 
 Crown in Ireland ; George Paulet, a younger brother of the 
 astute courtier who is best known as Marquis of Winchester, 
 but not equally endowed with prudence ; Thomas Moyle, of 
 Gray's Inn, Receiver-General of the Court of Augmentations, 
 and afterwards Speaker of the English House of Commons ; 
 and William Berners, auditor of the same court. The Irish 
 Government was directed to treat them with as much defer- 
 ence as if the King were present ; and they were ordered to 
 treat Grey with much consideration, and to take his advice 
 when possible. The latter instruction, so well calculated to 
 soothe the Lord Deputy's wounded pride, was not directly 
 made known to him. The Commissioners were ordered to 
 present their credentials to the Lord Deputy as soon as they 
 reached Dublin, and then to summon the Council and read 
 the King's letter, in which he promised to remember their good 
 services. ' If, on the other side,' he added, ' we shall not find 
 you now faithful officers, ministers, and good councillors, but 
 men given more to your own affectes, commodities, and gains, 
 than earnestly bent to our satisfaction, we shall again so look 
 upon the best of you so misusing himself for it, as shall be 
 little cause to rejoice at length of his doings in that behalf.' ' 
 The first duty imposed on the Commissioners was the 
 reduction of expenditure and the increase of revenue. As a 
 
 1 The King to St. Leger and others, with the Commission of July 31, 
 1537 ; to the Lord Deputy and Council, same date ; to Grey, same date.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 209 
 
 cheap defence to the Pale, hostages were to be generally taken, CHAP. 
 
 and the army was, if possible, to be cut down to 340 picked - ,1 
 
 men, inclusive of garrisons. Horsemen were to receive The King 
 
 3 sends a 
 
 81. yearly, footmen 4Z., constables of castles 131. 6s. 8d. } special 
 gate-keepers 61. 13s. 4d, under-warders 4L 13s. 4c. all in mission. 
 Irish currency, or about two-thirds of the sterling amounts. 
 The Vice-Treasurer was in future to visit all garrisons 
 quarterly, to see that deserving men received commands, and 
 to provide for frequent musters of all borne on the books. All 
 soldiers in excess of the new establishment were to be paid 
 off with money specially provided, and the King, with a 
 touch of his daughter's temper, gave orders that they should 
 be induced if possible to take less than their due. The Com- 
 missioners were to survey waste lands and were authorised to 
 give leases for twenty-one years, with a clause of forfeiture 
 for non-observance of the laws as to English dress and for 
 alliance with Irish rebels the penalties provided by law 
 being also enforced. After this all offices and officers were 
 to be subjected to rigid scrutiny, with a view to increased 
 efficiency and reduced expense. Detailed instructions were 
 given as to public accounts, and Brabazon was to be repaid 
 all he had spent in annoying the King's rebels. 
 
 The control of legislation was also given to the Com- Powers of 
 missioners, who were to see various Acts for the establish- 
 ment of royal authority in Church and State duly passed. 
 They were to inquire as to the claims of clerical proctors to 
 interfere in Parliament, were themselves to have a right of 
 entry as the King's councillors, and were to expound the 
 royal policy ' with all their wit and dexterity, and with such 
 stomach, where they shall perceive any man frowardly, per- 
 versely bent to the let and impeachment of the King's pur- 
 pose in the same, as they may the rather by their wisdom 
 both conduce the thing to effect and reconcile the parties 
 that before would show themselves so wilful and obstinate.' 
 Messages to this effect were sent to both Houses, both Wolsey 
 and Cromwell relying upon a species of intimidation of which 
 Charles I.'s attempt on the five members is the last recorded 
 VOL. i. p
 
 210 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XL 
 
 The King 
 hus vague 
 good 
 intentions. 
 
 The Com- 
 missioners 
 arrive in 
 in Ireland, 
 1537. 
 Grey's 
 activity 
 against the 
 Irish. 
 
 example. The Commissioners afterwards exercised the power 
 of dissolving Parliament. 
 
 The Commissioners were to examine charges of taking 
 money from the rebels which were brought against many 
 men highly placed in Ireland ; Henry rightly supposing that 
 many nominal subjects connived at treason, as in the case of 
 O'Brien's Bridge, which had cost much to take and to demolish, 
 and which was now as strong and as troublesome as ever. But 
 he did not choose to see that want of money was the chief 
 cause of this failure. He was indeed, he said, determined to 
 make a full reformation some day, and the information now 
 collected would be very useful when the convenient season 
 arrived. In the meantime, the Commissioners were to reduce 
 the garrison to 340 men. 
 
 St. Leger and his companions set out early in August, 
 but were detained by adverse winds about Holy head, and did 
 not arrive at Dublin till the middle of September. Grey had 
 unusually strong reasons for exertions, and he begged hard 
 for money and artillery. The pay of the army was twelve 
 months in arrear. O'Connor was coshering among his friends 
 ' more liker a beggar, than he that ever was a captain or ruler 
 of a country,' and making vain suits daily to the Government. 
 But Grey had not caught him, and he could be submissive 
 enough until what was left of his corn had been saved ; his 
 neighbours, English and Irish, thinking it more prudent to 
 shelter an enterprising rebel than to run risks for a Govern- 
 ment which could not protect its friends. Grey, who habitually 
 used strong language, characterises these prudent people as 
 1 having as much falsehood remaining in them as all the devils 
 of hell.' Having, as he supposed, made O'Connor ' as low as 
 a dog were for the bone,' he applied himself to the Kavanaghs, 
 whose chief, Cahir MacArt, had married a Geraldine. It had 
 been often proposed to extirpate them and to colonise the 
 country. The Lord Deputy now entered Carlow, burned 
 some castles of the O'Nolans between Newtownbarry and 
 Tullow, forced Cahir MacArt to give hostages, and then 
 turned sharply upon Ely O'Carroll, where O'Connor had first 
 found a refuge. He had now the help of Ossory, who was
 
 FKOM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 211 
 
 always glad to weaken a neighbour, and of Cahir O'Connor, CHAP. 
 
 who was as anxious as his brother to divert attention from ^ ' 
 
 the OfFaly corn. He passed unopposed through the lands of 
 the Fitzpatricks, O'Mores, O'Molloys, and MacGeohegans, 
 received O'Carroll's submission, and then entered Tipperary, 
 where he took a castle belonging to O'Meagher, the chief of 
 Ikerrin. O'Connor came in on safe-conduct, and paid 300 
 marks for his son, who was given up to him. Grey refused 
 to trust him, and begged Cromwell never to allow his resto- 
 ration ; and the event proved Grey right, though he soon 
 forgot his own advice. He now announced to the minister 
 that he was beginning to understand the Irish nature, and 
 that the King needed only to be in earnest. He was right 
 in blaming constant changes of policy, but like most soldiers 
 he failed to see the real difficulties of the Irish problem. 1 
 
 It was now just a quarter of a century since Hugh Oge The 
 O'Donnell, then on his return from Rome, had been received Death of 
 with honour at the Court of Henry VIII. Deeply impressed ^ h Oge > 
 
 loo / 
 
 by what he saw there, and aware of the impossibility of 
 uniting all Irish tribes against the stranger, he had always 
 striven to keep English intruders at bay by remaining on 
 good terms with the Government, and had exerted his strength 
 only to subdue his neighbours on the side furthest removed 
 from the Pale. He had thus extended his sway over the 
 modern counties of Roscommon and Sligo, and over great 
 portions of Fermanagh, Mayo, and Galway, and even of 
 Down and Antrim. He had forced or persuaded the O'Neills 
 to acknowledge his claims to the disputed sovereignty 
 over Innishowen, Raphoe, and Fermanagh ; and the Irish 
 generally were so much impressed by his wisdom and prowess 
 that they supposed him to be Hugh the Valiant, the promised 
 Celtic Messiah, who was to redress or avenge the wrongs of 
 Erin. When it seemed clear that this was not so, the 
 dreamers of dreams declared that as he had failed the deliverer 
 would never come. His panegyrists reckon among his titles 
 
 1 Lord Deputy and Council to Cromwell, Aug. 1 2. Grey to Cromwell, 
 Aug. 16, 1537, wrongly printed under 1539 in the S.P. ; same to same, 
 Sept. 1. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 to fame that ' the seasons were favourable, so that sea and 
 land were productive : ' it is more to the purpose that he 
 executed strict justice and repressed thieves. Like most 
 Irish chiefs, he had difficulties with his children, and his 
 valiant son Manus was discarded at the instance of a mistress 
 whom the old chief had brought into his house. For this 
 and for other sins he made such reparation as he could by a 
 late repentance, donned the cord and cowl of St. Francis, 
 and died in the odour of sanctity. He was buried in his 
 religious dress in the monastery which his father had built at 
 Donegal for friars of the strict observance ; and Manus was at 
 once acknowledged both by the tribesmen and by O'Neill, and 
 was inaugurated at Kilmacrenan with the usual ceremonies. 1 
 Disturb- The new chief at once took up the thread of his father's 
 
 ances m * 
 
 the North, policy by invading Connaught, and at the same time making 
 loyal professions to Grey. He had, he wrote, been tempted 
 to rebellion by all the disaffected lords in the South and West, 
 but was determined to take no advice but that of the King 
 and his Deputy. As soon as he heard of Hugh O'Donnell's 
 death, Grey at once repaired to the borders of Ulster. The 
 gallies of O'Neill and his Scotch allies had threatened a 
 fortified settlement at Ardglass on the coast of Down, and the 
 Deputy burned to invade Tyrone ; but the Council dissuaded 
 him, and the receipt of Manus O'Donnell's letter gave hopes 
 of settling the North by peaceful means. Some thought 
 Grey too fond of making aimless raids, and Alen made some 
 sensible remarks on the subject. ' I would not,' he wrote to 
 St. Leger, ' have the Deputy representing the King's Majesty's 
 person and estate be a common skurrer for every light matter ; 
 but, when he should begin a war, begin it upon a just good 
 ground, and when it were so begun, to be so profoundly exe- 
 cuted, that all other should take example thereby.' But the 
 King thought only of increasing the revenue and diminishing 
 the army. 2 
 
 1 Fowr Masters and Annals of Lough C, 1512 and 1537. Manus 
 O'Donnell to Grey, Aug. 20, 1537. Ware says that Donegal Friary con- 
 tained a famous library. 
 
 2 Grey to Cromwell, Sept. 1, 1537; J. Alen to St. Leger and others, 
 No. 183 in the printed S.P.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 213 
 
 Grey had been sanguine enough to believe that his work CHAP. 
 in Offaly would be lasting, but, as Henry had partly foreseen, < --- J - 
 
 O'Connor's return had undone it all. Cahir was a fugitive, J^r' ! s b 
 and the floods protected Offaly, where the corn had been safely the 
 garnered in. At last the waters subsided, and Grey reached 
 Brackland by the old road through Westmeath. O'Connor 
 escaped into O'Doyne's country, the modern barony of Tinna- 
 hinch, which Grey and Richard Butler proceeded to ravage. 
 While thus employed the scattered troops were surprised by 
 O'Connor, and some were killed. The Lord Deputy was just 
 able to destroy or carry away the corn stored at Geashill, and 
 to return to Dublin without having seen the enemy. To gain 
 time till the season of long days came round again, Grey gave 
 a safe-conduct to O'Connor, who proposed to visit Dublin. 
 ' But shortly herein to conclude,' as Brabazon puts it, ' the 
 said traitor and his brother Cahir fell to agreement and con- 
 cord, so that at this presents they both remain in Offaly.' 
 St. Leger, who had a cooler temper than Grey, saw the 
 impossibility of subduing even a single clan by desultory 
 hostings. ' The country,' he said, ' is much easier won than 
 kept.' To overrun Offaly was a small thing, but it could 
 only be united to the Pale by the costly expedient of fixed 
 garrisons. O'Connor had got back his son, and indeed neither 
 he nor any Irishman had much regard for promises or for the 
 fate of hostages. 1 
 
 The O'Connors were weakened by repeated blows, and He con- 
 Alderman Herbert, who had long advised a colonising policy, attack 
 proposed that Offaly should be peopled with Englishmen them> 
 once for all. Grey again invaded the doomed district with 
 800 men, and O'Connor at once declared himself willing to 
 treat, though he utterly refused to trust himself within the 
 Pale. Grey halted at Kinnafad, where a castle built by the 
 Berminghams still overhangs the ford of the Boyne. Having 
 taken precautions against treachery, the Lord Deputy passed 
 about half his men over the river, and then advanced with 
 twelve horsemen to an open field about a quarter of a mile 
 
 1 Brabazon to Cromwell, Dec. 31, 1537. St. Leger to Cromwell, Jan. 
 2, 1538.
 
 5214 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, off, where O'Connor met him similarly attended. The chief 
 ^ submitted to the King's clemency, begged Grey's interces- 
 sion, and promised to come to Dublin in three days. Cahir 
 sent word that he would come too, but broke his promise. 
 O'Connor kept his tryst, acknowledged himself the King's 
 liegeman, abjured the authority of the Pope for himself and 
 his tribesmen, renounced all Irish exactions, and gave up his 
 black-rents, including a pension of sixty marks from the King. 
 Thanks were in future to be his only reward for service ; 
 and he offered to hold legally of the King ' that portion of 
 lands in Offaly which he held by partition after his country's 
 fashion,' undertaking that his brothers and other holders of 
 land there should become entitled in the same way. These 
 lands were to be subject to impositions at so much per plough- 
 land, as if they were situated in the Pale, assessments for the 
 defence of the King's subjects being made as occasion might 
 arise at the Lord Deputy's discretion. For himself he solicited 
 the honour of Baron of Offaly, and begged for such protection 
 as the Government habitually gave to Englishmen. He agreed 
 that the Lord Deputy and all the marchers might cut passes 
 where they pleased, and gave up his son again pending the 
 King's final decision. The crafty Cahir was hunted down, 
 apparently with his brother's help, and brought to Dublin, 
 where he agreed to similar terms and also gave up his son. 
 Yet many sceptics thought the O'Connors would slip the 
 yoke at the first opportunity, and it is evident that nothing 
 had occurred to change their nature, or to attach them to 
 English habits or to English government. 1 
 
 1 From the light it throws on the land question O'Connor's prayer is 
 worth transcribing : 
 
 4 Humiliter petit, quatenus Dominus Rex, ex SU& gratia 1 , dignetur con- 
 cedere sibi, per literas suas patentes, quod ipse, et exitus sui, sint liberi 
 status, et homines legales, more Anglicorum ; et quod sit Baro de Offaly, 
 atque habeat sibi et heredibus suis ex regia donatione portionem terrarum 
 in Offaly, quas nuno illic possidet per partitionem, more patriae, tenendam 
 de Domino Rege secundum leges Anglioanas ; ac quod simili auctoritate, 
 fratres sui, et alii possessionarii terrarum ibidem, terras quas nunc possident 
 habeant sibi et heredibus suis ; ipse et omnes alii et heredes sui, reddendo 
 Dominio Regi, annuatim, de qualibet carucata terrre, tres solidos et quatuor 
 denarios ; et quod carucat<e terras in Offaly, quotiens Domino Deputato
 
 FROM THE YEAK 1536 TO THE YEAR 1540. 215 
 
 A main object of Grey's attack both on the O'Connors and CHAP. 
 
 the O'Briens may have been to get possession of the heir , 
 
 of Kildare, whose half-sister was married to the chief f, eiz " reof 
 
 the five 
 
 of Offaly. It is difficult to avoid the thought that Grey had Geraidines. 
 
 a private as well as a public object in persecuting to the 
 
 death all members of the fallen family except the children of 
 
 his own sister. The rebel Earl had five uncles, all men of 
 
 fair ability and great influence, and Brabazon seems first to 
 
 have suggested that they ought to be kept in England. 
 
 Grey asked Sir James Fitzgerald and his brothers Walter and 
 
 Richard, all of whom had opposed the rebellion, to dine with 
 
 him at Kilmainham, and in the middle of dinner they were 
 
 all seized and handcuffed. Sir John and Oliver were arrested 
 
 before they had heard of their brothers' capture, and the five 
 
 were lodged in the castle. Grey always plumed himself on 
 
 this exploit, though he admitted that some of the prisoners 
 
 were innocent. The Irish Council approved the deed and 
 
 applauded its secret handling, but none of the Irish officials 
 
 knew that they were sending these men to the scaffold ; the 
 
 guilt of that must rest on Henry and Cromwell. Aylmer and 
 
 Alen accompanied them to England, and the chronicler tells 
 
 us that Richard, who had literary tastes, relieved the tedium 
 
 of a sea-voyage by singing songs and repeating apophthegms. 
 
 When he heard that the ship was called ' The Cow,' he was 
 
 much dismayed, for there was a prophecy that five Earls' 
 
 brethren should be carried to England in a cow's belly, and 
 
 should never return. 'Whereat,' says Stanihurst, 'the rest 
 
 began afresh to howl and lament, which doubtless was pitiful, 
 
 to behold five valiant gentlemen, that durst meet in the field 
 
 as sturdy champions as could be picked out in a realm, to be 
 
 so suddenly terrified with the bare name of a wooden cow, or 
 
 visum f uerit, ac necessitas emergent, onerantur et assidentur belligeris pro 
 defensione subditorum Domini Regis, eodem modo sicut cseterae carucatae 
 terras inter regios subditos onerantur et assidentur. Igitur humiliter petit, 
 quod Dominus Rex, et Deputati sui, pro tempore existentes, suscipiant suam 
 protectionem et defensionem contra omnes alios, prout suscipiant defen- 
 sionem Anglicorum.' Submission of O'Connor, March 6, 1538. Grey to 
 Cromwell, March 17, 1538 ; Francis Herbert to Cromwell, March 21, 1536, 
 to Norfolk, Jan. 24, 1538 ; Grey to Cromwell, April 1, 1538
 
 216 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 to fear like lions a silly coxcomb, being moved (as commonly 
 the whole country is) with a vain and fabulous old wives' 
 dream.' On reaching London they were at once sent to the 
 Tower, and left it only to take the last sad journey to 
 Tyburn. 1 
 
 Survivor of But the family was not destined to extinction. Lady 
 family. Kildare had accompanied her husband to England, and had 
 Geraidine!' ^ er three daughters with her. The eldest was deaf and 
 dumb, and of the youngest nothing particular is recorded, but 
 the second, Lady Elizabeth, has by a strange chance been im- 
 mortalised as the ' Fair Geraldine.' While yet a child she 
 became maid of honour to the Princess Mary, at whose house 
 at Hunsdon Henry, Earl of Surrey, saw her. She was then 
 only twelve. Four years later she was married to Sir 
 Anthony Browne, Master of the Horse and Knight of the 
 Garter, but also a widower of sixty, whose daughter by his 
 first marriage became her brother Gerald's wife. The un- 
 equal match was solemnized in the presence of the King and 
 of the Lady Mary, and Ridley preached on the occasion which 
 drew forth Surrey's sonnet. The situation of the bride's 
 family and the apparent sacrifice of herself sufficiently account 
 for the poetry, and there is no reason to suppose that the 
 poet, who was married, had any regrets for himself. The 
 study of Italian models would naturally lead to rather high- 
 flown language, and poets were always privileged. The ro- 
 mantic fable of the magic mirror in which Cornelius Agrippa, 
 an alchemist living at Florence, showed him the fair one re- 
 clining on a bridal couch and reading his sonnet, would not 
 be worth noticing but that it found its way into the * Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel.' It is refuted by the fact that Surrey 
 never was in Italy. After the death of Browne, who outlived 
 Surrey, Lady Elizabeth was married to the Lord Admiral 
 Clinton, who had been twice a widower. She left no children 
 by either marriage, but her influence at Court may have had 
 much to do with her brother's restoration. A portrait remains 
 to show that she had a sweet face, and that she was not fairer 
 
 1 Brabazon to Cromwell, Sept. 10, 1535 ; Council of Ireland to Cromwell, 
 Feb. 14, 1536 ; Stanihurst ; Ware; Four Masters, 1535.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1536 TO THE YEAK 1540. 217 
 
 than many who have had no poet. But canvas, and especially the CHAP, 
 canvas of Holbein's school, seldom preserves the charm of grace - ^ 
 and motion. Three letters remain, creditable so far as they 
 go, and written in a clear, bold hand which contrasts strikingly 
 with the crabbed characters often affected by public men, 
 characters which drew a sarcasm from Shakespeare, and still 
 trouble the historian. A portrait, three letters, and fourteen 
 pretty lines would have hardly preserved the fair Geraldine's 
 memory had it not been for the tragic fates of her father, her 
 brother, and her poet. 1 
 
 Less than two years after her husband's death, and while Edward 
 her rash stepson was lying in the Tower, Lady Kildare came 
 to live at her brother Leonard's house at Beaumanoir in 
 Leicestershire. She found there her son Edward, aged eight, 
 who had been brought by some devoted but unknown friends 
 ' without word, token, nor letter.' With touching humbleness 
 she begged to be allowed the custody of him ' because he is 
 an innocent, to see him brought up in virtue.' The prayer 
 was granted, and the child thus strangely rescued lived to 
 be Lieutenant of Queen Elizabeth's pensioners, and ancestor 
 of the Dukes of Leinster. 2 
 
 The King was most anxious to get Lady Kil dare's eldest Gerald 
 son into his power, and St. Leger avers that the King had no Fltz era * 
 object ' but to cherish him as his kinsman in like sort as his 
 other brother is cherished with his mother in the realm of 
 England.' Having disposed of all who were old enough to 
 be dangerous, it was doubtless Henry's intention to bring up 
 the children in English ways and in dependence on him. 
 But Lady Mary O'Connor had other views, and the adventures 
 of Gerald show how inextricably the Geraldines were inter- 
 mingled with Celtic families. He was ten years old when his 
 half-brother was taken, and was then lying in small-pox at 
 Donore in Kildare. As soon as he could be moved his tutor, 
 Thomas Leverous, who was his father's foster-brother, carried 
 
 1 Nearly all that is really known about her is contained in a memoir by 
 the Rev. James Graves. See also Hallam's History of Literature and Lodge's 
 Lives of the Earls of Surrey and Kilda/re. 
 
 2 Lady Kildare to Cromwell, July 16, 1536. Articles by St. Leger and 
 others, Dec. 10, 1537.
 
 218 
 
 IRELAND UNDEK THE TUDORS. 
 
 Gerald 
 escapes to 
 France, 
 1540. 
 
 him off in a basket and brought him safely to his sister in 
 Offaly. Lady Mary procured him a three months' shelter 
 among the O'Doynes, and he was then removed to Clare and 
 placed under the charge of James Delahide. O'Brien, who 
 had the Kildare plate and jewels as well as the heir in his 
 power, refused all offers of the Government ; and Leverous and 
 Delahide were allowed to take Gerald to Kilbrittain Castle, 
 and give him up to his aunt, Lady Eleanor MacCarthy, widow 
 of the late and mother of the actual chief of Carbery. Had 
 James Fitzjohn of Desmond wished to surrender the boy 
 MacCarthy could hardly have resisted; but they agreed to 
 amuse the Government with evasive answers, while Gerald 
 employed himself in visiting the old tenants of his family 
 about Adare and Croom. James Fitzjohn offered to take 
 those manors on lease, the real object being to keep off grants 
 to strangers. But Lady Eleanor feared the issue of this un- 
 equal contest, and agreed to marry Manus O'Donnell, whom 
 she had rejected some years before. The marriage was desired 
 by the whole Geraldine connection, and Lady Eleanor, accom- 
 panied by Leverous, Delahide, and the chaplain Walshe, brought 
 her nephew safely through Thomond, Clanricarde, and Mayo, 
 into Tyrconnell. All the O'Briens and Burkes welcomed and 
 sped them on their journey. As the travellers approached 
 Sligo they were joined by a rhymer named M'Cragh, a native 
 of Tipperary, who was studying his craft in those parts, and 
 through him many details became known to Ormonde. After 
 her marriage with O'Donnell, Lady Eleanor busied herself in 
 forming a confederacy of the Northern chiefs with Desmond 
 and her friends in Leinster and Munster. 1 
 
 But Irish plots are commonly woven in sand, and Grey's 
 activity disconcerted her schemes. Fearing that O'Donnell 
 might be bribed, as Brabazon suggested, to give up the boy, 
 she determined to send him to France. Allen Governor, an 
 English shipowner of St. Malo, happened to be trading in 
 Donegal, and agreed to take the precious passenger. A con- 
 tract was drawn up before a notary, in which Governor bound 
 
 1 St. Leger and others to Cromwell, Jan. 2, 1538 ; Ormonde to the 
 Irish Council, S.P., vol. iii. p. 44 ; Stanihurst.
 
 FEOM THE YEAE 1536 TO THE YEAE 1540. 219 
 
 himself to land Gerald and his companions safely in France. CHAP. 
 
 Bareheaded, and wearing only the saffron shirt of a humble ^- ' 
 
 native, Gerald stole out in a small boat by night and com- 
 mitted himself and his fortunes to the chances of the sea. 
 His aunt had provided him with 140 moidores, and he had 
 also some plate, with part of which his passage was paid. 
 His companions were Leverous, Robert Walshe, a faithful 
 ally but a stern disciplinarian, who did not even spare the rod 
 in the interests of his noble charge, and a young gentleman 
 whose name is not recorded. They arrived safely at Morlaix, 
 where the military governor received Gerald and led him 
 through the town by the hand, taking especial care that no 
 English trader should come near him. Henry's ambassador 
 was nevertheless well informed as to the boy's movements. 
 He re-embarked on the same vessel with a pilot named Jacques 
 Cartier, who brought him to St. Malo, where he was hospitably 
 treated by the Lieutenant-Governor. 1 
 
 When Chateaubriand, the Governor of Brittany, heard Gerald 
 the news, he sent a special messenger to bring the refugees to 1549? ' 
 Rennes. The gossips there would have it that Gerald was 
 the rightful King of Ireland, and that Henry was a mere 
 usurper ; and neither he nor his friends could correct them : 
 for they spoke no French. Chateaubriand treated his guest 
 well and forwarded him to Court, where Wallop demanded 
 his surrender as a treaty obligation. Francis did not deny 
 this, but quietly removed the boy to the imperial town of 
 Valenciennes. The faithful Leverous still attended him to 
 watch against English kidnappers who were hanging about, 
 and for greater security sent him to the Emperor at Brussels. 
 But English diplomacy was importunate, and Charles trans- 
 ferred him to the Prince-bishop of Liege, with an allowance 
 of one hundred crowns a month. After six months' residence 
 with the Bishop, his kinsman Reginald Pole sent him to Italy, 
 pensioned him, and provided the best education the peninsula 
 afforded in the houses of the Bishops of Verona and Mantua, 
 and of Gonzago, Duke of Milan, who gave him a further 
 pension. His last patron in Italy was Cosmo de' Medici, who 
 
 1 Brabazon to Cromwell, May 26, 1539 ; Stanihurst.
 
 220 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Geraldine 
 pride. 
 
 allowed him three hundred crowns annually; and a three 
 years' residence at Florence doubtless made him a proficient 
 in the arts of courtly dissimulation. Leverous was admitted to 
 the English monastery at Rome, and in Mary's reign became 
 Bishop of Kildare ; Robert Walshe went back to Ireland, but 
 I do not find that his attainder was reversed or that he was 
 ever pardoned. 1 
 
 O'Donnell soon made his submission, and was restored to 
 favour. Lady Eleanor had some reason to be afraid, for Alen 
 had proposed to invade Tyrconnell by sea and land with all 
 the forces at the King's disposal. But she had now secured 
 her nephew, and cared nothing for her new husband or his 
 dangers. She called him traitor and many other hard names, 
 said that the only object of her marriage was now gained, 
 and that she had no further occasion for his company. She 
 returned to her son's relations in Munster, but was not par- 
 doned till 1545, seemingly because she did not ask sooner. 
 The Irish Government refused to plead her cause as long as 
 she remained obstinately among the MacCarthies. She came 
 therefore to Malahide on safe-conduct, and thence forwarded 
 a petition to which, as if the Geraldine pride scorned the 
 Irish strain, she affixed her maiden name. After this the 
 frequent reports of a Geraldine invasion ceased, but the head 
 of the family thought it prudent to remain abroad until the 
 death of Henry VIII. 2 
 
 1 Sir John Wallop to Essex, April 18, 1540, S.P., vol. viii. ; Lord Deputy 
 and Council to the King, July 12, 1542, and Henry's unfavourable answer ; 
 Bartholomew Warner to Wallop, May 22, 1540. 
 
 * Lady Eleanor O'Donnell to the King, May 4, 1545.
 
 221 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 THE O'Connors having been quieted for the moment, Ormonde, CHAP. 
 
 who had private as well as public reasons for his advice, pro- ^ - 
 
 posed a temporising policy towards O'Neill and O'Reilly on Ormonde 
 
 r D L ^ * proposes to 
 
 the north, and towards O'Byrne and O'Toole on the south, reform his 
 side of the Pale. The Government might then easily subdue 
 the Kavanaghs, who were surrounded by settled districts. 
 Their chief, Cahir MacEn cross, who has been called the last 
 King of Leinster, had till lately been Constable, and his ac- 
 ceptance of the office seems to have been thought a conde- 
 scension. Ormonde's son Richard had now succeeded him, and 
 with the aid of Saintloo and his Wexford men might hope to 
 reduce the whole country. To strengthen Kilkenny against a 
 possible counter attack from the O'Mores, Ormonde secured the 
 services of Edmond MacSwiney, a powerful hereditary chief of 
 gallowglasses, whom O'Connor had brought from Donegal. 
 The Earl thought it cheaper to outbid O'Connor than to have 
 MacSwiney's band thrown into the scale of rebellion. Des- 
 mond and the rest excused their slowness to reform by saying 
 that they waited for him to begin ; and he was anxious to 
 wipe out this reproach, regretting only that he had not the 
 same powers in Kilkenny as in Tipperary. Though not dis- 
 interested, Ormonde's was probably the best available plan, 
 and his reforming zeal was certainly serious. * I have pro- 
 claimed,' he said, ' over all the county of Tipperary, that no 
 caines, allyiegs, errikes, Irish Brehons, neither that law, 
 rahowns, and many like exactions and extortions shall cease, 
 with reformation for the grey merchants, and the Liberty 
 court to be duly continued, as the King's laws require.' In 
 Kilkenny he could only exhort ; ' howbeit,' he added, ' I have
 
 222 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XII. 
 
 Grey goes 
 to Ulster, 
 1638. 
 
 The 
 O'Tooles. 
 
 often persuaded many of them to be converted, which to do 
 I can scarcely have their assents, for the lust they have to 
 caines and other abuses, turning to their profit, as it doth to 
 mine.' l 
 
 Taking advantage of O'Connor's quiescent state, Grey cut 
 passes on the borders of Offaly wide enough for several carts 
 abreast. He then turned his eyes to the North, where the 
 MacMahons of Ferney had for three years neglected to pay 
 their tribute of 10/. The borderers of English race were op- 
 posed to Grey's raid, and gave the MacMahons warning, but 
 he managed to capture 500 cows, and as many pigs and goats. 
 The expedition was as useless as it was inglorious, for Louth 
 was invaded within a week, and O'Neill, who complained 
 that his black-rent was unpaid, plundered the borders of the 
 Pale and threatened to burn Drogheda. The men of that 
 town and of Dundalk and Ardee rallied at the Lord Deputy's 
 summons, and O'Neill then became quieter in his behaviour. 
 But nothing could keep Grey quiet. He lent soldiers to one 
 Chamberlayne of Athboy, to revenge a private quarrel against 
 O'Reilly. That chief had hitherto been at peace with the 
 Pale; but he lost his brother in this aimless brawl, and a 
 general alliance of the Northern chiefs was with difficulty 
 averted. The MacMahons had done far more harm to Louth 
 than Grey had done to them, and he could gain little repu- 
 tation by enterprises which had no apparent object but 
 plunder. 2 
 
 While the Lord Deputy was driving cattle in Ulster, the 
 other side of the Pale was in a blaze. John K el way, Con- 
 stable of Rathmore, saw some servants of Tirlogh O'Toole 
 eating meat, assumed that it was stolen, and incontinently 
 hanged them. This seems to have been thought unusual 
 even among borderers, and Kelway's conduct found no defen- 
 
 1 Ormonde to St. Leger, March 12, 1538. See also the ' Fall of the 
 Clan Kavanagh,' by Hughes, 7mA Archa-ological Journal, 4th series, voL 
 ii., 1873. Erics were compositions for murder, caines for other felonies. 
 Rahownes may be the same as ' sorohen.' I do not understand allyieg, 
 unless it be 'allying' with the Irish. 
 
 2 Four Masters, 1537 ; Brabazon to Aylmer and Alen, Whitsuntide, 1538 ; 
 Council of Ireland to Cromwell, June 10, 1538.
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 223 
 
 ders. But the O'Tooles were willing to consider the qnes- CHAP. 
 tion of compensation in Irish fashion, and a meeting took 'r^. 
 place for the purpose. Kelway brought a considerable force, 
 and, on the parley being dissolved without an agreement, 
 he followed the Irish into their mountains. The mountain- 
 eers turned to bay on advantageous ground, and drove the 
 English into a small tower. Its thatched roof burned readily, 
 and the whole party had to surrender. The O'Tooles killed 
 Kelway, who deserved nothing better, but held the gentle- 
 men of the Pale to ransom. Chief Justice Aylmer's son was 
 present but escaped, while his brother, Richard Aylmer of 
 Lyons, was taken prisoner. About sixty of the marchers, all 
 householders, fell in this wretched business, and so great a 
 panic followed that an Irishman in Judge Luttrell's service 
 was afraid to travel from Glendalough to Dublin. It is ever 
 thus between races of different degrees of civilisation ; if the 
 backward people are beaten it is thought quite natural, but 
 the slightest check is of importance when experienced by 
 members of the higher organisation. 1 
 
 The Lord Deputy and the Butlers had never been very Grey falls 
 good friends, and the dissension now reached such a height Betters! * he 
 as to disturb the whole country. ' I was never,' exclaimed 
 Brabazon, ' in despair in Ireland until now,' and others were 
 not more hopeful. ' My Lord Deputy,' said Lord Butler, ' is 
 the Earl of Kildare born again ? ' and Luttrell, a keen observer, 
 thought Ormonde hated Grey worse than he had hated Kildare. 
 The Butlers complained that the Lord Deputy systematically 
 slighted their party and favoured the Geraldines; he re- 
 torted that they intrigued with Irishmen against his govern- 
 ment. One or two of the matters in dispute call for more 
 particular notice. 2 
 
 After many struggles Ferganamm O'Carroll was the ac- Ormonde 
 knowledged chief of Ely. His wife was daughter to Kildara O'Carrolls. 
 
 1 Grey to the King, June 4, 1538; Brabazon to Aylmer and Alen, Whit- 
 suntide ; Luttrell to Aylmer, June 5 ; Council to Aylmer, June 10. All the 
 accounts make out that Kelway was quite wrong. 
 
 2 Justice Luttrell to Chief Justice Aylmer, June 5. 1538 ; Ormonde's in- 
 structions to R. Cowley, June ; Lord Butler to his father and to R. Cowley, 
 June.
 
 224 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Grey and 
 the 
 
 O'Mores. 
 
 and sister-in-law to O'Connor, and he was ready to submit 
 to Grey as the best means of opposing Ormonde. He pro- 
 mised to hold his land of the King at a rent of twelvepence 
 for every ploughland, to attend the Lord Deputy with a fixed 
 contingent, and to give free quarters for a limited number 
 of the gallowglasses in the royal service. He also undertook 
 to open up his country by cutting passes. O'Carroll at first 
 stipulated that Grey should help him to recover all his father's 
 strongholds ; but all those castles were already vested legally 
 in the Crown, and some of them had been granted to Ormonde. 
 The Council therefore objected, and Fergananim seems to 
 have waived his claim without demanding any corresponding 
 concession. The prudence of the Council had prevented the 
 Lord Deputy from concluding an offensive alliance ; but he 
 acted as if he had done so, and proceeded to take Birr and 
 Modreeny, both of which Ormonde claimed under a royal 
 grant, and to attack Ballynaclogh. The latter place was 
 held by an O'Kennedy who paid rent to the Earl, and it 
 is within the bounds of Tipperary. O'Carroll boasted that 
 Nenagh and Roscrea would soon be his, and these castles, 
 though long in Irish hands, were part of the old Ormonde 
 inheritance, and had been lately confirmed to the Earl by a 
 new grant. 1 
 
 Connell O'More, chief of Leix, died in 1537, and the in- 
 evitable dispute followed between the tanist, his brother 
 Peter, and his sons, Lysaght, Kedagh, and Rory. Grey 
 espoused the cause of the sons, rather, as it seems, because 
 Ormonde sided with Peter than from any preference for 
 hereditary succession. Peter was, however, acknowledged 
 as chief, and met Parry, Grey's confidential man, at Athy. 
 Rory, who was present, assaulted his uncle, and the latter was 
 then seized by Parry and carried to Dublin. Nothing was 
 proved against him, and he was restored on agreeing to pay 
 an annual tribute of twenty marks, and to receive a certain 
 
 1 Lord Butler to his father, June 19, 1538 ; Ormonde to the Irish Coun- 
 cil, June ; to R. and W. Cowley, July 16; to R. Cowley, July 20 ; to the 
 Privy Council, S.P., vol. iii., p. 77 ; Grey to the King, June 4 and July 26; 
 Council of Ireland to Cromwell, June 10, July 21, and August 22.
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 225 
 
 number of soldiers at free quarters. The young O'Mores CHAP. 
 resisted the levying of the tribute, and Lysaght, the eldest, -^-1^ - 
 was killed in a fray. They had all taken part in the murder 
 of Ormonde's son Thomas five years before, and Kedagh and 
 Rory now plundered one of his villages. Their party con- 
 sisted of only eight men, but the neighbours pleaded that 
 they dared not resist, because the assailants were aided and 
 abetted by one of the Lord Deputy's servants. The O'Mores 
 pleaded that the Earl had first attacked them, and he rejoined 
 that he had done so in self-defence. There was never a want 
 of excuses for violence on any side. Grey forbade the Earl 
 to retaliate, and it was even said that he shared the plunder. 
 The young O'Mores then attacked Tullow, but the Lord 
 Deputy still held Ormonde's hand, and even sent guns to 
 help his enemies. Hoping to make peace, the Council sum- 
 moned both uncle and nephews to Dublin. The chief came 
 on Ormonde's advice and practically under his protection, 
 and Kedagh also attended. O'More was at once sent hand- 
 cuffed to Maynooth, though the whole Council protested, and 
 Kedagh was suffered to depart unhurt. The blow to the 
 Earl's credit was serious, and was not deadened by Grey, who 
 led his prisoner in chains about his own part of the country, 
 much as the Thane of Fife threatened to lead Macbeth. Grey's 
 servants took the cue, and openly in the streets called the 
 Butlers traitors. Lord Butler vowed that unless absolutely 
 forced by his duty he would never wear armour under Grey 
 until he had seen the King, and he cited the example of Count 
 de Roeux, who had made a like vow when the Imperial lieu- 
 tenant Van Buren had forced him to make peace with France. 
 Even the old Earl meditated a journey to London, though he 
 was so infirm that he could only be carried in a litter. The 
 Irish Council condemned Grey's treatment of O'More ; and 
 moreover, said they, ' it is no good policy for the King our 
 master, having no more obedient subjects in this land like 
 unto the said Earl and his son, of reputation in honour, force, 
 and strength, both to preserve and defend the parts where 
 they dwell, and to succour other his subjects in all events, to 
 suppress them which, with all their ancestors, have ever con- 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XII. 
 
 Sudden 
 departure 
 ' of Grey. 
 
 His rah 
 mnrch into 
 Western 
 Muuster, 
 
 tinued their truths to the Crown of England, either upon the 
 accusation of those which for the most part have always done 
 the contrary, or yet in hope to have them now from hence- 
 forth true, which hitherto were never true ' remarks which 
 have their practical value in modern Irish politics, as they 
 had in the days of Henry VIII. 1 
 
 Though not too wise in council, Grey was prompt in 
 action, and was never so happy as on horseback surrounded 
 by armed men and free from interference. Perhaps he wished 
 to show how much he could do without Ormonde's help. He 
 left Dublin suddenly, without warning the Council, and 
 attended only by a small force, his companions being under 
 the impression that he was bound only for an eight days' 
 journey into O'Carroll's country. Among them was Lord 
 Gormanston, a son of Lord Delvin, John D'Arcy, William 
 Bermingham, O'Connor, Rory and Kedagh O'More, and several 
 other Irishmen of note, with a due proportion of kerne and 
 gallowglasses. Of English soldiers Grey had no more than 
 one hundred, and of these the greater part were without 
 armour. A hosting had been proclaimed against the OTooles, 
 who still kept some of the prisoners taken in Kelway's raid, 
 and Grey promised to be back in time to lead the expedition. 
 He failed to do so, and a truce was with much difficulty con- 
 cluded with the mountaineers. 2 
 
 Grey made his first halt at Monasteroris, where O'Connor 
 entertained him in the Franciscan friary. Next day he took 
 Eglish Castle near Birr from the O'Molloys, and was joined 
 by Kedagh O'More, O'Molloy, MacGeohegan, and MacGilla- 
 patrick, each of whom brought a few men with him. On the 
 third day he entered Ely, and received the adhesion of Fer- 
 gananim O'Carroll, who bound himself by indenture on the 
 
 1 Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to Cromwell, Aug. 24, 1538. For the 
 treatment of O'More see Ormonde to R. Cowley, June 1538 ; Aylmer and 
 Alen's articles against Grey, June. Lord Butler to R. Cowley, June 20. 
 Articles alleged on the part of O'More, S.P., vol. iii. p. 26. Council of 
 Ireland to Cromwell, June 10. Luttrell to Aylmer, June 5. The ten years' 
 truce between Charles V. and Francis I. was concluded June 28, so that 
 Lord Butler must refer to some earlier negotiations. 
 
 2 Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alcn to Cromwell, July 24, 1538.
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 22\ 
 
 usual terms, and gave his son into the Lord Deputy's hands. CHAP. 
 Grey spent three days in reducing the lands of Birr and -- ^ 
 Modreeny, the latter of which had to be taken by assault. 
 Ormonde had provided the garrison with arms ; but, as he 
 alleged, these were intended only for use against Irish 
 enemies. Grey then entered Tipperary, and on three suc- 
 cessive days received the submissions of Dermot O'Kennedy, 
 chief of Ormonde, of MacBrien Arra, and of Dermot O'Mulryan, 
 chief of Owny. Ulick de Burgh, captain of Clanricarde, and 
 Theobald, head of the Clanwilliam Burkes, also submitted ; and 
 James Fitzjohn of Desmond, to whom Grey gives the title of 
 Earl, though he was not acknowledged by the Crown, brought 
 a large contingent to the Deputy's help, but refused to enter 
 the gates of Limerick. He had not only procured a safe- 
 conduct, but had solemnly bound O'Connor and others in 
 Grey's train to take his part if any attempt were made against 
 him. The Lord Deputy spent a week in Limerick, where the 
 Mayor and Corporation and the Bishop took the oath of 
 supremacy. Connor O'Brien, the chief of Thomond, met 
 Grey on the Shannon, ten miles from Limerick, and agreed, 
 after a long wrangle, to put his son Tirlogh into the Deputy's 
 hands. He also promised to do all in his power to promote 
 the capture of the castles held by his brother Murrough, 
 the tanist of Thomond. O'Brien's Bridge was once more de- 
 molished, Connor led the army through the tanist's district, 
 and everything was destroyed as far as Clare Castle. Here 
 Grey and Desmond had a quarrel about the custody of 
 O'Mulryan's hostages, and there was very near being a pitched 
 battle ; but Sir Thomas Butler of Cahir, Ormonde's son-in-law, 
 managed to patch up a truce. Grey was, in fact, quite at 
 O'Brien's mercy, but the family politics saved him. The chief 
 had lately married a second wife, Lady Alice Fitzgerald of 
 Desmond, and Tirlogh, the child of the marriage, was pledged 
 to Grey ; but Murrough the tanist and Donough, the chiefs 
 eldest son, were both afraid that the issue of the second 
 marriage would be preferred before them. O'Connor, in 
 whom Grey now placed implicit confidence, ' and all sage men 
 of his band, both English and Irish,' begged him not to 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 < IIAP. venture among the O'Briens, and Edmund Sexton, a noted 
 '^ royalist of Limerick, even conjured him on his allegiance not 
 to cast away the citizens' company, on whom all depended. 
 Grey refused to take advice, and escaped all dangers, chiefly 
 through Donough O'Brien's influence. Donough's loyalty 
 might not have been enough by itself, but he dreaded the 
 aggrandisement of Murrough more than possible dangers from 
 a half-brother who was still in his infancy. Guided by a 
 single gallowglass, who bore a silver axe adorned with silken 
 tassels, the army marched safely into Clanricarde. Ulick de 
 Burgh blamed Grey for his rashness, but he pointed to the 
 guide and said, ' Lo ! seest thou not yonder standing before 
 me O'Brien's axe for my protection?' A modern traveller 
 among Arabs must often be content with some such outward 
 sign of invisible allies, but his trust in O'Brien's axe was 
 made an article in Grey's impeachment. 1 
 
 And into Ulick was fully acknowledged as chief of Clanricarde, to 
 
 nought * ne prejudice of his uncle Richard. He was believed to be 
 illegitimate, and the De Burghs, however much Hibernicised, 
 had hitherto preserved the English law of succession. The 
 precedent was therefore thought bad by many experienced 
 men, but the relationships of this family are so inextricably 
 confused that it is very hard to say who was legitimate and 
 who was not. The citizens of Galway remembered their 
 origin, and would take no money from the Lord Deputy, and 
 Ulick, who was knighted, took hospitable care of his Irish 
 allies. As at Limerick, the Mayor and Corporation took the 
 oath of supremacy, and so did the Archbishop of Tuam. 
 Grey made several forays into Clanricarde, with the apparent 
 object of strengthening Ulick ; and OTlaherty, two O'Maddens, 
 and Bermingham of Athenry, made their submissions. The 
 Lord Deputy then went towards the Suck in O'Kelly's coun- 
 try, and met O'Connor Roe, who rode with him to Aughriro. 
 Fording the Shannon at Banagher, the army passed through 
 the countries of O'Melaghlin and MacCoghlan, from whom 
 
 1 Grey to the King, July 26, 1538. Brabazon, Aylmer, and Alen to 
 Cromwell, Aug. 22. Information against Lord Leonard Grey, Oct. 1840, 
 in Careir.
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 229 
 
 securities were exacted, and returned unmolested to May- 
 nooth, after an absence of thirty-eight days. 1 
 
 As a military exploit Grey's journey was by no means Effects of 
 contemptible, but his critics seem to have been right in think- journey, 
 ing it useless. The settled policy had long been to reduce 
 the tribes bordering on the Pale, and not to overrun districts 
 which there was no hope of holding. Many chiefs had come 
 to the Lord Deputy with loyal professions, but they had re- 
 quired safe-conducts, had refused to enter walled towns, and 
 had given children for hostages. They had thus saved their 
 harvest, and the Government could scarcely take vengeance 
 on infants. Grey's supposed partiality for the Geraldines 
 was probably the chief reason that he got back safely. He 
 had no sooner turned his back than James Fitzjohn of Des- 
 mond seized Groom and Adare and threatened Ormonde's 
 country. No difficulty had been lessened by an exploit which 
 was obviously open to the reproach of extreme rashness. 2 
 
 Having got back their chief governor, the first care of Grey's dis- 
 the Council was to reconcile him with the Butlers. The old [heButiers. 
 Earl's appearance plainly foretold his approaching end, but he 
 came to Dublin and left his son to front the Desmonds and 
 O'Carrolls. Grey wrote to the latter to keep the peace, and 
 Lord Butler at once came to Dublin ; but both father and son 
 refused to go to Maynooth, where they would be in the Lord 
 Deputy's power. Kilmainham was at last fixed on as the 
 place of meeting, and Grey took the chair of state, but shook 
 hands with none of the Council, and smiled on no one. The 
 two Butlers offered to abide by the Council's decision, but 
 Grey had already produced a paper reflecting on them for re- 
 ceiving O'Connor after his defeat in the summer of 1537. A 
 Latin confession said to have been made by O'Connor in the 
 presence of Paulet and Berners was relied on, but the chief 
 
 1 Grey's account has been pretty closely followed ; see his letter to the 
 King, July 26, 1538. 
 
 2 For unfavourable strictures on Grey's journey see Brabazon, Aylmer, 
 and Alento Cromwell, Aug. 22 ; articles by the Earl of Ormonde in S.P., 
 vol. iii. p. 77 ; Thomas Agard to Cromwell, July 25, 1 538. Agard blames 
 Grey for taking cannon with hi u ; he risked them of course.
 
 230 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 (H\P. was secretly cross-examined by the Council, and so modified 
 
 \" 1 1 
 
 *-r-l.^, his statement as to exonerate the Butlers completely. It 
 was said, for instance, that O'Connor had hired Edmond Mac- 
 Swiney and his free axes immediately after a conference with 
 Ormonde. O'Connor admitted the hiring, but explained that 
 the gallowglasses were not bound to levy war against the 
 King, and that Ormonde knew nothing at all about the 
 matter. Again, he was charged with retaining Scotch mer- 
 cenaries, who were allowed a fortnight's free quarters in 
 Ormonde's country. He admitted having brought in the 
 Scots ; but the Earl had known nothing of it, and the free 
 quarters had not been given. Ormonde allowed that he had 
 harboured O'Connor, but pleaded the instructions of Grey, 
 who waited for orders from the King, and who was afraid of 
 driving the chief into fresh combinations with Irish enemies. 
 The probability is that O'Connor had at first been ready to 
 confess anything, because absolution was sure to follow, and 
 he is not likely to have been overflowing with Latin, which 
 was his only means of communicating with the English 
 officials. 1 
 
 They Both Grey and Ormonde gave in long written statements. 
 
 other. The Council desired to consider them in the Deputy's absence, 
 and to this he with some hesitation consented. They found 
 that Grey's charges contained nothing new, but only general 
 accusations of slackness ; while Ormonde plainly accused Grey 
 of treasonable practices, of shaping his policy to suit young 
 Gerald of Kildare, and of systematically depressing all who 
 opposed the Geraldine faction. The indictment is summed 
 up in the comprehensive statement that ' My Lord Deputy 
 cannot find in his heart to love or favour any man that is 
 preferred, favoured, or put in trust by his Majesty within 
 this his land, and would have none of them, though they be 
 all ready at his commandment, to be toward, or about him, 
 be they never so trusty nor so well meaning ; but wholly 
 adhereth to those that were the counsellors, servants, and 
 followers of the disloyal Geraldines, and no men so nigh 
 about him as they, which either of his own prepensed mind, 
 1 Brabnzon, Ajliner, and Alen to Cromwell, Aug. "22-
 
 END OF GKEY'S ADMINISTRATION. 231 
 
 or being seducted by them, is like to bring this land to per- 
 dition again.' On being pressed for proof, Ormonde said that 
 the facts were too notorious to require any. 1 
 
 The Council prudently resolved not to let either litigant The Coun- 
 see the other's charges, and Mr. Justice St. Lawrence having a recon- 
 been called in, the originals were burned in his presence. c 
 Copies already taken were transmitted to London. Ormonde 
 and his son then swore to serve the Lord Deputy loyally. Grey 
 swore not to use them spitefully nor ask them to perform im- 
 possibilities, to deliver Modreeny to the Earl unless O'Carroll 
 could show a better title, and to cause the young O'Mores to 
 restore the plunder of Ormonde's villages, or at least to refer 
 all to the Council. The Council did not believe the agree- 
 ment would be lasting. ' Neither,' they added, ' can we perceive 
 (whereof we be sorry) that my Lord Deputy is meet to make 
 long abode here, for he is so haughty and chafing that men 
 be afeard to speak to him, doubting his bravish lightness. 
 Nevertheless, it is much pity of him, for he is an active 
 gentleman.' 2 
 
 It was not long before the Butlers had an opportunity The Kava- 
 
 ni (r liri. 
 
 of co-operating with Grey. The Kavanaghs threatened the The " 
 Wexford colony, negotiations failed, and it became necessary 
 to chastise them. Grey entered Carlow in person, and was 
 joined by Saintloo, who, whatever his shortcomings as a 
 governor, was not a bad soldier, and who brought 800 men. 
 After fourteen days' burning and plundering, MacMurrough 
 and his clansmen sued for peace, and agreed to hold their 
 lands of the King. Grey then moved northwards, and pro- 
 visions for eight days were prepared for a raid against O'Reilly, 
 to be used otherwise by the Deputy in case O'Reilly should 
 make timely submission. O'Reilly did submit, and Grey went 
 to Dundalk with a view of meeting O'Neill, who was now 
 young Gerald Fitzgerald's protector. O'Neill broke his 
 appointment, and he did wisely, for Grey says he was deter- 
 mined to take Gerald if possible, ' and if not, by the oath 
 that I have made to my sovereign lord and master, 1 would 
 
 1 Articles by the Earl of Ormonde, S.P., vol. iii. p. 80. 
 
 2 Brabazon, &c., as above.
 
 232 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 (HAP. 
 XII. 
 
 The 
 
 Savages in 
 Down. 
 
 Lnliours of 
 St. Leger's 
 Coni- 
 
 have taken the said O'Neill and a kept him till he had caused 
 the said Gerald to be delivered to my hands.' * 
 
 Foiled in this attempt, which can hardly be described as 
 otherwise than treacherous, Grey determined to chastise the 
 Savages, who had refused to pay rent to Brabazon, the King's 
 tenant in Lecale. This old English family had become quite 
 Hibernicised, and were now bringing Scotch mercenaries into 
 the country. Various castles were taken and delivered to 
 Brabazon, who also took charge of Dundrum, an important 
 stronghold belonging to Magennis, which commanded the 
 entry to Lecale on the land side. The Scots fled, leaving 
 corn, butter, and other rural plunder behind. Grey was much 
 struck by the fertility of the district, which is still famous. 
 ' I never,' he said, ' saw a pleasanter plot than Lecale for 
 commodity of the land, and divers islands in the same en- 
 vironed in the sea, which were soon reclaimed and inhabited, 
 the King's pleasure known.' 2 
 
 Sir Anthony St. Leger and his brother Commissioners 
 arrived in Ireland early in September 1537, and lost no time 
 in endeavouring to carry out the King's plan. By November 
 they had surveyed most of the King's lands in Carlow, Kil- 
 kenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Dublin, and Kildare. The 
 general result of their observations was that they had seen 
 ' divers goodly manors and castles, the more part of them 
 ruinous, and in great decay, the towns and lands about them 
 depopulate, wasted, and not manured ; whereby hath ensued 
 great dearth and scarcity of all manner victuals.' But few 
 applications were made for leases, because there was no secu- 
 rity, and they saw the necessity of placing a few castles in 
 a defensible state. Within reach of the walls there was no 
 difficulty in getting tenants. By Christmas the survey was 
 finished, and an increased desire to take leases was quickly 
 manifested ; but some lands were still unlet. Two thousand 
 marks in money and securities had been collected for the 
 
 1 Grey to Cromwell, Oct. 31, 138, in Caren. 
 
 * Ibid. The ' islands ' referred to seem to be the peninsula of Ards, 
 pulisequtut attempts to colonise which did not meet with much success, 
 Xhu isle' s in I>ouj;h Ht rangford are very
 
 END OF GEEY'S ADMINISTRATION. 233 
 
 King, ' and much more,' the Commissioners reported, ' would CHAP, 
 have been levied, in case that men had not of late been sore ^- ^ 
 charged with service doing to his Highness here, whereby 
 we be constrained to look on them with more favourable eye.' l 
 
 Brabazon reported that the Commissioners had done their The public 
 work well. The passing of his own three years' account was 
 a yet more difficult matter. They found it tedious and in- 
 tricate, both from its nature and from the fact that there were 
 no records of the King's ancient inheritance, or of escheats. 
 Brabazon's own arrangements were good, but all before his 
 time was chaos. ' Every keeper,' said the Master of the 
 Rolls, ' for his time, as he favoured, so did either embezzle, 
 or suffer to be embezzled, such muniments as should make 
 against them and their friends, so that we have little to show 
 for any of the King's lands or profits in these parts : it is 
 therefore necessary that from henceforth all the rolls and 
 muniments to be had be put in good order in Bermingham's 
 Tower, and the door thereof to have two locks, and the keys 
 thereof one to be with the Constable, and the other with the 
 Under-Treasurer, which likewise it is necessary to be an 
 Englishman born ; and that no man be suffered to have loan 
 of any of the said muniments, nor to search, view, or read 
 any of them there, but in the presence of one of the keepers 
 aforesaid.' The accounts were nevertheless put in order by 
 March ; and having received very gracious thanks from the 
 King, St. Leger and his colleagues returned to England, 
 ' not,' as they were careful to note, ' for that we be weary to 
 serve his Grace, but for because we be very loth to spend 
 any more of his treasure, than we see time to serve him.' 
 Aylmer and Alen, by the King's especial orders, accompanied 
 the High Commissioners to England. 2 
 
 The official politicians of Ireland generally took care to Cromwell 
 be on good terms with the virtual ruler of England, and to j"^ e 
 watch for every sign of change in the distribution of royal service - 
 
 1 St. Leger and others to Cromwell, Nov. 15, 1537, and Jan. 2, 1538. 
 
 2 J, Alen to St. Leger, S.P., vol. ii. p. 486, 1537. St. Leger and others 
 to Cromwell, Jan. 2, 1538; to Wriothesley, Feb. 11. The King to St. 
 Leger and others, Jan. 17. The Commissioners sailed from Dublin in April.
 
 234 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, favours. Cromwell was therefore well bespattered with flat- 
 -T_' , ' _- tery ; but there were murmurs, some at least of which reached 
 his ears. St. Leger the discreet may or may not have glanced 
 obliquely at the Lord Privy Seal when he said of himself that 
 ' he had too long abstained from bribery to begin now.' But 
 his colleague George Paulet was more outspoken, and declared 
 openly that ' the Lord Privy Seal drew every day towards his 
 death, and that he escaped very hardly at the last insurrec- 
 tion, and that he was the greatest briber in England, and that 
 he was espied well enough.' Cromwell had given orders that 
 the Commissioners should not interfere with castles in Lord 
 Butler's possession, and to this Paulet objected, hinting that 
 Butler's head as well as Cromwell's might easily be disposed 
 of. His reading of Henry's character was exactly the same 
 as Wolsey's. * I will,' he said, ' so work matters that the 
 King shall be informed of every penny that he hath spent 
 here ; and when that great expense is once in his head, it 
 shall never be forgotten ; there is one good point. And then 
 I will inform him how he hath given away to one man 700 
 marks by year, and then will the King swear " By God's 
 Body, have I spent so much money and have given away 
 my land." I will find the means to put the matter in the 
 King's head, after that wise as shall be to his displeasure; 
 and yet shall he not know which way it came.' Paulet gave 
 Alen a most amusing description of the fashion in which 
 Henry treated the minister to whom he gave such power. 
 ' The King beknaveth him twice a week and sometimes 
 knocks him well about the pate ; and yet when he hath been 
 well pommelled about the head, and shaken up as it were a 
 dog, he will come out into the great chamber shaking of his 
 bush with as merry a countenance as though he might rule 
 all the roast.' The appointment of the High Commissioners 
 was a ' flym flawe to stop the imagination of the King and 
 Council ' as to Cromwell's object in promoting great grants 
 to Lord Butler. The suggestion of course is that Cromwell 
 was bribed by Butler, and the fact that Paulet was not 
 punished shows that there were limitations to the minister's 
 power. Paulet said as much, or nearly as much, to Grey as
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 235 
 
 to Alen and Aylmer, and Grey repeated it to the King with CHAP, 
 some softening of the words. Paulet was evidently hostile to - ^-^ ' 
 the Butlers ; so was Grey, and the fact that they had been on 
 friendly terms was thought evidence of their conspiring in 
 the Geraldine interest. 1 
 
 Aylmer and Alen were less than two months in London, Charges 
 but they left behind them a mass of accusations against Grey Grey, 
 which in time brought forth fruit. Alen soon afterwards the C c!mncil 
 received the Great Seal, and during the last days of 1538 ^ 
 proceeded on a tour in the South with the general view of !S39. 
 establishing the King's supremacy, of improving the revenue, 
 and of providing for the administration of justice. Arch- 
 bishop Browne, Brabazon, and Aylmer accompanied the new 
 Chancellor. At Carlow the party enjoyed Lord Butler's 
 Christmas hospitalities, and the old Earl treated them well 
 at Kilkenny, where they spent New Year's day, and where 
 Browne preached to a large congregation. English transla- 
 tions of the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Articles, and Ten Com- 
 mandments were published, and copies given to the Bishop 
 and other dignitaries, who were ordered to promulgate them 
 wherever they had jurisdiction. Next morning several felons 
 were hanged, and certain concealed lands sequestrated to the 
 King's use ; neither of which proceedings were calculated to 
 increase his Majesty's popularity. The councillors then went 
 to Ross, which they found much decayed through the rivalry 
 of Waterford and the disorders of the Kavanaghs. Here the 
 Archbishop preached again. At Wexford there was another 
 sermon, and the Kilkenny ceremonies were repeated, includ- 
 ing the execution of divers malefactors. The Councillors 
 were dissatisfied with Saintloo's conduct as seneschal, and 
 accused him of converting fines and forfeited recognizances 
 to his own use. Badly armed and badly horsed, the soldiers 
 appeared to do the people less good by their protection than 
 they did harm by their extortion. The evils inherent to all 
 palatinate jurisdictions were greatly aggravated by the sene- 
 schal's lax administration. It was doubtful whether he had 
 
 1 Interrogatories, with Aylmer and Alen's answers, as to Paulet's con- 
 versations, are printed in the S.P., vol. ii. pp. 551-353.
 
 236 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 rilAP. 
 
 Ml. 
 
 The royal 
 
 ciipremacy. 
 
 The 
 
 M mister 
 Bishops. 
 
 Taxation of 
 
 .southern 
 
 counties. 
 
 the right to appoint a deputy at all. He had nevertheless 
 made such an appointment by parole and without any formal 
 record, and his irregular substitute had arrogated all the 
 powers of a Judge of Assize. 1 
 
 From Wexford Alen and his companions went to Water- 
 ford, where Browne preached to a great audience, and where 
 the new formularies were again published. The usual hang- 
 ings followed. Four felons suffered, ' accompanied with 
 another thief, a friar, whom, among the residue, we com- 
 manded to be hanged in his habit, and so to remain upon the 
 gallows, for a mirror to all other his brethren to live truly.' 
 The assizes or sessions were attended only by the inhabitants 
 of Lord Power's portion of the county of Waterford. The 
 other and larger division of the shire belonged to Gerald 
 MacShane of Decies, who pretended to hold of the Desmonds, 
 and altogether ignored his tenure of the royal honour of 
 Dungarvan. The Lord of Decies, James Fitzjohn of Desmond, 
 the White Knight, and Sir Thomas Butler of Cahir were 
 summoned with several others. Butler came to Clonmel and 
 made a favourable impression, but the Geraldines sent only 
 ' frivolous, false, feigned excuses, not consonant to their 
 allegiance.' Browne preached again at Clonmel in the pre- 
 sence of two archbishops and eight bishops, all of whom 
 afterwards, before the whole congregation, took the oath of 
 supremacy, and swore to maintain the succession as estab- 
 lished by law. 2 
 
 After much pressing, the inhabitants of Wexford, Water- 
 ford, Kilkenny, and Tipperary consented to pay a yearly sub- 
 sidy to the King ; 100 marks for Wexford, and 501. for each 
 of the other three. This source of revenue was quite new, and 
 the Council were very proud of inventing it ; but they con- 
 
 1 Alen and others to Cromwell, Jan. 18, 1539. In his letter to Crom- 
 well of Sept. 8, 1539, R. Cowley says Saintloo did no service, but kept in a 
 corner like a King, used every kind of extortion, and took no notice of the 
 universal outcry against him. ' Such a liberty,' says Cowley, ' is more like 
 to induce them to plain rebellion than to any civil order.' 
 
 2 Council of Ireland to Cromwell, Feb. 8, 1539, and also the letter of 
 Jan. 18, and Browne to Cromwell, Feb. 16. The letter of Jan. 18 says 
 'all the Bishops of Munster' were summoned.
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 237 
 
 fessed to doubts as to its substantial value, especially in CHAP. 
 
 Waterford, where Sir Gerald MacShane had power to pay < ^ 
 
 or to withhold. From Clonmel the councillors returned to 
 Dublin by Kilkenny, where they hanged one man more and 
 levied some further fines. They had been absent from the 
 capital five weeks. 1 
 
 About the time that the Chancellor and his companions Grey in 
 
 Ulster. 
 
 were turning homewards, Grey undertook another expedition The Scots, 
 against O'Neill. Again the ostensible object was to catch l 
 young Gerald of Kildare, and in this the Lord Deputy failed. 
 But he very nearly caught O'Neill himself, actually carried 
 off his ' housewife,' and ravaged much of his country. O'Don- 
 nell was present, or at least some of his people, for the horse 
 which his standard-bearer rode was taken. James Fitzjohn 
 of Desmond was in alliance with the two great northern 
 chiefs to protect the ' naughty boy,' as Alen called Gerald, 
 and if possible to force the King to restore him. The bastard 
 Geraldines of the Pale were ready to help their natural leader, 
 who grew more dangerous as he grew older. The Antrim 
 Scots were always available for service against the Eng- 
 lish Government, and Brabazon wished to cripple them by a 
 naval expedition. O'Neill and O'Donnell now sent Roderick 
 O'Donnell, Bishop of Derry, to Scotland for 6,000 Redshanks. 
 In the meantime they professed themselves ready to treat 
 with Grey, and promised to bring young Gerald to meet him 
 on the last day of April at Carrick Bradagh, near Dundalk. 
 They never came, and Grey penetrated to Armagh in spite 
 of bad weather and foul ways. O'Neill still refused to show 
 himself or to give any hostage, but he professed peaceable 
 intentions. The weather made it impossible to advance fur- 
 ther, and Aylmer was sent to Blackwater, where he succeeded 
 in making a truce. Again, Grey says that he had intended 
 to seize his nephew by fair means or foul. ' If they had 
 kept pointment with me having young Gerald with them, 
 howsoever the thing had chanced by the oath that I have 
 made unto your Grace, they should have left the young 
 
 1 The Council of Ireland to Cromwell, Jan. 18 and Feb. 8. Both letters 
 are signed by Alen, Aylmer, and Brabazon ; the second by Browne also.
 
 233 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The 
 OTooles. 
 
 Intrigues 
 concerning 
 Gerald of 
 KiUare. 
 
 Gerald behind them quick or dead. If it were the pleasure 
 of God I would that I might once have a sight of him whom 
 as yet I never saw with my eyes.' l 
 
 The O'Tooles had never been punished for their victory 
 over Kelway, and Grey, who had for the moment no worse 
 enemy than a gouty foot, resolved to chastise them. They 
 proposed to parley near Ballymore Eustace, but did not come. 
 Though in great pain, Grey rode to Powerscourt in a day, 
 entered the mountains and penetrated to Glenmalure, cutting 
 the woods on both sides as he went. * Before my coming 
 thither,' he said, ' I think there never was Deputy with carts 
 there.' He had some skirmishing with the natives, but took 
 no man of importance, and returned to Maynooth without 
 having improved his gout. 2 
 
 A confederacy had at this time been formed in favour of 
 young Gerald. His own claims might not have been enough, 
 in spite of Lady Eleanor O'Donnell's efforts, but Henry's 
 ecclesiastical policy was beginning to bear its natural fruit. 
 Priests passed from chief to chief, and communications with 
 Rome were frequent. The Irish said all Englishmen were 
 heretics, and the King the * most heretic and worst man in 
 the world,' in which perhaps they were not far wrong. They 
 considered Henry a disobedient Papal vassal, and a mere 
 usurper in Ireland. ' When Dr. Nangle, my suffragan,' says 
 Archbishop Browne, ' showed the King's broad seal for justi- 
 fying of his authority, Mac William little esteemed it, but 
 threw it away and vilipended the same.' The plan was that 
 O'Toole, to whom Gerald promised to restore Powerscourt, 
 should harass the Pale from the south, while James Fitzjohn 
 of Desmond, with some Scotch mercenaries, attacked it from 
 the west and O'Neill from the north. If Tara could be 
 reached O'Neill might be proclaimed King of Ireland, and 
 Gerald restored to his own in Kildare. Besides her own 
 
 1 Grey to the King, May 9, 1539; Walter Cowley to Cromwell, Feb. 18, 
 1/539; Thomas Wusle, Constable of Carrick Fergus, to Laurans, Constable 
 of Ardglass, March 1539, in Caretc; confession of Connor More O'Connor, 
 servant to young Gerald, April 17, 1589; Brabazon to Cromwell, May 26; 
 (Jerot Fleming to Cromwell, April 27. 
 
 * Grey to Cromwell, June 30, 1539.
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 239 
 
 friends, Lady Eleanor commanded the services of a Bristol CHAP. 
 
 XII 
 captain named Kate, or Cappys, who spoke Irish fluently r-1 
 
 and owned his own ship. John Lynch, a Galway merchant, 
 met him at Assaroe, on the Donegal coast, and warned some 
 of the confederates that Grey would be too strong for them, 
 and that he was active enough to surprise them when they 
 thought he was amusing himself. But Delahide, Leverous, 
 and others, answered that they had perfect intelligence, that 
 Grey could not ride twenty miles in the Pale without their 
 knowledge, that his army consisted chiefly of churls and 
 ploughmen, of which 300 might easily be vanquished by 100, 
 and that he had no good officers under him. These are the 
 arguments with which the foes of order in Ireland have always 
 deluded their adherents, and sometimes themselves. 1 
 
 Wherever Lynch went he found the priests preaching daily Catholic 
 ' that every man ought for the salvation of his soul fight and moven 
 make war against our sovereign lord the King's Majesty and his 
 true subjects ; and if any of them which so shall fight against 
 his said Majesty or his subjects, die in the quarrel, his soul that 
 so shall be dead shall goto heaven as the soul of St. Peter, Paul, 
 and others, which suffered death and martyrdom for God's 
 sake.' ' And forasmuch,' Lynch adds, ' as I did traverse some- 
 what of such words, I was cast out of church and from their 
 masses during a certain time of days for an heretic ; and I 
 
 was greatly afraid.' The result of all this preaching was an 
 invasion of the Pale in the month of August. Lord Butler's 
 policy had kept the O'Briens quiet, and nothing was done on 
 that side. But O'Donnell and O'Neill entered Meath with 
 the greatest army, as some thought, that had ever been seen 
 in Ireland. There was a large contingent of Scots, both 
 from the mainland and the islands, and most of the Northern 
 chiefs added their quotas to the host. O'Neill of Clandeboye, 
 O'Rourke, Maguire, MacQuillin, O'Cahan, Magennis, and 
 MacDermot are among those mentioned. Tara was reached, 
 but no restoration of the ancient kingdom followed. Much 
 
 1 Alen to Cromwell, July 10, 1539, and the documents printed in the 
 notes ; Robert Cowley to Cromwell, Sept. 8 ; Archbishop Browne to Crom- 
 well, Feb. 16, 1539.
 
 240 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 ,CHAP. damage was done to the modern kingdom, including the 
 
 " , ' > burning of Ardee and of Na van, which was the best market 
 
 town in the county. The invaders set fire to the standing 
 
 corn, carried off every portable article of value, and, sweeping 
 
 all the cattle before them, turned in high spirits northwards. 
 
 They had met with no enemy, and had probably attained 
 
 their object of providing funds for a general rising, which 
 
 was fixed for September 1, and which James of Desmond was 
 
 expected to join. 1 
 
 Grey routs Grey summoned the men of Dublin and Drogheda, those 
 
 the O'Neills J 
 
 atBeiiahoe, citizen soldiers whom the Irish dreaded so much, and hurried 
 
 after O'Neill. Out of a nominal 350 he could muster no 
 more than 140 of his own men, but he had some help from 
 the gentlemen of the Pale. The marchers, like Rob Roy at 
 Sheriffinuir, waited to see which was the winning side. ' I 
 must help the King,' said Fitzgerald of Osbertstown, to 
 Gerald's messenger, l but if ye be the strongest we must go 
 with you.' Without waiting for such Laodiceans, the Lord 
 Deputy dashed forward, and, as Lynch had foreseen, caught 
 the Ulstermen quite unprepared. They were encamped at 
 Bellahoe, the ford which divides Meath from Monaghan, on 
 the Farney side of the water, and he routed them before they 
 had time to form. The Irish leaders who knew the country 
 escaped, with the exception of Magennis, whose post was near 
 the ford. He fell into the hands of the Louth men, who were 
 bribed by some of his own clan to kill him, and did so. The 
 only person of note killed on the English side was a gentleman 
 named Mape, who charged up the river bank by Lord Slane's 
 side, and who was carried by his runaway horse into the 
 midst of the Irish. According to Stanihurst, whose account 
 of this affair is at least highly coloured, the mayors of 
 Dublin and Drogheda and Thomas Talbot of Malahide were 
 dubbed knights on the field by the Lord Deputy. He also 
 says that Black James Fleming, Baron of Slane, led the 
 attack, and called on his hereditary standard-bearer to do his 
 duty in the front. But the standard-bearer, whose name was 
 Robert Halpin or Halfpenny, thought the service desperate, 
 1 Four Matters, 1539 ; R. Cowley to Cromwell, Sept. 8.
 
 END OF GREYS ADMINISTRATION. 241 
 
 and refused to advance his banner, preferring l to sleep in an CHAP. 
 whole sheepskin his pelt, than to walk in a torn lion his >- r-^ ' 
 skin.' Calling him a dastardly coward, the Baron ordered 
 Kobert Betagh to supply his place, which he cheerfully did : 
 Mape, though he had refused to lead, was fain to follow, and 
 fell fighting in the first rank. 1 
 
 After this great success, which shattered the Irish or Grey is 
 Catholic confederacy for a time, Grey remained in the North, favouring 
 A fleet had been collected at Carlingford to chastise the ^n^ eral " 
 Scots, and the crews had taken part in the fight or pursuit at 
 Bellahoe ; but not much could be done against the islanders. 
 The old Earl of Ormonde had just died, and his son was too 
 busy to visit Ulster. He had incurred vast expense in sub- 
 sidising the O'Briens and the Clanricarde Burkes, who were 
 ready to serve the King with 800 gallowglasses, 800 kerne, 
 and some horse. James Fitzjohn of Desmond was growing 
 daily stronger, while his rival was basking in Court sunshine ; 
 and Ormonde attributed this state of affairs to the Lord 
 Deputy, who favoured all Geraldines and depressed all who 
 owed their promotion to Cromwell. James Fitzjohn had seen 
 the Earl's brother, the Archbishop of Cashel, and had pro- 
 mised to meet Ormonde also, but he failed in his appointment, 
 and threatened at every moment to attack Tipperary. 2 
 
 The English Government had in the meantime declared The 
 that James FitzMaurice was right heir to the earldom of Des- heritage. 
 mond. He had been a royal page, and was provided with a 
 force sufficient to guard against any sudden attack. He 1639 
 landed at Cork or Youghal in August, but three months 
 elapsed before any serious effort was made to put him in 
 possession of his own. Leaving Dublin early in November, 
 
 1 Four Masters and Annals of Lough Ce, 1539; Book of HomtTi; R. 
 Cowley to Cromwell, Sept. 8, 1539. In a letter to Cromwell, dated April 20, 
 1 540 (in Carem), the Dowager Countess of Ormonde mentions the service 
 of her niece's husband Gerald Fleming. In his note to the Four Masters 
 O'Donovan says roundly that Stanihurst's account is ' fabricated ; ' but it 
 is corroborated by an Irish MS., for which see Shirley's History of Monaghan, 
 p. 36. 
 
 - R. Cowley to Cromwell, Sept. 8, 1539 ; James, Earl of Ormonde, and 
 Ossory to Cromwell, Oct. 19 ; to Wriothesley, Oct. 21. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 242 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. Grey joined Ormonde near Roscrea, about which there had 
 
 ' ^ been fierce dissensions. The castle was now in the hands of 
 
 the O'Meaghers, but they gave it up peaceably to the Lord 
 Deputy, and he handed it over to Ormonde. Modreeny, 
 which the Earl now acknowledged as O'Carroll's, was also 
 surrendered. Taking hostages from O'Carroll, MacBrien 
 Arra, O'Kennedy, O'Mulryan, and O'Dwyer to be faithful 
 and pay the King tribute, Grey and Ormonde cut passes 
 through the woods near the Shannon, the inhabitants of which 
 had guided the O'Briens in their raids. They halted two 
 days at Thurles, where Sir Gerald MacShane and the White 
 Knight thought it prudent to submit themselves, and vic- 
 tualled their troops about Cashel and Clonmel. At Youghal 
 they delivered all the castles of Imokilly to the young Earl 
 of Desmond, and two nephews of former Earls accepted him 
 as the head of their House. At Cork Lord Barry, who had 
 held aloof for years, came in and gave security. Hither also 
 came the sons of Cormac Oge, and it was probably on this 
 occasion that their sister Mary MacCarthy married the young 
 Earl. The union was not fated to last long, nor to give an 
 heir to the House of Desmond. The barony of Kerrycurrihy 
 was taken possession of at Kinsale, and MacCarthy Reagh, in 
 whose castle of Kilbrittain Gerald of Kildare had lately found 
 a home, consented to come to Cork and to give his brother as 
 a hostage. He hesitated to sacrifice his cattle, and was easily 
 persuaded by Ormonde, who was now on unusually good 
 terms with Grey. Barry Roe and Barry Oge also gave se- 
 curity. The army then shifted to O'Callaghan's country, and 
 near Dromaneen James Fitzjohn came to the other side of the 
 flooded Blackwater and defied Grey. He would, he said, 
 conclude nothing without the advice of O'Brien, who could 
 dispose of all the Irishry of Ireland. Grey could not pass the 
 river, and returned to Cork. John Travers, a native of Ire- 
 land who had learned the art of war elsewhere, had lately 
 been appointed Master of the Ordnance, and accompanied 
 this expedition, in which only 800 men were employed. 
 Travers said that he would go anywhere in Ireland with 2,000 
 men, and Grey's exploits, no less than Sidney's later, show
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 243 
 
 that he was right : the difficulty was not to take but to keep. CHAP. 
 1 Six thousand good men/ Travers added, ' divided in three - - ^ - 
 places as I could give instruction, with certain craftsmen to in- 
 habit the places they win, might make a general reformation 
 in one summer.' The advice was sound, but the Crown could 
 not afford to take it. 1 
 
 Once more before young Gerald had left Ireland did Grey Grey's last 
 turn his attention to the North. For the third time O'Neill 
 
 promised to meet him, and for the third time he failed to 
 appear. Without victuals, and trusting to plunder for the 
 support of his men, the Lord Deputy then rode ' thirty-four 
 miles of ill way ' to Dungannon, and again nearly caught the 
 troublesome chief. But the guides, perhaps intentionally, 
 delayed the soldiers on their night march, and daybreak 
 found them still five miles from Dungannon. O'Neill had 
 time to escape. Six days were spent in promiscuous burn- 
 ings, during which the soldiers had no bread and lived on 
 freshly killed beef: it is no wonder that disease was rife in 
 the ranks. This was Grey's last warlike expedition ; suc- 
 cessful in a certain sense, but quite useless as a matter of 
 policy. 2 
 
 Grey had often asked leave to go to Court and lay the state Recall of 
 of Ireland before the King, begging that his adversaries might consequent 
 not be allowed to ruin him behind his back. His request confusion. 
 was now to be granted in an unexpected manner. One of 
 his last acts in Ireland was a quarrel with the Council, in 
 spite of whose remonstrances he sent over Travers, the Master 
 of the Ordnance, with despatches, though he seems to have 
 agreed with them that a man who could be better spared 
 would have done the business just as well. Sir William 
 Brereton, Marshal of the Army, had lately broken his leg, an 
 accident from which he seems never to have fully recovered ; 
 Edward Griffiths, another useful officer, was dying of diarrhoea ; 
 Travers was the only available officer, and his own depart- 
 ment was in bad order. Yet Grey sent him, perhaps because 
 
 1 Ormonde to Cromwell, Dec. 20, 1539; Travers to Mr. Fitzwilliam, 
 same date. Dromaneen is five miles above Mallow. 
 
 ' l Lord Deputy and Council to the King, Feb. 13, 1540. 
 
 B 2
 
 244 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, he thought his talk would be favourable to him. The im- 
 - 1-,-'-^ mediate result of Travers's journey was that the King sent for 
 Grey, professing his anxiety to see him and to send him back 
 to Ireland in time for the fighting season at the end of May. 
 Brereton was to act as Lord Justice during his absence. 
 Henry declared himself willing to raise the wages of soldiers 
 in Ireland, which had been fixed three years before at 5Z. 6s. 8d. 
 a year for horsemen and half that sum for footmen, and which 
 had been found quite inadequate. Deplorable disorders had 
 resulted from the necessities of the men. Henry expressed 
 his intention of keeping the troops on the Irish borders instead 
 of in Dublin. Coming events cast their accustomed shadow 
 before, and Grey's recall, for recall it was understood to be, 
 was known to the public sooner than to the officials. It was 
 of course suggested that Grey purposely concealed the truth 
 in order to embarrass the Council ; and he refused their prayer 
 to stay until arrangements had been made for the defence of 
 the Pale. His activity had evidently inspired respect, for he 
 had no sooner crossed the Channel than the O'Tooles made a 
 raid towards Dublin. O'Byrne warned the citizens, and they 
 had time to make ready. The Kavanaghs attacked the Wex- 
 ford settlers. The O'Connors burned Kildare. Alen and 
 Brabazon had also been called to England, but they were 
 obliged to wait for a fitter time. ' The country,' wrote Brere- 
 ton in excusing their absence, ' is in very ill case, being assured 
 of no Irishman's peace.' l 
 Trial and An enormous number of charges were brought against 
 
 cx6cii * ion 
 
 of Grey. Grey. He was accused of maintaining the King's enemies 
 and depressing the King's friends, of injustice to Irishmen 
 and others, of violence towards Councillors and others, and 
 of extortion. There is no reason to suppose that he could 
 have taken young Gerald, with whom, in Stanihurst's quaint 
 language, he was accused of ' playing bo-peep ;' but no doubt 
 he had been guilty of much injustice, as his unprovoked in- 
 
 1 Brereton to Essex, May 17, 1540 and May 7; Council of Ireland to 
 Essex, April 30 ; Ormonde to Essex, May 1 ; Alen and Brabazon to Essex, 
 May 8 ; the King's letter to Grey and Brereton is dated April 1. For the 
 dispute about Travers, see Council of Ireland to Cromwell, March 1 4.
 
 END OF GREY'S ADMINISTRATION. 245 
 
 vasion of Ferney and his treatment of O'More sufficiently CHAP. 
 
 prove. He cannot be called a man of scrupulous honour, or < ^- - 
 
 he would not have arrested the Geraldines at dinner, or pro- 
 fessed his intention to capture his nephew by fair means or 
 foul. But Henry VIII. knew how to pardon such conduct, 
 though he could punish his instruments when it suited him. 
 The Irish chiefs felt that they could not trust Grey, and 
 therefore kept no faith with him. He was accused on all 
 sides of greed, and especially of making useless expeditions 
 for the sake of plunder. The usual inquisition made after 
 his arrest shows that he had some private hoards. He was 
 violent in Council, and no doubt it was often hard for a 
 Viceroy, especially for one who suffered from gout, to deal 
 with the Dublin officials, who were independent of him and 
 sometimes spies on his conduct. ' I think,' says Walter 
 Cowley, ' there is not one of the King's Council there but 
 my Lord Deputy successively have sore fallen out with them.' 
 But he was rude and tyrannical to others also, as to Lord 
 Delvin, whose life he was accused of shortening by insults, 
 and especially by calling him traitor, 'which,' says the old 
 Earl of Ormonde, ' shall never be proved.' In any case and 
 whatever his actual guilt, a cloud of witnesses appeared to 
 denounce Grey. 1 He pleaded guilty, rather in hopes of mercy 
 than acknowledging his faults ; but no pardon followed. That 
 
 1 The charges against Grey may be gathered from the Articles, &c., by 
 Aylmer and Alen in S.P., vol. iii. No. 237, and their letter to St. Leger 
 June 27, 1538 ; Ormonde to Cowley, July 16 and 20 ; the Council of Ireland's, 
 Articles, Oct. 1540 ; Stanihurst. The Articles of the Council seem to have 
 been carefully scrutinised by Wriothesley. In his letter to the King of 
 July 20, 1540, O'Neill says Grey, ' guerras et contentiones in partibus istis 
 seminavit sui lucrandi causa.' On June 20, 1538, Lord Butler writes to. 
 Cowley that ' our governor threatens every man after such a tyrannous 
 sort, as no man dare speak openly or repugn against his appetite ; ' and on 
 July 20, his father says, ' the Lord Deputy is occupied without the advice 
 of the Council, for his own private lucre and gain.' On the trial of StrafEorcl 
 Oliver St. John the man who said that ' stone-dead hath no fellow ' 
 cited Grey's case as a precedent for trying in England treasons committed 
 in Ireland. Grey was Viscount Grane in Ireland, but he was declared no 
 peer, and tried as a commoner in England ; see Howell's State Trials. As 
 to Grey's private hoards, see a letter from R. Cowley to Norfolk, printed by 
 Ellis, second series, No. 126, and wrongly placed under 1538 ; it belon 
 1540.
 
 246 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, he had any treasonable intention is more than doubtful, but 
 ' r * there was more against him than against Buckingham ; he 
 suffered a year's imprisonment in the Tower, and then under- 
 went the fate to which his treacherous compliance with a 
 tyrant's wishes had condemned his Geraldine kinsmen.
 
 247 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1540 AND 1541. 
 
 WITH the usual plundering inroads on the Pale Brereton was CHAP. 
 
 able to cope ; and the greater chieftains were quiet, for Gerald , L- 
 
 of Kildare was safe. O'Donnell, who may have resented his ^he 
 
 J O Xeills. 
 
 treatment by Lady Eleanor, readily reverted to his father's Scottish 
 policy, and no difficulty was made about his pardon. O'Neill 
 held aloof, but again professed himself ready to come to 
 Carrick Bradagh. Again he failed to appear, and pleaded 
 that he dared not approach Dundalk through fear of Grey's 
 manifest treachery. He offered to come to Magennis's Castle 
 at Narrowater, a beautiful spot near the mouth of the Newry 
 river and the foot of the Mourne Mountains. Brereton agreed, 
 and a meeting at last took place. O'Neill declared his readi- 
 ness to perform all that he had promised to Skeffington, to 
 send a trusty messenger to the King, and to leave pardon or 
 punishment for the past to the royal discretion. Till the 
 answer came he was content to be at peace with the Govern- 
 ment, and to keep his neighbours quiet. He was at this 
 time intriguing with Scotland, and his secretary was actually 
 at Edinburgh. Cromwell had received information that eight 
 Irishmen had been with the Scottish King, to whom they 
 had brought sealed letters from the principal chiefs, contain- 
 ing offers to take him as their lord and to do homage to him. 
 It was even said that James meditated an invasion of Ireland 
 in person. O'Neill probably waited for the result of these 
 negotiations before sending a confidential servant with a letter 
 to Henry. He begged the King not to send his enemies into 
 his country, where Grey had, as he affirmed, sowed dissen- 
 sions from selfish motives. He was willing to do anything 
 he was asked, unless the new Lord Deputy should prove very
 
 248 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, extortionate, and he advised the King not to waste his money 
 
 >.-* , '-* in Ulster. Henry answered graciously, and acknowledged some 
 
 trifling presents which accompanied the chiefs letter. Future 
 
 royal favours, his Majesty was careful to point out, must 
 
 depend on performance and not on promises. Pardon in 
 
 the meantime would be granted for the heinous offences 
 
 committed. 1 
 
 Murder of With the sea at hand, and Ormonde ever ready to help 
 
 James 1 itx- 
 
 Maurice, him, it was supposed that James FitzMaurice would be able 
 Desmond, to maintain himself as Earl of Desmond. At first he con- 
 fined himself to Kerrycurrihy and Imokilly, but after three 
 months he was tempted to go inland towards the Limerick 
 district, in which James Fitzjohn's strength lay. Near 
 Fermoy he was set upon and murdered by his rival's brother, 
 who had earned the title of ' Maurice of the Burnings.' James 
 Fitzjohn, who now believed himself to be undisputed Earl, at 
 once repaired to Youghal, where he was well received and 
 joined by all the chiefs who had lately made such professions 
 to Grey and Ormonde. The garrison had, through over-con- 
 fidence, withdrawn to Waterford. Gerald of Kildare had just 
 escaped to France, and the web of policy which the English 
 Government had cast over both branches of the Geraldines 
 was torn to pieces for the time. 8 
 James There was no evidence of James Fitzi'ohn's complicity in 
 
 Fitzjohn IB J 
 
 allowed to his cousin s murder, and Ormonde received the King's autho- 
 
 him. rity to pardon him, if he could be brought to promise good 
 
 1 For the intrigues with Scotland, see Brereton to Essex, May 17, 1540, 
 and the note, S.P. vol. iii., and Layton to Essex, S.P. vol. v. p. 178 ; O'Neill's 
 letter to Henry was dated July 20 ; the King's letter to O'Neill is dated 
 Sept. 7 ' literas vestras un& cum mvnvsciilit grato animo accepimus.' 
 For O'Donnell's submission, see Henry's letter to him of Aug. 20, acknow- 
 ledging his letters ' per dilectum nobis Johannem Cappis, mercatorem 
 Bristoliensem.' St. Leger brought over O'Neill's pardon. 
 
 2 In a letter to Cromwell of December 23, 1539, in Caarerv, William 
 Wise, of Waterford, almost foretold the murder, which (according to Mr. 
 Graves's pedigree in the Irish Archaeological Journal) took place on 
 March 19 following. The pedigree says the murder was in Kerry, but 
 other accounts, which are evidently correct, point to the neighbourhood of 
 Fermoy or Mitchelstown. Council of Ireland to the King, April 4, 1540 ; 
 Archdall's Lodge ; Russell. O'Daly (chap, xii.) admits that the murder was 
 premeditated.
 
 1540 AND 1541. 249 
 
 behaviour. He preferred to ally himself with O'Brien, and CHAP. 
 
 X!I1 
 
 pleaded that Irish confederacies were too strong for him to >- r '-* 
 withstand. To gain his confidence Ormonde risked his own 
 person in the Desmond country for two nights, and passed 
 right through it to parley with O'Brien, who refused to listen 
 to anything. But Desmond would not show himself, and 
 Ormonde then went for a few weeks to England. On his 
 return he found that little harm had been done, and this he 
 attributed solely to O'Brien having been out of his mind. 
 But Desmond claimed the credit of holding his hand. ' In 
 like,' he wrote to Ormonde, ' I desire you, according to my 
 full trust, for to bring me in the King's favour the best ye can ; 
 and in case that his Grace will so accept me, I trust we shall 
 both be able to do his Grace acceptable service according to our 
 duty.' On his return from England Ormonde at once resumed 
 negotiations, and St. Leger had been scarcely a month in 
 Ireland before he received friendly letters both from Desmond 
 and O'Brien. 1 
 
 In the meantime Cromwell's head had fallen on the Fall of 
 scaffold to which he had sent so many better men. Grey gfc.Legar 
 was in the Tower, and Henry found time to appoint a new p e ni yf e 
 Lord Deputy. He chose Sir Anthony St. Leger, who 164L 
 already knew much of Ireland, and whose temper would at 
 least save him from his predecessor's chief faults. Sir Patrick 
 Barnewall of Fieldston, an eminent lawyer, had lately enume- 
 rated the qualities desirable in a chief governor, and in so 
 doing had drawn a heavy indictment against the last holder 
 of that high office. The King, he said, should provide a 
 Deputy l faithful, sure, and constant in his promise, and in 
 especial to any concluding of peace ; and that he shall be 
 such a person that shall have more regard to his own honour 
 and promise than to any covetous desire of preys or booties of 
 cattle ; and that he shall make no wilful war, and when war is 
 made upon a good ground, that the same be followed till a 
 
 1 Ormonde to Brereton from Kilkenny, May 14 ; to the King, July 26, 
 from Waterford. He had been to England and back between these dates. 
 Desmond to Ormonde, July 8 ; Lord Deputy St. Leger to the King, 
 Sept. 12, 1540.
 
 250 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 " ' 
 
 St. Leger's 
 
 naghs. 
 
 perfect conclusion thereof be taken, and not left at large, nor 
 yet to take a faint peace ; and that the said Deputy shall not 
 be in weighty causes counselled nor guided by such persons 
 as be openly known to be ill-doers, or apt adherents of 
 the ill-doers in their ill-doings against the King's Majesty 
 and his Grace's subjects in time past, for the same hath and 
 may hinder.' In selecting St. Leger, Henry was probably 
 actuated in part by such motives, and in part by hopes of an 
 increased income. With him were associated as Revenue 
 Commissioners Thomas Walsh, Baron, and John Mynne, 
 Auditor of the English Exchequer, and William Cavendish, 
 Treasurer of the Court of Augmentations ; but the vice-regal 
 authority was not in any way impaired. 1 
 
 St. Leger seems clearly to have grasped the idea so often 
 put forth and so often neglected, that the pacification of Ire- 
 land must begin with the neighbourhood of the Pale, and 
 that distant expeditions were neither lightly to be undertaken 
 nor abandoned without attaining their object. He resolved 
 at once to punish those who had attacked the Pale at Grey's 
 departure, and he turned first to the Kavanaghs. Ormonde 
 had lately ravaged Idrone for a week and taken hostages, 
 reporting that all the mischief was done by Donnell MacCahir, 
 ' who, having nothing to lose, adhereth to Tirlogh O'Toole.' 
 St. Leger now ravaged the territory far and wide, and at the 
 end of ten days the chief came in and submitted. He re- 
 nounced the name of MacMurrough, and agreed to hold his 
 lands of the Crown by knight-service. After the manner of 
 Deputies in their early days of office, St. Leger believed that 
 he had really made a final settlement. The Kavanaghs were 
 ready enough to make promises, and even to boast their 
 descent from the man who first brought the English to Ire- 
 land -, but St. Leger was destined to have plenty of trouble 
 with them. 3 
 
 1 P. Barnewall to Essex, May 19 ; Instructions to St. Leger and the 
 others, and to St. Leger alone, S.P., Aug. 16 and 20. St. Leger landed 
 Aug. 12, 1540. 
 
 1 Walter Cowley to St. Leger, March 15, 1541, ' from the border of Cahir; 
 MacArt's country.' St. Leger to the King, Sept, 12; Council of Ireland 
 to the King, Sept. 22.
 
 1540 AND 1541. 251 
 
 Offaly had been so often devastated that the new Lord CHAP. 
 
 XIII 
 Deputy could have little to do in that way; but the adjoining , '-* 
 
 district of Leix had been more fortunate, and its turn now I|^ 
 came. The O'Doynes, O'Dempseys, and others were separated a "d 
 by St. Leger's policy from O'Connor, whom it was proposed and their ' 
 to bridle by establishing fortified posts at Kinnegad in West- neig 
 meath, at Kishevan in Kildare, at Castle Jordan in Meath, 
 and at Ballinure in what is now the King's County. A letter 
 arrived from the King with orders to expel O'Connor from 
 his country and to give it to his brother Cahir, if he would 
 behave in a civilised manner, as he had often promised to do. 
 The incorrigible rebel should be made an example to all 
 Ireland by his perpetual exile and just punishment. But this 
 could not be honourably done, for Brereton had made a peace 
 during the difficult days that followed Grey's recall, and 
 O'Connor, whose submission was of the humblest, had done 
 no harm since then. St. Leger indeed showed some incon- 
 sistency in the matter, for he thought in September that 
 O'Connor could never be trusted, and in November he advised 
 his restoration to favour. Not only was it proposed to give 
 him a grant of his land, but also to raise him to the peerage 
 as Baron of Offaly, an ancient honour in the eclipsed family 
 of Kildare. 1 
 
 No tribe had hurt the Pale more than the O'Tooles, who The 
 could boast of giving a famous saint to Irish hagiology. 
 Originally possessed of the southern half of Kildare, they 
 had been driven into the Wicklow Mountains by Walter de 
 Biddlesford in the early days of the Anglo-Norman occupa- 
 tion. They were afterwards known as lords of Imaile, a small 
 district between Baltinglass and Grlendalough, and at one 
 time held nearly all the northern half of Wicklow. The 
 Earls of Kildare expelled them from Powerscourt, and lat- 
 terly they had led a very precarious life. True children of 
 the mist, they either bivouacked in the open or crept into 
 wretched huts to which Englishmen hesitated to give the 
 
 1 Council of Ireland to the King, Sept. 22, 1540; the King to the 
 Lord Deputy and Council, Sept. 7 and 8 ; Lord Deputy and Council to 
 the King, Nov. 13.
 
 252 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, name of houses. They cultivated no land, but levied 300?. 
 
 ' ' a year from their civilised neighbours, partly in black-rent 
 
 and partly in sheer plunder. The actual chief was Tirlogh 
 O'Toole, who professed himself anxious to mend his ways, and 
 offered to go to England and beg his lands of Henry himself. 
 There was something chivalrous in Tirlogh ; for when Grey 
 was hard pressed by the northern confederacy he sent him 
 word that ' since all those great lords were against him he 
 would surely be with him, but whensoever they were all at 
 peace, then he alone would be at war with him and the Eng- 
 lish Pale.' This simple-minded warrior had kept his word, 
 and he now begged St. Leger to write to Norfolk, in the belief 
 that the Duke would let him want nothing ' when he knew 
 that he had become an Englishman.' In return for his un- 
 dertaking to forego his exactions and to wear the English dress, 
 he asked for a grant of the district of Fercullen, comprising 
 Powerscourt and about twenty square miles of land, chiefly 
 rocks and woods, but with some fertile spots. St. Leger was 
 anxious to grant Tirlogh's terms, for the lands actually held 
 by him were worthless and would never pay to reclaim, while 
 the O'Tooles were obliged to live on the Pale. The hardy 
 mountaineers had nothing to lose, and they prevented land 
 enough to support 2,000 inhabitants from being cultivated 
 at all. The Lord Deputy accordingly sent over the wild man 
 with a special recommendation to Norfolk, whose Irish ex- 
 perience made him a natural mediator. Tirlogh was so poor 
 that St. Leger had to lend him 201. for his journey, and he 
 could not even afford decent clothes. ' It shall appear to 
 your Majesty,' wrote the Irish Government, ' that this Tir- 
 logh is but a wretched person and a man of no great power, 
 neither having house to put his head in, nor yet money in 
 his purse to buy him a garment, yet may he well make 200 
 or 300 men.' 
 
 Tirlogh remained nearly a month at Court, where he was 
 
 1 For the O'Tooles, see O'Donovan's Book of Rights, and his notes to the 
 Four Masters, 1180 and 1376; and Lord Deputy and Council to the King 
 Nov. 14, 1540, with the notes. These people had suffered from the Kildare 
 family as much as the Macgregors did from the Campbells. This may 
 partly explain Tirlogh's unwillingness to aid in restoring Gerald.
 
 1540 AND 1541. 253 
 
 very well treated ; perhaps Henry remembered how well CHAP. 
 Hugh O'Donnell had requited the kindness shown to him ' 
 
 long since. The grant was authorised, and care was taken 
 to make such a fair division among the clansmen as would Court, 
 prevent internal dissensions. Tirlogh became the King's 
 tenant by knight-service at a rent of five marks yearly, and 
 his brother Art Oge, a man of some ability, was gratified 
 with a grant of Castle Kevin. Henry desired that this case 
 should form a precedent, and that in future chiefs received to 
 peace and favour should be treated with on the same basis as 
 the O'Tooles. In doing this he followed the advice of some 
 of his wisest councillors at home. Cranmer, Audeley, and 
 Sadleir did not believe in the possibility of a thorough con- 
 quest, and rightly considered that Ireland would be best 
 gained by fair dealing. Pedants and flatterers might argue 
 that the King was actually entitled to most of the land, that 
 the Irish were intruders, and that grants to them were dero- 
 gatory to the royal dignity. To this it was answered that the 
 intrusions were of very old date, that future rebellions would 
 be more easily punished when they involved a breach of con- 
 tract, and that the Crown must gain by the mere acknow- 
 ledgment of its title. The O'Tooles at all events seem to 
 have given up plundering the Pale, and they make little fur- 
 ther figure in history. But they could not give up fighting 
 among themselves. The favoured Tirlogh had a grudge 
 against one of his clansmen, and pursued him daily in spite 
 of orders from the Government. At last the threatened man 
 caught his persecutor asleep, and in the early morning killed 
 him and all his companions ; f and we think,' wrote the Lord 
 Deputy and Council, 'the other would have done to him 
 likewise, if he might have gotten him at like advantage.' 
 Tirlogh left no legitimate children, but St. Leger never- 
 theless recommended that his son Brian should be allowed to 
 succeed him. 1 
 
 Finding Leinster in an unusually promising state, the 
 
 i The King to the Lord Deputy and Council, No. 332 in the S.P., and 
 his very important minute of March 26, 1541 ; Lord Deputy and Council to 
 the King, Dec. 7, 1542, and May 15, 1543.
 
 254 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIII. 
 
 i 
 
 Proposed 
 military 
 order. 
 The King 
 
 vetoes it. 
 
 Irish Council hit upon a strange device for keeping it per- 
 manently quiet. In the previous century Thomas, Earl of 
 Kildare, had established the Brotherhood of St. George, an 
 armed confraternity, whose thirteen officers, chosen from 
 among the loyal gentlemen of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, and 
 Louth, elected their own captain annually, but were paid by 
 the State. It was found necessary to dissolve this body by 
 an Act of Parliament, passed in 1494. Its object had been 
 the defence of the Pale against Irish enemies and English 
 rebels. It was now proposed to erect a new order, not named 
 after St. George, but holding its great ceremony on St. 
 George's day. It was to consist of a Grand Master and 
 twelve pensioners, with salaries amounting in the aggregate 
 to 1,OOOL The majority were to be Irishmen of family, who 
 might be kept out of mischief by fear of losing their pen- 
 sions. After seven years, promotion was to depend on know- 
 ing English, or having spent two years in the public service 
 in England ; the object being to induce Irish gentlemen to 
 cross the Channel and learn manners. As vacancies occurred 
 the persons chosen were to be bound ' not to have any wife 
 or wives.' The Council nominated Brabazon to be first 
 Grand Master ; but Ormonde put forth a list of his own, and 
 preferred his brother Kichard to the highest place. The 
 Council also proposed to make a pensioner of Lord Kilcullen, 
 and to place him in the castle of Clonmore, which had be- 
 longed to his family, but which the King had granted to 
 Ormonde. The Earl naturally ignored this claim, and there 
 were other differences in the rival lists. The Council sug- 
 gested elaborate machinery by which the Order might be 
 made to work for the reformation of Leinster ; but St. Leger 
 does not appear to have been a party to the scheme, and 
 perhaps opposed it quietly. The Bang, who had just 
 abolished the great military Order, had no idea of creating 
 another, though its patron saint should be St. George in- 
 stead of St. John. ' We do in no wise,' he said, ' like any part 
 of your device in that behalf.' By minding their business 
 and doing what they were told his Majesty hoped that they
 
 1540 AND 1541. 255 
 
 would ultimately succeed in reforming Leinster ' without the CHAP. 
 new erection of any such fantasies.' l > r '-^ 
 
 James Fitzjohn being now necessarily acknowledged Earl An ar- 
 of Desmond, one of St. Leger's first cares was to obtain his 
 submission. Satisfied at last that no treachery was intended, 
 Desmond agreed to meet the Lord Deputy at Cashel. Pass- 
 ing through Carlow and Kilkenny, St. Leger was joined by 
 Ormonde, who took care that the vice-regal retinue should be 
 well treated on the journey ; but Desmond at first held aloof, 
 and demanded that the chief of the Butlers should give him- 
 self up as a hostage before he trusted himself in English 
 hands. This was refused ; but Archbishop Browne, Travers, 
 the Master of the Ofdnance, and the Deputy's brother Robert 
 consented to run the risk. Desmond then appeared, and said 
 he was ready to do all that loyalty demanded. The proceed- 
 ings were adjourned to Sir Thomas Butler's house at Cahir, 
 and there Desmond signed a solemn notarial instrument, by 
 which he fully acknowledged the King's supremacy in Church 
 and State. ' I do,' he said, ' utterly deny and forsake the 
 Bishop of Rome, and his usurped primacy and authority, and 
 shall with all my power resist and repress the same and all 
 that shall by any means use and maintain the same.' He 
 renounced the pretensions of his family not to attend Parlia- 
 ment or enter any walled town. He agreed to abide by and 
 to enforce the King's decision as to the Kildare estates, 
 and to pay all such taxes as were paid in the territories 
 of Ormonde, Delvin, and other noblemen of like condition. 
 He constituted himself the defender of the corporate towns, 
 and gave up all claims to the allegiance of the Munster Eng- 
 lishry, with a partial reservation as to men of his own blood, 
 who held their lands under him or his ancestors. Finally, he 
 agreed to send his son to be educated in England. This was 
 Gerald, the ill-starred youth whose folly and vanity were 
 destined to work the final ruin of his House. The Archbishop 
 of Cashel and the Bishops of Limerick and Emly witnessed 
 the instrument, and the manner of the submission was as 
 
 1 For the scheme see S.P., vol. iii. No. 330 ; the King's answer is No. 337.
 
 256 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Dutiful 
 attitude of 
 Desmond 
 and 
 O'Brien. 
 
 satisfactory as a Tudor could wish. ' In presence/ wrote St. 
 Leger to the King, ' of MacWilliam, O'Connor, and divers 
 other Irish gentlemen, to the number of 200 at the least, he 
 kneeled down before me and most humbly delivered his said 
 submission, desiring me to deliver unto him his said pardon, 
 granted by your Majesty ; affirming that it was more glad to 
 him to be so reconciled to your favours, than to have any 
 worldly treasure ; protesting that no earthly cause should 
 make him from henceforth swerve from your Majesty's obe- 
 dience. And after that done, I delivered to him your said 
 most gracious pardon, which he most joyfully accepted.' He 
 was immediately sworn of the Council, and St. Leger asked 
 the King's indulgence for having done this without warrant. 
 Care was also taken to prevent a renewal of the quarrel be- 
 tween the new Privy Councillor and Ormonde, who had 
 married the heiress-general of a former Earl of Desmond, and 
 had thus large and indefinite claims on the family estates. 
 The rivals bound themselves in 4,OOOZ. to promote cross- 
 marriages between their children, and to keep the peace. 
 The claims of Ormonde through his wife were nevertheless 
 destined in the next generation to deluge Munster in blood. 1 
 Desmond accompanied St. Leger to Kilmallock, l where, I 
 think, none of your Grace's Deputies came this hundred years 
 before/ and treated him hospitably, openly declaring that he 
 was ready if the Deputy wished it to go to London to see the 
 King. O'Brien came peacefully to Limerick, complaining 
 chiefly that he was not allowed to bridge the Shannon nor to 
 exercise jurisdiction over friendly tribes on the left bank. 
 St. Leger promised him perpetual war unless he would yield 
 on both points, believing that he could do little harm without 
 the concurrence of Desmond, of the Clanricarde Burkes, or 
 of Donogh O'Brien. He was given till Shrovetide to consult 
 his friends, and at last decided to keep quiet and to send 
 agents to watch over his interests in Parliament. A pardon 
 was issued under the Great Seal of Ireland, and towards the 
 
 1 St. Leger to the King, Feb. 21, 1541. The submission was signed at 
 Cahir, Jan. 16. For the names of the notaries and of the chief spectators, 
 see Carew, vol. i. No. 153.
 
 1540 AND 1541. 257 
 
 end of the year O'Brien spontaneously addressed a very duti- CHAP. 
 ful letter to the King, begging personal as well as official r^* 
 forgiveness for his many sins. ' My mind,' he said, ' is never 
 satisfied till I have made the same submission to your Grace's 
 own person, whom I most desire to see above all creatures on 
 earth living, now in mine old days ; which sight I doubt not 
 but shall prolong my life.' l 
 
 Mac William Burke of Clanricarde and MacGillapatrick Mac- 
 professed anxiety for the royal favour, and accompanied St. Burke and 
 Leger on his tour. He prescribed an earldom for the former, pa trick. a ' 
 a barony for the latter, and Parliament-robes and other fine 
 clothes for both ; in the belief that titles and little acts of 
 civility would weigh more with these rude men than a display 
 of force. He himself had given MacWilliam a silver-gilt cup, 
 and in Limerick Desmond had from vanity or policy worn 
 ' gown, jacket, doublet, hose, shirts, caps, and a velvet riding 
 coat,' from the Lord Deputy's wardrobe. It was very im- 
 portant to conciliate MacWilliam, who could always prevent 
 a junction of the O'Briens and O'Donnells. MacGillapatrick 
 soon afterwards covenanted with the King to live civilly, to 
 act loyally, and to hold his lands of the Crown by knight- 
 service. MacWilliam wrote a letter to Henry confessing and 
 lamenting that his family had degenerated, and belied their 
 English blood, ' which have been brought to Irish and dis- 
 obedient rule by reason of marriage and nurseing with those 
 Irish, sometime rebels, near adjoining to me.' He placed 
 himself and all his possessions unreservedly in the King's 
 hands, but seems to have let it be known that he would like 
 to be an Earl. Henry refused this unless the repentant 
 Norman would come to Court, but he offered a barony or 
 viscounty without any condition. 2 
 
 Early in 1544 St. Leger received authority to summon a Parliament 
 Parliament. The composition of the House of Commons is 
 
 1 St. Leger to the King, Feb. 21, 1541 ; list of those who attended 
 Parliament, 1541, in S.P., vol. iii. p. 307 ; O'Brien to the King, vol. iii., 
 No. 352. 
 
 2 St. Leger to the King, Feb. 21, 1541; MacWilliam to the King, March 
 12, 1541; MacGillapatrick's submission, &c., S.P., vol. iii., No. 336; the 
 King to MacWilliam, May 1. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 < 'ii M'. uncc rtain, for no list of members is extant between 1382 and 
 >_' , '. . 1559. In the former of those years eighteen counties or dis- 
 tricts and eleven towns were represented. In the latter, ten 
 counties and twenty-eight cities and boroughs returned two 
 members each. Through the action of the royal prerogative 
 the number was progressively increased until the 300 of the 
 eighteenth century was reached. In St. Leger's time the 
 Upper House was the more important of the two, and was 
 attended by four archbishops, nineteen bishops, and twenty 
 temporal peers, of whom Desmond was one. Among the 
 temporal peers was Rawson, late prior of Kilmainham and 
 chief of the Irish Hospitallers, who had just been created 
 Viscount Clontarf. There were four new Barons Edmund 
 Butler Lord Dunboyne, MacGillapatrick Lord Upper Ossory, 
 Oliver Plunkett Lord Louth, and William Bermingham Lord 
 Carbery. Richard le Poer had been created Baron of Cur- 
 raghmore six years before. Besides the peers there were 
 present in Dublin Donough O'Brien, MacWilliam Burke, 
 O'Reilly, Cahir MacArt Kavanagh, Phelim Roe O'Neill of 
 Clandeboye, and some of the O'Mores. O'Brien sent agents 
 or deputies. These and other important persons were present 
 at the passing of the Bill which made Henry King of Ireland ; 
 but they had no votes and were not considered as members of 
 Parliament. 
 
 Henry Parliament met on Monday, June 13 ; but the Munster 
 
 miide King lords had not yet arrived, and the solemn mass was postponed 
 of Ireland. until Thursday, the feast of Corpus Christi. By that day all 
 had assembled, and they rode in state to the place of meeting. 
 Most of the peers wore their robes. On the morrow the Com- 
 mons chose a Speaker in the person of Sir Thomas Cusack, a 
 rising lawyer, who afterwards obtained the highest professional 
 honours. He made a set speech at the bar of the Lords, 
 praising the King for many things, but especially for having 
 extirpated the Bishop of Rome's usurped power. Ormonde 
 then gave the substance of what had been said in Irish, to 
 the ' great contentation of those lords who could not under- 
 stand English.' At the sitting of the House of Lords on the 
 following day, St. Leger proposed that Henry VIII. should be
 
 1540 AND 1541. 259 
 
 King of Ireland. A Bill to that effect was read a first time CHAP. 
 
 XIII 
 in English, and Irish, and was received with acclamation. It , 1 
 
 was then and there read a second and a third time, and all 
 the Lords subscribed it, lest they should thereafter be tempted 
 to deny their consents. The Bill was then sent down to the 
 Commons and read three times, and on the morrow, in presence 
 of both Houses, St. Leger pronounced the royal consent 
 1 no less,' he wrote, ' to my comfort, than to be risen again 
 from death to life, that I so poor a wretch should, by your ex- 
 cellent goodness, be put to that honour, that in my time your 
 Majesty should most worthily have another Imperial Crown.' 
 This rapid action is in striking contrast to the long and acri- 
 monious discussion excited by a change of the royal style in 
 our own times. 1 
 
 The question of style was one of considerable practical King and 
 importance, for the friars had sedulously encouraged the The royal 
 popular notion that the real sovereignty rested in the Pope, 8ty e ' 
 and that the King of England was only a sort of viceroy. 
 Alen had recommended the assumption of the royal title four 
 years before ; and both Staples and St. Leger had given the 
 like advice. Parliamentary sanction had now been given to 
 the change, and those who acknowledged English law could 
 hardly dispute the principle involved. In the later struggles 
 of Irish parties the contest between the Crown and the Tiara 
 was constantly revived, and the ghost of the controversy is 
 sometimes seen even in our own times. Less than two 
 months before the meeting of St. Leger's Parliament, Paul 
 III. had written to prepare O'Neill for the arrival of a detach- 
 ment of the Company of Jesus, and before its dissolution the 
 first Jesuits had landed. But for the moment no opposition 
 was visible. The proclamation of the new style was joyously 
 celebrated by the citizens of Dublin. Salutes were fired. 
 Bonfires were lit. Wine casks were broached in the streets ; 
 and there was much feasting in private houses. An amnesty 
 was granted to criminals, except traitors, murderers, and 
 
 1 St. Leger to the King, June 26, 1541 ; Lord Deputy and Council to 
 the King, June 28 ; printed Statutes, 33 Henry VIII.; Lodge's Parliamentary 
 Register ; Parliamentary lists in Tracts Iti-lating to Ireland, No. 2. 
 
 % 2
 
 260 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Regula- 
 tions for 
 Munster. 
 
 ravishers ; but prisoners for debt were not released, lest any 
 creditor should be defrauded. There was some fear lest it 
 should be supposed that the Irish Parliament had elected 
 their King instead of merely declaring his just hereditary 
 right ; and many letters were exchanged on the subject. 
 Finally the new style was settled as follows : ' Henry VIII., 
 by the Grace of God, King of England, France, and Ireland, 
 Defender of the Faith, and of the Church of England, and 
 also of Ireland, in earth the Supreme Head.' A new Great 
 Seal had to be sent from England, since there was no compe- 
 tent engraver in Dublin. And thus, after the lapse of nearly 
 four centuries, did Henry II. 's successor repudiate all obliga- 
 tions to Home, and declare himself King of Ireland by right 
 divine. 1 
 
 The other Acts passed had no political significance, but 
 followed pretty closely recent domestic legislation in England. 
 After a session of little more than five weeks, Parliament was 
 prorogued with the intention of convoking it again at Limerick. 
 Before the two Houses dispersed, elaborate regulations, which 
 were not embodied in an Act of Parliament, were drawn up 
 for Munster, Thomond, and Connaught. There was no chance 
 of enforcing these ordinances, but some of them are very 
 good. Laymen and minors were disabled from holding 
 ecclesiastical benefices ; kernes were ordered to be treated 
 as vagabonds, unless some lord would give bail for them ; 
 heads of families were declared responsible for damage done 
 by younger members. Highway robbery and rape were pro- 
 nounced capital ; but by a strange anomaly robberies of above 
 fourteen pence were made punishable by the loss of one ear 
 
 1 Alen to St. Leger in 1537, S.P., vol. ii., No. 182 ; Staples to St. Leger, 
 June 17, 1638 ; Lord Deputy and Council to the King, Dec. 30, 1640. The 
 proclamation of the King's style is in Carem, vol. i., No. 158. The author of 
 the Aplwritmical Discovery, who wrote about 1650, says Henry ' revolted 
 from his obedience to the Holy See ' by assuming the royal title. There is 
 an abstract of the King's title to Ireland in Carew, vol. i., No. 156 ; Adrian's 
 grant is mentioned as one of seven titles, some fabulous, some historical. 
 For the proceedings in Dublin, see St. Leger 'a letters already cited, June 26 
 and 28, 1641 ; for the style itself, see the King's letter in S.P., vol. in., No. 
 3fil ; for the Seal, see Lord Deputy and Council to the King, June 2, 1642, 
 and Henry's answer.
 
 1540 AND 1541. 261 
 
 for the first offence and of the other ear for the second, while CHAP. 
 
 XIII. 
 death was fixed as the penalty for the third. A system of r~ '" 
 
 fines was promulgated for homicides, invasions, and spoils. 
 The Irish jurisprudence was thus acknowledged, but only as 
 a matter of fact, for the chiefs who indulged in open lawless- 
 ness were generally beyond the reach of the law. Saffron 
 shirts were forbidden under penalties, and the permissible 
 quantity of linen was carefully prescribed for each rank. A 
 lord might have twenty cubits, his vassals eighteen, and his 
 servants twelve. A kerne was allowed sixteen and an agri- 
 cultural labourer ten. Stringent but useless limitations were 
 imposed on coyne and livery, the fact being that great men 
 had usually no other means of protecting their districts. 
 Ormonde was appointed chief executor of these ordinances 
 for Tipperary, Waterford, and Kilkenny, and Desmond for 
 the other counties of Munster. Both were to command the 
 assistance of the Archbishop of Cashel and to be entitled to 
 one-third of all fines levied by them, two-thirds being payable 
 to the King. The regulations for Thomond and Connaught 
 were the same as for Munster, but they were probably even 
 less regarded. 1 
 
 1 See the ordinances in Carerv, vol. i., No. 157.
 
 2(52 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 The 
 
 O'Carrolls. 
 
 Submission 
 of O'Don- 
 nell, 141. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. 
 
 THE attendance of Irishmen during the session of Parliament 
 was not altogether barren of immediate results. Fergananim 
 O'Carroll, chief of Ely, having become blind, was murdered in 
 Clonlisk Castle by Teige, the son of his old rival Donough, 
 with the help of some of the Molloys. The claimants to the 
 vacant succession voluntarily submitted to the arbitration of 
 the Lord Deputy and Council, and a curious award was given. 
 According to Irish law John O'Carroll, as the eldest, would 
 have been the natural chief. He was set aside as unfit to 
 rule, but received his lands rent free and forty cows annually 
 out of the cattle-tribute payable to the chief. Fergananim's 
 son Teige was also pronounced incompetent, but was never- 
 theless established as ruler of half the country by way of pro- 
 pitiating Desmond, who was his uncle by marriage. Calvagh 
 or Charles O'Carroll was made lord of the other half, and it 
 was provided that if either procured the other's death he 
 should forfeit all to the sons of the deceased. 1 
 
 Soon after the prorogation St. Leger went to Cavan to 
 meet O'Donnell. Leaving his boats on Lough Erne, the 
 chieftain came boldly to the appointed place with a dozen 
 followers, and made little difficulty about the terms of peace. 
 He agreed to serve the King on all great hostings, to attend 
 the next Parliament or send duly authorised deputies, to hold 
 his land of the Crown, and to take any title that might be 
 given him. He not only renounced the usurped primacy and 
 authority of Rome, but promised industriously and diligently 
 to expel, eject, and root out from his country all adherents of 
 the Pope, or else to coerce and constrain them to submit to 
 
 1 Indenture in O'Carroll's case, July 2, 1541, in Carcw.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE EEIGN OF HENKY VIII. 263 
 
 the Kinor and his successors. He more than once asked to CHAP. 
 
 XIV 
 be made Earl of Sligo, and to have Parliament-robes as well >- , 1 
 
 as ' that golden instrument or chain which noblemen wear on 
 their necks.' Henry was willing to create O'Donnell Earl of 
 Tyrconnell, but the creation was deferred until the reign of 
 James I. 1 
 
 O'Neill still refused to come to Dundalk, or in any way St. Lcger 
 to submit to the Lord Deputy. He was, he said, waiting to the 8 * 
 hear from the King, and he made the curious complaint that t) ' Neills - 
 St. Leger would not let him send hawks as presents to his 
 Majesty. Diplomacy failing, the Lord Deputy prepared for 
 an invasion of Ulster. He was joined by O'Donnell, O'Hanlon, 
 Magennis, MacMahon, who had lately made submission in 
 the usual form, Phelim Roe O'Neill and Neill Connelagh 
 O'Neill, nephews and opponents of the chief of Tyrone ; by 
 the Savages of Ards ; and by many others, both English and 
 Irish. Twenty-two days were spent in destroying corn and 
 butter ; but no enemy appeared, and the cattle had been driven 
 off into the woods. Meanwhile O'Neill tried the bold but not 
 uncommon experiment of attacking the Pale in the absence 
 of its defenders. The new Lord Louth handled the local 
 force so well that the invaders were ignominiously routed, 
 while O'Donnell ravaged not only Tyrone but a great part of 
 Fermanagh, the very islands in Lough Erne being ransacked 
 by his flotilla. 2 
 
 After a month's respite St. Leger made a second raid, and Success of 
 this time captured some hundreds of cows and horses. Another campaign, 
 month elapsed, and then a third attack brought O'Neill to his 
 knees. He sent letters to Armagh in which he threw himself 
 on the King's mercy, which he preferred to the Lord Deputy's, 
 gave a son as hostage, and offered to come in person not only 
 to Dundalk but to Drogheda. O'Neill had never been known 
 
 1 Submission of O'Donnell, Aug. 6, 1541 ; O'Donnell to the King, April 
 20, 1542: 'Iterum Vestram Majestatemexortor, mittatis mihi instrumentum 
 illud aureum, quo colla nobilium cinguntur, aut katenam, vestesque con- 
 gruentes, quibus vestirer decenter, quoties accederem (data opportune tat e) 
 ad Parliamentum.' 
 
 2 Lord Deputy and Council to the King, Aug. 28, 1541; Fowr Masters, 
 1541 : 'he left them without corn for that year.'
 
 264 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, to give a hostage before, and great importance was attached 
 
 '-^ to this. Three thousand kine besides horses and sheep were 
 
 taken in spite of the natives, but not without much suffering 
 on the part of the soldiers, who had to lie without tents on 
 the wet ground. Many horses died, and many more were 
 lamed. The pastime, as St. Leger called it, of a December 
 campaign can never be very pleasant, but he proved, as Sidney 
 proved afterwards, that it was the right way to subdue the 
 O'Neills. There was not grass enough in the woods to keep 
 the cattle alive, and when they came into the fields the 
 soldiers easily captured them. 1 
 
 Submission Ultimately O'Neill made a complete submission. He 
 agreed to behave like the Earls of Ormonde and Desmond, 
 praying only that he might not be forced to incur the danger 
 and expense of attending any Parliament sitting to the west 
 of the Barrow. He not only renounced the Pope, but pro- 
 mised to send back future bulls, if ecclesiastics already pro- 
 vided from Rome would do likewise. 2 
 
 The The Council advised Henry to accept O'Neill's submission, 
 
 aiiviae the seeing that his country was wide and difficult, and now so wasted 
 
 accept it. as to be incapable of supporting an army. It might perhaps 
 
 be possible to expel Con, but he would certainly be succeeded 
 
 by a pretender as bad as himself, and extreme courses might 
 
 lead to despair, and to a universal rebellion. They admitted 
 
 that the winter war had been proved to be < the destruction 
 
 of any Irishmen,' but the loss of men and horses was great, 
 
 and might lead to risings in other places. 3 
 
 Henry's The King disliked the wholesale grants of land for small 
 
 Ireland. " consideration, which were favoured by St. Leger. He re- 
 buked his servants in Ireland for thinking too much of Irish 
 
 1 St. Leger to the King, Dec. 17, 1541. 
 
 2 Articles binding Con Eacagh O'Neill, in S.P., vol. iii., No. 356 : ' Begem 
 recognosco Supremum Caput Ecclesiae Anglicanae et Hibernicanse immediate 
 sob Christo ; et imposterum, in quantum potero, compellam omnesdegen- 
 tea sub meo regimine, ut eimiliter faciant; et si contingat aliquem provis- 
 orem aut provisores aliquas facultates sive bullas obtinere de prsedicta 
 usurpata auctoritate, illos sursum reddere dictas bullas et facultates cogam, 
 et semetipsos submittere ordinationi Regiae Majestatis.' 
 
 * Council of Ireland to the King, S.P., vol. iii., No. 357.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 265 
 
 submissions, and here he saw more clearly than they did. CHAP. 
 
 He was now King in Ireland, and required a revenue in pro- r-^ - 
 
 portion. For that purpose he divided Irishmen into two 
 classes, those who were within easy reach of his arm, and 
 those who were not. The former were to be treated sternly, 
 but the latter tenderly, ' lest by extreme demands they should 
 revolt to their former beastliness.' The near neighbours were 
 to be brought to the same terms as Tirlogh O'Toole. A 
 proper rent was to be exacted, and knight-service insisted 
 on for the sake of the wardships and liveries. In the obedient 
 districts monastic lands were to be let on lease for the best 
 possible rent. In more distant quarters the chiefs were to be 
 coaxed into suppressing the religious houses by promising 
 them leases on easy terms. 1 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1542 the Council were able Ireland at 
 to make the strange announcement that Ireland was at peace. Submission 
 They praised St. Leger for his diligence, patience, and justice, 
 and for his liberal entertainment of those on whom, for the 
 public good, it was necessary to make favourable impression. 
 Following up his Dublin success, he now met Parliament 
 again at Limerick, where the principal business was to make 
 terms with the O'Briens. Murrough agreed to give up all 
 claims to the territory of Owney Beg, a poor district lying 
 under Slieve Phelim, which retains its reputation for turbu- 
 lence to the present day. The possession of this tract had 
 made him master of the western part of Limerick, whence he 
 exacted a black-rent of SQL, and of Tipperary as far as Cashel. 
 The whole country was waste through plunder and extortion, 
 and no one could travel peaceably from Limerick to Waterford 
 through fear of a gang of robbers called the ' old evil children,' 
 who held a castle near the Shannon. Desmond expelled these 
 brigands and handed over their hold to MacBrien Coonagh, 
 who held it at his own expense for two years. St. Leger's 
 observations during the session at Limerick led him to believe 
 that little rent or tribute could be got out of the Irish. The 
 sums promised to Grey were withheld on the ground that 
 
 1 The King to the Lord Deputy and Council, S.P., vol. iii., No. 348.
 
 266 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, promises had been forcibly extorted. By holding out hopes 
 v- , ' - of gentler treatment, St. Leger brought them to accept his 
 own much easier terms. Tipperary was assessed at 4-OL 
 yearly, Kilkenny at 40/., and Waterford at 101. MacBrien 
 Arra agreed to pay sixpence a year for each ploughland, and 
 to furnish sixty gallowglasses for a month. MacBrien of 
 Coonagh promised 5., O'Kennedy and MacEgan in Ormonde 
 IOL each, O'Mulryan forty shillings and sixty gallowglasses 
 for a month, and O'Dwyer eightpence for each ploughland 
 and forty gallowglasses for a month. These sums are small, 
 but seem larger when we reflect that the Government gave 
 no consideration, either by keeping the peace or administering 
 justice, and that the people were extremely poor. 1 
 
 Further Several months passed in negotiations with Irish chiefs 
 
 missions, with the general object of inducing them to submit, to pay 
 rent, and to hold their lands by knight-service ; forswearing 
 Irish uses and exactions, and promising to live in a more 
 civilised manner. These terms were accepted by Rory O'More, 
 who had become chief of Leix by the death of his brother 
 Kedagh, by MacDonnell, captain of O'Neill's gallowglasses, 
 by O'Rourke, and by O'Byrne. All except the last named 
 abjured the Pope, as did the MacQuillins, a family of Welsh 
 extraction long settled in the Route, a district between 
 the Bush and the Bann. The MacQuillins were always op- 
 pressed by the O'Cahans, who were supposed to be instigated 
 by O'Donnell, and the valuable fishery of the Bann was a 
 perennial source of dissension. Travers, who soon afterwards 
 became lessee of Clandeboye, held this fishery on a Crown lease 
 with the goodwill of the MacQuillins; but in spite of the 
 O'Cahans, who annoyed his fishermen, St. Leger ordered him 
 to help the weaker tribe. Coleraine was taken by Travers, 
 and after a time the neighbours were reconciled, a pension of 
 10. being given to each on condition of not molesting those 
 who fished under royal licence. A curious submission was 
 that of Hugh O'Kelly, who seems to have been chief of his 
 
 1 The session was from Feb. 15 to March 7 or 10 ; see Lord Deputy in 
 Council to the King, March 31, 1542; for the robbers, see same to same, 
 Nov. 25, 1544.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF HENKY VIII. 267 
 
 sept as well as hereditary Abbot of the Cistercians at Knock- CHAP. 
 
 moy, near Tuam. He renounced the Pope, promised to aid ^ - 
 
 the Lord Deputy with a considerable force in Connaught, 
 and with a smaller one in more distant parts, and to bring 
 certain of his kinsmen to similar terms. In return he was 
 to have custody of the monastic lands and of the rectory of 
 Galway at a rent of 5Z., paid down yearly in that town. As 
 if to complete the anomaly this abbot-chieftain gave his son 
 as a hostage for due performance. 1 
 
 Desmond continued to behave loyally. St. Leger received Desmond 
 him hospitably in Dublin, and advised the King to do the a t Court, 
 same. But Alen cautioned his Majesty not to be too free of 
 his grants, especially in such important cases as Croom and 
 Adare. The Chancellor preferred to give the Earl monastic 
 lands in the Pale, by accepting which he would give hostages 
 to the Crown, or among the wild Irish, who would thus cer- 
 tainly be losers though the King might be no direct gainer. 
 Desmond did not linger long in the Court sunshine, for he 
 took leave of the King in little more than a month from the 
 date of his leaving Ireland. Either he really gained the 
 royal good-will, or Henry thought it wise to take St. Leger's 
 advice, for he gave him money and clothes, made him the 
 bearer of official despatches, and, after due inquiry, accepted 
 his nominee to the bishopric of Emly. 2 
 
 With a view to establish order in those portions of Mun- The 
 ster under Desmond's influence, St. Leger visited Cork, where Munste r 
 
 nobles 
 
 the notables readily obeyed his call. They abjured the Pope, submit. 
 and agreed to refer all differences to certain named arbitra- abjure the 
 tors. Henceforth no one was to take the law into his own ope * 
 hands, but to complain to Desmond and to the Bishops of 
 Cork, Waterford, and Koss, who were to have the power of 
 
 1 See the submissions in Carerv MacBrien Coonagh, March 18, 1542 ; 
 Rory O'More, May 13; MacQuillin, May 18; MacDonnell, May 18; Hugh 
 O'Kelly, May 24 ; O'Byrnes, July 4 ; O'Rourke, Sept. 1 ; MacQuillin and 
 O'Cahan, May 6, 1543. Lord Deputy and Council to the King, July 12, 1542, 
 and Aug. 24. 
 
 2 Desmond's visit to Court was between June 2 and July 5, 1542. Lord 
 Deputy and Council to the King, June 2 ; J. Alen to the King, June 4 ; the 
 King to the Lord Deputy and Council, July 5; St. Leger to the King, 
 Aug. 27.
 
 268 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, summoning parties and witnesses, and of fining contumacious 
 
 i ^ * persons. Difficult cases were to be referred to the Lord 
 
 Deputy and Council, and legal points reserved for qualified 
 commissioners, whom the King was to send into Munster at 
 Easter and Michaelmas. This was part of a scheme for esta- 
 blishing circuits in the southern province, but it was very 
 imperfectly carried out during this and the three succeeding 
 reigns. The state of the country seldom admitted of peaceful 
 assizes, and martial law was too often necessary. The Mun- 
 ster gentry now promised to keep the peace, and to exact no 
 black-rents from Cork or other towns. The Anglo-Norman 
 element was represented by Lord Barrymore and his kins- 
 men, Barry Roe and Barry Oge, by Lord Roche, and by Sir 
 Gerald MacShane of Dromana. The Irish parties to the con- 
 tract were MacCarthy More, MacCarthy Reagh, MacCarthy of 
 Muskerry, MacDonough MacCarthy of Duhallow, O'Callaghan, 
 and O'Sullivan Beare. St. Leger himself, Desmond, Braba- 
 zon, Travers, and Sir Osborne Echingham, marshal of the 
 army, represented the Crown. 1 
 
 An Earl- O'Neill was at last induced to go to Court to receive the 
 
 O'Neill. Earldom of Tyrone, the title chosen for him by the Irish 
 Government. He would have preferred that of Ulster, but it 
 was in the Crown, and the King refused to part with it. St. 
 Leger did what he could to conciliate O'Neill by attention 
 and hospitality while in Dublin, and rightly attached great 
 importance to the fact that he was the first O'Neill who had 
 ever gone to the King in England. He advised that he 
 should be received with the greatest distinction. 
 
 ' O'Neill,' say the ' Four Masters,' ' that is, Con the son of 
 Con, went to the King of England, namely, Henry VIII. ; and 
 the King created O'Neill an Earl, and enjoined that he should 
 not be called O'Neill any longer. O'Neill received great 
 honour from the King on this occasion.' The acceptance of 
 
 1 Indenture facta 26 die Septembris, 1 542, in 8.P. The signatories pro- 
 mised jointly and severally ' usurpatam primatiam et auctoritatem 
 Romani Episcopi annihilate, omnesque suos fautores, adjutores, et suffra- 
 gatores, ad summura posse illorum precipitare et abolere .... omnes et 
 singulos provisores .... apprehendere et producere ad Regis communem 
 legem,' &c.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 269 
 
 a peerage was universally considered a condescension, if not CHAP. 
 
 a degradation, for the head of a family who claimed to be < ,-.'* 
 
 princes of Ulster in spite of the Crown. The Irish Govern- 
 ment were willing that he should have Tyrone, ' but for the 
 rule of Irishmen, which be at his Grace's peace, we think 
 not best his Highness should grant any such thing to him 
 as yet.' l 
 
 It may be doubted whether O'Neill fully understood the His sub- 
 scope of a document which was written in English, and 
 which he signed with a mark ; but the form of his submis- 
 sion to his ' most gracious sovereign lord ' was as ample as 
 even that sovereign lord could wish : 
 
 ( Pleaseth your most Excellent Majesty, I, O'Neill, one of 
 your Majesty's most humble subjects of your realm of Ireland, 
 do confess and acknowledge before your most Excellent High- 
 ness, that by ignorance, and for lack of knowledge of my most 
 bounden duty of allegiance, I have most grievously offended 
 your Majesty, for the which I ask your Grace here mercy and 
 forgiveness, most humbly beseeching your Highness of your 
 most gracious pardon ; refusing my name and state, which I 
 have usurped upon your Grace against my duty, and requir- 
 ing your Majesty of your clemency to give me what name, 
 state, title, land, or living it shall please your Highness, 
 which I shall knowledge to take and hold of your Majesty's 
 mere gift, and in all things do hereafter as shall beseem 
 your most true and faithful subject. And God save your 
 Highness.' 2 
 
 One week after the delivery of this submission O'Neill He is 
 
 created 
 
 was created Earl of Tyrone, with remainder to his son Matthew Earl of 
 in tail male : Matthew being at the same time created Baron Special* 
 of Dungannon, with remainder to the eldest son of the Earl remamder - 
 of Tyrone for the time being. This patent afterwards gave 
 rise to infinite bloodshed. Con O'Neill certainly acknowledged 
 Matthew as his heir apparent ; but it was afterwards stated, 
 not only that he was illegitimate, which might not have 
 
 1 Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, Sept. 1, 1542 ; Four 
 Masters, 1542. 
 
 2 Submission made at Greenwich, Sept. 24, 1542.
 
 270 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 O'Brien 
 
 created 
 
 Earl of 
 
 Thomond. 
 
 Special 
 
 remainder. 
 
 Mac- 
 
 William 
 
 Earl of 
 
 Clanri- 
 
 carde. 
 
 Knights. 
 
 mattered much, bat that he was not Con's son at all. There 
 was no doubt about the legitimacy of Shane, and that able 
 savage consistently refused to acknowledge the limitations 
 of the patent. Henry dealt liberally with the new Earl, pay- 
 ing 601. for a gold chain such as O'Donnell had asked for, 
 G5. 10s. 2d. for creation fees and robes, and 100 marks as 
 a present in ready money. ' The Queen's closet at Green- 
 wich was richly hanged with cloth of Arras, and well strewed 
 with rushes ' no more was then thought of even in a palace 
 and Tyrone was led in by the Earls of Hertford and Oxford, 
 the latter of whom was summoned specially for the purpose. 
 Viscount Lisle bore the new Earl's sword. Kneeling in the 
 rushes, the descendant of Niall of the Nine Hostages submitted 
 to be girt by the hands of Henry II.'s descendant. The 
 King then gave him his patent, and he gave thanks in Irish, 
 which his chaplain translated into English. Two of his neigh- 
 bours, Donnell and Arthur Magennis, were knighted and 
 received gifts from the King. A great dinner followed, to 
 which the lords went in procession with trumpets blowing ; 
 and Tyrone carried his own patent. At second course Garter 
 proclaimed the King's style and that of the new Earl. The 
 herald who tells the story is careful to note that Tyrone gave 
 twenty angels to Garter, 10Z. to the College of Arms, and 40,<?. 
 to the trumpeters, with other fees ' according to the old and 
 ancient custom.' Next day Con was taken to pay his respects 
 to the young Prince Edward, and he soon afterwards returned 
 to Ireland. 1 
 
 Murrough O'Brien, his nephew Donough, MacWilliam of 
 Clanricarde, and many other Irish gentlemen of note, went to 
 Court during the summer of 1543. The three first were 
 raised to the peerage in the same place and with the same 
 ceremonies as O'Neill. Murrough O'Brien was created Earl 
 of Thomond, with remainder to Donough, and Baron of Inchi- 
 quin in tail male. Donough's right to succeed as tanist thus 
 
 1 The creation was Oct. 1, 1542. The patent is in Rymer; the Herald's 
 account in Carem, Oct. 1. O'Neill was back in Ireland before Dec. 7, when 
 the Irish Government wrote of him to the King. Tyrone's style was 
 1 Du treshaut et puissant Seigneur Con, Conte de Tyrone, en le Royaulme 
 d'Irlande.'
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. 271 
 
 received official sanction. Donough was made Baron of 
 Ibracken in tail male, and, curiously enough, the same patent 
 created him Earl of Thomond for life in case he should survive 
 his uncle. Mac William was created Earl of Clanricarde and 
 Baron of Dunkellin. The Earls were introduced by Derby 
 and Ormonde, the Barons by Clinton and Mountjoy, and the 
 King gave a gold chain to each. The presence of the Scottish 
 ambassadors, who had just concluded the abortive treaty of 
 marriage between Edward and Mary Stuart, added to the 
 interest of the ceremony ; and no doubt Henry was glad to 
 display his magnificence to the representatives of the poor 
 northern kingdom. Macnamara, the most important person 
 in Clare after the O'Briens, was knighted at the same time ; 
 as were O'Shaugnessy, chief of the country about Gort, and 
 his neighbour O'Grady. Many other favours were conferred 
 011 these reclaimed Irishmen, and they all agreed to hold 
 their lands of the King. 1 
 
 The relations between England and Scotland were at this The Mac- 
 
 T mi it -i -i Donneils in 
 
 time much strained. Ihe miserable and mysterious death of Antrim. 
 James V. left the northern kingdom a battle-field for con- 
 tending factions, and the restless Beaton had full scope for 
 his intrigues. The Hebridean settlers on the Ulster coast 
 had always been troublesome, since they were ever ready to 
 sell their swords to the highest bidder ; and they now became 
 really important. These settlements originated with the 
 Bysets or Bissets, sometimes called Missets, who were said to 
 be of Greek origin and who accompanied the Conqueror to 
 England. They afterwards settled in Scotland, whence they 
 were expelled in 1242 on suspicion of being concerned in the 
 murder of an Earl of Athole, and condemned to take the 
 cross. Preferring Ireland to Palestine, the exiles bought the 
 island of Rathlin from Richard de Burgo, Earl of Ulster. 
 About the close of the fourteenth century, Margaret, the 
 heiress of the Bysets, married John More MacDonnell, a 
 
 1 The heraldic account is printed in S.P., vol. iii. p. 473, from the Cotton 
 MSS. ; the O'Brien and Burke patents are in Rymer, Conatius being by 
 mistake printed for Donatus ; see the King to the Lord Deputy and 
 Council, July 9, 1543 ; MacWilliam submitted much in the same terms 
 as O'Neill.
 
 272 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, grandson through his mother of Robert II. of Scotland. This 
 , lady is said to have known Richard II. during his second 
 visit to Ireland, and to have recognised him afterwards, 
 crazed and a refugee, in the island of Isla. By Margaret's 
 marriage the estates of the Bysets passed to the MacDonnells, 
 and a close intercourse was thenceforth kept up between the 
 Western Isles and Antrim, which are never out of sight of one 
 another in clear weather. Matrimonial alliances with O'Neills, 
 O'Donnells, and O'Cahans were frequent, and the islemen 
 established themselves so firmly that Rathlin was as late as 
 1617 claimed as part of Scotland. It has an assured place 
 in Scottish history ; for, among the rocks of black basalt and 
 white chalk which give Rathlin its curious piebald look, 
 stand the ruins of the castle where Robert Bruce is said to 
 have learned the lesson of perseverance from a spider. In 
 Henry VIII.'s time the head of the Irish MacDonnells was 
 Alexander or Alaster, whose influence at Court had been 
 great enough to drive Argyle from the western government, 
 but whose common place of residence was on the shore of 
 Ballycastle Bay. Many other Hebrideans were settled in 
 Antrim, but the MacDonnells were always the leading clan. 1 
 Contempo- John Edgar, a reforming priest of the violent kind which 
 description Western Scotland has produced, gave Henry VIII. a graphic 
 account of the islemen in his day. They spent much time 
 in hunting and manly exercises, going barelegged and bare- 
 foot though the snow should be waist deep, ' wherefore the 
 tender and delicate gentlemen of Scotland call us Redshanks.' 
 Against exceptional frosts they protected themselves with 
 moccasins made of fresh red-deer hide, secured with thongs 
 and full of holes to let the water in and out. The hairy side 
 being exposed gained them the name of c rough-footed Scots,' 
 and the whole description recalls a well-known nursery rhyme. 
 The people of the Irish isles of Arran still use cowhide cover- 
 ings exactly similar, to protect their feet from the sharp lime- 
 
 1 Hill's MacDonnells of Antrim, chaps, i. and ii. ; Archdall's Lodge?i 
 Peerage, Earl of Antrim and Baron MacDonnell ; Burton's History of Scot- 
 land, vol. iii. p. 149. For the antiquarian controversy in 1617, see Carerr, 
 vol. vi., Nos. 183, 188, 189, 190. 191. 
 
 of them.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE KEIGN OF HENEY VIII. 273 
 
 stone rocks which are too slippery for soled boots. Edgar is CHAP. 
 
 careful to mention that the perones worn by the ancient ^ 
 
 Latines in Virgil were shoes of the same kind. Travers, 
 who saw a great deal of the Hebrideans, was less struck by 
 their poetic aspect, and simply describes them as ' most vile 
 in their living of any nation next Irishmen.' ' Nevertheless,' 
 says Edgar, who anticipated such criticism, l when we Red- 
 shanks come to the Court waiting on our lords and masters, 
 who also for velvets and silks be right well arrayed, we have 
 as good garments as some of our fellows which give attend- 
 ance at Court every day.' These hardy islanders were in 
 great request as mercenaries even in the South of Ireland, 
 and it was a far cry to Mull or Isla, where, and where 
 only, the English or Irish Government could seriously injure 
 them. 1 
 
 St. Leger was uneasy lest a combined Scotch and French Fears of 
 attack should be made on Ireland. Two French ships in and France, 
 company with some Scotch galleys were seen off Carrickfergus. 1543 ' 
 There was an English squadron off Lambay, and its appearance 
 had at first had a good effect, but it could not even guard the 
 sixty miles of water between Howth and Holyhead. French- 
 men and Bretons frequented the Irish coast, and even sold 
 Spanish prizes at Cork; for that city claimed the strange 
 privilege of dealing with the King's enemies in time of war. 
 James Delahide was in O'Donnell's country with a servant of 
 the Earl of Argyle, and young Gerald of Kildare might at 
 any moment be made the instrument of fresh disturbances. 
 James MacDonnell, Alaster's eldest son, had been brought 
 up at the Scottish Court, and, alone of his race, had learned 
 to write : he was married or perhaps only handfasted to 
 Lady Agnes Campbell, Argyle's sister, and Beaton might at 
 any time turn the connection to account. 2 
 
 In the first flush of the matrimonial treaty Henry an- st. Leger is 
 nounced that he would have Scotsmen treated as friends, 
 But against Frenchmen he had declared war, and he and the 
 
 1 Hill, p. 37 ; John Travers's Devices in S.P., vol. iii. p. 382. 
 
 2 Hill, p. 41; St. Leger to the King, June 4, 1543; Lord Deputy and 
 Council to the King, June 5. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIV. 
 
 Henry's 
 financial 
 dishonesty. 
 
 Emperor had bound themselves not to make a separate peace. 
 Yet in thirteen months Charles suddenly came to terms with 
 Francis, leaving Henry to get his army out of France as he 
 best could, and to see the English coast insulted by a French 
 fleet. Whatever the designs of the French party in Scotland, 
 no invasion of Ireland in fact took place. Tyrone, O'Donnell, 
 and some of their neighbours were induced to visit Dublin 
 and to submit their differences to the Lord Deputy. There 
 was a standing dispute as to whether O'Dogherty, chief of 
 Innishowen, owed service and tribute to O'Donnell or to 
 O'Neill. The former established his title, but agreed to pay 
 sixty cows yearly if O'Neill would prevent his men from 
 molesting Innishowen. The contention that O'Donnell 
 himself owed suit and service to O'Neill was not accepted, 
 and both were confined to their own districts. Both made 
 extravagant pretensions, but their documents were worthless, 
 and proceeded for the most part from the imagination of 
 Irish bards and story tellers who would do anything for 
 money, or for love, or from a lively sense of favours to come. 
 St. Leger managed to bring about an amicable arrange- 
 ment, and even to lay the foundation of an increased revenue 
 in Ulster. 1 
 
 The reckless extravagance of Henry, his venal courtiers, 
 and useless wars, had sunk him in debt. The plunder of the 
 Church was gone, and there seemed no limit to the calls on 
 the generosity or fears of his subjects. A king who could 
 seek the help of a subservient Parliament to repudiate his 
 debts was not likely to be scrupulous about contract obliga- 
 tions, and he seems to have contemplated resuming by Act 
 of Parliament all Irish lands which had been leased by his 
 authority. St. Leger protested in the strongest manner 
 against thus confiscating the improvements of tenants, who 
 had paid their rent and spent their money on the faith of 
 royal grants. Discontent was already prevalent, for the pay 
 of the soldiers was in arrear. Their number was reduced to 
 550, but they had not been paid for months, and a sum of less 
 
 1 St. Leger to the King, July 18, 1543, and the notes; see also Carerv, 
 July 15 and 16.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 275 
 
 than 2,500Z. was all that the King would send. A full pay CHAP. 
 
 was impossible, and the Irish Government were afraid even to ^ 
 
 make payments on account, lest an invasion or other sudden 
 emergency should find them penniless. They urged the folly 
 of not paying punctually, and their reasoning applies to the 
 frugal Elizabeth as well as to her spendthrift father. The 
 Tudor monarchy had already outgrown the feudal exchequer. 
 ' We assure your Highness your affairs hath often been much 
 hindered in default of money, which being paid at last is no 
 alleviating of charge ; and yet by default of monthly pay- 
 ments, half the service is not done that might and should be 
 done. In which case if it might please your Majesty, of your 
 princely bounty, to furnish us for your army beforehand for 
 one whole year, your Highness shall perceive your affairs 
 thereby to be highly advanced.' l 
 
 Like every other Deputy, St. Leger soon grew heartily St. Leger 
 sick of Ireland. ' I beseech you,' he wrote to the King, ' to 
 remember your poor slave, that hath now been three years in 
 hell, absent from your Majesty, and call me again to your 
 presence, which is my joy in this world.' Four months after 
 sending this touching appeal he received leave of absence ; but 
 he could not then be spared, and he remained in Ireland until 
 the beginning of 1544. Brabazon, who became Lord Justice, 
 remembered what had happened after Grey's departure, and 
 stood well upon his guard. The veteran O'Connor and the 
 new Baron of Upper Ossory were discovered to be in league. 
 They avowed designs against O'More ; but Brabazon was not 
 to be deceived, and preserved the peace by imprisoning the 
 Baron. Clanricarde enjoyed his Earldom only a few months, 
 and his life had not been such as to ensure a peaceful succes- 
 sion. ' Whether the late Earl/ the Irish Government wrote, 
 f hath any heir male, it is not yet known, there were so many 
 marriages and divorces; but no doubt he married this last 
 woman solemnly.' His son Richard by Maude Lacy was 
 ultimately acknowledged as second Earl, and became a con- 
 
 1 Lord Deputy and Council to the King, May 15, 1543 ; same to same, 
 Dec. 7, 1542, and the King's answer. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIV. 
 
 An Irish 
 contingent 
 for the 
 Scotch 
 war, 1544. 
 
 siderable personage; but his morality or fidelity was not more 
 conspicuous than his father's. 1 
 
 Beaton had outwitted Henry, annulled the marriage treaty 
 from which so much had been hoped, and brought his country- 
 men back to the French alliance. Breathing threatenings 
 and slaughter, the King of England determined to raise an 
 Irish contingent as his predecessors had done. As his object 
 was to destroy the greatest possible quantity of property, he 
 could hardly have done better. One thousand kerne were re- 
 quired for Scotland and 2,000 for France. The order to raise 
 the men only reached Ireland about the beginning of March, 
 and Henry's impatience expected them to be ready in a few 
 days. The Irish nobility were not unwilling to meet the 
 King's views, but they thought six months' notice would have 
 been little enough. Even in England such a sudden levy 
 would have been very difficult, and in Ireland, the King was 
 reminded, ' the idle men were not at such commandment, that 
 willingly they would in such case forthwith obey their 
 governor, nor gladly depart the realm, being 'never trained 
 to the thing, without some nobleman of these parts had 
 the conduct of them.' Great exertions were made, the Coun- 
 cil dividing into a northern and southern recruiting party ; 
 but the King was at last obliged to content himself with 
 1,000 kerne, the proportions to be furnished by different 
 chiefs and noblemen being fixed by Henry himself. Ormonde, 
 who was asked to give 100, sent 200, and Desmond provided 
 120 instead of 100. The Lords Power, Cahir, and Slane also 
 did more than they were required ; but the Irish chiefs were 
 all under the mark, and the O'Briens and others sent none at 
 all. Tyrone, O'Reilly, and O'Connor were pretty well repre- 
 sented, and the deficiencies were supplied from various sources. 
 In Irish warfare every two kerne used to have a ' page or boy, 
 which commonly is nevertheless a man.' That allowance was 
 diminished by one-half, and when all deductions had been 
 made, more than 1,000 fighting men were sent. The ship 
 
 1 St. Leger to the King, April 6, 1543 ; the King to the Lord Deputy 
 and Council, Aug. 9; Lord Justice Brabazon and Council to St. Leger, 
 March 24, 1544.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE EEIGN OF HENKY VIII. 277 
 
 which brought treasure for this expedition was chased by CHAP. 
 the Breton rovers, who then commanded the Channel. There ^ ^ - 
 was some difficulty in finding a commander, ' Earls being un- 
 wieldy men to go with light kerne,' and the choice of the 
 Council lay practically between Lord Power and Lord Dun- 
 boyne. The former, who was Ormonde's nephew, was chosen. 
 The Council were afraid of offending the chiefs by refusing 
 any quotas which might be furnished after the departure of 
 the main body, and they resolved to take all who came. In 
 any case, they said, ' if any ruffle should chance, we be dis- 
 charged of so many.' They begged Henry to see that they 
 were properly treated for an encouragement to others. The 
 kerne were good soldiers in their way, but the King was 
 warned that they would require some training for regular 
 warfare. The proportion of officers was excessive ; but the 
 Council advised their retention, lest disappointment should 
 quench the smoking flax of Irish loyalty. 1 
 
 Lord Power's men mustered 700 men in St. James's Irish troops 
 Park, the rest having been perhaps diverted to the Scottish O f Bou- c 
 borders, and they served at the siege of Boulogne, burning ogne- 
 all the villages near the beleaguered town, and foraging 
 as much as thirty miles inland. Their plan was to tie a 
 bull to a stake and scorch him with faggots. The poor 
 beast's roars attracted the cattle of the country, 'all which 
 they would lightly lead away, and furnish the camp with 
 store of beef.' They treated Frenchmen no better than their 
 bulls, preferring their heads to any ransom. The French 
 sent to Henry to ask whether he had brought men or devils 
 with him, but he only laughed ; and they retaliated by muti- 
 lating and torturing every Irishman that they could catch. 
 The Irish gained a more honourable distinction from the 
 
 1 Lord Justice Brabazon and Council to the King, May 7, 1544 ; same 
 to St. Leger, March 24, where the kerne are first mentioned in the S.P. ; 
 Privy Council to Lord Justice and Council, March 30 ; Ormonde to the 
 King, May 7. In a letter to the King printed in S.P., vol. iii., No. 437, 
 O'Reilly complains that his contingent cost him 6001., that eight weeks of 
 their wages remained unpaid, and that his chaplain had been taken prisoner 
 in Scotland, and had paid eight nobles for his ransom. This shows .that 
 some of the 1,000 kerne went to Scotland.
 
 278 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIV. 
 
 Appre- 
 hensions 
 from 
 France. 
 
 St. Leger 
 returns to 
 Ireland. 
 He falls 
 out with 
 Ormonde. 
 
 valour of Nicholas Welch, who, when a French challenger 
 defied the English army, swam across the harbour and brought 
 back the boaster's head in his mouth. 1 
 
 Rumours were afloat at this time about great preparations 
 at Brest for the invasion of Ireland in the interest of Gerald 
 of Kildare. It was supposed that the blow would fall in 
 Cork, Lady Eleanor MacCarthy not having yet been par- 
 doned, and her influence being very great. The Council 
 thought that they could resist 10,000 men with the help of 
 the natives, who would all stand firm against Frenchmen. 
 But if young Gerald once set his foot in Ireland, they could 
 answer for nothing. It was true that he had left Italy and 
 Reginald Pole, but only to serve with the Knights of Malta 
 against the Moslems ; and it does not appear that he visited 
 France at all. But the very sound of his name, coupled with 
 Scots one day and with Frenchmen the next, kept the Irish 
 Government in hot water for more than a year. Lady Eleanor 
 received a pardon, and her nephew, who was now nineteen, 
 returned about the same time to Italy. From the time that 
 he entered Cosmo de' Medici's service the rumours in Ireland 
 ceased. 2 
 
 St. Leger returned to Ireland in August 1544, after the 
 kerne had sailed, and it was probably their absence which 
 kept the island quiet for a time. Like his predecessor, St. 
 Leger found Ormonde's power embarrassing. He knew him 
 to be loyal, and personally both liked and admired him, but 
 could not help being uneasy at his overgrown power. His 
 influence in the Council was so great that St. Leger reported 
 him as having ' the great part of all those that daily frequent 
 the Council here, of his fee.' The King's interest had small 
 chance against the Earl's, ' and as I am true man,' St. Leger 
 wrote, ' I see no man having learning that will plainly speak 
 in such a case but poor Sir Thomas Cusack.' Ormonde now 
 claimed for his palatinate of Tipperary a larger meaning than 
 had lately been given to it. The undefined boundaries he 
 
 1 Stanihurst. 
 
 2 For these rumours, see the S.P. from May 20, 1544, till May 11, 1545, 
 vol. iii., Nos. 407, 408, 411, 414, 415.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE KEIGN OF HENEY VIII. 279 
 
 stretched to the utmost, and throughout the whole district CHAP. 
 
 claimed every sovereign right, except treasure trove and the r^ - 
 
 right of punishing rape, arson, and coining. Men feared to 
 speak openly against him. Cusack was maligned for his 
 independence, and Lord Upper Ossory begged St. Leger to 
 keep his communications secret. The palatinate jurisdiction 
 and the prisage of wines had been taken from the House of 
 Ormonde by Poyning's Parliament ; but the Earl could show 
 later documents under the Great Seal, some of which St. 
 Leger suspected to have been forged during the time that 
 Sir Piers Butler was Lord Deputy. St. Leger also com- 
 plained that Ormonde put obstacles in the way of reforming 
 Leinster, unless he might do it himself and in his own way. 
 He recommended that this mighty subject's wings should be 
 clipped a little, and that he should have no more grants of 
 land in Ireland ; he had no objection to the King giving him 
 as much as he pleased in England. To make things pleasant 
 he recommended a garter. After all this he strangely pro- 
 posed to entrust the Irish Government to a succession of 
 Irish noblemen for two or three years at a time, and to make 
 Ormonde the first Deputy of the new series. The suggestion 
 met with no favour, and seems not to have been thought 
 worthy of an answer. No Irish nobleman received the 
 sword during the remainder of the Tudor period ; but when 
 Charles I. was slipping from the throne he committed his 
 interests in Ireland to the charge of another and more famous 
 Ormonde. 1 
 
 Donnell Dhu, calling himself Earl of Ross and claiming Scotch 
 to be Lord of the Isles, having escaped from his almost life- The Lord 
 long imprisonment, was received with open arms by the ^^ Isles 
 
 Hebrideans, who still sighed for their ancient independence. Henry's 
 
 side, 
 Donnell and seventeen of his principal supporters bound 
 
 themselves solemnly to be at the command of Lennox, who 
 had declared for Henry VIII. against the regent Arran and 
 the French party, which at this time was also the Scotch 
 party. The confederates gave full treating powers to Rory 
 
 1 St. Leger to Wriothesley, Feb. 26, 1545, with Lord Upper Ossory's 
 letter in a note ; to the Privy Council, April 14.
 
 L'SO 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIV. 
 
 and sends 
 agents 
 to Dublin. 
 
 His agree- 
 ment with 
 St. Leger. 
 
 MacAlister, Bishop-elect of the Isles, and to Patrick Maclean, 
 Bailie of lona and Justice Clerk of the South Isles. 
 
 A few days after this treaty the bishop and the bailie 
 came to Dublin and asked for 1,OOOL Half of this sum, with 
 100L worth of provisions, was as much as St. Leger could 
 afford to give them. In the meantime Donnell Dhu had 
 appeared at Carrickfergus with 4,000 men and 180 galleys, 
 having left another force of 4,000 behind him to keep Argyle 
 and Huntley in check. In writing to the King of England 
 he expressed great joy that his Majesty had deigned to look 
 upon so small a person, and either he, or the priest who 
 prompted him, found an extraordinary analogy between the 
 fishers of the Western Isles and those of the Galilean lake, 
 and between Henry VIII. and their Master. At Carrick- 
 fergus Donnell Dhu and his friends again bound themselves 
 to do the bidding of Lennox, and ' to fortify after their power 
 the King's Majesty touching the marriage of the Princess of 
 Scotland, and in all other affairs as is commanded them to 
 do by my Lord Earl of Lennox.' ' 
 
 Having done their business in Dublin, Donnell 's ambas- 
 sadors hurried to England and made their terms with the 
 Council. They bound their chief and his friends to be 
 Henry's liege subjects, and to furnish him with 8,000 auxilia- 
 ries, who were to co-operate with Lennox and Ormonde, and, 
 if possible, to harry Scotland as far as Stirling. While 
 Lennox remained in Argyle's country all the islemen were 
 to be employed in destroying it ; in other places 6,000 were 
 to follow him, but there were never to be less than 2,000 
 occupied in persecuting the sons of Diarmid. In considera- 
 tion of this undertaking Henry promised to pay 3,000 of 
 Donnell's men, and to send a force of 2,000 Irish under 
 Ormonde, who was to be subordinate to Lennox. 2 
 
 1 Hill, p. 43. In a letter printed in S.P., vol. v. p. 483, Donnell Dhu 
 speaks of himself as ' in materno utero inimicorum jugo et captivitati 
 astricti, et in hoc pene tempus careens squalore obruti, et intolerabilibus 
 compedibus truculentissime ligati.' The notarial instrument between the 
 islemen is in S.P., vol. v. p. 477. Lord Deputy and Council of Ireland to 
 the King, Aug. 13, 1645. 
 
 * Privy Council to Lord Deputy and Council of Ireland, in S.P., vol. iii., 
 No. 422. See S.P., vol. v. pp. 505-7.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE KEIGN OF HENKY VIII. 281 
 
 St. Leger had considerable difficulty in raising 2,000 men CHAP. 
 at short notice. Money was scarce with him, and he was ' 
 
 not told what pay he might offer. Recruiting was hindered 
 by rumours of casualties amonff the kerne who had taken ends in 
 
 failure 
 
 part in Hertford's second raid, when they had been specially 
 employed to burn and waste East Teviotdale ' because the 
 borderers would not most willingly burn their neighbours.' 
 The required number was, however, got together by great 
 exertions, one-half being raised by Ormonde. The force when 
 complete consisted of 100 of the Dublin garrison, 400 gallow- 
 glasses, and 1,500 kerne. Two hundred and fifty had mus- 
 kets, or were to some extent trained in the use of artillery, 
 of which there were several pieces. Shipping was collected 
 in the Irish and Welsh ports, and great quantities of muni- 
 tions put on board. Lennox himself came to Dublin, and 
 sailed with Ormonde for the Clyde. Dumbarton Castle was 
 in the hands of Lord Glencairne, and was to be taken if pos- 
 sible. Should this attempt fail, the plan was to effect a 
 landing in Argyle's country, and to do all the damage pos- 
 sible there. The fleet left Dublin on November 17, and was 
 unlucky from the first, being caught in a storm off Belfast 
 Lough and much damaged. On reaching the Clyde the 
 country was found to be up in arms, the attitude of the isle- 
 men was uncertain, a French squadron was on the coast, and 
 Lennox, against the advice of Ormonde, resolved to turn 
 back. Donnell Dhu died at Drogheda just at the critical 
 moment, and was buried in St. Patrick's, Dublin, where an 
 epitaph recorded the mournful fact that he had escaped an 
 exile's life only to die an exile's death. 1 
 
 James MacDonnell, the son of Alaster, became Lord of James 
 
 Mac- 
 
 the Isles by general consent. He had been educated at the Donnell 
 Scottish Court, and his politics had thus lost something of services, 
 their insularity. At all events he had learned to write, and 1)4 * 
 that was a rare accomplishment for one of his family in those 
 days. Lady Agnes Campbell had perhaps excited doubts in 
 
 1 Ormonde to Bussell, Nov. 15, 1545; Lord Deputy and Council to the 
 King, Nov. 19. Donnell Dhu died before Jan. 20, 1546, the date of a letter 
 from James MacDonuell in S.P., vol. iii. p. 548. Dowling.
 
 282 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, his mind as to the desirability of destroying the Argyle 
 
 f^ ' power ; and others in the isles may have doubted the power 
 
 of Henry VIII. to protect them against the Campbells and 
 Gordons. But James still professed his readiness to do 
 the King of England's bidding, suggested St. Patrick's day 
 nearly two months off for a meeting with Lennox in the 
 island of Sanda, and in the meantime asked for shipping to 
 transport his men. Ragged Scotchmen continued to flock 
 to Dublin, all asking for money ; and the Irish Government 
 soon formed an opinion that while the cost of maintaining 
 them was certain, the expectation of service was more than 
 doubtful. 1 
 
 Dissensions St. Leger and Ormonde were now at open war. When 
 Leger^nd leaving Gowran for Scotland the latter received an anony- 
 1 e ' mous letter warning him that he was sent there only that he 
 might be the more easily caught and put into the Tower. 
 The writer affirmed that Lennox had said as much, and that 
 the boasting of the Lord Deputy's servants had been to the 
 same effect. The pretext was that the Earl obstructed Irish 
 reforms. Ormonde seems to have partly believed the letter, 
 for he sent a copy to Russell, and begged him to procure an 
 impartial inquiry. He then went to Scotland, declaring that 
 his loyalty was not of that timorous sort which fears inquiry 
 or shuns danger. ' If,' he wrote, ' I saw all the power of the 
 world upon a hill armed against his Majesty, I would rather 
 run to his Grace, though I were slain at his Majesty's heels, 
 than to leave his Highness and save myself.' a 
 
 They both After his return from Scotland Ormonde wrote several 
 
 land" 15-wL letters to Privy Councillors in England, in which he attacked 
 St. Leger's administration as expensive and wasteful. A 
 graver accusation against a servant of Henry VIII. was that 
 he concealed much which it imported the King to know. 
 The letters were seized on ship-board by the Lord Deputy's 
 brother, and detained for some time in Dublin. Ormonde 
 
 1 Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, Feb. 15, 1546, and a 
 letter in a note from ' Ewyne Allane of Locheld.' James MacDonnell is 
 called Lord of the Isles ' by consent of the nobility,' ' apparent heir,' ' worthy 
 to succeed,' and ' Lord elect.' 
 
 ' J Ormonde to Russell, Nov. 15, 1545.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE KEIGN OF HENEY VIII. 283 
 
 refused to state his grievances before the Irish Council, 
 as being necessarily under St. Leger's influence, but pre- 
 ferred to run all the risks of a voyage to England. The Irish 
 Government left all to the Privy Council. St. Leger accord- 
 ingly went over to state his own case, having first secured 
 certificates of character from the Irish Council, from Desmond, 
 Tyrone, Thomond, and Upper Ossory, and from several Irish 
 chiefs, all of whom willingly came to Dublin at his summons, 
 and ' wept and lamented the departing of so just a governor.' l 
 
 Lord Chancellor Alen was not favourable to St. Leger. intrigues 
 
 of Irish 
 
 He quarrelled regularly with every deputy ; but there may O ffi c i a i 8 . 
 be some truth in his allegations, which are little more than a 
 statement of the insoluble problem of Irish government. The 
 King's writ did not run much further than in former days. 
 The revenue was almost stationary, and was supplemented 
 annually by 5,OOOZ. of English money. Leinster was not re- 
 formed. Irishmen were quiet, but might not long remain so. 
 The chiefs continued to wage private war, and were not to 
 be tamed with abbey-lands in their own countries, or farms 
 in the Pale. * I cannot,' said Alen, ' learn that ever such 
 barbarous people kept touch any while, or were ever van- 
 quished with fair words. Let Wales be example.' Inter- 
 rogatories were sent to Irish councillors on these and similar 
 points, and as to whether either St. Leger or the Chancellor 
 had been corrupt in any way. Questions were asked as to 
 the demeanour of every councillor, as to whether Alen's 
 account of St. Leger's overbearing conduct at the Council 
 Board was true, as to the behaviour of Ormonde and others 
 there. In replying to Alen's charges, St. Leger complained 
 of their vagueness, and detailed his strenuous exertions to 
 overcome the inherent difficulties of his task, and here most 
 people will sympathise with him. He thought that Irishmen 
 on the whole kept their word as well as Englishmen, ' and 
 if Irishmen use their own laws, so doth the Earl of Ormonde, 
 and all the Lords Marchers in Ireland.' We have here a line 
 of argument very common in our own day, but very rare in 
 
 1 Cusack to Paget, March 28, 1546. See the S.P. from Feb. 20 to 
 March 28, vol. iii., Nos. 431, 433, 434, 435, 438, 439, and 440.
 
 284 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, that of Henry VIII., and St. Leger must be credited with 
 , '_.. unusual breadth of view. The Irish customs were in truth 
 necessary ; for there was then no way of enforcing English 
 law, and the difficulty of applying it fully has not disappeared 
 even in the reign of Queen Victoria. As to mismanagement 
 of the revenue, St. Leger gave Alen the lie direct, and accused 
 him of conspiring with Walter Cowley to defame him ; but 
 this the Chancellor positively denied. The Lord Deputy 
 begged that he might not be wearied with interrogatories, but 
 called before the Council, and confronted with his accusers. 
 1 Then,' he said, ' let me be rid of this hell, wherein I have 
 remained six years, and that some other may serve his Majesty 
 as long as I have done, and I to serve him elsewhere, where 
 he shall command me. Though the same were in Turkey, I 
 will not refuse it.' 1 
 St. Leger The English Government came to the conclusion that St. 
 
 exonerated i -i i -a 
 
 from Leger deserved no blame. Alen could not be quite acquitted 
 
 f factious conduct ; but he was a faithful servant, and hardly 
 prisoned 1 " 1 " * ^ e s P are ^ fr om Ireland, which had the quality of trans- 
 muting wisdom into foolishness and honesty into self-seeking. 
 He suffered a short imprisonment in the Tower, and had to 
 surrender the Great Seal, which, after being refused by two 
 other lawyers, was given to Sir Richard Rede. But his 
 property was restored to him immediately after Edward's 
 accession ; he became Lord Chancellor again, and received 
 the constableship of Maynooth, and many other favours. In 
 1550 he seems still to have been grumbling against St. Leger, 
 who could then afford to speak of him as his old friend. 
 Walter Cowley, the Irish Solicitor-General, was also sent to 
 the Tower. It appears that one William Cantwell held a 
 lease for life of three farms in Kilkenny, and that others had 
 seized them while he was learning English at Oxford. There 
 may have been a question of title, for it was not uncommon 
 in Henry VIII.'s time to grant the same property to several 
 people at once. Believing that he had been kept from his 
 
 1 See 8.P. 1546, vol. iii., Nos. 441 to 448. No. 439 is a letter from certain 
 Irish chiefs to the King in St. Leger's favour, and they make the reflection, 
 ' Oh si majoribus nostris tales contigissent moderatores.'
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 285 
 
 own by Ormonde, St. Leger espoused Cantwell's cause ; and CHAP. 
 
 it was to get the Earl out of the way that Cantwell wrote the > <-^ 
 
 Gowran letter, and another found at Ross. Cowley, who was 
 more or less under Alen's influence, declared in the Tower 
 that his report against St. Leger had been revised by the 
 Chancellor ; but this was solemnly denied. c I was/ said Alen, 
 ' never of counsel with article of it. God is my Judge, I 
 would be ashamed to be named to be privy to the penning of 
 so lewd a book;' and years afterwards he told Paget that 
 Cowley had confessed the truth of this disclaimer. Perhaps 
 he spoke in fear of the rack ; in any case, the Privy Council 
 or the King decided that he was a liar, and he was cer- 
 tainly a plotter like his father before him. The old man was 
 deprived of the office of Master of the Rolls, and the young 
 one of that of Solicitor-General. Both were employed again 
 in the next reign. St. Leger was reconciled to Ormonde, and 
 in spite of his prayers was restored to his government with 
 increased honours and an hereditary pension. 1 
 
 Ormonde never saw Ireland again. He kept fifty servants Murder of 
 in London, who invited him to sup with them at Limehouse. 
 After supper the whole company sickened, and seventeen in 
 all died. The Earl was carried to Ely House in Holborn, 
 where he lingered for several days, but at last succumbed. 
 There seems to have been no inquiry into this tragedy, and 
 one might suspect that the Government took this means of 
 releasing themselves from a man who had become incon- 
 veniently powerful, and whose services were too eminent to 
 attack openly. Henry had no particular scruples about assassi- 
 nation, when, as in Cardinal Beaton's case, he could not reach 
 his enemy by other means ; but he would hardly have been 
 likely to poison a subject against whom he could always 
 compass an Act of Attainder. The fact that Ormonde's 
 loyalty was above suspicion may have rendered this course 
 difficult, and Henry may have seen in him a possible Earl 
 of Kildare. He was ambitious, very powerful, impatient of 
 
 1 Alen's Answer to St. Leger in 8.P., vol. iii. No. 446, and W. Cowley's 
 Letter to the Privy Council, No, 448 ; Alen to Paget, April 21, 1549 ; St. 
 Leger to Cecil, Dec. 5, 1 550.
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XIV. 
 
 All Depu- 
 ties had 
 difficulties 
 with the 
 Butlers and 
 the perma- 
 nent 
 officials. 
 
 interference, and by no means tamely subservient to the ruler 
 of the hour. There is no reason to suppose that Hertford 
 or Wriothesley were capable of such a crime. Warwick was 
 capable of anything ; but if he had suspected the Seymours, 
 he would hardly have allowed the matter to be hushed 
 up. An anecdote of Ormonde's son, the famous tenth Earl, 
 perhaps points to a suspicion against Leicester's father ; but 
 it is not likely that the mystery will ever be cleared up. The 
 'Four Masters' say St. Leger had boasted that either he or 
 Ormonde should never return to Ireland ; but this is not men- 
 tioned by older annalists, nor in the official correspondence, 
 and it is just the sort of story that would have been concocted 
 afterwards. Ormonde's vast estates passed quietly to his heir, 
 a boy of fourteen, who became the most famous and powerful 
 man of his age and country. The boy was educated at the 
 English Court, and 200 marks a year out of his lands in 
 Ireland were assigned for his support. 1 
 
 Scarcely any Deputy could escape collison with the head 
 of the Butler family, whose influence rested on lasting found- 
 ations and not on the favour of the Dublin Government. 
 Moreover, permanent officials, who had powerful connections 
 in the county, knew how to thwart their nominal superior ; 
 and, unless he happened to be a man of great tact, difficulties 
 were sure to arise. Grey and Bellingham quarrelled with the 
 Council. Sidney viewed the Ormonde of his day with un- 
 concealed jealousy and suspicion. Strafford was at war with 
 the Lord-Treasurer Cork and with the Vice-Treasurer Mount- 
 norris ; and his treatment of the latter contributed to his fall. 
 Lord Fitzwilliam was beaten by a revenue commissioner, 
 Lord Townsend by the boronghmongers ; and the lawyers 
 have often been able to make combinations enabling them 
 to dictate their own terms. Australian governors can best 
 appreciate the difficulties of Ireland's rulers in past times. 
 
 Henry VIII. 's plan for the government of Ireland was very 
 
 different from that which his children pursued. Evidently he 
 
 did not desire to plant colonists in the country, but rather to 
 
 civilise the people as they were. By creating some of the 
 
 1 Stanihurst ; Morrin's Patent Rolls, p. 168.
 
 1541 TO THE CLOSE OF THE KEIGN OF HENEY VIII. 287 
 
 great chiefs Earls, and by insisting on their going to Court CHAP, 
 for investiture, he hoped gradually to convert them into sup- 
 porters. Such cases as that of Tirlogh O'Toole show that he 
 knew how to be both gracious and just. On the other hand, policy; 
 the ferocity of his character was exemplified by his treatment failed, 
 of the five Geraldine brethren. He was a thoroughly selfish 
 man, but in matters which did not concern him personally he 
 had many of the qualifications of a statesman. Had England 
 remained in communion with Eome, his tentative and patient 
 policy might have succeeded in Ireland. The Eeformation 
 caused its failure, for there never was the slightest chance of 
 native Ireland embracing the new doctrines. The monasteries 
 had not weighed heavily on Ireland, and their destruction 
 made many bitter enemies and few friends. By upsetting 
 the whole ecclesiastical structure, Henry left the field clear 
 for Jesuits and wandering friars; and his children reaped the 
 fruits of a mistake which neutralised every effort to win 
 Ireland.
 
 288 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 
 
 CHAP. DURING the quarter of a century which elapsed between 
 vj ,_! - Henry's accession and his final breach with Rome, the King 
 King and showed great submission to the papal chair. The wishes of 
 such a faithful son could not be lightly regarded, and royal 
 nominations to English bishoprics were invariably confirmed 
 by the Pontiff. Capitular elections still took place ; but they 
 had ceased to be free, and preferment was really given by the 
 joint fiat of the Crown and the Tiara. In Ireland the King 
 was less absolute. The popes had not forgotten their original 
 gift of the island ; and the clergy, more especially in remote 
 regions, would naturally look to them for promotion, rather 
 than to a King whose power was uncertain and to whom they 
 had a national antipathy. In the year 1520 the united sees 
 of Cork and Cloyne became vacant. Surrey, then Lord- 
 Lieutenant, was besieged with applications, but preferred the 
 claims of Walter Wellesley, head of the great Augustinian 
 house of Conal in Kildare. In right of his priory Wellesley 
 had already a seat in the Irish House of Lords, and Surrey 
 recommended him to Wolsey as ' a famous clerk, noted the best 
 in the land a man of gravity and virtuous conversation and a 
 singular mind having to English order.' Wellesley was not 
 nominated on this occasion, either because he preferred his 
 priory to a bishopric, or because the Cardinal had other views. 
 In the following year the Bishop of Limerick died, and the 
 Lord-Lieutenant and Council again strongly recommended 
 the Prior of Conal ; but the Pope nevertheless provided John 
 Quin, a Dominican friar, and Wellesley did not become a 
 bishop till 1529. He was then at last consecrated to Kildare,
 
 Vol.1 .to face -page 288. 
 
 The manes in c'apiials we 
 Bishoprics, the others are Seals 
 oTunpertant Jffon
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 289 
 
 and allowed to keep his monastery, as in that situation he CHAP. 
 might very fairly do. 1 ^ 
 
 The points at issue between King and Pope are well illus- Case of 
 trated by the case of Clonfert, which fell vacant at the moment 
 of separation. Clement provided the Dean, Roland de Burgo, 
 and Henry appointed Richard Nangle Provincial of the Irish 
 Austinfriars. Nangle was consecrated and took possession 
 of his see. Relying on his family influence, and probably 
 upheld by popular opinion, the Papal prelate, who was armed 
 with the power of granting indulgences and dispensations, 
 defied the royal nominee, and Nangle was afraid to appear in 
 public. It was proposed to bring the Burkes to their senses 
 by laying an embargo on the trade of Galway, but this does 
 not seem to have been done. Ten years after his original 
 provision, and probably after the death of Nangle, De Burgo 
 was confirmed by the King and allowed to hold his deanery 
 and other benefices, of which he had all along kept possession, 
 on condition of renouncing the Pope's bulls and acknowledg- 
 ing that he held from the Crown. The Bishop, who must 
 have had an elastic conscience, died in harness in 1580. 2 
 
 The more important bishoprics were generally given to Armagh. 
 men whom the English Government could trust, and it is 
 not likely that they were ever filled up in defiance of the 
 King until after his rupture with Rome. Armagh, Dublin, 
 and Meath were rarely entrusted to any but men of English 
 birth. In 1513 John Kite, a Londoner, was appointed by 
 provision to Armagh, but the nomination was certainly agree- 
 able to Henry, who had before employed Kite as a diplomatist 
 in Spain. The temporalities of the diocese were almost im- 
 mediately restored to him, and he was soon afterwards present 
 in London at the grand reception of Wolsey's red hat. Kite, 
 who received many tokens of royal favour, was translated by 
 the Pope to Carlisle. The Holy See claimed very full rights 
 in the case of a translation ; but George Cromer, an English- 
 
 1 Surrey to Wolsey, Sept. 6, 1520, and the notes ; Pace to Wolsey, April 
 7, 1521, in Carew ; Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 317. 
 
 2 Ware's liighop* ; Richard Culoke to Brabazon, Nov. 10, 1537 ; the King 
 to the Lord Deputy and Council, July 10, 1543. 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XV. 
 
 Dublin. 
 
 Meath. 
 
 man, was appointed to Armagh at the King of England's 
 supplication. Such was the form preferred by the Pope, but 
 the supplication was in fact a nomination. 1 
 
 William Kokeby, a Yorkshireman, was translated from 
 Meath to Dublin in 1512. Henry made him his chancellor, 
 and he also was present at the hat ceremony. After his 
 death a Somersetshire man, Hugh Inge, was translated by 
 the Pope from Meath to Dublin. There can be little doubt 
 that this was done with the King's full consent, for Inge 
 acknowledged that he owed all to Wolsey. As a special 
 favour the tax on this occasion was reduced from 1,600 to 
 1,000 florins, on the suggestion of Campeggio, who reported 
 that certain noblemen had intruded into the diocesan lands 
 and greatly diminished the income. Inge also held the 
 office of chancellor, which at this time was almost invariably 
 given to an archbishop. When Inge died, John Alen, one of 
 Wolsey's chaplains, was provided to Dublin at the King's 
 instance, or supplication as the Pope called it, and imme- 
 diately received the Great Seal. Alen had been employed 
 by the Cardinal in the suppression of the lesser monasteries, 
 and had incurred great odium in that office. 2 
 
 The see of Meath, which has the singular distinction of 
 having never possessed a cathedral, was from its position 
 of especial importance. After being successively filled by 
 
 1 Ware. 
 
 2 Brady's Episcopal Succession, vol. i. p. 325 ; Ware. Roy's satire against 
 Wolsey, printed in the 9th vol. of the Harleian Miscellany, has the following : 
 
 Wat. And who did for the show pay ? 
 Jeff. Truly many a rich abbaye 
 To be eased of his visitation. 
 
 Wat. Doth he in his own person visit ? 
 No, another for him doth it, 
 
 That can skill of the occupation. 
 A fellow neither wise nor sad, 
 But he was never yet full mad, 
 
 Though he be frantic and more. 
 Dr. Alen he is named, 
 One that to lie is not ashamed 
 If he spy advantage therefore. 
 Wat. Are such with him in any price ? 
 Jeff. Yea, for they do all his advice, 
 Whether it be wrong or right.
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 291 
 
 Rokeby and Inge, it was given by the Pope, but probably at CHAP. 
 
 Wolsey's instigation, to Bichard Wilson, Prior of Drax in ,-1 - 
 
 Yorkshire. It is remarkable that Wilson, who does not seem 
 ever to have resided in his see, fully acknowledged that the 
 Cardinal's legatine authority extended to Ireland. This was 
 vehemently denied by Primate Cromer and his suffragans, 
 who were able to make their objections good; the whole 
 province of Armagh, except Meath, being situated among the 
 Irishry. On the resignation of Wilson, Edward Staples, a 
 Lincolnshire man, was provided by Clement on the King's 
 nomination. He was allowed to hold St. Bartholomew's 
 Hospital in London, and other benefices, along with his 
 bishopric, and he had a special Papal dispensation for filling 
 offices with incompatible duties. Staples fully embraced the 
 Reformation, and was a principal instrument in carrying out 
 the changed religious policy of the English Crown. 1 
 
 In 1524 Edmund Butler, Prior of Athassel, a natural son Cashei. 
 of Sir Piers Butler, was appointed by the Pope to Cashei, 
 and by him recommended to the King, who addressed letters 
 in his favour to the Irish Government. Kildare alleged that 
 Butler was opposed by his father, and there was certainly a 
 contest between them. The Archbishop's object was to pre- 
 vent his father, as acting Earl Palatine of Tipperary, from 
 raising a revenue in that county, the larger part of which was 
 in his diocese. The citizens of Waterford complained that 
 his Grace used every kind of Irish extortion, and his opposi- 
 tion to the palatinate jurisdiction clearly arose from no wish 
 to leave the people untaxed. In one respect indeed the prelate 
 bettered the instruction of the temporal magnates, for he 
 ' retained Dermond Duff for his official and counsellor or 
 commissary, which so entertaineth the King's people by colour 
 of canon law that there can be no more extortion committed 
 by any Irish Brehon, and polleth the King's subjects as he 
 lists, and taketh for fee of sentence of a divorce 10Z. or more.' 
 He openly robbed a boat laden with merchandise, and held 
 the owners to ransom. Butler's consecration was delayed for 
 
 1 As to the legatine authority, see Brewer, vol. iii.,No. 2838, and iv., No. 
 5131 ; John Alen to Wolsey, June 1, 1523, in S.P. 
 
 TJ 2
 
 292 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 ( II.VP. three years : it is not easy to say why, as there is no trace of 
 
 r^. a dispute between the Crown and the Pope. Ultimately he 
 
 became a very important person, and generally acted with the 
 other Butlers in support of the King's authority. He accepted 
 the royal supremacy, and surrendered his monastery when 
 called on to do so. 1 
 
 Tuam. The western province was so entirely Irish that the King 
 
 could hardly have interfered effectually with Papal nominees. 
 On the death of the learned Maurice O'Fiehely in 1513, Thomas 
 O'Mullally was provided to Tuam, and lived unmolested by 
 Henry till 1536. But Christopher Bodkin, who had been 
 preferred to Kilmacduagh at the King's request, was trans- 
 lated purely by royal authority to Tuam. The breach with 
 Rome had at this time become irreparable ; and Bodkin, whom 
 the Vatican regards as a schismatic but not as a heretic, ac- 
 knowledged the royal supremacy and held the temporalities 
 of both his sees, as well as the minor ones of Enaghdune and 
 Mayo, until his death in 1572. His astuteness far exceeded 
 that of the Vicar of Bray, for he seems to have kept his pre- 
 ferments and his opinions as well. A rival archbishop was 
 appointed by Clement in 1538, and is now considered the 
 true one by writers on the Papal side. The double line has 
 continued ever since. 2 
 
 Remoter To the less important and more distant bishoprics appoint- 
 
 ments were probably very often made by the popes without 
 the King's interference, and even without his notice. But 
 when he did make a recommendation it is hardly likely to 
 have been neglected at Rome. Tims the sees of Clonmacnoise, 
 Clogher, Ardagh, and Kilmore were on particular occasions 
 filled by the King, and the appointments confirmed by the 
 Pope at his request. The case of Clogher is the more re- 
 markable in that a provision of Julius II. had lately declared 
 that church to be immediately subject to the Holy See. In 
 
 1 Clement VII. to Henry VIII., Oct. 21, 1524, in Brewer and in Rymer; 
 Kildare's Articles against Ormonde in S.P., vol. ii. p. 123 ; and see Brewer, 
 vol. iv., No. 4277 ; R. Cowley to Wolsey in 1528, S.P., vol. ii. p. 141 ; Present- 
 ment* of Grievances, edited by Graves, p. 203 ; Council of Ireland to Crom- 
 well, Feb. 8, 1539.. 
 
 2 7/rarfy, vol. ii. ; Council of Ireland to Cromwell, Feb. 8, 1530.
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 293 
 
 the yet more remote districts of Down, Dromore, Raphoe, and CHAP. 
 
 Derry, the King does not seem to have interfered at all. In ^ - 
 
 providing Edmund O'Gallagher to the see of Raphoe, Clement 
 VII. observed that the diocese was vacant because the King 
 had neglected to nominate any one for seventeen years. 1 
 
 In Leinster the King must generally have had power to Leinster. 
 prevent any bishop from enjoying the profits of his see. The 
 patronage was very laxly managed, for Kildare lay vacant 
 from 1513 to 1526. In 1523 the Earl of Kildare tried to 
 get the preferment for the dean, Edward Dillon, whom he re- 
 commended to Wolsey as of virtuous living and of English 
 name and condition. The application failed, but Thomas 
 Dillon was at last appointed both by King and Pope. This 
 promotion was probably effected in Kildare's interest ; for 
 Cowley, a partisan of the Butlers, called Dillon an Irish vaga- 
 bond, without learning, manners, or other good quality, and 
 not fit to be a holy water clerk. This Irish vagabond had, 
 however, been educated at Oxford. Thomas Halsey was per- 
 suaded by Wolsey to accept the bishopric of Leighlin, and 
 Maurice Doran was, at the King's request, provided to the 
 same see. There may be no positive evidence as to Ossory 
 and Ferns, but there is no reason to doubt that the persons 
 appointed were acceptable to the Government. 2 
 
 In Munster it is not likely that bishops would be appointed Munster. 
 without the consent of the Crown, except perhaps to the re- 
 mote sees of Killaloe and Kilfenora, in which the succession 
 at this period is almost hopelessly confused. In filling the 
 scarcely less completely Irish bishopric of Ross, the King took 
 a direct part. He called upon the Pope to accept the resig- 
 nation of Edmund Courcey, and to appoint as his successor 
 the Cistercian John O'Murrilly, with leave to hold the Abbey 
 of Maur in addition. Leo X. complied in every particular ; 
 but when O'Murrilly died two years later, the Pope took the 
 strong step of uniting Ross with Dromore in the distant 
 
 1 Theiner's Vet,era Honumenta, pp. 515, 516, 521 ; Brady, Arts. Kilmore, 
 Clogher, and Raphoe. 
 
 2 Kildare to Wolsey, Feb. 8, 1522; R. Cowley to Wolsey, S.P., vol. ii., 
 No. 53 ; Ware.
 
 294 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, north. We may infer from this that Henry did not always 
 
 ^ ' choose to interfere, but that when he did the Pope paid the 
 
 greatest attention to his wishes ; and that this rule applied to 
 Munster generally. At Waterford and Cork, the strongholds 
 of JEnglish law, it was hardly possible for a bishop to enjoy 
 his revenues in defiance of the Government. 1 
 
 Connaught. I n Connaught the popes seem to have provided bishops as 
 a general rule ; but they generally avoided a collision when 
 the King's wish was openly expressed. As late as 1533 
 Christopher Bodkin was appointed to Kilmacduagh at Henry's 
 request ; and this is a very strong case, because a purely 
 papal nominee seems to have resigned in his favour. In 
 Elphin John Max was appointed by the Pope ; but as he held 
 the abbeys of Welbeck or Tichfield, or both, along with his 
 bishopric, he can hardly have been distasteful to Henry. The 
 case of Burke arid Nangle, already mentioned, shows King and 
 Pope openly at variance. But even at the beginning of that 
 contest the schism was almost complete. 2 
 
 Bad state of In the ' Description of Ireland,' written early in Henry 
 Church. VIII.'s reign, there is a story of St. Brigid, who inquired of 
 her good angel of what Christian land most souls were 
 damned. He showed her a land in the west part of the 
 world, where was continually root of hate and envy, and vices 
 contrary to charity, for lack of which souls kept continually 
 falling down into hell as thick as hail showers. It is inferred 
 that the angel spoke of Ireland, ' for,' says the writer, ' there 
 is no land in this world of so long continual war within 
 himself, nor of so great shedding of Christian blood, nor of 
 so great robbing, spoiling, preying, and burning, nor of so 
 great wrongful extortion continually as Ireland.' Among the 
 vaiious causes of this state of things the bishops and clergy 
 are blamed, ' for there is no archbishop nor bishop, abbot nor 
 prior, parson nor vicar, nor any other person of the Church, 
 high or low, great or small, English or Irish, that useth to 
 
 1 For the Ross case, see Tiieiner, p. 520 ; for the union of Ross and 
 Dromore ' propter tenuitatem utriusque ecclesiae,' see Brady, vol. ii 
 p. 109. 
 
 2 See Brady, under Elphin and Kilmacduagh.
 
 THE IRISH CHUECH UNDER HENRY VIII. 295 
 
 
 
 preach the Word of God saveing the poor friars' beggars .... CHAP. 
 
 Also the Church of this land use not to learn any other ^ 
 
 science but the law of Canon, for covetyce of lucre transitory; 
 all other science whereof grows none such lucre, the parsons 
 of the Church doth despise. They hold more by the plough 
 rustical than by lucre of the plough celestial, to which they 
 have stretched their hands, and look always backwards. They 
 tend much more to lucre of that plough, whereof groweth 
 slander and rebuke, than to lucre of the souls, that is the 
 plough of Christ. And to the transitory lucre of that rustical 
 plough they tender so much, that little or nought there 
 chargeth to lucre to Christ, the souls of their subjects, of 
 whom they bear the cure, by preaching and teaching of the 
 Word of God, and by their good ensample giveing ; which is 
 the plough of worship and of honour, and the plough of grace 
 that ever shall endure.' ! 
 
 This is a heavy indictment, but it is sustained by very State of 
 many facts which have come down to us. The state of many ROSS, ci'on- 
 important churches shows how ill religion was supported. A " 
 report to Leo X. on Ardagh Cathedral states that there was dune - 
 no sacristy, no bell nor belfry, no proper appliances for service ; 
 and that the walls of the church itself were but just standing. 
 There was only one altar, which was exposed to the weather. 
 Mass was rarely celebrated, and then by a single priest, and 
 the scanty vestments and utensils were kept in a chest in the 
 church. The town consisted of four thatched cabins ; and 
 there were few inhabitants, owing to continual wars caused by 
 the conduct of the late Bishop, William O'Ferrall, who had 
 excited the animosity of his neighbours by attempting to ex- 
 ercise temporal power. The bishopric of Ross was in rather 
 better case. The town of 200 houses was walled, and the 
 cathedral church was built of stone in regular cruciform 
 fashion, and with a tiled roof. There was decent provision 
 for the mass. On the other hand, the church was unpaved, 
 and the income of the see no more than sixty marks. At 
 Clonmacnoise, one of the most famous ecclesiastical places in 
 Ireland, things were scarcely better than at Ardagh. The 
 1 S.P., vol. ii. pp. 11, lo, and 16.
 
 296 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 
 
 CHAP, town could boast but twelve houses, built of wicker and straw. 
 
 XV. 
 r-^ ' The church was roofless, and half ruined ; with a single altar 
 
 protected by a thatched shed, one vestment, and a cross made 
 of brass. Mass was rarely celebrated, but the body of St. 
 Ciaran was preserved and reverenced. The Pope's informant 
 was an Irishman, but the saint's name was unknown to him. 
 The ancient see of Enaghdune or Annaghdown on Lough 
 Corrib was in a deplorable state. The church was in ruins, 
 the clergy far out of order, and the revenue not more than 
 201., which could only be collected by a steward who had the 
 favour of the country. 1 
 
 Corruption The above cases are all of bishoprics situated in remote parts 
 among dig- 
 
 uitaries. among the Irishry. The state of the Church in the Pale and 
 other obedient districts was of course better, but even in 
 Dublin the metropolitan crozier remained in pawn for eighty 
 years, from 1449 until Archbishop Alen redeemed it by paying 
 one hundred ounces of silver. The clergy were charged with 
 seeking money more than souls ; and many acts of violence 
 and extortion are reported on oath against the Archbishop of 
 Cashel and the Bishops of Ferns, Ossory, Leighlin, Waterford, 
 and Limerick ; against the Abbots of Tintern, Jerpoint, Kil- 
 cooley, Holy Cross, Dusk, and Innislonagh ; against the Priors 
 of Kilclogan, Knocktopher, Inistiogue, Kells, Cahir, and Lady 
 Abbey; and against the Prioress of Moylagh. In general 
 bishops and heads of houses were not less extortionate than 
 other gentlemen. They exacted coyne and livery and the 
 other multifarious Irish imposts with neither more nor less 
 severity than the laity. But it should not be forgotten that 
 these ecclesiastical dignitaries were also great landowners, 
 and that they were forced to provide the means of defence in 
 the only possible way. The Archbishop of Cashel and the 
 Bishops of Waterford and Ossory had other means of taxing 
 the people peculiar to their offices ; they took excessive fees 
 in all matrimonial and probate cases, and appropriated a 
 portion of every dead man's goods. The Archbishop's lowest 
 
 1 For Ardagh, see Thdner, p. 521 ; for Ross, p. 529 ; for Clonmacnoise, 
 p. 518. For Enaghdune, see Ossory to Cromwell in 1532, Carem, vol. i. 
 No. 37.
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 297 
 
 charge for a divorce was 5., and it was generally double that CHAP. 
 
 or more. The citizens of Waterford declared that the canon- ^ 
 
 ists were as burdensome as the Irish Brehons. 1 
 
 The parochial clergy were no better than the dignitaries. Parochial 
 They made charges varying from sixpence to two shillings better. 
 for all weddings, christenings, churchings, and burials ; and at 
 the death of any married person, man or wife, they exacted 
 five shillings, or one-fifth of the personalty, or the best article 
 of apparel, from the survivor. In many places divine service 
 was neglected or was only performed at irregular intervals. 
 The Earl of Kildare, who was not impartial but who probably 
 spoke truly, declared that the churches in Tipperary and Kil- 
 kenny were generally in ruins through the system of Papal 
 provisions, ' so as, and if the King's Grace do not see for the 
 hasty remedy of the same, there is like to be no more Chris- 
 tianity there, than in the midst of Turkey.' Henry was just 
 beginning to quarrel with the Pope, and would be ready 
 enough to believe that provisions had ruined the churches. 
 No doubt many bad appointments were thus made, but it 
 may have been impossible to get fit men ; for Browne reports 
 the clergy as unlearned persons, who repeated the Latin offices 
 like parrots and without understanding them. 2 
 
 Piers, Earl of Ossory, also adopted the doctrine that the Evils of 
 Papal system of patronage had been the chief cause of the patronage, 
 utter ruin and destruction ' of cathedral churches, monasteries, 
 parish churches, and all other regular and secular.' Murderers, 
 thieves, and ' light men of war ' obtained provisions, ousted 
 the rightful incumbents, ignored the rightful patrons, held 
 livings by force, and wasted them in riotous living. Violence 
 indeed was the rule. John Purcell, Bishop of Ferns, was in 
 close alliance with the dangerous rebel and freebooter, Cahir 
 MacArt Kavanagh, was present when his men sacked the 
 town of Fethard, and himself called loudly for fire to burn 
 the houses. Milo Baron, Bishop of Ossory, was said to be as 
 
 1 Presentments of Grievances, ed. Graves ; particularly pp. 192 and 203. 
 
 2 Kildare's Articles against Ormonde in 1525, S.P., vol. ii. p. 123 ; his 
 statement is partially confirmed by the Presentments of Grievances, and see 
 Ossory's own statements in 1534, Carero, vol. i. p. 55; Ware's Life and Death 
 of Archbishop Browne.
 
 298 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XV. 
 
 The Regu- 
 lars not 
 exempt 
 from 
 censure. 
 
 bad as the Bishop of Ferns, and to ' have no virtuous quality nor 
 obedience to any good laws.' Archbishop Butler was accused 
 of riotous conduct and of at least one highway robbery, a 
 richly laden boat having been plundered by him on the Suir 
 within four miles of Waterford. Amid the general corruption 
 a bright example was shown by the Franciscan Maurice 
 Doran, Bishop of Leighlin, a learned theologian, an eloquent 
 preacher, and a man of blameless life. Being advised to 
 increase the burdens of his clergy, he replied that he had 
 rather shear his sheep than flay them. Doran was allowed to 
 tend his flock for twenty months only. Having corrected the 
 irregularities of his Archdeacon Maurice Kavanagh, he was 
 treacherously murdered by him. It is some satisfaction to 
 know that Kildare afterwards caught the Archdeacon and his 
 accomplices, and hanged them in chains on the scene of the 
 Bishop's murder. 1 
 
 The Regulars by no means escaped censure. The Prior of 
 the Hospitallers of Kilclogan in Wexford was as bad as Bishop 
 Purcell, and * kept fire in the steeple door of St. John's, until 
 such time as he had out the ward that was within.' James 
 Butler, Cistercian Abbot of Innislonagh and Dean of Lismore, 
 attained a bad eminence. The citizens of Waterford repre- 
 sented him as a man of odious life, who neglected every duty, 
 gave himself up to voluptuosity, and wasted the property of 
 his house to provide for his open and scandalous immoralities. 
 The people of Clonmel repeat the charge, and extend it to the 
 other monks. The Augustinian Canons, in the great monas- 
 tery of Athassel, of which Archbishop Butler was Prior, were 
 no better. Nor were the mendicants blameless. The Carmel- 
 ite Prior of Lady Abbey, near Clonmel, which was a parish 
 church, kept a mistress and provided no divine service. The 
 Prior of Knocktopher, also a Carmelite, and the Cistercian 
 Abbot of Dusk, had sons. That secular priests should be 
 fathers of families was of course common both in England and 
 
 1 Indenture of Remembrance for the Earl of Ossory and Lord Butler, 
 May 31, 1634, in Carero ; Presentments of Grievances, pp. 48 and 204 ; Fuv/r 
 Masters, 1525 ; Bowling's Annals, 1522 : ' Mauritius Doran episcopus in 
 jocando ejus adventu quibusdam persuadentibus duplicari subsidium cleri 
 respondit : melius radcre oves quam destruere.'
 
 THE IKISH CHUECH UKDEE HENEY VIII. 299 
 
 Ireland ; and they may be defended on the ground that they CHAP. 
 
 were really married, and that such unions, though condemned ^- 
 
 by the Church, were not repugnant to the public feeling of 
 the age. But this can hardly be pleaded in favour of monks, 
 and perhaps still less of friars. The Prior of Cahir neglected 
 divine service, but was not accused of immorality. Many 
 enormous crimes were objected against the Abbess of Kil- 
 clehin. The canons of St. Catherine's at Waterford had fallen 
 out among themselves, and divided the revenues. All these 
 houses were in south-eastern Ireland, but from what has 
 been said of the state of cathedral churches in Irish districts 
 it may be inferred that proportional irregularities existed 
 elsewhere. The fact that priests were often the sons of priests 
 rests upon less partial evidence than that of Bale, and it was 
 condoned by the Holy See. Leo X. even showed special 
 favour to a monk of Monasterevan, notwithstanding that he 
 was a,priest's son. Dispensations on account of defective birth 
 are very common in the Papal correspondence, and were a 
 source of income to the Curia. Archbishop Browne believed 
 that in the Irishry not one parson in five was of legitimate 
 birth. He cannot be considered impartial, but legitimacy 
 was little regarded by the Irish. 1 
 
 That some monks were immoral or useless is doubtless The good 
 true. There were critics who represented them as in every monastic 
 way worse than their English brethren, but some of these s >" stem - 
 were men who desired the destruction of the abbeys that they 
 might divide their lands, and whose indignation had not been 
 excited by abuses until the wishes of the English Court were 
 known. Robert Cowley, for instance, accused them generally 
 of loose living and of ' keeping no hospitality save to them- 
 selves.' There is ample evidence that the monks were not all 
 bad. The education of children was almost entirely in their 
 hands. Six houses in Dublin, Kildare, and Kilkenny are 
 mentioned as the only places where the rising generation 
 
 1 Presentments of Grievances, especially pp. 100, 202, 204, and 248 ; for 
 the sons of clergy, &c., see Kildare's Articles in S.P., vol. ii. p. 122. In 
 Brewer, Feb. 25, 1521, Leo X. authorises a priest's son to govern the 
 Cistercian Abbey of Kosglas ; Browne to Cromwell, Nov. 6, 1538, in S.P. ; for 
 Kilclehin (wrongly calendared as Kilcullen), see Hamilton, Oct. 9, 1539.
 
 300 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, might be brought up in virtue, learning, and good behaviour. 
 
 r^- The boys were cared for by the Cistercians of St. Mary's, 
 
 Dublin, and of Jerpoint, and by the Augustinian canons of 
 Christ Church, Dublin, and of Kells and Conal. The girls 
 were brought up by the canonesses of Gracedieu, near Swords. 
 St. Mary's was also noted for its hospitality, being the only 
 inn fit for men of rank ; and the doors of Christ Church were 
 always open for Parliament, Council, or Conference. To 
 escape dissolution all the monks of these houses were ready to 
 don secular habits. As to the services of the friars in hold- 
 ing stations, in visiting the sick, and in preaching, there can 
 be no doubt whatever. Eeligion in Ireland was in fact only 
 maintained by them. Most of the friaries had been founded 
 or beautified by great families, who still continued to befriend 
 them, and who reserved a last resting-place within their walls. 
 The Franciscans were especially favoured in this way. Thus, 
 the MacDonnells of Antrim were buried at Bunamargy, the 
 Desmonds at Youghal and Tralee, the O'Briens at Ennis, the 
 O'Donnells at Donegal, the Macnamaras at Quin, the Burkes 
 at Athenry, and the MacCarthies at Irrelagh or Muckross. 
 The Franciscan dress was often assumed in death and burial, 
 and was thought to bespeak the favours of heaven. The 
 Dominicans were planted and cherished in the same way. 
 The Augustinian hermits and the Carmelites had many 
 houses, but were much less important than the other two 
 orders. 1 
 
 When the Irish Parliament met for the despatch of business 
 in May 1536 many important bills passed without any great 
 difficulty. The proctors of the clergy, who had voices and 
 claimed votes in the Lower House, objected to the King being 
 declared supreme head of the Church ; but their opposition 
 was little regarded. Appeals to Rome were forbidden, the 
 jurisdiction of the Pope abolished, and first-fruits vested in 
 the Crown. Grey then prorogued Parliament, first to Kilkenny, 
 
 1 For the educating monasteries, see Lord Deputy and Council to Crom- 
 well, May 21, 1539, and the petition from St. Mary's, July 31. The value of 
 the friars appears from the whole history of the time. See in particular 
 Presentments of Grievances, p. 130; R. Cowley to Cromwell, Oct. 4, 1536.
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 301 
 
 and afterwards to Dublin again. In the meantime Archbishop CHAP. 
 Browne had landed, and lost no time in recommending the v_ ,J ' 
 royal supremacy to the people. He had but little success, 
 and incurred some personal danger. Primate Cromer, who 
 was in communication with Rome, took the other side, laying 
 a curse on all who should accept the new system, and remind- 
 ing his clergy that Ireland was the Pope's gift to England. 
 Browne is said to have made a speech to Parliament, in which 
 he appealed to the example of Christ, who paid tribute to 
 Caesar, and of the earliest popes, who acknowledged the 
 supremacy of emperors and kings. A bill was then brought 
 in for the suppression of twelve religious houses, and for giving 
 the King a twentieth of all ecclesiastical revenues. A for- 
 midable opposition at once arose in both houses, and parti- 
 cularly in the Commons under the leadership of the King's 
 sergeant, Sir Patrick Barnewall, who declared openly that the 
 King's supremacy gave him power to reform abbeys but not to 
 secularise them. He then went to England to lay his views 
 before Henry, and Parliament was again prorogued for nearly 
 four months. 1 
 
 After eighteen months' residence in Ireland Browne could The Eefor- 
 report scarcely any progress. The new Head of the Church, makes no 
 by the mouth of his Archbishop, gave the people orders for P r s ress - 
 their spiritual conduct ; but they were not well received. All 
 true Christian subjects were ordered to repudiate the Bishop 
 of Rome, and to erase him from their service-books and 
 manuals; but this was never done unless Browne sent his 
 own servants to see to it. The power of binding and loosing 
 and the system of indulgences were called juggling, and the 
 people were reminded that God only could forgive sins. 
 There was no Mediator but Christ, and the so-called Pope's 
 ' great thunderclap of excommunication ' could hurt nobody. 
 These exhortations were in vain, while a conditional general 
 indulgence was eagerly taken advantage of. A copy of the 
 paper was even hung up openly in Kilmainham Church. Pil- 
 grimages to Rome were never commoner, and bishops and 
 
 1 Browne to Cromwell, July 15, 1536 (?), in Browne's Life and Death, in 
 Ware, p. 148, and in the Phoenix; R. Cowley to Cromwell, Oct. 4, 1536.
 
 302 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, priors appointed by provision were received with open arms. 
 
 >- ^ ' The circular which spoke so contemptuously of the Holy See 
 
 was Browne's composition, but it inculcated at least two 
 
 doctrines which all modern Protestants reject the invocation 
 
 of the Virgin and prayers for the dead. 1 
 
 Arch^hcf Lord Deputy Grey was opposed to doctrinal changes, and 
 Browne. made no secret of his dislike to Browne, whom he suspected 
 of traducing him. The Archbishop had little help from other 
 officials, and the lawyers opposed him strongly. Lord Butler, 
 Brabazon, Alen, and one or two others of small importance, 
 constituted the whole innovating party. They arrogated to 
 themselves the title of Catholic ; they were the right Christians, 
 and their opponents were sectaries. But Browne's antago- 
 nists were active and numerous. The Observants took the 
 lead everywhere, and they relied on the support of Grey to 
 defy the Archbishop's authority. Browne had imprisoned one 
 of his own prebendaries. ' Howbeit, spite of my beard, whiles 
 that I was at an house of Observants, to swear them, and also 
 to extinct that name among them, my Lord Deputy hath set 
 him at liberty. I think the simplest holy water clerk is 
 better esteemed than I am.' Most of the clergy were unwil- 
 ling to acknowledge the royal supremacy, or to denounce the 
 Pope's authority, and they refused to preach at all. The 
 most active preachers now contented themselves with holding 
 forth in corners to select knots of sympathisers, and took no 
 notice either of threats or exhortations. The oath of supre- 
 macy had as much effect as oaths taken under pressure 
 usually have. Now and then some bold spirit would openly 
 defy Browne. James Humfrey, the prebendary whom he im- 
 prisoned and Grey released, officiated at High Mass in St. 
 Andrew's Church, and omitted to read the Archbishop's cir- 
 cular. The parish priest ascended the pulpit, and began to 
 read the paper ; but Humfrey gave a signal to the choir, and 
 the reader's voice was drowned by those of the singers. 2 
 
 1 Browne to Cromwell, Jan. 8, May 8, and Aug. 10, 1538. The Form of 
 the Beads in S.P., vol. ii., No. 214 ; R. Cowley to Cromwell, July 19, 1538 
 and Aug. 5. 
 
 * James White to Cromwell, March 28 ; Lord Butler to the King,
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 303 
 
 By the admission of so zealous a reformer as Brabazon, CHAP. 
 
 xv 
 Staples promoted the Word of God ; but the effect of his - ^-1 
 
 eloquence was much lessened by the ill-feeling existing be- 
 tween him and the Archbishop. A report of one of Browne's He cannot 
 sermons, which, as he alleged, was fabricated by Humfrey, Bishop 
 had so excited the wrath of Staples that he denounced it from Sta P les< 
 the pulpit. The Archbishop himself was present, and thought 
 * the three-mouthed Cerberus of hell could not have uttered it 
 more viperiously.' The scene was in the church of Kilmain- 
 ham, which was an exempt jurisdiction under the sole charge 
 of Rawson the Prior. Browne also accused Staples of in- 
 dulging in other ' rabulous revilings ' against him, of denying 
 that men should search the Scriptures, and of allowing his 
 suffragan to pray first for the Pope, then for the Emperor, 
 and lastly for the King, in the words, ' I pray God he never 
 depart this world, until that he hath made amends.' Browne 
 imprisoned the suffragan, whom Grey seems to have released 
 without trial. Staples, on the other hand, reported that 
 everyone was weary of the Archbishop's demeanour, and 
 that he himself had never said a word against the King's 
 supremacy, or in favour of the Pope. After an inquiry by 
 Paynswick, Prior of Christ Church, and two others, the quarrel 
 was patched up ; but the relations existing between the two 
 chief supporters of the Reformation were not at all conducive 
 to its success. 1 
 
 It was bad enough to be called a heretic by the Bishop Lord 
 of Meath, but worse to be called a poll-shorn knave friar by Qre" aK 
 a Lord Deputy who had soldiers and prisons. Browne said 
 it was no safer to speak against Papal usurpations before Grey parties 
 than if the Pope had been present. Lord Butler agreed with 
 the Archbishop that Grey had a special zeal for popery, 
 allowed the new system to be openly impugned in his presence, 
 and in fact headed the reactionary party. According to 
 
 March 31 ; again to Cromwell, April 5 ; Brabazon to Cromwell, April 30 ; 
 Browne to Cromwell, Jan. 8, May 8 and 20, 1538. 
 
 1 This quarrel may be traced in detail in the State Papers. Browne to 
 J. Alen, April 15, 1538 ; to Cromwell, May 8 and 21, and June 20 and 27 ; 
 Staples to St. Leger, June 17; to Cromwell, June 10 and Aug. 10; Thomas 
 Alen to Cromwell, Oct. 20; Brabazon to Cromwell, April 30.
 
 304 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XV. 
 
 Images, 
 relics, and 
 pilgrim- 
 ages. 
 
 Browne, he went so far as to maintain a bishop appointed 
 by the Pope against the King's nominee ; but this is scarcely 
 credible. Grey, however, had the Corporation of Limerick, 
 and the Bishop and clergy there solemnly sworn to maintain 
 the new order, and renounce the usurpations of Rome. He 
 is said to have burned Down Cathedral, and defaced the tombs 
 of the three saints there ; and he was accused on his trial of 
 turning the church into a stable, of pulling down the tower, 
 and of sending the famous peal of bells to England : ' had not 
 God of His justice prevented his iniquity by sinking the vessel 
 and passengers wherein the said bells should have been con- 
 veyed.' Grey has himself recorded his proceedings at the 
 Franciscan friary of Killeigh, whence he carried off the organ, 
 the glass windows, and other valuable things. On the other 
 hand, he spared Armagh ; and, being at Trim shortly before 
 the destruction of the miraculous Virgin there, ' very devoutly 
 knelt before the idol, and heard three or four masses.' This 
 may have been done from devotional feeling, or through sheer 
 inconsistency, or to annoy Browne, Brabazon, and Alen, who 
 were present, and who refused to enter the chapel, by way of 
 showing an example to the people. 1 
 
 Browne had a conscientious hatred to images, which he 
 called idols, and destroyed them wherever he could. In this 
 case coming events had cast their shadow before, and he at 
 one time thought it prudent to disclaim iconoclasm. ' There 
 goeth,' he wrote in June 1538, ' a common bruit among the 
 Irishmen, that I intend to pluck down our Lady of Trim, 
 with other places of pilgrimages, as the Holy Cross, and such 
 like, which indeed I never attempted, although my conscience 
 would right well serve me to oppress such idols.' Even more 
 
 1 Grey to Cromwell, Dec. 31, 1637 ; J. Alen to Cromwell, Oct. 20, 1538 ; 
 Browne's Letters in S.P. from 1538 to 1540; R. Cowley to Cromwell, July 19, 
 1 538 ; Lord Butler to Cromwell, Aug. 26. Butler says that at the Lord 
 Deputy's table the vicar of Chester said the King had commanded images 
 to be set up, worshipped, and honoured as much as ever. ' We held us all 
 in silence to see what the Lord Deputy would say thereto. He held his peace, 
 and said nothing ; and then my Lord of Dublin, the Master of the Rolls, and 
 I said that if ... he were out of the Deputy's presence, we would put him 
 fast by the heels .... His lordship said nothing all the while. Surely he 
 hath a special zeal to the Papists.' For Down Cathedral, see Stanihurst .
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 305 
 
 celebrated than the miraculous Virgin was the crozier with CHAP. 
 
 xv 
 which St. Patrick had banished the snakes, and which had 1^ 
 
 been brought from Armagh to Dublin. This wonder-working 
 staff was said to have been delivered by Christ Himself to a 
 hermit in a Mediterranean island, with directions to take it 
 to Ireland, and hand it over to the saint. It was compared 
 to the rod of Moses, and was the chief of a large tribe of 
 croziers upon which people swore in preference to the gospels. 
 The staff was burned publicly, and so was the Virgin of 
 Trim, and a crucifix of peculiar sanctity kept at Ballibogari 
 in Westmeath. The holy cross of Tipperary was probably 
 spared for a time. Browne and his successors nearly put an 
 end to relics, which are now so scarce that a learned member 
 of Parliament in our own times is said to have imported the 
 bones of a more or less authentic foreign saint. But it was 
 beyond the power of Government to put down pilgrimages, 
 which were numerous down to the present century. Of the 
 holy places still remaining, Croagh Patrick in Mayo is pro- 
 bably the most remarkable. 1 
 
 When the four Protestant members of Council Browne, Conformity 
 Brabazon, Alen, and Aylmer visited Clonmel early in 1539, Bishops, 
 two archbishops and eight bishops took the oath of supremacy 
 before them. The archbishops were Butler of Cashel and 
 Bodkin of Tuam the first regularly appointed, the second 
 not acknowledged at Rome, but both in undisputed pos- 
 session. Of the eight bishops, Milo Baron or Fitzgerald of 
 Ossory, Michael Comyn of "Waterford and Lismore, John 
 Coyne or Quin of Limerick, Thomas Hurley of Emly, 
 Matthew Sanders of Leighlin, and James O'Corrin of Kil- 
 laloe, appear to have been regularly appointed. The sub- 
 mission of O'Corrin seems to have been resented at Rome ; for 
 a Papal administrator was appointed to oust him eighteen 
 months afterwards. He found it necessary to make his peace, 
 and his resignation in 1542 was accepted by the Pope. No 
 
 1 Ware places the destruction of relics in 1538 : it was perhaps a little 
 later. For Our Lady of Trim and the Baculum Jesu, see the Four Master*, 
 under 1537, and O'Donovan's notes ; also Giraldus Cambrensis, Top. Dist. iii. 
 cap. 33 and 34, and Expug. lib. ii. c. 19, Record Edition. The notice in 
 Campion is perhaps only an echo of Giraldus. 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XV. 
 
 The Pope 
 makes 
 Wauchop 
 Primate. 
 
 attempt was made to displace Baron, Comyn, Quin, Hurley, 
 or Sanders. The remaining prelates present at Clonmel were 
 probably Dominick Tirrey of Cork and Cloyne, and Richard 
 Nangle of Clonfert. Tirrey was the King's nominee, and 
 continued to hold the temporalities till his decease in 1556. 
 Lewis Macnamara, a Franciscan, was set up against him at 
 Rome, but he soon died, and the Pope did not again interfere 
 for a long time. Nangle, being kept out of Clonfert by his 
 rival, whom Grey was accused of favouring, at this time acted 
 as Browne's suffragan or coadjutor. It is expressly stated 
 that all the Bishops of Munster were present at Clonmel, and 
 all have been mentioned but three. Ross was vacant, and 
 probably Kilfenora. Young James Fitzmaurice, who had been 
 lately provided to Ardfert, may have kept away in Kerry, 
 or very probably he was not in Ireland at all. We must 
 guard against hastily supposing that all, or even any, of these 
 prelates were Protestants. Like Gardiner, Bonner, and 
 Tunstal, they accepted the formulation of the old English 
 principle of national independence, but they had not therefore 
 necessarily any sympathy with the doctrines of Luther. 1 
 
 Primate Cromer opposed the royal supremacy, but he was 
 none the less accused of heresy at Rome, and Robert Wau- 
 chop, a priest of St. Andrews, was appointed to administer 
 the see until the Archbishop should purge himself. Wau- 
 chop was a noted theologian, and, in spite of his imperfect 
 sight, had the singular reputation of riding post better than 
 any man in Europe. He had lived chiefly at Rome, and 
 was employed by the Holy See on many missions, including 
 attendance at the diets of Worms, Ratisbon, and Spires. 
 The choice of a purblind man to persnade the sharp-eyed 
 
 1 The above paragraph is founded on a careful comparison of the data 
 in Ware, Cotton, and Brady. R. Cowley to Cromwell, Aug. 5, 1538 ; and 
 see S.P., vol. iii. pp. 110, 117, and 123. A letter from Staples to St. Leger, 
 June 17, 1538, throws some light on Henry's relations with Rome before the 
 divorce question arose : 'Appoint some means how that such bishops as had 
 their bulls of the Bishop of Rome by our sovereign lord's commandment 
 may bring in their bulls, cancelling the same, and to have some remem- 
 brance from his Highness, which shall stand them in like effect with the
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 307 
 
 Germans gave rise to a proverb, and the reputation for CHAP. 
 riding post may have been gained by the rapidity with which ^ - 
 he went from place to place. After Cromer's death Wauchop 
 received the pall, and bore the title of Primate at the Council 
 of Trent, where he attended for eleven sessions, and where 
 he shared with the Archbishop of Upsala the distinction of 
 having never seen his church. In the meantime George 
 Dowdall was appointed by the King on St. Leger's recom- 
 mendation, and it must be supposed that he took the oath 
 of supremacy. In spite of Dowdall's zeal against the re- 
 formed doctrines, he was never acknowledged by the Pope 
 until after Wau chop's death. The latter does not appear to 
 have landed in Ireland, and his bolts were shot from Scot- 
 land or France. When preparing at last in 1551 to visit 
 his diocese, he met a most edifying death in the Jesuit Church 
 at Paris. 1 
 
 It was by Wau chop's advice that the disciples of Loyola The Jesuits 
 began their work in Ireland. Paul III. addressed a brief to Ireland, 
 Con O'Neill, as prince of the Irish of Ulster, acknowledging 
 the receipt of letters which he had sent to Rome by the 
 hands of Raymond O'Gallagher, ' by which letters,' wrote the 
 Pope, ' and by his fuller verbal communications, our mind 
 has been variously affected ; for we have learned with the 
 pain it calls for how that island is cruelly ravaged by the 
 present King, and to what a pitch of impiety he has brought 
 it, and with what savage ferocity he has spurned the honour 
 of God Almighty. But when, on the other hand, we learned 
 from thy letters and Raymond's words that there existed in 
 thy person a champion of God, and of the Roman Church 
 and of the Catholic religion, we rejoiced greatly in the 
 heavenly Father's love. We praise thee then, beloved son, 
 as thou hast deserved, and commend thee in the Lord ; and 
 we give Him thanks for granting thee to us and endowing 
 thee with such virtue and piety for the preservation of that 
 
 1 There are notices of Wauchop in Ware, Brady, Sarpi, ii. 34 (French 
 translation and Courayer's notes), and Moran's Spidlegium Ossoriense, vol. 
 i. p. 13. Twelve letters of Wauchop printed in the last-named work have 
 nothing particular to do with Ireland. He must be regarded as founder of 
 the titular hierarchy in Ireland. 
 
 x 2
 
 308 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 The first 
 
 Loyola's in- 
 to them. 
 
 island at the present time, and we pray Him long to prosper 
 thee, and to preserve thee to us unchanged. We have taken 
 such care as we were bound, and as thou hast asked us 
 to take for thee and for the other champions of the Catholic 
 Faith. We therefore exhort your lordship, and all the peo- 
 ples of Ireland who follow your authority and piety, to pre- 
 serve you all as becomes faithful servants of the True Christ, 
 in the Catholic Faith which you have received from your 
 fathers, and preserved with the greatest constancy to this 
 day. For we who embrace that island with singular affec- 
 tion and desire to preserve it in its ancient attachment to 
 the Holy Faith, will never be wanting to your lordship or to 
 your followers in piety.' 
 
 John Codure and Alphonso Salmeron were selected by 
 the Pope as nuncios to Ireland, and another brief was sent 
 to the clergy of Ireland exhorting them to receive the Jesuits 
 with honour and goodwill. Codure died before he could visit 
 Ireland, and Paschal Broet accompanied Salmeron in his 
 stead. Francesco Zapata, not yet admitted to the society, 
 was their secretary. Broet, whom Loyola called the angel 
 of his society, was a native of Picardy. Salmeron was a 
 Spaniard, and one of the original seven companions who took 
 the momentous vow upon the hill of Montmartre. Ignatius 
 himself gave directions to the mission : 
 
 1. They were to use caution in talking, especially with 
 inferiors and equals, to ' take each man's censure but reserve 
 their judgment.' When they could not avoid expressing an 
 opinion, it was to be delivered briefly and with a careless air, 
 so as to avoid further argument. 
 
 2. They were to be all things to all men, like St. Paul. 
 An angry man was to be treated with great circumspection. 
 
 3. The precept of Basilius was to be observed, that the 
 devil must be fought with his own weapons. To gain favour 
 at first they were to praise virtues rather than denounce vices. 
 Medicine might then by degrees be administered. Morose 
 men might be won by cheerfulness. 
 
 4. In public and private, and especially when performing 
 the duty of peacemakers, they were to remember that ' all
 
 THE IKISH CHUECH UNDEE HENEY VIII. 309 
 
 their words and deeds might become known, and that the CHAP. 
 
 . XV. 
 things done in darkness would be brought to light.' , 
 
 5. Appointments were to be anticipated rather than 
 deferred, so that there might be plenty of time for the busi- 
 ness in hand. 
 
 6. In money matters they were to meddle as little as 
 possible. Even the fines which they took for dispensations 
 should be given in alms by the hands of others, so that they 
 might be able to swear that they had not touched one 
 penny. 
 
 7. Paschal was to be chief speaker in dealing with great 
 men. In doubtful cases there was to be a consultation, and 
 the opinion of two was to bind the other. 
 
 8. They were to correspond with Rome frequently n 
 their journey, immediately on their arrival either in Ireland 
 or Scotland, and at least once a month afterwards. 1 
 
 After narrowly escaping imprisonment in France, the Their ad- 
 three emissaries reached Scotland and saw James V., who Scotland 
 gave them a commendatory letter to the Irish nobility and a f^,^ ie 
 special one to O'Neill, whom he exhorted so to receive the 
 strangers that they might feel the advantage of his introduc- 
 tion. A brother of Bishop Farquharson of the Isles accom- 
 panied them to Ireland, where they found nothing to their 
 liking, either civil or ecclesiastical. The people were savage 
 and the clergy negligent, and neither bishoprics nor parishes 
 were properly served. All the chiefs but one were not only 
 sworn to the royal supremacy, but had declared their readi- 
 ness to burn the Pope's letters and to deliver his messengers 
 bound to the King or his Deputy. The single exception was 
 about to follow the general example. The Irish chiefs were 
 all afraid to confer with the nuncios, or even to secure them 
 a safe passage out of the island. The Jesuits also complained 
 that the Scottish King had not performed his promises. But 
 if Paschal and his companions could do nothing with the 
 chiefs, they were successful with the people. They changed 
 their place of abode constantly, exhorting men everywhere 
 
 1 Abstracted from Hogan's Hibernia Ignatiana, p. 4, where Paul's letter 
 may be also read in the original Latin.
 
 310 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, in private, hearing confessions, and celebrating the Mass as 
 
 ,-^ ' often as possible. Indulgences were sparingly granted, but 
 
 they gained goodwill by varying burdensome vows, and by 
 remitting fines and dues. Their personal virtue was evident ; 
 they never spared themselves, and they asked for nothing. 
 Any money that came within their reach they diverted 
 through the debtor himself, or through the bishop, to such 
 good work as the repair of churches, the relief of widows, 
 and the care of unprotected girls. After thirty-four days 
 thus spent the pursuit waxed too hot. Rewards were offered 
 for their apprehension, and they escaped to Scotland, where 
 they vainly hoped to find a quieter people. The Scotch 
 chiefs seemed as bad as the Irish, and the foreigners were 
 fain to sail to Dieppe, whence they reached Paris on foot. 
 Zapata remained there for study, and the two Jesuits pur- 
 sued their journey to Rome in rags, and almost penniless. 
 They were arrested as spies at Lyons, but rescued* by Cardi- 
 nals Tournon and Gaddi, who were passing through and who 
 recognised them. Thus, in apparent, but only apparent, 
 failure ended the first descent of the Jesuits upon Ireland. 1 
 The royal l n the days of Henry VIII. the maioritv of Irish chiefs 
 
 supremacy I/.-IT i"i 
 
 opposed by seem to have cared greatly for land, much less, but still a 
 great deal, for titles and gold chains, and very little for reli- 
 gion. They were, therefore, ready enough to accept the 
 King's ecclesiastical polity ; the rather that they hoped to 
 go on exactly as they had done before. But with the people 
 it was different. It was not for their interest that tribal 
 lands should be turned into private estates, nor could they 
 hope for special marks of royal favour. They were barbarous, 
 but they could appreciate virtue, and in the austere self- 
 denial of some friars they could discern glimmerings of a 
 higher light. Against the friars Henry had no available 
 weapon ; they could not even be prevented from preaching. 
 Under the very shadow of Dublin Castle the King could give 
 
 1 Hogan's Hibemia Ignatiana, pp. 3-9. Paul III.'s letter to Con 
 O'Neill is dated April 24, 1541. The Jesuits were in Ireland in February 
 and March, 1542. O'Sullivan Beare, lib. iii. cap. 8. James V. to the Irish 
 chiefs, in S.P., vol. v. p. 202 ; Paget to Henry VIII. from Lyons, July 13, 1542, 
 in S.P., vol. ix. p. 106. 
 
 the friars.
 
 THE IRISH CHUECH UNDER HENRY VIII. 311 
 
 no peace to his reformed Church, of which the only sincere CHAP. 
 
 supporters were a few new comers from England. Except , 
 
 Browne and Staples, who, as we have seen, did not agree, 
 there was no one to preach what Henry wished the people to 
 learn. And neither of them could speak a word of Irish. 
 The lawyers in Dublin heard and disliked the expounders of 
 the new ideas, but the great mass of the population did not 
 even hear them. The friars had it all their own way, and 
 every feeling, national and sentimental, predisposed the Irish 
 to believe their statement of the case. The people were told 
 that Ireland was a fief of the Holy See, and that the vassal had 
 forfeited all by treason to his sovereign lord. The Defender 
 of the Faith had become its assailant, and he was manifestly 
 no longer a Catholic. These were the arguments used daily 
 and never answered. ' In the Irishry,' Staples reported, ' the 
 common voice runneth that the supremacy of our sovereign 
 lord is maintained only by power, and not reasoned by learn- 
 ing.' He recommended that all Irish clerks should have 
 safe-conduct to come and go, and to dispute with himself. 
 ' I trust then,' he added, perhaps with a side cut at the Arch- 
 bishop, 'to do my master good service, without railing or 
 "frasing," which doth well nowhere, but least in a good 
 cause.' And he strongly urged the assumption of the royal 
 title, as at least one means to disabuse the popular mind. 
 In the meantime the counter reformation had begun. The 
 official Church was to be defended mainly by power, by a 
 few English-speaking ecclesiastics, and by the self-seekers 
 who sought preferment where the sceptre was strong enough 
 to protect them. On the side of Rome was ranged every 
 popular feeling and prejudice, and it was to have the support 
 of crowds of devoted men who could exhort the people in 
 their own tongue, and whose example was sometimes more 
 eloquent than their words. 
 
 The ' Four Masters ' describe Henry's reformation as ' a Irish view 
 heresy and new error in England, through pride, vain-glory, i' nn0 va-" v * 
 avarice, and lust, and through many strange sciences, so that tlons- 
 the men of England went into opposition to the Pope and to 
 Rome. They at the same time adopted various opinions and
 
 312 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 (HAP. the old law of Moses, and they styled the King the chief head 
 ^ of the Church of God in his own kingdom. New laws were 
 enacted by the King and Council according to their own 
 will. They destroyed the orders to whom worldly posses- 
 sions were allowed .... and the four poor orders . . . . ; 
 and the lordships and livings of all these were taken up for 
 the King. They broke down the monasteries, and sold their 
 roofs and bells, so that from Arran of the Saints to the Straits 
 of Dover there was not one monastery that was not broken 
 and shattered, with the exception of a few in Ireland, of 
 which the English took no heed. They afterwards burned 
 the images, shrines, and relics of the saints of Ireland and 
 England. . . . They also appointed archbishops and sub- 
 bishops for themselves ; and though great was the persecu- 
 tion of the Roman emperors against the Church, scarcely had 
 there ever come so great a persecution from Rome as this ; 
 so that it is impossible to narrate or tell its description, 
 unless it should be narrated by one who saw it.' There can be 
 no doubt that these were the ideas prevalent in Ireland in the 
 sixteenth century, and they remain essentially unchanged in 
 the nineteenth. That the annalists tell but a small part of 
 the whole truth must be plain to candid students ; but it is 
 the only part which the native Irish have ever accepted. In 
 England Anglicanism was the outcome of national indepen- 
 dence ; in Ireland it was the badge of conquest. 
 
 The King Barnewall's mission failed ; but he did not lose the 
 
 dissolve the King's favour, and was soon promoted : had he been an Eng- 
 
 rehgious jjyh l aw yer he would have lost his head. While denying the 
 bouses. * 
 
 King's right to dissolve monasteries, he made no objection to 
 receiving a grant of their lands, and accepted that very 
 nunnery of Gracedieu where all the young ladies of the Pale 
 had been educated. When the houses met again the clergy 
 opposed all legislation, being perhaps excited by rumours of a 
 Geraldine restoration. The proctors insisted on their right 
 to vote as an estate, and the bishops and abbots, who formed 
 a majority in the Lords, declined to entertain any business 
 until the point was decided. The Council gave a decided 
 opinion that the claim of the proctors was unfounded, and
 
 THE IKISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 313 
 
 the spiritual peers at last agreed to proceed to business with CHAP. 
 
 or without their consent. The Lords threw out the Bill for - - ,_! ' 
 
 confirming the King's title to certain abbeys, most of which 
 
 had already been suppressed ; making an exception only in 
 
 the case of St. Wolstan's. The Bill for giving the King a 
 
 twentieth part of all spiritualities was also rejected. After 
 
 a further prorogation for Tour months this resistance was at 
 
 length overcome. An Act was passed declaring the proctors 
 
 to be no members of Parliament, the first-fruits of abbeys were 
 
 given to the King, the suppressions were confirmed, the much 
 
 desired twentieth was granted, and the questions of faculties 
 
 and testamentary dispositions were arranged in a sense hostile 
 
 to Rome. As far as an Act of Parliament could do it, the 
 
 Church in Ireland was now placed on the same footing as 
 
 the Church in England. 1 
 
 The first Irish religious house dissolved by Henry VIII. First 
 
 /"< convent 
 
 seems to have been the nunnery of Grane, which gave a title dissolved, 
 to Lord Leonard Grey ; but the nuns were quartered on other Relative 
 houses : this was in 1535. In the latter half of 1536 a com- 
 
 mission under the Great Seal not now extant was issued for orders. 
 the suppression of eight Irish abbeys named therein. The 
 earliest victim of the batch was probably St. Wolstan's near 
 Leixlip, a house of canons of the congregation of St. Victor, 
 which was granted to John Alen, the Master of the Rolls. 
 The necessary inquiries into the condition and property of 
 the doomed institutions were too slow for Henry, who chided 
 the Irish Council for remissness. They promised to proceed 
 as speedily as was consistent with his Highness's profit. 
 Before the end of 1537 fifteen more houses had fallen, all 
 within the Pale or in the immediate neighbourhood of walled 
 towns. After this the process of surveying and suppressing 
 went on rapidly, so that by 1541 all, or very nearly all, the 
 houses in Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Louth, Carlo w, Kilkenny, 
 Wexford, Tipperary, Waterford, and Limerick city had been 
 
 1 Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 73 ; Grey to Cromwell, Feb. 4, 1537. 
 The last session began Oct. 13, 1537; a detailed account is given by 
 Brabazon in a letter to Cromwell in S.P., vol. ii. p. 524, and in the note 
 there.
 
 314 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, surrendered. A careful calculation makes the whole number 
 
 xv 
 . r i . about seventy-eight, of which thirty-eight were Canons 
 
 Regular, eleven Crutched Friars, fifteen Hospitallers, two 
 Benedictines, and twelve Cistercians. Only ten of the number 
 were nunneries, all belonging to Regular Canonesses. To 
 these may be added a few in other districts, such as Aghma- 
 carte in MacGillapatrick's country, and Midleton in the 
 county of Cork. 1 
 
 The Cis- Some monasteries deserve particular mention, and of these 
 
 Mellifont, the oldest of the Cistercian houses, is perhaps the 
 most famous. It is said to have contained 140 monks, and 
 was called Monastermore, or the Great Monastery. The Cis- 
 tercians were introduced about 1142 by Donough O'Carroll, 
 Prince of Oriel, at the instance of Malachy, the friend of 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, who wrote his life and in whose arms 
 he died. St. Bernard supplied the new foundation with 
 monks from his own monastery, under the leadership of 
 Christian O'Conarchy, afterwards Bishop of Lismore and 
 papal legate, who presided in that synod of Cashel where the 
 Irish Church was first formally subjected both to Rome and 
 to England. King John afterwards confirmed all grants 
 made before the conquest, and several later sovereigns were 
 benefactors of Mellifont. The abbot was always summoned 
 to Parliament, where he took precedence of all his mitred 
 brethren, and ranked immediately below the bishops. The 
 buildings, of which there are still some remains, are said to 
 have greatly resembled those of Clairvaux. The rich estates 
 
 1 Grey and Brabazon to Cromwell, May 18, 1537. The King to the Lord 
 Deputy and Council, S.P., vol. ii. p. 425. Harris's Ware under Staples, 
 Bishop of Meath. For the names of the dissolved houses, see the Statute, 
 28 Henry VIII. cap. 16, and Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 38. There were 
 twenty-five mitred abbots and priors in Ireland, ten of Canons Regular, one 
 of Benedictines, one of Hospitallers, and thirteen of Cistercians. Ware, in 
 his Annals, says the heads of St. Mary's and St. Thomas's, Dublin, of 
 Kilmainham, and nf Mellifont were regularly summoned to Parliament the 
 more distant ones very seldom. The Augustinians were the most numerous 
 and probably the richest of the sedentary orders. Their rule was adopted 
 by most of the ancient Irish monasteries, the small residue becoming 
 Benedictine. Alemand, who was originally a Huguenot and who was 
 Voltaire's countryman, remarks that in order to become quickly a bishop in 
 Ireland, it was necessary lirst to be a Regular Canon.
 
 THE IRISH CHUECH UNDER HENRY VIIT. 315 
 
 were granted by Elizabeth to Lord Drogheda's ancestor as a CHAP. 
 
 reward for defending the northern border of the Pale against ^ 
 
 the Ulster Irish. 1 
 
 Another famous Cistercian abbey was that of Holy Cross Holy Cross, 
 on the Suir, whose beautiful ruins recall, though they do not 
 rival, Fountains, Furness, and Rivaulx. This monastery was 
 founded by Donald O'Brien, King of Limerick, shortly before 
 the Anglo-Norman invasion. A fragment of the true cross 
 preserved here attracted many pilgrims, and is thought by 
 some to have been contained in a richly sculptured shrine 
 which still stands. Long after the dissolution pilgrimages 
 continued, and Sir Henry Sidney noted the ' detestable idolatry 
 used to an idol called the Holy Cross, whereunto there is no 
 small confluence of people daily resorting.' The abbots had 
 seats in Parliament, and from the extent of their territorial 
 power were sometimes called Earls. 2 
 
 Two Cistercian abbeys near one another in Wexford are Dunbrody 
 remarkable from the circumstances of their foundations. 
 ' Dunbrody was built by the ruthless conqueror, Hervey de 
 Montmorenci, who sought to expiate his cruelties by becom- 
 ing its abbot and endowing it with all his property. Tintern 
 was founded in fulfilment of a vow made during a storm at 
 sea by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who brought 
 monks and a name from Wales. Tintern was the only Irish 
 abbey which retained the original black dress of Citeaux, 
 thus acknowledging the foundation of Stephen Harding 
 rather than that of Bernard. 
 
 Strongbow founded a preceptory for Templars at Kil- Hos- 
 mainham in 1174, and it became rich and powerful. Under Kifm 
 Edward II. the order was suppressed in Ireland with as little ham ' 
 pretence of justice as elsewhere, and its possessions granted to 
 the Hospitallers, who showed less charity to the really poor, 
 though their doors were always open to strangers and travel- 
 lers of importance. The priors of Kilmainham were often 
 
 1 Chiefly from Alemand ; the words of John's grant are ' ante adven- 
 tum Francorum in Hiberniam.' For the final grant, see Archdall's Lodge. 
 Art. Earl of Drogheda. 
 
 2 Alemand. Sidney to Queen Elizabeth, April 20, 1567, in the Sidney 
 Papers.
 
 316 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 chosen from the greatest families Talbots, Butlers, and 
 Fitzgeralds were always summoned to Parliament, and be- 
 came very important personages. Being exempt from episco- 
 pal jurisdiction they sometimes acted almost like independent 
 princes. In 1444 the Prior, Thomas Fitzgerald, espoused 
 the cause of Archbishop Talbot in his quarrel with the White 
 Earl of Ormonde, and he challenged the latter to trial by 
 combat. The fight was appointed to take place at Smithfield, 
 and both champions were kept in close custody ; the Earl 
 being confined in the Tower, of which the Duke of Exeter, 
 inventor of the rack and other gentle instruments, was then 
 constable. The Duke was authorised to allow his distinguished 
 prisoner exercise enough to keep him in good fighting con- 
 dition, his swordsmanship being evidently thought adequate. 
 The representative of the Church militant was considered 
 wanting in skill, and was detained in the city to receive 
 instructions at the royal expense from Philip Treherne, fish- 
 monger and fencing master. Ormonde's friends cleared his 
 character, and the combat never took place. Many acts of 
 turbulence were charged against Fitzgerald ; but he was far 
 outstripped by James Keating, who became prior in 1461, 
 and who defied the King, the Deputy, and his own Grand 
 Master for thirty years. Marmaduke Lumley was sent to 
 supersede him, but died of the ill-treatment which he received. 
 In 1511 Sir John Rawson, the last prior, was appointed. He 
 was an able man and a chief supporter of the Government, 
 but did not think it necessary to observe his vow of chastity. 
 At the dissolution Rawson was created Viscount of Clontarf, 
 where there was a cell of his house, and enjoyed a pension of 
 500 marks till his death in Edward VI.'s time. Sir William 
 Weston, the English Provincial, was less fortunate, for he was 
 forced to leave his priory and died the same day. The great 
 possessions of Kilmainham were granted to different persons, 
 and the site of the commandery is now fitly occupied by a 
 military hospital, which owes its foundation to the great Duke 
 of Ormonde. 1 
 
 1 Alemand and Archdall. As to the intended combat, see Carett, mis- 
 cellaneous vol., pp. 446, 447.
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 317 
 
 Pensions were generally granted to the heads of the dis- 
 solved houses and sometimes to the other monks. Thus the 
 Abbot of Mellifont received 40Z., and several of the monks 
 
 to monks. 
 
 from 31. 6s. 8d. to 20s. The Prior of Fower in Westmeath 
 and the Abbot of St. Mary's, Dublin, received each 50L ; the 
 Prior of St. Thomas's, Dublin, 42Z. ; and others were paid in 
 proportion to the importance of their convents. In a few 
 cases priors received as little as 31., and monks as little as 
 13s. 4d. The ejected brethren often got other preferment. 
 Edmond O'Lonergan, Prior of Cahir, who received a pension 
 of 31. 6s. 8d., was made vicar of the parish, and William 
 Walsh, Prior of Ballydrohid, had a pension of 61. 8s. 4cZ. till 
 he should receive a benefice of greater value. Hugh Doyne, 
 one of the monks of Conal, who had received a pension of 40s., 
 surrendered it on being presented by the Crown to a vicarage. 
 Pensions were charged on the lands of the dissolved houses, 
 and power of distress was sometimes given. The absence of 
 complaints may justify a supposition that payments were 
 pretty regularly made. Great numbers of monks doubtless 
 withdrew to the Continent. Mary herself grumbled at the 
 numerous pensions payable to clerks, and directed her Deputy 
 to make them the first objects of his patronage, so that the 
 pensions might be gradually absorbed. 1 
 
 In the case of the Cistercians at least titular abbots were Titular 
 sometimes appointed for many generations. Alemand, the s tm ap . 
 French historian of Irish monasteries, says that the learned 
 Nicholas Walsh, Bishop of Waterford, was Abbot of Innis- 
 lonagh, and was buried in the abbey in 1617. According to 
 the same author, who wrote towards the end of the seventeenth 
 century, there were in his time Abbots of Mellifont, Tintern, 
 and Boyle, living in the neighbourhood of their abbeys, but 
 dressing like laymen. They were probably chiefly occupied 
 in receiving novices for education in foreign convents. An 
 important paper drawn up at Waterford in 1646 bears the 
 signature of one prior of Augustinian canons, and of four 
 
 1 Most of the pensions mentioned in the text are traceable in Morrin's 
 Calendar of Patent Rolls. For Cahir, see Archdall's Motuisticon. Queen 
 Mary's instructions to Lord Fitzwalter, April 28, 1556, in Carem.
 
 318 
 
 IK ELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XV. 
 
 The disso- 
 lution not 
 carried out 
 in remote 
 districts. 
 
 Number 
 and wealth 
 of religious 
 founda- 
 tions. 
 
 Cistercian abbots, to say nothing of Jesuits and mendicants, 
 but some of these may have been appointed after the breaking 
 out of the rebellion. In the reign of James I. some Cister- 
 cians certainly lurked in Ireland. The nuncio Rinuccini, who 
 had the charge of Irish patronage from 1645, apologised for 
 preferring so many regulars on the ground that men of family 
 seldom became secular priests. 1 
 
 In 1541 a commission was issued to the Earl of Desmond 
 and others to survey and dissolve all religious houses in Cork, 
 Limerick, Kerry, and Desmond. In these districts and in the 
 purely Irish regions of Connaught and Ulster, the process of 
 dissolution was slow and uncertain. The title of the Crown 
 was theoretically acknowledged, but in some cases nothing was 
 done for many years. As the native nobility were subdued 
 or reconciled, Henry VIII.'s policy was gradually carried out. 
 In the wildest parts of Ulster the consummation was delayed 
 until after the flight of the Earls in the reign of James I. 2 
 
 Without counting the mendicant orders, about 350 reli- 
 gious houses can be traced in Ireland. Many of these had 
 disappeared before the reign of Henry VIII., having become 
 parish churches, or been absorbed in episcopal establishments. 
 Others were dependent on English foundations, and were 
 destroyed by the Act of Absentees ; others, again, were cells 
 to more important houses, and followed their fortunes. A 
 yearly income of 32,OOOZ., with personalty to the amount of 
 100,OOOL, has been attributed to the Irish monasteries, and 
 their possessions must certainly have been considerable. The 
 monks, and especially the Cistercians, generally chose fertile 
 situations near a river or on the coast, for the sake of fish and 
 water carriage. The most beautiful and convenient sites were 
 in their hands, and their system of cultivation was much 
 superior to that of lay proprietors. The ceaseless wars of 
 Ireland did not entirely spare the religious houses, but they 
 escaped better than other kinds of property. The spoiling of 
 
 1 Alemand, passim ; Documents in the supplementary volume of King't 
 Primer, No. 66 ; the Waterford document is in Brennan's Ecclesiastical 
 U'ixtory, p. 459. 
 
 2 Sir John Davies's Discovery.
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 319 
 
 the Church could never have been considered a great or CHAP. 
 
 XV 
 glorious work. The wealth of the monks is not to be r^~- ' 
 
 measured by the extent of their lands. It is in the vast 
 number of their houses, orchards, gardens, fishing-weirs, and 
 mills, that we must seek the evidence of accumulated capital. 
 The immense circuit of the walls at Kells or Athassel seems 
 to show that great numbers of artificers and labourers were 
 sheltered within the enclosures, and that the monks knew 
 how to defend their own. The system of corrodies or resident 
 pensions probably reconciled the great nobles, and opposition 
 to the dissolution came partly from those who were im- Many are 
 poverished by their abolition. It is to these pensions, which thufdisso- 
 were perhaps often abused, that Cowley probably alludes when lutlon - 
 he accuses the monks generally of immorality and of showing 
 no hospitality save to themselves and ' certain bell-wedders, 
 which ringleaders have good fees, fat, profitable farms, the 
 finding of their children, with other daily pleasures of the 
 abbeys, and fearing to lose the profit thereof, repugn and 
 resist the suppressing of abbeys, surmising it should be pre- 
 judicial to the common weal, which is otherwise.' l 
 
 In 1541 a commission was issued to Sir Anthony St. Leger The 
 and others to survey and suppress all the friaries in Ireland. su r ppreTsed. 
 
 The total number was rather under two hundred, of which the Not before 
 
 Io41. 
 
 Franciscans had more than half, the Dominicans forty-three, 
 the Augustinian hermits twenty-four, and the Carmelites 
 twenty-one. As in the case of the older monasteries, the 
 houses within reach were at once dissolved, and the rest were 
 perforce respited. Their possessions were not large, and the 
 friars managed to exist without them. The Dominican his- 
 torian says there were about six hundred members of his 
 order in Ireland just before Cromwell's conquest, and the 
 Franciscans were probably much more numerous. The houses 
 of Grey Friars had been very generally reformed by the Ob- 
 servants, and it is with these stricter votaries that we generally 
 meet. They swarmed everywhere, and to them is due the 
 
 1 In Mant's Chwck History is an estimate of the monastic property 
 'founded on the Loftus MS.; but such calculations must be very rough. 
 R. Cowley to Cromwell, Oct. 4, 1536.
 
 320 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 preservation of the Roman tradition until the Jesuits made 
 head in Ireland. Archbishop Browne is never tired of testi- 
 fying against them, and Thomas Agard, his enthusiastic 
 supporter, calls them crafty bloodsuckers. Almost the only 
 open opposition to the dissolution came from a Franciscan, 
 Dr. Sail, who boldly preached against it at Waterford. 
 During the Cromwellian war and subsequent persecution the 
 Franciscans claim thirty-one martyrs, which shows that they 
 must have been very numerous. In 1645 the Carmelites 
 reckoned twenty-seven houses in Ireland, but most of these 
 were doubtless desecrated and deserted. No candid Protestant 
 can altogether sympathise with Browne and Agard, for we 
 have the most overwhelming proof that but for the friars a 
 large part of the population would have been altogether de- 
 barred from the exercise of religion. 1 
 
 All kinds Most of the men who had been useful in carrying out the 
 
 share the suppression received a share of the spoils. Brabazon, St. 
 plunder. Leger, Sir John Alen, Chief Justice Luttrell, Edmund Sexton, 
 Sir Thomas Cusack, and Robert Dillon, were all enriched in 
 this way. Prime-serjeant Barnewall denied the King's right 
 to dissolve the monasteries, but profited largely by the 
 measure. Celts, Normans, and Saxons, Papists and Protest- 
 ants alike, showed a fine appetite for the confiscated lands. 
 Desmond had a lease of part of St. Mary Abbey, perhaps to 
 induce him to spend some of his time in Dublin. Three at 
 least of the new peerages Upper Ossory, Carbery, and Cahir, 
 were partially endowed from similar sources. Edward Power, 
 bastard brother of the first baron of Curraghmore, was granted 
 the possession of Mothel, of which he had been prior. In 
 some cases, as in Clanricarde and Thomond, the Government 
 made a virtue of necessity, and gave monastic lauds to lords 
 or chiefs who would have had the power to seize them in any 
 case. It is scarcely necessary to say that the House of Or- 
 monde profited enormously by the dissolution. Sometimes 
 the plunder was too small to excite much cupidity, and then 
 the monks might be spared. Thus the Austinfriars of Dun- 
 
 1 Agard to Cromwell, April 4, 1538. James White to Cromwell, March 28. 
 Spicilegiwm Ossoriense, vol. i. p. 437. Hibemia Dominicana,
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 321 
 
 more in Galway, who had l neither land nor profit, but only CHAP. 
 
 the small devotion of the people,' were respited during the . ^j , 
 
 King's pleasure, on condition of assuming a secular habit. A 
 like indulgence was given to the canons of Toem in Tipperary, 
 which the O'Meaghers had been able to prevent the Royal 
 Commissioners from visiting. Many houses were reasonably 
 granted to the founders' kin, for the dissolution must have 
 been a heavy loss to some families. Most of the corporate 
 towns had founded or fostered monasteries, and Waterford, 
 Drogheda, Kilkenny, Galway, Limerick, Clonmel, and 
 Athenry received a portion of the spoils. All Saints was 
 specially granted to the citizens of Dublin in compensation 
 of their loss during the Geraldine siege. As a general rule, 
 monastic lands were at first let only on lease, and in succeed- 
 ing reigns large fines were obtained by the Crown. At the 
 first threat of dissolution some houses hastened to let their 
 lands for long terms, and to cut down their woods and sell 
 their jewels, and thus the plunder actually realised often fell 
 below expectation. I have met with but one case of a 
 charitable foundation being laid immediately upon the* ruins 
 of a monastery, and that was owing .to private liberality. 
 Henry Walshe, son of a Waterford merchant, bought the 
 Grey Friars from the King, and founded a hospital for sixty 
 or more sick persons. This institution received a royal charter, 
 and still exists on a reduced scale. 1 
 
 No care was taken to supply the place of the monasteries N O univer 
 which were devoted to education. There had been three 
 attempts to found a university in Ireland before the reign of 
 Henry VIII. In 1310 John Lech, Archbishop of Dublin, 
 obtained a bull from Clement V., who ordered the establish- 
 ment of the desired institution, which would, he hoped, 
 ' sprinkle the said land, like a watered garden, to the exalta- 
 tion of the Catholic faith, the honour of the mother church, 
 and the profit of all the faithful.' Lech died soon after, and 
 
 1 In recommending a grant of Dusk to Ormonde the Council say they 
 ' cannot perceive, as it is situated, that any man can keep it for the King, 
 but only the said Earl or his son.' For Toem and Dunmore, see Calendar of 
 Patent Jfollg, pp. 73 and 84. Browne to Cromwell, May 21, 1538. 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, his project was buried with him ; bat his successor, Alexander 
 'r^ de Bicknor, actually made a foundation in connection with St. 
 Patrick's Cathedral, and under the patronage of John XXII. 
 Bicknor's University maintained a very precarious existence 
 till the time of Henry VII., when it finally disappears. The 
 institution was not crushed by the weight of its endowments, 
 for it does not seem to have had any. In 1465 Bicknor's work 
 was ignored by the Parliament of Drogheda, which founded a 
 new university on the ground that there was none in Ireland. 
 But it was not enough to declare that Drogheda should be as 
 Oxford : there was no endowment and no popular support, 
 and this scheme also failed. Very near the end of his 
 reign Henry VIII. made up his mind that one cathedral was 
 enough for Dublin, and he suppressed St. Patrick's. Christ 
 Church had already been acknowledged as the metropolitan 
 church. But it was not till the next reign that Archbishop 
 Browne propounded his abortive plan for restoring the Uni- 
 versity which had once faintly glimmered. 1 
 
 Archbishop ^ ne principal instrument by which Henry carried out his 
 Urowue. ecclesiastical revolution was George Browne, Provincial of the 
 English Austinfriars, who was appointed Archbishop of Dub- 
 lin in 1535 after regular election by the two chapters. He 
 was consecrated by Cranmer, Fisher, and Shaxton of Salisbury, 
 who were significantly commanded to invest him with the pall. 
 Browne's appointment is ignored at Rome, but no rival pre- 
 late was at first set up. He had already distinguished himself 
 by preaching strongly against the invocation of saints, and, 
 whatever his faults were, he was certainly a sincere Protestant. 
 ' The common voice goeth,' said Staples, who had not quite 
 made up his own mind, ' that he doth abhor the Mass.' 
 Browne was married, but whether before or after his conse- 
 cration does not appear. He zealously promoted the King's 
 supremacy and the destruction of images, and complained 
 bitterly of being thwarted by his colleague of Armagh, by 
 the Irish generally, and even by Lord Deputy Grey. Cromer 
 was in communication with Rome, and circulated a sort of 
 
 1 Ware's Antiquities, by Harris, chap, xxxvii., sec. 3. Lord L. Grey to 
 Cromwell, Jau. 19, 1538.
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII. 323 
 
 Papal oath of allegiance among the clergy, in which obedience CHAP. 
 
 to heretical powers was denounced and all their acts declared >_! T _l - 
 
 null and void. The old jealousy between Armagh and Dublin 
 may have had something to say to this ; for Browne, if we 
 may believe Staples, claimed authority over all the clergy of 
 Ireland. The new Archbishop did not bear himself meekly 
 in his great office, and he received a stinging rebuke, which 
 the writer was pleased to call a gentle advertisement, from the 
 King himself. Henry accused his nominee of neglecting the 
 instruction of the people and the interests of the Crown. 
 ' Such,' he added, ' is your lightness in behaviour and such is 
 the elation of your mind in pride, that glorying in foolish 
 ceremonies, and delighting in we and us, in your dreams 
 comparing yourself so near to a prince in honour and esti- 
 mation, that all virtue and honesty is almost banished from 
 you. Reform yourself therefore .... and let it sink into 
 your remembrance that we be as able for the not doing thereof 
 to remove you again and to put another man of more virtue 
 and honesty in your place, both for our discharge against God, 
 and for the comfort of our good subjects there, as we were at 
 the beginning to prefer you.' Well might Browne answer 
 that the King's letter made him tremble in body for fear. He 
 defended himself at length, and invoked the fate of Korah 
 should he fail to advance the King's service. His defence 
 seems to have satisfied Henry, but he continued to make 
 many enemies and to excite much criticism. l His pride and 
 arrogance,' said Staples, ' hath ravished him from the right 
 remembrance of himself.' ' 
 
 Edward Staples, originally a Cambridge man, and after- Bishou 
 wards parson of Tamworth and a canon of Cardinal College, Sta i )k '*- 
 was appointed to the see of Meath in 1530 by Papal provision. 
 Either as Bishop or Privy Councillor he incurred the hatred 
 of the Geraldine faction, and fled to England on the breaking 
 out of the rebellion in 1534. Early next year he returned, 
 and was one of the commissioners for suppressing the nunnery 
 
 1 The King to Browne in S.P., vol. ii. p. 174 ; Browne's answer, Sept. 
 27, 1537 ; Staples to St. Leger, June 17, 1538; Ware's Life and Deailt of 
 Urwvne. 
 
 v >
 
 324 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, of Grane. Staples did not at first fully embrace the reformed 
 
 r-^- ' doctrines, for he accused the Archbishop of Dublin of heresy, 
 
 and appears to have been attached to the Mass ; but he was 
 as zealous as Browne for the royal supremacy, and his con- 
 version to thorough Protestantism was gradual like Cranmer's. 
 Staples was a noted preacher, and was promoted for that 
 reason ; but the King at one time accused him of slackness 
 and threatened to remove him. 1 
 
 1 Ware's Bishop* ; Staples to St. Leger, June 17, 1538 ; Devices by 
 Travers for the Reformation in 1642, S.P., vol. iii., No. 382. The King's 
 rebuke was in 1537, see S.P., vol. ii. p. 174, note.
 
 325 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 
 
 THE death of Henry VIII. made no immediate difference to CHAP. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Ireland, for St. Leger continued to govern as before. There > r -L-' 
 
 was such a tendency to depress the Ormonde interest that Accession 
 
 J of Edward 
 
 the widowed countess thought it wise to go to London, where VI. 
 she pleaded her own cause with much success. She was and Des- 
 supposed to have designs upon the heir of Desmond's hand, mond> 
 and the English statesmen, who naturally dreaded such an 
 alliance, encouraged her to marry Sir Francis Bryan, who was 
 in favour with Somerset as he had been with Henry VIII. 
 The new government directed their attention to economy and 
 the repression of jobbery among the Dublin officials. It was 
 discovered that many who drew the King's pay were serving 
 in the houses of councillors, ' some in the place of a cook, 
 some of a butler, housekeeper, and other like,' so that they 
 were practically useless when called to arms. This was 
 strictly forbidden for the future. The Irish Council were 
 earnestly charged finally to put down ' that intolerable extor- 
 tion, coyne and livery, having always respect to some recom- 
 pense to be given to the lords and governors of our countries 
 for the defending of the same.' Desmond was thanked for 
 his services, and the young king offered to have his eldest 
 son brought up as his companion, ' as other noblemen's sons 
 whom we favour are educated with us in learning and other 
 virtuous qualities, whereby hereafter, when we come to just 
 age, we, in remembrance of our childhood spent together, 
 may the rather be moved to prosecute them with our wonted 
 favour, and they all inclined to love and serve us the more 
 faithfully. We shall consent and right glad to have him 
 with us, and shall so cherish him as ve shall have cause to
 
 326 
 
 IKELVXD UNDKK T!!F. TI'DOIIS. 
 
 The 
 bastard 
 
 tlmnk us, and at his return to think the time of his attend- 
 ance on us to be well employed.' If this offer had been 
 accepted, and if the same results had followed as in the cases 
 of the young Earl of Ormonde and of Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 
 the unspeakable miseries of the Desmond rebellion might have 
 been avoided. 1 
 
 The Pale was at this time much disturbed by the depre- 
 Geraidines. dations of a gang of freebooters, headed by some of the bas- 
 tard Geraldines who had lost their lands. They overran the 
 southern half of Kildare and the northern half of Carlow, 
 plundering and burning Rathangan, Ballymore Eustace, and 
 Rathvilly. At first they acted with O'Connor, but he was 
 forced to go to Connaught to look for reinforcements, and the 
 MacGeohegans and others were induced by St. Leger to kill 
 his men and drive his cattle. The Fitzgeralds, after defying 
 the Government for a year, were crushed at Blessington in 
 the autumn of 1547. The O'Tooles sided with the English, 
 and thus justified Henry VIII. 's policy towards them. The 
 Irish generally fell away from O'Connor and O'More, to 
 whom they feared to give food and shelter ; and the chiefs were 
 obliged to make such a peace as was possible with the Govern- 
 ment. The annalists dwell strongly on the strength of the 
 English at this time, on the unexampled bondage in which 
 they held the southern half of Ireland, and on their complete 
 victory over the man who had been ' the head of the happi- 
 ness and prosperity of that half of Ireland in which he lived, 
 namely, Brian O'Connor,' 2 
 
 Sir Edward Bellingham, a gentleman of the bedchamber, 
 was sent over for the first time in the summer of 1547, in 
 charge of reinforcements. This able soldier had been Gover- 
 nor of the Isle of Wight, and had served at Boulogne in 
 
 1 Lord Protector and Privy Council to Lord Deputy St. Leger and Coun- 
 cil, March 25, 1547; the King to the same, April 7; King Edward VI. 
 to the Earl of Desmond, Oct. 6. In a letter dated Lambeth, July 6, to her 
 assured loving friend Mr. Cecil, Master of Requests,' Lady Ormonde begs 
 tliat Abbeyleix may not be granted to Barnaby Fitzpatrick to her son's 
 detriment, and she refers to Cecil's ' former friendship.' Here we see the 
 beginning; of a most important connection. 
 
 * Four Maxtcrr, 1546, 1517- 
 
 Belling- 
 ham's first 
 visit to 
 Ireland, 
 1547.
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 327 
 
 1546. He had also held diplomatic appointments in Hun- CHAP, 
 gary, and at the Emperor's Court. The Privy Council, who / y ' 
 expressed themselves satisfied of his military ability, directed 
 the Irish Government to be guided by his advice, and to pay 
 him the unusual salary of forty shillings sterling a day. He 
 was employed by the borderers of the Pale against the 
 O'Mores and O'Connors, and seems to have made his mark 
 from the first. After a short stay Bellingham with difficulty 
 obtained leave to return to England. He must have suc- 
 ceeded in impressing his views on Somerset, to whose reli- 
 gious party he belonged, for St. Leger was recalled in the 
 following spring, and Bellingham was appointed in his 
 stead. 1 
 
 Bellingham landed at Dalkey on May 18, 1548, and the Butlers 
 state of Leinster at once engaged his attention. Moryt Oge yanaghs. 
 Kavanagh had taken a horse and other property from a ^ ellin s- 
 neighbour, and Bellingham called upon Cahir MacArt to Deputy, 
 restore it, and to punish the thief. The chief denied all 
 responsibility, on the ground that the culprit was in Sir 
 Richard Butler's suite, and that he could not in any case 
 hang a man for stealing, but only enforce restitution accord- 
 ing to the Brehon law. We can now see that in this at least 
 Cahir MacArt was more nearly right than the English law- 
 yers. Moryt Oge had grievances, and said that he was 
 oppressed by one Watkin Powell, but he restored the horse, 
 subject to the Lord Deputy's opinion as to whether he had 
 a right to it as a set off against his own losses. He came to 
 Carlow to plead his own cause, but Sir Richard Butler, who 
 had promised to meet him, did not appear. Butler was 
 accused of showing a bad example in the country by plun- 
 dering houses, wounding men, and taking gentlewomen pri- 
 soners. If this, or even a small part of it, were true of the 
 Earl of Ormonde's brother, it is not surprising that robberies 
 should have been things of every-day occurrence. 2 
 
 1 Introduction to Carew, vol. ii. p. Ixxxv. ; Archbishop Butler to the 
 Lord Protector, Feb. 25, 1548 ; Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 154. 
 
 2 Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 66. For Butler and Powell, see three 
 letters calendared under April and May 1548, Nos. 16, 17, and ]'J.
 
 328 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVI. 
 
 The defenders of the Pale were fully occupied. Having 
 consulted such men in England as understood Irish affairs, the 
 Privy Council concluded that the principal damage was done 
 ' skulkingly in the winter's nights.' If the Lord Deputy's 
 presence near the border was not enough to prevent incursion, 
 soldiers accustomed to the country were to be quartered there 
 permanently, and nightly watch to be kept, especially on 
 O'Connor's side. Truces were not to last beyond the winter. 
 This border service must have been very disagreeable. John 
 Brereton, who held the office of seneschal of Wexford, of 
 which the duties were very ill discharged by Watkin Powell, 
 was stationed at Kildare, and complained bitterly that he 
 was harassed to death. He could get no leave because he 
 had no second captain, and even in May and June he could 
 scarcely enjoy an undisturbed night. At one time he was 
 roused from his bed by shouts, at another by the announce- 
 ment that some alarm beacon was blazing. On foot or on 
 horseback he had to march at once, and yet he was unable 
 to answer every summons. A proprietor at Rathangan, who 
 it called Raymond Oge, had his haggard burned by some of 
 the O'Connor kerne. Two English troopers were with him 
 by chance and helped to defend his castle, but the fires which 
 they lit on the roof were not answered. Horses left out in a 
 bog near a wood were carried off and the keepers killed. 
 Nothing was safe unless shut up in a bawn, or fortified court- 
 yard. Owen MacHugh O'Byrne, who was retained perma- 
 nently by the Government as a captain of kerne, was inclined 
 to do good service, but his men would not advance beyond 
 Lea Castle, saying that ' if Captain Cosby wanted wilfully to 
 lose his life, they did not set so little by their lives.' Cosby 
 was a man of great personal courage. The Constable of Lea, 
 the same James Fitzgerald whose allegiance in Grey's time 
 had been so elastic, required a letter from Bellingham to en- 
 courage him. The Lord Deputy himself spent some time at 
 Athy, where eighteen beds were provided for him and his 
 suite ; but the border was never quiet for a moment. Fitz- 
 gerald and Cosby had no official authority, and their orders 
 carried no weight. If a cow strayed an alarm was raised, and
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 329 
 
 while soldiers were sent on a fool's errand in one direction, CHAP. 
 
 XVI. 
 the rebels or brigands had their time to themselves. O'More >../ T ' 
 
 came to the Barrow and carried off horses and sheep. Owen 
 MacHugh skirmished with him, but the hostile chief, ' like 
 a jolly fellow,' offered the royal kerne 6s. Sd. a fortnight 
 to serve him, and pay to their leaders in proportion. Be- 
 fore Cosby could get his men together the O'Mores had 
 vanished. 1 
 
 Other loyal and half loyal partisans were less energetic Lord 
 than Cosby. Lord Dunboyne complained that his manor of 
 Fishmoyne in Tipperary had been plundered by the O'Carrolls 
 and O'Meaghers, and this because he had discharged his men 
 by the Lord Deputy's orders. Bellingham retorted that his 
 lordship lied in his throat ; for he had bidden him to enter- 
 tain true men instead of rebels, and to discharge no one unless 
 it could be done safely. He had particularly cautioned him 
 against 'rashly discharging such as have been malefactors 
 as your gallowglasses were, and naturally as their captains 
 were.' 2 
 
 While the frontiers of the Pale were harassed by robbers, Pirates, 
 the loyal ports of the south were in constant dread of pirates. 
 A rover named Eagle blockaded Kinsale, which was half de- 
 populated by an epidemic, and another, named Colley, esta- 
 blished himself in a castle belonging to Barry Oge, whose 
 aunt he married, so that the poor town was quite shut up. 
 Cork, the citizens told Bellingham, was so well defended by 
 marshes and waters, c besides walls and towers which we do 
 build daily, that we do not fear all the Irishmen in Ireland 
 and English rebels also, if there be any such, until such time 
 as your wisdom would repair hither for our refuge.' John 
 Tomson, a noted rover, visited both Cork and Waterford. 
 According to the authorities of the latter city he had ' one 
 saker of 16-foot long, having four chambers, so that we do 
 
 1 Privy Council to Lord Deputy and Council, Nov. 2, 1547 ; John Brere- 
 ton to Bellingham, May 1548 (No. 20), and July (Nos. 44 and 45) ; Cosby 
 to Bellingham, July (Nos. 48 and 50). Bellingham dated a letter from 
 Athy, Aug. 19, 1548. The eighteen beds are mentioned by John Plunket 
 and Thomas Alen in a letter to him of the 18th. 
 
 2 Lord Dunboyne to Bellingham, June 21, 1548, and the answer (No. 25).
 
 330 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, not see how he may be apprehended.' In an affray between 
 >-" r ' the citizens and an armed French vessel Tomson took part 
 with the foreigner, and the pursuit of them cost Waterford 
 1,OOOZ. This formidable water-thief was taken by O'Sullivan 
 Bere, who made him pay a large ransom. Afterwards Bel- 
 lingham rather oddly allowed the Cork men to trade with 
 Tomson, because it seemed possible that he had received 
 pardon, and because the goods then on board did not appear 
 to be stolen. Wine, figs, and sugar were, however, the wares 
 offered by Tomson and his ally Stephenson, and it is most 
 likely that they had been stolen at sea from the Portuguese. 
 Tomson used the occasion to refit and to repair his weapons, 
 and the Waterford men called upon the Mayor of Cork to 
 apprehend the pirates ; but that prudent official refused to 
 do so without special orders from Bellingham. Pirates were 
 unpleasant people to deal with. A gang confined at Water- 
 ford broke their gyves, nearly murdered a fellow-prisoner, 
 and with many ' cracks ' and menaces threatened to burn the 
 gaol. 1 
 
 Their A pirate named Smith sailed into Youghal, but seems to 
 
 outrages. have taken nothing but loose rigging and spars. He had 
 long infested these waters, seemingly with no more than six 
 men, armed with guns and bows. The Youghal fishermen 
 took heart, and by a combined attack succeeded in capturing 
 Smith. Other pirates named Cole, Butside, and Strangwych 
 are mentioned as active about this time. They were all 
 English, but the trade was by no means confined to any one 
 nation ; for Sir Philip Hoby, the English ambassador at the 
 imperial court, was instructed to apply for help to suppress a 
 squadron of twenty sail, manned by lawless desperadoes of all 
 countries, who infested the Irish coast, and robbed the Em- 
 peror's subjects. Logan, a Scotch professor of the art, and 
 a survivor from Lennox's expedition, haunted the coast about 
 Howth, and took several vessels. Power and Gough, who 
 robbed a Portuguese ship in Waterford harbour, and ruined 
 
 1 Sovereign and Council of Kinsale to Bellingham, July 15, 1548 ; 
 Mayor, &c., of Cork to same, July 24, Aug. 27, Dec. 29, and the answer, 
 Jan. 10, 1549; Mayor, &c., of Waterford to Bellingham, Sept. 5, 1548.
 
 1010M THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 331 
 
 the foreign trade of that port, were probably of Irish birth. CHAP. 
 
 Desmond, on whom the honorary office of Lord Treasurer, '- - 
 
 held by the late Earl of Ormonde, had already been conferred, 
 received a commission from Lord Admiral Seymour to exercise 
 his jurisdiction along the coast from Dungarvan to Galway. 
 The men of the latter town said they could defend themselves 
 against all Irishmen coming by land, but that they had not a 
 single piece of artillery to resist attacks from the sea. They 
 professed unswerving loyalty, as did their neighbours of Lime- 
 rick, and Bellingham thanked the latter for their efforts to 
 keep the Burkes quiet, c in whom,' he said, ' the obstinacy is 
 found to break this order, you the King's our own most dear 
 sovereign lord's and master's subjects, the mayor, brethren, 
 and council of Limerick shall proceed to the first and lawful 
 redress and punishment thereof.' 1 
 
 Before Bellingham came to Ireland a hosting into Leix Beliing- 
 had been proclaimed, and he carried it out promptly. The campaign 
 men of Drogheda were required to furnish a strong con tin- i 
 gent, having ' caused to be mustered all such as are meet for 
 the war without partiality.' They had also to furnish carts, 
 of which it seems the town could only boast three, and there 
 were complaints of the stringency of Bellingham's requisi- 
 tions ; but he said he would rather they were unfurnished 
 than he. The Drogheda men did very good service, and the 
 carts, which were duly paid for, were employed to carry 
 pioneers' tools. The soldiers were thus enabled without ex- 
 cessive fatigue to cut passes through woods, and make cause- 
 ways over bogs. After a thirty days' campaign in Leix, 
 Bellingham resolved that a town should be built in Leix, and 
 in the meantime was erected Fort Governor or Protector, in 
 the place where Maryborough now stands. The citizens of 
 Dublin were required to assist in making it practicable for 
 soldiers to act upon the border of Kildare ; but they made 
 excuses, saying that men could not carry arms and tools as 
 
 1 Mayor, &c., of Youghal to Bellingham, July 8, 1548 ; Deputy Mayor 
 and Council of Galway to same, Aug. 13; Bellingham to Limerick, Aug. 
 (No. 63) ; John Goldsmith to Bellingham, Aug. 22 ; Kyng to Wyse, Sept. 5. 
 Sir Philip Hoby's letter is calendared among the foreign S.P., April 17, 154W.
 
 332 
 
 1KKLAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Tlelling- 
 hain routs 
 the 
 O'Connors. 
 
 Disturb- 
 ances in 
 
 Mil list IT. 
 
 Foreifjn 
 rumours. 
 
 well. Bellinghara sarcastically refuted their argument, ' in 
 which your experience bitterly condemneth my ignorance.' 
 Let them send carts as the Drogheda men had done, and then 
 one man could do the work of two. 1 
 
 In August 1548 Cahir O'Connor, who still kept some 
 force about him, invaded Kildare. Nicholas Bagenal, Marshal 
 of the army, fell in with the marauders, and rescued the cattle 
 taken, though his men were in the proportion of one to six- 
 teen. Cahir retreated with his troop, and with a multitude 
 of camp followers and ' slaves,' who carried their food to what 
 was considered an unassailable position. Bellingham was 
 not far off, and he ordered Saintloo to attack them wherever 
 he could find them. Accompanied by Travers, Brereton, and 
 Cosby, Saintloo tracked them to a spot surrounded by a bog. 
 The soldiers struggled manfully through the moss until they 
 reached hard ground, and a great butchery followed. The 
 oldest man in Ireland had, as Bellingham supposed, never 
 seen so many wood-kerne slain in one day. Such was the 
 slaughter, says this precursor of Cromwell, that none escaped 
 but by mistake, or hiding them in ambush, l such was the 
 great goodness of God to deliver them into our hands.' The 
 Old Testament in English was beginning to make its mark 
 upon language and upon habits of thought. 2 
 
 Munster was much disturbed. Edmund Tyrry, the King's 
 bailiff at Cork, had a dispute with some of the Barries about 
 land. The Earl of Desmond was appealed to, and he took 
 Tyrry to Lord Barrymore, desiring the latter to do him jus- 
 tice. Barrymore took the bailiff with him to his court-baron, 
 or ' parliament,' and the case was partly heard and adjourned 
 to a future day. On his return journey towards Cork, Tyrry 
 was waylaid and murdered. Bellingham demanded justice, 
 and Lord Barrymore, after some months' delay, gave up the 
 murderers, who were doubtless duly executed. But the Barry 
 country continued to be the scene of frequent outrages. 
 
 1 Bellingham to Alen, July 1548 (No. 39); Mayor, kc., of Drogheda to 
 Alen, Ang. 8 ; Bellingham to Privy Council, Aug. (No. 84), and to the Mayor 
 of Dublin (No. 67). For the fort, which became Maryborough, see the notes 
 to O'Donovan's F,mr Maxtor* under 1548 and 1553. 
 
 2 Bellingham to the Privy Council, Aug. 1548 (No. 84).
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 333 
 
 Lord Barryinore went out one day in the early winter to CHAP. 
 drive the cattle of some wild Irishmen, and met with certain <- ' 
 other wild Irish who were going to spoil his tenants. A 
 fight followed, and the Barries ' killed incontinently little 
 lack of fourscore of them,' wherewith, said the Corporation 
 of Cork, ' we be glad, and so is the Earl of Desmond.' But 
 Bellingham was not satisfied with Desmond's conduct, nor 
 easy about the future. James Delahide, always the herald 
 of a storm, was in Ireland, and probably with the Earl. 
 Gerald of Kildare might appear again ; and there were ru- 
 mours that the French meditated a descent and the establish- 
 ment of a fortified port at Skerries to command the passage 
 to Scotland. These fears were not realised ; but there were 
 frequent communications between Desmond and the O'Briens, 
 and Bellingham took steps to have everything reported to 
 him. This vigilance perhaps prevented the Munster chiefs 
 from moving. 1 
 
 The death of the newly-created Earl of Clanricarde re- Anarchy in 
 vived the normal anarchy of Connaught. Ulick Burke was Gwrison^t 
 acknowledged as captain by the Government and by some of Athlone - 
 the inhabitants during the minority of the Earl's son Richard. 
 Bnt another Richard, the heir's illegitimate brother, gave so 
 much trouble that Sir Dermot O'Shaughnessy, and other 
 well-disposed chiefs, demanded that the young Earl should 
 be settled in possession, and that Commissioners should be 
 sent to Galway for the purpose. The false Richard was, 
 however, allowed to rule his own immediate district, but not 
 without strong hints from Bellingham that what the King 
 gave the King could take away. Burke was reminded that 
 he had apprehended no notable malefactor, and that the Lord 
 Deputy would quarrel with no honest Irishman for his sake. 
 Bellingham had neither time nor force to give to the West, 
 and the towns of Limerick and Galway had very indifferent 
 success in their efforts to keep the peace. But the chief 
 governor's reputation for justice was not without effect even 
 
 1 Bellingham to the Mayor of Cork, Aug. 1548 (No. 80); Mayor, &c., 
 of Cork to Bellingham, Nov. 18 ; Alen to Somerset, Nov. 21 ; Bellingham 
 to Arthur, Dec. (No. 145).
 
 334 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDOUS. 
 
 CUM', in Connaught. < Your lordship's famous proceedings,' 
 --' , '-> the Archbishop of Tuam, ' being divolgated throughout all 
 Ireland, to the great fear of misdoers and malefactors all 
 through the country hereabouts now needing reformation, 
 more than heretofore, all for lack of justice among them to 
 be observed.' Bellingham established a garrison at Athlone, 
 which overawed the O'Kellys and O'Melaghlins ; but little 
 progress was made beyond the Shannon. Robert Dillon, the 
 lawyer, was the Lord Deputy's civil substitute, but the sword 
 was necessarily in the Baron of Delvin's hands, who did 
 all he could to prevent Dillon from sending messengers to 
 Dublin. The central districts of Ireland between the Pale 
 and the great river were at this time the theatre of constant 
 war, and in this an English, or Anglo-Norman, adventurer 
 figures conspicuously. 1 
 
 Edmond Edmond Fay, who seems to have had property at Cad- 
 
 amstown, in the King's County, and to have claimed more 
 than the natives were willing to allow him, was called into 
 Westmeath by O'Melaghlin to aid him against his enemies. 
 The confederates gained some successes, and occupied, among 
 other places, the historic castle of Kincora. ' Edmond,' say 
 the ' Four Masters,' ' then continued to conquer Delvin in 
 the King's name in opposition to O'Melaghlin ; and thus had 
 O'Melaghlin brought a rod into the country to strike himself, 
 for Edmond a Faii expelled and banished himself and all his 
 tribe out of Delvin, just as the young swarm expels the old.' 
 Fay, who was to some extent supported by the Government, 
 and who had soldiers with him, drove the MacCoghlans 
 across the Shannon, and made himself master of most of tin- 
 country between Athlone and Slievebloom. Not satisfied 
 with this he proposed to attack the O'Carrolls, who joined 
 the MacCoghlans, and expelled him from his recent conquests. 
 Fay called on the Government for help, and the whole county, 
 on both sides of the Brosna, was burned and plundered by 
 the troops, to whom no resistance was attempted. The Irish 
 
 1 Archbishop Bodkin to Bellingham, July 25, 1548 ; Bellingham to 
 Richard Burke, Aug. (No. 811), and to the Mayor of Limcri< -k, Sept. Is; 
 Ulick Burke to I)i llinaham, Sept. 2
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 335 
 
 demolished Banagher and other castles to prevent their being CHAP, 
 occupied, and this became a general practice in like cases. ^ ^ ' 
 Cadamstown was afterwards taken by the O'Carrolls, and 
 Fay returned to his original obscurity. He seems to have 
 had the keep of Thady Eoe, or the Red Captain, a noted 
 leader of mercenaries, who held possession of Nenagh. The 
 O'Carrolls burned the monastery and town, but the castle 
 defied their power. 1 
 
 Towards the close of 1548 Alen was able to report that The Pale \ 
 there were only about a dozen rebels on the borders of the rebels. 
 Pale. O'Connor had surrendered at discretion, and his life 
 was spared in the hope of inducing O'More to follow his ex- 
 ample. Alen advised that they should be removed from Ire- 
 land, and that work should be found for them at Calais or 
 Boulogne. ' There are in all,' he told Paget, ' not twelve 
 persons wherewith your honour to make a maundie, for when 
 Christ ministered at His last supper there were twelve, of 
 whom one was a traitor, and of these ye may have twelve 
 together at one table.' 2 
 
 The Plantagenet kings had made no difference in the coin- The 
 age of England and Ireland ; but in 1460 when Richard, A mini. 
 Duke of York, was Lord Lieutenant the Parliament of 
 Drogheda, with the express intention of loosening the tie 
 between the two islands, declared that coins intrinsically 
 worth threepence should be struck in Ireland and pass for 
 fourpence. There was afterwards a further degradation, and 
 the money struck by Henry VIII. consisted at last of one- 
 half, or even two-thirds, alloy. ' New coins were introduced 
 into Ireland,' say the 'Four Masters,' with pardonable ex- 
 aggeration, ' that is, copper, and the men of Ireland were 
 obliged to use it as silver.' Dishonesty had its proverbial 
 reward, for trade was thrown into confusion and general dis- 
 content engendered. The Corporation of Galway more than 
 once besought Bellingham to force the new money on the 
 captain of Clanricarde and Donnell O'Flaherty. The Corpo- 
 ration of Kinsale made the same request as to the Courcies, 
 
 1 Four Masters, 1548 and 1549. 
 * Alen to Paget, Nov. 21, 1548.
 
 :j:; IRELAND UNDER THK TUDOUS. 
 
 < 'MAI*. Barries, and MacCarthies. This was, of course, beyond Bel- 
 , ^ ' lingham's power, and the Protector went on coining regard- 
 less of Irish complaints. Thomas Agard was Treasurer of the 
 Dublin Mint, and exercised his office independently of the 
 Lord Deputy. He was originally in 'Cromwell's service, and 
 his position not unnaturally brought him into collision with 
 Lord Leonard Grey, who accused him of making mischief. 
 Agard, however, said that Grey, ' which is my heavy lord,' 
 oppressed him out of spite, because he opposed the Geraldine 
 faction, and prevented him from setting up broad looms and 
 dye-works in Dublin. With the politic St. Leger he got on 
 better, but Bellingham, whose temper was quite as despotic 
 as Grey's, was much disgusted at the independence of the 
 Mint. Agard leaned to the Puritan side, and praised Bel- 
 lingham's godly proceedings. God is with you, he wrote to 
 him, and with all good Christians who love God and their 
 King, with much more of the same sort. But the Lord 
 Deputy was not conciliated, and accused Agard of cooking 
 his accounts, and of embezzling 2,000/. He was not super- 
 seded, and was entrusted with the congenial task of melting 
 down chalices and crosses, and of turning them into bad 
 money. The home authorities chose to make Agard inde- 
 pendent in his office ; but the stronger nature triumphed, 
 and the King's auditor reported that the Treasurer of the 
 Mint dared not for his life speak of his business to any but 
 the Lord Deputy. The debased currency caused much specu- 
 lation of an undesirable kind. Thus, Francis Digby, who 
 had a licence to export Irish wool, found it pay much better 
 to buy up plate with the current coin and sell it in England 
 for sterling money. Others took the cue, and it became 
 necessary to issue a proclamation. It was, of course, no more 
 possible to prevent the exportation of silver than to change 
 the ebb and flow of the tides. 1 
 
 1 Harris's Ware, pp. 211-217; S.P., vol. iii. p. 634; Faur Mastery 1646; 
 Mayor, &c., of Galway to Bellingham, July 27 and Aug. 13, 1548 ; Sovereign 
 and Council of Kinsale to same, July 16 ; Agard to same, Sept. 23 ; Richard 
 Brasier to same, Oct. 8; Memoranda by Bellingham, Nov. 14; Bellingham 
 to Warwick, November (No. 132, i.) ; Privy Council to Belliugham, Jan. 6, 
 1549.
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 337 
 
 In November Bellingham. paid a short visit to Dublin, CHAP. 
 where he found Lady Ormonde with her new husband, Sir -- r^ 
 Francis Bryan, who had a commission as Lord Marshal of Beihng- 
 
 ham s 
 
 Ireland. Bryan, ' the man of youthful conditions,' as Roger haughty 
 Ascham called him, was particularly recommended by the 
 Privy Council to Alen, who could not understand what 
 Henry VIII. had seen in him worthy of great promotion. 
 Bellingham hated him from the first, and Alen thought he 
 would have the same feeling to any one who had married 
 Lady Ormonde. We have no means of knowing whether he 
 was in love with her, or whether he hated her, or whether 
 he merely disliked the alliance as likely to clip his own wings. 
 His idea of the rights and dignity of his position was high 
 and even excessive, and was asserted with a fine disregard of 
 prudence. To Somerset he complained that his credit was bad, jjj s ra8 h 
 and that he was despised in Ireland because he was thought 
 to have no power to reward those who had done good service. 
 He begged that they might be ' fed with some thereof, which 
 no doubt it is great need of, for the wisest sort have ever 
 found that good service in Ireland has been less considered 
 of any place.' 
 
 In writing to Warwick his words were still stronger, and to 
 he complained bitterly at the slight put on him in the matter 
 of the mint. ' I am,' he said, ' at your honourable lordship's 
 commandment ; but in respect I am the King's Deputy, your 
 good lordship may determine surely that I will have none 
 exempt from my authority in Ireland's ground, but sore 
 against my will.' He had not spent the King's treasure in 
 gambling or riotous living, nor in buying land for himself. 
 The King's responsible servants in Ireland were neglected, 
 and credit given to backstairs' suitors ' coming in by the 
 windows,' which did more harm than all the rebels and Irishry 
 in the realm. Some of Warwick's letters had hurt him, 
 whereas the true policy would be to let men ' know that I 
 am the King's Deputy, so that they shall think when they 
 have my favours things go well with them, and the contrary 
 when they have them not.' These letters, and another to and to 
 Seymour, gave great, and not unnatural offence, so that Se y mour< 
 VOL. I. Z
 
 338 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. Bellingham was fain to beg the admiral's pardon and inter- 
 ' ,-^ ' cession with Warwick. Some measure of the serpent's wis- 
 dom is necessary to those who fill great offices. 1 
 
 Belling- If Bellingham could thus treat the most powerful men 
 
 the Irish, in England, he was not likely to mince matters with those 
 whom he could touch. ' Bring yourself/ said the Lord 
 Deputy to O'Molloy, who had wrongfully detained the pro- 
 perty of a kinswoman, * out of the slander of the people by 
 making prompt restitution, or have your contempt punished as 
 to your deserts shall appertain.' To the Earl of Thomond, who 
 had promised to bring in Calough O'Carroll but had not done so, 
 he wrote a noble letter, but a very imprudent one, considering 
 the character and position of the chief whom he addressed. 
 Calough O'Carroll, he said, had brought his troubles on him- 
 self by allowing his men to plunder, and by refusing to give 
 them up ; he should be well plagued for it according to pro- 
 mise, until he and his brother found means to come and seek 
 their own pardon. The O'Carrolls submitted and were par- 
 doned. 2 
 
 Belling- Bellingham was above all things a soldier, and he treated 
 
 his Council, his Council, consisting for the most part of lawyers, in a very 
 high-handed manner. His old friend Alen remonstrated, and 
 there is no reason to doubt him here, though he had a way 
 of quarrelling with successive Deputies. Alen admitted that 
 Bellingham was quite free from pecuniary self-seeking, but 
 thought he had more than his share of the other sin which 
 beset chief governors, ambition namely, and the longing to 
 rule alone. He had said that it would be a good deed to 
 hang the whole Council, and he kept the members waiting 
 for hours among the servants in the ante-room. Alen he 
 accused personally of feigning sickness when bent on mis- 
 chief. Others he threatened to commit if they offended him, 
 reminding them that he could make or mar their fortunes. 
 When angry he frequently sent men to a prison without any 
 
 1 Bellingham to Somerset, Nov. 22, 1548, which encloses a copy of the 
 letter to Warwick ; to Issam, Dec. (No. 163). 
 
 2 Bellingham to O'Molloy, Nov. 24, 1548; to O'Carroll (No. 138); to 
 Thomond (No. 137).
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 339 
 
 warrant of law ; ' and I myself,' said the Chancellor, ' except CHAP. 
 
 I walk warily, look for none other but some time with the , '-^ 
 
 King's seal with me to take up my lodging in the castle 
 of Dublin.' The Council had become a lifeless, spiritless 
 corpse, for Bellingham could hear no advice without threats 
 and taunts. It is not surprising that Privy Councillors 
 feared to speak frankly, and forced themselves to wait until 
 this tyranny should be overpast. 1 
 
 To a Lord Deputy so jealous for the dignity of his office 
 nothing could be more distasteful than the power of the House 
 of Ormonde, which was now wielded by the Countess and her 
 husband. The Sheriff of Kildare gave a most galling proof of 
 this power by begging that his communications with Belling- 
 ham might be kept secret for fear of Lady Ormonde's dis- 
 pleasure. She claimed the right to keep gallowglasses in 
 Kilkenny, and the Lord Deputy infinitely disliked this practice, 
 which had prevailed for centuries. He wished to keep the 
 young Earl in England, lest by living at home he should im- 
 bibe exaggerated notions of his own importance. ' His learning 
 and manners,' he said, ' would be nothing amended, and the 
 King's authority thereby be nought the more obeyed.' By 
 remaining in England till he was of discreet years, he might 
 learn willingly to abandon his 'usurped insufferable rule, 
 which I trust he will do yet in time to come.' Any assumption 
 of independence on the part of a subject irritated Bellingham 
 excessively ; and when Desmond, whose manners he stigma- 
 tised as detestable, neglected his summons, he set out quietly 
 from Leighlin with a small party of horse, rode rapidly into 
 Munster, surprised Desmond sitting by the fire in one of his 
 castles, and carried him off to Dublin. He set himself to 
 instruct the rude noble in civilisation and in the nature of 
 the royal authority, sometimes, if we may believe the chronicler, 
 ' making him kneel upon his knees an hour together before he 
 knew his duty.' This discipline, accompanied doubtless with 
 kind treatment in other ways, seems to have answered so 
 well, that, according to the same authority, Desmond ' thought 
 himself most happy that ever he was acquainted with the 
 
 1 Alen to Paget, April 1549 (No. 32). 
 
 z 2
 
 340 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, said Deputy, and did for ever after so much honour him, as 
 
 < ,-! that continually all his life at every dinner and supper he 
 
 would pray for the good Sir Edward Bellingham ; and at all 
 callings he was so obedient and dutiful, as none more in that 
 land.' 1 
 
 Ireland At the beginning of the year 1549 the Privy Council 
 
 Garrison at thanked Bellingham for having brought Ireland to a good 
 state- They charged him to aid Tyrone against the Scots, 
 and to be on his guard against French enterprises undertaken 
 under colour of trading. The forts erected where Maryborough 
 and Philipstown now are kept Leix and Offaly quiet. Brew- 
 eries were at work under the shadow of both, and it was pro- 
 posed to start a tan-yard at Fort Protector, as Maryborough 
 was for the moment called. Bellingham established another 
 post, which became very important, to command the road 
 from Dublin to Kilkenny, and thus make the Government less 
 dependent on the House of Ormonde. The suppressed Car- 
 melite convent at Leighlin Bridge required but little alteration, 
 and the Barrow ceased to be a serious obstacle. The Lord 
 Deputy kept twenty or thirty horses here with the greatest 
 difficulty, the hay having to be brought from Carlow through 
 a disturbed country. Irishmen were willing to settle and to 
 make an example of peaceful cultivation, but they were in 
 great fear of Lady Ormonde. Walter Cowley, formerly 
 Solicitor-General and fomenter of discord between St. Leger 
 and the late Earl, had little good to say of the no longer dis- 
 consolate widow, but praised Sir Francis Bryan for saying 
 that he would not ' borrow of the law as my Lord of Ormonde 
 did.' The expression was called forth by the action of the 
 Idrone Ryans, who were frightened by the inquiries into 
 tenure, and came to Lady Ormonde offering to convey their 
 lands to her and her heirs ; the object being td defeat the Act 
 of Absentees. No doubt the cultivators would have been glad 
 to pay an easy rent to a powerful neighbour, rather than have 
 an active new landlord such as Cosby thrust upon them. Sir 
 Richard Butler, some of whose misdeeds have been already 
 
 1 Bellingham to John Issam, Nov. 1648 (No. 140). Hooker's Chronicle 
 in Holinshed. The capture of Desmond was about Christmas 1548.
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 341 
 
 mentioned, built a castle in O'More's country without any 
 title, and overawed the whole district of Slievemargy. 1 
 
 Doctrinal Protestantism was not formally promulgated in Progress of 
 Bellingham's time ; but the recognition of the royal supremacy mation. 
 was pretty general, for he would allow no disobedience. The staples." 11 
 Treasurer of St. Patrick's, who was refractory, was severely 
 reprimanded, and threatened with condign punishment. A 
 Scot who preached at Kilmainham condemned the Mass, 
 and Archbishop Browne, whose opinions were not perhaps 
 quite fixed, was accused of inveighing against the stranger, 
 and of maintaining that those who sided with him were 
 ' not the King's true subjects.' Means were, however, taken 
 to spread the order of service which Browne had set on 
 foot. The Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the 
 Ave Maria were read and circulated in English, but the Mass 
 was retained ; a confused arrangement which could not last. 
 Still, the men who controlled the Government and the young 
 King were known to be favourable to the new doctrines, and 
 the Scots emissary soon found a distinguished follower in the 
 Bishop of Meath. Staples had at one time certainly held 
 opinions less advanced than those of Browne, but he now 
 went to Dublin and preached a strong Protestant sermon 
 against the Mass. On returning to his own diocese he found 
 that he had incurred universal hatred. An Irishman, whose 
 infant he had christened and named after himself, desired to 
 have the child re-baptized, ' for he would not have him bear 
 the name of a heretic.' A gentleman refused to have his 
 child confirmed ' by him that denied the sacrament of the 
 altar.' The gossips in the market-place at Navan declared 
 that if the Bishop came to preach there they would stay away, 
 lest they should learn to be heretics. A lawyer in the neigh- 
 bourhood told a crowd of people that Staples deserved to be 
 burned, c for if I preached heresy so was I worthy to be burned, 
 and if I preached right yet was I worthy that kept the truth 
 
 1 Richard Brasier to Somerset, Nov. 14, 1548 ; John Moorton to same, 
 April 15, 1549 ; Anthony Colcloght to same, Feb. 1 and 13, and to Cahir 
 MacArt, Jan. 27 ; Walter Cowley to Bellingham, March 14 ; Brian Jones to 
 same, April (No. 35).
 
 342 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVI. 
 
 1-Hin and 
 Duwdall. 
 
 from knowledge.' ' This gentleman,' Staples quaintly adds, 
 loveth no sodden meat, but can skill only of roasting.' Another 
 lawyer, a judge, said it should be proved before the Bishop's 
 face that he preached against learning. The following is too 
 interesting to omit : ' A beneficed man of mine own promotion 
 came unto me weeping and desired me that he might declare 
 his mind unto me without my displeasure. I said I was well 
 content. My Lord, said he, before ye went last to Dublin ye 
 were the best beloved man in your diocese that ever came in, 
 and now ye are the worst beloved that ever came here. I 
 asked why ? " Why," saith he, " ye have taken open part with 
 the State that false heretic, and preached against the sacra- 
 ment of the altar, and deny saints, and will make us worse 
 than Jews : if the country wist how they would eat you ;" and 
 he besought me to take heed of myself, for he feared more 
 than he durst tell me. " Ye have," he said, " more curses than 
 ye have hairs of your head, and I advise you for Christ sake 
 not to preach at the Navan as I hear ye will do." I said it 
 was my charge to preach, and because there was most resort 
 (God willing) I would not fail but preach there. Hereby ye 
 may perceive what case I am in, but I put all to God.' The 
 Bishop spoke as became his office, but he was * afraid of his 
 life divers ways.' l 
 
 Bellingham had information of what was going on in 
 England by private as well as official correspondence. 
 John Issam, a strong Protestant, who was afterwards made 
 seneschal of Wexford, wrote from London an account of the 
 variations of opinion upon the all-important question of the 
 sacrament. * There is great sticking,' he said, ' about the 
 blessed body and bloode of Jesus Christ, howbeit, I trust that 
 they will conclude well in it, by the help of the Holy Spirit, 
 without which such matters cannot well be tried ; but part of 
 our bishops that have been most stiff in opinions of the reality 
 of His body there, as He was here in earth, should be in the 
 
 1 Staples to between Dec. 22 and 29, 1548. The letter is not ad- 
 dressed to Bellingham, but he must have seen it, as it is endorsed by his 
 clerk. See also Walter Palatyneto Bellingham, Nov. 23, 1547, and Interroga- 
 tories for Archbishop Browne at the end of that year. The first Book of 
 Common Prayer was not printed till 1550.
 
 FKOM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 343 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVI 
 
 opinion, but by His mighty power in spirit, and leaveth His < r-^ 
 
 body sitting on the right hand of His Father, as our common 
 creed testifieth ; but yet there is hard hold with some to the 
 contrary, who shall relent when it pleaseth God.' Bellingham 
 certainly did what he could to spread the reformed doctrines, 
 but this was, perhaps, not much. His letter to Primate 
 Dowdall, who had acknowledged the royal supremacy, but 
 was inflexible on the question of the sacrament, is instinct 
 with the spirit of Christian sincerity. 
 
 ' My Lord Primate,' he says, ' I pray you lovingly and 
 charitably to be circumspect in your doings, and consider 
 how God hath liberally given you divers gifts, and namely, 
 
 of reputation among the people Let all these in part 
 
 be with the gratuity of setting forth the plain, simple, and 
 naked truth recompensed, and the way to do the same is to 
 know that which, with a mild and humble spirit wished, 
 sought, and prayed for, will most certainly be given, which I 
 pray God grant us both.' 1 
 
 Bellingham could do nothing with Dowdall ; but in the Beiling- 
 spring of 1549 all the priests in the Kilkenny district not vances' the 
 physically incapable of travelling were summoned to meet ro - val 
 the Lord Deputy and Council. It was ordered that the 
 Attorney-General should exercise jurisdiction in ecclesiastical 
 matters, and ' abolish idolatry, papistry, the Mass sacrament, 
 and the like.' The Archbishop of Cashel seems to have had 
 no great zeal for the work. Nicholas Fitzwilliam, Treasurer 
 of St. Patrick's, received a stinging rebuke for his hesitation 
 to carry out the royal commands. The innovations were dis- 
 tasteful to most men in Ireland, but Bellingham was recog- 
 nised as one who would use his patronage conscientiously, 
 and not job in the usual style. John Brereton, a decided 
 Protestant, recommended to him ' for the love of God and 
 the zeal that you have for the education of Christ's flock,' 
 a poor priest who was willing to go into a certain district 
 where he had friends, and where there was no one to declare 
 
 1 Bellingham to Dowdall, Dec. 1548 ; John Issam to Bellingham, 
 Dec. 22 ; Richard Brasier to Somerset, Nov. 14.
 
 344 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, the true worship. The suppliant, who was both learned and 
 ^ .' , '-' earnest, could expect favour from no nother's (sic) hand, be- 
 cause he ' is but poor and has no money to give as his adver- 
 saries do.' Auditor Brasier told Somerset that ' there was 
 never Deputy in the realm that went the right way, as he 
 doth, both for the setting forth of God's Word to His honour, 
 and to the wealth of the King's Highness' subjects.' But 
 these praises did not serve to prolong his term of office, and 
 he left Ireland without effecting the reforms which he had at 
 heart. 1 
 
 Belling- Bellingham's departure from Ireland followed pretty closely 
 
 Ireland, on the Protector's eclipse, though it is not quite certain that 
 character! 8 i* was caused by it. Warwick may have borne malice for 
 past lectures, but the Lord Deputy seems to have defended 
 himself successfully, and might have been sent back had he 
 not excused himself on account of ill-health. The malady 
 proved fatal, but he seems to have retained office till his death. 
 There has been a tendency among those who find their ideal 
 ealised in a strong man armed, to represent Bellingham as a 
 model ruler. It appears from his letters and from general 
 testimony that he was honest, brave, loyal, and sincerely re- 
 ligious ; but his incessant wars were very burdensome, and it 
 is noted that he exacted the unpopular cess more stringently 
 than its inventor St. Leger had done. But he was a true- 
 dealing man, took nothing without punctual payment, and 
 ' could not abide the cry of the poor.' From the love of gain, 
 that common vice of provincial governors, he was absolutely 
 free, and made a point of spending all his official income in 
 hospitality, saying that the meat and drink in his house were 
 not his own, but his dear master's. For the King's honour 
 he paid his own travelling expenses, and insisted on doing 
 the like even when Lord Baltinglass entertained him sump- 
 tuously. Alen, who criticised his official conduct so sharply, 
 could not but allow that he was ' the best man of war that 
 ever he had seen in Ireland.' The figure of the Puritan 
 
 1 Sovereign of Kilkenny to the Lord Deputy, April 26, 1549; Walter 
 Cowley to same, June 25; Brasier to Somerset, Nov. 14, 1548; John 
 Brereton to Bellingham, 1548 (No. 174).
 
 FEOM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 345 
 
 soldier has its charms ; but the sword of the Lord and of CHAP. 
 
 Gideon is not a good instrument of civil government. Abso- ' r ^ ' 
 
 lutism may be apparently successful under a beneficent despot, 
 but who is to guarantee that his successor shall not be a 
 villain or a fool? Bellingham's forts did their own work, 
 but his ascendency over lawyers in Dublin and ambitious 
 chiefs in the country was purely personal, and had no lasting 
 effect. There was much to admire in his character, but 
 distance has lent it enchantment, and in practice not much 
 permanent work could be done by a governor of whom 
 the most striking fact recorded is that 'he wore ever his 
 harness, and so did all those whom he liked of.' * 
 
 As soon as Bellingham had left Ireland the Council Bryan, 
 unanimously elected Bryan Lord Justice. The Irish, though justice, 
 overawed by the departed Deputy, had been plotting in the 
 usual way, and after all that had passed Lord Thornond and 
 O'Carroll were sworn allies. The Kavanaghs were known to" 
 be meditating mischief, and Desmond was not to be depended 
 on. Lady Ormonde had been quarrelling with Lady Desmond, 
 and Alen took credit to himself for having made a truce be- 
 tween them. To the usual elements of discord were added 
 many rumours of Scotch and French invasions. O'Neill, 
 O'Donnell, O'Dogherty, and others proposed to become sub- 
 jects of France, in consideration of help from thence, and of the 
 most Christian King's good offices with the Pope. Monluc, 
 Bishop of Valence, returning from his mission to the Scottish 
 Court, was directed by Henry to take Ireland on his way, and 
 to gain all the information possible. Sir James Melville, then 
 a boy, accompanied him. ' Before our landing,' he says, we 
 sent one George Paris, who had been sent into Scotland by 
 the great O'Neill and his associates, who landed in the house 
 of a gentleman who had married O'Dogherty's daughter, 
 dwelling at the Loch edge. He came aboard and welcomed 
 us, and conveyed us to his house, which was a great dark 
 tower, where we had cold cheer as herring and biscuit for 
 it was Lentroun.' One De Botte, a Breton merchant, was 
 
 1 Book of Horcth ; Ware ; Hooker in Holinshed ; Lodge's Patentee Officer 
 in Liber Hibernice, Bellingham embarked at Howth, Dec. 16, 1549.
 
 346 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVI. 
 
 Death of 
 
 Bryan, 
 
 1550. 
 
 Lady 
 
 Ormonde 
 
 meditates 
 
 a third 
 
 marriage. 
 
 Brsbazon, 
 
 Lord 
 
 Justice. 
 
 Dowdall 
 
 and 
 
 VVauchop. 
 
 also sent on secret service to Ireland apparently about the 
 same time. 1 
 
 At this juncture Bryan died at Clonmel under circum- 
 stances apparently somewhat suspicious, for there was a post- 
 mortem examination. He had refused to take any medicine, 
 and the doctors, who detected no physical unsoundness, pru- 
 dently declared that he died of grief; we are not told for 
 what. l But whereof soever he died,' says Alen, who was 
 present both at the death and the autopsy, ' he departed very 
 godly.' Lady Ormonde, who must have had a rooted dislike 
 to single life, immediately recurred to her plan of marrying 
 Gerald of Desmond, and the Chancellor had to remonstrate on 
 the scandal of so soon supplying the place of two such noble 
 husbands. The danger of putting both the Ormonde and 
 Desmond interests in the same hand was obvious. The 
 Geraldines were already too powerful, and what might not be 
 the consequence of throwing the weight of the Butlers into 
 the same scale, and making them more Irish and less loyal 
 than they had been before? In the end she promised to 
 remain sole for one year. ' Nevertheless,' said Alen, ' I would 
 my lords (if they take her marriage of any moment) trusted 
 a woman's promise no further than in such a case it is to be 
 trusted ! ' Her marriage took place in the end with beneficial 
 results: for Lady Ormonde was able to keep some sort of 
 peace between her husband and her son, and thus saved much 
 misery and bloodshed. Immediately after her death the 
 quarrel broke out anew, and ended only with the extinction 
 of the House of Desmond. 2 
 
 On the day of Bryan's death the Council elected Brabazon to 
 succeed him, and the new Lord Justice soon afterwards went to 
 Limerick to arrange disputes among the O'Briens and between 
 Thomond and Desmond. Before the complicated complaints had 
 been all heard his presence was required in Dublin on account 
 
 1 Patrick Fraser Tytler's England under Edreard VI. and Mary. He 
 quotes Melville's Memoirs. See in particular the letter of Sir John Mason 
 to the Privy Council, June 16, 1550. The ' Loch ' mentioned by Melville must 
 be Lough Foyle or Lough Swilly. 
 
 a Instructions from Lord Chancellor Alen to Thomas Alen, Feb. 1550. 
 Bryan died, Feb. 2, 1 550.
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWAKD VI. TO THE YEAK 1551. 347 
 
 of the disturbed state of the North ; a most dangerous visitor CHAP. 
 
 having landed in Tyrconnel. This was the Papal Primate, > r-^ ' 
 
 Robert Wauchop Dowdall, who had acknowledged the royal 
 supremacy, though without accepting any of the new doctrines, 
 not being acknowledged at Rome. The actual Primate kept 
 himself well informed as to the movements of his rival, whom 
 he understood to be a ' very shrewd spy and great brewer of 
 war and sedition.' There were many French and Scotch 
 ready to attack Ireland, and the former had already manned 
 and armed two castles in Innishowen. Tyrone gave Dowdall 
 letters which he had received from the French king, and the 
 Archbishop, with his consent, forwarded them to the Council. 
 Tyrone swore before the Dean and Chapter of Armagh that he 
 had sent no answers, and that he would remain faithful to the 
 King. He did not acknowledge Wauchop's claims, but merely 
 reported that he called himself Primate, and that he was ac- 
 companied by two Frenchmen of rank, who were supposed to 
 be forerunners of countless Scotch and French invaders. The 
 Council warned Tyrone that the French wished to conquer 
 Ireland, and to reduce him and his clan to slavery and in- 
 significance. He was reminded that they had been expelled 
 from Italy and Sicily for their more than Turkish ferocity and 
 rapacity. French messages were also sent to O'Donnell, but 
 no letters, as he had transmitted some formerly received to the 
 Government. He professed his loyalty, and declared that he 
 would not recognise Wauchop unless the Council wished it. 1 
 
 In all these intrigues we find one George Paris, or Foreign 
 
 Parish, engaged. He was a man whose ancestors had held in tri u es. 
 
 George 
 
 land in Ireland, of which they had been deprived, and he Paris- 
 was perhaps related to the traitor of Maynooth. This man 
 came and went between France and Ireland, and though the 
 threatened attack was averted by the peace concluded by 
 England with France and Scotland, his services were not 
 
 1 Lord Chancellor and Council to Tyrone, March 17, 1550 : ' Tarn ferox 
 est illius nationis nobilitas ut sub Turc (quantumvis barbaro) mitius 
 viveres quam sub illorum regimine. . . . summo conatu libertatem patrise, 
 sanguinis libertatem et personse vestrasl dignitatem abolebunt.' Dowdall 
 to Alen, March 22; Brabazon to the Privy Council, March 26, with en- 
 closures.
 
 348 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, dispensed with. Henry said that the intrigues had ceased 
 
 * r-^ ' with the peace, but the English ambassador knew that his 
 
 Majesty had had an interview with Paris less than a week 
 before. Paris told everyone that all the nobility of Ireland 
 were resolved to cast off the English yoke for fear of losing 
 all their lands, as the O'Mores and O'Connors had done. He 
 boasted that he himself had begged Trim Castle of the French 
 king to make up for the lands which the English had de- 
 prived him of. The Constable spoke as smoothly and not 
 much more truly than the King. Monluc was still employed in 
 the matter, had interviews with Paris, and gave him money. 1 
 St. Leger After Bellinsrham's death it was determined to send St. 
 
 again 
 
 Deputy. Leger over again, though he disliked the service, and though 
 placed, the Irish Chancellor continued to indite bulky minutes against 
 him. It was felt that the two could hardly agree, and Alen was 
 turned out of the Council and deprived of the great seal, which 
 was given to Cusack. His advice was nevertheless occasion- 
 ally asked. A year later he received 200 marks pension from 
 the date of his dismissal, though he had only asked for 100Z. 
 Many charges were made against him, the truest, though he 
 indignantly denied it, being that he could not agree with 
 others. But after careful search no fault of any moment 
 could be found in him, and he had served very industriously 
 in Ireland for twenty-two years. With all his opportunities 
 he declared that he had gained only nine and a half acres of 
 Irish land. St. Leger and his friends, who were for con- 
 ciliating rather than repressing the Irish, naturally disliked 
 Alen. He had a decided taste for intrigue ; but if we regard 
 him as a mere English official, diligent and useful, though 
 narrow and touchy, he must be allowed to have had his 
 value. 2 
 
 1 Sir John Mason to the Privy Council, June 14, 1650 ; Foreign Calen- 
 dar and Fraser Tytler, ut supra. 
 
 1 Letters of Croft and the two Bagenals, July 31, 1551 ; Alen to Cecil, 
 April 5, 1551, and to the Privy Council, Aug. 10. The grant is calendared 
 after the latter date. Having been chief of the commission for the dis- 
 solution of abbeys, Alen thought it prudent to go to England during Mary's 
 reign, but made his peace, became again a member of Council, and lived 
 to congratulate Cecil on becoming once more Secretary of State.
 
 FEOM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 349 
 
 The new Lord Deputy's salary was fixed at 1,000?. a year CHAP. 
 
 from his predecessor's death, though St. Leger, who alleged < r -l' 
 
 that he was already 500L the poorer for Ireland, fought hard s *- Le g e r 
 for 1,500Z. He retained his old privilege of importing 1,000 con- 
 quarters of wheat and 1,000 quarters of malt yearly, to be policy, 
 consumed only in Ireland. The appointment was evidently 
 intended to restore some confidence among the natives, who 
 had been scared by Bellingham's high-handed policy. St. 
 Leger having suggested that Irishmen should be ' handled with 
 the more humanity lest they by extremity should adhere to 
 other foreign Powers,' he was directed to ' use gentleness to 
 such as shall show themselves conformable,' that great Roman 
 maxim of empire which has been so often neglected in Ire- 
 land. Encouraging letters were to be sent to Desmond, 
 Thomond, and Clanricarde ; and to MacWilliam, the O'Don- 
 nells, O'Reilly, O'Kane, and MacQuillin. Pieces of scarlet 
 cloth and silver cups to the value of 100Z. were to be distri- 
 buted to the best advantage among them. Particular instruc- 
 tions were given for reforming the military establishments, 
 and officers were not to be allowed to have more than 10 per 
 cent, of Irish among their men. Coyne and livery, the most 
 fertile source of licence and disorder, was to be eschewed as 
 far as possible. Irish noblemen were to be encouraged to 
 exchange some of their lands for property in England, and 
 thus to give pledges for good behaviour. In Leix and Offaly 
 leases for twenty-one years were to be given ; and religious 
 reform was everywhere to be taken in hand. One very 
 curious power was given to the Lord Deputy. When Eng- 
 land was at war with France or the Empire, he was au- 
 thorised to license subjects of those Powers to import mer- 
 chandise under royal protection, excepting such articles as 
 were under a special embargo. 1 
 
 St. Leger was ordered to set forth the Church service in Hesitation 
 English, according to the royal ordinances, in all places where a ^ u * 
 it was possible to muster a congregation who understood the the Refor- 
 language. Elsewhere the words were to be translated truly forward. 
 
 1 Instructions to Lord Deputy St. Leger, July 1550 ; Mr. St. Leger's 
 Remembrances for Ireland, same date. He was sworn in on Sept. 10.
 
 350 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVI. 
 
 Bad state 
 of the 
 garrisons. 
 
 into Irish, until such time as the people should be brought 
 to a knowledge of English. But small pains were taken to 
 carry out the latter design, and the Venetian agent reported, 
 with practical accuracy, that the Form of Common Prayer and 
 Administration of the Sacraments was not enforced in Ireland 
 or other islands subject to England where English was not 
 understood. The book still remains that of the English 
 colony, and of no one else in Ireland. Cranmer and Eliza- 
 beth both saw the necessity of attempting to reach the Irish 
 through their own tongue, but neither were able to do it. 
 When Bedell, at a later period, threw himself heart and soul 
 into the cause, he received not only no encouragement, but 
 positive opposition, from the Government ; and in any case 
 the breach was probably then past mending. Protestantism 
 had become identified in the Irish mind with conquest and 
 confiscation, a view of the case which was sedulously en- 
 couraged by Jesuits and other foreign emissaries. 1 
 
 St. Leger lost no time in visiting the forts in Leix and 
 Offaly, and he found there the disorder natural to, and per- 
 haps pardonable in, an ill-paid soldiery. Bellingham had 
 complained more than a year before that so many women of 
 the country Moabitish women he would have called them 
 had he lived a century later were received into Fort Pro- 
 tector. Some officers indignantly denied this, l and as to 
 our misdemeanour in any point,' they added, 'we put that 
 to the honestest men and women in the fort.' If this report 
 was true, discipline had been much relaxed in a year and 
 nine months, for St. Leger found as many women of bad 
 character as there were soldiers in the forts. Divine service 
 there had been none for three years, and only one sermon. 
 Staples, who was the preacher on that solitary occasion, ' had 
 so little reverence as he had no great haste eftsoons to preach 
 there.' There was also a want of garrison artillery ; and 
 eight pieces of cannon, with forty smaller pieces called bases, 
 were demanded by the Master of the Ordnance. He also 
 asked for 400 harquebusses, and for bows, which the Dugald 
 
 1 Instructions to St. Leger; Barbaro's 'Report on England' in 1551, 
 in the Venetian Calendar.
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 351 
 
 Dalgettys of the day had not yet learned to despise. There CHAP. 
 were rumours of a French invasion, and it was proposed to , - ' 
 send a strong expedition to Ireland six ships with attendant 
 galleys, 1,000 men, including many artificers to be employed 
 in fortifying Baltimore, Berehaven, and other places in the 
 south-west, and the mouths of the Bann and of Lough Larne 
 in the north-east. The Constables of Carrickfergus and 
 Olderfleet were ordered to put those castles in order for fear 
 of Scots. Lord Cobham was designated as leader of the ex- 
 pedition, and the Irish Government were directed at once to 
 survey Cork, Kinsale, and other southern harbours. 1 
 
 Martin Piny, Comptroller of the Mint, who brought over St. George's 
 bullion collected in France and Flanders, had to stay seven unsafe. 6 
 
 days at Holyhead for fear of five great ships which he saw 
 drifting about in the tideway. In the end he secured a 
 quick and safe passage by hiring a twenty-five ton pinnace 
 with sixteen oars, into which he put twenty-five well-armed 
 men. St. Leger had been complaining bitterly that he could 
 get no money out of the mint, although 2,OOOZ. was owing. 
 Pirry seems to have had only a limited authority, for though 
 over 7,OOOZ. was delivered by him on the Lord Deputy's war- 
 rant, St. Leger still objected that he had to make bricks 
 without straw, and to put port towns in a posture of defence 
 without being allowed to draw for the necessary expenses. 2 
 
 The expedition did not take place, but Sir James Croft Abortive 
 was sent over with instructions to inspect all the harbours fortif 1 ? 
 between Berehaven and Cork, to make plans of the most im- ipMunste 
 
 . ... Appehen- 
 
 portant, and to select sites for fortification ; utilising existing sums of 
 buildings as much as possible, and taking steps for the ac- invasion. 
 quisition of the necessary land. He was then to extend his 
 operations as far east as Waterford, acting in all things in 
 concert with the Lord Deputy. It is evident that things were 
 in a state quite unfit to resist a powerful French armament ; 
 
 1 St. Leger to the Lord High Treasurer, Sept. 27, 1550 ; Henry Wise and 
 John Moorton, officers at Fort Protector, to Bellingham, Jan. 6, 1549 ; Arti- 
 cles for an expedition into Ireland, Jan. 7, 1551 ; St. Leger to Somerset, 
 Feb. 18 ; Privy Council to Lord Deputy and Council, Jan. 26. 
 
 a Martin Pirry to the Privy Council, Feb. 21, 1551 ; St. Leger to the 
 same, March 23.
 
 352 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVI. 
 
 Difficulties 
 in Ulster. 
 Andrew 
 Brereton. 
 
 but the weather as usual was on the side of England, and of 
 eighteen French vessels laden with provisions, more than one- 
 half were lost in a storm off the Irish coast. This fleet was, 
 no doubt, destined only for the relief of the French party in 
 Scotland, and there does not seem to have been any real in- 
 tention of breaking the peace with England. But the Irish 
 exiles were unwilling to believe this. George Paris, who had 
 been despatched from Blois about Christmas 1550, returned 
 to France in the following spring, bringing with him an Irish- 
 man of importance. The Irish offered Ireland to Henry, and 
 begged him to defend his own, saying that Wales would also 
 rise as soon as foreign aid appeared. Their avowed object 
 was ' the maintenance of religion, and for the continuance of 
 God's service in such sort as they had received from their 
 fathers. In the which quarrel they were determined either 
 to stand or to die.' It would be better to invade England 
 than Ireland; for the English Catholics would receive an 
 invader with open arms. Paris spoke much of the frequent 
 conquests of England. No outward enemy, once landed, had 
 ever been repulsed, and the thing was easier now than ever. 
 The sanguine plotter talked loudly of all that had been pro- 
 mised him, and professed to believe that the Dauphin would 
 soon be King of Ireland and Scotland at the very least. 
 ' With these brags, and such others, he filleth every man's 
 ears that he chanceth to talk withal.' He had constant inter- 
 views with the Nuncio, but the French grew every day cooler. 
 The English ambassador perceived that the Irish envoy was 
 ' not so brag,' and at last reported that he had been denied 
 help. He attributed this change of policy entirely to the fear 
 of increasing the difficulties in which the Queen Dowager of 
 Scotland already found herself. 1 
 
 While Scots and Frenchmen threatened its shores, Ulster 
 furnished more even than its normal share of home-grown 
 strife. Captain Andrew Brereton, who seems to have been a 
 son or grandson of Sir William Brereton, held Lecale as a 
 Crown tenant at will. He was a man singularly unfit to deal 
 
 1 Instructions to Sir James Croft, Feb. 25, 1551, in Carerc; Sir John 
 Mason to the Privy Council, April 18, printed by Fraser Tytler.
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551. 353 
 
 with a high-spirited race like the O'Neills. When Tyrone, CHAP, 
 according to ancient Irish custom, sent a party to distrain for -_ - 
 rent among the MacCartans, Brereton set upon them and 
 killed several men, including two brothers of the Countess. 
 To the Earl's remonstrances he replied by calling him a traitor, 
 and threatening to treat him as he had treated O'Hanlon 
 that is, to spoil him, slay his men, and burn his country. It 
 is clear that Brereton was not actuated by any special love of 
 the MacCartans, for he beheaded a gentleman of that clan 
 without trial. He forcibly expelled Prior Magennis from his 
 farm on the church lands of Down ; and Roger Broke, a con- 
 genial spirit, shut up the Prior in Dundrum Castle. Tyrone 
 went to Dublin to welcome St. Leger on his arrival, and 
 Brereton openly called him a traitor at the Council Board, in 
 the presence of the Lord Deputy and of the Earls of Thomond 
 and Clanricarde. The proud O'Neill of course took the 
 accusation ' very unkindly.' St. Leger was of opinion that 
 such handling of wild men had done much harm in Ireland ; 
 and the Council, while admitting that Tyrone was ' a frail 
 man, and not the perfectest of subjects,' thought that this 
 was not the way to make the best of him. Brereton had no 
 better justification for his conduct than the gossip of one 
 of MacQuillin's kerne, who said that Tyrone had sent a 
 messenger to the King of France to say that he would take 
 his part against King Edward, and would send him Brereton 
 and Bagenal as prisoners. Brereton was very properly relieved 
 of his command in Lecale, on the nominal ground that he had 
 refused to hold the Crown land there upon the Lord Deputy's 
 terms ; which St. Leger evidently thought more likely to have 
 weight with the English Council than any amount of outrages 
 committed against the Irish. He was afterwards restored, 
 and gave trouble to later governors. 1 
 
 1 Articles against Andrew Brereton, Nov. 1550 ; St. Leger to Cecil, Jan. 
 19, 1551. The Council in Ireland to the Privy Council, May 20. 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 354 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 
 
 CHAP. No Parliament was held in Ireland during Edward VI.'s 
 
 XVII. 
 
 . '-* reign ; and the official establishment of Protestantism is gene- 
 
 The Refor- ra l]y supposed to date from a royal order, dated Feb. 6, 1551, 
 
 mation J J 
 
 officially and promulgated by the Lord Deputy on the first day of the 
 gated, 1551. following month. But the new Liturgy had been already 
 introduced, and copies had been forwarded to Limerick, and 
 perhaps to other places. St. Leger, who felt that the Com- 
 munion Service was the really important thing, had it trans- 
 lated into Latin for the benefit of those who had some tincture 
 of letters, but who could, not read English. The citizens of 
 Limerick made no difficulty about receiving the new for- 
 mulary ; but the Bishop, John Quin, refused, and was there- 
 fore forced to resign. Quin, who was old and blind, had been 
 willing to acknowledge the royal supremacy, but very natu- 
 rally refused to embrace a new faith. It has often been stated 
 that Quin accepted the Reformation ; but it is not easy to see 
 how this can be reconciled with the facts. His successor was 
 William Casey, whose consecrators were Archbishop Browne, 
 Lancaster of Kildare, and Devereux of Ferns. The two last 
 had been consecrated by Browne and by Travers of Leighlin. 
 Travers had only just been appointed himself, and was pro- 
 bably in pretty nearly the same condition. 1 
 Doctrinal Immediately after the arrival of the momentous order, St. 
 
 conference . ^ 
 
 in Dublin. Leger summoned the clergy to meet him in Dublin. To this 
 assembly the royal mandate was read, as well as the opinions 
 of certain English divines in favour of the proposed changes. 
 Primate Dowdall at once protested. ' For the general benefit 
 of our well-beloved subjects,' the King was made to say, 
 
 1 St. Leger to Cecil, Jan. 19, 1551 ; Brady's Ejrixeopal Succession.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 355 
 
 ' whenever assembled and met together in the several parish CHAP. 
 churches, either to pray or hear prayers read, that they may , '-^ 
 the better join therein in unity, hearts and voices, we have 
 caused the Liturgy and prayers of the Church to be trans- 
 lated into our mother tongue of this realm of England.' 
 ' Then,' observed the Primate, ' shall every illiterate fellow 
 read Mass?' 'No,' answered St. Leger with much force, 
 'your Grace is mistaken; for we have too many illiterate 
 priests among us already, who neither can pronounce the 
 Latin nor know what it means, no more than the common 
 people that hear them ; but when the people hear the Liturgy 
 in English, they and the priest will then understand what 
 they pray for.' This last observation might be true enough 
 in Dublin, but it was singularly inapplicable to Ireland gene- 
 rally. The key-note of the controversy had, however, been 
 struck, and it was clear that the Primate and the Lord Deputy 
 occupied very different standpoints. Finding St. Leger a for- 
 midable antagonist, and seeing that the case was virtually 
 prejudged, Dowdall somewhat forgot his habitual dignity, 
 and threatened the Viceroy with the clergy's curse. ' I fear,' 
 was the answer, 'no strange curse, so long as I have the 
 blessing of that Church which I believe to be the true one.' 
 There was some further altercation about the Petrine claims 
 to supremacy; and Dowdall, finding that he made no im- 
 pression, left the hall with all his suffragans except Staples, 
 and repaired to his own diocese. St. Leger then handed the 
 King's order to Browne, who received it standing. 'This 
 order, good brethren,' said the Protestant Archbishop, 'is 
 from our gracious King, and from the rest of our brethren, 
 the fathers and clergy of England, who have consulted herein, 
 and compared the Holy Scriptures with what they have done ; 
 unto whom I submit, as Jesus did to Csesar, in all things just 
 and lawful, making no question why or wherefore, as we own 
 him our true and lawful King.' l 
 
 1 This conference is detailed in Mant's Church History, pp. 194, 199. 
 See also Ware's Life, of Browne. The conference was held in St. Mary's 
 Abbey, the residence of Dowdall, he having refused to attend the Lord 
 Deputy at Kilmainham.
 
 350 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVII. 
 
 St Leger, 
 Browne, 
 and 
 Dowdall. 
 
 The above proceedings show that St. Leger was at least 
 in general agreement with the Protestant party, but he had 
 certainly no wish to force the reformed doctrines on the re- 
 luctant Irish. Browne complained that he had publicly 
 offered the sacrifice of the Mass in Christ Church, ' after the 
 old sort, to the altar then of stone, to the comfort of his too 
 many like Papists, and the discouragement of the professors 
 of God's Word.' The Archbishop found it convenient to forget 
 that this was strictly according to law ; and that the royal 
 order, even admitting that it had all the power claimed for it, 
 had not yet gone forth to alter the state of things established 
 under Henry VIII. Browne could not deny that the Lord 
 Deputy had made due proclamation of ' the King's Majesty's 
 most godly proceeding ; ' but alleged that it was only for show, 
 ' while massing, holy water, Candlemas candles, and such 
 like, continued under the Primate and elsewhere,' without let 
 or hindrance from the chief governor. Dowdall, he said, was 
 'the next father in word and deed of Popery;' the Viceroy 
 a Gallio who did not scruple to say, ' Go to, your matters of 
 religion will mar all.' St. Leger seems in good truth to have 
 been laughing at the ex-friar. ' My Lord of Dublin,' he said, 
 ' I have books for your Lordship.' Browne found them on 
 examination ' so poisoned to maintain the Mass with Tran- 
 substantiation, and other naughtiness (as at no time I have 
 seen such a summary of Scriptures collected to establish the 
 idolatry), clean contrary the sincere meaning of the Word of 
 God and the King's most godly proceedings.' The Arch- 
 bishop had copies taken, which he sent to the Privy Council. 
 St. Leger was angry at this, and Browne says he threatened 
 to do him harm, even should it cost 1,000/. The Archbishop 
 intimated that the 1,000/. would be nothing to him, for that 
 he had enriched himself by peculation, and attributed to him 
 a degree of vindictiveness which does not seem really to have 
 belonged to his character. Browne admits that the Lord 
 Deputy called Dowdall before the Council for practising the 
 old ritual, ' who came and disputed plainly the massing and 
 other things, contrary the King's proceedings ; and that he 
 would not embrace them : whereat the Deputy said nothing. 1
 
 FROM THE YEAK 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWAKD VI. 357 
 
 Sir Ralph Bagenal called the Primate an arrant traitor. ' No CHAP. 
 
 XVII 
 traitor, Mr. Bagenal,' said Lord Chancellor Cusack, who was , '> 
 
 Dowdall's cousin ; and the Primate continued in his old ways 
 as long as St. Leger held the reins of government. The Lord 
 Deputy even recommended Tyrone to ' follow the counsel of 
 that good father, sage senator, and godly bishop, my Lord 
 Primate, in everything, and so ye shall do well.' He made 
 indeed no secret of his regard for Dowdall, whose high cha- 
 racter was admitted by all but fanatics. ' He is,' he declared 
 openly before more than a do/en persons in the hall of Dublin 
 Castle, ' a good man, and I would that all the Irishmen in 
 Ireland spake so good English as he, and if they do no worse 
 than he the King had been the better served.' l 
 
 It was impossible that any secret policy could go on st. Leger 
 without Alen having a hand in it. St. Leger told him that j 1 ^ 8 ^ 16 
 the danger from both France and from the Emperor was much toleration, 
 increased by the religious sympathies of the Irish, who, in 
 civil matters, would like foreigners only in so far as they could 
 profit by them. He ridiculed the notion of France annexing 
 Ireland, though he thought it possible that Henry II. might 
 make a diversion there to prevent England from interfering 
 with him in Scotland or on the Continent. He thought the 
 Emperor would be friendly for old acquaintance sake, but that 
 he disliked the new fashions in religion ; ' and no wonder, 
 seeing that in that matter daily at home among ourselves one 
 of us is offended with another.' St. Leger, in short, was a 
 statesman who could admire moral excellence in men of 
 different opinions ; and Browne was a fanatic. ' God help 
 me ! ' said the Deputy. ' For my own part, knowing the man- 
 ners and ignorance of the people, when my lords of the 
 Council willed me to set forth the matters of religion here, 
 which to my power I have done, I had rather they had called 
 me into Spain or any other place where the King should 
 have had cause to make war, than burdensome to sit further 
 here. I told my lords no less before my coming away.' 
 Alen had refused to put this conversation in writing, though 
 
 1 Browne to Warwick, ut supra. Examination of Oliver Sutton, March 23, 
 1552.
 
 358 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, urged to do so by Browne ; saying that he wished St. Leger 
 
 ^-L, no harm, though he had lost all through him. He said as 
 
 little as might be against him even when questioned after- 
 wards by the Council. After his interview with the Lord 
 Deputy, Alen went to sup with Lockwood, Dean of Christ 
 Church, and found there the Archbishop and Basnet, late 
 Dean of St. Patrick's. When the servants had gone the con- 
 versation turned upon St. Leger, whom Browne attacked on 
 the grounds already mentioned, saying that he was but a 
 ' dissimular in religion.' He was, in fact, a thoroughly 
 secular politician, wise and resolute, and willing to carry out 
 orders from the Government ; but not pretending to like the 
 plan of forcing an English-made religion upon the Irish, and 
 administering it in practice as gently as possible. He was 
 really in advance of his time, and had formed some notion of 
 religious liberty. That he sympathised with the old creed 
 there is not the smallest reason to suppose. ' They name me 
 a Papist,' he said. * I would to God I were to try it with 
 them that so nameth me ; ' and he was accused in Mary's 
 reign of writing satirical verses against Transubstantiation, 
 which shows that his opinions were not supposed to be anti- 
 Protestant. He would have had things stay as they were 
 under Henry VIII ; the royal supremacy acknowledged, and 
 doctrinal changes left to the action of time, persuasion, and 
 increased enlightenment. 1 
 
 These But these ideas did not recommend themselves to the 
 
 in favour in English Council, which had now come under Warwick's in- 
 
 Eng an . fl uence> Neither the bishopric of Leighlin nor that of Ossory 
 
 was granted to St. Leger's chaplain, James Bicton ; though 
 
 his patron strenuously defended him against the charge of 
 
 Papal leanings, declaring that there was no more competent 
 
 man in Ireland, nor one who had better set forth God's Word. 
 
 Bicton, who had been formerly chaplain to the Earl of 
 
 1 St. Leger to Cecil, Jan. 19, 1551. Deposition of Sir John Alen, 
 March 19, in the deponent's own hand. "The Bishop of Kildare (Lan- 
 caster),' he Bays, ' came to me persuading me on his behalf to put in 
 writing the words Mr. St. Leger spoke to me in Kilmainham, to whom I 
 made this answer, " Show my lord that albeit I love his little toe better 
 than all Mr. St. Leger's body, yet I will do nothing against truth."
 
 PROM THE YEAE lool TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 359 
 
 Ormonde, was of Irish birth, though educated at Oxford, and CHAP. 
 
 XVII. 
 was at all events not one of the very ignorant priests whom , '' 
 
 St. Leger cast up against his friend the Primate. He 
 became Dean of Ossory, and had a large chest of books at 
 Kilkenny, besides a wine cask full at Bristol, for which he 
 had paid 40Z. ; and he seems to have supported a poor Irish 
 scholar at Oxford. It would be difficult to say anything so 
 good of Travers, who was preferred before him at Leighlin. 
 Travers owed his promotion to his cousin the Master of the 
 Ordnance, whose chaplain he had been ; but he did no credit 
 to his blood, scarcely anything being recorded of him but 
 that he oppressed his clergy and made money out of his see. 1 
 Whatever was the exact cause of St. Leger's recall, it 
 is likely that he was glad to escape from the thankless Sir James 
 Irish service. Sir James Croft, his successor-designate, was succeeds 
 already in Ireland, and he handed him the reins without 1551 eger ' 
 waiting for his patent. Croft was directed to put the sea- 
 ports of Munster and Ulster into a defensible state ; but the 
 English Government showed a bad example, for though 
 Argyle was plotting in the North and MacCarthy in the 
 South, the artillery was sent over in charge of a clerk only. 
 MacCarthy was to be apprehended if possible, and also George 
 Paris, who was ' a common post between Ireland and France,' 
 sailing in French ships which were to be overhauled in search 
 of him. When the thousand men who had been promised 
 arrived at Cork there was no money to pay them. Croft 
 and his advisers begged and borrowed till both credit and 
 provisions were well-nigh exhausted in the barren wilds of 
 West Cork. Soldiers unpunctually paid could not but be 
 dangerous, and there was no sort of justice to be obtained in 
 the country districts. ' If in England,' said Crofts, using an 
 apt illustration, ' the place of justice were appointed only at 
 Dover, I think no man doubts but the people would soon 
 grow out of order.' A thorough reform in the official circle, 
 head and members, was necessary before any great improve- 
 ment could be expected in the people. Before leaving Cork, 
 Croft did what he could to secure local justice by drawing up 
 1 Bicton's curious will is printed in Cotton's Fasti, vol. ii. Appendix.
 
 360 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Croft pro- 
 poses to 
 colonise in 
 West 
 
 Munster. 
 
 The Ulster 
 
 Scots 
 
 attacked. 
 
 Failure at 
 
 Rathlin, 
 
 1551. 
 
 regulations for maintaining the peace of the district under 
 Desmond's general superintendence, not greatly differing from 
 those already supposed to be in force, but with a clause which 
 shows how the Puritan spirit was working. The Earl and 
 those joined in authority with him were to have a special care 
 to ' set forth divine service according to the King's proceed- 
 ing, and diligently to look for the punishment of harlots, for 
 which purposes they may call for the bishops and ministers 
 within their circuit, giving them warning of their duties to 
 see them punished according to the orders taken in that be- 
 half.' MacCarthy More, who had submitted, was required with 
 his clansmen to swear allegiance to Edward VI. as King, and 
 also as c supreme head of the Church in England and Ireland, 
 and clearly to renounce the Bishop of Rome and all his autho- 
 rity,' and take his ' oath on the Bible ' to obey all laws, civil 
 and ecclesiastical, set forth by the King and his successors. 
 
 Archbishop Browne, having got rid of St. Leger, was 
 loud in praise of his successor's activity, who was the first 
 governor to visit Baltimore (Ballagheyntymore). Crofts pro- 
 posed to the Council that a colony of married Englishmen 
 with their wives and families should be planted in this 
 remote place, who, after serving as soldiers for a time, would 
 be able to protect themselves as others had done at Calais. 
 But the King blamed Croft for visiting Baltimore at all, since 
 he had not the power to do anything there. In August the 
 time for fortifying was already past ; and there was a danger 
 that Spanish fishermen might discover the Lord Deputy's 
 intentions, and even find means to forestall them. 1 
 
 The affairs of Ulster next engaged the attention of Croft. 
 The Scots had lately made themselves supreme from the 
 Giant's Causeway to Belfast ; and it was determined to attack 
 them there, and, if possible, to capture the island stronghold 
 of Rathlin, whither the MacDonnells had transported all the 
 cattle and horses taken by them in their late raid. A hosting 
 was accordingly proclaimed for thirty-one days, and the army 
 mustered at Carrickfergus. The roads being impassable for 
 
 1 Croft to Warwick, May 1561 ; Instructions to Desmond and others 
 July 1 ; Archbishop Browne to Warwick, Aug. fi.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 361 
 
 carts, everything had to be carried on pack horses or by CHAP. 
 
 sea. The Lord Deputy himself went by land through the ; i 
 
 country of several Irish chiefs, of whose intelligence Chan- 
 cellor Cusack, who tells the story, formed a favourable opinion. 
 Some of them joined the expedition. Meat was abundant 
 throughout the four days' journey, at the rate of 10s. a 
 beef and 16d. a mutton ; much less than the prices of the 
 Pale. Leaving the heavy baggage at Carrickfergus, Croft 
 advanced to Glenarm, where he encamped. No Scots ap- 
 peared, and but few cattle ; but immense stores of corn were 
 found. There lay at Ballycastle four small vessels which 
 the English men-of-war had captured, and some of the pri- 
 soners from the Scots were brought before the Lord Deputy. 
 The result of their examination was a resolution at once to 
 attack Rathlin, where James MacDonnell and his brethren 
 were. It was found that the captured boats would only carry 
 200 men, and it was therefore resolved not to risk a landing 
 unless some more of the Scots vessels could be taken, or 
 unless the men in the island yielded to the fear of the cannon 
 upon the English ships. Sir Ralph Bagenal and Captain 
 Cuffe approached the island with about 100 men, but the 
 galleys which they wished to seize were at once driven in 
 shore, and a threatening crowd of Scots hung about the 
 landing-place, and took no notice of the fire from the ships, 
 which was probably too vague to endanger them much. 
 The tide was ebbing, and the invaders seemed to run 
 no great risk ; but the Race of Rathlin, even in the finest 
 weather, is never quite calm, and a sudden reflux wave lifted 
 Cuffe's boat high and dry on to the rocks. The men, about 
 twenty-five, were slain on the spot, the officers taken and 
 held by James MacDonnell as pledges for the return of the 
 goods taken from him about Glenarm, and for the release of 
 his brother Sorley Boy, who was a prisoner in Dublin. Croft 
 was obliged to yield on both points, and the whole expedition 
 ended in failure. The threat of complaining to the Scots 
 Government was not likely to weigh much with MacDonnell, 
 who was on good terms with the anti-English party. 1 
 1 Cusack to Warwick, Sept, 27, 1551.
 
 362 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 The 
 
 O'Neills 
 
 consider 
 
 wheat a 
 
 dangerous 
 
 innovation. 
 
 Most of the chiefs of Ulster, who feared the Scots more 
 than they hated the English, paid their respects to Cro^b at 
 Carrickfergus, and were glad to submit their grievances to 
 his arbitration. Tyrone, O'Donnell with his two rebellious 
 sons, Calvagh and Hugh Maguire, the Baron of Dungan- 
 non, MacQuillin, O'Neill of Clandeboye, MacCartan, the 
 Savages, Magennis, and others, had complaints to make, and 
 the Lord Deputy patched up their differences for a time ; 
 most of them agreeing to pay some rent or tribute to the 
 King for their lands, and not to employ Scots mercenaries. 
 Maguire was declared independent both of O'Neill and 
 O'Donnell, and sheriffs were appointed both in Ards and 
 Clandeboye, which, being part of the Earldom of Ulster, 
 had once had a feudal organisation. A garrison was left in 
 Carrickfergus, and a commission charged with abolishing 
 the Irish laws, ' so as by God's grace,' says the sanguine 
 Cusack, ' that country since the time of the Earl of March 
 was not so like to prosper and do well as now.' A garrison 
 was also left at Armagh, under command of the Marshal 
 Nicholas Bagenal, who was joined in commission with the 
 Baron of Dungannon for the purpose of re-establishing order 
 in Tyrone, which was utterly wasted through the dissensions 
 of the Earl and his sons. There were not ten ploughs in the 
 whole country. Hundreds had died of hunger in the fields. 
 The Baron's lands were better off; for he felt that he owed 
 his position to King Henry's patent, and to please the English 
 Government he had caused wheat to be largely sown. Tyrone 
 did his best to burn the Saxon crop, and the people declared 
 that they would grow it no more ; ' for that was the chief 
 cause (as they said) that the Earl did destroy their corn, for 
 bringing new things to his country other than hath been 
 used before. And what the Earl will promise now, within 
 two hours after he will not abide by the same.' Most of this 
 unstable chief's fighting men had gone over to his son Shane, 
 who abused his powers dreadfully. Cusack thought the 
 people would prefer to have the Baron over them, l for that 
 he is indifferent, sober, and discreet, and is a hardy gentle- 
 man of honest conversation and towardness,' whose country
 
 FKOM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 363 
 
 was as well ordered as the Pale. Tyrone had no capacity for CHAP. 
 
 government, and was ruled by his wife ; but he so far yielded , ^ ' 
 
 to the Deputy's persuasion as to accept a garrison for Armagh, 
 and to go first to Drogheda and then to Dublin. Having 
 been once enticed into the Pale, Tyrone was detained there 
 against his will. This was done by Cecil's advice, who agreed 
 with Cusack that Tyrone was quite useless in his own country, 
 and quite unable to control Shane. 1 
 
 Tyrone had, or might have had, a son by Alison Kelly, Shane 
 the wife of a smith in Dundalk. The mother brought her his brother 
 boy Matthew at the age of sixteen to the chief, who acknow- atthew - 
 ledged him as his own, and thus, according to the ancient 
 Irish law, made him equal with his children of less doubtful 
 origin. Shane, on the other hand, was the offspring of an 
 undisputed marriage. Matthew was certainly acknowledged 
 as an O'Neill when he was made Baron of Dungannon and 
 heir to the earldom, but Shane explained the difficulty by 
 saying that his father was a gentleman, and never denied any 
 son that was sworn on him, and that he had plenty of them. 
 Whether there was any election to the chieftainship we do 
 not know, but Shane was, by the practical adhesion of the 
 clansmen, in a better position than most Irish tanists. 
 Thus it strangely happened that Matthew, who was con- 
 fessedly born in adultery, was heir to the feudal title, while 
 Shane, who was certainly legitimate, claimed the reversion of 
 the tribal sovereignty. The influence of the clergy had pro- 
 bably weakened or destroyed the old Irish principle that an 
 adulterine bastard could be brought into the real father's 
 lawful family by acknowledgment, nor could English law 
 have been altogether without effect ; but it is strange to see 
 one in such a position as Matthew O'Neill, or Kelly, main- 
 tained by statesmen and lawyers against Shane and his 
 
 brothers. 2 
 
 ^ 
 
 Whether O'Neill or Kelly, the Baron of Dungannon was 
 
 1 Cusack to Warwick, Sept. 27, 1551 ; Instructions to Mr. Wood, Sept. 
 29, with Cecil's notes, ' Keep him (Tyrone) still, participating the cause 
 thereof to the nobility ; ' Hill's MacDonnells of Antrim, chap. iii. 
 
 2 Ancient Lams and Institutes of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 146 ; Maine's Early 
 History of Institutions, p. 53.
 
 364 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVII. 
 
 The Scots 
 attempt 
 a settle- 
 ment in 
 Down. 
 
 a man of resolution and ability. He accompanied Bageual 
 on an expedition against Shane, which the Dean of Armagh, 
 Terence Daniel, or O'Donnell, tried to prevent by exaggerated 
 accounts of the distance. The bridge over the Blackwater 
 was broken down, and the castles at Dungannon were also 
 dismantled. This became a regular practice in Irish war- 
 fare, in order to prevent the English from placing permanent 
 garrisons in strong places ; and any disposition on their part 
 to repair such a building was generally frustrated by the 
 length of time necessary, the difficulty of obtaining labour, 
 and the want of provisions. When the danger was past the 
 chief would re-occupy his stronghold, and soon made it ser- 
 viceable for raising a revenue, or resisting sudden attacks of 
 neighbouring tribes. Bagenal met with little resistance dur- 
 ing his raid. Shane appeared on a hill with eighteen horse- 
 men and sixty kerne, and the Baron of Dungannon advanced 
 against him with only four followers. ' An the King were 
 there where thou art,' said Shane, ' he were mine.' The 
 Baron, nothing daunted, answered, ' I am here but the King's 
 man, and that thou shalt well know,' and spurred his horse 
 forward. Shane, who was never remarkable for dashing 
 courage, retired into the wood closely followed by his brother, 
 who was prevented by the thick covert from using spear or 
 sword, and who tried to close, but was caught by a branch 
 at the critical moment, and nearly lost his own seat. Shane 
 escaped on foot, leaving his horse and arms to the Baron, and 
 afterwards came to Bagenal on parole, when a truce was 
 patched up. 1 
 
 Emboldened by success, the Scots extended their operations 
 to the south of Belfast, slew John White, landlord of Dufferin, 
 and proposed to make a settlement on the western shores of 
 Lough Strangford. Hugh MacNeill Oge, who held the district 
 between that inlet and Belfast Lough, took their part, and 
 the Prior Magennis and his kinsman, the Bishop of Dromore, 
 were authorised to make large offers with a view of detaching 
 him from his allies ; but he refused to come to Bagenal. The 
 Baron of Dungannon had some trifling success against the 
 1 Bagenal to Croft, Oct. 27, 1551.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 365 
 
 Scots, and another officer drove some of their cattle through CHAP. 
 
 XVII 
 Ards to Strangford, apparently crossing the ferry there, < ' 
 
 and thence into the Pale. One thousand cows were also 
 taken from Hugh MacNeill Oge ; but he promptly recouped 
 himself from the herds of his neighbours on every side, 
 so that the balance was soon again in his favour. The 
 expedition was evidently a failure, and the ' Four Masters ' 
 represent it as a disastrous one ; the English and their allies 
 losing 200 men. 1 
 
 The general directions to Croft for his conduct in eccle- Another 
 siastical matters was much the same as those given to St. conference. 
 Leger. Public worship in English was to be made general, 
 and a translation to be made into Irish for use in such places 
 as required it. He was sworn in on May 23, and on June 16 
 he wrote to Dowdall, who was at St. Mary's Abbey, inviting 
 him to take part in a conference concerning the disputed 
 points in religion. The Lord Deputy said much about what 
 was due to Cassar, hinted that he should be sorry to see the 
 Primate removed from his great office, and entreated an 
 answer by the hands of the Bishop of Meath, who, as chief of 
 his suffragan, seemed the fittest intermediary. Dowdale an- 
 swered very truly that no discussion could bring about agree- 
 ment between those who differed as to fundamentals, and 
 excused himself from waiting on his lordship, as he had for 
 some time withdrawn from public affairs. Mohammed decided 
 to go to the mountain, and the discussion took place in 
 the hall of St. Mary's Abbey, Croft being supported by two 
 bishops, Staples of Meath, who conducted the case for the 
 Crown, and Lancaster of Kildare. The debate first turned 
 on the new liturgy, Dowdall treating it as an innovation, and 
 his opponent as the Mass purified from gross corruptions. 
 The following is the most remarkable part of what was 
 said : 
 
 Dowdall. Was not the Mass from the Apostles' days ? 
 How can it be proved that the Church of Rome has altered 
 it? 
 
 1 Bagenal to Croft, Nov. 11, 1551 ; Sir Thomas Cnsack's Book, May 8, 
 1552; Four Mastfrx, ad aim. 1551.
 
 366 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. Staples. It is easily proved by our records of England. 
 
 ^ , '-* For Celestinus, Bishop of Rome, in the fourth century after 
 
 Christ, gave the first introit of the Mass which the clergy 
 
 were to use for preparation, even the psalm, Jitdica me, Deus, 
 
 &c., Rome not owning the word Mass till then. 
 
 D. Yes, long before that time ; for there was a mass called 
 St. Ambrose's Mass. 
 
 8. St. Ambrose was before Celestinus; but the two 
 prayers, which the Church of Rome had foisted and added 
 unto St. Ambrose's works, are not in his general works ; 
 which hath caused a wise and a learned man lately to write 
 that these two prayers were forged, and not to be really St. 
 Ambrose's. 
 
 D. What writer dares write or doth say so ? 
 
 S. Erasmus, a man who may well be compared to either 
 of us, or the standers by. Nay, my lord, no disparagement 
 if I say so to yourself; for he was a wise and a judicious man, 
 otherwise I would not have been so bold as to parallel your 
 lordship with him. 
 
 Lord Deputy. As for Erasmus's parts, would I were such 
 another : for his parts may parallel him a companion for a 
 prince. 
 
 D. Pray, my lord, do not hinder our discourse ; for I have 
 a question or two to ask Mr. Staples. 
 
 L. D. By all means, reverend father, proceed. 
 
 D. Is Erasmus's writings more powerful than the precepts 
 of the Mother Church ? 
 
 S. Not more than the Holy Catholic one, yet more than 
 the Church of Rome, as that Church hath run into several 
 errors since St. Ambrose's days. 
 
 D. How hath the Church erred since St. Ambrose's days ? 
 Take heed lest you be not excommunicated. 
 
 8. I have excommunicated myself already from thence. 
 
 Opposite opinions were then given about the Virgin and 
 her power to mediate ; and the Primate finally appealed to 
 the consecration oath, which Staples had taken as well as he. 
 The Bishop of Meath said he held it safer for his conscience 
 to break it than to keep it, and he praised the oath of supre-
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 367 
 
 macy. And thus, without any approach to an understanding, CHAP. 
 
 but with many mutual expressions of courtesy and goodwill, v. r -^' 
 the champions of Rome and of England measured swords and 
 parted. 1 
 
 A few days after this the Primate disappeared, and it was Dowdall 
 
 understood that he had gone abroad like a traitor, as Browne The 
 
 said, who with indecent haste demanded that the old contest re mved to 
 between Armagh and Dublin should be finally decided in his Dublm - 
 favour. Dowdall, he said, claimed by the ' Bishop of Rome's 
 bulls and I by the King's majesty and his most noble pro- 
 genitors' grants and gifts.' He recounted the services of his 
 predecessors in supporting the Government of the Pale, and 
 asked not only for the empty title and honours of Primate of 
 all Ireland, but for ' all and every the spiritual profits, living, 
 and commodities,' belonging to Armagh. The King granted 
 the chief place to Browne, who in the Anglican succession re- 
 mained Primate of all Ireland till deprived by Queen Mary. 
 Those who adhere to Rome of course ignore the interruption 
 in Dowdall's primacy, but his withdrawal beyond seas was 
 considered as a resignation by the English Government. 2 
 
 The sees of Armagh, Cashel, and Ossory being vacant, Church 
 Croft recommended that they should be filled with peculiar 
 care. The negligence of the Bishops and other ministers 
 allowed the old ceremonies to remain in many places. It was 
 necessary to send over good, zealous men to fill up the bishoprics 
 as they fell vacant. If this could not be done, Croft begged 
 that at least he might have a competent adviser in ecclesias- 
 tical matters to enable him to direct the bishops, who were 
 blind, obstinate, negligent, and very seldom learned. For 
 Armagh it would be well to choose a divine with some property 
 in England, who might act as a commissioner for deciding 
 the daily quarrels arising in the North. For the bishopric 
 of Ossory, Croft, Protestant as he was, ventured to recommend 
 Leverous, Gerald of Kildare's old tutor, who had been par- 
 doned for his offence in carrying him out of the realm. For 
 
 1 Mant, pp. 209-210, from a Clarendon MS. The letters which passed 
 between Croft and Dowdall are given by Mant from the Harris MSS. 
 - Browne to Warwick, Aug. 6, 1551 : Ware's IJrorvne.
 
 368 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, learning, discretion, and decorous life there was no one 
 
 XVII. 
 
 , ^- superior in Ireland, and Croft had heard him ' preach such a 
 
 sermon, as in his simple opinion he heard not many years.' 
 Personally unobjectionable, Leverous was known to be attached 
 to the old doctrines, and Croft's advocacy failed, as he himself 
 expected. The see of Ossory was conferred after some delay 
 upon John Bale, a Carmelite friar, born in Suffolk and 
 educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. The arguments of a 
 layman, Lord Wentworth, according to his own account, en- 
 forced by the charms of a young lady, according to the account 
 of his enemies, converted Bale to the Reformation. He married 
 a wife, who was his companion in all his wanderings and 
 vicissitudes, and became a professed Protestant. It was not 
 in his nature to hide his light under a bushel ; he preached 
 openly against the Roman doctrine, and suffered imprison- 
 ment in consequence. Having been released through Crom- 
 well's intercession, he spent eight years in Germany. Return- 
 ing to England on Edward's accession, he became Poynet's 
 chaplain, and obtained the living of Bishopstoke. The King 
 happening to see and hear him at Southampton, of his own 
 accord promoted him to Ossory. Bale was a multifarious 
 writer, a man of learning and eloquence, and unquestionably 
 sincere ; but coarse and violent, with no respect whatever for 
 the feelings of others, and remarkably unfit for the task of 
 persuading an unwilling people to embrace the Reformation. 
 Edward's Though partially shorn of its glories, the see of Armagh, 
 
 about claiming as it did to be founded by the national apostle, was 
 
 still of great importance. Pending an appointment in England, 
 Croft proposed that Basnet, late Dean of St. Patrick's, should 
 enjoy the first-fruits of the vacant see along with the revenues 
 of his old deanery. The Lord Deputy was moved to this by 
 the curious practical consideration that Basnet was ' experi- 
 mented in the wars of the country.' Make it worth his while 
 to live at Armagh, and he would be most useful to Bagenal 
 and the Baron of Dungannon. But the young King, who had 
 already opinions of his own, was scandalised at the idea, 
 and shrunk from making bishops of any but ministers earnest 
 in setting forth God's glory. He directed that Deans and
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1651 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 369 
 
 Chapters should maintain divine service and preach the gospel CHAP. 
 
 in vacant sees, declaring that he minded the education of his , 1-* 
 
 people above all things. If the dignitaries proved negligent 
 the Lord Deputy might appoint occasional ministers to do the 
 duty. 1 
 
 Cranmer named four persons as fit for the archbishopric Cranmer'a 
 of Armagh, but none of them were in haste to go to Ireland, about Irish 
 Of these the King selected Richard Turner, a Staffordshire P atrona s e - 
 man, but vicar of Chartam in Kent. Cranmer described him 
 as an earnest preacher, merry and witty withal, who wanted 
 nothing, loved nothing, dreamed of nothing but Christ only. 
 He had shown courage in the late Kentish insurrection, and 
 that would be a useful quality in Ireland. ' He preached,' 
 says Cranmer, ' twice in the camp that was by Canterbury ; 
 for the which the rebels would have hanged him, and he 
 seemed then more glad to go to hanging, than he doth now 
 to go to Armachane, he allegeth so many excuses, but the chief 
 is this, that he shall preach to the walls and stalls, for the 
 people understand no English. I bear him in hand Yes, and 
 yet I doubt whether they speak English in the diocese of 
 Armachane. But if they do not then I say, that if he will 
 take the pain to learn the Irish tongue (which with diligence 
 he may do in a year or two) then both his doctrine shall be 
 more acceptable not only unto his diocese, but also throughout 
 all Ireland.' But Turner would not go. Perhaps he estimated 
 more correctly than Cranmer the difficulty of learning Irish, 
 and his wit and liveliness would only enable him to forecast 
 the misery of a man who should preach to unwilling con- 
 gregations in halting and uncertain language. Cranmer's 
 other three nominees also failed him ; and he then recom- 
 mended Hugh Goodacre, who was induced to accept the un- 
 enviable post. The archbishopric of Cashel had not even the 
 dignity of Armagh to make it attractive, and it remained 
 vacant during the rest of Edward's reign. 2 
 
 The King had a reasonable dislike to pluralities, and Pluralities. 
 
 1 Instructions for Mr. Thomas Wood, July 28, 1551 ; and the King's 
 answer, Aug. 17. 
 
 2 Strype's Cranmer, book ii. chap, xxviii., and Appendices 65 and 66. 
 VOL. I. B B
 
 coinage. 
 
 370 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, resisted the union of Clonfert and Elphin in the hands of 
 
 XVII. 
 
 , ' Clanricarde's uncle, Rowland Burke. ' A good pastor/ he 
 
 said, ' cannot nourish two flocks at once, and it agreeth not 
 with our religion.' But he gave in when it was proved to 
 him that the sees were small and poor, and that their union 
 would be likely to further rather than to hinder religion. 1 
 
 The It would have been well if Edward or his advisers had paid 
 
 as much attention to honesty in civil government. The 
 attempt to give a forced course to bad coin had had its usual 
 evil effects. The Irish currency had always been less pure 
 than that of England, but practically little difficulty had 
 occurred until the late changes. An English groat was worth 
 sixpence Irish, and everyone understood what he was doing. 
 But now the country was flooded with base coin of uncertain 
 value, and men bargained, as they do still at Cairo, for sterling 
 money, foreign crowns, and livres Tournois. Trade with 
 England was necessarily conducted by means of a reputable 
 currency ; and the whole of the new Irish coinage being only 
 available for local use, felt the effects of inflation as well as of 
 its own intrinsic baseness. There was great confusion in 
 every trade, and all was attributed to the coin, which every 
 one thought would be cried down, and therefore feared to have 
 in possession. l Being put to sale of all men,' said Croft, 
 ' and no man desirous to buy it, it must needs be good cheap.' 
 It was urged that, coins being only counters for exchange, 
 they should be taken at the proclaimed price, but Croft rightly 
 argued that gold and silver had been chosen on account of their 
 fitness for the purpose and also for their intrinsic value. The 
 effect of laws against usury is to raise the rate of interest, and 
 the effect of putting an artificial value on coin, in conjunction 
 probably with other causes, was to raise necessaries to a famine 
 price. Corn that had been worth 6s. Sd. had risen to 40s. ; 
 leather, iron, boots and shoes, wine and hops, had all become 
 dear. Six herrings sold for a groat. Englishmen, and es- 
 pecially officials with fixed salaries, could not live in Ireland. 
 The native Irishman was somewhat better off, for ' he careth 
 
 1 Instructions for Mr. Wood, Sept. 29, 1651. Cecil wrote on the margin 
 ' denied for the King liketh no union.' The King's amended answer, Nov. 26.
 
 FEOM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 371 
 
 only for his belly, and that not delicately.' ' We that are CHAP. 
 
 stipendiaries,' said the Lord Deputy, ' must live upon our ^- , '* 
 
 stipends, and buy with our money which no man esteemeth.' 
 
 The native lords used coyne and livery, and did what they 
 
 could to make their vassals keep all provisions in the country, 
 
 so that the markets were unsupplied, and the Government 
 
 had scarcely any alternative but to practise like extortions. 1 
 
 The inhabitants of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, Cork, Evils of a 
 
 debased 
 
 Drogheda, and Galway were consulted, and they all attributed currency, 
 the state of trade to the currency. A petition signed by the 
 attorneys of those communities, by seven peers, and by many 
 others of high position was sent to the King ; and the peti- 
 tioners prayed that the coin might be of the same weight, 
 value, and fineness in both kingdoms. ' By the whole consent 
 of the world,' said the Lord Deputy and Council, ' gold and 
 silver have gotten the estimation above all other metals, as 
 metest to make money and be conserved as a treasure, which 
 estimation cannot be altered by a part or little corner of the 
 world, though the estimation were had but on a fanciful 
 opinion, where indeed it is grounded upon good reason, ac- 
 cording to the gifts that nature hath wrought in those metals 
 whereby they be metest to use for exchange, and to be kept 
 for a treasure. So as in that kind they have gotten the sover- 
 eignty, like as for other purposes other metals do excel ; and 
 so is everything good, as God said at the beginning, whereof 
 followeth that the thing which we count naught cometh of 
 the misuse.' No laws or proclamation could prevent the 
 value of money from depending on the quantity of bullion it 
 contained, and without money exchanges could not be made. 
 Men saw that an artificial scarceness was created, and blamed 
 the Government for not taking the obvious step of crying 
 down the coin. Croft apologised for his importunity in 
 pressing the currency question, observing that one string 
 would put a harp out of tune, and that the tuner would 
 naturally strike that the oftenest. The King's advisers did 
 not deny the facts, but hesitated to make the necessary sacri- 
 fice. Next year, however, they found it absolutely necessary 
 
 1 Croft to Cecil, March 14, 1552 ; to the Marquis of Winchester, March 22. 
 
 B B 2
 
 372 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The 
 
 Revenue. 
 Attempts 
 at mining. 
 
 to act. Two of the despised groats were proclaimed equiva- 
 lent to fourpence English, and an immediate revival of trade 
 was the result. 1 
 
 The hope of making some profit out of Ireland to set 
 against the cost of governing her had attracted the attention 
 of Henry VIII.'s ministers to her mineral resources. Traces 
 of lead, tin, copper, iron, and alum had been found, and 
 St. Leger hoped to turn them to account. In the last year 
 of his reign Henry authorised an advance of 1,000 marks 
 sterling, and it was thought that the mines would soon be 
 self-supporting. The only serious attempt made was at 
 Clonmines, near Bannow, in Wexford. Silver was found 
 mixed with lead, and much expense was incurred. Germans 
 were employed in the work under the direction of Joachim 
 Gundelfinger, and a large mass of ore was raised. A smelting- 
 house was built at Ross, both wood and coal being used, and 
 there were stores at Newtown Barry and Ballyhack. There 
 was some jealousy of the foreigners, who received very high 
 wages, and it was thought that Englishmen would be better 
 and cheaper. The English surveyor reported that the 
 strangers cost 260L a month, and scarcely earned 40Z., and he 
 proposed to dismiss them, at least until the work of sinking 
 deep shafts had been completed by less expensive labour. 
 The Germans retorted that the surveyor himself was to blame. 
 But there was sickness among the miners, and some of them 
 died ; and after some further trial the Germans were sent home 
 and the works stopped. It was found that the King had lost 
 nearly 6,OOOZ. in two years. 2 
 
 1 W. Crofton to Cecil, April 12, 1551 ; Lord Deputy and Council to 
 Privy Council, Aug. 30, and the answer in Nov. ; Croft to Northumberland, 
 Dec. 22 ; Lord Deputy and Council to the Privy Council, Jan. 27, 1552 
 idleness decayeth nobility, one of the principal " kayes " of a common- 
 wealth, and bringeth magistrates in contempt and hatred of the people,' 
 and the petition enclosed. Croft to Cecil, March 14, and to Winchester, 
 March 22. Ware's Annals. 
 
 2 Wicklow tinstone has never been thought workable, see Kane's Indus- 
 trial Resources, p. 210. Dr. Kane does not seem to have known anything 
 of the Clonmines venture. Lord Deputy St. Leger and Council to 
 Henry VIII., Oct. 24, 1541, and June 4, 1543. St. Leger acted on the advice 
 of Thomas Agard, a mining expert. Minute of Council in S.P., 1546. St.
 
 FEOM THE YEAE 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWAED VI. 373 
 
 The early part of the new year was disturbed by rumours CHAP. 
 of invasion. Wauchop had just died at Paris, but his spirit -. r -l-' 
 still animated Ulster, and help was confidently expected from | renc k aud 
 Scotland. The French were trying to recruit in Ireland, and intrigues. 
 
 The 
 
 some of those who held the sea-ports might as well have been O'Connors. 
 Frenchmen or Spaniards so far as the State was concerned. Old 
 O'Connor, who had received messages and tokens from the 
 ubiquitous George Paris, managed to escape from the Tower, 
 but was caught near the border and brought back. Walter 
 Garrett, a soldier of Berwick, probably an Irishman, who had 
 deserted and gone as far south as Newcastle, was taken 
 trying to cross the Tweed or the Solway in a boat without 
 oars. He confessed his knowledge of O'Connor's movements, 
 and this roused suspicion as to the fidelity of the great frontier 
 garrison. Leix and Offaly were still unleased, the forts cost 
 7,000 marks yearly without any return, and a rising among 
 the friends of the old chief might undo the little that had been 
 done. The garrisons were most oppressive, taking 11. worth 
 of wheat for five shillings, and 4Z. of beef for twelve shillings, 
 and the people were ready to rebel on the mere chance of 
 shaking them off. 1 
 
 Tyrone and his countess were detained in Dublin, while Tyrone is 
 Shane continued his fire-raisings in Ulster. The Earl com- Dublin, 
 plained bitterly of his own treatment, of Bagenal's incursions, 
 and of Cusack's intrigues. The Marshal had taken 1,000 kine 
 and 300 mares from him, and had billeted himself and his 
 army at Armagh. O'Donnell had suffered from similar ex- 
 tortions. In St. Leger's time, he said, all had been quiet, 
 and he sent a statement of his grievances to the late Lord 
 Deputy, who, very wisely, sent it to Northumberland with 
 the seals unbroken. Against the Chancellor Tyrone could 
 
 Leger, Croft, and others to the Privy Council, May 20, 1551 ; Robert 
 Record, surveyor of mines to the Privy Council, Feb. 1552. Barman's 
 certificate, same date. Joachim Gundelfinger to the Privy Council, May 15. 
 Reports on the mines, Aug. 1552, and Feb. and April, 1553. Instructions to 
 St. Leger in Carets, July 1550, p. 228, as to alum. The MSS. contains 
 many details interesting to specialists, especially the certificate of Gerrard 
 Harman, a German. 
 
 1 Privy Council to Croft, Feb. 23, and May 29, 1552. Sir Thomas 
 Cusack's ' Book,' in Carav, 1553, p. 241.
 
 374 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, find no better accusation than that he had twice dissuaded 
 XVII 
 ' , L-" him from sending hawks as presents to the King. Cusack 
 
 maintained that Tyrone's arrest was justified by his negligent 
 and savage behaviour. ' If there were but one plough in the 
 country,' the candid barbarian had boasted, ' he would spend 
 upon the same, with many other indecent words for a captain 
 of a country to say.' 1 
 
 Anarchy in The fort at Athlone remained a memorial of Bellingham's 
 military plans, and under its shelter Westmeath submitted to 
 the government of a sheriff; but it cannot be said that the 
 garrison kept Connaught quiet, either by force or example. 
 They sacked Clonmacnoise, and took away the bells from 
 O'Rourke's Tower, and left neither bell, image, book, gem, nor 
 window-glass in the whole place. * Lamentable was this deed,' 
 say the annalists, 'the plundering of the city of Ciaran, 
 the holy saint,' and by no means calculated to increase the 
 popularity of the King's religion. Whether on account of 
 this outrage or not, Croft found it necessary to visit Athlone 
 himself, and try to establish some order in Connaught. The 
 dissensions of the young Earl of Clanricarde with his kinsman 
 Ulick, who was loth to part with his authority, had laid the 
 whole country waste. Cusack with a small force succeeded, 
 after a few executions, in placing the Earl quietly, and 
 swearing the gentry of the district to obey him. Agriculture 
 again flourished, and Cusack boasted that he had increased the 
 ploughs in use from 40 to 200, and that both ploughs and 
 cattle could be left safely in the open field. Clanricarde made 
 use of his new power to seize Roscommon, about which 
 O'Connor Roe and O'Connor Don were disputing, and to hand 
 it over to Cusack for the reception of a garrison. The warlike 
 Chancellor brought O'Kelly to terms, and then succeeded 
 in getting a promise from the chiefs that they would assem- 
 ble a force of 1,500 men to support the Earl in chastising 
 MacDermot of Moylurg, who had been plundering the 
 O'Connors' cattle. Cusack thought there should be a presi- 
 
 1 The Earl of Tyrone's articles, Feb. 9, 1652 ; St. Leger to Northumber- 
 land, March 10. Sir Thomas Cusack's ' Book,' in Carew.
 
 FROM THE YEAE 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 375 
 
 dent to govern Connaught in conjunction with Clanricarde CHAP. 
 and MacWilliam of Mayo, who was well disposed. 1 > , '-*> 
 
 Leaving Cusack in the West, the Lord Deputy went into Govem- 
 Leinster, and made successful arrangements for maintaining Leinster. 
 peace there. He gave a lamentable account of the state of KUdare 
 the country. The Kavanaghs were indeed quiet, and the 
 O'Byrnes supported soldiers without grumbling ; but the poor 
 in the towns were starving, and their cry sounded continually 
 in his ears. They were too wretched even to state their own 
 grievances, and this was done for them by the neighbouring 
 gentry. Croft's regulations for the garrisons at Carlow and 
 Leighlin show considerable forethought. The constables 
 were prohibited from levying contributions themselves, but 
 might obtain the necessary supplies from the country through 
 four ' cessers,' chosen by the freeholders for each garrison. 
 No kerne were to be quartered on the people, except thirty, 
 which William Keating covenanted to keep always ready for 
 police purposes, and these were to be billeted as the ' cessers ' 
 should appoint. Under the circumstances the young Earl 
 of Ormonde's rents were not very well paid, but Croft man- 
 aged to send him 400Z. The state of the currency was such 
 that the Earl would lose one half if it were paid in Ireland. 
 Gerald of Kildare, who was now in England, was less fortu- 
 nate, and the Lord Deputy declared that he could get nothing 
 for him. At a masque given by the King this adventurous 
 young man, who was now twenty-seven years old, and very 
 handsome, had met Mabel Browne, step-daughter to the fair 
 Geraldine. According to the family historian she fell in love 
 with him. They were married, and her father's influence 
 procured the honour of knighthood for the returned exile, and 
 a patent restoring his estate. He did not, however, come to 
 Ireland till the next reign. 2 
 
 Passing eastwards again, Cusack found the O'Fairells 
 peacefully paying rent and supporting soldiers, but O'Reilly, 
 
 1 Cusack's ' Book ' in Carerv. Four Masters, 1552. 
 
 2 Earls of Kildare. The patent of restoration is dated April 25, 1552. 
 Orders for Leighlin and Carlow in Carew, April 30. Croft to the Privy 
 Council, April 16, May 1, and May 31.
 
 376 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, who had seven warlike sons and 1,600 men, was less sub- 
 XVII 
 > , I-* missive. With 1,200 followers he met the Chancellor, who 
 
 Cusack's h ac j on iy 200, and agreed to give hostages for the restoration 
 
 attempts to J ' ' 6 
 
 conciliate of spoils taken out of the Pale, and to pay a fine of 2001. 
 Cusack made it a rule to impose a fine, since the Brehon code 
 required restitution only ; but as the fines were seldom paid, 
 the chiefs made little real concession. O'Reilly refused to go 
 to Dublin, lest he should be imprisoned like Tyrone, but ad- 
 mitted that that chief deserved his bonds if he had behaved 
 as Cusack reported, and that he should deserve them also in 
 like case. The MacMahons and the O'Hanlons were found 
 equally well disposed, and Magennis kept house like an 
 English gentleman, and exercised the office of sheriff of 
 Down. From this point the Scots' handiwork began to be 
 visible. John White, the farmer of Dufferin, had been mur- 
 dered by them, and the murderers kept possession of the 
 district. The fertile lands of Lecale seemed to invite 
 settlers, but the neighbouring region of Ards warned them 
 off, being laid waste by the invasions of the islanders. 
 Hugh MacNeill Boy, the chief of Clandeboye, had agreed to 
 meet Cusack, but, hearing of the landing of some six or seven 
 score Scots archers, he broke his appointment. Through his 
 frequent conflicts with Bagenal there was scarcely anything 
 left in the country worth destroying, and the Chancellor was 
 fain to leave a small party of soldiers behind him, and to 
 await the action of the Council in Dublin. Permanent 
 garrisons at Belfast and Castlereagh were the means he pro- 
 posed for bridling this part of the North. The O'Cahans and 
 MacQuillins in northern Antrim were willing to obey the 
 Baron of Dungannon, but were coerced by the Scots, who 
 disposed of their force as they pleased. Cusack had a fruit- 
 less interview with the formidable Shane O'Neill, and Shane 
 went straight from the meeting to burn his father's house at 
 Dungannon, which was only four miles off. Led by the light, 
 Cusack's horsemen were able to save the building, and he 
 afterwards succeeded in capturing 700 of Shane's kine, and 
 many horses. The Baron of Dungannon took charge of th 
 castle, and 300 gallowglasses were quartered on the county
 
 FKOM THE YEAK 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWAED VI. 377 
 
 but Cusack saw plainly that nothing permanent could be done 
 without a resident governor. The Chancellor was somewhat 
 more successful with O'Donnell and his rebellious son Cal- 
 vagh, both of whom came to Dublin and bound themselves to 
 keep the peace. 1 
 
 Soon after this the Lord Deputy made another attempt to Unsuccess- 
 punish the Scots for the Rathlin disaster, and Hugh Oge onthe 
 
 O'Neill for supporting them. O'Neill attacked the advanced 
 guard at Belfast, then ' an old castle standing on a ford,' and 
 
 Brabazon. 
 killed Savage of Ards, with fifty others. The main body 
 
 crossed the Laggan safely, and proceeded to fortify the old 
 stronghold. Meanwhile the Baron of Dungannon had brought 
 up his forces, but incautiously encamped in the open field 
 before effecting a junction with Croft. There he was set 
 upon by the sleepless Shane, and utterly routed, so that the 
 whole expedition ended in failure. Sir William Brabazon, 
 the Vice-Treasurer, who had served so long and so well in 
 Ireland, died on the march. His body was buried in Christ 
 Church, Dublin, but his heart, according to the annalists, was 
 1 sent to the King, in token of his loyalty and truth towards 
 him.' 2 
 
 Tyrone complained to the King of his continued detention. Tyrone is 
 His country, he said, suffered by his absence, and he offered 
 either to plead his own cause in England, or to submit unre- 
 servedly to Commissioners sent from thence. Danger was 
 still feared from Scotland, but the English party there pro- 
 cured the arrest of George Paris, on the information of one 
 of O'Connor's sons. On the whole it was thought better to 
 release Tyrone, his countess and her son remaining as pledges 
 for him, and Shane's brother for that troublesome person. 
 The Earl bound himself in 6,000. to keep the peace towards 
 the King's adherents, the Baron of Dungannon, Calvagh 
 O'Donnell, Maguire, and Tirlogh Luineach O'Neill. 3 
 
 1 Cusack's ' Book ' in Carem, No. 200. It is there wrongly dated 1553. 
 
 2 The facts of this expedition (June and July 1552) are given by the 
 Four Masters ; and see Ware's Annals. 
 
 8 Tyrone's complaint, July 1552 ; Privy Council to George Paris, Oct. 25 ; 
 to Croft, Dec. 10 ; Cusack to Privy Council, Dec. 22 ; Memorandum con- 
 cerning Tyrone, Dec. 30, in Caren.
 
 378 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVII. 
 
 s 1 - 
 
 Desmond. 
 
 Croft 
 
 recalled, 
 
 1552. 
 
 Character 
 of Croft. 
 St. Leger 
 returns to 
 Ireland. 
 
 The Corporation of Waterford praised Desmond for visit- 
 ing remote parts of his district, and training the wild people ; 
 a task for which few, if any, of his ancestors had shown any 
 taste. Cusack wrote in the same strain, and advised that 
 Dungarvan should be taken from the Butlers, and restored to 
 him. The Chancellor's pet idea was to have a President at 
 Limerick, less as a governor than as a general referee in all 
 disputes, and he believed that by such peaceful means per- 
 manent civilisation might be cheaply attained. 1 
 
 At this time the King granted leave of absence to Croft, 
 whom he apparently intended to send back ; but the O'Connors 
 became uneasy, and Sir Henry Knollys was sent to stop the 
 Lord Deputy. The clouds blew over, and Croft was able to 
 go before the end of the year, leaving the government to 
 Cusack and Chief Justice Aylmer. Tyrone was released a 
 few days later, and followed Croft to London; and Hugh 
 O'Neill submitted, apologising for the past, and making pro- 
 mises for the future. The latter chief received certain mon- 
 astic lands rent free, especially stipulating for the friary at 
 Carrickfergus, where his ancestors were buried. Belfast Castle 
 was restored to him. The Government had in fact been 
 unable to chastise him, and put the best face they could upon 
 matters. It can hardly be doubted that the three secular 
 priests whom Hugh intended to maintain at the family bury- 
 ing place were not likely to advance the King's views in 
 religion. 2 
 
 Sir James Croft bears a fair character among Irish go- 
 vernors. He did nothing very striking, nor did he contribute 
 much towards a final pacification ; but he was considered a 
 just man, and he made no personal enemies. He was at least 
 no bigot, for he received warm praise from Archbishop Browne, 
 though he did not hesitate to recommend Leverous for a 
 bishopric. It was, however, decided that St. Leger should 
 return to Ireland in his stead. Sir Anthony's government 
 
 1 Mayor, &c., of Waterford to the Privy Council, Dec. 18 ; Cusack and 
 Aylmer to the Privy Council, Dec. 22 and 30 ; Declaration of Desmond's 
 title, Dec. 30 ; Cusack in Careiv, tit mpra. 
 
 2 Northumberland to Cecil, Nov. 25, 1552; Cusack's 'Book' in Careiv, 
 vol. i. p. 23G ; King's letter in Lodge's Patent Officers ; Ware's AnnaU.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 379 
 
 had been cheap, and not ineffectual. During the last five CHAP. 
 years of Henry's reign there had been a small annual surplus ; * , I- 
 but since his death there had been a constantly growing 
 deficit, which could only be met by increasing the taxation 
 of the obedient shires, by employing Irish soldiers almost ex- 
 clusively, and by maintaining such troops as were necessary 
 at free quarters upon the country. Miserable expedients cer- 
 tainly; but the English Government could devise nothing 
 better, and they were determined to keep down the expenses. 
 It was resolved not to increase the existing force of 2,024, 
 and to make no attempt at a thorough conquest. The arrange- 
 ment with Tyrone was dishonourable, but was to be adhered 
 to, lest a breach of faith should lead to war, and consequent 
 expenditure. The King's death prevented a full return to 
 his father's policy, and those who had lately governed in his 
 name immediately lost all influence. 1 
 
 Goodacre was consecrated to Armagh and Bale to Ossory Brotestant 
 on the same day by Browne, Lancaster of Kildare, and 
 Eugene Magennis of Down. Where Bale was there was sure 
 to be controversy, and a fierce one arose about the ritual 
 proper to the occasion. The Archbishop would have post- 
 poned the ceremony, and Bale, who frequently denounces him 
 as an epicure, declares that his object was to ' take up the 
 proxies of any bishopric to his own gluttonous use.' Lock- 
 wood, Dean of Christ Church, was supreme in his own cathe- 
 dral, and his timidity led him to wish for the pontifical order. 
 Bale accordingly stigmatises him as an ass-headed dean, a 
 blockhead who cared only for his kitchen and his belly. But 
 Lockwood had the law on his side ; for King Edward's first 
 book only had been proclaimed in Ireland, and it contained 
 no form for consecration. Browne and Cusack also wished 
 to stand on the old way. Goodacre was for the form con- 
 tained in the second book, and now used in England, but he 
 
 1 A paper calendared under Jan. 1553 (No. 75) calculates the average 
 expenses from 33 to 38 Hen. VIII. at 8,500Z. a year. In the six years of 
 Edward's reign they rose by regular gradation from 17.000Z. to 52,0001. 
 The average revenue for the former period was 9,000?., for the latter, 11,000. 
 See also No. 83, ' a device how to keep Ireland in the stay it now remaineth 
 upon the revenues only.'
 
 380 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 was willing to waive his own opinion. Bale, however, posi- 
 tively refused to be consecrated according to the old usage, 
 boldly maintaining that one king makes one law, and that 
 Ireland must necessarily follow England. His vehemence 
 carried the day, and the consecrations took place according 
 to the new Anglican use. The Communion Service followed, 
 and Bale rejected the consecrated wafer, successfully arguing 
 that common bread should be used. He afterwards preached 
 twelve strong Protestant sermons in Dublin, insisting par- 
 ticularly on the marriage of priests j and he nattered himself 
 that he had established the people ' in the doctrines of repent- 
 ance, and necessary belief in the gospel.' l 
 
 Goodacre. Goodacre seems never to have seen his cathedral, to which 
 
 access was barred by Shane O'Neill. Bale says he was a 
 man of remarkable sincerity and integrity, and a zealous and 
 eloquent preacher. He also informs us that he was poisoned 
 by the procurement of certain priests of his diocese, ' for 
 preaching God's verity, and rebuking common vices.' This 
 contemporary statement has been doubted, on account of Bale's 
 prejudices, but it is repeated by Burnet on the authority of 
 Goodacre's fourth lineal descendant. Burnet's informant re- 
 ceived the story from his grandfather, who was Goodacre's 
 grandson. According to this tradition the actual murderer 
 was a monk, who pledged Goodacre in poisoned wine, and 
 died himself of the effects. Bale says he was himself warned 
 by letter to beware of the Archbishop's fate. Whether the 
 joint authority of Ossory and Sarum is to be rejected or not 
 will much depend upon the reader's opinion of two learned, 
 and in some respects not dissimilar divines. 
 
 Bale. Bale soon proceeded to Kilkenny. On his journey from 
 
 Waterford to Dublin he had already passed through part of 
 his diocese, and had been much scandalised by what he saw 
 and heard. The parish priest of Knocktopher boasted that 
 he was a son of William, late prior of the Carmelites there 
 not the legitimate son, as he was careful to point out. The 
 marriage of a friar would have been a heinous offence, but an 
 irregular connection was venial, and it was thought honour- 
 1 The consecrations took place on Feb. 2, 1553.
 
 FROM THE YEAK 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWAKD VI. 381 
 
 able to be the offspring of a spiritual man, whether bishop, CHAP. 
 
 abbot, monk, friar, or secular priest. Bale, who had himself > r-^-~ 
 
 been a Carmelite, and who had married a wife, rebuked this 
 candid ecclesiastic, and resolved to set himself as bishop to 
 the work of reform. He admits that he had no success ; and 
 none could be expected where public opinion sanctioned the 
 pleasant vices of the clergy. 1 
 
 Far more questionable was Bale's zeal against images, the Proceed- 
 destruction of which will never make men Protestants. His Bale. 
 opinions were hopelessly at variance with those in vogue in 
 Ireland, as may be judged from the following autobiographical 
 passage : 
 
 ' Many abominable idolatries maintained by the epicurist 
 priests, for their wicked bellies' sake. The Communion or 
 Supper of the Lord was there altogether used like a popish 
 mass, with the old apish toys of Antichrist in bowings and 
 beckings, kneelings and knockings ; the Lord's death after St. 
 Paul's doctrine neither preached nor yet spoken of. There 
 wawled they over the dead, with prodigious bowlings and 
 patterings, as though their souls had not been quieted in 
 Christ and redeemed by His passion; but that they must come 
 after and help at a pinch with requiem aeternam to deliver 
 them out -of hell by their sorrowful sorceries. When I had 
 beholden these heathenish behavers, I said unto a senator of 
 that city that I well perceived that Christ had there no bishop, 
 neither yet the King's Majesty of England any faithful officer 
 of the mayor in suffering so horrible blasphemies.' 
 
 This was at Waterford. At Kilkenny things were no 
 better, and on his arrival Bale proceeded to show his zeal for 
 reform. All the statues of saints were turned out of St. 
 Canice's Cathedral, but the Bishop had the good taste to 
 preserve the fine painted windows erected in the fourteenth 
 century by his high-handed predecessor Ledred. The less 
 artistic Cromwellians afterwards destroyed what Bale had 
 spared, and some fragments were dug up in 1846. Bale had 
 some supporters, chiefly laymen. The clergy, whose moral 
 failings he had lashed so mercilessly, were not convinced by 
 1 Bale's ' Vocation,' in the Harleian Miscellany.
 
 382 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVII. 
 
 Catholic 
 reaction at 
 Edward's 
 death. 
 
 hearing the host called a ( white god of their own making,' 
 nor easily persuaded that the lucrative practice of saying 
 masses for the dead was useless, nor inclined to admit a 
 liturgy which condemned all that they most valued. The 
 deanery was in the hands of Bishop Lancaster, who could 
 give no help, and among the prebendaries there was either 
 obstructive apathy or violent opposition to change. Bate was 
 certainly wrong in trying to impose King Edward's second 
 book without legal warrant ; but he had gained his point 
 with Browne, and disdained to yield to the inferior clergy. 
 The latter pleaded that they had no books, and quoted the 
 Archbishop against their own diocesan, who says he was 
 ' always slack in things appertaining to God's glory.' Bale's 
 sincerity is unquestionable, but he had set himself an impos- 
 sible task, and his violence made him enemies who showed 
 no quarter when their turn came. The most patient of men 
 might have done nothing in such a position, but his reputa- 
 tion would have been better had he shown some Christian 
 moderation. Bedell afterwards fell into the hands of his 
 opponents, but his imprisonment was relieved by expressions 
 of sympathy and admiration from the most unlikely quarters, 
 and he must have felt that he had not worked in vain. Bale 
 could have no such consolation. 1 
 
 On the first rumour of Edward's death it became evident 
 that the Bishop of Ossory's authority was at an end. Oddly 
 enough the priests hastened amid general rejoicing to proclaim 
 Queen Jane. They were eager for change, and probably 
 knew little of the fair saint whose innocent life was sacrificed 
 to the ambition of others. Justice Howth, who had been 
 Bale's strongest opponent, censured him for not being present 
 at the ceremony ; ' for indeed,' says the Bishop, ' I much 
 doubted that matter.' In order, he adds, to ' cause the wild 
 people to bear the more hate to our nation,' the priests also 
 propagated a report that the young Earl of Ormonde and 
 
 1 Church histories of Mant, Killen, Brennan, and Reid. Graves's History 
 of St. Canice. They all derive their chief inspiration from Bale's own 
 ' Vocation.' Fuller has preserved the nickname of ' biliosus Balseus/ given 
 to the Bishop in contemporary controversy.
 
 FROM THE YEAR 1551 TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD VI. 383 
 
 Barnaby Fitzpatrick had been slain in London. The forts CHAP. 
 
 XVII 
 were attacked, and many Englishmen killed. Mrs. Matthew , ... ' 
 
 King, the clerk of the check's wife, was robbed ' to her very 
 petticoat ' on the highway by the Fitzpatricks and Butlers. 
 But rumour and uncertainty were soon at an end, and the 
 priests and people of Kilkenny learned that Catherine of 
 Arragon's daughter was Queen of England. 1 
 
 1 Browne and Bale were friars ; yet Protestants will not blame them for 
 entering the holy estate of matrimony, any vows to the contrary notwith- 
 standing. To modern England a married clergy seems quite natural, but 
 the scandal was great during the transition period, and Queen Elizabeth 
 felt the awkwardness herself. The following statement of Harpsfield may 
 be true or false, but it shows what could be said by a contemporary. It 
 should be remembered that Harpsfield was Archdeacon of Canterbury. 
 ' Against these kind of marriages, and maintenance of the same, King 
 Henry, in his latter days, made very sharp laws, whereupon many so married 
 put over their women to their servants and other friends, who kept them at 
 bed and board as their own wives. And after the death of King Henry they 
 received them again (as love money) with usury ; that is, the children in 
 the mean season begotten by the said friends, whom they took, called and 
 brought up as their own, as it was well known, as well in other as in 
 Browne, Archbishop of Dublin. It would now pity a man at the heart to 
 hear of the naughty and dissolute life of these yoked priests,' &c.
 
 384 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDOES. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVIII. 
 
 The suc- 
 cession to 
 the crown. 
 
 Mary 
 proclaimed. 
 
 St. Leger is 
 
 Deputy. 
 
 1653. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 
 
 LAWYERS and casuists might dispute about the succession. 
 Logically, Mary and Elizabeth could not both be legitimate ; 
 but the people of England swept these cobwebs away. 
 Catherine had for twenty-two years borne the title of Queen, 
 and in that great place she was not known to have done any- 
 thing worthy of blame, but much deserving the highest praise. 
 And then there was the will of Henry VIII. Its execution 
 had perhaps been informal, but the people cared nothing for 
 that ; it was his will, and he had been authorised by Parlia- 
 ment to make it. The sick-room fancies of a boy of sixteen 
 were not to be allowed to alter such a settlement. 
 
 The struggle for the crown was short, and was little felt 
 at the distance at which Ireland then was, though the Dudley 
 party took care that Queen Jane's accession should be officially 
 known there. On the thirteenth day after her brother's death 
 Mary was proclaimed by the Council in London, on the four- 
 teenth the baffled Northumberland renewed the proclamation 
 at Cambridge, on the fifteenth the grand conspirator himself 
 was arrested. On the very day of the Cambridge proclamation 
 the Privy Council wrote to Aylmer, the acting Lord Justice 
 cancelling the former communication, and directing that Mary 
 should be proclaimed ' Queen of England, France, and Ireland, 
 Defender of the Faith, and on earth supreme head of the 
 churches of England and Ireland.' l 
 
 Besides twelve Privy Councillors, six individuals connected 
 
 with Ireland, who happened to be in England, signed these 
 
 letters Cusack, the Chancellor ; Lord Gormanston ; Staples, 
 
 Bishop of Meath ; Thomas Luttrell, Chief Justice of the 
 
 1 Morrin's Patent Rollt, p. 304.
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 385 
 
 Common Pleas ; James Bathe, Chief Baron ; and the veteran CHAP. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 John Alen. The object probably was to show the men in , ^ 
 
 Dublin that this time at least there was no mistake as to which 
 Queen they were to obey. Cusack, Aylmer, Luttrell, and Bathe 
 were confirmed in their offices with increased emoluments, 
 and no immediate change was made in the general man- 
 agement of Irish affairs. Some disturbances amongst the 
 O'Connors were easily put down, and the citizens of Dublin 
 repulsed a raid of the O'Neills near Dundalk. In the mean- 
 time Northumberland had expiated his crimes on the scaffold. 
 Gardiner, Bonner, Tunstall, and others had been restored, and 
 Cranmer, Latimer, and Hooper imprisoned; and there was 
 time to think of the affairs of Ireland. In October, soon after 
 the coronation, St. Leger was appointed Lord Deputy in ful- 
 filment of the late King's intention. He landed at Dalkey 
 on November 11, and on the 19th took the oath and received 
 the sword in Christ Church. 
 
 St. Leger's instructions show the policy which Mary had His in- 
 adopted. As regards temporal affairs it did not greatly differ 
 from that of her father. The Scots in Ulster were not to be 
 molested unless they gave fresh trouble. The army was to be 
 reduced to 500 regular soldiers, of which not more than ten 
 per cent, were to be Irishmen. Extraordinary garrisons were 
 to be discharged at the next general pay day, and if possible 
 induced to go back to England without raising riots. The 
 Lord Deputy might employ kerne and gallowglasses where 
 necessary, and the usual private bands were to be continued ; 
 but coyne and livery were to be eschewed as much as possible. 
 St. Leger found it impossible to carry out the reduction of 
 the army lower than 1,100 men, besides kerne. The question 
 as to the desirability of a Presidency for Munster was to be 
 carefully considered in all its bearings. Leix and Offaly being 
 in great measure waste, the Lord Deputy was to grant lands 
 in fee simple at a small quit-rent either to Englishmen or 
 Irishmen, binding them to erect and maintain farm buildings, 
 and to till a certain portion of land. By this means it was 
 hoped that these unfortunate districts would soon be made like 
 the English Pale. Leases for twenty-one years were to be 
 VOL. I. c c
 
 386 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Mary 
 maintains 
 the rights 
 of the 
 Crown. 
 
 Catho- 
 licism 
 restored. 
 Bale refuses 
 to give 
 way. 
 
 given to Crown tenants generally, including holders of mon- 
 astic lands. Goodacre had just died, so that there was no 
 difficulty about Armagh, to which, as well as to the Primacy 
 of all Ireland, Dowdall was immediately restored, with the 
 additional grant of the priory of Ards rent free for life. The 
 Mass and the rest of the old religion was to be restored as 
 nearly as possible. 1 
 
 But Mary, though zealous for orthodoxy, had no intention 
 of yielding the rights of the Crown to the Pope, and this was 
 no doubt well understood. One of St. Leger's earliest duties 
 was to go to Drogheda and place the government of Eastern 
 Ulster in the hands of Eugene Magennis, who specially 
 covenanted not to admit any provisor from Rome. An Irish- 
 born priest named Connor MacCarthy asked Mary for a letter 
 of licence to go to Rome, there to obtain certain benefices 
 from the Pope, fearing lest some should be in the Queen's 
 gift, * and also considering the statute of Premunire.' Nor 
 was the fear an idle one, for when Tyrone afterwards obtained 
 a Papal bull for the appointment of his chaplain to the re- 
 stored priory of Down, the Queen sharply reminded him that 
 she intended to maintain the prerogative in that behalf which 
 she had received from her progenitors. MacCarthy was not 
 the only Irish ecclesiastic of the reign who thought it necessary 
 to petition for relief from the consequences of the dreaded 
 statute. 2 
 
 In some places the old religion was restored without wait- 
 ing for any formal order. As soon as Edward's death was 
 known Justice Howth and Lord Mountgarret, the Earl of 
 Ormonde's uncle, went to Kilkenny and desired to have the 
 sacrament celebrated in honour of St. Anne. The priest said 
 the Bishop had forbidden celebrations on week days ; c as indeed 
 I had,' says Bale, ' for the abominable idolatry that I had seen 
 therein.' The learned judge, who seems to have had no com- 
 mission, then discharged the clergy from obedience to their 
 
 1 Instructions for Sir A. St. Leger, Oct. 1553 ; Morrin's Patent Rolls, pp. 
 300-304. 
 
 2 Petition of Connor MacCarthy, 1553. The Queen to Sussex, July 6, 
 1558. Orders taken at Drogheda, Dec. 6, 1553. in Carew.
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 387 
 
 Bishop, and commanded them to proceed in the old way. CHAP. 
 
 On August 20 Mary was proclaimed at Kilkenny with much , '-* 
 
 solemnity. Bale strongly objected to wear cope or mitre, or 
 to have the crozier borne before him ; not from any opposition 
 to the Queen's title, but from dislike to vain ceremonies. 
 Taking a New Testament in his hand, he went to the market- 
 cross followed by a great crowd, to whom he preached from 
 the 13th chapter of Romans, on the reverence due to magis- 
 trates. But the clergy of the cathedral, who had no sympathy 
 with the Bishop's doctrines, provided two disguised priests to 
 carry mitre and crozier before him against his will. The Bale's 
 people were amused, instructed, or scandalised, as the case dramas, 
 might be, by the representation of a tragedy concerning God's 
 promises in the old law, and by a comedy of St. John the 
 Baptist. The baptism and temptation of Christ were brought 
 upon the stage, and the young men of the town acted both at 
 the morning and evening performance. Both dramas were 
 written by Bale himself, and in a literary point of view they 
 are far from contemptible. They mark the transition between 
 the mystery plays of the middle ages and the compositions of 
 Shakespeare's immediate precursors. Personified abstractions 
 as well as historical characters appear on the stage ; nor did 
 Bale shrink from a representation which seems impossible to 
 us, for he boldly introduces the first person in the Trinity 
 under the name of Pater Caslestis. Justification by faith is 
 the great doctrine inculcated, and where the author speaks in 
 person he loses no opportunity of attacking the Church of 
 Rome. In an epilogue he exhorts the people to 
 
 ' Hear neither Francis, Benedict, nor Bruno, 
 Albert nor Dominic, for they new rules invent, 
 Believe neither Pope nor Priest of his consent, 
 Follow Christ's gospel,' &c. 
 
 In another play on the instructive story of King John, 
 ' Ynglond vidua ' says : 
 
 ' Such lubbers as hath disguised heads in their hoods, 
 Which in idleness do live by other men's goods, 
 Monks, chanons, and nones.' 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. In his other works Bale throughout shows the same spirit. 
 XVIII 
 , Thus he calls that very questionable hero, Sir John Oldcastle, 
 
 * a blessed martyr not canonised by the Pope, but in the precious 
 blood of his Lord Jesus Christ.' St. Paul is the great object 
 of Bale's admiration, and he seems to have thought that he 
 was like him. The points of resemblance are similar to 
 those which Captain Fluelen discovered between himself and 
 Alexander the Great. Thus, Paul was tossed up and down 
 between Candia and Melita, Bale between Milford and Water- 
 ford. There was a river in Monmouth and a river in Macedon, 
 and there were salmon in both. 1 
 
 Opposition gi r Richard Howth, Treasurer of St. Canice's, and his 
 ins diocese, friend Sir James Joys, were among Bale's most energetic 
 opponents. To annoy him they suggested solemn exequies 
 and prayers for the soul of Edward VI. The Bishop argued 
 that it would be better to wait for orders from Dublin. The 
 ceremony had already once been postponed to see the devil 
 dance at Thomastown a Sunday amusement which the mob 
 perhaps preferred to the Bishop's plays. Bale found another 
 enemy in one whom he calls Bishop of Galway, and who was 
 probably John Moore, Bishop of Enaghdune, the ancient 
 diocese in which Galway stands. This Moore was commis- 
 sioned, along with other prelates not acknowledged in the 
 Roman succession, to consecrate Patrick Walsh Bishop of 
 Waterford. He was no credit to the Reformation, for Bale 
 represents him as spending his nights in drinking and his 
 days in confirming children at twopence a head. A gallow- 
 glass brought a dog in a sheet with twopence hanging round 
 his neck to be confirmed with his neighbours' children ; in 
 this, says Bale, ( noting this beastly Bishop more fit to con- 
 firm dogs than Christian men's children.' The soldier may 
 have regarded him as a schismatic, but it is not easy to under- 
 stand how such a man can have attained episcopal orders. 8 
 
 1 Bale's select works, Parker Society ; King Johan, a play, ed. J. Payne 
 Collier, Camden Society ; ' God's promises in all ages of the old law,' in 
 Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. i. ; a brief comedy or interlude of John Baptist 
 in Hcurl. Misc. vol. i. 
 
 2 Bale's Vocation ; Cotton's Fatti, vol. i. p. 123.
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 389 
 
 Ten days after the proclamation of Mary there was a CHAP. 
 
 XVIII 
 general revolt against Bale, incited by Howth, whose position , '-^ 
 
 in legal circles gave him ample means of knowing how the He is forced 
 wind blew at Court, but who was rather horrified at the length 
 to which the clergy and their adherents went. In Bale's 
 absence they rang the bells of St. Canice's and of all the other 
 churches, flinging their caps to the battlements of the cathedral 
 with shouts of laughter, but doing no actual violence. A 
 little later the mob was not so good-humoured. The Fitz- 
 patrick and Butler kerne, and especially the ' furious family of 
 Mountgarret,' annoyed Bale in many ways. Barnaby Bolger, 
 an enterprising tradesmen who had formerly aroused great in- 
 dignation by forestalling Kilkenny market, and whose young 
 daughter was married to ' Grace Graceless,' an adherent of the 
 Fitzpatricks, headed a tumultuous attack on the Bishop's 
 house outside the town. He and his friend Mr. Cooper, the 
 parson of Callan, were robbed of all their horses, and thus 
 deprived of the means of escape. Five of Bale's servants, one 
 of them a girl of sixteen, were caught haymaking, and all 
 murdered. He managed to close the portcullis and defend 
 himself until rescued by Robert Shee, the sovereign of Kil- 
 kenny, ' a man sober, wise, and godly, which is a rare thing 
 in this land.' Shee, who could command the services of 100 
 horse and 300 foot, sent Bale by night to Dublin, and no 
 doubt he thought of St. Paul's journey under somewhat 
 similar circumstances. But there was no safety in the Irish 
 capital, and the Bishop escaped by sea in a sailor's dress. He 
 was captured at St. Ives and brought before the justices, but 
 was released when nothing was found to connect him with 
 Wyatt's or any other plot. He was again captured by pirates 
 and had to pay a ransom, but ultimately succeeded in reaching 
 Holland. For five years he lived at Basel, where he con- 
 tinued to write with an acrimony which had not been lessened 
 by his recent troubles. When Elizabeth became Queen, Bale 
 made no attempt to regain his bishopric. At sixty-three he 
 was disinclined to face the Kilkenny people again, or perhaps 
 he had learned that he was unfit to govern men. He became 
 a prebendary of Canterbury, and devoted his remaining years
 
 390 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, to literature. His hurried flight from Ireland had forced him 
 XVIII 
 - - . '" to leave books and manuscripts behind, and the Queen ordered 
 
 them to be sent over to him. c He had/ she said, ' been 
 
 studious in the search of the history and antiquities of this 
 
 our realm,' and might probably do something for their illustra- 
 
 tion. Whether Bale ever got back his library or not, he was 
 
 certainly not silenced for want of materials ; for the extent and 
 
 variety of his learning were considered most remarkable. 1 
 
 Wyatt's The abortive insurrection of Wyatt had the usual effect of 
 
 Croft, setting Mary more firmly on the throne, and at the same time 
 
 ^ exas perating her against some whom she might have been 
 1554. willing to spare. Sir James Croft, the late Lord Deputy, was 
 
 arrested before he had time to raise his tenants in Hereford- 
 shire : he was convicted, but afterwards pardoned. Sir Peter 
 Carew, who afterwards played an important part in Irish 
 affairs, was also accused of complicity, and thought it prudent 
 to go abroad, where his companion was no less a personage 
 than Sir John Cheeke. Venturing to Brussels, where Paget 
 was ambassador, they were led to suppose that there was no 
 danger, but that crafty diplomatist had them kidnapped near 
 Antwerp, and carried to England in a fishing boat. Their 
 captors were the Flemish and Spanish officials ; and Philip, 
 while expressing becoming indignation at the breach of hos- 
 pitality, took care not to hear of it until the prisoners were 
 safe beyond seas. The passage can hardly have been pleasant, 
 for they were blindfolded and chained, one at each end of the 
 boat. Poor Sir John Cheeke, who afterwards showed his un- 
 fitness for the crown of martyrdom, and who perhaps saw a 
 vision of the stake, did not conceal his misery. * Although 
 very well learned, but not acquainted with the cross of troubles, 
 he was still in great despair, great anguish, and heaviness, 
 and would not be comforted, so great was his sorrow ; but Sir 
 Peter Carew, whose heart could not be broken nor mind over- 
 thrown with any adversities, and yielding to no such matter, 
 
 1 Bale's Vocation ; Ware's Annals. Queen Elizabeth to the two St. 
 Legers, calendared tinder 1559 (No. 85). Dr. Reid printed the following 
 contemporary epigram : 
 
 1 Plurima Lntherns patefecit, Platina multa, 
 Quaedam Vergerius, cuncta Balseus habet.'
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 391 
 
 comforted the other, and encouraged him to be of a good CHAP. 
 . . xvni 
 stomach, persuading him (as though he had been a divine) to , '-^ 
 
 patience and good contentation.' The man of action, as is 
 not seldom the case, showed that he had more philosophy 
 than the philosopher. Sir Peter, whose guilt, if he was guilty, 
 was much less clear than that of Croft, was pardoned by the 
 Queen, and afterwards served her well at St. Quentin. Sir 
 John Cheeke lived to undergo a worse humiliation than that 
 of Cranmer, to be made an instrument in the persecution of 
 those with whom he secretly agreed, to suffer in the few 
 months which his pusillanimity had gained him a thousand 
 martyrdoms of grief and shame, and then to die heart-broken 
 and dishonoured. Sir Nicholas Arnold, afterwards employed 
 by Elizabeth in Ireland, was another of the conspirators. 
 Lady Jane, the innocent victim of so many intrigues, laid 
 her beautiful neck upon the block, and fivescore Kentishmen 
 suffered death for their zeal to the Reformation or their 
 hatred of Spanish influence. Gerald of Kildare and the 
 young Earl of Ormonde both served with distinction against 
 Wyatt, and the orthodox Queen rewarded both with goodly 
 grants of abbey lands. Ormonde had been captain of one of 
 the bands of Whitecoats sent by the city into Kent, where 
 many of his men deserted to the insurgents. 1 
 
 The insurrection being at an end, the Queen lost no time xhe pri- 
 in forcing Browne to surrender his patent of precedence, and "j^a to 
 restoring Dowdall to the primacy, and a commission was Dowdall. 
 issued to him and to Drs. Walsh and Leverous for re-establish- 
 ing the old religion, and punishing those who had violated 
 the law of clerical celibacy. Browne, who had a wife, was 
 accordingly deprived, and, pending the appointment of a suc- 
 cessor, the temporalities of his see handed over to Lockwood, 
 the pliant Dean of Christ Church. Staples of Meath, who 
 was likewise married, and was besides personally obnoxious to 
 Dowdall, was also deprived in favour of one of the Commis- 
 sioners who sentenced him, the learned William Walsh, 
 
 1 Hook's Life of Pole, vol. iii. p. 359, note ; Machyn's Diary, Jan. 27, 
 1554 ; Life of Sir Peter Careiv, ed. by Macleane, and also printed in Carew, 
 vol. i.
 
 392 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, formerly a Cistercian monk of Bective Abbey. Curiously 
 
 , ^ enough, Walsh, who was appointed by Pole in virtue of his 
 
 legatine authority, did not receive a Papal provision till 1564, 
 some time after Elizabeth had expelled him from his see. 
 The same treatment for the same offence was inflicted on 
 Lancaster, Bishop of Kildare, who was succeeded by Leverous, 
 already Bishop of Leighlin by Papal provision. A fourth 
 married bishop was Travers of Leighlin, who was succeeded 
 by Thomas O'Fihel or Field, an Augustinian friar. A fifth, 
 Casey of Limerick, had to make way for his aged predecessor 
 Quin. On Bale, who had left the field clear, no legal sentence 
 of deprivation was passed ; but his successor, John Thonory, 
 was already appointed. Thonory has an evil name for having 
 corruptly wasted the property of his see, and is said to have 
 died of grief at the loss of some of his ill-gotten gains. Of 
 the deprived prelates, Lancaster lived to be Archbishop of 
 Armagh, and Casey, who survived two successors, and saw 
 another expelled, regained his see in 1571. Browne, Travers, 
 and Lancaster are supposed to have died before the accession 
 of Elizabeth, and Staples soon after it. 1 
 Kildare This year was memorable for the return of Gerald of 
 
 returns to T^.-I n -, -, -, . 
 
 Ireland, Kildare, whose titles and estates were restored to him. The 
 attainder, however, was not renewed till 1569. Old Brian 
 O'Connor was released from the Tower, and allowed to revisit 
 Offaly, an indulgence which he owed to the exertions of his 
 daughter Margaret, who was Kildare's aunt, and who relied 
 upon the number of her connections at Court, as well as her 
 own knowledge of the English language. Barnaby Fitz- 
 patrick, Lord of Upper Ossory, King Edward's bosom friend, 
 returned about the same time, and so did a far more impor- 
 tant personage, the young Earl of Ormonde. ' There was great 
 rejoicing,' say the ' Four Masters,' ' throughout the greater 
 part of Leath-Mhogha because of their arrival; for it was 
 thought that not one of the descendants of the Earls of Kil- 
 dare, or of the O'Connors Faly, would ever come to Ireland.' 
 While the obedient shires were busy with the restoration 
 
 1 Brady ; Cotton. Dowling says of Thonory : ' Pro dolore amissionis 
 thesauri sui per fures mortuus. Fures confitebantur et executi.'
 
 THE REIGN OF MAEY. 393 
 
 of the ancient religion, the native Irish made war among CHAP. 
 
 themselves, with but little interference from the Government. , ^ 
 
 Donough O'Brien, the second Earl of Thomond, and a firm Constant 
 
 war among 
 
 friend of the Crown, was killed in April 1553 by his brother the Irish. 
 Donnell, leaving the earldom to Connor, his eldest son, by Lady 
 Helen Butler, who survived him. Donnell, however, assumed 
 the title of O'Brien, and the clansmen were divided between 
 the representatives of the old and new order. Donnell peti- 
 tioned that, having been nominated according to the ancient 
 custom, he might be acknowledged as chief. St. Leger was 
 unable to grant this, but offered to write to the Queen in his 
 favour. In the meantime other controversies were submitted 
 to the arbitration of O'Carroll, O'Mulrian, and MacBrien 
 Arra, on the part of Donnell ; and of the barons of Mount- 
 garret, Cahir, and Dunboyne, all Butlers, on the part of the 
 Earl. The umpires in case of disagreement were the Lord 
 Deputy, the Lord Chancellor, and the Earl of Desmond. It 
 is very hard to make out the exact sequence of events, but 
 either just before or just after this negotiation, Donnell 
 attacked one of his nephew's castles, and was driven off by 
 the arrival of the Earl of Ormonde. He then turned his 
 attention to the plunder of Clanricarde. The Baron of 
 Delvin continued to ravage MacCoghlan's country, and one 
 of the Nugents, who was foster-brother of Kildare, being 
 tilled, the newly restored Earl, who lost no time in show- 
 ing that he meant to keep up the family traditions, ex- 
 acted 340 cows as an eric. The O'Carrolls in the south, 
 the MacSweenys in the north, killed each other in the old 
 fashion. Shane O'Neill persuaded the Earl of Kildare and 
 the Baron of Delvin to take his part in a quarrel with one 
 sept of his name, and old Tyrone was defeated by another 
 sept, supported by the MacDonnells, who were also intriguing 
 with Calvagh O'Donnell. 1 
 
 We have seen that the Queen had no intention of yielding The Pope 
 any part of the dignity which had belonged to her prede- f R GX HI- 
 cessors. Notwithstanding the Papal pretension to suzerainty, 
 
 1 Indentures with the O'Briens, Sept. 1554, in Carem ; Four Masters, 1564.
 
 394 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVIII. 
 
 The Queen 
 maintains 
 her pre- 
 rogative. 
 
 she had as a matter of course assumed the royal title created 
 by her father in Ireland. The Holy See found it necessary 
 to respect accomplished facts, and had not Julius III. aban- 
 doned all claims to the monastic lands, Pole would never 
 have been allowed into England. Paul IV.'s pretensions were 
 boundless, but he could not afford to quarrel about a mere 
 trifle both with England and Spain. He considered it a great 
 glory for his pontificate that its opening should be signalised 
 by the arrival of an English ambassador. Whether he wished 
 it or not, Philip and Mary were, and would remain, King and 
 Queen of Ireland. He therefore ignored all that Henry had 
 done, and, as if of his own mere notion, erected Ireland into 
 a kingdom. The world might perhaps suppose that Mary 
 took it from his hand, and not in right of blood. ' The Popes,' 
 says the sarcastic Venetian, 'have often given that which 
 they could not take from the possessors, and, to avoid con- 
 tentions, some have received their own goods as gifts, and 
 some have dissembled the knowledge of the gift, or of the 
 pretence of the giver.' But in Ireland, where distance cast 
 a halo of enchantment over Papal politics, and where Fran- 
 ciscans and Jesuits swayed the popular mind, the bull which 
 announced the gracious gift was taken by many for what it 
 pretended to be, and not for what it really was. 1 
 
 Mary gave evidence of her desire to restore the splendour 
 of religion by re-establishing St. Patrick's as a cathedral. 
 Leverous was the first Dean of the new foundation, and was 
 allowed to hold the preferment along with the see of Kildare. 
 The man selected to undo Browne's work was Hugh Curwin, 
 Dean of Hereford, a native of Westmoreland, and one of the 
 Queen's chaplains. He had become known as a preacher in 
 favour of Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn, in opposition 
 to the Franciscan Peto. The deanery of Hereford had been 
 his reward. Peto, on the other hand, had become the Queen's 
 confessor, and was the chosen instrument of Paul IV., when 
 that Pope in a fit of anger appointed a legate to supersede 
 
 1 Sarpi's Council of Trent, trans, by Courayer, lib. v. cap. 15, and the 
 nates. Dr. Lingard, vol. v. end of chap, v., objects to Fra Paolo's account, 
 but I cannot see that his own much differs.
 
 THE REIGN OF MAEY. 395 
 
 Pole. Mary so valued the royal authority that she resented 
 the irregular honour intended for her confessor, though he 
 had been the champion of her own legitimacy, stopped the 
 red hat at the gates of Calais, and never allowed Peto any 
 benefit from the Pope's irritability. On the whole, Anne's 
 advocate fared better than Catherine's. Curwin, whose first 
 article of belief enjoined submission to principalities and 
 powers, no doubt knew how to turn the Queen's love of power, 
 as he had done her father's, to his own advantage. He was 
 treated with exceptional favour, and gained practical control 
 of the temporalities even before his consecration, which was 
 performed in London by Bonner, Thirlby, and Griffin. Im- 
 mediately afterwards he received the Great Seal of Ireland. 
 Curwin had the pall from Rome, and in the Papal record of 
 his appointment Philip and Mary are said to have supplicated 
 for it, Browne being ignored, and Curwin made successor to 
 Alen. But the King and Queen only acknowledged that 
 Curwin was preferred on their recommendation, and he had 
 to renounce on oath all things prejudicial to the Crown, 
 whether contained in the Papal bull or not. Curwin held a 
 provincial synod soon after his arrival in Ireland, at which 
 the principal business was the restoration of the ancient rites. 1 
 
 Ulster was in a state of more than usual confusion. NO progress 
 Manus O'Donnell, who had been constantly at war with his 
 
 father, was opposed by his son Calvagh, who had the help of St - Leger 
 the Scots. They addressed him as illustrious lord, and he money, 
 went over to Scotland to claim the proffered aid. Returning 
 with a large force, and with a piece of ordnance which the 
 annalists inexplicably call a crooked gun, he entered Lough 
 Swilly, took his father prisoner, and battered Greencastle and 
 another fortress on Lough Foyle. Calvagh thenceforth as- 
 sumed practical control of his clan. The Scots slew Hugh 
 MacNeill Oge, and St. Leger divided his territory between 
 Phelim O'Neill and the sons of Phelim Bacagh. The hardy 
 interlopers had even designs on Carrickfergus, which St. Leger 
 says were frustrated ' by the help of God and Mr. Parker ; ' 
 
 1 Brady; Hook's Life of Pole; Ware's Life of Curwin; Bymer, Feb. 22, 
 and April 25, 1555 ; Morrin's Patent Rolls, p. 339.
 
 396 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVI 1 1. 
 
 Lord Fitz- 
 
 walter 
 
 (Sussex) 
 
 Lord 
 
 Deputy, 
 
 1556. " 
 
 but in a campaign of six weeks the Lord Deputy could gain 
 no real advantage. As in the case of most Irish governors, 
 his detractors, among whom Sir William Fitzwilliam was 
 conspicuous, were busy at Court. They accused him, among 
 other things, of falsifying estimates in favour of Andrew 
 Wyse, the late Vice-Treasurer, whose accounts had been found 
 unsatisfactory. ' I am now in case,' he said, ' as the poet's 
 fame. I have meat to the surlip and drink to the netherlip, 
 and can reach neither of them.' His position made it im- 
 possible for him to economise, and no money came to pay his 
 hungry retinue. A friendly chronicler has remarked that St. 
 Leger, like all other Irish governors, was hated chiefly for 
 his good deeds ; like a good apple tree, which, the more fruit 
 it bears, the more stones are thrown at it. 1 
 
 The Lord Deputy's entreaties for release were heard at 
 last, and the government was conferred on Sir Thomas Rad- 
 cliffe, Lord Fitzwalter, afterwards created Earl of Sussex, who, 
 but for his Irish service, would bear one of the fairest charac- 
 ters in our history. Mary rejoiced that the true Catholic 
 faith had by God's great goodness and special grace been 
 recovered in England and Ireland, and she directed her repre- 
 sentative ' to set forth the honour and dignity of the Pope's 
 Holiness and See Apostolic of Rome, and from time to time 
 to be ready with our aid and secular force, at the request of 
 all spiritual ministers and ordinaries there, to punish and 
 repress all heretics and Lollards and their damnable sects, 
 opinions, and errors.' Cardinal Pole, she added, was about 
 to send over a legatine commission to visit the Irish Church, 
 and official assistance was to be given ' in all and everything 
 belonging to the function and office legatine, for the advance- 
 ment of God's glory and the honour of the See Apostolic.' 
 The new governor was reminded that he lay under an obliga- 
 tion to execute justice, and was exhorted at much greater 
 length to exert himself for the improvement of the revenue. 
 A Parliament was to be held, chiefly as a means of restoring 
 
 1 Hooker in Holinshed; St. Leger to Petre, Dec. 18, 1555; Four Mastert, 
 1555. James MacDonnell's agents to Calvagh O'Donnell, calendared under 
 1554 (No. 7).
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 397 
 
 religion according to the Queen's ideas, of settling her mar- CHAP. 
 
 riage and succession, and of voting a subsidy. Sir Henry , '-* 
 
 Sidney, who now makes his first appearance in Irish history, 
 accompanied the Lord Deputy as Vice-Treasurer. He brought 
 with him a sum of 25,OOOZ. 1 
 
 About the time of the new Lord Deputy's arrival, the A warlike 
 Kavanaghs made a raid into the neighbourhood of Dublin. Dublin. 
 Sir George Stanley took command of the citizens, and drove 
 140 of the assailants into Powerscourt, where they had to 
 surrender at discretion. Seventy-four were hanged. John 
 Challoner, who was Mayor of Dublin at the time, provided 
 the civic force with arms, which he had brought at his own 
 expense from Spain. This martial magistrate was offered 
 knighthood, but he excused himself. ' My Lord,' he said, ' it 
 will be more to my credit and my posterity's to have it said 
 that John Ohalloner served the Queen upon occasion, than to 
 say that Sir John Challoner did it.' 2 
 
 t/ 
 
 Sussex landed at Dublin towards the end of May, and Sussex 
 received the sword from St. Leger's willing hands. The journey* 
 religious ceremonies were of a kind entirely satisfactory to 
 the Queen. After a month's stay in the capital he set out 
 for the North, and appeared in church both at Drogheda and 
 Dundalk. The force mustered on this occasion was very- 
 considerable, for besides the regular soldiers and Ormonde's 
 followers, the gentlemen of the Pale were called on to serve 
 with from one to six horsemen each. The Plunkets contri- 
 buted twenty-four horse, the Nugents eighteen horse and 
 twenty-four foot. Dublin sent sixty horsemen and gunners, 
 and Drogheda forty men well appointed. ' The Byrnes and 
 the Tooles' wastes ' in Wicklow were expected to send 
 twelve horse each, and other Irish contingents joined on 
 the march. The first Sunday was spent at a mill beyond 
 Newry, where Dowdall said Mass, and where O'Hanlon, 
 whose chiefry seems to have been disputed, was solemnly pro- 
 claimed. Mention is made of a great hill of stones, which 
 
 1 Instructions to Lord Fitzwalter, April 28, 1556, in Car em. Sidney 
 Papers, i. p. 85. 
 
 2 Ware's Annals.
 
 398 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, was, perhaps, the traditional spot for the election of an 
 XVIII. 
 , I" O'Hanlon. Passing along the right bank of the Newry river, 
 
 which he crossed near Tanderagee, Sussex reached the Laggan 
 valley near Moira, and passing Belfast, reached Carrickfergus 
 on the ninth day after leaving Dublin. From this the army 
 marched across the central districts of Antrim, and, at last, 
 on the twenty-fourth day from Dublin, Sussex reached 
 Glenarm, and found that James MacDonnell had fled before 
 him into Scotland. The fugitive sent to France for help, but 
 his envoy's proceedings were counteracted by Paget's vigil- 
 ance. A quantity of cattle were captured, besides butter and 
 other produce hid in a cave. This seems to have been the 
 only result of an expedition which lasted thirty-seven days. 
 Sussex dismissed his allies at their old rendezvous near Newry, 
 and on the very next day, as if in ridicule of his efforts, a 
 messenger arrived to say that the Scots had attacked the rear 
 guard. Sidney afterwards said that he had slain James Mac- 
 Connell, a mighty Scots captain, during this expedition. 
 Some Scots of name were certainly killed, and one of them 
 may have been called James ; but the real James MacDonnell 
 was back at Glenarm before the end of the year. 1 
 
 His failure. The moral which Sussex drew from this inglorious expe- 
 dition was that the North could only be held by a chain of 
 forts along the coast from Dundalk to Lough Foyle. Some 
 part at least of the expense would be paid by the salmon 
 fisheries of the Foyle, the Bann, and the Bush ; and by the 
 herring, cod, ling, and hake fisheries, of which Carlingford was 
 the chief seat. A good English bishop would also, he thought, 
 be a means to civilise the country. It had not yet been dis- 
 covered that making the 'Church a badge of conquest only 
 served to make religion itself odious. The dislike of the 
 Irish to English' ecclesiastics had been marked throughout 
 the middle ages, and even if England had remained in 
 communion with Rome, bishops who were Government 
 officials first and chief pastors afterwards, could scarcely 
 
 1 Sussex's Journal, Aug. 8, 1556, in Carem ; Sidney's Relation, in Caretr; 
 1583; Lord Deputy Fitzwalter to the Queen, Jan. 2, 1557; Calendar of 
 Foreign State Papers, Oct. 28, 1556.
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 399 
 
 have ministered successfully to the wants of O'Neills and CHAP. 
 
 YVTTT 
 
 O'Donnells. 1 ^- 
 
 The settlement of Leix was in outward form completed, The King's 
 and Sussex received the Queen's thanks for it. The arrange- Queen's 
 ments were not without a show of equity ; but the old in- 
 habitants could not reconcile themselves to the intrusion of a 
 colony, and their pertinacious opposition forced the Govern- 
 ment to treat them with far more rigour than had been at 
 first intended. The western half of the new Queen's County The 
 was originally reserved for the O'Mores, each head of a sept 
 becoming a landlord holding an estate in tail by knight- 
 service. The chiefs were prohibited from keeping any idlemen 
 except of their own sept, or more than one for every 100 
 acres. They were to attend the constable of the fort when 
 required, to repair bridges, and at all times to keep the passes 
 open between their districts and those occupied by the Eng- 
 lish. They were to dress like Englishmen, except when 
 riding, and to teach their children to speak English, to attend 
 the Deputy annually, and to use only the Common Law. All 
 above twelve were required to take the oath of allegiance. 
 Forfeiture was prescribed for a persistent refusal to keep the 
 passes open ; for retaining superfluous idlemen ; for keeping 
 more than one set of harness; for interrupting communication 
 with the English ; for making a private way ; for marrying and 
 fostering with the Irish, and for absenteeism. The Deputy's 
 licence removed the penalty in all these cases. For keeping 
 unlicensed firearms the first offence was to be punished by 
 forfeiture, and the second by death. 
 
 The eastern district was assigned to the English, to hold The 
 on similar terms, and twelve places, among which Stradbally settlers * 
 and Abbeyleix are the best known, were to be kept in a de- 
 fensible state as satellites to the royal fort of Maryborough. 
 The duties of the settlers were in general the same as those 
 assigned to the O'Mores ; but whereas the latter were 
 restrained in the matter of arms, the possession of them was 
 made obligatory on the former. A good bow and sheaf of 
 
 1 Opinions of Lord Fitzwalter, Jan. 2, 1557. He mentions hake as ' a 
 kind of salt fish much eaten in Ireland.'
 
 400 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 < ii \r. arrows, or one hand-gun at least, was to be kept in every 
 > , ^ house. Forfeiture was to be incurred in the same way as by 
 the Irish, and in addition for falling away from the use of the 
 English tongue, for holding more than 300 acres in demesne, 
 or for entertaining Irishmen, except so far as they were 
 necessary for husbandry. A few natives, whose services as 
 captains of kerne had deserved special recognition, were to 
 have grants in the English territory, and it was suggested 
 that a large territory should be offered to the Earl of Kildare. 
 A constable, resident at the fort, was to have the same powers 
 locally as the Lord Deputy had generally. Stringent rules 
 were made as to free quarters and purveyance. The constable 
 or president on his annual circuit was to have his own ex- 
 penses and those of four men and five horses borne for one 
 night only by each town ; and each sept of the O'Mores was 
 to bear the like burden, and no more. Finally, a church was 
 to be built in each of the twelve settlements within three 
 years, and a parson, of English birth, was to have the tithe. 1 
 The natives Whatever the intentions of the Queen or her Deputy might 
 their land, be towards Leix and Offaly, there was sure to be plenty of 
 opposition on the part of the natives, who were, however, as 
 usual, divided among themselves. The old chief, Brian 
 O'Connor, was still alive, and his son Donough carried on iln> 
 old feud and killed his cousin, the son of Cahir Roe. Both 
 Donough and Connell O'More, the chief of Leix, fell into the 
 hands of Sussex in the course of the year, but to the surprise 
 of the Irish in general were released in deference to Kildare 
 and Ormonde, who had become in some measure responsible 
 for them. The O'Mores remained quiet for a time on the 
 lands reserved to them. Donough and others of the O'Connors 
 afterward came to Sussex at Philipstown, as the fort of Offaly 
 must henceforth be called, and made their submission, 
 giving promises of good behaviour, which they immediately 
 broke. 2 
 
 1 Privy Council to Lord Deputy, Sept. 30, 1 556 ; Orders for Leix, Dec. ; 
 Lord Deputy to the Queen, Jan. 2, 1557. An Act of Parliament was passed 
 in 1557, entitling the Crown to Leix and Offaly, and authorising the Lord 
 Deputy to make grants under the Great Seal. 
 
 2 Proceedings of the Deputy and Council, Feb. 25, 1557, in Carnr. 
 Four Masters for 1555 and 1556
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 401 
 
 After the meeting at PMlipstown, Sussex and his Council CHAP. 
 
 repaired to Leighlin, where the principal O'Connors neglected , !- 
 
 to appear as they had promised. A leader of the Kavanaghs, Th& 7 are 
 who had not taken warning by the recent fate of his clansmen, attacked, 
 was executed, and Connel O'More, who had once more broken 
 into rebellion, was hanged in chains at Leighlin about the 
 same time. Offaly was next invaded and hostages taken, 
 who were executed on a further outbreak taking place, with 
 the exception of O'Connor himself, who was detained prisoner 
 in Dublin. 1 
 
 The Parliament, from which Mary expected much for the Parliament 
 Church of which she was so faithful a daughter, met at last The mon- 
 and enacted all the laws made in England against the Pro- 
 testants. The old statutes against Lollardry, which prescribed 
 death by fire as the punishment for obstinate or relapsed 
 heretics, were declared to be in full force. A communication 
 from Pole was read by Curwin as Chancellor, kneeling down 
 in open session, in which the Cardinal urged the assembly to 
 restore Ireland to full communion with the Church. All 
 Acts derogatory to the Pope which had been passed since 
 the twentieth year of Henry VIII. were accordingly repealed. 
 The Queen was declared a legitimate, absolute sovereign, and 
 all laws and sentences to the contrary were abrogated. On 
 the other hand, grants of monastic land were confirmed. 
 There'could be no doubt of Mary's wish to restore the religious 
 houses, but this does not appear to have been done except in 
 the single case of Kilmainham. Oswald Massingberd, who 
 during the Puritan ascendency had led a wandering life in 
 the woods, was appointed Prior by Pole, and the nomination 
 was confirmed by the Queen. Massingberd was sworn of the 
 Council, and assumed the position of his predecessors ; but 
 he seems to have had no belief in the stability of the new 
 system. He gave long leases and sold all that was saleable, 
 and he took no thought for the morrow. There appears to 
 have been no intention of specially favouring the obsolete 
 
 1 Four Masters, 1555 and 1556. Proceedings of Deputy and Council, 
 Feb. 25, 1557, in Caren. Dowling says Connel O'More was ' apud pontem 
 Leighlin cruci affixus.' Ware's Annals. 
 
 VOL. I. D D
 
 402 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 Sussex 
 makes an 
 abortive 
 
 westward ; 
 
 CHAP, order of St. John, for no attempt was made to restore it in 
 
 XVIII 
 
 - , 1- England ; but in Ireland it happened that the Crown had not 
 parted with the house and lands. In the same way, since it 
 could be done without offending vested interests, Mary re- 
 established the Benedictines at Westminster, the Carthusians 
 at Sheen, and the Observants at Greenwich. There are indi- 
 cations that she wished to examine titles closely, and to restore 
 the monks where defects appeared ; but she granted and 
 confirmed grants of abbey lands as freely as her father and 
 brother. Ninety years later, when the confederate Catholics 
 had military possession of the greater part of Ireland, and the 
 Nuncio Rinuccini was apparently all-powerful, the claim of 
 the regulars to their old possessions was met by the nobility 
 and gentry with anger and scorn. 1 
 
 When released from his Parliamentary duties, Sussex 
 marched westward against the O'Connors, who, under 
 
 expedition D onou g] lj had possessed themselves of Meelick Castle, on the 
 Shannon. The line of march lay through Offaly, by Killeigh, 
 Ballyboy, and Cloghan, no opposition being offered by the 
 O'Molloys or O'Maddens. The Shannon was reached on the 
 third day. Clanricarde must have been in a tolerably peace- 
 ful state, for Athlone pursuivant seems to have had no diffi- 
 culty in going to Galway to seek ammunition and provisions. 
 Cannon were brought by water from Athlone and planted in 
 the grounds of the friary, on an island or peninsula on the 
 Galway side of the stream. The castle was summoned, and a 
 cautionary shot fired without effect. Next day the cannonade 
 began, and at the sixteenth shot a large piece of the 
 courtyard wall fell down. The O'Connors escaped by a 
 postern gate, and were proclaimed traitors. Clanricarde, 
 Thomond, O'Carroll, and other chiefs, came to pay their re- 
 spects to Sussex, and may well have laughed at the small 
 results achieved by the display of irresistible force. A garri- 
 
 1 Thomas Alen to Cecil, Dec. 18, 1558 ; Letters of Queen Mary, calen- 
 dared under 1557 (Nos. 63 and 64), and petitions (Nos. 65 and 66). For 
 grants of abbey-lands, see Morrin's Patent Rolls, passim. Mary's only 
 Irish Parliament (3 and 4 Phil, et Mar.), met June 1, 1557, in Dublin. 
 There were adjournments to Limerick and Drogheda. See Stuart's Armagh, 
 p. 244, and Rymer, Dec. 1, 1556.
 
 THE EEIGN OF MARY. 403 
 
 son was placed in the castle, and, hostages having been taken CHAP. 
 
 from the neighbouring clans, the army returned through Mac- , '-* 
 
 Coghlan's country, led by the chief himself. The Lord Deputy 
 had the pleasure of seeing the night lit up by fires which the 
 rebels kindled within a mile of his camp. The outlying 
 buildings at Philipstown were all burnt, and arrows shot into 
 the fort itself. Such was the practical outcome of a nine 
 days' expedition, during which, as the annalists say, it is not 
 easy to state or enumerate all that was destroyed. 1 
 
 An expedition into Ulster, undertaken three months later, and 
 had the same lame and impotent conclusion. The annalists i n to Ulster. 
 say compendiously that Armagh was burned twice in one 
 month by Thomas Sussex. His horsemen encamped in the 
 cathedral, and no enemy opposed the destroyer, who returned 
 after a week, to Dundalk only to hear that Shane O'Neill 
 was burning and plundering within four miles of the town. 
 Being pursued, Shane retreated to his woods, whither those 
 who knew the country declined to follow him. Sussex then 
 returned to Dublin ; the Queen being richer by a few cows, 
 and Sir James Garland poorer by the village which O'Neill 
 had burned. 2 
 
 Not much impressed by the late invasion, the O'Connors The 
 who had escaped from Meelick stationed themselves at Leap districts 
 
 Castle, about which there had been so much fighting in * t . 11 , 1 , 
 
 disturbed 
 
 bygone days. Sussex took the castle without trouble, but 
 Donough again escaped by the speed of his horse, and the 
 stronghold was seized by O'Carroll as soon as the army had 
 left. Sidney afterwards made two separate inroads into the 
 same district. O'Molloy was proclaimed a traitor, and every- 
 thing destroyed. It is not easy to see how there could be 
 anything combustible left in the devoted country. The 
 O'Carrolls were also engaged about this time in opposition 
 to the Government, and in support of the O'Mores and 
 O'Connors, and the annalists are again at a loss to enumerate 
 
 1 July 1557 ; Journal by Sussex of that date in Carero ; Four Masters, 
 1557. 
 
 2 October ; Four Masters, 1557. 
 
 n D 2
 
 404 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 (RAP. the preys and slaughter which were made from the Shannon 
 *- . '-" to the Nore. 1 
 
 War A local war of considerable importance took place this 
 
 O'Neills year between the O'Neills and O'Donnells. Manus, the old 
 CTDonnelis. c ^ e ^ f Tyrconnel, had been kept a prisoner for the last two 
 years by his son Calvagh, who assumed the leadership. This 
 claim was disputed by his brother Hugh, who, with his im- 
 mediate adherents, had deserted to Shane O'Neill. Shane 
 was delighted at the opportunity of interfering, and declared 
 that not one cow should escape, though the O'Donnells should 
 carry away their cattle into Leinster or Munster. He him- 
 self would in future be the sole King of Ulster. Shane 
 pitched his camp at Carriglea, near Strabane, just above the 
 junction of the Finn and the Mourne. It was more a fair 
 than an encampment, and the time was gaily passed in buy- 
 ing, and no doubt in drinking wine and mead, as well as fine 
 clothes and merchandise. Calvagh, who lay five miles off 
 with a few followers, sent two trusty spies to the camp, who 
 mingled boldly with the throng of camp followers and soldiers 
 belonging to many different clans. In front of Shane's tent 
 they found a great central fire, and a huge torch as thick as 
 a man's body blazing brightly. Sixty gallowglasses with 
 their axes, and as many Scots, with heavy broadswords drawn, 
 stood ready to guard the chief. When the time came for 
 serving out supper, the spies claimed their share with the 
 rest, and received a helmet full of meal and a corresponding 
 quantity of butter. Not staying to make cakes, they carried 
 back the trophy to Calvagh, who immediately got his men 
 under arms. He had but two companies of the MacSweeney 
 gallowglasses and thirty horsemen. No look-out was appa- 
 rently kept at the camp, which they entered at once. There 
 they had little to do but to kill till their arms were tired, the 
 deficiency of force being much more than counterbalanced by 
 the totally unprepared state of the O'Neills. Shane, whose 
 reputation for courage is not high, slipped out at the back of 
 his tent with only two companions, leaving his men to their 
 fate. The three fugitives threaded the passes of the neigh- 
 1 Four Masters. This was towards the end of 1557.
 
 THE REIGN OF MAEY. 405 
 
 bouring mountains, and passed the Finn, the Deel, and the CHAP. 
 Derg by swimming. At Termonamongan, near the latter , '-* 
 river, Shane bought a horse, and never rested till he reached 
 the neighbourhood of Clogher. Calvagh remained in posses- 
 sion of the camp, and his men spent the rest of the night in 
 drinking the wine which the O'Neills had provided for them- 
 selves. The extent of the plunder may be estimated from 
 the fact that Con, Calvagh's young son, who had given up 
 his horse to his father and fought on foot, now had eighty 
 steeds for his share, including a celebrated charger of Shane's 
 called the Eagle's Son. 1 
 
 Sussex had not been very long in Ireland before he asked Sidney, 
 for a holiday, and he was allowed to spend Christmas at Justice. 
 home ; Curwin and Sidney, and afterwards Sidney only, 
 being appointed Lords Justices. War had been declared with 
 France at midsummer, and one of the first letters received 
 by the new governor announced the loss of Calais, and the 
 Queen's vain hope of recovering it. In the storm of St. 
 Quentin and the defence of Guisnes, English soldiers had 
 shown that they were made of the same stuff as the victors of 
 Agincourt, but the war was unpopular. Mary's subjects felt 
 that they were sacrificed to Philip, and this jealousy of Spain 
 both caused the fall of Calais and prevented its recovery. 
 But the national vanity was sorely hurt, and Sidney thought 
 it a good opportunity to point out that James MacDonnell 
 was expected in Ulster with many French and Scots allies, 
 and that the natives would join him or fall upon the Pale, 
 which was itself heartily sick of English rule, of soldiers at 
 free quarters, and of purveyors, who paid, if they paid at all, 
 something very much less than market prices. The army 
 was reduced to a little over 1,000 men, and the people of the 
 Pale, though well disposed, could afford no effective help. 
 Credit was extinct, and the bad money caused great misery. 
 Yet even bad coin was scarce. ' Help us, my lord,' he wrote 
 openly to Sussex, ' help us to money at this pinch, though 
 it be as base as counters.' 
 
 Men, money, and provisions were alike wanting, and the 
 1 Four Masters, 1557.
 
 406 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP, 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Hatred of 
 
 ment. 
 
 outlook was as dark as could be. Desmond proposed that 
 the Queen should send special commissioners, independent 
 of the Government, to inquire into the state of Ireland, and 
 point out means of reformation. He himself had perhaps 
 sinned through ignorance, and he thought justice and fair 
 dealing more likely to do the work of civilisation than a new 
 conquest. ' We neither think it meet, nor intend,' answered 
 Mary, with a touch of her father's humour, ' to make any 
 new conquest of our own, nor to use any force when justice 
 may be showed.' She proposed to do all that was necessary 
 by fair means. 1 
 
 Sidney's fears of foreign complications were not unfounded. 
 ^ e na ^ no sn ip ^ war at n * s disposal, and he feared that 
 Dublin might be blockaded. George Paris was in France, 
 declaring that the wild Irish were quite ready to transfer 
 their allegiance, and Sidney had reason to believe that Kil- 
 dare was playing his hereditary game. There can be no 
 doubt that this great nobleman, whose estates lay between 
 the capital and the disturbed midland districts, was a thorn 
 in the side of each successive governor. It was thought he 
 wanted to be Deputy himself, and all the principal lawyers 
 in Dublin had a retaining fee from him. William Piers, 
 Constable of Carrickfergus, the vigilant guardian of the 
 North, was told by one of his men who was present, that 
 Sorley Boy MacDonnell, in the careless after-supper hour, said 
 plainly ' that Englishmen had no right to Ireland, and they 
 would never trust Englishmen more, but would trust the Earl 
 of Kildare, " who," quoth Sorley, " hath more right to the 
 country. . . ." The nature of these people is they will speak 
 what is in their hearts when the drink is in their heads.' 
 The love of claret, inherent both in Scottish and Irish chiefs, 
 tended to keep up constant communication with France. 
 The hereditary hatred of England might at any moment 
 counterbalance the jealousy which Scotland felt for the French 
 regent and king matrimonial, and an invasion of Ireland might 
 
 1 Lord Justice Sidney and Council to the Privy Council, Feb. 8, 1558 ; 
 Desmond to the Queen, Feb. 5 and Feb. 23, and her answer, April 19 ; 
 Sidney to Sussex, Feb. 26, and to the Queen, March 1.
 
 THE EEIGN OF MARY. 407 
 
 seem less dangerous than that from which the caution of the CHAP. 
 Scots lords had just saved England. The recollection of -- , '-^ 
 Dundalk was not so fresh as that of Flodden. 1 
 
 Lady Tyrone had been closely imprisoned, apparently by Attempts 
 Shane, for urging her husband to hold fast to his allegiance, ciliation. 
 ( I will not,' says Sidney's informant, ' you make this known 
 to the Primate, or Kildare, or any Geraldine in Ireland.' To 
 the Queen the Lord Justice wrote that the coast was infested 
 by hostile cruisers, that he dreaded a French attack on castles 
 which could not resist artillery, and that he could scarcely 
 be answerable for the defence of the country. The effect of 
 Sussex's advice while at Court may be gathered from the num- 
 ber of letters which Mary addressed to great men in Ireland. 
 Tyrone and O'Reilly were thanked for past services, the 
 former being charged to help the Deputy with a contingent, 
 and the latter to dismiss the Scots in his pay. Calvagh 
 O'Donnell was reminded of his duty, and encouraged to hope 
 for a peerage and other rewards. Barnaby Fitzpatrick, whose 
 courtly education was not forgotten by his friend's sister, was 
 exhorted to behave like one who regards the service and weal 
 of his natural country. His neighbour O'Carroll might 
 look forward to a peerage for life if he would give help in 
 season. Desmond and Clanricarde were directed to put 
 Thomond in possession of his earldom and estates, the care 
 of the coast being particularly recommended to the former. 
 Desmond and Ormonde were thanked, and advised to refer 
 all their differences to the arbitration of the Lord Deputy and 
 Council. 2 
 
 The Queen did not limit her care for Ireland to writing A spirited 
 letters. She doubled the army ; 800 men being sent over, 
 and directions given for raising 200 more in Ireland. Every 
 foot soldier was to receive twopence a day, and every horseman 
 threepence a day, in addition to the old wages. The Deputy's 
 salary was raised from 1,OOOL to 1,500Z., with the usual 
 allowances, and he was directed to move constantly to and 
 
 1 Piers to Curwin, Feb. 14, 1558 ; Sussex to Boxoll, June 8 ; Articles by 
 an Irishman, 1558 (No. 15). 
 
 2 The Queen's letters are all dated March 12.
 
 408 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVIII. 
 
 Sussex 
 returns to 
 Ireland. 
 1558. 
 
 The 
 
 O'Connors 
 still 
 
 trouble- 
 some. 
 Sussex 
 goes to 
 Monster. 
 
 fro, residences being maintained for him at Roscommon, 
 Athlone, Monasterevan, Maryborough, Philipstown, Ferns, 
 Enniscorthy, and Carlow. The O'Mores and O'Connors were 
 to be still further chastised, and as much as possible effected 
 against the Scots. In most other matters the former instruc- 
 tions were to remain in force. The restored Deputy was not 
 expected to make bricks without straw, more than 200Z. hav- 
 ing been spent on the carriage of munitions to Chester for 
 the Irish service. 1 
 
 Sussex left London on March 21, and we are told that he 
 travelled post ; but he did not leave Holy head till the 26th 
 of the following month. The actual passage only occupied 
 a few hours. Detraction, the usual lot of Irish governors, 
 followed him on his journey, his accuser being no less a per- 
 son than Primate Dowdall, who was summoned over to tell 
 his own story, and who died in London some three months 
 before the Queen. Sidney and his Council declared that the 
 Archbishop was actuated by personal malice, and that there 
 was no foundation for his statements. There was, however, 
 some excuse for a prelate who saw his metropolis and three 
 churches burned by the viceregal army. Sussex believed 
 that Dowdall was in league with his predecessor. Were it 
 not, he said, for his set purpose to serve the Queen, he might 
 find occupation enough in avoiding the nets spread on all 
 sides, the catch line whereof he could not prove but by looking 
 into Mr. St. Leger's bosom. 2 
 
 Sussex had left Leix and Offaly in confusion, and he re- 
 turned to find them in the same state, his brother, Sir Henry 
 Radecliffe, being actually besieged in Maryborough by the 
 natives, under Donogh and another O'Connor, accompanied 
 by Richard Oge, one of the bastard Geraldines who had so 
 long been troublesome. The garrison beat off their assailants 
 after a hard fight, Richard Oge falling by the hand of Francis 
 Cosby ; but Donough again escaped. The first matter which 
 
 1 See instructions in Carem, March 20 ; Estimate for munitions, 
 March 13. 
 
 2 Machyn's Diary; Sussex to Privy Council, April 7, with inclosures; 
 Dowdall to Heath, Nov. 17, 1557.
 
 THE KEIGN OF MARY. 409 
 
 demanded the personal attention of Sussex after his return CHAP. 
 
 XVIII. 
 was the state of Thomond, where Sir Donnell More O'Brien . '-* 
 
 who had slain his brother, the second Earl, five years 
 before was now disputing the title of his young nephew 
 Connor, whose principal castles he held. Ormonde, whose 
 aunt was the young lord's mother, was of course interested 
 in his favour, and the same reason was enough to make 
 Desmond incline to Sir Donnell. It became necessary for 
 Sussex himself to go in force and establish some kind of 
 order. Taking the familiar line through Offaly and Ely, 
 Leap Castle being abandoned at their approach, the Lord 
 Deputy and his troops, strengthened on the route by the 
 adhesion of Barnaby Fitzpatrick and a considerable force, 
 marched across North Tipperary by Newport and Cahircon- 
 lish to Limerick, which was reached on the seventh day after 
 leaving Dublin. At a point a few miles from the city Or- 
 monde and his brother Edmund appeared with a large party. 
 The young lord of Cahir, Gerald the heir of Desmond, 
 with all the forces of his house, MacCarthy More, who 
 received the honour of knighthood and a gold chain and 
 gilded spurs, and William Burke, chief of the district, joined 
 on the same day. At the gate of Limerick the mayor and 
 aldermen in scarlet robes delivered to Sussex the keys and 
 mace, which he returned to the mayor. With the civic in- 
 signia and sword of state borne before him, the Lord Deputy 
 rode to the door of the cathedral, where the Marian bishop, 
 Hugh Lacy, met him, and where he was censed and sprinkled 
 with holy water. Sussex kissed the cross both here and at 
 the rood, where the same ceremonies were repeated, and 
 knelt devoutly at the high altar while the Te Deum was 
 sung. Salutes were fired after church. 
 
 The Lord Deputy rested ten days at Limerick, during The Dea- 
 which time was performed the rite of ' bishoping ' Desmond's 
 youngest child, the old Earl being present himself. This was 
 a first or second baptism, for the little Fitzgerald was not old 
 enough to be confirmed, and the Lord Deputy stood sponsor 
 and gave his god-child his own name, and presented him at 
 the same time with a gold chain. The career of James
 
 410 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVIII. 
 
 O'Shaugh- 
 nessy. 
 
 Expedition 
 against the 
 Hebridean 
 Scots. 
 It ends in 
 failure. 
 
 Sussex Fitzgerald thus auspiciously begun was destined to 
 end in a traitor's death on the scaffold. 
 
 Sir Donnell O'Brien failed to appear, and was thrice pro- 
 claimed traitor at Limerick. Sussex then issued forth into 
 Thomond. Clare Castle and Ennis made no resistance, but 
 a few cannon shot had to be fired at Bunratty before it sur- 
 rendered. The Earl of Thomond, having been placed in pos- 
 session of his country, was sworn upon the sacraments and 
 on the relics of the Church with bell, book, and candle, to 
 forsake the name of O'Brien, and to be true to the King and 
 Queen. All the freeholders of the district swore in the same 
 solemn way to obey him as their captain. 
 
 On his journey westward from Limerick, Sussex spent a 
 night with O'Shaughnessy at Gort, where he ' dined so wor- 
 shipfully as divers wondered at it, for the like was not seen 
 in an Irishman's house.' At Galway he was received with the 
 same civic, military, and religious ceremonies as at Limerick, 
 and, after staying four or five days, returned by Athenry and 
 Meelick into Offaly, and thence to Dublin. 1 
 
 Sidney's apprehensions were partially realised, for James 
 MacDonnell landed before Sussex with 600 islemen and two 
 guns. But Carrickfergus had been reinforced, and the greater 
 part of the Scots returned to their own country. Colla Mac- 
 Donnell, one of the chief's five brothers and the resident 
 guardian of his clan's Irish interests, died soon afterwards, 
 and, his brother Angus having refused to take his place, 
 Sorley Boy, the youngest and ablest of the family, filled the 
 vacant post. It was decided to attack the Redshanks in their 
 own islands, and a fleet assembled at Lambay from which 
 great things were evidently expected. Sussex urged despatch ; 
 but the delays of the supply service were inveterate, and 
 nothing was done for nearly three weeks. The Lord Deputy 
 landed first in Cantire, and began operations by burning James 
 MacDonnell's ' chief house called Sandell, a fair pile and a 
 strong.' 
 
 He boasted that in three days he burned everything from 
 
 1 This tour is in Carem, i. 274-277; the date in the end of July 
 1558.
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 411 
 
 sea to sea in a district twenty miles long, and this without CHAP. 
 
 XVI 1 1. 
 meeting any opposition worth notice. Isla was the great , ^ 
 
 object of the expedition ; but the wind was unfavourable, and 
 the incendiary's work could be carried on elsewhere. Arran 
 was accordingly devastated, the army dividing into two, so as to 
 make the damage more complete. Isla being still inaccessible. The fleet 
 the same fate was intended for Bute, but just as the boats Danger 
 were about to be manned a sudden gale sprung up, ' and that 
 being then the weather shore the wind wheeled suddenly and 
 made it the lee shore, whereby we being very near the shore 
 were forced to ride it out for life and death in such a place as 
 if any tackle had slipped or broken the ship whose tackle had 
 so slipped or broken must needs have perished.' The cable 
 of a Dublin transport parted, and she foundered with a loss 
 of twenty-eight men. Most of the small vessels got into 
 harbour, 'but the masters of H.M.'s ships I think thought 
 scorn thereof.' The fine gentlemen who commanded men-of- 
 war in those days were unwilling to take advice from the old 
 seamen who acted as their sailing masters or pilots. With loss 
 of boats, running rigging, and anchors, the fleet escaped, and 
 the captains, whose courage was * somewhat cooled,' were con- 
 tent after this to be controlled by their professional associates. 
 
 The poor little Cumbrays having been ravaged, the dis- and is 
 abled vessels were just able to reach Carrickfergus after a retire. C 
 dead beat against a stiff north-wester. Sussex landed, and was 
 nearly lost in regaining his flag-ship, the ' Mary Willoughby.' 
 A council of war was then held, and it was found that there 
 were provisions for only three weeks more, and that damages 
 could not be properly repaired in Ireland. Only three ships 
 were at all fit for service ; and, moreover, ' the new bark is a 
 ship of such length and unwieldliness in steerage as she is not 
 to be ventured among the isles in such stormy weather, where 
 there be many deep and narrow channels and strong tides.' 
 It was feared that the ships might be becalmed or otherwise 
 delayed in the isles, there was now no spare tackle in case of 
 future storms, and it was by no means impossible that the 
 crews and troops might starve. The hope of visiting Isla was 
 therefore abandoned, and Sussex landed the soldiers with the
 
 412 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVIII. 
 
 Activity of 
 Sussex. 
 He leaves 
 Ireland at 
 Mary's 
 death. 
 
 less ambitious intention of attacking the Scots in the Route. 
 An English fleet and army carefully equipped and commanded 
 by many gallant gentlemen had just succeeded in burning 
 some barren islands, not without considerable loss to them- 
 selves, and had returned disabled without striking a blow. 
 Sussex was conscious of his failure, and begged the Queen 
 ' not to impute any lack in me, but to consider that whatever 
 I wrote of was feasible, is feasible, and shall with grace of 
 God be put in execution with a great deal more than I wrote 
 of,' &c. The expedition is not even noticed in the Scots cor- 
 respondence of the time, nor was anything done to retrieve 
 matters on land. Out of 1,100 soldiers, but 400 were fit for 
 service, the rest being prostrated by illness caused by the foul 
 water on board ship. 1 
 
 Want of activity at least could not be charged against 
 Sussex, who carried out strictly the spirit of the Queen's in- 
 structions, which desired him to be constantly on the move. 
 He was at Leighlin a few days after his return from Scotland, 
 and then returned to Dublin, where the affairs of Munster 
 occupied his attention. The old Earl of Desmond was dead, 
 and his son Gerald, destined to a disturbed life and a miserable 
 death, succeeded to the splendid but troublesome inheritance 
 of the Southern Geraldines. He promised fair, and was 
 knighted by the Lord Deputy's hands, who went to Waterford 
 to receive his homage and to admit him to the earldom. Sir 
 Maurice Fitzgerald of Decies, who ruled about one half of the 
 county of Waterford, also made his submission, promising to 
 obey the law and make others obey it, to give his help to all 
 judges, commissioners, and tax-gatherers, and to secure free 
 admission for all to the markets at Waterford, Dungarvan, and 
 elsewhere. The news of Mary's death reached Ireland soon 
 after this, and Sussex, who had already obtained leave to go 
 to England, hurried away to pay his court to the new sovereign. 
 He left Ireland tolerably quiet. 2 
 
 1 For the expedition to the isles, see Sussex to the Queen, Oct. 3, Oct. 6, 
 and Oct. 31, 1558. 
 
 2 Journeys by the Earl of Sussex, July and NOT. 1558, in Car em ; oath 
 of Gerald Earl of Desmond, Nov. 28.
 
 THE REIGN OF MARY. 413 
 
 Mary did all she could to efface her father's anti-Roman CHAP. 
 
 XVIII 
 policy ; but no Irish persecution took [place. This may have - , '-* 
 
 been less from the Queen's want of will than from the insig- 
 
 nificance of the Protestants in Ireland. It is said that many Marian 
 
 persecution 
 people fled from the western parts of England in hope of in Ireland. 
 
 sharing the comparative immunity enjoyed by the small 
 Protestant congregation in Dublin. One story seems to show 
 that this had attracted attention, and that Dublin would not 
 have long escaped. It rests on the testimony of Henry Usher, 
 one of the fathers of Trinity College and afterwards Archbishop 
 of Armagh, and was repeated by his more famous nephew 
 James Usher, and by other public men of repute. Henry 
 Usher died at a great age in 1613, and was Treasurer of St. 
 Patrick's as early as 1573. In the absence of anything to 
 rebut it, such evidence can hardly be rejected. The story is 
 that a Protestant citizen of Dublin named John Edmonds had 
 a sister living at Chester married to one Mattershed, who 
 kept an inn or lodging-house in which Cole, Dean of St. Paul's, 
 slept when on his way to purge the Irish Church. ' Here,' 
 said Cole, in the hearing of his hostess, ' is a commission that 
 shall lash the heretics of Ireland.' The good woman watched 
 her opportunity, possessed herself of the doctor's wallet, and 
 substituted a pack of cards for the commission a service for 
 which she received a pension of 40Z. from Queen Elizabeth. 
 On reaching Dublin, Cole went straight to the Castle, where 
 the Lord Deputy, who had just returned from his Scotch ex- 
 pedition, was sitting in council. Cole declared his business 
 in a set speech ; but when the secretary opened his wallet he 
 found only the cards, with the knave of clubs uppermost. 
 Sussex had conformed to the dominant creed, but had probably 
 no wish to be a persecutor, and may have rejoiced at Cole's 
 discomfiture. ' Let us have another commission,' he said, 
 f and we will shuffle the cards in the meanwhile.' A new 
 scourge for the heretics was despatched, but before it came to 
 hand Mary's unhappy career had closed. 1 
 
 ' Ware's Life of Browne. In their instructions to the Lord Deputy and 
 Council, Philip and Mary say : ' Lord Cardinal Poole, being sent unto us 
 from the Pope's Holiness and the said See Apostolic Legate of our said
 
 414 
 
 IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XVIII. 
 
 % 
 
 Death of 
 Mary and 
 Reginald 
 Pole. 
 
 The weak enthusiast who, far more than Gardiner or 
 Bonneiy must share the responsibility for the persecution with 
 which this Queen's name is inseparably connected, was not 
 long divided from her in death. Reginald Pole survived his 
 kinswoman some twenty-two hours, and almost the last sounds 
 to reach his ears were the cheers with which a people that 
 breathed freely once more greeted the accession of Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 realms, mindeth in brief time to despatch into Ireland certain his com- 
 missioners and officials to visit the clergy and other members of the said 
 realm of Ireland,' &c., Careiv, April 28, 1556.
 
 INDEX 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 ABB 
 
 ABBEYLEIX, 399 
 
 Abertivy, 41, 42 
 
 Adamnan, St., 6, 15 
 
 Adare, 191, 218, 229, 267 
 
 Adrian IV., Pope (Nicholas Break- 
 speare), his bull, 37-39, 49, 260 
 
 Aedh, or Hugh, King, 29 
 
 -33neas Sylvius ; see Pius II. 
 
 Agard, Thomas, Vice-Treasurer 
 and Treasurer of the Mint, 207, 
 208, 319, 320 
 
 Aghmacarte monastery, 314 
 
 Agricola, 1, 2 
 
 Aidan, St., 6 
 
 Alban's, St., 34 
 
 Alemand, L. A., his history of Irish 
 monasticism, 314-316, 318 
 
 Alen, or Allen, John, Archbishop 
 of Dublin (1529-1534), 163; 
 murdered, 165, 166, 171, 172, 
 290-296 
 
 Alen, Sir John, Master of the Bolls 
 (1533-1538), Lord Chancellor 
 (1538-1546 and 1548-1550), 156, 
 158-160, 162, 164, 171, 193, 195, 
 208, 212, 233, 235-237, 244, 259, 
 267, 283-285, 304, 305, 313, 320, 
 335, 337-339, 345, 346, 348, 357, 
 358, 385 
 
 Alexander II., Pope, 33 
 - III., Pope, 37 49, 54 
 
 Aline, Strongbow's daughter, 50 
 
 Allen, Bog of, 176 
 
 All Saints', Dublin, 321 
 
 Ambrose, St., 366 
 
 Amlaf, 18, 19; and see Olaf. 
 
 Andreas, Bernard, his works on 
 Henry VII., 116, 117 
 
 Andrew's, St., in Scotland, 306 
 
 in Dublin, 302 
 
 ATE 
 
 Angareta, mother of Giraldus Cam- 
 
 brensis, 41 
 Angevins, 11 
 
 Annaghdown ; see Enaghdune. 
 Anne, Queen, 197 
 see Boleyn. 
 
 St., 386 
 Anschar, St., 31 
 Anselm, St., 34, 35 
 Antrim, 66, 77, 237, 272 
 Aquitaine, 40, 45 
 Arabic coins in Ireland, 30 
 Ardagh, see of, 292-295 
 Ardee, 222, 240 
 
 Ardfert Abbey, 51 
 
 Ardfinnan, 47 
 
 Ardglass, 212 
 
 Ards, in Down, 263, 265, 376; 
 
 priory of, 386 * 
 
 Ardscull, 66 
 Argyle, 67, 134, 272, 273, 280-282, 
 
 359 
 
 Arklow, 72, 146, 156 
 Armagh, 237, 263, 403 
 
 County, 56 
 
 church, abbacy, and see of, 
 14, 17, 18, 25, 34, 45, 104, 289, 
 367, 369, 386 ; for Archbishops 
 (called by the Irish Successors 
 of St. Patrick), see Cellach, 
 O'Toole, Octavian, Kite, Cromer, 
 Dowdall, Wauchop, Goodacre. 
 
 Artane, 165 
 
 Aryan race, 11 
 
 Ascham, Koger, 337 
 
 Aslaby, John, 188 
 
 Assaroe, 239 
 
 Athassel Abbey, 70, 73, 99, 291, 
 
 319 
 Athboy, 115, 222
 
 416 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 ATH 
 
 Ath-Cliath (the Celtic name for 
 
 Dublin), 34 
 Athelstane, 21, 32 
 Athenry, 69, 78, 122, 228,300, 321, 
 
 410 
 Athlone, 17, 60, 77, 84, 125, 334, 
 
 374, 402, 408 
 Athole, Earl of, 271 
 Athy, 54, 88, 130, 167, 200, 328 
 Audeley, Thomas Lord, Lord 
 
 Chancellor of England, 178, 179, 
 
 196, 197, 253 
 Aughrim, 228 
 Augustine, St., Canons Kegular of, 
 
 J9, 314, 317 
 Augustinian Hermits or Austin 
 
 Friars, 289, 300, 319, 320, 392 
 Aylmer, Sir Gerald, Chief Justice 
 
 of the King's Bench (1535-1559), 
 
 215, 223, 233, 237, 303, 378, 384, 
 
 385 
 Aylmer, Kichard, of Lyons in Kil- 
 
 dare, 223 
 
 BACON, Francis, 105, 111, 116 
 Bagenal, Sir Nicolas, Marshal of 
 the Army (1546-1553. and 1565- 
 1590), 332, 353, 364, 368, 373 
 
 Sir Ralph, 357, 361 
 Baldoyle, 19 
 
 Bale, John, Bishop of Ossory 
 (1552-1553), 299, 368, 379,380- 
 383, 386-390 
 
 Balgrimn, 177 
 
 Ballihogan, 305 
 
 Ballinaclogh, 224 
 
 BallinskeUigs, 188 
 
 Ballinure,'251 
 
 Ballyboy, 402 
 
 Ballycastle, in Antrim, 272, 361 
 
 Ballydrohid, 317 
 
 Ballyhack, 372 
 
 Ballymore Eustace, 91, 129, 238, 
 326 
 
 Balrath, 119 
 
 Balrothery, 123 
 
 Baltimore, 88, 351 
 
 Baltinglass, 130, 251 
 
 Viscount, Sir Thomas Eustace, 
 Baron of Kilcullen, 161, 163, 
 170, 178, 254, 344 
 
 Banagher, 228, 335 
 Bangor, in Down, 17 
 Bann River, 266, 351, 398 
 Bannockburn, 65 
 Bannow, 42, 372 
 Barbaro, a Venetian, 350 
 Barbarossa, 39 
 
 BEL 
 
 Barkley, Lord, 198 
 Barnesmore Gap, 140, 141 
 Barnewall, Sir Patrick, 249, 301, 
 
 312, 320 
 
 Barne walls, the, 76 
 Baron, Milo, Bishop of Ossory, 
 
 (1527-1551), 297, 305 
 Barretts, the. 71 
 Barrow River, 113, 130, 167, 264, 
 
 329, 340 
 Barry, David, Archdeacon of Cork, 
 
 118 
 
 Gerald ; gee Giraldus. 
 - William de, 41 
 
 Barrymore, Barons of, and Vis- 
 counts from 1405, 76 
 
 John, Viscount, 76, 118, 191, 
 242, 268, 332, 333 
 
 William, Viscount, murdered in 
 1499, 118 
 
 Barry Oge of Kinalea, 242, 268, 
 329 
 
 Barry Roe, 242, 268 
 
 Barrys, the, 41, 64, 76, 242, 268. 
 In the 16th century they were 
 all settled in the County of 
 Cork. 
 
 Bartholomew's, St., in London, 
 291 
 
 Basel, 389 
 
 Basilia, Strongbow's sister, 60 
 
 Basilius, 308 
 
 Basnet, Edward, last Dean of St. 
 Patrick's of the old foundation, 
 358, 368 
 
 Bath Abbey, 198 
 
 Bathe, James, Chief Baron, 385 
 
 Bearhaven, or Berehaven, 351 
 
 Beaton, Cardinal, 271, 273, 276, 
 285 
 
 Beaumanoir, 217 
 
 Beaumaris, 169 
 
 Becket, Thomas, 48, 86 
 
 Bective Abbey, 392 
 
 Bedell, William, Bishop of Kil- 
 more, 350 
 
 Bedford, Jasper, Duke of, Lord- 
 Lieutenant, 100, 102, 111 
 
 Belfast, 125, 360, 364, 376-378, 398 
 
 Belfast Lough, 143, 281 
 
 Belgard, near Dublin, 1 42 
 
 Bellahoe, battle of, 240 
 
 Bellingham, Sir Edward, Viceroy 
 (1548-1549), 88, 286; sent to 
 Ireland with troops, 326 ; Lord 
 Deputy, 327; his ceaseless ac- 
 tivity, 328 ; his treatment of the 
 disloyal, 329, 330; he projects 
 the town of Maryborough, 331 ;
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 417 
 
 his dealings with Galway, Lime- 
 rick, and Drogheda, 331 ; with 
 Dublin, 332; he routs the 
 O'Connors, 332 ; his dissatisfac- 
 tion with Desmond, 333 ; esta- 
 blishes a garrison at Athlone, 
 
 334 ; frees the Pale from rebels, 
 
 335 ; his dealings with the cur- 
 rency, 336 ; his impolitic self- 
 assertion, 337 ; his treatment of 
 the Irish, 338 ; he cannot agree 
 with his council, 338 ; his jea- 
 lousy of the Ormondes, 337, 
 339 ; he seizes Desmond, 339 ; 
 he establishes a garrison at 
 Leighlin Bridge, 340 ; a Protes- 
 tant, 341 ; well informed, 342 ; 
 his dealings with Primate Dow- 
 dall in furtherance of the royal 
 supremacy, 343 ; the darling of 
 the Protestant party, 343-344 ; 
 recalled, 344 ; his death and 
 character, 344-345, 348, 349, 
 350 ; his fort at Athlone, 374 
 
 Benbulben, 141 
 Benedictines, 314 
 Berehaven, 351 
 Berengaria, Queen, 58 
 Berengarius, 33 
 Be'gagni, Francis de, 181 
 Bermingham, Baron of Athecry, 
 228 
 
 John de, Earl of Louth, 67 
 
 Patrick, Chief Justice of the 
 King's Bench, 150, 155, 199 
 
 Richard de, 69 
 
 William, created Baron of Car- 
 bury in Kildare, 226, 258, 320 
 
 Berminghams, the, 69, 71, 213 
 
 Bermingham's Tower, 233 
 
 Bernard, St., 15, 314, 315 
 
 Berners, William, 208, 230 
 
 Berwick, 373 
 
 Betagh, Robert, 241 
 
 Bicknor, Alexander de, Archbishop 
 
 of Dublin, 322 
 Bicton, James, 358 
 Bigot, Hugh, 63 
 Birr, 157, 224, 226, 227 
 Biscayans, 188 
 Bissett, or Missett family, 71, 
 
 271 
 Blackwater River in Ulster, 237 
 
 - Munster, 242 
 Blessington, 326 
 Blois, 252 
 Blore Heath, 90 
 Bobbio, 6 
 Bodkin, Christopher, Archbishop 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 BRO 
 
 of Tuam (1537-1562), 228, 292, 
 
 294, 305, 334 
 
 Body, William, 200, 202, 203 
 Boleyn family, how related to the 
 
 Butlers, 126, 142 
 
 Mary, 149 
 
 Queen Anne, proposed as a 
 wife for Ormonde, 149, 156, 190, 
 195, 196, 394, 395 
 
 Sir Thomas, 125, 126, 149, 156 
 - Sir William, 126 
 
 Bolger, Barnaby, 389 
 
 Bonner, Edmund, Bishop of Lon- 
 don, 306, 395, 413 
 
 Boulogne, 277, 335 
 
 Bourbon, the Constable, 181 
 
 Boyle, 125, 317 
 
 Boyne River, 85, 213 
 
 Boys, James, 175 
 
 Brabazon, Sir William, Vice-Trea- 
 surer (1534-1553), Lord Justice 
 (1543, 1545, and 1549), 176- 
 178, 193, 194, 196, 197, 199, 205- 
 207, 209, 213, 218, 232-233,235- 
 237, 244, 254,268, 275, 304, 305, 
 320, 346, 377 
 
 Brackland, 206, 213 
 
 Braose, William de, 60, 63 
 
 Brasier, Richard, first auditor of 
 the Irish Exchequer (1547- 
 1550), 344 
 
 Bray Head, 130 
 
 Breakspeare, Nicholas ; see Adrian 
 IV. 
 
 Brefny, 39; see O'Rourke and 
 O'Reilly. 
 
 Brehons, 3-5, 7, 12, 143, 186, 221, 
 273, 277, 291 
 
 Brereton, Andrew, 353 
 
 John, 328, 332 
 
 Sir William, Lord Justice in 
 1540, 169-171, 173, 174, 243, 
 244, 247, 352 
 
 Brian Borumha, King of Ireland, 
 22-31, 33 
 
 Brictius, 36 
 
 Brigid, or Bride, St., 13, 294 
 
 Bristol, 147, 170, 359 
 
 Bristol Abbey, 198 
 
 Brito, 186 
 
 Erode, a pirate, 166, 169, 170, 173 
 
 Brodir, 26 
 
 Broet, Paschal, 308-310 
 
 Broke, Roger, 353 
 
 Brosna, River, 334 
 
 Broughton, Sir Thomas, 105 
 
 Browne, George, Archbishop of 
 Dublin '(1553-1555), 200, 207 
 208; his tour in the South, 2:!.~- 
 
 E E
 
 418 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 BRO 
 
 237, 255, 299 ; his quarrels with 
 Staples and others, 301-305, 
 311 ; his hatred of the Francis- 
 cans, 320; account of him, 322- 
 324, 341 ; his conference with 
 Dowdall, 354-357 ; his relations 
 with St. Leger, 357-358; with 
 Croft, 360, 378; with Dow- 
 dall, 367, 379; with Bale, 379 
 and 381 ; story of him told by 
 Harpsfield, 383 
 
 Browne, Mabel, Countess of 
 Kildare, 375 
 
 Sir Anthony, 216 
 Bruce, Edward, 66-68 
 
 Robert, 66-68, 272 
 Brunanburgh, 21 
 Brussels, 219, 390 
 
 Bryan, Sir Francis, Viceroy, Lord 
 Marshal of Ireland, 337 ; mar- 
 ried to Lady Ormonde, 337 ; 
 disliked by Bellingham, 337; 
 in practical command of the 
 Butler influence, 339 ; Lord 
 Justice after Bellingham's de- 
 parture, 345 ; his death under 
 suspicious circumstances, 346 
 
 Buhner, Sir John, 137, 138 
 
 Bunamargy, 300 
 
 Bunratty, 77, 300 
 
 Burgo, Hubert de, 6, 61 
 
 Burgundy, Margaret, Duchess of, 
 103, 104 
 
 Burkes, Bourkes, De Burghs, or 
 De Burgos ; see Mac William, 
 MacDavid, MacPhilbin, Mac- 
 Raymond, MacShoneen, Mac- 
 Walter, and FitzAdelm. 
 
 of Clanricarde, 75, 93, 120-122, 
 173, 227, 241, 256, 289, 300, 331 ; 
 see MacWilliam Uachtar and 
 Clanricarde. 
 
 or De Burghs, Earls of Clanri- 
 carde ; see Clanricarde. 
 
 Burke, or De Burgo, Rowland, 
 Bishop of Clonfert, 289, 294, 370 
 
 of Clanwilliam in Limerick, 
 227, 409 
 
 of Mayo ; see MacWilliam loch- 
 tar. 
 
 Sir William, 69 
 
 Richard, 61, 74 
 
 Earl of Ulster, 27 
 
 Ulick, of Clanricarde, son of the 
 first earl and captain during the 
 minority of the second, 333, 374 
 
 Burnell, John, 166, 177 
 Burnet, Bishop, 380 
 Burntchurch, 155 
 
 CAN 
 
 Bush River, 266, 398 
 
 Bute, 411 
 
 Butler, Edmund, Archbishop of 
 Cashel (1524-1561), natural son 
 of the eighth Earl of Ormonde, 
 183, 241, 255, 261 ; account of 
 him, 291 ; his oppressive conduct, 
 296 ; state of his monastery, 
 298 ; takes the oath of supre- 
 macy, 305 ; not a zealous re- 
 former, 343 
 
 Earls of Ormonde ; see Ormonde. 
 
 Lady Helen, daughter of the 
 eighth Earl of Ormonde, mar- 
 ried to Donogh O'Brien, second 
 Earl of Thomond, 191 
 
 Richard, son of the eighth Earl 
 of Ormonde, created Viscount 
 of Mountgarret; see Mountgarret. 
 
 Sir Edmund, first Baron of 
 Dunboyne ; see Dunboyne. 
 
 Sir Edmund, Viceroy in 1312 
 and 1314, 66, 70 
 
 Sir Thomas, first Baron of 
 Cahir ; see Cahir. 
 
 Thomas, Prior of Kilmainham, 
 89 
 
 Thomas, son of the eighth Earl 
 of Ormonde, 160, 225 
 
 Butleraboo, the Ormonde war- 
 cry, 112 
 
 Butlers, the, 64, origin of name, 
 72, 93, 125-127; and se Or- 
 monde, Ossory, Carrick, Mount- 
 garret, Dunboyne, and Cahir. 
 
 Butside, a pirate, 330 
 
 CADAMSTOWN, 334, 335 
 
 Cade, Jack, 90 
 
 Caesar, 301 
 
 Cahir, 182, 227, 258, 317 
 
 Sir Thomas Butler, first Baron 
 of, 189, 227, 236, 255, 276, 320, 
 393, 409 
 
 Cahirconlish, 409 
 
 Calais, 83, 335 
 
 Caledon, 154 
 
 Callan, 74, 189, 388 
 
 Cambridge, 384 
 
 Campbell, Lady Agnes, married to 
 James MacDonnell of Cantire 
 and Antrim, 273, 281 
 
 Campbells, the, 280, 282; ttArgyle. 
 
 Campeggio, Cardinal, 290 
 
 Camus, 182 
 
 Candolle, Francis de, 181 
 
 Canice's, St., 388, 389; tee Kil- 
 kenny.
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 419 
 
 CAN 
 
 Cannon, Thomas, 163 
 
 Canterbury, its connection with 
 Ireland, 32-36; the Prior had 
 lands in Ireland, 198, 389 
 
 Cantire, 410 
 
 Cantoke, name of, 64 
 
 Cantuarian succession, 35 
 
 Cantwell, William, 284, 285 
 
 Canute, 21, 32 
 
 Capel, Henry Lord, Lord Lieute- 
 nant in 1695, 101 
 
 Cappys, or Kate, a merchant, 2H9 
 
 Carbery, in Cork, 36, 124, 191, 218 
 
 Carbury, in Kildare, Baron of ; see 
 Bermingham. 
 
 Carew, Sir Peter, 390, 391 
 
 Carews, the, 41 
 
 Carlingford, 241, 398 
 
 Carlisle, 289 
 
 Carlow, 63, 65, 83, 167, 231, 235, 
 327, 340, 375, 408 
 
 - Castle, 111 
 
 County, 158 
 
 Carmelites, 114, 300, 319, 320, 340, 
 
 368, 380 
 
 Carrickbradagh, 237, 247 
 Carrick, Edmund Butler, Earl of, 
 
 72 
 
 on Suir, 72, 201 
 Carrickfergus, or Knockfergus, 59, 
 
 60, 66, 70, 122, 142, 143, 273, 
 
 281, 351, 361, 362, 378, 395, 398, 
 
 410, 411 
 Carrigogunnel, 60, 186, 192, 200, 
 
 203 
 
 Carrol, Lord of Ossory, 19 
 Cartier, Jacques, 219 
 Cartmel, 198 
 Casey, William, Protestant Bishop 
 
 of Limerick (1551-1556 and 
 
 1571-1591), 354, 392 
 Cashel, 47; synod, 48 and 314, 
 
 50, 66, 81, 193, 214, 242, 254, 
 
 265 
 
 - see of, 16, 291, 367, 369; see 
 Butler, Archbishop. 
 
 Castle Connell, 124 
 
 - Dermot, 54, 84, 120, 155, 156, 
 167 
 
 Island, 78 
 
 Jordan, 177, 251 
 
 Kevin, 253 
 Martyr, 76 
 
 Castleknock, 66 
 Castlemaine, 124 
 Castlereagh, 376 
 Castletown Roche, 76 
 Cavan, 262 
 Cavendish, William, 250 
 
 CLI 
 
 Cecil, William, afterwards Lord 
 Burghley, 326 
 
 Celestinus, Pope, 366 
 
 Cellach, or Celsus, Bishop or Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh (1106-1129), 
 34,35 
 
 Cerberus, 303 
 
 Challoner, John, Mayor of Dublin 
 in 1556, 397 
 
 Chamberlayne, name of, 222 
 
 Charlemagne, 172 
 
 Charles I., 209, 279 
 
 Charles V., Emperor and King of 
 Spain, 7, 136, 172, 173, 175; ne- 
 gotiates with Desmond, 1 84-186, 
 192, 219, 274 
 
 Charles VIII., King of France, 
 110 
 
 Chateaubriand, Governor of Brit- 
 tany, 212 
 
 Cheeke, Sir John, 390, 391 
 
 Chepstow, 41 
 
 Chester, 54, 128, 161, 408, 413 
 
 Christ Church, Dublin, 32, 385 
 
 Ciaran, St., 13, 296, 374 
 
 Cistercians, 16, 99, 267, 293, 314, 
 317, 318, 392 
 
 Citeaux, 315 
 
 Clairvaux, 314 
 
 Clandeboye (Clan Hugh Boy), 76, 
 77, 129, 142, 198, 258, 266, 376 
 
 Clandonnell, gallowglasses, 140 
 
 Clane, 175 
 
 Clangibbon, 76 
 
 Clanricarde (the south-eastern por- 
 tion of Galway), 218, 335, 402 
 
 Earldom of, 71, 271 
 
 Ulick Burke, or De Burgh, first 
 Earl of, 120, 140, 227, 228, 238, 
 256-258, 270, 271, 275, 335 
 
 Richard Burke, or De Burgh, 
 second Earl of, called 'Sasse- 
 nagh,' son of the last named, 333, 
 349, 353, 374 
 
 Clanwilliam, the Burke district in 
 
 Limerick, 227, 409 
 Clare Castle, 227, 411 
 
 Richard de ; see Strongbow. 
 
 a later Richard de, and others, 
 65, 70 
 
 Clare, or Thomond, 124, 172. 203, 
 204, 219, 271 ; see Thomond. 
 
 Clarence, Lionel, Duke of, 70, 80, 
 100, 197 
 
 George, Duke of, 90, 92 
 Clement V., Pope, 321 
 
 VII., Pope, 153, 289, 292 
 Clifford ; see Rosamond. 
 Clinton, Lord, 216, 271 
 
 E E 2
 
 420 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 CLO 
 
 Clogher, 154, 405 
 
 see of, 293 
 
 Bishop of ; tee Courcy. 
 Clonfert, see of, 289, 370 
 Clonlisk, 262 
 
 Clonmacnoise, church of. 13, 18 ; 
 sacked by the troops, 374 
 
 see of, 292; its forlorn con- 
 dition, 295 
 
 Clonmel, 73, 105, 127, 133, 189, 
 193, 204, 236, 237,242, 305, 321, 
 346 
 
 Clonmore, 254 
 
 Clontarf, place and battle, 15, 27- 
 32, 165, 169 
 
 Viscount ; see Kawson. 
 Cloyne, Bishop of, in 1367; see 
 
 Swaffham. 
 
 see of, 288 
 Clyde, the, 281 
 
 Clyn, John, the Franciscan annal- 
 ist of Ireland, 67, 70, 77, 84 
 
 Cobham, Lord, 308 
 
 Codure, John, 308 
 
 Cogan, Milo and Richard de, 45, 
 46,56 
 
 Cogans, the, 41, 72 
 
 Cole, a pirate, 330 
 
 Dean of St. Paul's, 413 
 Coleraine, 85, 266 
 Colley, a pirate, 329 
 
 Anthony, 195 
 
 Colman, St., of Lindisfarne, 15 
 Columba, or Columkille, St., 6, 
 
 12-15, 53, 86 
 Columbanus, St., 6 
 Comyii, Michael (should be 
 
 Nicholas), Bishop of Waterford 
 
 and Lismore (1519-1551), 305, 
 
 306 
 
 Conal Abbey, 317 
 Cong, 58 
 
 Connaught, 61, 175, 262, 294, 374 
 Constantine, forged donation of, 
 
 39 
 
 Con way, Sir Hugh, 111 
 Coolock, 123 
 
 Coonagh in Limerick, 265, 266 
 Cooper, Mr., 389 
 Copeland Islands, 30 
 Cork. 17, 47, 74, 85, 110, 118, 181, 
 
 187, 190, 241, 242,273, 329, 330, 
 
 351, 359, 371 
 
 County, 278, 359 
 
 Richard Boyle, Earl of, 286 
 
 see of, 36, 288, 294 
 Cormac Cas, 22 
 Cornelius Agrippa, 216 
 Corrib, Lough, 296 
 
 CTJR 
 
 Cosby, Francis, 328, 329, 332, 340, 
 
 408 
 Courcy, Edmond, Bishop of Clogher 
 
 (1484-1494), 104, 293 
 
 John de, 53, 55-59, 64 
 
 Lord, 106 
 Courcies, the, 338 
 
 Cowley, Robert, Clerk of the 
 Crown (1535), and Master of V e 
 Rolls (1539-1542), an adherent of 
 the house of Ormonde, 145, 152, 
 208, 236, 284, 285, 293, 299, 319 
 
 Walter, son of Robert, joint 
 Clerk of the Crown (1686), 
 Solicitor-General (1529-1546), 
 208, 245, 284, 285, 340 
 
 Coyne, Bishop of Limerick; gee 
 Quin. 
 
 Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, 253, 322, 350, 369 
 
 Cregy, 83 
 
 Croagh Patrick, 305 
 
 Croft, Sir James, Viceroy, a Here- 
 fordshire man, sent over to 
 fortify in Munster, 351 ; Lord 
 Deputy, 359 ; proposes to plant 
 coloniesin Munster. 360; attacks 
 Rathlin unsuccessfully, 360-361 ; 
 persuades Tyrone to tolerate a 
 garrison at Armagh, 363 ; his 
 doctrinal conference with Dow- 
 dall, 365-366; his ideas about 
 ecclesiastical patronage 367 ; 
 desires a warlike Primate, 368 ; 
 has enlightened ideas about the 
 currency, 370-372; visits Con- 
 naught, 374 ; gives a lamentable 
 account of Leinster, 375 ; makes 
 another unsuccessful raid into 
 Ulster, 377; recalled, 378; 
 character of his government, 
 378-379 ; implicated in Wyatt's 
 rebellion, 390-391 
 
 Cromer, George, Archbishop of 
 Armagh (1522-1543), Lord Chan- 
 cellor (1532-1534), 156,163, 289, 
 291, 301, 306 
 
 Cromwell, Thomas, created Earl 
 of Essex, 155, 158, 161, 189, 194, 
 196, 202, 209, 211, 215, 234, 241, 
 336 
 
 Oliver, 44, 47, 319, 332 
 
 Cromwellians, 381 
 
 Cromwellian war, 320 
 
 Crook, 47 
 
 Croom, 218, 229, 267 
 
 Crovan, Godred, Kingof Man, 33, 46 
 
 Cuffe, Captain, 361 
 
 Curlew Mountains, 125, 141
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 421 
 
 CUM 
 
 Cumbray Islands, 411 
 
 Cummian, St., 15 
 
 Curraghmore, 75 
 
 Curwen, or Curwin, Hugh, Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin (15o5), trans- 
 lated to Oxford (1567), Lord 
 Chancellor (1555-1567), 394, 
 401, 405 
 
 Cusack, Sir Thomas, Master of the 
 Rolls (1542-1550), Lord Keeper 
 (1546), Lord Chancellor (1550- 
 1555), 258, 278, 279, 320, 348, 
 357, 361, 373-379, 384, 385, 393 
 
 DACEE of the North, Thomas, and 
 others of his name, 176, 194 
 
 Dalcassians, or Dal Cais, 22 
 
 Dalgetty, 351 
 
 Dalkey, 108, 129, 327, 385 
 
 Danes in Ireland, Chapter II. 
 passim 
 
 of Dublin, Cork, Wateiiord, and 
 Wexford after the Anglo-Nor- 
 man invasion, 44-47, 50 
 
 Dangan, 206 
 
 Daniel, Danyel, or O'Donnell, 
 
 Terence, Dean of Armagh, 361 
 Darcy of Flatten, called ' Great 
 
 Darcy,' 104, 108, 121 
 
 John, 226 
 Darcies, the, 144 
 David's, St., 42 
 
 Davies, Sir John, Attorney- General 
 (1606-1618), 8-10, 65, 83, 84, 89 
 
 Dean, Henry, Bishop of Bangor, 
 and afterwards Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, Lord Justice in 
 1495, 111, 113, 115 
 
 Dearg, or Derg, Lough, 17 
 
 Decies, 76, 186, 236, 412 
 
 Delahide, Sir Walter, married to 
 Janet Eustace, 161 
 
 James, son of Sir Walter, 161, 
 163, 172, 175, 218, 239, 273, 333 
 
 Delvin, granted to the Nugents, 
 54, 76 
 
 Richard Nugent, seventh Baron 
 of, Vice-Deputy in 1528, 120, 
 150, 178, 206 ; one of his sons 
 mentioned, 226 
 
 eighth Baron of, grand- 
 son of the seventh Baron, 255, 
 334, 393 
 
 Denton, James, Dean of Lichfield, 
 a Royal Commissioner in Ireland 
 in 1524, 145 
 
 Dermod, King of Leinster; see 
 , MacMurrough. 
 
 DE3 
 
 Dermod Duff, 291 
 
 Derry, church and see of, 12, 14, 
 
 237, 293 
 
 Derrick, or Dethyke, John, 158 
 Dervorgil, 39 
 Desmond, Earls of, 7, 65, 72 ; their 
 
 burial place, 300 
 
 Maurice Fitzgerald, first Earl 
 of, 76, 78 
 
 James Fitzgerald, seventh Earl 
 of, 90 
 
 Thomas Fitzgerald, eighth Earl 
 of, executed, 92 
 
 Maurice Fitzgerald, tenth Earl 
 of, 110, 120, 121, 131 
 
 James Fitz-John Fitzgerald, 
 eleventh Earl of, his treatment 
 of the MacCarthies, 133, 144, 
 147, 148, 151-153 ; defeated by 
 the MacCarthies, 180; intrigues 
 with France, 181 ; besieged in 
 Dungarvan, 182 ; his partisans 
 in South Wales, his intrigues 
 with Charles V., 184-188 ; calls 
 the emperor his sovereign lord, 
 185 ; his death, 190 
 
 Thomas Moyle Fitzgerald, 
 twelfth Earl of, 163. 180, 190 
 
 -* James Fitz-Maurice Fitzgerald, 
 thirteenth Earl of, 190, 191, 192 ; 
 Henry VIII. acknowledges him, 
 204 ; at Court, 241 ; returns to 
 Ireland and attempts to seize 
 the estates, 241-242; murdered, 
 248 
 
 John Fitz-Thomas Fitzgerald, 
 sometimes called fourteenth 
 Earl of, 190, 191; his speech' at 
 Adare, 192 
 
 James Fitz-John Fitzgerald, 
 fifteenth Earl of, 218; called 
 Earl by Lord L. Grey, 227; 
 seizes Groom and Adare, 229 ; 
 refuses to come to Clonmel, 236 ,* 
 in alliance with O'Neill and 
 O'Donnell, 237 ; expected to 
 attack the Pale, 238 ; expected 
 to rebel, 240 ; threatens Tippe- 
 rary, 241 ; defies Grey, 242 ; 
 pardoned and acknowledged as 
 Earl, 248 ; acknowledges the 
 royal supremacy, 255 ; a Privy 
 Councillor, 256 ; wears English 
 clothes, 257 ; attends Parlia- 
 ment, 258 ; Commissioner for 
 Munster, 261, 264 ; puts down 
 brigandage, 265 ; at Court, 267 ; 
 represents the Crown, 268 ; 
 gives St. Leger a character, 283 j
 
 422 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 DBS 
 
 Edward VI. offers to make a 
 companion of his son, 325 ; 
 appealed to in a dispute at 
 Cork, 332 ; Bellingham suspects 
 his loyalty, 333 ; Bellingham 
 carries him off to Dublin, 339 ; 
 his love for Bellingham, 340, 
 346 ; to be encouraged, 349 ; 
 an umpire between the O'Briens, 
 393, 407, 409 ; his death, 419 
 Desmond, Gerald Fitzgerald, six- 
 teenth Earl of, to be educated in 
 England, 255 ; Edward VI. pro- 
 poses to make a companion of 
 him, 325 ; Lady Ormonde has 
 designs on his hand, 325 ; she 
 marries him, 346, 409, 412 
 
 Lady, 345 ; see Honora Mac- 
 Carthy. 
 
 Lady Joan Fitzgerald, 
 widow of the ninth Earl of 
 Ormonde, and of Sir Francis 
 Bryan, first wife of the sixteenth 
 Earl of Desmond, 346 ; see Lady 
 Joan Fitzgerald. 
 
 Devonshire, 189 
 
 Dexter, name of, 71 ; see De 
 Exeter. 
 
 Diarmid, sons of, 280 ; see Camp- 
 bell. 
 
 Dieppe, 310 
 
 Digby, Francis, 336 
 
 Dillon, Edward, Dean of Kildare, 
 293 
 
 Thomas, Bishop of Kildare 
 (1523-1 529), 293 
 
 - Robert, Attorney-General (1535- 
 1553), Justice of the Kind's 
 Bench (1554-1559), made Chief, 
 Justice of the Common Pleas in 
 1559, 320, 334 
 
 Disert O'Dea, 70 
 
 Dominicans, 300, 319 
 
 Donat, or Dunan, an Ostman, 
 first Bishop of Dublin, 32, 33 
 
 Donegal, 212, 300 
 
 - County, 12, 218, 239; see Tyr- 
 connel. 
 
 Donncadh, or Donough, 31 
 
 Donnell, King of Leinster, 21 
 
 Dhu, Lord of the Isles, 279- 
 281 
 
 Donore, 217 
 
 Doran, Maurice, Bishop of Leigh- 
 
 lin (1523-1525), 146, 293, 298 
 Dorset, Grey, Marquis of, 142, 202 
 Dover, 359 
 Dowdall, Edward, 114 
 
 George, Archbishop of Armagh 
 
 BTTlf 
 
 (with an interval, 1543-1548) 
 307, 343 ; his conference with 
 St. Leger, 355 ; his relations 
 with Browne and other Protes- 
 tants, 343, 355-359 ; his confer- 
 ence with Croft and Staples, 
 365-367; leaves Ireland, 367; 
 restored, 386, 391, 397, 408 
 
 Dowling, Thady, Chancellor of 
 Leighlin (1591-1628), author of 
 ' Annals,' passim 
 
 Down or Downpatrick, church and 
 see of, 53, 293 ; cathedral 
 burned by Lord L. Grey, 304, 
 386 
 
 County, 66, 199 
 Doyne, Hugh, 317 
 Drax monastery, 291 
 Drogheda, origin of, 73, 92, 108" ; 
 
 Parliament of, 123, 154, 161, 
 170, 222, 240, 263, 281, 321; 
 University of, 322, 331 ; Parlia- 
 ment of, 335, 371, 386, 397 
 
 Dromana, 76, 268 
 
 Dromaneen, 242 
 
 Dromore, see of, 293 
 
 Drumcliff, church of, 12 
 
 Dublin, Danish Kingdom of, 
 Chapter II. passim 
 
 called Ath Cliath by the Irish, 
 34, 59, 73, 81, 108; the Mayor 
 at Knocktoe, 120 ; the O'Byrnes 
 break into the castle, 158; siege 
 of, 166-168, 170, 187, 198, 223; 
 the Mayor dubbed knight at 
 Bellahoe, 240, 259, 331, 371, 385 
 
 church and see of, 32-36, 289, 
 290 ; primacy removed to, 367 ; 
 for Archbishops, see Donat, Gil- 
 lapatrick or Patrick, O'Haingly, 
 Gregory, O'Toole, Leek, Bicknor, 
 Minot, Talbot, FitzSimons, 
 Rokeby, Inge, Alen, Browne, 
 and Curwin. 
 
 Robert de Vere, Marquis of, 85 
 Dufferin, 364 
 
 Duleek, 50 
 
 Dumbarton, 281 
 
 Dunamase, 77 
 
 Dunan ; see Donat. 
 
 Dunboyne, Sir Edmund Butler, first 
 
 Baron of, 258, 277, 329, 393 
 Dunbrody Abbey, 130, 315 
 Duncadh, Abbot of lona, 15 
 Dundalk, 13, 67, 129, 199, 222, 
 
 231, 237. 247, 263, 363, 397, 403 
 Dundrum, in Down, 127, 23^, ::.*.:$ 
 Dungannon, 63, 119,120, 127, 243, 
 
 264
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 423 
 
 DTJN 
 
 Dungannon, Matthew O'Neill, or 
 Kelly, first Baron of, 269, 363, 
 364, 368, 376, 377 
 
 Dungarvan, 182, 183, 187, 189, 193, 
 331, 379, 412 
 
 Dunkellin, Barony of, created, 271 
 
 Dunlavin, 23 
 
 Dunmore, in Kilkenny, 117, 167 
 
 in Galway, 320 
 Dunsany, the Plunkets of, 76 
 
 Edward Plunket, first Baron of, 
 120 
 
 Durrow, 12, 13, 56 
 
 EAGLE, a pirate, 329 
 
 Ebric, a Norman at Clontarf, 27 
 
 Echingham, Sir Osborne, Marshal 
 
 of the army, 268 
 Edenderry, 135 
 Edgar, John, 272 
 Edgcombe, Sir Richard, 106-108 
 Edinburgh, 247 
 Edmonds, John, 413 
 Edward I., 62 
 
 II., 65 
 
 IV., 71, 116 
 
 - Prince of Wales, 100 
 Eglish, 226 
 Elbric, or Eric, 36 
 Elizabeth Woodville, Queen, 92 
 
 of York, Queen, 108 
 Elphin, see of, 294, 370 
 
 Ely O'Carroll, in King's County, 
 125, 127, 136, 210, 223, 226, 262, 
 409 
 
 Elyans, the, i.e. the O'Carrolls, 157 
 
 Ely House, Holborn, 285 
 
 Emly, church and see of, 18, 255 
 
 Empire, the, 47, 86, 187, 192, 349 
 
 Empson, Richard, 194 
 
 Enaghdune, now Annaghdown, at 
 one time a bishopric, 296, 388 
 
 Ennis, 300, 410 
 
 Enniscorthy, 408 
 
 Eoghanachts, or Eugenians, 22, 31 
 
 Erasmus, 366 
 
 Erigena, 15, 33 
 
 Eugenius III., Pope, his constitu- 
 tion for the Irish Church, 16, 35, 
 52 
 
 Eures, Ralph de, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, 33, 34 
 
 Eustace, Alison, first wife of the 
 eighth Earl of Kildare, 115 
 
 family of, 53 ; see Baltinglass. 
 
 Janet, sister of the last named, 
 married to Sir Walter Delahide, 
 164 
 
 FIT 
 
 Eva Mac Murrough, wife of Strong- 
 
 bow, 41, 44 
 
 Exeter, de ; see Dexter. 
 Duke of, 316 
 
 FAGAN, Nicholas (wrongly called 
 
 Walshe in the text), 317 
 Farney, or Ferney, 133, 222, 240, 
 
 245 
 Farquharson, Bishop of the Isles, 
 
 309 
 
 Faughard, 67 
 Fay, Edmond, 334 
 Faye, Melour, 152 
 Fercullen, 252 
 Ferdinand, Emperor, 7 
 Ferdinand the Catholic, 188 
 Fergraidh, King of Munster, 22 
 Fermanagh, 162, 211, 263 
 Fermoy, 76, 248 
 
 Fernandez, Gonzalo, 184-188, 190 
 Ferns, church and see of, 40, 42, 
 
 293, 297, 408 
 Fethard, in Tipperary, 74, 297 
 
 in Wexford, 297 
 Field, James, 166, 167 
 Fieldston, 249 
 Finbar, St., 36 
 Fingal, 17, 29 
 
 Finglas, Patrick, Chief Baron of 
 the Exchequer in 1535, 130, 164 
 
 Fisher, John, Cardinal and Bishop 
 of Rochester, 322 
 
 Fishmoyne, 329 
 
 FitzAdelm de Burgo, William, 
 Viceroy in 1177, 47, 51-53, 58 
 
 FitzAnthony, 72 
 
 Margery, ancestress of the Des- 
 monds, 76 
 
 FitzEustace, Rowland, Baron of, 
 
 Portlester, 109 
 Fitzgerald, Maurice, son of Nesta 
 
 and ancestor of all the Fitz- 
 
 geralds, 41, 66, 71, 76; see 
 
 Geraldines. 
 
 Raymond le Gros ; see Le Gros. 
 
 John FitzThomaa, first Earl of 
 Kildare, 72 
 
 Maurice FitzThomas, first Earl 
 of Desmond, 72, 78 
 
 Sir Thomas, brother of the 
 eighth Earl of Kildare, Lord 
 Chancellor in 1487, 102; killed 
 at Stoke, 105 
 
 Thomas, half-brother of the 
 ninth Earl of Kildare, 133, 151, 
 160 
 
 Sir James, brother of the ninth
 
 424 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 FIT 
 
 Earl of Kildare : Vice Deputy in 
 1526, 142, 150, 158, 161, 176, 215 
 Fitzg3rald, Oliver, half-brother of 
 the ninth Earl of Kildare, 171, 
 215 
 
 Richard, half-brother of the 
 ninth Earl of Kildare, 215 
 
 Sir John, half-brother of the 
 ninth Earl of Kildare, 156, 171, 
 215 
 
 Walter, half-brother of the 
 ninth Earl of Kildare, 215 
 
 Lady Eleanor, sister of the 
 ninth Earl of Kildare, married 
 first to Donnell MacCarthy 
 Reagh, and afterwards to Manua 
 O'Donnell, 218, 219, 238, 239, 
 247, 278 
 
 Lady Margaret, called ' Mag- 
 heen,' sister of the ninth Earl of 
 Kildare, and married to the 
 eighth Earl of Ormonde, 103, 
 
 117, 126 ^ 
 
 Lady Alice or Alison, sister of 
 the ninth Earl of Kildare, 
 married to Con More O'Neill, 
 
 118, 119 
 
 Lady Eiistacia, sister of the 
 ninth Earl of Kildare, married to 
 MacWilliam Burke of Clanri- 
 carde, 120 
 
 Edward, son of the ninth Earl 
 of Kildare, half-brother of the 
 tenth, and brother of the 
 eleventh, 217 
 
 Lady Alice, half-sister to the 
 last named, married to James 
 Fleming, Lord Slane, 152, 153 
 
 Lady Mary, sister to the last 
 named, married to Brian O'Con- 
 nor of Offaly, 215, 217, 218, 219 
 
 Lady Elizabeth, the ' fair 
 Geraldine,' half-sister to the last 
 named, married to Sir Anthony 
 Prowne, and afterwards to 
 Edward, Earl of Lincoln, 216, 
 217, 375 
 
 Bartholomew, 165 
 
 James, of Osbertstown, 240, 328 
 
 Joan, daughter of the White 
 Knight, and mother of James 
 Fitzmaurice, 190 
 
 Lady Alice, daughter of the 
 twelfth Earl of Desmond, mar- 
 ried to Connor O'Brien, chief of 
 Thomond, 227 
 
 Lady Joan, daughter and 
 heiress general of the eleventh 
 Earl of Desmond, married sue- 
 
 FOL 
 
 cessively to the ninth Earl of 
 Ormonde, to Sir Francis Bryan, 
 and to the sixteenth Earl of Des- 
 mond, 325, 337, 339, 340, 345, 
 346 
 
 Fitzgerald, Maurice, of Lackagh, 
 128 
 
 of Decies, Sir John, Lord of, 182 
 Sir Gerald MacShane, Lord 
 
 of, son of Sir John, 152, 160, 
 
 189, 236, 237, 242, 268 
 Sir Maurice, Lord of, son of 
 
 Sir Gerald, 412 
 Sir Thomas, brother of Sir 
 
 John, 182, 183 
 
 Thomas, Prior of Kilmainham, 
 316 
 
 Fitzgeralds, Earls of Desmond ; see 
 Desmond. 
 
 Earls of Kildare ; see Kildare. 
 Knight of Kerry ; gee Kerry. 
 
 or Fitzgibbons, White Knights ; 
 tee White Knight. 
 
 Fitzgibbon, or MacGibbon; tee 
 
 White Knight, 
 FitzGilbert ; see Strongbow. 
 FitzGriffith, Rice, 42 
 FiizHenry, Robert and Meiler, 41 
 Fitzmaurice, Lord of Lixnaw in 
 
 Kerry, 163 
 
 James, Bishop of Ardfert, 306 
 Fitzmaurices, the, 56 
 Fitzpatrick, or MacGillapatrick, 
 
 chief of Upper Ossory in Queen's 
 County, 151,211,226,257 
 
 - Dei-mot, 160 
 
 Fitzpatricks, Barons of Upper 
 Ossory ; tee Upper Ossory. 
 
 FitzSimons, Walter, Archbishop 
 of Dublin (1484-1511), Lord 
 Chancellor in H96, 1501, and 
 1509, 109, 115, 120 
 
 John, 166 
 
 FitzStephen, Robert, 41, 43, 47, 
 
 56, 57, 64 
 
 FitzThomas, name of, 64 
 Fitzwalter ; tee Butler. 
 
 Lord ; see Sussex. 
 Fitzwilliam, Nicholas, 343 
 
 Sir William, Revenue Commis- 
 sioner in 1654, afterwards \'i<-u 
 Treasurer and Lord Deputy, 3U6 
 
 Lord, 286 
 Flanders, 186, 351 
 Flemings, 27, 54, 76, 163, 186 
 Florence, 220 
 
 Flosi, 29 
 
 Folan, John, Bishop of Limerick, 
 288
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 425 
 
 FOR 
 
 Fore ; sen Fower. 
 Formorian race, 67 
 Fountains Abbey, 315 
 Fower, or Fore Abbey, 317 
 Fox, Richard, Bishop of Win- 
 chester, 194. 
 
 Foyle, Lough, 17, 395, 398 
 France, 186, 274, 347, 349, 351 
 Francis I., 136, 181, 187, 219 
 
 St., of Assisi, 212 
 French, name of, 75 
 
 the, 27, 89, 127, 181, 273, 276, 
 333, 340, 345, 347, 351, 352 
 
 Furness Abbey, 198, 315 
 
 GADDI, Cardinal, 310 
 
 Gaedhill, the, i.e. the Irish, 34, 36 
 
 Gaill, the, i.e. the Scandinavians, 
 and by later usage the Anglo- 
 Normans and English, 36 
 
 Gall, St., 6 
 
 Galway, 65, 74: ; tribes of, 75, 85, 
 120, 122, 228; rectory of, 267, 
 321, 331, 333, 335, 371, 402, 410 
 
 Galway, Bishop of, 388 ; see Moore. 
 
 County, 211 
 
 Gardiner, Stephen, Bishop of Win- 
 chester, 306 
 
 Garrett, Walter, 373 
 
 Garrold, a form of the name Fitz- 
 gerald, 178 
 
 Garth, Captain, 160 
 
 Gascony. 64 
 
 Geashill, 213 
 
 Gentiles, Black and White, 18 
 
 George, St., 93, 174, 254 
 
 Geraldine, ' the Fair ; ' gee Lady 
 Elizabeth Fitzgerald. 
 
 Geraldines, a generic name given 
 to the descendants of Maurice 
 Fitzgerald, Nesta's son, includ- 
 ing all the Fitzgeralds of Ire- 
 land, and sometimes extended 
 to collaterals, 71, and passim 
 
 Gerbert, Lieutenant, '203 
 
 Germain-en-Laye, St., 187 
 
 Germans at Stoke, 104-105; 
 miners, 372 
 
 Germany, 119 
 
 Gillapatrick, or Patrick, Bishop of 
 Dublin, 33 
 
 Gillebert, 15, 35 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, 41, 55, 57 
 
 Glenarm, 361, 398 
 
 Glencairne, Lord, 281 
 
 Glendalough in Wicklow, ancient 
 see of, 35, 223, 251 
 
 Glenmalure, 238 
 
 GEE 
 
 Glennama, 23 
 
 Glin, 76 
 
 Gloucester, Earl of, 87 
 
 Godred ; see Crovan. 
 
 Gonzago, Duke of Milan, 219 
 
 Goodacre, Hugh, Protestant Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh in 1553, 369, 
 379, 380, 386 
 
 Gordon, Lady Catherine, wife of 
 Perkin War beck, 113 
 
 Gordons, the, 282 
 
 Gorm ; see Horm. 
 
 Gormanston, the Prestons Vis- 
 counts of, 76 
 
 Sir William Preston, second 
 Viscount of, 120, 121 
 
 Jenico Preston, third Viscount 
 of, 384 
 
 Gormflaith ; see Kormlada. 
 
 Gort, 410 
 
 Governor, Fort ; see Maryborough. 
 
 - Alan, 218 
 
 Gowran, 282, 285 
 
 Grace, called ' Graceless,' 389 
 
 Gracedieu nunnery, 300, 312 
 
 Granard, 60 
 
 Grandison, Otho de, 74 
 
 Grane, 213 
 
 Greencastle in Donegal, 395 
 
 Greenwich, 269 
 
 Gregory the Great, Pope, 34 
 
 VII., Pope; see Hildebrand. 
 
 Archbishop of Dublin, 34 
 Grey, Marquis of Dorset ; see Dor- 
 set. 
 
 Lord Leonard, son of Thomas, 
 Marquis of Dorset, and hrother- 
 in-law to ninth Earl of Kildare, 
 Lord Deputy, 1536-1540; com- 
 plains to Henry VIII., 145; 
 Marshal of the army, 177, 178, 
 179 ; Kildare his prisoner, 189 ; 
 Viscount Grane, 193, 194 ; Vice- 
 roy, 195 ; his harshness to Lady 
 Skeffington, 196 ; his Parlia- 
 ment, 196-198 ; in want of 
 m >ney, 199; his campaign in 
 Western Munster, 200-204; the 
 King reproves him unjustly ; 
 his activity, 206-207 ; his ene- 
 mies, 208 ; active against the 
 Irish, 210-211; goes towards 
 Ulster, 212; baffled by the 
 O'Connors, 213-214 ; seizes the 
 five Geraldine brethren, 215 ; 
 his raid in Ulster, 222 ; falls 
 out with the Butlers, 223; his 
 treatment of the O'Mores, 225 ; 
 his rash expedition to Con-
 
 426 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 GRE 
 
 naught, 226-229; the Council 
 reconcile him with the Butlers, 
 231 ; goes into Ulster, 232,235 ; 
 in Ulster, 237 ; in Wicklow, 238, 
 239 ; his victory at Bellahoe, 
 240, 241 ; in Munster, 242 ; in 
 Ulster, 243 ; recalled, 243 ; exe- 
 cuted, 245, 247, 248 ; confusion 
 after his recall, 243, 251, 275, 
 286, 336 
 
 Grey, Lady Elizabeth, sister of 
 Lord Leonard, second wife of 
 the ninth Earl of Kildare, 142, 
 161, 216 
 
 Lady Jane, 300, 391 
 
 John de, Bishop of Norwich, 
 59, 60 
 
 Griffin, Maurice, Bishop of Ro- 
 chester, 395 
 Griffiths, Edward, 243 
 Guienne, 40 
 
 Gundelfinger, Joachim, 372 
 Gur, Lough, 200, 204 
 Gwyn, name of, 188 
 
 JAM 
 
 Holyhead, 210, 273, 351, 408 
 Honorius I., Pope, 14 
 Hooker, John, the chronicler, 47 
 Horm, or Gorm, 18 
 Hospitallers ; see St. John. 
 Howth, 273, 330 
 
 family (St. Lawrence), 53 
 
 Nicholas St. Lawrence, six- 
 teenth Baron of, 104, 108, 120, 
 121 
 
 Christopher St. Lawrence, 
 seventeenth Baron of, 169 
 
 Justice, 382, 386 ; perhaps the 
 same person as Thomas St. 
 Lawrence, q.v. 
 
 Sir Richard, 388 
 Hrafn the Red, 28 
 Hubert, 61 ; see De Burgo. 
 Humfrey, James, 302, 303 
 Huntley, Gordon, Earl of, 280 
 Hurley, Thomas, Bishop of Emly, 
 
 305, 306 
 
 Hy Neill, the O'Neills and their 
 correlatives, 33 
 
 HALIDON HILL, 83 
 
 Halpin, or Halfpenny, Robert, 
 
 240 
 Halsey, Thomas, Bishop of Leigh- 
 
 lin, 293 
 
 Hamerton, Captain, 169 
 Harding, Stephen, 315 
 Harman, Gerard, 273 
 Harold, Bishop of Limerick, 36 
 Harold Harfager, 19 
 Hasculph, 45 
 Hattecliffe, William, 114 
 Hebrideans, or Redshanks, 271, 
 
 272 
 Hebrides, 32, 67 ; West isles, 279 ; 
 
 South isles, 280 
 Henry, I. 41 
 
 II., 11, 37, 45, 46, 51 
 
 III., 62 
 
 IV., 87 
 
 V. 86 
 
 II., King of France, 345, 353, 
 357 
 
 Herbert, Francis, 166-168, 213 
 Hertford, Edward, Earl of; tee 
 
 Somerset. 
 Hervey de Montmorency, 42, 44, 
 
 49,64,315 
 
 Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VH., 33 
 Hoby, Sir Philip, 330 
 Holbein, Hans, 217 
 Holland, Captain, 174, 389 
 Holy Cross Abbey, 304, 315 
 
 lAR-CONNAUGHT, 75 
 
 Ibracken or Ibrickan, in Clare, 271 
 
 Iceland, 11 
 
 Icelanders, 32 
 
 Idrone, 250, 340 
 
 Ikerrin in Tipperary, 211 
 
 Imaile, 251 
 
 Imokilly 76, 242, 248 
 
 Inchiquin, Barony of, 270 
 
 Inge, Hugh, Bishop of Meath 
 (1512-1521), Archbishopof Dub- 
 lin (1521-1528), 150, 290, 291 
 
 Ingulf, 32 
 
 Innishowen, 211, 274 
 
 Innislonagh Abbey, 296, 298, 317 
 
 Innocent III., Pope, 59 
 
 IV., Pope, 62 
 
 VIII., Pope, 107 
 lona, 13, 15, 17, 21, 280 
 Ireland, Duke of, 85 
 Irishtown, origin of name, 73 
 Irrelagh or Muckross, 300 
 Isla, 273, 411 
 
 Isles, Lord of the ; see Dounull 
 
 Dhu. 
 
 Issam, John, 342 
 Italy, 219, 290 
 Ivar, 19,22,23' 
 Ives, St., 389 
 
 JAMES I. of England and VI. 
 of Scotland, 318
 
 THE FIKST VOLUME. 
 
 427 
 
 James IV. of Scotland, 113 
 - V. of Scotland, 247, 271, 309 
 James's Park, St., 277 
 Jerpoint Abbey, 99, 300 
 Jesuits in Ireland, 259, 287 ; their 
 
 first mission, 307-310, 318, 320, 
 
 350 
 
 Jocelin, 53 
 John, King, 54, 55, 58, 65, 314, 387 
 
 XXII., Pope, 68, 70 
 
 of Salisbury, 37 
 
 the Mad (by some chroniclers 
 called John ' Wood '), 45, 46 
 
 St., of Jerusalem, Order of, 
 254, 314-316 
 
 John's, St., at Wexford, 298 
 Joinville, 95 
 Joys, Sir James, 388 
 Julius II., Pope, 188, 292 
 
 III., Pope, 394 
 
 KARL, a Norman, 27 
 
 Kate, or Cappys, a merchant. 239 
 
 Kaupmannaeyjar, or Copeland 
 Islands, 30 
 
 Kavanagh, Cahir MacEncross, the 
 MacMurrough, called the last 
 King of Leinster, 175, 199, 200, 
 221 ; see MacMurrough. 
 
 Cahir MacArt, the Mac- 
 Murrough, created in 1553 
 Baron of Balian for life, 210, 
 231, 258, 298, 327 
 
 - Donnell MacCahir, 250 
 
 Maurice, Archdeacon of Leigh - 
 lin, 146, 298 
 
 - Mor>t Oge, 327 
 
 Kavanagh, origin of the name, 
 
 42 ; see MacMurrough. 
 Kavanaghs, the, 86, 87, 167, 210, 
 
 221, 231, 235, 250, 375, 397 ; see 
 
 MacMurrough. 
 Keating, James, Prior of Kil- 
 
 mainham, 108, 316 
 
 William, Captain of Kerne, 
 177, 375 
 
 Kells, or Kenlis, in Meath, 12, 66, 
 129 
 
 in Kilkenny, 319 
 
 Kelway, John, 222, 223, 226, 238 
 Kent, Ormonde in, 391 
 Kerry, 56, 163, 186. 188 
 
 - Fitzgerald, Knight of, 76 
 Kerrycurrihy, in Cork, 242, 248 
 Kerthialfad, 28 
 Keynsham, 198 
 Kilbrittain, 218, 242 
 Kilclogan Priory, Wexford, 298 
 
 KIL 
 
 Kilcooley Abbey, 296 
 Kilcullen Bridge, 129, 163 
 
 Lord ; see Baltinglass. 
 Kildare, 13, 244 
 
 County, 97, 122, 128, 130, 167, 
 177, 332 ; see Pale. 
 
 family ( Fitzgeralds), 72, 76, 93 
 
 John Fitzthomas Fitzgerald, 
 first Earl of, 72 
 
 Thomas Fitzgerald, seventh 
 Earl of, 91, 92, 93, 254 
 
 Gerald Fitzgerald, eighth Earl 
 of, Deputy, 102, 103, 104, 105, 
 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111 ; 
 attainted, 112 ; Deputy, 115, 
 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 
 124, 125; his son chosen Lord 
 Justice at his death, 125 ; his 
 widow, 128 
 
 ninth Earl of, marries 
 
 Elizabeth Zouche, 120; present 
 at Knocktoe, 121 ; Deputy, 
 125; his sister, 126, 127; 
 superseded, 128, 130, 132, 
 134, 139, 140; marries Lady 
 Elizabeth Grey, 142, 143 ; 
 Deputy, 144, 145, 146 ; goes to 
 England, 147 ; in the Tower, 
 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153; 
 returns to Ireland, 154 ; in 
 England again, 155; Deputy, 
 156, 157, 158, 159 ; forced to go 
 to England, 160; makes his son 
 Deputy, 161 ; in the Tower, 
 162, 163; dies in the Tower, 
 172 ; seeks preferment for Dean 
 Dillon, 293, 297 
 
 Thomas Fitzgerald, tenth Earl 
 of, called ' Silken Thomas,' 
 Deputy, 161, 162; rebels, 163, 
 164; his people murder an Arch- 
 bishop, 165 ; besieges Dublin, 
 166, 167, 168, 169 ; proclaimed 
 traitor, 170, 171 ; seeks foreign 
 aid, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176 ; sur- 
 renders, 177, 178 ; in the Tower, 
 179 ; attainted and executed, 
 180 
 
 Gerald Fitzgerald, eleventh 
 Earl of, 216, 217 ; escapes to 
 France, 218, 219, 220, 230, 231, 
 237, 240, 242, 243, 245, 247, 248, 
 273, 278, 333; his estates re- 
 stored, 375 ; serves against 
 Wyatt, 391 ; returns to Ireland, 
 392, 393, 400, 407 
 
 see of. 288, 293 ; for Bishops 
 see Lane, Dillon, Wellesley, 
 Lancaster, Leverous.
 
 428 
 
 KIL 
 
 Kilfenora, see of, 293, 306 
 
 Kilkea Castle, 125, 167, 170 
 
 Kilkenny, 59, 73 ; a mock Parlia- 
 ment there, 78 ; Parliament and 
 statute of, 80-83, 93, 97, 105, 
 111, 155 ; Parliament adjourned 
 to, 200, 235, 261, 300, 321, 340, 
 359, 380-383 
 
 County, 61, 63, 65, 72, 97, 145, 
 146, 150, 155, 156, 165, 167, 221, 
 266, 297, 300, 321, 339 
 
 Killaloe, see of, 81, 293 
 
 Killarney, 124 
 
 Killeen, Plunkets, Barons of, 76, 
 120, 206 
 
 Killeigh friary, 304, 402 
 
 Killybegs, 127 
 
 Kilmacduagh, 292, 294 
 
 Kilmacrenan, 212 
 
 Kilmainham, the chief house of 
 the Hospitallers in Ireland, 89, 
 99, 155, 166, 169, 178 ; a vice- 
 regal residence, 215, 229, 258; 
 the church, 301, 341 ; the priory 
 
 r " restored, 401 
 
 Kilmallock, 191, 193, 256 
 
 K ilmore, see of, 292 
 
 Kinard, 120 
 
 Kincora, 25, 334 
 
 King, Matthew, 383 
 
 Kinnafad, 213 
 
 Kinnegad, 251 
 
 Kinsale, 74, 106, 181, 242, 329, 335 
 
 Kite, John, Archbishop of Armagh 
 (1513-1521), 128, 251, 289 
 
 Knights of Kerry and White 
 Knights, Fitzgeralds, q.v. 
 
 Knockinlossy, 141 
 
 Knockmoy Abbey, 267 
 
 Knocktoe, 120-122, 144 
 
 Knocktopher Monastery, 381 
 
 Knollys, Sir Henry, 378 
 
 Konnlada, or Gormflaith, 24-26 
 
 LACY, Hugh, Bishop of Limerick 
 
 (1556-1571), 409 
 - Hugo de, 47, 49, 52-54, 55-57 
 the younger, 58, 59, 61 
 
 Maude, wife of the first Earl of 
 Clanricarde, 275 
 
 Walter de, 59, .61 
 
 Lady Abbey, near Clonmel, 296 
 Laggan, or Lagan River, 398 
 Lambay Island, 17, 170, 273, 410 
 Lancaster, Thomas, Bishop of 
 Kildare (1549-1554), and after- 
 wards Archbishop of Armagh, 
 365, 382, 392 
 
 LTV 
 
 Lancastrians, 91-93, 103 
 
 Lane, Edward, Bishop of Kildare 
 in 1487, 104 
 
 Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, 313, 314 
 
 Lansdowne family, 76 
 
 Lanthony, 198 
 
 Larne, 66, 351 
 
 Lateran Council, 35, 36 
 
 Lawrence O'Toole, St. ; jeeO'Toole. 
 
 Lawrence, St., Sir Almaric, ances- 
 tor of the Howth family, r>:5 
 
 Lea Castle, 328 
 
 Leap Castle in King's County, 127, 
 146, 409 
 
 Leath Mhoga, the southern half 
 of Ireland, 392 
 
 Lecale, 129, 232, 352, 370 
 
 Lech, John, Archbishop of Dublin 
 (1311-1313), 321 
 
 Ledred, Richard, Bishop of Ossory 
 (1318-1360), 381 
 
 Le Gros, Raymond, 44, 45, 49, 56, 
 64, 76 
 
 Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, 
 286 
 
 Leighlin, 54 
 
 see of, 293, 358 ; for Bishops, 
 see Tatenhall, Northalis, Halsey, 
 Travers, OTihely. 
 
 Bridge, or New Leighlin, 189, 
 339 ; the suppressed Carmelites 
 there, 340, 375, 401, 412 
 
 Leinster, Dukes of, 72, 217 
 Leix, the modern Queen's Co., 
 without Upper Woods, Tinna- 
 hinch, or Portnahinch, 224, 313, 
 349, 350, 373, 385, 399, 400 
 Lennox, Earl of, 279-282, 330 
 Leo X., Pope, 293, 295, 299 
 Leverous, Thomas, Bishop of Kil- 
 dare (1554-1559), and in the 
 Papal succession till 1577, 217- 
 219, 239, 367, 368, 379, 391, 392, 
 394 
 
 Liege, 219 
 
 Littey River, 160, 170 
 Limehouoe, 219 
 
 Limerick, 17, 18, 47, 50, 51, 56, 58, 
 66, 73, 85, 187, 191 ; Parliaim n t 
 adjourned to, 200-202, 204, L'L'S, 
 256 ; Parliament prorogued to, 
 260, 265, 304, 321, 331, 333, 346, 
 378, 409 
 
 County, 201 
 
 see of, 35, 255, 288, 354, 392 ; 
 f or Bishops,swGillebert, Patrick. 
 Harold, Turgeis, Brictius, Folan, 
 Quin, Casey, Lacy.
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 429 
 
 LIN 
 
 Lindisfarne, 15, 17 
 Lisle, Viscount, 270 
 Lismore, 47 
 
 see of, 35, 81 ; for Bishops, see 
 Malchus, O'Conarchy. 
 
 Lixnaw, 76 
 
 Lockwood, Thomas, Dean of Christ 
 
 Church, Dublin (1543-1565), 
 
 358, 379, 391 
 Logan, a pirate, 330 
 Lomond, Loch, 17 
 Londonderry, 167 
 Longsword, William, 59 
 Louth, 67, 156, 170, 222, 240 ; sec 
 
 Pale. 
 
 John de Bermingham,Earl of ,67 
 
 Barony of (Plunket), 76 
 
 Oliver Plunket, first Baron of, 
 258, 263 
 
 Lovel, Lord, 103, 105 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 307, 308 
 
 Lucius III., Pope, 54. 
 
 Ludlow Castle, 171 
 
 Lumley, Marmaduke, 316 
 
 Lusk, Co. Dublin, 29, 166 
 
 Luttrell, Sir Thomas, Chief Justice 
 of the Common Pleas (1534- 
 1554), 169, 223, 320, 384, 385 
 
 Luxueil, 6 
 
 Lynch, John, 239 
 
 name of, 75 
 Lyons in France, 310 
 
 in Kildare, Kichard Aylmer of, 
 310 
 
 MACALISTEE, Rory, Bishop of the 
 
 Isles, 280 
 
 MacAndrew, or Barrett, 71 
 MacArtane, or MacCartane, chief 
 
 of Kinelarty, in Down, 78, 90, 
 
 353, 362 
 
 MacAveely, or Staunton, 71 
 MacBaron, or Fitzgerald, 71 
 MacBrien, chief of Arra, in Tippe- 
 
 rary, 227, 242, 393 
 
 chief of Coonagh, in Limerick, 
 265 
 
 MacBriens, the, 120 
 MacCarthies, the, 50, 72, 124, 220, 
 
 300 
 MacCarthy, Dermod, chief of 
 
 Desmond and Cork, 47, 55, 56 
 
 More, chief of Desmond, 268, 
 359, 360, 409 
 
 Cormac Oge, chief of Muskerry, 
 133, 134, 180, 188, 190-192 
 
 Teig MacCormac, son of Cormac 
 Oge, chief of Muskerry, 268 
 
 MAC 
 
 MacCarthy, Reagh, chief of Car- 
 bery,133, 180, 191, 218, 242, 268 
 
 MacDonough, chief of Du- 
 hallow, 268 
 
 Lady Eleanor ; gee Fitzgerald. 
 
 Mary, wife of the thirteenth 
 Earl of Desmond, 242 
 
 Honora, wife of the fifteenth 
 Earl of Desmond, 345 
 
 Connor, a priest, 386 
 MacCostello, or Nangle, 71 
 MacCragh, a rhymer, 218 
 MacDavid, or Burke, 71 
 MacDermot, chief of Moylurg 
 
 (the northern half of Roscom- 
 mon), 60, 69, 120. 140, 239, 374 
 
 MacDonnells, the, of Western. 
 Scotland and Antrim, 67, 147, 
 266, 271-274, 300, 360, 393, 
 410 
 
 MacDonnell, Alaster, chief of the 
 Irish branch, 272 
 
 James, chief of Antrim and 
 Cantire, son of Alaster, 361, 398, 
 410 
 
 Colla, brother of James, 410 
 
 Angus, brother of James, 410 - 
 
 Sorley Boy (yellow-haired" 
 Charles), 361, 410 
 
 MacEdmond, or Fitzgerald, 71 
 MacEgan, a chief in North Tippe- 
 
 rary, 266 
 
 MacFabrene, or Wellesley, 71 
 MacFeoris, or Bermingham, 71 
 MacGeohegan, chief of Moycashel, 
 
 in Westmeath, 90, 206, 211, 226, 
 
 326 
 MacGibbon, or Burke, 71 
 
 see Fitzgibbon and White 
 Knight. 
 
 MacGillapatrick ; see Fitzpatrick. 
 MacJordan, or Dexter, 71 
 Maclean, Patrick, 280 
 MacMahon, chief of Irish Oriel or 
 
 Monaghan, 63, 69, 90, 120, 133, 
 
 140, 263, 376 
 
 MacMaurice, or Prendergast, 71 
 MacMorris, David, 181 
 MacMurrough, Dermod, King of 
 
 Leinster, 39-48 
 
 Art, considered as King by the 
 Leinster Irish, 85-87 
 
 Cahir MacEncross, and Cahir 
 Mac Art, chiefs of their name ; see 
 Kavanagh. 
 
 MacMurroughs, the, 57 ; sec 
 
 Kavanaghs. 
 Macnamaras of Clare, the, 115, 
 
 271, 300, 3Q6
 
 430 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 MAC 
 
 MacOwney, Murtagh (an O'More), 
 loo 
 
 MacPaddin, or Barrett, 71 
 
 MacPhilbin, or Burke, 71 
 
 Macquillin (of Welsh origin), 
 chief of the Route, in Antrim, 
 77, 154, 266, 349, 353, 376 
 
 MacRaymond, or Burke, 71 
 
 MacRobert, or Burke, 71 
 
 MacRory, King of the Hebrides, 
 67 
 
 MacShane, Sir Gerald; see Fitz- 
 gerald. 
 
 MacShoneen, or Burke, 71 
 
 MacSwiney, Edmond, captain of 
 gallowglasses, 221, 230 
 
 MacSwineys, three septs in Done- 
 gal, 140, 393 
 
 MacThomaisin, or Fitzgerald, 71 
 
 MacThomas, or Fitzgerald, 71 
 
 MacThomin, or Barrett, 71 
 
 Mac Walter, or Burke, 71 
 
 MacWilliam Uachtar, of Clanri- 
 carde, 71, 75, 85, 120, 140, 238, 
 256-258 ; tee Burke and Clanri- 
 carde. 
 
 lochtar, or Burke, of Mayo, 71, 
 140, 349, 375 
 
 Maelmordha, King of Leinster, 
 
 24-26 
 Magennis, chief of Iveagh, in 
 
 Down, 90, 120, 127, 136, 232, 
 
 239, 240, 247, 263, 376 
 
 Arthur and Donnell, knighted by 
 Henry VIII., 270 
 
 Arthur, Bishop of Dromore, 364 
 
 Connor, Prior or Dean of Down, 
 353, 364 
 
 Magnus, King of Norway, 29 
 Maguire, chief of Fermanagh, 119 
 
 Cuconnacht, chief of Ferma- 
 nagh, 154, 162, 187 
 
 Shane, chief of Fermanagh, 
 239, 377, 
 
 Mahon, King of Munster, 22-23 
 Makeon, or Bisset, 71 
 Malachi, St., Archbishop of 
 Armagh, 15, 35, 314 
 
 King of Meath in 845, 18 
 
 King of Meath and of Ireland, 
 21, 23 ; deposed by Brian from 
 the chief sovereignty, 24 ; re- 
 stored after Clontarf, 31 
 
 Malahide, 107 
 
 Malchus, Bishop of Waterford and 
 
 Lismore, 35 
 Mallow, 180, 191 
 Malo, St., 218 
 Malta, Knights of, 278 
 
 MOR 
 
 Mandcvillc family, 70 
 Man, Isle of, 28, 30, 33, 46 
 Mantua, 240, 241 
 Mape, name of, 240, 241 
 March, Edmond Mortimer, Earl 
 of, 84 
 
 Roger Mortimer, Earl of, 86 
 Marshal, William Earl, and Earl 
 
 of Pembroke, 61, 63, 31 r, 
 
 Maryborough, 331, 340, 399, 409 
 
 Mary of Lorraine, Queen Dowager 
 of Scotland, 352 
 
 Mary's Abbey, St., 163, 317, 320 
 
 Massingberd, Oswald, 401 
 
 Mattershed, name of, 413 
 
 Maude, Empress, 37 
 
 Maunsell, Sir Rice, 171, 173, 178 
 
 Maur Abbey, 293 
 
 Maynooth, 107, 169, 173-175, 177, 
 195, 225, 229, 238, 284, 347 
 
 Mayo, 24, 71, 218 
 
 Max, John, Bishop of Elphin, 294 
 
 Meath, kingdom and county (in- 
 cluding Westmeath before the,, 
 sixteenth century), 3, 24, 49, 65, 
 170, 239; see Pale. 
 
 see of, 289, 290 ; for Bishops, 
 see Payne, Rokeby, Inge, Wilson, 
 Staples. 
 
 Medici, Catherine de', 219, 279 
 
 Meelick, 402, 410 
 
 Mellifont Abbey, 40, 314, 316 
 
 Melville, Sir James, 345 
 
 Melvin, Lough, 141 
 
 Messanger, Philip, 114 
 
 Midleton, 190 
 
 Milan, Gonzago, Duke of, 21 9 
 
 Milford Haven, 42, 46, 55, 59 
 
 Minot, Thomas, Archbishop of 
 
 Dublin in 1367, 81 
 Missett ; see Bissett. 
 Modreeny, 208, 227, 231, 242 
 Moira, 397 
 Monaghan, 154 
 Monaghan County, 56, 240 
 Monasterevan, 408 
 Monastermore, 314 
 Monasteroris, 226 
 Monluc, Bishop of Valence, 345, 
 
 348 
 Montmorenci, Hervey de ; sec Her- 
 
 vey. 
 Moore, John, Bishop of Enagh- 
 
 dune, called Bishop of Galway, 
 
 388 
 
 Morlaix, 219 
 Morris, Sir John, Deputy in 1341, 
 
 78 
 Mortimer, Roger, 63, 66, 77, 86
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 431 
 
 MOT 
 
 Mothel, 320 
 
 Mountgarret, Richard Butler, 
 created Viscount, second son 
 of the eighth Earl of Ormonde, 
 207, 213, 221, 327, 386, 389, 393 
 
 Mountjoy, 271 
 
 Mount Morris, Lord, 286 
 
 Mourne Abbey, 133, 180 
 
 Mourne Mountains, 247 
 
 Moycashel, 206 
 
 Moylagh nunnery in Tipperary, 
 374 
 
 Moyle, Thomas, 208 
 
 Moyrie Pass, 78 
 
 Muckross, 300 
 
 Mull, Island of, 273 
 
 Munster Bishops, 293 
 
 nobles, 267-268 
 
 President proposed for, 378 
 
 regulations for, 261 
 Murrough, Brian Borumha's son, 
 
 25, 28 
 
 Musgraves in Ireland, 169, 176 
 Muskerry, 124, 180 
 Mynne, John, 250 
 
 NAAS, 59 
 
 Nangle, or MacCostello, 71 
 
 Richard, Bishop of Clonfert, 
 238, 289, 294, 306 
 
 Narragh, Castle and Barony of, 
 
 54,87 
 
 Narrowater, 247 
 Navan, 240, 341 
 Neagh, Lough, 18, 164 
 Nenagh, 224, 335 
 Nesta Tudor, 41, 50, 71, 76 
 Newark, 105 
 
 Newcastle, in Wicklow, 83 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne, 373 
 Newport, in Tipperary, 409 
 Newry, 247, 297 
 Newtown Barry, 54, 210, 372 
 Nial Glundubh, 19 
 
 of the nine hostages, 3, 19, 270 
 Nore River, 44 
 
 Norfolk, Hugh Bigot, Earl of, 63 
 
 Thomas Howard, Duke of ; see 
 Surrey. 
 
 Northalis, Richard, Bishop of 
 Leighlin in 1290, 85 
 
 Northampton, 91 
 
 Northmen, Chapter II. passim 
 
 Northumberland, John Dudley, 
 Duke of, and Earl of Warwick, 
 286, 337, 358, 373, 384, 385 
 
 Northumbrians, 37 
 
 Norwegians, Chapter II. 
 
 O'CA 
 
 Nugent, William, grantee of Del- 
 
 vin, 54 
 
 Nugents, the, 76, 144, 393, 397 
 Barons of Delvin ; see Delvin. 
 
 O'BOGAN, Laurence, 91 
 
 O'Boyle, chief of Boylagh in Don- 
 egal, 140 
 
 O'Brien, Donald or Donnell More, 
 King of Limerick and North 
 Munster, 50, 55, 315 
 
 Donough Carbreach, son of 
 Donnell More, 60 
 
 William Carragh, 77 
 
 Brian, chief of Thomond, 86 
 
 Tirlogh Don, chief of Thomond, 
 181 
 
 Connor, chief of Thomond, son 
 of Tirlogh Don, 162, 173, 179, 
 191, 192, 200, 218, 227, 228, 249 
 
 Tirlogh, son of Connor, 227 
 
 Murrough, Donough, and Con- 
 nor, first, second, and third Earls 
 of Thomond ; see Thomond. 
 
 Teig, 142, 182 
 
 Matthew, 200 
 
 Sir Donnell More, son of Con- 
 nor and brother of the second 
 Earl of Thomond, 393, 409, 410 
 
 Tirlogh, Bishop of Killaloe in 
 1522, 140 
 
 O'Brien's Bridge, 201-203 
 
 O'Briens, the, of Thomond or Clare, 
 70, 77, 115, 141, 151, 172, 181, 
 182, 239, 257, 258, 265, 300, 346 
 
 O'Byrne, Owen MacHugh, captain 
 of Kerne, 328 
 
 O'Byrnes, the, of Wicklow, 57, 80, 
 90, 158, 160, 167, 200, 221, 244, 
 266, 375, 397 
 
 O'Cahan or O'Kane, in London- 
 derry County, 62, 239, 272, 349, 
 376 
 
 O'Caharney ; see O'Kparney. 
 
 O'Callaghan, of Duhallow in Cork, 
 242, 268 
 
 O'Carroll, Donough, Prince of Oriel 
 in 1142, 314 
 
 Mulrony, chief of Ely, 132, 135, 
 146, 151, 156, 157 
 
 Fergananim, son of Mulrony, 
 chief of Ely, 157, 200, 207, 223, 
 224, 226, 231, 242, 262 
 
 Donough, brother of Mulrony 
 and claiming the succession, 
 157, 207, 262 
 
 John, 262 
 
 Teig, son of Fergananim, 262
 
 432 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 OCA 
 
 O'Carroll, Teig, son of Donough, 
 262 
 
 Calvagh, chief of Ely, 262, 338, 
 346, 393, 402, 403, 407 
 
 O'Carrolls, the, of Ely in King's 
 County, 69, 86, 120, 127, 157, 
 207, 329, 334, 335, 393, 403 
 
 O'Conarchy, Christian, Bishop of 
 Lismore and papal legate, 314 
 
 O'Connor, Tirlogh, King of Con- 
 naught and Ireland, 40 
 
 Roderic, King of Connaught 
 and Ireland, son of Tirlogh, 40, 
 43, 45, 47, 52, 54, 55, 58, 68 
 
 Cathal Crovdearg, chief of the 
 Connaught O'Connors, brother 
 of Roderic, 58-61 
 
 Honora, ancestress of the White 
 Knights, 76 
 
 Brian, chief of Offaly, 135, 136, 
 150-153, 163, 177, 207, 210, 211, 
 213, 214, 221, 222, 224, 226, 227, 
 229, 251, 256, 326, 328, 335, 373, 
 392, 400, 401 
 
 Cahir Roe, brother of Brian, 
 151, 177, 207, 211, 213, 214, 251, 
 332 
 
 Donogh, son of Brian, 400, 402, 
 403, 408 
 
 Lady Mary, wife of Brian; see 
 Lady Mary Fitzgerald. 
 
 Margaret, daughter of Brian, 
 392 
 
 Roe, in Roscommon, 140, 228, 
 374 
 
 Don, in Rosoommon, 140, 374 
 O'Connors, the, 56, 57, 61, 62, 69, 86 
 
 of Offaly, the, 86, 120, 121, 129, 
 130, 175, 177, 213, 348,385, 401- 
 403 
 
 O'Corrin, James, Bishop of Killa- 
 
 loe, 305 
 Octavian de Palatio, Archbishop of 
 
 Armagh (1480-1513), 104, 108 
 O'Dempseys, the, of Clanmalier 
 
 (Portnahinch in Queen's Co. and 
 
 Upper Philipstown in King's 
 
 Co.), 251 
 O'Dogherty, chief of Innishowen 
 
 in Donegal, 140, 274, 345 
 O'Donlevy, chief of Uladh, 53 
 O'Donnell, chief of Tyrconnel, 62 
 
 Donnell Oge, chief of Tyrcon- 
 nel, 63 
 
 Hugh Roe, chief of Tyrconnel, 
 111, 113, 119, 120 
 
 Hugh Oge (called also Hugh 
 Dhu), son of Hugh Roe, chief 
 of Tyrconnel, 124, 125, 132, 
 
 O'KE 
 
 136, 140, 141, 147, 154, 211, 212, 
 253 
 
 O'Donnell, Manus, grandson of 
 Hugh Roe, chief of Tyrconnel, 
 140, 147, 212, 218-220, 237, 239, 
 247, 262, 263, 345, 347, 373, 395 
 
 Roderic, Bishop of Deny, 237 
 
 Lady Eleanor, wife of Manus ; 
 see Lady Eleanor Fitzgerald. 
 
 Calvagh, son of Manus, chief 
 of Tyrconnel, 377, 393, 395, 
 405, 407 
 
 Con, son of Calvagh, 405 
 
 the, 120, 257, 272, 300, 349, 399 
 O'Doyne, of Iregan or Portnahinch 
 
 in Queen's Co., 213, 218, 251 
 O'Driscoll, of Baltimore in West 
 
 Cork, 88 
 O'Duffy, Keyly, Archbishop of 
 
 Tuam, 51 
 O'Dwyer, of Kilnemanagh in Tip- 
 
 perary, 242, 266 
 Offaly (greater part of King's Co. 
 
 and part of Queen's Co.), 206, 
 
 211, 213, 218, 349, 350, 373, 392, 
 
 399, 400, 401, 408, 409 
 
 Barony of, in Kildare, 251 
 O'Fihely, Maurice, Archbishop of 
 
 Tuam, 292 
 
 O'Gallagher, Edmund, Bishop of 
 Raphoe, 293 
 
 Raymond, Bishop of Killala 
 (Papal), and afterwardsof Derry, 
 293, 307 
 
 O'Gallaghers, the, of Donegal, 140 
 O'Grady, chief of a district near 
 
 Killaloe in Clare and Galway. 
 
 271 
 O'Gunnell, i.e. Carrigogunnell in 
 
 Limerick, 186 
 O'Haingly, Donat and Samuel, 
 
 Archbishops of Dublin, 34 
 O'Hanlon, chief of Orior in Ar- 
 magh, 111, 112, 115, 120, 263, 
 
 353, 376, 397, 398 
 O'Hanmire, Maelisa, Bishop of 
 
 Waterford, 35 
 
 O'Hara, of Leyny in Sligo, 60, 69 
 Oisy ; see De Candolle. 
 O'Kane ; see O'Cahan. 
 O'Kearney, or O'Caharney, called 
 
 'the Fox,' of Kilcoursey in 
 
 King's County, 56, 69 
 O'Kellies, the, of the tribe of Hy- 
 
 Maine, much scattered, but in 
 
 this work chiefly between Tuam 
 
 and Roscommon, 69, 75, 172, 
 
 334, 374 
 O'Kelly, Hugh, 266
 
 THE FIRST "VOLUME. 
 
 433 
 
 O'KE 
 
 O'Kennedy, of Ormonde in Tippe- 
 
 rary, 120, 224, 227, 242, 266 
 Olaf Cuaran, 21, 24, 25, 32 
 
 Sitricson, 29 
 
 Trygvesson, 32 
 Oldcastle, Sir John, 388 
 Olderfieet (Larne), 351 
 Olfin, 18 
 
 Olioll Olum, 22 
 O'Lonergan, Edmund, 317 
 O'Madden, of Longford in Gal way, 
 
 69, 228, 402 
 Omagh, 119, 122 
 O'Meagher, of Ikerrin in Tippe- 
 
 rary, 211, 242, 321, 329 
 O'Melaghlin (commonly corrupted 
 
 into MacLoughlin), of Clon- 
 
 lonan in Westmeath, 39, 52, 
 
 228, 334 
 O'Molloy, of Fercall (including 
 
 Ballyboy and Ballycowan) in 
 
 King's County, 206, 211, 226, 
 
 262, 338, 402, 403 
 O'More, Lysaght, 77 
 
 Connell, chief of Leix, 132, 175- 
 177, 224 
 
 Peter, brother of Connell, 224, 
 225 
 
 Lysaght, son of Connell, 224, 
 225 
 
 Kedagh, son of Connell, 224- 
 226, 266 
 
 Rory, son of Connell, 224-226, 
 266, 275, 329, 335, 341 
 
 Connell Oge, 400, 401 
 O'Mores, the, of Leix, 88, 125, 127 
 
 130, 135, 140, 146, 167,176, 177, 
 211, 258, 348, 399, 403, 408 
 
 O'Mullally, Thomas, Archbishop of 
 Tuam, 292 
 
 O'Mulrian, or Ryan, of Owney in 
 Tipperary and Limerick, 227, 
 266, 393 
 
 O'Murrilly, John, Bishop of Ross, 
 293 
 
 O'Neill, Donnell, 68 
 
 O'Neill, Con More, chief of Ty- 
 rone, 118 
 
 Henry and Donnell, brothers to 
 Con More, 118-120 
 
 Art Oge, son of Con More, chief 
 of Tyrone, 121 
 
 Con Bacagh, son of Con More, 
 by Lady Alice O'Neill, and half- 
 brother to Art Oge, whom he 
 succeeded as chief (he was 
 created Earl of Tyrone), 119, 
 132, 134, 136, 137, 140, 142, 147, 
 163, 167, 176, 199, 221, 222, 231, 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 OEM 
 
 232, 237-240, 243, 247, 259, 263 
 264, 268 ; see Tyrone, Earl of. 
 O'Neill, Tirlogh, brother to Con 
 Bacagh, 119,120 
 
 Shane, son of Con Baeagh, 270, 
 376, 377, 403-405, 407 
 
 Matthew Ferdoragh, reputed 
 son of Con Bacagh ; gee Dun- 
 gannon, first Baron of. 
 
 Tirlogh Luineach (so-called 
 from having been fostered with 
 the O'Loonies), nephew of Con 
 Bacagh, and afterwards chief of 
 Tyrone, 377 
 
 Phelim Roe and Neill Conne- 
 lagh, nephews of Con Bacagh, 
 263 
 
 Hugh Boy, founder of the 
 Clandeboye branch, 62, 76 
 
 Phelim Bacagh, chief of Clan- 
 deboye, 198 
 
 of Clandeboye, Phelim Roe, 
 258 
 
 O'Neills, the, of Clandeboye, 129, 
 142, 239, 362 
 
 the, 40, 120, 211, 212, 239, 
 385, 399 
 
 of Tyrone, 62, 66, 86, 90 
 O'Nolans, the, of Forth in Carlow, 
 
 57, 86, 210 
 Oranay, 13 
 O'Reilly, Farrell, chief of Brefny- 
 
 O'Reilly (this consisted of 
 
 Cavan, except Tullyhaw and 
 
 Tullyhunco), 154 
 
 Malachias, brother and suc- 
 cessor to Farrell, 221, 222, 238, 
 349, 375, 376 
 
 O'Reillys of Cavan, the, 90, 120, 
 
 127 
 
 Oriel, 32 
 Orkney, 32 
 Ormonde, James Butler, first Earl 
 
 of, 72 
 
 second Earl of, 79 
 
 third Earl of, 84 
 
 fourth Earl of (the 
 
 ' White Earl '), 89, 90, 316 
 fifth Earl of, 91 
 
 John Butler, sixth Earl of, 102 
 
 Thomas Butler, seventh Earl 
 of, 102 
 
 Sir Thomas Boleyn, sometimes 
 called Earl of ; see Boleyn. 
 
 Piers Butler, eighth Earl of, 
 and first Earl of Ossory (called 
 Roe, 'The Red'), 102; marries 
 Lady Margaret Fitzgerald, 103 ; 
 kills Sir James Ormonde, 117 ; 
 
 F F
 
 434 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 OKM 
 
 claims the earldom of Ormonde, 
 126 ; co-( Derates with Surrey, 
 132, 133, 136 ; Deputy, 139, 140, 
 141, 142; superseded, 143; 
 sends his son to London, 145 ; 
 his disputes with Kildare, 146 ; 
 in England, 147 ; created Earl of 
 Ossory, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 
 154, 155, 156, 157, 160, 164, 
 165, 167, 170, 173, 182, 183, 187, 
 189, 190, 193, 200; on good 
 terms with Cromwell, 202, 207, 
 210; Earl of Ormonde after 
 Boleyn's death, 218 ; his 
 attempts at civilisation, 221 ; 
 he quarrels with Grey, 223, 
 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229; 
 hollow reconciliation with Grey, 
 231 ; entertains the Council at 
 Kilkenny, -235 ; his death, 241, 
 245 ; supposed falsification of 
 records in his time, 279 ; in 
 opposition to his son, the Arch- 
 bishop of Cashel, 291 
 Ormonde, James Butler, ninth Earl 
 of, and second Earl of Ossory, 
 called 'The Lame,' 139; at 
 Court, 145 ; escapes marrying 
 Anne Boleyn, 149 ; his influence 
 among the Irish, 151, 152 ; 
 made Lord Treasurer, 156 ; his 
 loyalty, 164, 165 ; wounded, 
 167, 177, 178 ; at the siege of 
 Dungarvan, 182; at the second 
 siege, 189; his journey in 
 Munster, 190-193, 199, 200, 
 201, 202; at the siege of 
 Carrigogunnell, 203, 204, 218 ; 
 falls out with Grey, 223, 229, 
 231 ; his head in danger, 234 ; 
 entertains the Council at Carlow, 
 235; becomes Earl, 241, 242, 
 248.; risks his person in the 
 Desmond country, 249 ; attacks 
 the Kavanaghs, 250, 254 ; 
 attends St. Leger in Munster, 
 255 ; his claims on the Desmond 
 estates, 256 ; addresses Parlia- 
 ment in Irish, 258 ; at Court, 
 271 ; furnishes a large con- 
 tingent for Scotch war, 276 ; 
 his quarrel with St. Leger, 278- 
 286 ; proposed for Deputy, 279 ; 
 chosen to command the con- 
 tingent in Scotland, 280 ; sails 
 to the Clyde, 281, 282; he is 
 poisoned, 285, 331, 341 ; his 
 chaplain Bicton, 359 
 ' Thomas Butler, tenth Earl of, 
 
 PAL 
 
 called ' Blank Thomas,' succeeds 
 his father at the age of fourteen, 
 286, 325, 326 ; in England, 339, 
 346 ; receives part of his rents, 
 375 ; his death reported, 382 ; 
 his uncle, 386 ; returns to Ire- 
 land, 392, 393, 400, 409 
 Ormonde, James Butler, Duke of, 
 316 
 
 Sir James, 102, 103, 109, 114, 
 117, 118 
 
 the northern part of Tipperary, 
 266 
 
 Joan, Countess of ; see Lady 
 Joan Fitzgerald. 
 
 O'Rourke, Tiernan, prince of 
 Brefny, 39, 46, 47, 49 
 
 O'Rourkes, the, of Brefny (Brefny- 
 O'Rourke was Leitrim with 
 Tullyhaw and Tullyhunco in 
 Cavan), 63, 140, 239, 266 
 
 Osbertstown, 240 
 
 O'Sealbhaigh, Augustine, Bishop 
 of Waterford, 35, 52 
 
 O'Shaughnessy, seated at Gort in 
 Galway, 271, 410 
 
 Sir Dermot, 333 
 Osney, 198 
 Ospak, 26-28 
 
 Ossory, Ossorians, 43, 47, 81 
 
 Earldom ; see Piers, eighth Earl 
 of Ormonde. 
 
 see of, 293, 358, 367 
 
 Upper ; see Upper Ossory. 
 O'Sullivan, Beare or Bere (in West 
 
 Cork), 268 
 
 O'Toole, St. Lawrence, Archbishop 
 of Dublin, 35, 45, 51, 251 
 
 Tirlogh, chief of Imaile, 222 
 238, 252, 253, 265, 287 
 
 Art Oge, brother to Tirlogh, 
 253 
 
 O'Tooles, the, of Imaile (Upper 
 Talbotstown) in Wicklow, 57, 
 70, 80, 86, 154, 166, 221, 223, 
 238, 244, 251-253, 326, 397 
 
 Overy, William, 91 
 
 Owel, Lough, 18 
 
 Owney, in Tipperary, 99, 227 
 
 Beg, in Limerick, 99 
 Oxford, 284, 293, 322, 359 
 
 Earls of, 85, 150, 270 
 Oxmantown, 109, 160, 164, 173 
 
 PAGET, Sir William, afterwards 
 
 Lord, 335, 390, 398 
 Pale, the, 71/76, 80, 123, 129-132, 
 
 171, 200, 203, 209, 254, 335
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 435 
 
 Palestine, 271 
 Paparo, Cardinal, 35 
 Paris, 310, 373 
 
 Christopher, 173-175 
 
 - George, 345, 347, 348, 352," 359, 
 373 
 
 Parry, Stephen ap, 198-193, 203, 
 
 224, 395 
 Patrick, St., 4, 12, 14, 17, 18, 32, 
 
 33, 35, 305 
 
 Bishop of Dublin ; see Gilla- 
 patrick. 
 
 Limerick, 36 
 Patrick's day, St., 282 
 
 - Cathedral, St., 109, 158, 173, 
 281, 322, 341, 394 
 
 purgatory, St., 127 
 Paul, St., 308, 381, 388, 389 
 
 III., Pope, 307 
 
 IV., Pope, 394 
 
 Paulet, William, Marquis of Win- 
 chester, 208 
 
 George, brother to the Marquis, 
 208, 229, 234 
 
 Payne, John, Bishop of Meath 
 
 (1483-1506), 104 
 Pavnswick, Eobert, Prior and first 
 
 Dean of Christ Church, Dublin, 
 
 303 
 
 Payntenye, Eichard, 114 
 Pembroke, Earl of ; see Marshal. 
 Pembrokeshire, 183 
 Peter, St., 28 
 
 the Pope called Coarb of St., 14 
 Peto the Franciscan, 394 
 
 Philip II., 7, 394, 395 
 
 Philippa, Countess of Ulster, 84 
 
 Philipstown, 206, 340, 400-403, 408 
 
 Pirry, Martin, 351 
 
 Pius II. (^Eneas Sylvius), Pope, 92 
 
 Plantagenets, 11, 70, 78, 84 
 
 Plunkets, 76, 397 
 
 Poer, Le Poer, De Poer, De Poher, 
 Power, 53, 64, 70, 75, 85, 88, 
 258 ; see Power. 
 
 Pole, Reginald, Cardinal Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, 181, 219, 
 401, 413, 414 
 
 John de la. 100 
 Portuguese, 201, 330 
 Powell, an officer, 203 
 
 Watkin, 327 
 Power, a pirate, 330 
 
 of Curraghmore, Richard, first 
 Baron by creation, 236 
 
 Peter, second Baron, son of the 
 last named, 276, 277 
 
 Edward, bastard brother of 
 Peter, 276 
 
 BEN 
 
 Power, Dominick, 172, 175 
 
 Powerscourt, 200, 238, 251, 252, 
 397 
 
 Poynet, John, Bishop of Win- 
 chester, 368 
 
 Poynings, Sir Edward, Lord 
 Deputy (1494-1496), 110-115; 
 first Parliament held under his 
 'Act,' 118, 160, 198,279 
 
 Prendergast, Maurice de, 42 
 
 name of, 71 
 Prestons, family of, 76 
 Protector, Fort ; see Maryborough. 
 Puebla, Rodrigo de la, 188 
 Purcell, a pirate, 166, 169, 173 
 
 John, Bishop of Ferns, 297,. 
 298- 
 
 name of, 64 
 
 QUEEN'S County ; see Leix. 
 
 Quentln, St., battle of, 391 
 
 Quin or Coyne, John, Bishop of 
 
 Limerick (1521-1551), 300, 305, 
 
 306, 354 
 
 EADCLYFFB ; see Sussex. 
 
 Sir Henry, brother to Sussecs, 
 408 
 
 Ragnal, name, 29 
 
 son of Ivar, 19 
 Ragnar Lodbrok, 17, 19 
 
 Ralph, Archbishop of Canterbury ; 
 see Eures. 
 
 Eandon Castle, 65, 77 
 
 Eaphoe, church and see of, 12, 
 211, 293 
 
 Rathangan, 176, 177, 326, 329 
 
 Rathbreasil, 15, 34 
 
 Rathlin Island, 271, 272, 360, 361, 
 377 
 
 Rathmore, 222 
 
 Rathvilly, 326 
 
 Ratisbon, 306 
 
 Rawson, Sir John, created Vis- 
 count of Clontarf, 155, 160, 178, 
 258, 316 
 
 Raymond, Le Gros Fitzgerald ; see 
 Le Gros 
 
 Oge, 328 
 
 Rede, Sir Richard, Lord Chan- 
 cellor in 1546, 284 
 
 Redman, Robert, 89 
 
 Redshanks, 272, 273 
 
 Ree, Lough. 17, 65 
 
 Reginald's Tower, 47, 118 
 
 Rennes, 219 
 
 Renteria, 184
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 KEY 
 
 Keyley, Robert, 166 
 
 Rice ; see Tudor. 
 
 Richard, Earl ; see Strongbow. 
 
 I., 58 
 
 If., 42, 272 
 
 III., 93 
 
 Duke of York ; see York. 
 Richmond, Henry, Duke of, 
 
 natural son of Henry VIII., 
 
 Lord Lieutenant (1529-1536;, 
 
 153, 204 
 
 Riddlesford, Walter de, 251 
 Ridley, Nicholas, Biahop of 
 
 London, 216 
 Rinuccini, Giovan Battiata, 318, 
 
 402 
 
 Robert II., King of Scotland, 272 
 Roche, Lord, 200, 268 
 Rocheford, name of, 64 
 Roderic, King ; see O'Connor. 
 Rokeby, Sir Thomas, 84 
 
 William, Bishop of Meath, 
 (1507-1511), Archbishop of 
 Dublin (1512-1521), 131, 290, 
 291 
 
 Romans, King of, 4, 7, 39 
 Rome, 35, 211, 220, 238, 288 
 Rookes, a pirate, 166, 169, 172, 
 
 173 
 
 Rosamond Clifford (Fair Rosa- 
 mond), 59 
 Roscommon, 77, 125, 408 
 
 County, 95, 211 
 Roscrea, 18, 224, 242, 374 
 Rosen, General, 167 
 
 Ross, or New Ross, in Wexford, 
 69, 74, 85, 235, 285, 373 
 
 Old, in Wexford, 198 
 
 in Carbery(West Cork), church 
 and see of, 293, 295, 306 
 
 Earl of, in Scotland, 279 
 Rouen, 89 
 
 Route, the, 77, 266 
 
 Russell, John, first Earl of Bed- 
 ford, 282 
 
 Rutland, Thomas Manners, first 
 Earl of, 150 
 
 Ryans, the, of Idrone in Carlow, 
 340 
 
 the, of Tipperary; see O'Mul- 
 rian. 
 
 SADLEIB, Sir Ralph, 253 
 
 St. John, Elizabeth, wife of the 
 
 eighth Earl of Kildare, 115 
 St. Lawrence, Thomas, a Judge 
 
 of the King's Bench, 231 ; see 
 
 Howth. 
 
 ST. 
 
 St. Leger, Sir Anthony, of Ulcombe, 
 Lord Deputy (1540-1547, 1550- 
 1551, and 1553-1556;; Royal 
 Commissioner in Ireland, 208; 
 detained by weather at Holy- 
 head, 210, 212 ; correctly appre- 
 ciates the Irish question, 213; 
 arrives in Ireland, 232 ; labours 
 of his Commission, 232-3 ; his 
 opinion of Cromwell, 234 ; Vice- 
 roy, 249 ; Revenue Commis- 
 sioners associated with him, 
 250 ; determines to begin with 
 Leinster, 250; proposes to en- 
 noble O'Connor, 251 ; befriends 
 O'Toole, 252, 253; his caution, 
 254 ; Desmond submits to him, 
 255, 256 ; goes to Munster, 257 ; 
 holds a Parliament, 258 ; makes 
 Henry VIII. King of Ireland, 
 259 ; meets O'Donnell at Cavan, 
 262 ; chastises the O'Neills, 263 ; 
 invents winter campaigns, 264 ; 
 his success as a governor, 265 ; 
 treats the Irish mildly, 266; 
 regulates the Desmond country, 
 267 ; Munster chiefs flock to him 
 at Cork, 268 ; procures the sub- 
 mission of O'Neill, 269 ; his suc- 
 cesses in Ulster, 273 ; sick of 
 Ireland, 275 ; in England, 276 ; 
 returns to Ireland, 278 ; his 
 negotiations with Scotch mal- 
 contents, 280 ; raises Irish troops 
 for foreign service, 281 ; on bad 
 terms with Ormonde, 282-286 ; 
 in England, 283 ; restored to 
 his Irish government, 285, 286 ; 
 recommends Dowdall for the 
 primacy, 307 ; profits by the 
 dissolution of the monasteries, 
 320 ; his dealings with the 
 Irish, 326 ; recalled, 327 ; a con- 
 ciliatory man, 336, 340 ; con- 
 sidered inventor of the cess, 344 ; 
 reappointed Deputy, 348; adopts 
 a conciliatory policy, 349 ; finds 
 the garrisons utterly demoral- 
 ised, 350 ; cannot get the neces- 
 sary funds, 351 ; welcomed by 
 Tyrone, 353; has the communion 
 service translated into Latin, 
 354 ; his conference with Dow- 
 dall, 355 ; is compared by 
 Browne to Gallic, 356 ; has ideas 
 of toleration, 357 ; repudiates 
 the name of Papist, 358 ; re- 
 called, 359, 365 ; his mining 
 projects, 372; O'Donnell quiet
 
 THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 437 
 
 ST. 
 
 in his time, 373 ; reappointed 
 Deputy, 378 ; lands, 385 ; con- 
 forms to Mary's religious plans, 
 386 ; hated chieny for his good 
 deeds, 396 ; superseded, 397 ; 
 Sussex is jealous of his influ- 
 ence, 408 
 
 St. Leger, Sir James, 126 
 
 St. Leger, Robert, 255 
 
 Saintloo, Sir John, Marshal of the 
 Army (1535), 170, 178, 189, 193 
 
 Captain William, seneschal of 
 Wexford, 199, 201, 203, 206, 
 221, 231, 232, 235 
 
 Salisbury, John of, 37 
 
 Robert of, 54 
 
 - Captain John, 169-171, 178 
 
 Sail, Dr., 320 
 
 Salmeron, Alphonso, 308-310 
 
 Sanda Island, 282 
 
 Sandal Hill, 91 
 
 Sandell, in Scotland, 410 
 
 Sanders, Matthew, Bishop of 
 Leighlin, 1527-1549, 305, 306 
 
 Sandford, John, Archbishop of 
 Dublin and Viceroy in 1290, 95 
 
 Sarpi, Fra Paolo, 394 
 
 Savages, a family settled in Ards, 
 Co. Down, 77, 129, 199, 232, 263 
 
 Scandinavians, 15 
 
 Scattery Island, 23, 27 
 
 Scotland, Scots, Scotch, 64, 66, 
 199, 230, 232, 237, 239, 241, 247, 
 271-274, 282, 309, 310, 333, 341, 
 345, 347, 352, 360-362, 364, 365, 
 376, 377, 385, 395, 398, 408, 410 ; 
 see MacDonnell. 
 
 Sebastian, St., 184, 188 
 
 Senanus, St., 23, 27 
 
 Seymour, Queen Jane, 196 
 
 Thomas Lord, Lord Admiral, 
 331, 337 
 
 Seymours, the, 286 ; see Somerset. 
 
 Sexton, Edmund, 228, 320 
 
 Shakespeare, 89, 217, 387 
 
 Shannon River, 47, 124, 182, 200, 
 203, 228, 256, 265, 334, 402 
 
 Shaxton, Nicholas, Bishop of 
 Salisbury, 322 
 
 Shee, Robert, 389 
 
 Sheehy, Clan, 140 
 
 Shetland, 32 
 
 Sidney, Sir Henry, several times 
 Lord Deputy, 88, 122, 243, 286, 
 315, 397 ; his first service in 
 Ulster, 398, 403 ; Lord Justice, 
 405-407 ; sides with Sussex 
 against Dowdall, 408 
 
 Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, 26, 28 
 
 STTT 
 
 Simnel, Lambert, 90, 103, 108 
 
 Sitric, 19, 24, 32, 33 
 
 Skeffington, Sir William, called 
 'The Gunner'; Viceroy, 158, 
 154, 155; recalled, 156, 158; 
 hostile to Kildare, 160, 161, 162, 
 163; Viceroy, 165; arrives in 
 Ireland, 169, 170 ; his inactivity, 
 171 ; takes Maynooth, 173-175 ; 
 relapses into inactivity, 176-177 ; 
 thanked by Henry VIII., 178- 
 179 ; takes Dungarvan, 189 ; 
 his jealousy of Lord Butler, 190, 
 191 ; cannot agree with Lord 
 Leonard Grey, 193-194; death 
 and character, 1 94 ; his widow, 
 195-196, 200,247 
 
 Slane, 114, 115 
 
 Christopher Fleming, Baron of, 
 Lord Treasurer, 152 
 
 Flemings, Barons of, 54, 76, 
 107, 163, 276 
 
 James Fleming, Baron of, 240 
 Slievebloom, 334 
 
 Slieve Margy, 341 
 
 Phelim, 265 
 Sligo, 24, 127,218,263 
 Smith, a pirate, 330 
 Smithfield, 316 
 Solloghead, 22 
 
 Somerset, Edward, Duke of, Pro- 
 tector, 270, 281, 286, 327, 337 
 
 Somersetshire, 290 
 
 Sorley Boy ; see MacDonnell. 
 
 Spain, 175, 289, 357 
 
 Spaniards, 187, 273 
 
 Spires, 306 
 
 Stanihurst, Richard, the Chronicler, 
 103, 175, 240 
 
 Stanley, Sir George, 397 
 
 Staples, Edward, Bishop of Meath 
 (1530-1554), 153, 259, 303, 311, 
 322-324, 341, 350, 365, 366, 384, 
 391, 392 
 
 Staunton, name of, 71 
 
 John, 114, 
 
 Richard, 168 
 Stephen, King, 37 
 
 castellan of Abertivy, 41 
 Stephenson, a pirate, 330 
 Stile, Sir John, 194 
 Stirling, 280 
 8toke-on-Trent, 105 
 Mradbally, 399 
 Strafford, Earl of, 286 
 Strangford Lough, 127, 365 
 Strangwych, a pirate, 330 
 Strongbow, 41 sqq., 51, 61, 63, 64 
 Stuart, Queen Mary, 271
 
 438 
 
 INDEX TO 
 
 8TTJ 
 
 Stuarts, the, 70 
 
 Suck River, 228 
 
 Suffolk, 202 
 
 Suir River, 44, 47, 130, 182 
 
 Sullivan, Dr. W. K., notes to 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Suinercote, Laurence, 62 
 
 Surrey, Thomas Howard, Earl of, 
 afterwards Duke of Norfolk, 
 Viceroy, 128 ; lands at Dublin, 
 131 ; wars with the Irish, 132 ; 
 O'Donnell visits him in Dublin, 
 132 ; more wars, 133 ; his diffi- 
 culties, 135 : his activity, 136 ; 
 his Parliament, 137 ; recalled, 
 138 ; character, 139 ; his opinion 
 as to Butlers and Geraldines, 
 152; his tenants in Carlow, 158; 
 recommended for the Vice- 
 royalty, 160; his advice, 179; 
 affected by the Act of Absen- 
 tees, 198; befriends the O'Tooles, 
 252 ; recommends a scholar for 
 a bishopric, 288 
 
 Henry Howard, Earl of, 216 
 Sussex, Thomas Radclyffe, Earl of, 
 
 Viceroy ; see Fitzwalter. Lord 
 Deputy, 396 ; installed with the 
 old religious ceremonies, 397 ; 
 goes into Ulster, 397 ; his failure, 
 398 ; his attempts to settle the 
 King's and Queen's Counties, 
 399 ; imperfect success, 400 : 
 holds a Parliament in 1557 which 
 restores the old Church, 401 ; 
 makes an abortive journey into 
 Connaught, 402; and another 
 into Ulster, 403 ; harries the 
 central plain, 403 ; takes a holi- 
 day, 405 ; returns to Ireland, 
 408 ; is jealous of St. Leger, 
 408 ; makes a progress in Mun- 
 ster, 408-409; and in Connaught, 
 410; undertakes an invasion of 
 the Hebrides, 410; but returns 
 without effecting any thing, 411 ; 
 his activity, 412 ; leaves Ireland 
 at Mary's death, 412 
 
 Swaffham, John de, Bishop of 
 Cloyne (1363-1376), 81 
 
 Swart, Martin, 104, 105 
 
 Swedes, 31 
 
 Swift, Jonathan, 31 
 
 Rwilly, Lough, 398 
 
 Swords, 12 
 
 TALBOT, George, 198 
 
 Richard, Archbishop of Dublin 
 (1417-1449), 316 
 
 TOM 
 
 Talbot, Robert, 142 
 
 Sir John, 88, 89 
 -- Thomas, 240 
 Tallaght, 123, 129 
 Tanderagee, 398 
 
 Tara, 1, 21, 114, 238, 239 
 
 Tassagard, 123 
 
 Tatenhall, John of, Bishop of 
 Ossory in 1376, 81 
 
 Teeling, John, 165, 166, 172 
 
 Templars, 65, 99, 315 
 
 Tenby, 183 
 
 Teviotdale, 281 
 
 Thady Roe, 335 
 
 Thames River, 173 
 
 Theobald, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, 36 
 
 Thierri, 6 
 
 Thirlby, Thomas, Bishop of 
 Norwich, 395 
 
 Thomas, son of Henry IV., 
 viceroy, 87 
 
 St., of Dublin (Thomascourt), 
 317 
 
 St., of Aeon, 198 
 Thomastown, 59, 167, 388 
 Thomond, or Clare, 63, 65, 124, 
 
 172, 175, 203, 204, 218, 219, 
 227, 261, 271 
 
 Murrough O'Brien, first Earl of, 
 son of Tirlogh Don, 227, 2.~>6- 
 258, 270, 271, 338, 345, 346, 
 349, 353 
 
 Donough O'Brien, second Earl 
 of, son of Connor, 173, 191, 192, 
 200, 201, 204, 227, 228, 256, 
 258, 270, 271, 393 
 
 Connor O'Brien, third Earl of, 
 son of Donogh, 393, 402, 409, 
 410 
 
 Thorstein 28 
 
 Thurles, 50, 59, 242 
 
 Tibraghny, 47 
 
 Tichfield Abbey, 294 
 
 Timahoe, 54 
 
 Tinnahinch, 213 
 
 Tintern Abbey, 296, 315, 317 
 
 Tipperary Castle, 22 
 
 County, 144, 146, 150, 165, 167, 
 182, 186, 201, 218, 221, 224, 
 227, 236, 261, 265, 266, 278, 
 297, 305 
 
 Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, 92 
 Tirlogh, King of Ireland, 33 
 Tirrey, Dominick, Bishop of Cork 
 
 and Cloyne (1536-1556), 306 
 Toem, 321 
 Toledo, 184 
 Tomson, a pirate, 329, 330
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 439 
 
 TON 
 
 Tony Island, 12 
 
 Tosti, 35 
 
 Tournon, Cardinal, 310 
 
 Townsend, Lord, 286 
 
 Towton, battle of, 91 
 
 Tralee, 300 
 
 Travers, Sir John, first Master 
 of the Ordnance (1539-1558), 
 242-244, 255, 266, 268, 273, 
 332 
 
 Robert, Bishop of Leighlin 
 (1550-1555), 359 
 
 Doctor John, 173 
 Treherne, Philip, 316 
 Trent, Council of, 307 
 
 Trim, 50, 108, 171, 176, 304, 305, 
 348 
 
 Trimleston, Barnewalls, Barons of, 
 76 
 
 Tuam, see of , 81, 292; for Arch- 
 bishops, see O'Fihely, O'Duffy, 
 O'Mullally, Bodkin. 
 
 Tudor, Rice ap, 41 
 
 Tuke, Sir Brian, 194 
 
 Tullahogue, 141 
 
 Tullow, 156, 167, 210, 225 
 
 Tunstal, Cuthbert, Bishop of Dur- 
 ham, 306 
 
 Turgeis, or Turgesius, 17, 18, 36 
 
 Turkey, 297 
 
 Turks and French compared, 347 
 
 Turner, Richard, 369 
 
 Tynemoor, battle, 19 
 
 Tyrconnel, or Donegal, 12, 136, 
 218, 220, 239, 263, 347 
 
 Tyrone (sometimes held to include 
 part of Armagh), 62, 119, 154, 
 176, 263 
 
 Con Bacagh O'Neill, first Earl 
 of, 268-270, 274, 307, 340, 345, 
 353, 362, 363, 373, 374, 376, 379, 
 386, 395 ; see under Con Bacagh 
 O'Neill. 
 
 Tyrry, Edmund, 332 
 
 UFFOBD, Robert de, Viceroy in 
 
 1276, 64 
 
 - Ralph de, Viceroy in 1344, 78 
 Uladh, (ancient name for Antrim 
 
 and Down), 53 
 Ulcombe, 208 
 Ulster, Earldom and Earls of, 61, 
 
 62, 64, 66, 71, 76, 78, 81, 83, 86, 
 
 135, 271 
 
 princes of, 269 ; see O'Neill. 
 Upper Ossory, Barnaby Fitzpatrick 
 
 first Baron of, 257, 258, 275, 279, 
 
 283 
 
 WEX 
 
 Upper Ossory, Sir Barnaby Fitz- 
 patrick, second Baron of, son of 
 the above, 326, 383, 393, 409 
 
 VALENCIENNES, 219 
 
 Valladolid, 184 
 
 Valley, Knight of the, 76 
 
 Verdon, de, 66 
 
 Vere, de, 85 
 
 Verona, 219 
 
 Vesci, de, 72 
 
 WAFER, Nicholas, 165, 166, 172 
 Wales and the Welsh, 10, 27, 57, 
 
 283, 352 
 
 Wallop, Sir John, 219 
 Walsh, or Walshe, Henry, 321 
 
 Nicholas, 317 ; see Fagan. 
 
 Patrick, Bishop of Water- 
 ford (1551-1578), 388 
 
 Robert, 175, 218-220 
 
 Thomas, -Baron of the Ex- 
 chequer in England, 250 
 
 William, Papal Bishop of 
 
 Meath (1554-1557), 391, 392 
 William, 317 
 
 Walters, John, 110, 118 
 
 Warbeck, Perkin, 90, 109-118 
 
 Ward, Hill of, 49 
 
 Warwick, Edward, Earl of (Cla- 
 rence's son), 103 
 
 Dudley, Earl of ; see Northum- 
 berland. 
 
 Waterford, 19, 21 ; its position in 
 Danish times, 29-30 ; taken by 
 the Normans, 44, 47, 74 ; its 
 private wars, 87-88, 104 ; its 
 siege by Warbeck, 113, 116, 119, 
 170, 187, 235, 236, 291, 297, 321, 
 329, 330, 351, 371, 378, 380, 412 
 
 County, 47, 60, 81, 144, 236, 
 237, 412 
 
 Wauchop, Papal Archbishop of 
 Armagh (1543-1541), 306, 307, 
 347 
 
 Welch, Nicholas, 278 
 
 Wellesley, or Wesley, name of, 
 71 
 
 Walter, Bishop of Kildare 
 (1529), 15, 288 
 
 Wentworth, Lord, 368 
 Wessex, 32 
 
 Westmeath, 49, 66, 173, 206, 213, 
 334, 374 
 
 Nugents, Earls of, 54 
 Weston, Sir William, 316 
 Wexford, 42, 43, 46, 49, 235, 237
 
 440 
 
 Wexford, County and Liberty, 63, 
 88, 65, 95, 97, 198, 206, 231, 236, 
 298, 328, 342, 372 
 
 Whitby, synod of, 15 
 
 White, John, 166, 168 
 
 another John, 364, 376 
 
 Knights (Fitzgerald), 76, 190, 
 236 
 
 Wicklow, 130, 397 
 Wilfred, St., of York, 15 
 William the Conqueror, 37 
 - III., 85 
 Wilson, Richard, Bishop of Meath 
 
 (1523-1529), 29 
 Wiltshire, Earl of, Butler, 89 
 
 Earl of, Boleyn, 149 
 Winchester, 35 
 
 William Paulet, Marquis of, 
 208 
 
 Windsor, 54, 83 
 
 Gerald de, 41 
 
 Wogan, Sir John, several times 
 Chief Governor under Edward 
 L and Edward II., 64, 95, 96 
 
 INDEX TO THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 ZOU 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 126, 142, 145, 
 148-150, 152, 153, 158, 184, 187, 
 188, 194, 209, 289, 290, 293 
 
 Wolstan's, St., Monastery, 313 
 
 Woodstock, 200 
 
 Woodward, George, 200 
 
 Worcester, Tiptoft, Earl of, 92 
 
 Worms, 306 
 
 Wriothesley, Thomas, created Earl 
 of Southampton, 286 
 
 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 389-391 
 
 Wyse, Andrew, Vice-Treasurer 
 (1550-1553), 396 
 
 YOUGHAL, 66, 74, 181, 183, 190 
 
 192, 241, 248, 300, 330 
 York, Richard, Duke of, 90, 335 
 Yorkists, in Ireland, 90 tqq. 
 
 ZAP AT A, Francesco, 308-310 
 Zouche, Elizabeth, married to the 
 ninth Earl of Kildare, 120, 128 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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