Chapter XIII: Art Mac Murrogh Kavanagh

[Chief authorities: Those mentioned at head of last chapter; Johnes’s Froissart; Archseologia, xx.; Thomas D'Arcy McGee’s Memoir of Art Mac Murrogh. 1]

The man that gave most trouble during the reign of Richard II was Art Mac Murrogh Kavanagli, king of Leinster. This renowned chief was born in 1357, and was a direct descendant of Donall Kavanagh, son of the archtraitor Dermot Mac Murrogh. In early youth, even in his sixteenth year, he began his active career as defender of the province; and at eighteen (in 1375) he was elected king of Leinster, in succession to Donogh Mac Murrogh Kavanagh, who had been treacherously killed by the English. [1]

Some time after his election he married Eliza le Veele baroness of Norragh (now Narraghmore in Kildare), daughter of Maurice Fitzgerald fourth earl of Kildare; whereupon the English authorities seized the lady’s vast estates, inasmuch as she had violated the Statute of Kilkenny by marrying a mere Irishman. In addition to this, the black rent - eighty marks a year - which had been paid to him, as it had been for many years to his predecessor, was for some reason stopped, soon after the accession of Richard 11; probably through the poverty of the exchequer. Exasperated by these proceedings, he collected an army and devastated and burned many districts in the counties of Wexford, Kilkenny, Carlow, and Kildare, and declared

1 After this the enumeration of authorities at the heads of the chapters will be discontinued. I will henceforward content myself - and I hope content the reader - by quoting the authority for each individual statement whenever I deem it necessary.

1. Four Masters, 1375.

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that he would make no peace till his demands had been paid. The Dublin council were at last forced to pay him his eighty marks, after which they admitted him to the ‘ king’s peace.’ About the same time Murrogh O’Brien made a raid from Thomond on the Leinster settlement, and demanded a hundred marks as the price of retiring; but as there were only nine marks at the time in the treasury, the rest was made up by subscription from the chief colonists. [1]

Meantime Ireland had been going from bad to worse; and at last the king resolved to conae hither himself with an overwhelming force, hoping thereby to overawe the whole country into submission and quietness. He made great preparations for this expedition; and on the 2nd of October, 1394, attended by many of the English nobles, he landed at Waterford with an army of 34,000 men, the largest force ever yet brought to the shores of Ireland.

As soon as Mac Murrogh heard of this, far from showing any signs of fear, he swept down on New Eoss, then a flourishing English settlement strongly walled, burned the town, and brought away a vast quantity of booty. And when the king and his army marched north from Waterford to Dublin, he harassed them on the way after his usual fashion, attacking them from the woods and bogs and cutting off great numbers. The king suffered other reverses: his troops were repulsed with loss by O’Conor of Offaly and by O’Carroll of Ely, whose lands he had attempted to ravage.’ [2]

That the Irish chiefs could resist this mighty force was however out of the question; so they resolved to yield quietly when they saw it was inevitable; and at a place called Ballygorry near Carlow, Mowbray earl of Nottingham received the submission of a number of the southern chiefs in 1395, and amongst them Mac Murrogh, the most dreaded of all. On this occasion Mac Murrogh was for a short time kept in captivity on some accusation brought against him by the earl of Ormond, and was released only

1. Gilbert, Viceroys, p.243.
2. Four Masters, 1395.

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wheD he had given hostages. His submission and arrest cannot have been a very humiliating proceeding; for in the end his black rent was restored to him, and it continued to be paid to his descendants till the time of Henry VIII [1] It was agreed also that his wife’s property, the barony of Narraghmore, should be restored to her.

The king himself afterwards received O’Neill prince of Ulster, and other northern chiefs, as well as Brian O’Brien of Thomond, in great state at Drogheda, whither he had gone from Dublin to meet them; and all made formal submission.

No conditions of any consequence were exacted from the northern leaders, except the usual promise of fealty for the future. But the Leinster chiefs were treated very differently. They and their people were sentenced to give up by a certain day their homes and their lands in Leinster, and to leave the province, taking with them however their cattle and other movable goods. As a sort of compensation, the chiefs were to get pensions for life: and they and their people were permitted to occupy such lands as they could seize from the ‘ Irish enemies’ elsewhere. The lands to be thus left vacant - all the mountain district between Dublin and Wexford - the king intended to plant with a colony of English settlers. [2]

Altogether about 75 chiefs submitted to Richard and his deputy Mowbray on this occasion. They were afterwards invited to Dublin, where they were feasted sumptuously for several days by the king. It was with some difficulty they were persuaded to dress and dine after the English manner; and their strange appearance and fierce demeanour caused great astonishment among the English nobles. The four provincial kings, O’Neill, O’Conor, Mac Murrogh, and O’Brien, were told that King Richard intended to confer on them the honour of knighthood; at which they appeared surprised, and said they did not need it as they were knights already; for it was the custom of every Irish king to knight his sons at seven years of age.

1. Cox, Hist. of Irel., ed. 1689, p.138.
2. Davies, Discoverie, 224; Cox, ed. 1689, p.140.

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In the end, however, they yielded; and the ceremony was performed by the king in a very imposing fashion (1395). [1]

Richard, with all his silly vanity and feebleness of character, was shrewd enough to perceive the real causes of the miserable condition of Ireland. In a letter to his uncle the duke of York, his regent in England, he describes the Irish people as of three classes: Irish savages or enemies (the old natives, who were outside the pale of the law), Irish rebels (i.e., those of the English settlers and of the natives who had once obeyed English law, but who were now in rebellion), and English subjects. He tells his uncle plainly that the ‘rebels’ were driven to rebellion by injustice and ill-usage. He goes on to say that if they were not treated wisely and considerately, they would most probably join themselves with the king’s enemies (the natives); and he announces his intention to admit them all to favour and protection, by which he hoped to make them good subjects.

But the king’s sympathies did not extend as far as the ‘Irish enemies', who might just as easily have been made good subjects: on the contrary, he had no hesitation to set them slaughtering each other in order to make room for his projected colony in Leinster.

But this magnificent and expensive expedition produced no useful result whatever. In the words of Sir John Davies, [2] the king ‘returned into England with much honour and smal profit; for though he had spent a huge masse of treasure, yet did hee not encrease his revennew thereby one sterling pound, nor enlarged the English borders the bredth of one Acre of land; neither did he extend the jurisdiction of his courtes of justice by one foote further than the English colonies, wherein it was used and exercised before.'

As for the submission and reconciliation of the Irish chiefs, it was all pure sham. They did not look upon King Richard as their lawful sovereign [1] and as the

1. So far the account of Richard’s proceedings is taken from Froissart (ii. 577) as it was given to him by a French gentleman named Castide or Crystede, who had lived seven years among the Irish.
2. Discoverie, p.51.

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promises they had made had been extorted by force, they did not consider themselves bound to keep them. And the vicious and cruel arrangement by which the people of Leinster were to leave their homes and seek other lands by making war on their neighbours - this seems never to have been carried out, or it was carried out only to a very trifling extent.

After a stay of nine months the king was obliged to return to England in 1395, leaving as his deputy his cousin young Roger Mortimer earl of March, who, as Richard had no children, was heir to the throne of England. Scarcely had he left sight of land when the chiefs one and all renounced their allegiance, and the fighting went on again, victory now with one side, now with the other. The English of Leinster made a treacherous attempt of some kind, of wliich we have no details, to capture Mac Murrogh; ‘but', say the Four Masters (1395)', this was of no avail to them, for he escaped from them by the strength of his arm and by his valour.'

At last in a battle fought at Kells in Kilkenny in 1397 against the Leinster clans, amongst them a large contingent of Mac Murrogh’s kern, the English suffered a great overthrow, and Mortimer was slain. [1] When news of this catastrophe reached King Richard he flew into a mighty rage; and although things were at this time going on very badly for him in England, yet in the midst of all his troubles and dangers, he foolishly resolved on a second expedition to Ireland, in order, as he said, to avenge the death of his cousin, and especially to chastise Mac Murrogh.

Another army was got together quite as numerous as the former. Of this unfortunate expedition we have a very interesting account, written in verse by a French gentleman who accompanied the army of the king and was an eye-witness of all the proceedings. From this account, which I have closely followed, the details given here are chiefly taken. [2]

1. Dowling, Annals, A.D. 1397.
2. It is translated by Sir George Carew, as published in Harris’s Hibernica, 49; and in a more scholarly manner by Rev. J. Webb in Archaeologia, xx. This French writer is very fair to the Irish.

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In the middle of May 1399 the king landed with his army at Waterford, and after a short delay he marched to Kilkenny on his way to Dublin. But instead of continuing on the open level country, he turned to the right towards the Wicklow highlands to attack Mac Murrogh: and here his troubles began. Mac Murrogh, whose wife’s barony of Narraghmore, it should be remarked, had in violation of the compact of 1395 been granted by the king to the duke of Surrey, [1] retired within his fastnesses, avoiding open conflict like the skilful general that he was, and declaring that he would defend the land to the death; and the royal army soon began to suffer from want of provisions.

Making their way slowly and toilsomely through the hills, they at length descried the Leinster army, about 3,000 in number, high up on a mountain side, coolly looking down on them, with dense woods between. Having waited for some time vainly hoping to be attacked, the king had the adjacent villages and houses burned down; and while they were blazing, he knighted Henry of Lancaster, then a lad of thirteen, afterwards the great King Henry V. of England. Then getting together 2,500 of the inhabitants, whose homes he had destroyed, he caused them to cut a way for his army through the woods: and the passage having been cleared, he pushed on, determined to overwhelm the little body of mountaineers.

But he was soon beset with difficulties of all kinds: bogs, fallen trees, hidden gullies, and quagmires in which the soldiers sank up to their middle. At the same time flying parties of the Irish continually darted out from the woods on every side, flinging their lances with terrible force and precision that no armour could withstand, cutting off* foraging parties and stragglers, and then disappearing in the woods', so nimble and swift of Fote', says the Frenchman', that like unto Staggs they run over Mountains and Valleys, whereby we received grete Anoyance and Damage.’ And so the army struggled on day by day, never able to overtake the main body of the mountaineers who continually retired before them; and besides those

1. Gilbert, Viceroys, 281.

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that fell by the Irish, great numbers were all this time perishing of hunger and hardship.

Mac Murrogh was well aware of the terrible plight of the royal army; and when King Richard sent him a message demanding submission and offering pardon and reward, he returned answer ‘that for all the Goold in the World he wuld not submit himself, but he wuld continue to Warr and endamage the King in all that he mought.’ He probably did not trust in the good faith of the king, remembering the treacherous attempt to capture him four years previously, and the breach of contract regarding his wife’s property.

In this dire strait the army made their way across hill, moor, and valley, men and horses starving, and perishing with rain and storm; till at the end of eleven days of toil and suffering they came in sight of the sea, somewhere on the south part of the Wicklow coast. Here they beheld with joy three vessels off shore which had been sent from Dublin laden with provisions; and the starving multitude, breaking through all restraints of discipline, plunged into the water and struggled and fought for every morsel of food. The timely arrival of these ships saved the whole army from annihilation. Next day they resumed march, moving now along the coast towards Dublin; while Mac Murrogh’s flying parties hung on their rear and harassed their retreat, never giving them an hour’s rest.

But even Mac Murrogh saw that he could not hold out to the end; and now he sent a messenger with an offer of submission, and a request to the king to send one of his nobles to arrange terms of peace. ‘This News brought much Joy into the English Camp, every Man being weary of Toile and desirous of Rest’; and the young earl of Gloucester was deputed to confer with the chief, taking with him 1 ,200 men as guard, and accompanied by the French gentleman who afterwards told the story.

When they had come to the place of conference Mac Murrogh was seen descending a mountain side between two woods, accompanied by a multitude of followers. He

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rode, without saddle, a noble horse that had cost him four hundred cows, and he galloped down the face of the hill so swiftly, says the French writer', that I never in all my life saw hare, or deer, or any other animal go with such speed as his horse.’ He brandished a long spear, which, when he had arrived near the meeting place, he flung from him with great dexterity. Then his followers fell back, and he met the earl alone near a small brook; and those that saw him remarked that he was tall of stature, well knit, strong and active, with a fierce and stern countenance.

The parley lasted for a long time, but it ended in nothing; for Mac Murrogh insisted on what Gloucester refused to grant - that he should be free from any blame for all that had passed in Ireland since the king’s first visit; and he declared he would never agree to any other conditions. So they parted; and on Gloucester’s return with the news, the king was greatly disappointed and incensed, and swore he would never leave Ireland till he had taken Mac Murrogh living or dead. And he resumed his march to Dublin without further delay; for the great army still suffered from want of food. Dublin must have been in those days a prosperous city; for though the king remained there with his whole army - 30,000 or thereabouts - for six weeks, yet, as the metrical narrative informs us, there was no rise in the price of provisions.

The king’s first step, after his arrival in Dublin, was to divide the army into three parts to hunt down Mac Murrogh; and he offered a large reward for his apprehension. But before these arrangements could be carried out he was recalled to England by alarming news; and when he had arrived he was made prisoner, and a new king, Henry IV., was placed on the throne (1399). [1]

Notwithstanding the disasters of the English, and the spirited resistance of Mac Murrogh, he suffered severely by this royal visit. Many of his sub-chiefs, including his own uncle, terrified by the immense display of force,

1. Here ends that part of the French Metrical Narrative relating to Ireland.

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witlidrew from liim and submitted to the king. And we find the following entry in the Annals of Clonmacnoise: ‘ A.D. 1398 [correctly 1399]. Richard king of England arrived in Ireland this year, by whom Art Mac Murrogh was mightily weakened and brought low.'

After the king’s departure, Mac Murrogh’s raids became so intolerable that the government agreed to compensate him for his wife’s lands, and prayed him for respite till they should send to England for instructions as to other claims he made. In their communication they inform King Henry IV. that Mac Murrogh had given notice that he would never have peace but would make open war unless his wife’s lands were restored and his other claims satisfied before the next feast of St. Michael: and they express their fears that he would ultimately destroy the country. [1] He seems, however, to have got such satisfaction as kept him quiet for some time. Two years later (1401) he made a terrible raid into Wexford, in which numbers of the settlers were slain. [2] But this was avenged soon after by the English of Dublin. Encouraged probably by the arrival of Thomas the young duke of Lancaster, the new king’s son, a boy of twelve years old, who had been sent over as lord lieutenant, they marched south along the coast, in 1402, led by the mayor John Drake, and defeated the O’Byrnes near Bray, killing 500, including some Munster kern who happened to be present under their chief O’Meagher. For this and other services, the king granted to the city of Dublin the privilege of having a gilt sword carried before the mayor.

The position of governor of Ireland was in those days not a comfortable one. The young prince governed the country by a council, who found it very hard to get his salary from England, and impossible to raise money in Ireland; so that after spending every penny of their own

1. Gilbert, Viceroys, p.292.
2. Annals of Lough Key, ii. 97. The annalist adds: ‘Retaliation for this was committed by the foreigners of Dublin on the Gael of Leinster, and a great many of the retained kern of Munster under Teige O’Meagher were slain there.’ This obviously refers to the raid on the O’Byrnes, related above.

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money they had to pawn nearly all the prince’s jewels and plate to maintain the court. [1]

After a short period of quietness Mac Murrogh renewed the war in 1405, plundered and burned Carlow and Castledermot, two English settlements, and again overran the county Wexford. The young lord lieutenant, having sojourned in Ireland for two years, returned to England. Sir Stephen Scroop, his deputy, now determined to invade Mac Murrogh’s territory; and accompanied by the earls of Desmond and Ormond and by the prior of Kilmainham, he marched southwards through Kildare. Mac Murrogh, in no way scared, met them near Callan in Kilkenny, where in 1407 was fought a well-contested battle. For a longtime in the beginning the Irish had the upper hand, and it seemed very likely they would win; but at the critical juncture some fresh English forces coming up turned the fortune of the day, and Scroop gained a complete victory. Immediately after the fight he marched suddenly on Callan. where he surprised O’Carroll lord of Ely, and killed O’Carroll himself and 800 of his followers. Altogether 3,000 of the Irish fell in these two conflicts - the greatest reverse ever sustained by MacMurrogh. [2]

This defeat kept him quiet for a time. But in 1413 he inflicted a severe defeat on the men of Wexford, slaying many and taking a great number of prisoners. [3] Three years after this (1416) the English of Wexford combined, with the determination to avenge all the injuries he had inflicted on them. But he met them on their own plains, defeated them with a loss of 320 in killed and prisoners, and so thoroughly frightened them that they were glad to escape further consequences by making peace and giving hostages for future good behaviour. [4]

This was the old herO’s last exploit. He died in New Ross a week after the Christmas of 1417, in the sixtieth year of his age, after a reign of forty-two years over Leinster. O’Doran his chief brehon, who had been spending the Christmas with him, died on the same day; and there are

1. Gilbert, Viceroys, p.295.
2. Grace, Annals, 1407.
3. Four Masters, 1413.
4. Ibid., 1416.

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good grounds for suspecting that both were poisoned by a woman who had been instigated by some of Mac Murrogh’s enemies.

The Four Masters, recording his death, praise him as ‘a man who had defended his own province against the English and the Irish from his sixteenth to his sixtieth year; a man full of hospitality, knowledge, and chivalry; a man full of prosperity and royalty; and the enricher of churches and monasteries.'

He was the most heroic, persevering, and indomitable defender of his country from Brian Boru to Hugh O’Neill; and he maintained his independence for near half a century just beside the Pale, in spite of every effort to reduce him to submission.

Chap. XIV. How Ireland Fared During the French Wars and the Wars of the Roses

Henry V., who ascended the throne in 1413, was so engrossed with France that he gave hardly any attention to Ireland: so that there was little or no change in Irish affairs during his reign. There was strife everywhere; and the native chiefs continued their fierce inroads on the Pale. Matters at last looked so serious for the English settlement that in 1414 the king sent over an able and active military man as lord lieutenant. Sir John Talbot Lord Furnival, who subsecpently distinguished himself in the wars against France.

One of his first proceedings shows that notwithstanding the Statute of Kilkenny the colonists practised fosterage with the Irish as much as ever. He appointed commissioners to traverse the Pale and seize all Irish infants at fosterage among the loyal English. There were also no doubt just as many infants of the colonists among the Irish whom the commissioners could not reach.

He commenced his military operations in 1415 in a

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decided way by making a circuit round the Pale. Beginning in the south with Leix, he devastated the whole district; till at last its chief, O’Moore, was forced to sue for peace; which was granted to him, but only on the humiliating condition that he should help the English against his neighbours. He next, with O’Moore, attacked and reduced Mac Mahon of Oriell, whom he forced to accept the same condition; and with the help of these two he reduced two other powerful chiefs, O’Neill and O’Hanlon.

But, in the words of Sir John Davies, Furnival ‘had power to make them [the Irish chiefs] seeke the king’s peace, but not power to reduce them to the obedience of subjects.’ At first, indeed, the people of the Pale were dazzled and delighted at his brilliant success. But it brought them far more evil than good, and their joy soon gave place to execration; for while the relief was merely temporary, he subjected them when all was over, in violation of the Statute of Kilkenny, to coyne and livery, having no other way of paying his soldiers; exactly as the earl of Desmond had done eighty-five years before. The poor people of the Pale were now and for a long time afterwards plagued with this hateful exaction; and by degrees, to use the words of Davies', coyne and livery, which the Statute of Kilkenny had for a time abolished, was risen again from hell.’ Yet it remained treason by act of parliament; and consequently it was always dangerous to resort to it, as we shall see in the case of the great earl of Desmond.

Nothing could better show the miseries of the colonists than their total lack of manliness and self-respect as exhibited in the whining and beseeching tone of some of their memorials about this time. In 1416 the principal men - ecclesiastics, nobles, knights, mayors, &c. - wrote to the king that they were ‘in a land environed by Irish enemies and English rebels, and in point to be destroyed’; and they go on to say, ‘We humbly beseech your gracious lordship that it would please you of your special grace to think upon your said land, and in the works of charity to have mercy and pity on us your poor lieges thereof, who

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are environed on all sides with English rebels and Irish enemies.’ [1]

When Talbot was recalled in 1419, he ‘went to England carrying along with him the curses of many, because he, being run much in debt for victuals and other matters, would pay little or nothing at all.’ [2] No sooner had he embarked than the Irish resumed their attacks, and for years incessantly harried and worried the miserable Palesmen, except, indeed, when kept quiet in some small degree by the payment of black rent. To such desperate straits were these brought, that in a statement of grievances laid by them before the king in 1420, they prayed him that he would lay the whole statement of their misfortunes before the Pope in order that his holiness might institute a crusade against the Irish, whom no doubt they thought as bad as Saracens', for the relief and salvation of the land and of your lieges in that behalf, and in perpetual destruction of those enemies by the aid of God.’ [3]

The accession of Henry VI (1422) made no improvement in the country, which continued to be everywhere torn by strife. Ireland was now indeed, and for generations before and after, in a far worse condition than at any time under native management, even during the anarchical period after the battle of Clontarf.

The people of the Pale probably fared neither better nor worse than those of the rest of the country. But to add to their misfortunes, there arose, about the time of the king’s accession, a deadly quarrel between the great Ormond family - the Butlers - on the one hand, and on the other the Talbots: namely, Pichard Talbot, archbishop of Dublin, and his brother Lord Furnival, who came twice again to Ireland as lord lieutenant. This feud was so violent that it put a stop to almost all government business for many years; and each party, when in power, oppressed the other to the utmost: [4] till at last, in 1423, the king and council had to send peremptory orders that all legal proceedings between them should be annulled, and that

1. Gilbert, Viceroys, p.306.
2. Ware, Annals, 1419.
3. Gilbert, Viceroys, p.314.
5. Cox, Hist. of Irel. ed. 1689, p.158.

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the quarrel should finally cease. But the cessation was only temporary: the feud broke out more fiercely than before, so that twenty years later (in 1443) the king had again to interpose.

Meantime in 1423 the Irish of parts of Ulster made a terrible raid on Louth and Meath, defeated the army sent against them, and carried off great booty; till at last the inhabitants had to buy peace by agreeing to pay black rent. The viceroy Ormond was quite powerless to repress this and other attacks; and the king was at last forced to send money from England to raise another army and subsidise some of the border chiefs, which enabled Ormond to repel the Irish for the time being. Of the next score of years it is enough to say that the miseries of the country, and of the Pale in particular, increased rather than diminished; and the Irish when not bought off made constant plundering incursions on the borders. Within the Pale all was disorder and corruption. The leading officials seldom paid debts, while at the same time they robbed the king and enriched themselves. We read of one lying in wait for another, capturing him after slaying some of his attendants, and holding him in durance till ransomed. Fitzwilliam of Dundrum near Dublin, with an armed troop, broke into the house of the chief baron at Bagot Path beside the city, and murdered him while at dinner. And the settlers in the south - in and around Cork, Kinsale, Waterford, "\7exford, Youghal, &c. - were in just as bad plight. [1]

In 1449 Pichard Plantagenet duke of York, a prince of the royal blood and heir to the throne of England, was appointed lord lieutenant for ten years, with such extraordinary powers and privileges that he was more like a king than a governor. He was connected with Ireland by several ties, being earl of Ulster and lord of Connaught and Meath by descent from Lionel duke of Clarence; and he possessed a vast amount of property in the country.

He had strong hopes of becoming king of England; and as he had many powerful enemies among the Lancas-

1. Gilbert, Viceroys. 343.

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trian party, he did his best from the first to win the warm-hearted Irish to his side, treating the natives, both of English and Irish descent, with great fairness and consideration. [1] He chose the two earls of Ormond and Desmond to stand sponsors for a son who was born to him in Dublin; thus connecting himself with the two great AngloIrish ruling families by the Irish tie of gossipred. He was, accordingly, very popular on all hands, and the Irish chiefs paid him great respect. They were delighted with what they were so little accustomed to - -fair treatment - and they sent him as many beeves for his own use as it pleased him to ask.

In his first year of office he had a bill passed in a parliament held in Dublin, to prevent those living on the marches sending the soldiers they kept for defence on coyne and livery among the husbandmen: directing that no marcher snould keep more mercenaries than he himself could support. In the preamble to the bill there is a frightful picture of the condition of the people (i.e. the colonists). In time of harvest companies of the soldiers were in the habit of going tuith their wives, children, servants, and friends, sometimes to the number of a hundred, to the farmers’ houses, eating and drinking, and paying for nothing. They ‘many times rob, spoil, and kill the tenants and husbandmen, as well by night as by day’; and their horses were turned out to graze in the meadows and in the ripe corn, ruining all the harvest. And if there was any show of resistance', they burn, rob, spoil, and kill; and for the most part the land is wasted and destroyed.’ [1]

It is worthy of remark that this parliament, under the influence of the popular duke, asserted the independence of the Irish legislature: that they had a right to a separate coinage, and that they were absolutely free from all laws except those passed by the lords and commons of Ireland. This sentiment must have grown up gradually; and it attained strength in proportion to the weakness of the

1. Davies, Dlscoverie, 227-8.
2. Four Masters, a.d. 1449.
3. Gilbert, Viceroys, pp.355-6.

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English influence in Ireland; but it was now for the first time formally and distinctly asserted.*

The Pale was now reduced to such a low ebb that when Mac Geoghegan with some other neighbour chiefs made inroads, and burned some towns and villages, the duke, for want of money, was unable to raise men enough to repel them, and had to come to terms. Whereupon in 1450 he wrote a passionate letter to his brother, the earl of Salisbury, lord chancellor of England, saying that if his promised payment was not sent he would be forced to resign', and very necessity will compell mee to come into England to live there, upon my poor livelihood, for I had lever bee dead than any inconvenience should fall thereunto in my default: for it shall never be chronicled, by the grace of God, that Ireland was lost by my negligence.’ [1] He probably got the money, for he still held his post.

He had not been in Ireland for more than a year when Jack Cade’s rebellion broke out; on which he went to England in 1451 to look after his own interests. During his absence Ireland was governed by deputies appointed by himself.

Amidst all this heartless tumnlt, it is pleasing to be able to record, that literature still retained its fascination for the native mind. In 1451 died Margaret wife of O’Conor of Offaly and daughter of O’Carroh of Ely, a woman who is greatly praised by the Irish for her unbounded benevolence and love of learning. The annalists relate that twice in one year she invited to a great banquet the learned men of Ireland and Scotland - poets, musicians, brehons, antiquaries, &c. The first meeting was held at Killeigh near TuUamore, when 2,700 were present; and the second at Rathangan in Kildare, to which were invited all who were absent from the first. Margaret herself was present; and she sat high up in the gallery of the church in view of the assembly, clad in robes of gold, surrounded by her friends and by the clergy and brehons. All were

1. Ball’s Hist. Review of Irish Parl., p.27; Leland, ii. 42; Richey, Short Hist. 232.
Campion’s Histurie of Ireland, ed. 1809, p.147.

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feasted in royal style, seated according to rank; after which each learned man was presented with a valuable gift; and the names of all present were entered in a roll by Gilla-na-Neeve Mac Egan chief brehon to 0’ Conor the lady’s husband. [1]

From the first arrival of the Anglo-Normans, the colony was only able to maintain itself by occasional help from England: help in men and money at dangerous junctures. For the past century and a half however the English kings had been so taken up with wars in France, Scotland, and Wales, that they had little leisure to attend to Ireland, and the colonists were left in a great measure to shift for themselves; for the spasmodic action of Richard II. and Lord Furnival produced only temporary results. Accordingly we have seen the Irish encroaching, the Pale growing smaller, and the people of the settlement more oppressed and more miserable, year by year.

But now, about this time (1454), began in England the tremendous struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster, commonly known as the Wars of the Roses, which lasted for about thirty years, and during which the colony fared worse than ever. This great civil war profoundly affected Ireland, for all the chief Anglo-Irish lords took part in it. The Geraldines sided with the house of York, and the Butlers with the house of Lancaster; and the leading gentlemen of these two houses, as well as most of those of the other Anglo-Irish families, went to England to take part in the several battles, going and returning as occasion demanded, and generally leaving Ireland almost wholly unprotected in their absence.

Then the Irish rose up everywhere, overran the lands of the settlers, and took back whole districts, some of which they ever after retained. It came to this pass at last, that they obtained possession of the whole of Ireland, except the Pale and some few places along the coast of Ulster. The Pale itself became smaller than ever, till it included only the county Louth and about half those of Dublin,

1. Annals of Ireland, translated by Mac Firbis, Irish Arch. Miscel. vol. i. p.227; and Four Masters, A.D. 1451.

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Meatli, and Kildare. In this little tract alone did English authority and English law prevail; and the wretched inhabitants, surrounded on three sides by the fierce native tribes, had to pay yearly black rents - now so heavy as to be well nigh intolerable -to the Irish chiefs to purchase peace. [1] To so low a state had the Pale been reduced that at one time not more than 200 men could be got together to defend it.

Looking back at this distance of time, it seems extraordinary that the Irish did not seize the opportunity to regain possession of the whole country. Long before, in far less favourable circumstances, they had fought valiantly under Brian Boru, Donall O’Brien, and Mac Murrogh; and ages afterwards at the Yellow Ford, Benburb, the Boyne, and Augbrim. But now it required, as it were, nothing more than to stretch forth a hand to wipe out the colony. The explanation is that there was no Irish leader patriotic and powerful enough to unite the Irish chiefs: the opportunity was come but the man was wanting: and they were so insanely bent on their own wretched broils, or so meanly satisfied with black rents, that they never troubled themselves about the interests of the country at large.

At the end of eight years the duke of York returned to Ireland, in 1459, this time as a fugitive fleeing from the Lancastrians, who had got the upper hand for the time. After the battle of Northampton, in which the Yorkists gained the day, he returned to England with a great following from Ireland, and claimed the throne. But he was defeated at the battle of Wakefield (1460), where fell a great part of the Anglo-Irish nobility and gentry; and the duke was taken and beheaded on the battlefield. The

1. In 1461 the following black rents were paid:

To O’Conor of Offaly from Meath and Kildare, 80.
To O’Carroll of Ely from Kilkenny and Tipperary, £40.
To O’Brien of Thomond from Limerick, £40.
To Mac Carthy of Desmond from Cork, £40.
To Mac Murrogh of Leinster from Wexford, £40. Besides a salary of 80 marks (£53. 6s. 8d.) from the Dublin exchequer.
To O’Neill from Lecale and Louth, £60: with a collar of gold from the king. (Gilbert, Viceroys, 376.) (Multiply by 1.5 for present value.)

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very next year, however, witnessed the triumph of the Yorkists; and the duke’s eldest son was proclaimed king of England as Edward IV., the first king of the house of York (1461). It is almost needless to say that during this king’s reign Ireland fared nothing better than before; for he had too much home business on his hands to attend to anything else.

The Geraldines both of Desmond and Kildare, were now in high favour, while the Butlers were in disgrace. These two factions enacted a sort of miniature of the wars of the Roses in Ireland. Sir John Butler, the young earl of Ormond, a Lancastrian, landed with a body of English soldiers, and was joined by his kinsman Edmund Mac Bichard Butler. Then there was open war between the Desmonds and the Butlers. Ormond captured Waterford and took the son of the earl of Desmond prisoner. ‘But afterwards they on both sides ordained to deside their variances by sett batle; and so they have donne, meeting each other with an odious ireful countenance.’ This battle was fought in 1462 at Pilltown in Kilkenny, where the Butlers were defeated and 400 or 500 of their men killed. [1] As a curious illustration of how completely those Anglo-Irish families had adopted the Irish language and customs, it is worthy of mention that the ransom of Mac Richard Butler, who had been taken prisoner in the battle, was two Irish manuscripts, the Psalter of Cashel and the Book of Carrick. A fragrment of the Psalter of Cashel is still preserved in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and in one of its pages is written a record of this transaction.The contest between these two great Anglo-Irish factions continued for long after; the Desmonds had the upper hand for some time, but the Ormonds ultimately regained their position of equality.

Thomas the eighth earl of Desmond - the Great Earl as he was called - was appointed lord deputy in 1463 under his godson the young duke of Clarence, the king’s brother,

1. Annals of Ireland, by Mac Firbis, Irish Arch. Miscell. vol. i. p.247; see also Four Masters, 1462.
Four Masters, A.d. 1462, p.1021 and notes.

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wlio, though appointed lord lieutenant for life, never came to Ireland. Desmond was a great favourite with the king, and he was well received by the Irish of both races. Year by year his power and popularity increased; the kinocontinued to shower favours on him; and he became the greatest and most powerful man of his family that had yet appeared. The Irish annalists describe him as favouring learning, and bountiful to the clergy and to all learned in Irish, such as poets and antiquaries. His love for learning is shown by the fact that he founded the college of Youghal, which was richly endowed by him and his successors; also a university in Drogheda; but this latter project fell to the ground for want of funds.

It appears that, notwithstanding the Statute of Kilkenny, the number of Irish dwelling within the Pale had been greatly on the increase; which no doubt alarmed the government; for we find that in 1465 several feeble measures were passed by the Dublin parliament to make them conform to English customs. Every Irishman dwelling in the Pale was to dress and shave like the English, and take an English surname: from some town, as Trim, Sutton, Cork; or of a colour, as Black, Brown; or of some calling, as Smith, Carpenter, &c. - on pain of forfeiture of his goods. Another and more mischievous measure forbade ships from fishing in the seas of Irish countries, because the dues ivent to malw the Irish people prosperous and strong. But the worst enactment of all was one providing that it was lawful to decapitate thieves found robbing ‘or going or coming, having no faithful Englishman of good name or fame in their company, in English apparel.’ And whoever did so, on bringing the head to the mayor of the nearest town, was licensed to levy a good sum off the barony for his own use. [1] This really put it in the power of any rascal who needed mone} [1] to behead the first Irishman he met, pretending that he was a thief, and to raise money on the head. But here we may make an observation similar to that made at page 297. The act was aimed at Irish thieves; but we must not assume that

1. Gilbert, Viceroys, pp.382-3.

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it was framed with the rancorous intention of setting the colonists to kill Irishmen. The real fact was that the Pale was now in a hopeless state of disorder - swarming with marauders - which the authorities were quite powerless, and probably not very anxious, to repress; and this measure was the reckless or despairing act of an imbecile and corrupt government, who, unable to afford protection to the community, and not looking very nicely into the consequences, deputed to individuals the duty of protecting themselves by private violence.

With all the earl of Desmond’s popularity he was unable to restore tranquillity to the distracted country. He was defeated in open fight (1466) by his own brother-in-law O’Conor of Offaly, who took him prisoner and confined him in Carbury Castle in Kildare; from which however he was rescued in a few days by the people of Dublin. Neither was he able to prevent the septs from ravaging the Pale; and he was forced to purchase peace from O’Brien of Thomond by granting him a part of Tipperary and the whole of Limerick, with a black rent of 60 marks yearly from the people of Limerick city. [1]

The Great Earl was struck down in the midst of his career by an act of base treachery under the guise of law. He was first replaced in 1467 by John Tiptoft earl of Worcester - the butcher as he was called from his cruelty - who came determined to ruin him. There has been much difference of opinion as to Tiptoft’s motives; but there seems no reason to doubt the correctness of the account subsequently given by Desmond’s grandson in a memorial to the English council.According to this the Great Earl had let fall some imprudent words regarding the queen, who never forgave him for it, and who influenced the king to appoint Tiptoft in his place. Tiptoft, soon after his arrival, acting on the secret instructions of the queen,

1. Four Masters, a.d. 1466.
2.Written in the Irish language; it was translated at the time for the council, and this old translation is given in Carew Papers, 1575 to 1588, Introd. cv.

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caused the earls of Desmond and Kildare to be arrested; and in a parliament held at Drogheda had them attainted for exacting coyne and livery, and for making alliance with the Irish by fosterage and other ties, contrary to the Statute of Kilkenny. Desmond was at once executed, and his two infant sons were also killed by order of Tiptoft. Kildare was pardoned and set at liberty; and Tiptoft, having accomplished what he came for, returned to England in the following year. This was all done without the knowledge of the king, who was very indignant on becoming aware of it. As for Tiptoft, he was himself, three years later on, beheaded by the earl of Oxford, whose father ‘the butcher’ had executed some years before.

Chapter XV: Poynings’ Law

The accession, in 1485, of Henry VII, who belonged to the Lancastrians, was the final triumph of that great party. The preceding king, Richard III [1] was son of the Irish favourite Richard duke of York; and the news of his defeat and death at Bosworth Field was received by the Irish with dissatisfaction. At this time all the chief state offices in Ireland were held by the Geraldines; but as the new king felt that he could not govern the country without their aid, he made no changes, though he knew well they were all devoted Yorkists. Accordingly the great earl of Kildare, who had been lord deputy for several years, with a short break, was still retained.

But the Yorkists continued to be the favourites in Ireland, where the people still retained a fond memory [1] of the government of Duke Richard; and accordingly when the young impostor Lambert Simnel came to Ireland (1486), and gave out that he was the Yorkist prince Edward earl of Warwick, he was received with open arms, not only by the deputy, but by almost all the Anglo-Irish - nobles, clergy, and people. The Butlers and the St. Laurences

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alone among the nobles remained loyal to the king. And although the young Prince Edward himself was at this very time a prisoner in London, and was publicly exhibited there by the king in order to expose the fraud, still the Irish maintained that he was a counterfeit, and that they had the real prince in Ireland. But the city of Waterford rejected Simnel and remained steadfast in its loyalty, whence it got the name of Urhs Intacta, the ‘untarnished city.'

After a little time an army of 2,000 Germans came to Ireland to support the cause of the impostor; and he was actually crowned as Edward VI. by the bishop of Meath, in Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin, in 1487, in presence of the deputy Kildare, the archbishop of Dublin, and a great concourse of Anglo-Irish nobles, ecclesiastics, and officers, all of whom did homage to ‘King Edward VI.', and renounced their allegiance to Henry VII.

But this foolish business came to a sudden termination when Simnel was defeated and taken prisoner in England. The whole Irish government were involved in the conspiracy; and now, when the imposture was laid bare, Kildare and the others sent a humble message to the king to acknowledge their error and to crave his pardon. The king, dreading their power if they were driven to rebellion, took no severer steps than to send over Sir Richard Edgecomb as a special commissioner, to lay down conditions of pardon and to exact new oaths of allegiance. Edgecomb, having administered the oaths at Kinsale, in 1488, and having visited Waterford, where he stayed for a short time and commended the people for their loyalty, landed at Dublin. After much negotiation and bickering, the earl of Kildare and the other chief lords took the oath of allegiance. Then there was a solemn religious ceremony of thanksgiving for the reconciliation; after which Sir Richard entertained the lords at a banquet; and as a present from the king and a token of pardon and goodwill he hung a chain of gold round the earl of Kildare’s neck.

Although the king had pardoned these nobles, yet he kept a watch over them; and the year following (14b9) he

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invited them to meet liim in London. Soon after their arrival he entertained them at a splendid banquet in Greenwich; and although his manner was kind, yet they felt humiliated and crestfallen, for one of the waiters who attended them at table was their idolised iirince Lambert Simnel.

A little later on reports of new plots in Ireland reached the king’s ears; whereupon, in 1492, he removed Kildare from the office of deputy, and put in his place Walter Fitzsimons, archbishop of Dublin. At the same time Sir James Butler was made lord treasurer in place of Kildare’s father-iu-law Sir Kowland FitzEustace. The inhabitants of the Pale had good reason to lament these changes. Kildare was the only man able to keep down the Irish living round the marches; and now, offended at the indignity put upon him, he withdrew his protection, and straightway the septs rose up and burned and ravaged the English settlements, especially Meath, w [1]ithout let or hindrance.

The secret information given to the king was not without foundation, for now a second claimant for the crown, a young Fleming named Perkin Warbeck, landed in Cork (1492), and announced that he was Richard duke of York, one of the two princes that had been kept in prison by Richard III. He stated that he had escaped from the Tower, though the story generally believed then and since was that both princes had been murdered by Richard. After the ridiculous termination of Simnel’s imposture one would think it hard for another to gain a footing in Ireland. Yet Warbeck was at once accepted by the Anglo-Irish citizens of Cork, who espoused his cause very warmly; and they were in great joy when he received an invitation from the king of France (with whom Henry was then at war) to visit his court. He came to Ireland more than once after this; and nearly all the Munster Geraldines, including Maurice the tenth earl of Desmond, with a great many others of the leading southern Anglo-Irish, both lay and clerical, were mixed up in this conspiracy, and were often in arms in his favour. It was

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chiefly the English colonists who were concerned in the episodes of Simnel and Warbeck; the native Irish took little or no interest in either claimant.

Meantime among the native tribes the quarrels, raids and battles went on as usual; for there was no central government sufficiently strong to keep the restless chiefs quiet But though these broils are recorded by the Irish annalists in minute and painful detail, they are quite unimportant, so far as the general destimes of the nation were concerned - many of them little more than faction fights - and it is not necessary to notice them here; they will be found fully set forth in the pages of the Four Masters.

During all this time the fusion of the two races went on in spite of law; and as generations rolled by, the descendants of the old settlers became more and more Irish in their habits, sentiments, and language- became quite incorporated with the natives and undistmguishable from them in everything except their famdy names Ihis was especially the case with the great and powerful family of the Fitzgeralds in both branches. How strong the tendency had become is shown by the fact that although the great earl of Desmond had suff-ered for the alleged crime of forming Irish alliances (p.344), yet his son, James the ninth earl, married a daughter of O’Brien of Thomond; and the Kildare family were, as we shall see m next chapter, connected with many leading Irish families.

The reception given to Simnel and Warbeck and the secret information received by king Henry from his spies convinced him that his Irish subjects were hopelessly Yorkist in their sympathies, and that they were ready to rise up against his government at every favourable opportunity He might have attainted and executed the heads of the disaff'ected families; but this would leave the colony open to the attacks of the Irish, and possibly rum the settlement. He came to the resolution, therefore, as the best thing to be done under the circumstances, to lessen the power of his Irish subjects by destroymg the independence of their parliament. With this object he

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appointed EDglishmen to the most important government posts in Ireland; and, in 1494, he sent Sir Edward Poynings as lord deputy, with instructions to make such changes as would bring Ireland more directly under the power of the English parliament.

Poynings’ first act was to lead an expedition to the north against O’Hanlon and Magennis, who had given shelter to some of the supporters of Warbeck; and Kildare, to prove his loyalty, accompanied him. While Pownings was on this expedition, a rumour reached him through one of the Ormonds - in all likelihood a false rumour - that the earl was conspiring with O’Hanlon and Magennis to intercept and destroy himself and his army; and news came also at this same time that Kildare’s brother had risen in open rebellion, and had seized the castle of Carlow. On this, Poynings patched up a hasty peace with the northern chiefs, returned south, and recovered the castle after a hard siege of ten days. But no steps were taken against the earl till the meeting of parliament.

Poynings now applied himself to the main object of his mission; and for this purpose he convened a parliament at Drogheda in November 1494: the memorable parliament in which the act since known as ‘Poynings’ law', was passed. The following are the most important provisions of this law:

1. No parliament was in future to be held in Ireland until the Irish chief governor and privy council had sent the king information of all the acts intended to be passed in it, with a full statement of the reasons why they were required, and until these acts had been approved by the Irish council, [1] and also approved and permission granted under the great seal by the king and privy council of England. This single provision is what is popularly known as ‘Poynings’ law.’ Thus the members of this Irish Parliament, whose fathers had forty years before boldly asserted the absolute independence of the Irish legislature (p.337), now permitted themselves to be bullied into passing an

1. Ball’s Hist. Review of Irish Parliaments, p.243.

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act that quite destroyed their own independence; one of the most discreditable acts ever passed by any legislature.

2. It was also enacted that all the laws lately made in England affecting the public weal should hold good in Ireland. This enactment referred only to English laws then existing: it did not refer to the future, and it gave no power to the English parliament to make laws for Ireland.

{3. The Statute of Kilkenny was revived and confirmed, except the part forbidding the use of the Irish tongue, which could not be carried out, as the language was now used everywhere, even through the English settlements.

4. For the purpose of protecting the settlement, it was made felony to permit enemies or rehels to pass through the marches; and the owners of march lands were obliged to reside on them or send proper deputies on pain of losing their estates.

5. The old exaction of coyne and livery was forbidden in any shape or form.

6. Many of the great Anglo-Irish families had adopted the Irish war-cries; the use of these was now strictly forbidden. [1]

In this same parliament an act was passed attainting the earl of Kildare and his adherents of high treason for various crimes and misdemeanors, but mainly on account of his supposed conspiracy with O’Hanlon to destroy the deputy; in consequence of which he was soon afterwards arrested and sent a prisoner to England.

Up to this time the Irish parliament had been, as we have said, quite independent; it was convened by the chief governor whenever and wherever he pleased; and it made its laws without any interference from the parliament of England. Now Poynings’ law took away all this

1. The war-cry of the O’Neills was Lamh-derg abu, i.e. the Red-hand to victory (lamh, pron. lauv, a hand). That of the O’Briens and Mac Carthys, Lamh-laidir abu, the Strong-hand to victory (laidir, pron. lauder, strong). The Kildare Fitzgeralds took as their cry Crom abu, from the great Geraldine castle of Crom or Groom in Limerick; the Earl of Desmond Shanit abu, from the castle of Shanid in Limerick. Most of the other chiefs, both native and Anglo-Irish, had their several cries. (Harris’s Ware, ii, 163.)

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power and reduced the parliament to a mere shadow, entirely dependent on the English king and council. But inasmuch as it was the parliament of the English colony only, it mattered nothing to the great body of the Irish people what became of it. No native Irishman could take part in its proceedings; and its laws were obeyed only within the little strip called the Pale. All the rest of Ireland, inhabited by the native Irish and ‘degenerate English', was governed by the Brehon law and by old Irish customs. It did not even represent the Pale, for it was entirely in the hands of a few great nobles, who got any laws they pleased passed; the Geraldines or the Butlers, according as the one or the other family had the upper hand. Accordingly, Poynings’ law was of small consequence at the time. But when, at a later period, English law was made to extend over the whole country, and the Irish Parliament made laws for all the people of Ireland, then Poynings’ law, which still remained in force, was often selfishly misused by the English parliament, and was felt by the people of Ireland to be one of their greatest grievances.

During the whole time that this parliament was sitting, the Warbeck party were actively at work in the south. When Warbeck landed in Munster in 1495 he and Desmond laid siege to Waterford; but Poynings marched south to relieve the city, and by his aid the assailants were repulsed: whereupon Warbeck sailed for Scotland. The rest of his career belongs to English rather than to Irish history. It is enough to say here that, not getting as much support from Ireland as he had expected, he ultimately retired to Cornw [1]all; and that in 1499 he was hanged at Tyburn w4th John Walter mayor of Cork, his chief supporter in that city.

The English rule in Ireland, which had been steadily declining from the time of Henry II, owing to general mismanagement and to the dissensions of the colonists, attained almost its lowest point at the time of Poynings’ parliament. The Leinster settlement now was reduced to the county Dublin, with portions of Kildare, Meath, and

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Uriel or Louth; and the English influence was almost annihilated in the rest of Ireland. One of Poynings’ enactments directed that the inhabitants of the marches of those four counties should build a double ditch or wall six feet high, on the boundary, from sea to sea, as a defence against the Irish. Notwithstanding that black rents were paid to the Irish chiefs all along the frontier, it was now found necessary to complete this dike, which enclosed what became known as the English Pale. It need hardly be said that this proved but a poor protection, and that it was often broken through. The Pale remained so circumscribed for many years, but afterwards became enlarged from time to time.

Chapter XVI: Garrett Fitzgerald - The Great Earl of Kildare

Garrett or Gerald Fitzgerald, who is known as the Great Earl of Kildare, became the eighth earl in 1477. This nobleman was more intimately allied with the Irish than any of his ancestors. His sister Eleanora was married to Conn O’Neill chief of Tyrone (father of Conn Bacach): and his children married into several other leading Irish families. We have seen in last chapter that, although a devoted Yorkist, he was retained as deputy by Henry VII.; that he joined in the Simnel conspiracy and was pardoned; that in 1492 he was removed from the deputyship; and that he was attainted by the parliament of Poynings for conspiring against that deputy. Though this last accusation was nothing more than suspicion, he was sent to England a prisoner.

Hitherto Henry had endeavoured to govern Ireland chiefly by English officials, and found good reason to be dissatisfied with the result. He now wisely resolved to try the experiment of governing through Kildare, who was the most powerful nobleman in Ireland. Accordingly the Great Earl, having been for some time in custody, was permitted in 1496 to defend himself before the king. But

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this was no easy matter, for he had made many enemies in Ireland, and he was now to face a whole crowd of accusers. One of the charges against him was that he had sacrilegiously burned the cathedral church of Cashel; to which he replied, with a rough sort of simplicity, that it was true enough, but that he would not have done so only he thought the archbishop was in it. The archbishop himself was present listening; and this reply was so unexpectedly plain and blunt - the excuse being the greatest aggravation of the crime - that king Henry, who we have seen was disposed in his favour, burst out laughing. The king advised him to have the aid of counsel, saying that he might have any one he pleased; to which the earl, having first obtained the royal pledge that he should have any man he chose, answered that he would have the best counsel in England, namely, the king himself; at which his majesty laughed as heartily as before. At last when one of his accusers exclaimed with great vehemence: ‘All Ireland cannot rule this man!’ he ended the matter by replying: ‘Then if all Ireland cannot rule him, he shall rule all Ireland.’ [1]

Thus the Great Earl triumphed; and the king restored him to his honours and estates, and made him lord lieutenant of Ireland. But as a matter of precaution he kept his eldest son Garrett or Gerald as a hostage in the court for about seven years. The king’s confidence was not misplaced; for earl Garrett during the remainder of his life proved a loyal servant to the crown.

A little before this time (in 1491) a war broke out between the O’Neills and the O’Donnells which was carried on with great bitterness and with varying success for a dozen years or so, causing terrible havoc and loss of life. [2]

1. This story of the scenes at the earl’s trial is considered by some as an invention of one of Kildare’s Anglo-Irish Lancastrian enemies; to turn him into ridicule by representing him as a simple half-savage Irishman.
2. The Irish historians relate that Conn O’Neill claimed tribute from O’Donnell, and wrote to him in Irish in the following terms: ‘ O’Donnell: Send me my rent, or if you don’t,’ to which O’Donnell promptly wrote in reply: ‘O’Neill: I owe you no rent, and if I did’: whereupon O’Neill flew to arms, and the war began.

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Kildare took a part in many of these feuds; and he made several excursions time after time to the north, in support of his brother-in-law Conn O’Neill. Indeed this restless earl took as much delight in fighting for its own sake as the most pugnacious of the Irish chiefs.

In 1498 Kildare convened a parliament, the first held under Poynings’ act; in which the enactments against Irish dress and manner of riding, and against absenteeism were renewed: proprietors who left Ireland without license were to forfeit half their property, which was to be expended in providing defence against the Irish.

The most important event the Great Earl was ever engaged in was the battle of Knockdoe, which came about in this way. In the course of a quarrel between Mac William Burke of Clanrickard and O’Kelly chief of Hy Many, Burke had the upper hand and captured three of O’Kelly’s castles. Whereupon O’Kelly, no longer able to withstand his powerful foe, applied for help to the earl of Kildare. Burke had married the earl’s daughter, and had used her so ill that she was forced to leave him. Now came the earl’s opportunity to punish his son-in-law; and he had an excuse for interfering, inasmuch as Burke had forcibly taken possession of Galway, contrary to the provisions of its charter. He went very deliberately to work, and enlisted on his side the native chiefs of almost the whole north of Ireland except O’Neill, and also some of the Anglo-Irish lords. On the other side Burke, knowing what was coming, collected a considerable army, being joined by many of the native chiefs of the south, among others O’Brien of Thomond, Macnamara, O’Carroll, and others; and he awaited the approach of his adversary on a low hill called Knockdoe - the hill of the battle-axes - about eight miles from Galway.

The battle that followed - in 1504 - was the most obstinate and destructive fought in Ireland since the invasion, with the single exception of the battle of Athenry. The southern men, who were far outnumbered by the earl’s forces, held the field against great odds for several hours; but in the end they suffered a total overthrow.

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The loss sustained by the vanquished army has been variously stated, but the lowest estimate makes it 2,000; and the other side also suffered very severely. The victors encamped on the battlefield for twenty-four hours; and the next day Galway and Athenry opened their gates to the earl.

Though the battle of Knock doe -was the result of a private quarrel, and though many of the Anglo-Irish were engaged on both sides, yet it was chiefly Irish against Irish - north against south - one of those senseless battles by which the Irish strengthened their enemies by slaughtering each other. It was considered to have done great service to the English cause by weakening the power of the Irish chiefs; and accordingly King Henry rewarded Kildare by making him a knight of the Garter.

On the accession of Henry VIII, in 1509, the Great Earl was retained in the government as lord justice; and soon afterwards he was made lord deputy. The next year (1510) he set out on an expedition which did not end so well for him as the battle of Knockdoe. He marched into Munster against some of the southern septs, with an army of the Irish and English of Leinster, and a small body of troops under O’Donnell lord of Tirconnell. In South Munster he met with no serious resistance, and took several castles, wasting and depopulating the whole country as he went along. He now turned north to the county Limerick, where he was joined by the Munster Geraldines under the son of the earl of Desmond, and by some of the Mac Carthys; and crossing the Shannon near Castleconnell, prepared to make a raid on Thomond, O’Brien’s country.

Meantime an army had been collected to oppose him by O’Brien, Burke of Clanrickard, and the Macnamaras - the earl’s old opponents at Knockdoe; and they encamped for the night so close that the men of both armies could hear each others’ voices from camp to camp. In the morning the earl, seeing that matters looked unpromising, marshalled his army for retreat, and attempted to reach Limerick by a short cut; but O’Brien fell on them as

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they were crossing the bog of Monabraher near the city, and routed them, with the loss of a great many of the earl’s best men. The remnant of the army saved themselves by flight; and O’Brien returned in triumph with abundant spoils.

This defeat, however, did not check the warlike activity of the earl. Two years later (1512) he crossed the Shannon at Athlone, took Roscommon, and devastated a larg [1]e extent of country. Shortly after this he went north, captured the castle of Belfast, and plundered the Glens of Antrim, the Scottish Mac Donnells’ district. The following year, 1513, he swept through both north and south, plundering Ulster to Carrickfergus and Munster as far as the lakes of Killarney.

He next made an unsuccessful attempt to take O’Carroll’s castle of Lemyvannan, now Leap in the present King’s County, near Roscrea; and retiring to collect more forces to renew the siege, he was taken ill, and after a few days died at Athy in 1513.

This extraordinary man, who occupied the foremost place in the affairs of Ireland in his day, is described by Stanihurst as ‘of tall stature and goodly presence; very liberal and merciful; of strict piety; mild in his government; and passionate, but easily appeased.’ And the Four Masters in recording his death say that ‘he was a knight in valour, and princely and religious in his words and judgments.'

Chapter XVII: Chap. XVII. Garrett Oge Fitzgerald, Ninth Earl of Kildare

After the death of the Great Earl of Kildare his sou Garrett Oge (the young) was appointed lord justice by the Irish council, and a little later on lord deputy by the king. The new deputy followed in the footsteps of his father. The O’Moores of Leix, the O’Reillys of Brefney, and the O’Tooles of Wicklow, having risen in rebellion and ravaged

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the English settlements, he defeated them all in 1514, desolated thenlands, and killed the chiefs of the O’Eeillys and O’Tooles, with many of their minor chiefs - sending Shane O’Toole’s head as a present to the lord mayor of Dublin; and he captured after a week’s siege in 1516 O’Carroll’s castle of Leap, which had baffled his father. In the same year he marched to Clonmel, which was surrendered to him; after which he returned to Dublin. [1]

Turning his arms next against the north, he took by storm the castle of Dundrum (1517), which the Irish had some time before taken from the English. Then defeating and making prisoner Magennis lord of Iveagh, he captured and burned the castle of Dungannon, and overran the whole district. In the same year he again defeated the O’Carrolls and demolished their stronghold of Garrycastle in the present King’s County.

This career of uninterrupted success excited the jealousy of some of the other Anglo-Irish lords, especially the Butlers, the hereditary foes of his house. Pierce Butler earl of Ormond - Pierce Roe (the Red) as the Irish called him - though his wife was Kildare’s sister, employed every means in his power to turn the king against him: and the lady was still more bitter than her husband. But Kildare counteracted all these schemes so skilfully, that for a long time his enemies were unsuccessful; till at last Ormond managed to gain the ear of Cardinal Wolsey, then in the full swing of his great power. Through his influence Kildare was summoned to England, in 1519, to answer charges of enriching himself from the crown revenues, of holding traitorous correspondence with the Irish enemies, and in general of ‘seditious practices, conspiracies, and subtle drifts.’ [2]

Soon after his arrival in England, Thomas Howard earl of Surrey was, at Wolsey’s instance, sent to Ireland as lord lieutenant (1520). He had scarcely landed when he had to employ himself in a thoroughly Irish fashion. He marched forth against Conn (Bacacli) O’Neill, prince of

1. Four Masters and Ware’s Ann. 1514, 1516.
2. Ware’s Ann. 1519; Carew Papers, 1575 to 1588, Introd. xxxviii.

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the O’Neills of Tyrone, who had suddenly invaded the English settlements of Meath: but O’Neill, not caring to wait for the encounter, retreated to his Ulster fastnesses, whither Surrey could not follow him. This chief made his peace soon after, acknowledging the king as his sovereign, and binding himself to be faithful for the future: and the king sent Surrey a chain of gold for him as a token of pardon and friendship. [1]

Surrey’s next proceeding was to make a much needed peace between the earls of Ormond and Desmond, who had been actively keeping up the old enmities and feuds of their families. Aided by Ormond he again (1521) marched against some of the Irish septs, the O’Moores of Leix, the O’Carrolls of Ely, and the O’Conors of Offaly, who had given trouble by threatening or rising against the English settlements; and he burned their corn and destroyed everything that came in his way. He took O’Conor’s castle of Monasteroris; but O’Conor obstinately refused to come to terms, saying he would make no peace till the English were driven from the country. [1]

About this time there arose great disturbance in the south. James the eleventh earl of Desmond, in a lawless mood, invaded, in 1521, the territories of two powerful chiefs of the Mac Carthys - Cormac Oge and Mac Carthy Reagh
- and continued to waste and ravage in spite of all expostulation. At length the two chiefs, uniting their forces, turned on him and gave him battle at Mourne Abbey or Ballinamona between Mallow and Cork, and utterly routed him. Two thousand of his men were slain - among them being several of his own kinsmen; and he himself barely escaped by a hasty flight from the field.

In the end Surrey intervened and brought them to terms of peace. In his letter to Wolsey he says of these two chiefs - the Mac Carthys: ‘They are two wise men, and I find them more conformable to good order than some Englishmen here ‘; and he goes on to say ‘I have motioned them to take their lands and to hold them of the king’s grace [instead of by their own old law of tanistry], and 1 Carerv Pajjers, 1515 to 1574, p.15.? Ibid. p.20,

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they will be content to do so, so they may be defended. I know divers other Irishmen of like mind.’ [1]

Surrey, however, had other business in hands besides war. From the very day of his arrival he applied himself most industriously to collect evidence against the earl of Kildare; taking down vague rumours and accusations of every kind, aided all through by Pierce Koe of Ormond. [2] During all this time Kildare was detained in England attending the king’s court, for he was never treated like a person in disgrace; and he had no suspicion of the underhand work going on behind his back in Ireland. [3] If he had been brought to trial it would have been impossible to convict him; for though there were plenty of charges there was no proof. Yet his enemies had influence enough to delay his regular trial and acquittal. Meantime he married Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of the marquis of Dorset, a near relative of the king, which stopped for the time all further proceedings against him.

Surrey at last became heartily tired of his mission. He began to see that these Irish wars were interminable. He succeeded, indeed, in putting down for the time every rebellious movement, though he seldom had the satisfaction of defeating the Irish in battle, as they always retreated before him to their inaccessible bogs, forests, and hills. But he produced no permanent results; and after all his efforts to tranquillise the country, it continued as disturbed as ever. He grew sick in mind and sick in body; and besought the king for leave to retire. This was at last granted; and he returned to England in the end of 1521 after a stay of nearly two years.

One of the ever-recurring feuds between the O’Neills and the O’Donnells broke out in 1522, and attained such magnitude as almost to deserve the name of civil war. The chief of the O’Neills, Conn Bacach, who had been inaugurated three years before, made a great gathering, determined to march into Tirconnell and bring the O’Donnells under thorough subjection. Besides his own

1. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, p.16.
2. Ibid. pp.10, 12, 13.
3. Ibid., p.15.

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people of Tyrone, he was joined by Mac William Burke of Clanrickard, and by several of the Irish septs of Connaught and Munster. He had also a party of the Mac Donnells; and large contingents of both the English and Irish of Leinster, who took his side out of affection for the Geraldines; for it will be remembered that Conn Bacach’s mother was sister of the Great Earl of Kildare (p.351). With these powerful auxiliaries at his back he began to make preparations for his expedition.

To oppose this great muster O’Donnell had an army very much smaller, composed merely of his own people of Tirconnell; but what he wanted in numbers he made up in generalship. He posted his little army at the dangerous pass of Portnatrynod on the river Foyle, near LifFord, thinking that O’Neill would make that his way westward into Tirconnell. But O’Neill taking a more southerly route arrived at the castle of Ballyshannon in Tirconnell before O’Donnell knew anything of his movements, and captured that and some other strongholds in the neighbourhood. As soon as O’Donnell was made aware of this, he sent a party eastward and southward under his son Manus to desolate Tyrone, O’Neill’s territory, while he himself made his way south-west through the Gap of Barnesmore in pursuit of O’Neill, whom however he did not overtake. Meantime O’Neill, in retaliation of Manus O’Donnell’s raid, crossed the Finn northwards and harried and spoiled a large part of Tirconnell, after which he pitched his camp at Knockavoe hill near Strabane.

O’Donnell, not finding O’Neill, returned with his son Manus through Barnesmore, and halted in the neighbourhood of Knockavoe. O’Neill’s Connaught and Munster auxiliaries had not yet come up; they had paused in their march to lay siege to Sligo Castle, which they found more difficult to take than they had anticipated, for it was obstinately defended by some of O’Donnell’s people. And now O’Donnell, fearing that if he waited for all his enemies to join muster they would overwhelm his little army, resolved to be beforehand with them, and planned a bold attack on O’Neill’s camp.

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Marching silently in the depth of night, he took O’Neill by surprise; and almost before the sentinels were aware of how matters stood, the two armies were fighting furiously in pitch darkness in the midst of the camp. After a long and fearful struggle, in which men found it hard to distinguish friend from foe, the O’Neills were routed with a loss of 900 men; and O’Donnell took possession of the camp, with an immense quantity of booty. Making no delay, he next marched rapidly back again through Barnesmore to Sligo. The besiegers here, having heard of what had taken place at Knockavoe, sent to the victorious chief to sue for peace; but such was their terror of Mm that they broke up camp before the messengers had time to return, and fled in a panic clear out of danger. [1]

This battle of Knockavoe, which was one of the bloodiest ever fought between the Kinel Connell and Kinel Owen, did not end the quarrel. Kildare tried hard to make peace; but in spite of his efforts the war continued for many years afterwards, causing quite as much ruin and misery among the poor country people as any of the ordinary wars of the English invasion.

Let us now return to Earl Garrett. When Surrey went back to England in 1521, Pierce Roe earl of Ormond, Kildare’s old enemy, was appointed lord deputy. The chief use he made of his power was to advance his own interests and to injure Kildare, several of whose castles he took and destroyed. But while he was still deputy, Kildare was permitted to return to Ireland in 1523, and, as might have been expected, the feud now blazed up with tenfold fury; so that the king had to send over commissioners to investigate the dispute. Their decision was favourable to Kildare; they found that Ormond had been guilty of exacting coyne and livery, and of other misdemeanors; and they removed him from his post in 1524, and made his triumphant rival deputy in his place. [2] At the installation, which was a grand ceremony, Kildare’s cousin Conn Bacach O’Neill bore the sword of state before him. [3]

1. Four Masters, 1522, where this war is related in detail.
2. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, pp.32 to 35.
3. Ware, Ann. 1524.

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But now Kildare got exposed to danger from another quarter. His kinsman James earl of Desmond had foolishly entered into correspondence with the king of France to bring about an invasion of Ireland, engaging to join the French forces with 10,000 Irish troops. But he was a mere tool in the hands of the French monarch, who had no other object in view than to frighten and distract the English. When King Henry heard of this he was mightily incensed, and forthwith summoned Desmond to London. But Desmond knowing well what was in store for him, refused point blank to go; whereupon Kildare as lord deputy got orders to arrest him. Kildare led an army southwards on this unpleasant mission in 1524; but Desmond eluded pursuit, and the deputy returned without him to Dublin. It was afterwards alleged against him that he had intentionally allowed Desmond to escape arrest, which was probably true.

Kildare’s enemies, especially the two most powerful, Pierce Roe in Ireland and Wolsey in England, still kept wide awake watching his proceedings and continually sending damaging reports about him. They succeeded at last so far as to have him summoned to England to answer several charges: that he had failed to arrest Desmond, that he had formed affinities with the Irish enemies, that he had hanged good subjects because they were friends to Ormond, and that he had confederated with O’Neill',Conor, and other Irish lords to raid Ormond’s territories while Ormond was deputy. [1] Accordingly Earl Garrett proceeded to London in 1526, leaving his brother James Fitzgerald of Leixlip in his place, who, however, was soon removed, and Richard Nugent baron of Delvin was made vicedeputy.

There is no record that Kildare was ever brought to trial; but at his own urgent request he was examined by the lords of the privy council. Wolsey began the proceedings with a bitter speech, accusing him of conniving at the escape of Desmond; and he was about to go on with other charges, when he was interrupted by Kildare, who

1. Ware, Ann. 1526.

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asked to be allowed to reply to the charges one by one as they were made: ‘My lord chancellor, I beseech you pardon me; I am short witted, and you I perceive intend a long tale. I liave no schoole trickes nor art of memory. Except you hear me while I remember your words your second process will hammer out the former.’ This was agreed to, and he began his defence with this speech:

‘It is good reason that your grace [Wolsey] beare the mouth of this chamber. But, my lord, those that put this tale [about Desmond’s escape] into your mouth have gaped long for my wreck, and now at length for want of better stuff are fain to fill their mouths with smoak. Cannot the earl of Desmond shift but I must be of counsell? Cannot he be hid except I wink? This is a doughty kinde of accusation which they urge against mee. You ivould not see him, they say: Who made them so familiar with mine eyesight? Or who stood by when I let him slip, or where are the tokens of my wilfull hoodwinking? Oh, hut you sent him word to heiuarre of you: Who was the messenger? Where are the letters? My lords, either they have my hand [writing] to shew, or can bring forth the messenger, or were present at a conferenc‘Of my cousin Desmond they may lye lewdly, since no man heere can well tell the contrary. Touching myselfe, I never noted in them either so much wit or so much faith, that I could have gaged upon their silence the life of a good hound, much lesse mine owne. I doubt not, if it please your honours to oppose [i.e. sift] them as to how they came to knowledge of these matters which they are so ready to depose, but that you shall find their tongues chayned to another man’s trencher, suborned to say, sweare, and stare the uttermost they can.

‘But of another thing it grieveth mee, that your good grace should bee so farre gone in crediting those corrupt informers. Little know you, my lord, how necessary it is not onely for the governours but also for every nobleman in Ireland, so to hamper their vincible neighbours at dis-

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cretion, wherein if they wayted for pr'ocesse of law they might hap to loose their owne lives and lands without law. You [in England] heare of a case as it were in a dreame and feele not the smart that vexeth us [in Ireland]. In England there is not a meane subject that dare extend his hand to fillip a peere of the realm. In Ireland, except the lord have cunning and strength to save his owne, and sufficient authoritie to racke theeves and varletts, hee shalle find them swarme so fast, that it will bee too late to call for justice.

‘As touching my kingdome (my lord): I would you and I had exchanged kingdomes but for one moneth, I would trust to gather up more crummes in that space, then twice the revenues of my poore earldome; but you are well and warme, and so hold you and upbraide not me with such an odious storme. I sleepe in a cabbin, when you lye soft in your bed of downe; I serve under the cope of heaven, when you are served under a canopy; I drinke water out of a skull [helmet], when you drink [wine] out of golden cuppes; my courser is trained to the field, when your jennet is taught to amble; when you are begraced and belorded and crowched and kneeled unto, then I finde small grace with our Irish borderers, except I cut them off by the knees.’ [2]

Campion, who reports this speech, goes on to say', The cardinall perceived that Kildare was no babe and rose in a fume from the council table, committed the earle [back to the Tower], deferred the matter till more direct probations [proofs] came out of Ireland.'

Meantime things began to go on very badly in Ireland. The baron of Delvin had neither the influence nor the strong hand of the great Geraldine: and all round the Pale the chiefs, both Irish and Anglo-Irish, began to give trouble. O’Conor of Oflaly, the most powerful of them, a friend of Kildare, carried off in a sudden raid in 1528, a great prey of cattle from the Palesmen; whereupon Delvin, who was too weak to punish him in any other way, stopped his ‘black rent’ when it became due. This

1. Campion’s Hist, of Irel. ed. 1809, p.164.

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enraged O’Conor and made matters worse. A conference was arranged between him and Delvin at Ralian in King’s County: and while the parley was going on a party of O’Conor’s followers who had been lying in ambush suddenly rushed out, attacked the baron’s people, several of whom were killed in the fray, and carried off the baron himself captive. [1]

This outrage caused intense alarm and indignation; and Pierce Roe - now the earl of Ossory, having lately changed his title - was appointed vice-deputy. He exerted himself to obtain the release of Lord Delvin: but O’Conor, knowing his own strength and the weakness of the government, took a high stand, and insisted on the restoration of his black rent and the payment of ransom for the imprisoned baron as conditions of his release: to which Ossory was forced to agree.

These disturbances were laid at the door of the earl of Kildare, who was openly accused by his enemies in London of having instigated O’Conor and others to attack the Pale. And it was also stated that he had sent his daughter, the wife of the baron of Slane, to stir up his Irish friends against the vice-deputy, whose lands were now pillaged on all sides by the Geraldines. [2] Yet he was all this time allowed to retain his post of lord deputy. And when the king proposed that he should be removed, Wolsey opposed it, not indeed through love for Kildare; but he dreaded that if the earl were removed his numerous friends in Ireland would combine and destroy all the English of the Pale. [3]

But Kildare’s extraordinary influence, popularity, and good fortune again prevailed: he was released and restored to favour and confidence. As to the deputyship, a middle course was adopted: Sir William Skeffington was appointed deputy in 1529, and Kildare was sent with him to Ireland to advise and aid him." [4] It was easy to foresee that this arrangement would not last long: for Kildare was too high and proud to act as subordinate to any English

1. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, p.39.
2. Ware’s Ann. 1528.
3. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, pp 40, 41.
4. Ibid. pp.144-5.

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knight. But for some time they worked harmoniously together, attacking and reducing several of the most turbulent of the Irish chiefs.

O’Neill and O’Donnell still continued at enmity; and now O’Donnell adopted a new plan of assailing his adversary. He sent a message to the deputy, announcing himself King Henry’s liege subject, and asking for the protection of the English against O’Neill. And as O’Neill had about the same time begun to threaten the. English settlements, the deputy led an ex [1] [1]edition against him in 1531, accompanied by Kildare and Ossory. Kildare evidently joined the expedition to save appearances; for it is not to be supposed that he was earnest in taking part in a war on Conn O’Neill his cousin and friend, who had borne the sword of state at his installation seven years before.

There had been before this time jealousies and bickerings between Skeffington and Kildare; and while they were in the north the old enmity between Kildare and Ossory almost broke out into open war. So this expedition, led as it was by divided commanders who hated each other heartily, was not likely to be very formidable. Having been joined by O’Donnell, they wasted part of Monaghan and demolished some of O’Neill’s castles; but on the appearance of O’Neill himself with his army, they did not wait to be attacked, but retreated southwards and separated to their several homes. The enmity between Kildare and the deputy at last broke out openly; and after much mutual recrimination the earl proceeded to England in 1532 and laid his case before the king. The result was that Skeffington was removed, and the earl became deputy once more.

As Wolsey was now dead, there was no single enemy that Kildare feared; and he used his great power unsparingly. He removed Archbishop Allen from the chancellorship, and put George Cromer archbishop of Armagh in his place. He drew around him the most powerful of the Irish chiefs, and gave one of his daughters in marriage to O’Conor of Offaly, and another to O’Carroll tanist of Ely. He ravaged the territory of the Butlers in

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Kilkenuy; and at his instigation his brother James Fitzgerald and his cousin Conn O’Neill entered Louth - a part of the Pale - burned the English villages and drove away the cattle.’ In 1533 he laid siege to Birr castle, which had been some time before taken from his son-in-law O’Carroll; but here he received a gunshot wound in the thigh from which he never after fully recovered.

All these proceedings were eagerly watched and reported with exaggeration by Kildare’s enemies; and at last the Dublin council, one of whom was the deposed cliancellor archbishop John Allen, sent (in 1533) the master of the rolls, whose name also was John Allen, with three detailed reports to the king and to the English chancellor, Thomas Cromwell.

In these reports they describe the miserable disordered state of the country, which they attribute to the frequent change of deputies, to the constant imposition of coyne and livery, black rents, and other exactions; above all to the vast power and privileges in the hands of the great Anglo-Norman lords - especially Kildare, Ossory, and Desmond - and to their continual quarrels. They state that the Pale, where alone the English language, dress, and customs were used, was only twenty miles long, and that the English settlers, driven from their homes by violence and oppression, were fleeing from the country, their places being taken by the Irish, so that the Pale was likely in a little time to become like the rest of Ireland. They express their opinion that neither Kildare nor Ossory should be appointed deputy on account of their continual dissensions; and as no other Irish lord would be obeyed, they recommend the appointment of an Englishman. They wind up by telling the king that reformation should begin with his own subjects: ‘When your grace has reformed your earls, English lords, and others your subjects, then proceed to the reformation of your Irish rebels.’ [1] All through these reports they direct particular attention to Kildare’s misdeeds; and in addition to this they gave

1. Ware, Ann., and Four Masters, 1532.
2. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, pp.50-2.

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Allen secret instructions to make heavy cliaryv.s against him to the king.

The result was that for the third time Kildare was summoned to England by the king, to give an account of his government. There is some reason to suspect that he contemplated open rebellion and resistance; for now he furnished his castles with great guns, pikes, powder, &c., from the government stores in the Castle of Dublin, although Allen the master of the rolls expressly prohibited him in the name of the king. At any rate he delayed obeying the order as long as he could. But at last there came a peremptory mandate which admitted of no further evasion or delay; and the earl, with a heavy heart, set about preparing for his journey.

The Geraldines had become thoroughly Irish. They were always engaged in war, exactly like the native chiefs, they spoke and wrote the Irish language, read and loved Irish books and Irish lore of every kind, kept bards, shanachies, and antiquaries, as part of their household; and intermarried, fostered, and gossiped with the leading Irish families. They were as much attached to all the native customs as the natives themselves; and when Henry VIII ’s schism and the Reformation came, they were active and faithful champions of the Catholic religion. When we add to all this that they were known to be of an ancient and noble family, which told for much in Ireland, we have a sufficient explanation of the well-known fact that the native Irish were rather more attached to those Geraldines than to their own chiefs of pure Celtic blood.

Chapter XVIII: The Rebellion of Silken Thomas

When the lord deputy, Garrett Oge Fitzgerald, made up his mind to go to England in obedience to the king’s mandate, he decided to leave his son, the young Lord Thomas, as deputy in his place. Accordingly, in the

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presence of the council at Droglieda, where the members then (1534) happened to be sitting, he proceeded to deliver up the sword of office to the young nobleman, and addressed him in these words:

‘Son Thomas: You know that my sovereign lord the king hath sent for me into England, and what shall betide me God knoweth, for I know not. But however it falleth, I am now well stept in years; and so I must in haste decease, because I am old. Wherefore, insomuch as my winter is well near ended, and the spring of your age now buddeth, my will is, that you behave so wisely in these your green years, as that with honour you may grow to the catching of that hoary winter in which you see your father fast faring.

‘And whereas it pleaseth the king his majesty, that upon my departure here hence I should substitute in my room such a one for whose government I could answer: albeit I know your years are tender, and your judgment not fully rectified; and therefore I might be with good cause reclaimed from putting a naked sword in a young man’s hand; yet forsomuch as I am your father I am well contented to bear that stroke with you in steering your ship, as that I may commend you as your father and correct you as my son for the wrong handling of your helm.

‘And now I am resolved day by day to learn rather how to die in the fear of God, than to live in the pomp of the world. Wherefore, my son, consider that it is easy to raze and hard to build; and in all your affairs be ruled by this board, that for wisdom is able to lesson you with sound and sage advice. For albeit in authority you rule them, yet in counsel they must rule you. My son, although my fatherly affection requireth my discourse to be longer, yet I trust your good inclination asketh it to be shorter. And upon that assurance, here in the presence of this honourable assembly, I deliver you this sword.’ [1]

Thus in tears the earl spoke his last farewell; and committing his son and the members of the council to

1. Holinshed’s Chronicles. See Cox, p.226.

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God, he set sail for England, On his arrival he was arrested on the ground that he had furnished his own castles from the king’s stores (p.367); and he was sent to the Tower, there to await his trial on this and other charges still more serious. He might possibly have got through his present difficulties, as he had tlu-ough manyothers, but for what befell in Ireland, which will now be related.

Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, who was afterwards known as ‘Silken Thomas', from the gorgeous trappings of himself and his retinue, was then in his twenty-first year, brave, open, and generous. But the earl his father could not have made a more unfortunate choice as deputy; for there were in Dublin, and elsewhere within the Pale, plotting enemies who hated all his race; and they led the young man to ruin by taking advantage of his inexperience, and of his unsuspicious disposition.

With the object of driving him to some rash, illegal act, they treacherously spread a report that his father had been beheaded in England, and that all his relations in Ireland were to be treated in the same manner. The impulsive young lord fell easily into the trap. Having first confederated with several of the Irish chiefs, who eagerly entered into his plans, he proceeded to Dublin. With his brilliant retinue of seven score horsemen he rode through the streets to St. Mary’s Abbey; and entering the chamber where the council sat, he openly renounced his allegiance, and proceeded to deliver up the sword and robes of state.

Archbishop Cromer, his father’s friend (p.365), now lord chancellor, besought him with tears in his eyes to forego his purpose; but at that moment the voice of an Irish bard was heard from among the young nobleman’s followers, praising the Silken Lord, and calling on him to avenge his father’s death. Casting the sword from his hand, he rushed forth with his men to enter on that wild and hopeless struggle which ended in the ruin of himself and his family. The confederates proclaimed that they rose against the king in defence of the Catholic religion;

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Tvliich appears to liave been a mere watchword, for religion had no influence on their conduct.

Collecting a large force of the Irish septs of the Pale, Lord Thomas led them to the walls of Dublin. The city had been lately weakened by a plague, so that the inhabitants could offer no effectual resistance; and on promise of protection for themselves and their property, they admitted him. He then laid siege to the castle, which still remained in the hands of the authorities, and to which several of the leading citizens, including archbishop Allen, had retired on the first appearance of danger.

The archbishop, having good reason to dread the Geraldines, for he had always been bitterly hostile to them, attempted during the siege to make his escape by night in a vessel that lay in the Liffey. But the vessel got stranded at Clontarf; and the archbishop, who had taken refuge at Howth, was discovered by the rebels, dragged from his bed, and brought half-naked to Artaine to the presence of Lord Thomas and his uncles. There has been some difference of opinion as to how far the young nobleman was responsible for what followed; but the account given by Cox, who was no friend either to the Geraldines or to the L'ish, may probably be regarded as correct. Cox states that the archbishop threw himself on his knees and implored mercy. Lord Thomas, having compassion for him , but assuming an appearance of sternness, turned aside, saying, in Irish', Take away the clown', meaning that he was to be taken away in custody. But the servants, wilfully misconstruing their master’s words, murdered the archbishop in the very act of supplicating mercy. [1] This .fearful crime, which would have sealed the fate of the rebellion even if there had been any chance of success, brought a sentence of excommunication against Lord Thomas and his followers. A copy was sent to the earl in the Tower, but it is doubtful if he ever saw it; for on first

1. Cox, History of Ireland, ed. 1689, p.234. The very words used by Lord Thomas, who spoke in Irish, as reported by Cox and others, are, ‘Beir uaim an bodach,’ literally, ‘Take the clown away from me.’ These, obviously, did not mean violence to the archbishop.

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hearing of his son’s rebellion, he took to his bed, and being already sick of palsy, he died in a few days.

Lord Thomas now tried to induce his cousin James Butler, son of the earl of Ossory, to join him; but that young lord rejected the proposal with scorn. Whereupon, having left a sufficient force to carry on the siege of Dublin Castle, he invaded and burned the county Kilkenny
- the earl of Ossory’s territory. He sent also for aid to the Pope, and to the Emperor Charles V., but from these nothing ever came but promises. Meantime his men made no impression on Dublin Castle; and the citizens having received an encouraging message from the king, and tired of the disorders of the besiegers, turned on them, and killing some, chased the rest outside the walls. Lord Thomas returning soon after from his Kilkenny raid, attempted to enter; but the citizens closed their gates and repulsed his assaults. Then there was a truce, and Lord Thomas raised the siege (1534).

As time went on, O’Conor Faly, O’Moore, and O’Carroll - three powerful chiefs - joined his standard; and he had on his side also O’Neill of Tyrone, and O’Brien of Thomond. But many other Irish chiefs, in and around the Pale as well as elsewhere, refused to commit themselves to so desperate an enterprise. He and O’Conor Faly now invaded Meath, and burned Trim, Dunboyne, and the surrounding territory.

Soon after the breaking out of the rebellion, when news reached the king, he appointed Sir William Skeffington lord deputy. But Skeffington delayed coming over for several months; and when at last he arrived with a small company of 500 men, he was ill - so ill that he could do nothing; and the rebels wasted and burned the English settlement without opposition.

The new deputy remained inactive during the whole winter. But in March 1535 he laid siege to the castle of Maynooth, the strongest of Fitzgerald’s fortresses, which was defended by 100 men. After a siege of nine days, during which the castle was battered by artillery, then for the first time used in Ireland, he took it by storm, except

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the great keep; and the garrison wlio defended this, now reduced to thirty-seven men, seeing the case hopeless, surrendered, doubtless expecting mercy. How they fared we learn from the report of the deputy himself: ‘Their lives [were] preserved by appointment, until they should be presented to me your deputy, and then to be ordered as I and your council thought good. We thought it expedient to put them to execution, as an example to the others.’ [1] Lord Thomas heard the news of the fall of his castle as he was on his way from Connaught with an army of 7,000 men to relieve it; and from that day his followers gradually deserted him, all but sixteen, with whom he fled south and took refuge with his friend O’Brien of Thomond. He soon returned, however, and with the aid of the Irish chiefs got together another army; and the war, and ruin, and havoc went on as before. But the fall of Maynooth damped the ardour of his adherents; and one of his best friends, O’Moore of Leix, was induced by the earl of Ossory to withdraw from the confederacy.

But though O’Moore was now on the side of Skeffington, his sympathies seem to have been still with the rebels; and the war was prolonged by a feeling of pity for the young nobleman. In some encounters with the government troops, his own immediate followers were spared, while those of his confederates were killed without mercy; and on one occasion the O’Moores and O’Dempsies, having captured Lord Thomas himself, let him escape. [1]

But now the report went round that the Irish chiefs of Munster, with O’Neill and O’Donnell, were preparing to invade the Pale. So messengers were sent in all haste to England to the king to report how matters stood. They complained bitterly of Skeffington’s inactivity, and gave a frio-htful account of the state to which the rebellion had brought the English Pale - three-fourths of Kildare and a great part of Meath burnt and depopulated; while to add to the ruin and misery of the people, the plague was raging all over the country. In consequence of these representations, Lord Leonard Grey, marshal of Ireland,

1. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, p.65.
2. I Ibid. p.71.

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was directed to place himself at the head of the army, and to take more active measures. He made short work of the rebellion. Lord Thomas’s remaining allies rapidly fell off; and seeing now that all was lost, he and his faithful friend O’Conor sent offers of submission. O’Conor was received and pardoned; and Lord Thomas delivered himself up to Lord Grey, on condition that his life should be spared. [1] It cost the government £40,000 to crush this rebellion, equivalent to about half a million of our present money.

The king was displeased that any promise of safety had been held out to Lord Thomas. He wrote a growling sort of letter to the deputy, in which he says: ‘If he [Lord Thomas] had been apprehended after such sort as was convenable ‘ to his deservings, [1] the same had been much more to our contentation; but nevertheless we give you hearty thanks for your pains.'

Lord Thomas was conveyed to England (1535) by Lord Leonard Grey, and on his arrival was formally arrested on his way to Windsor and imprisoned in the Tower. Here he was left for about eighteen months neglected and in great misery. There is extant a pitiful letter written by him while in the Tower to an old servant in Ireland, asking that his friend O’Brien should send him £20 to buy food and clothes: ‘I never 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 garment but a single frieze gown, for a velvet furred with budge [i.e. instead of a velvet furred with lambskin fur], and so I have gone wolward [shirtless] and barefoot and barelegged divers times (when it hath not been very warm); and so I should have done still, but that poor prisoners of their gentleness hath sometimes given me old hosen and shoes and old shirts.'

Immediately on the arrest of the young lord, and before

1 Carew Papers, 74; Four Masters, 1535.

2 Brewer, the editor of the Carew Papers, says the king meant if he had been slain: but the meaning might be, if he had been taken without any promise of mercy. Carew Papers, 1575 to 1588, Introd, p.liii. See also Four Masters, a.d. 1535, p.1421. The State Papers and the Annals make it quite plain that he was promised his life would be spared.

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it became known in Ireland, his five uncles, having been invited to a banquet in Kilmainham by Grey, now lord deputy in succession to Skeffington, were, on their arrival, seized, manacled, and marched prisoners to Dublin; though it was well known that three of them had openly discountenanced the rebellion. But the king was determined, so far as lay in his power, to exterminate the Kildare Geraldines, root and branch; and notwithstanding the promise made to Lord Thomas and that his uncles had held aloof, the whole six were executed at Tyburn in February 1537.

And this was the end of the rebellion of Silken Thomas, which had been brought about by the villainy of his enemies, and during which, though it lasted little more than a year, the county Kaldare was wasted and depopulated, and the whole Pale, as well as the country round it, suffered unspeakable desolation and misery. It was a reckless enterprise, which no man of sense or capacity would have entered upon, for there never was the remotest chance of success; the only palliation was the extreme youth and inexperience of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald.

Notwithstanding the efforts of King Henry VIII to extirpate the house of Kildare, there remained two direct representatives, sons of the ninth earl by Lady Elizabeth Grey. Gerald (or Garrett) the elder, then about twelve years of age, succeeded to the earldom on the death of Lord Thomas. At the time of the apprehension of his uncles (in 1535) he was at Donore in Kildare, sick of small-pox. His faithful tutor Thomas Leverous, afterwards bishop of Kildare, fearing with good reason for his safety, wrapped him up warm in flannels, and had him secretly conveyed in a cleeve or basket to Thomond, where he remained under the protection of O’Brien. The other son, then an infant, was in England with his mother. The reader should be reminded that the lord justice Leonard Grey was uncle to these two children, for their mother Lady Elizabeth was his sister.

Great efforts were now made to discover the place of young Gerald’s retreat; and as he had been declared an

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enemy to the state, certain death awaited him if he should be captured. But he had friends in every part of Ireland, for the Irish, both native and of English descent, had an extraordinary love for the house of Kildare; and priests and friars preached day by day in favour of young Gerald. By sending him from place to place - now secretly at night, now in open day, disguised - his guardians managed to baffle the spies that were everywhere on the watch for him. Sometimes the Irish chiefs that were suspected of harbouring him were threatened, or their territories were wasted by the lord justice, and sometimes large bribes were offered to give him up; but all to no purpose.

When Thomond became an unsafe asylum, he was sent by night to Kilbrittain in Cork, to his aunt Lady Eleanor Mac Carthy, widow of Mac Carthy Reagh and sister of the boy’s father, who watched over him with unshaken fidelity. While he was under her charge, Manus O’Donnell, who had lately succeeded his father as chief of Tirconnell, made her an offer of marriage; and she consented, mainly, it is believed, for the sake of securing a powerful friend for her outlawed nephew. In the middle of June 1537 the lady travelled with young Gerald all the way from Cork to Donegal, through Thomond and Connaught, escorted and protected everywhere by the chiefs through whose territories they passed. The illustrious wayfarers must have been well known as they travelled slowly along, yet none of the people attempted to betray them; and the journey was performed without the least accident.

Some suppose that the deputy, though pretending to be very active for his nephew’s arrest, connived at his escape; and as a matter of fact this was one of the charges subsequently brought against him. Whoever reads his letters however wall be convinced that he was in downright earnest in his efforts to arrest the boy; and judging from his own words he was not particularly scrupulous in his methods. Early in 1539 he had arranged to meet at a friendly conference O’Neill and O’Donnell, who promised to bring Gerald: but they never came. Soon afterwards Grey writes to the king that if they had brought the boy

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they would have to leave him ‘behinde theim quick or dede.’ [1]

When Lady Eleanor arrived at O’Donnell’s mansion, she found there Conn Bacach O’Neill, who was a near relative of the youth (p.351); and without delay she and O’Donnell were married. About this same time O’Neill, O’Donnell, O’Conor of Connaught, O’Conor Faly, O’Brien of Thomond, and several other powerful southern chiefs, with some of those of Leinster, entered into a confederacy, commonly known as the First Geraldine League (1537), to take up arms if necessary, with the object of restoring the young nobleman to his rightful place. And they appointed a guard of twenty-four horsemen to wait continually on him both as a protection and as a mark of honour. This confederacy greatly frightened the government officials in Dublin, who expressed their anxiety to have the young Geraldine alive or dead: the lord chancellor wrote from Dublin: ‘As long as this young traitor and his company be abroad we shall never be in security here ‘ : and Lord Grey tried in vain to induce O’Neill and O’Donnell to surrender him.

At the end of two years. Lady Eleanor, having reason to believe that her husband was about to betray Gerald to the government, had him placed, disguised as a peasant, on board a vessel which conveyed him to St. Malo. On the Continent he was received with great favour and distinction. He was however dogged everywhere by spies greedy to earn the golden reward for his capture; but he succeeded in eluding them all. And he was pursued from kingdom to kingdom by the English ambassador, who in vain demanded from the several sovereigns that he should be given up. He found his way at last to Some to his kinsman Cardinal Pole, who gave him safe asylum, and educated him as became a prince.

After many extraordinary vicissitudes and narrow escapes, he was reinstated in all his possessions by Edward VI, in 1552; and in 1554 Queen Mary restored his title, and he became the eleventh earl of Kildare.

1. Gilbert’s Account of Facsimiles of Irish National MSS. p.140. In this book Dr. Gilbert has published several of Grey’s letters. See also Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, p.149.

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Chapter XIX: General Submission

Matters had now (1535) come to such a pass in Ireland that the English government had to choose one or the other of two courses: either to relinquish the country altogether, or to put forth the strength they had hitherto held back, and reassert their sovereignty. Henry VIII with his strong will determined to attempt the restoration of the English power, and as we shall see, succeeded.

A few years before the time we have now arrived at, King Henry VIII had begun his quarrel with Rome, the upshot of which was that he threw off all allegiance to the Pope, and made himself supreme head of the church in his own kingdom of England. He made little or no change in religion; on the contrary he did his best to maintain the chief doctrines of the Catholic church, and to resist the progress of the Reformation. All he wanted was that he, and not the Pope, should be head. Ireland was almost free from such dreadful scenes as were taking place in England during this struggle, probably because it was too remote to come much under his direct notice.

As Henry was now head of the church in England, he was determined to be head in Ireland also; and to the deputy Skeffington and the earl of Ossory, the latter of whom had all along taken sides with the king, was intrusted the task of bringing the Irish to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy. They employed as their chief ecclesiastical agent George Brown, formerly an Augustinian friar in London, now by the king’s appointment archbishop of Dublin in succession to the murdered archbishop John Allen. Brown went to work with great energy; but he was vehemently opposed (1535) by Cromer archbishop of Armagh; and he made no impression on the Anglo-Irish of the Pale, who showed not the least disposition to go with him.

Seeing that so far his efforts resulted in failure, he

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advised the deputy Lord Leonard Grey, to convene a parliament in Dublin, hoping that it might influence the people to follow the example of England. But when this parliament had assembled (1536), an unexpected difficulty appeared. There were certain members called ‘spiritual proctors', representing the clergy, three from each diocese, who sat in the Commons and like other members exercised the right of voting. The proctors to a man opposed the new measure
- making the king head of the church - and it was found impossible to carry it so long as they sat. So the parliament got rid of them altogether by deciding that their office was merely to advise, and that they had no right to vote, though they had exercised that right from time immemorial; that they were in fact not members of parliament at all.

Then after several sittings this year (1536) and the next, the following measures were passed. The king was to be supreme head of the church of Ireland. An oath of supremacy was to be taken by all government officers, i.e., an oath that the king was spiritual head of the church; and anyone who was bound to take it and refused was adjudged guilty of treason. There were to be no appeals to the Pope in ecclesiastical matters. The clergy were to pay to the king, instead of to the Pope as heretofore, firstfruits, i.e., the first year’s profits of any bishopric or parish or living; and also the twentieth part of the subsequent yearly income. All religious houses, except a few in some remote districts, were suppressed, the monks were turned out on the world without any provision, and the property was either kept for the king or given to laymen: little or none was returned to the church.

As to lay matters. An act was passed under which the king seized all lands belonging to absentees, which applied to the duke of Norfolk and to several other great English absentee proprietors. The English language, apparel, and manner of living were to be used by all subjects; and the old laws against marrying and fostering with the Irish were revived. Black rents and all other tributes paid by the colonists to the Irish were abolished;

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inasmuch as the English forces - it was declared - were now sufficient to protect the Pale.

Among all those subjects of legislation the question of supremacy was considered the most important. It was the test of loyalty. All who took the oath were deemed loyal; all who refused disloyal. Yet on this very question the act was an entire failure; for the great body of the people took no notice of it whatever.

The disturbances created by the rebellion of Silken Thomas were still kept up in some parts of the country by the chiefs of the Geraldine league. To break up this league was now the main object of the deputy Lord Grey, especially to subdue the two most powerful southern members, O’Brien and the earl of Desmond; and he entered on the task with great energy. At this time the Shannon was spanned, a little below Killaloe, by O’Brien’s Bridge, which was fortified at the ends with great solid towers. This bridge had long been a source of trouble, as it enabled the O’Briens, who had built it, to cross the Shannon whenever they pleased and plunder the English of Limerick and Tipperary. Several unsuccessful attempts had been made to destroy it; but now (1536) at last the deputy succeeded through the treachery of Donogh O’Brien, son of the chief of Thomond. This man was married to the daughter of the earl of Ossory; and he took the part of the government against his own father. On condition that he should get for himself the strong castle of Carrigogunnell, he led the deputy’s men to the bridge by an undefended path hitherto unknown. The first tower was taken by assault, after which the garrison retired across the river and the bridge was destroyed. After this the deputy proceeded to Carrigogunnell, took it after a brave defence, executed all its defenders on the spot, and then gave it up to the traitor Donogh. [1]

This is a proper place to observe that one of the well-recognised and most effectual means of reducing the Irish chiefs was setting them by bribes to war against each other; and in the very next year (1537) the Irish govern-

1. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, pp.107, 108.

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ment urged the necessity of keeping a supply of money in Dublin for this purpose: ‘Finally, because the nature of Irishmen is such that for money one shall have the son to war against the father, and the father against the child, it shall be necessary for the king’s grace to have always treasures here as a present remedy against sudden rebellion’: [1] a record not creditable either to English or Irish, and aptly exemplified in Gray’s capture of O’Brien’s Bridge and Carrigogunnell.

Lord Grey next fin 1537) turned his arms against O’Conor of Offaly, who was again in hostility, notwithstanding his late submission, but who was at this time much weakened by quarrels with his brother. He forced some of O’Conor’s sub-chiefs to join his expedition, and with their help captured several castles, executing all their defenders; so that this chief, forced at last by sheer distress, submitted and obtained pardon. He engaged not to exact any more black rents, and he was permitted to hold his lands from the crown according to English tenure. At this same time the English recovered the castle of Athlone, which had been taken from the English some time before; a most important stronghold, as it commanded the passage into Connaught.

In the summer of the next year, 1538, the deputy, attended by several lords of the Pale, as well as by O’Conor and some other Irish chiefs, set out on a military progress through the country south and west, during which he received the submission of the chiefs as he went along, and met with no resistance. [1]

In May of the year following, 1539, he proceeded north against Conn Bacach O’Neill, who had lately been in correspondence with several kings and chiefs, both foreign and native, for a general rising in Ireland; and he plundered and wasted the country round Armagh, but spared the city itself.

In the following August (1539) O’Neill and O’Donnell made a hosting southward into Meath, intending to march

1. State Papers: Henry VIII pt. 3, p.485.
2. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, p.145.

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to Maynooth and form a junction with the Geraldines. They advanced however no farther than Tara, probably not finding co-operation, from which they returned north, sweeping before them the plunder of the whole country. But Grey pursued and overtook them at Lake Bellahoe in Monaghan, and inflicted on them, encumbered as they were with booty, a crushing defeat, killing 400 and recovering all the spoils. The power of the northern chiefs was greatly broken by this disaster, and continued weak for many years afterwards.

At the close of the year (1539) the deputy undertook a second journey into Munster, for another attempt to detach O’Brien and the earl of Desmond from the Geraldine league. As usual he received the submission of most of the chiefs, both native and Anglo-Irish, through whose territories he passed. But as to O’Brien and Desmond, he failed to reduce them, and he had to return without accomplishing the main object of the expedition.

This Geraldine league, which was originally formed for the restoration of Gerald Fitzgerald, seems to have extended its aims; and now contemplated the overthrow of the English government in Ireland, and the ultimate independence of the country. The chiefs expected foreign aid, which never came. Failing this they made no serious attempt to combine their own forces; and the only result was a number of detached raids, bringing ruin or death to hundreds of poor people, but quite profitless for the main purpose.

Lord Leonard Grey was an active and faithful servant to his master the king. He was a Catholic, assenting, however, to the king’s supremacy; but this seems to have had no influence on his subsequent fate. He greatly broke down the power of the northern chiefs; nearly annihilated the Geraldines; and restored the English power in Ireland, which had become almost extinct. But he was imprudent and of a violent temper. By his reckless, high-handed conduct he made enemies everywhere, and put himself continually in their power. They carefully noted down all his proceedings and sent reports to the king, some of them

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villainous concoctions, putting the very worst construction on all his actions. [1] At last they succeeded. He was recalled in 1540 and brought to trial for treason, the chief accusation being his alleged partiality for the Geraldines, and allowing young Gerald Fitzgerald to escape; and he was executed as a traitor in 1541: the end of many of the most faithful servants of the Tudors.

There was not under the crown in those days, more especially during this reign and that of Elizabeth, so harassing, disagreeable, and dangerous a post as that of Irish govt-i-nor. Ireland - or that part of it under English rule - waihen a land of intrigue, jobbery, and corruption. The deputy could not possibly discharge his duty impartially in the midst of so many jarring elements without making powerful enemies, who thwarted him in every possible way, set spies on him, and sent unfavourable reports to the king or queen, who was always too ready to give ear to them. By these means many were ruined and none escaped censure. Yet no sooner was a deputy recalled than his place was filled up by some other eager aspirant, doomed to be soon in his turn harassed, disgusted, and anxious for recall. Much of the blundering of the English government in Ireland, and much of the misfortune of the country, arose from this double authority. While many of the Irish governors were tyrannical, selfish, and wrong in their mode of government, some were just men, anxious for the amelioration of the country; but they were always liable to be thwarted by ignorant and mischievous orders from London, where Irish affairs were not understood; which interference often spoiled the best measures of the best governors.

One of the greatest difficulties the deputies had to contend with was the want of money. The whole available revenue of Ireland was only about £5,000, [2] which was ridiculously small considering the resources of the country, and was not nearly sufficient to carry on the war. ‘I have been commanded to the field', writes Sussex', and I have not one pemiy of money; I must lead an army to the field,

1. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, pp.164 to 171.
2. Ibid. p.119.

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and I see not how I shall be victualled; I must fortify, and I have no working tools.’ And this was the story of every deputy. Money had to be sent over from England, and the king was continually grumbling at the expense. ‘;The soldiers had often to go without pay, and sometimes they broke out into open mutiny. [1] On one occasion Lord Grey set out for an expedition into O’Brien’s country; but the men refused to cross the Shannon unless they got their arrears, and the expedition had to be abandoned. [2] The Dublin council wrote to the king complaining that they got as much trouble from their own mutinous soldiers as from the Irish enemies. [3]

In reality, however, a large revenue was raised, though the government got only £5,000 of it. The smallness of this sum led the king to suspect that there was something wrong. He ordered inquiry, and the result was given in a long letter, written soon after Grey’s recall, by Eobert Cowley, master of the rolls in Ireland. After enumerating the various sources of revenue, he showed why they produced so small a sum: scheming, embezzlement, and mismanagement everywhere. No accounts were kept; and while scores of knavish officials enriched themselves without any check or fear of detection, the poor defenceless people were trodden down and robbed, and the soldiers were left without pay. But with characteristic negligence as regarded Irish affairs, no serious steps were taken; and notwithstanding Cowley’s exposure, this amazing state of things was allowed to go on unchecked; and the soldiers starved, the people were plundered, and the knaves flourished as before.

On the recall of Grey in 1510, Sir William Brereton was appointed lord justice, till a lord deputy should be selected. A report now went round that there was to be a rising of the septs living round the Pale, and that a general muster of the Irish was appointed to take place at Finnea in the north of Westmeath. Whereupon Brereton hastily collected a motley army of eight or ten thousand

1. Hamilton, Cal., p.216, No. 85.
2. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, p.109.
3. Ibid., p.118.

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men, wliich included not only the regular militia, but also vast numbers of the professional classes - judges, bishops, priests, peers, lawyers, and others.

On arriving at Finnea, however, he found no sign of the Irish gathering - the whole story was probably an invention; but, unwilling that they should have their trouble for nothing, they ‘concluded’ - as Brereton himself says - ‘to do some exploit.’ As O’Conor had lately burned and spoiled some English settlements in his neighbourhood, they turned into Offaly', and, ‘encamping on sundry plains, destroyed his (O’Conor’s) habitations, corns, and fortalices, as long as their victuals lasted’ - i.e., for twenty days. ‘Albeit,’ adds the lord justice, ’ he (O’Conor) remaineth in his cankerde malyce and ranker, and so do all his confederates’ (1540).

About this time the Irish chiefs showed a general disposition for peace, and the king was equally anxious to receive them. The two great northern princes, O’Donnell and O’Neill, were the first to make advances; they wrote in respectful terms to the king, who sent a gracious reply to each. At this important juncture a sensible man - Sir Anthony Sentleger - was by good chance appointed lord deputy. He was all for a conciliatory policy, and he told the king in a letter ‘I perceive them [the chiefs] to be men of such nature that they will much sooner be brought to honest conformity by small gifts, honest persuasions, and nothing taking of them, than ‘by great rigour.’ Accordingly he took full advantage of their present pacific mood; and by wise and skilful management he induced them to submit, the greater number by persuasion, some few by more or less compulsion. He led two separate expeditions in 1540 against two troublesome Leinster chiefs, Mac Murrogh of Idrone in Carlow, and Turlogh O’Toole of Imail in Wicklow, burning and wasting their territories till he forced them to come to terms; but once they had submitted he treated them kindly. The former renounced the old title of Mac Murrogh and took the name of Kavanagh; and he agreed to hold his lands by the English tenure of knight service.

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O’Toole was an eccentric old cliief. He expressed a wish to go to England to see the mighty hing of whom he had heard so much, and to petition him for certain concessions that Sentleger refused to grant. The deputy wisely humoured him, and gave him £20 to pay his way. He was received kindly by the king, who granted all he asked , and he returned satisfied and loyal. O’Conor of Offaly, with the example of Mac Murrogh and O’Toole before his eyes, proffered submission and was gladly accepted; and several of his subordinate chiefs came in with him.

The earl of Desmond next asked for a conference, which was granted (1541); but before this took place three hostages had to be given up to him as a guarantee for his safety: the archbishop of Dublin, Sentleger’s brother, and another. For a great many years the Desmonds had claimed and had been allowed the curious privileges of not attending parliament and of not entering any walled town; which were conceded partly on account of the seventh earl’s good government of the southern counties, partly from the danger and difficulty of the journey to Dublin, and in part also on account of the treacherous seizure and execution of the Great Earl by Tiptoft (p.344). Now Sir James, the fourteenth earl, made submission and renounced these privileges.

The earl of Ormond had set up a claim to the earldom of Desmond in right of his wife, who was the only daughter and heir of the eleventh earl of Desmond; and this dispute was settled by arranging a cross marriage between the children of the two earls. After all these affairs had been amicably settled, Desmond invited Sentleger and Ormond to Kilmallock, his capital, where he entertained them in royal style; and, what was better still, he gave them much sound advice regarding the management of Ireland. In a letter to the king, Sentleger describes him as ‘undoubtedly a very wise and discreet gentleman.'

From Kilmallock the deputy went to Limerick, where he had a ‘parte with Obrian, who is the greatest Irishman of this western land.’ But the ‘parte’ led to no immediate result, for the deputy would not agree to some of the

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chief’s proposals; and besides, O’Brien said he should consult his people before submitting; for although the captain of a nation, he was still but one man. Three years later, however, he made formal submission.

Hitherto the English kings, from the time of John, had borne the title of Lord of Ireland. It was now considered that a higher title would add weight to the king’s authority; and it was resolved to confer on him the title of King of Ireland. With this object a parliament was assembled in Dublin on the 1 2th June (1 541 ); and in order to lend greater importance to its decisions, a number of the leading Irish chiefs - among others, Kavanagh, O’Moore, and O’Reilly - were induced to attend it; and O’Brien of Thomond yielded so far that he sent deputies to represent him. This was the first parliament attended by native Irish members. The earl of Desmond also, and several other Anglo-Irish lords - some who had not come to a parliament for many years, and some never before - attended. The presence ot all these made the present parliament the most remarkable yet held in Ireland. The Irish lords, and some also of the Anglo-Irish, did not understand a word of English; and they were greatly pleased when the earl of Ormond translated into Irish for them the speeches of the lord chancellor and the speaker.

The act conferring the title of King of Ireland on Henry and his successors was passed through both houses rapidly, and with perfect unanimity. It was hailed with great joy in Dublin, for it gave promise of peace; and on the following Sunday Archbishop Brown celebrated a high Mass with a Te Beum in solemn thanksgiving, before an immense congregation.

The two most powerful chiefs of all still held back, although they had been the first to propose submission in the preceding year. At length O’Donnell announced his intention tc submit; and after some time Conn Bacach O’Neill followed his example. These two, as well as the earl of Desmond and several others of the great chiefs, both Irish and Anglo-Irish, went to England in 1542, and all were received at Greenwich most graciously by King

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Henry. O’Neill renounced his ancient title - ‘The O’Neill’ - and surrendered his territory to the king; after which he was created earl of Tyrone, and was permitted to hold his lands direct from the crown. At his request his (reputed) illegitimate son Ferdoragh or Matthew was made baron of Dungannon, with the right to succeed to the earldom of Tyrone.

About the same time O’Donnell was promised to be made earl of Tirconnell, though the title was not actually conferred till a considerable time after. Murrogh O’Brien, who had succeeded his brother Conor - the great O’Brien (p.385) - was created earl of Thomond in 1543; and his nephew Donogh, he who had betrayed his father at O’Brien’s Bridge, was made baron of Ibrickan; and Mac William Burke, who is commonly known as Ulick-na-gann or William of the Heads, was made earl of Clanrickard.

Every chief of any consequence in the whole country submitted; and the king on his part was gracious to all, and bestowed honours and titles very freely. There was a general acquiescence, chiefly brought about by the conciliatory disposition and skilful management of Sentleger; and the distracted country saw for the first time since the invasion a prospect of lasting peace in the future.

It may be observed that this was the fourth general submission since the first landing of the Anglo-Normans: the first to Henry II.; the second to King John; the third to Richard II.; and this, the fourth, to Henry VIII , through Sentleger. The first three were shams: the fourth was a real submission.

The chiefs not only submitted to the king’s temporal authority, but they also, to a man, acknowledged his spiritual supremacy. This was included in the declaration of submission signed by each individual. [1] It may be urged in extenuation of their easy compliance on this score, that the subject of spiritual supremacy had not been brought much under notice in these countries up to that time; the chiefs hardly understood its full scope; and they did not think themselves the worse Catholics for renouncing the

1. Carew Papers, 1515 to 1574, pp.1S3 to 195.

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supremacy of the Pope. It did not much disturb their consciences, and it satisfied the king. Besides it was an empty formality - mere ink and paper - and so no doubt they considered it: they were not called upon to change in any particular their creed or their mode of worship; and they still followed the ministrations of their clergy, who of course were faithful spiritual subjects of the Pope.

But this spiritual submission, even such as it was, was confined to the chiefs, who were only a few individuals. The mass of the people made no such submission - knew nothing of it; and the attempt to impose on Ireland the doctrine of the king’s spiritual supremacy was - then, as well as before and after - a failure.

With the career of Henry III in England we have no concern here: I am writing Irish, not English, history. Putting out of sight the question of supremacy and the suppression of the Irish monasteries, Henry’s treatment of Ireland was on the whole considerate and conciliatory, though with an occasional outburst of cruelty. There was indeed in his time a great deal of foolish and harassing legislation regarding dress, language, customs, &c., all aiming at an impossibility - to anglicise the native Irish. But he never contemplated the expulsion or extermination of the Irish tribes to make room for new colonies, though often urged to it by his mischievous Irish executive. These officials were all for starving, burning, killing, and extirpating the natives, and bringing in English people in their stead; and they gave the king much bloodthirsty advice, which he steadily disregarded. His policy, as carried out by Sentleger, was thoroughly successful; for the end of his reign found the chiefs submissive and contented, the country at peace, and the English power in Ireland stronger than ever it was before. [1] Well would it have been, for both England and Ireland, if a similar policy had been followed in the succeeding reigns. Then our history would have been very different; and the tragical story that follows would never have to be told.

1 Cusack’s Report, in Carew Papers (1515 to 1574). pp.235 to 247.

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