Richard Bagwell

“ In a word, they killed the kings and the chieftains, the heirs to the crown, and the royal princes of Erin. They killed the brave and the valiant, the stout knights, champions, soldiers, and young lords, and most of the heroes and warriors of all Ireland; they brought them under tribute and reduced them to bondage and slavery. Many were the blooming, lively women; the modest, mild, comely maidens; the pleasant, noble, stately, blue-eyed young women; the gentle, well-brought-up youths ”

“ Thus it strangely happened that Matthew, who was confessedly born in adultery, was heir to the feudal title, while Shane, who was certainly legitimate, claimed the reversion of the tribal sovereignty. The influence of the clergy had probably weakened or destroyed the old Irish principle that an adulterine bastard could be brought into the real father’s lawful family by acknowledgment, nor could English law have been altogether without effect; but it is strange to see one in such a position as Matthew O’Neill, or Kelly, maintained by statesmen and lawyers against Shane and his brothers. ”

“ The Earl of Kildare, who was not impartial but who probably spoke truly, declared that the churches in Tipperary and Kilkenny were generally in ruins through the system of Papal provisions, ‘so as, and if the King’s Grace do not see for the hasty remedy of the same, there is like to be no more Christianity there, than in the midst of Turkey.’ Henry was just beginning to quarrel with the Pope, and would be ready enough to believe that provisions had ruined the churches. ”

“ But Grey had not caught him, and he could be submissive enough until what was left of his corn had been saved; his neighbours, English and Irish, thinking it more prudent to shelter an enterprising rebel than to run risks for a Government which could not protect its friends. Grey, who habitually used strong language, characterises these prudent people as ‘having as much falsehood remaining in them as all the devils of hell.’ Having, as he supposed, made O’Connor ‘as low as a dog were for the bone,’ he applied himself to the Kavanaghs, whose chief, Cahir MacArt, had married a Geraldine. ”

“ Being badly in want of a title, he sent John of Salisbury to Rome for leave to conquer Ireland, to root up the saplings of vice there, and to bring the wild Irish into the way of the true faith. The Pope was Nicholas Breakspeare, known in history as Adrian IV., the only Englishman who ever filled the papal chair. The popes were usually ready to grant boons to kings, if by so doing they could extend their own power, and an English pope must have felt a double pride in conferring favours on a king of England. ”

“ The Baron was a Fitzgerald, but on friendly terms with Ossory, who would have rescued him in spite of Kildare but for the Lord Deputy’s express prohibition; as it was, the poor man lost his horse, money, and apparel without redress. ‘This,’ said Ossory, ‘is a good encouragement to malefactors to commit spoils, having the advantage thereof without punishment or restitution.’ It was not the first nor the last time in Ireland that the friends of law and order have been less safe than its enemies, and that the Government has hampered those whom it could not protect. ”

“ From the preparation which he made for the invasion of Ireland, it seems clear that the King profoundly distrusted the adventurers who had insisted on winning him a new realm. Vast stores of provisions, a great number of hand-mills, artisans for building bridges, horses, and tools for building or trenching, might indeed have been required for a war against the natives. But the Irish had no fortresses, and wooden castles, of which we also read, can only have been intended for attacking the port-towns which Earl Richard had promised to give the King, and which were already in Norman hands. ”

“ Ireland cannot be governed without money.
To this formidable letter Grey and his Council answered that the army had never been properly paid, and had in consequence often mutinied, that they had spent every farthing of revenue on public objects, and had raised large additional sums on their own credit, that credit was now quite exhausted, and that without money to pay off the men it was impossible further to reduce the military establishment. ”

“ The native Irish everywhere advanced, and English law rapidly shrunk within the narrowest limits. A Parliament, held by the Earl of Desmond in 1465, enacted that every Irishman dwelling among the English in Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare, should dress in the English fashion, shave his moustache, take the oath of allegiance within a year, and assume as a surname the name of a town, of a colour, or of a trade. In the Parliament of 1480, held by the Earl of Kildare, all trade between the Pale and the Irish was forbidden by law. ”

“ He ridiculed the notion of France annexing Ireland, though he thought it possible that Henry II. might make a diversion there to prevent England from interfering with him in Scotland or on the Continent. He thought the Emperor would be friendly for old acquaintance sake, but that he disliked the new fashions in religion; ‘and no wonder, seeing that in that matter daily at home among ourselves one of us is offended with another.’ St. Leger, in short, was a statesman who could admire moral excellence in men of different opinions; and Browne was a fanatic. ‘God help me!’ said the Deputy. ”

“ More than 150 years elapsed between the battle of Clontarf and the landing of the first Anglo-Norman, and they were years of almost constant war and confusion. Had Ireland been left to herself a prince might in time have arisen strong enough to establish such a monarchy as Brian failed to found. The Danes had ceased to be a seriously disturbing influence, but there is no evidence that any such process of consolidation was going on, and a feudal system, which had lost none of its vigour, was at last confronted with a tribal system which had lost none of its inherent weakness. ”

“ Pedants and flatterers might argue that the King was actually entitled to most of the land, that the Irish were intruders, and that grants to them were derogatory to the royal dignity. To this it was answered that the intrusions were of very old date, that future rebellions would be more easily punished when they involved a breach of contract, and that the Crown must gain by the mere acknowledgment of its title. The O’Tooles at all events seem to have given up plundering the Pale, and they make little further figure in history. ”

“ Verbal messages and innuendoes contained in private letters seldom failed to undermine a man whom it might be neither safe nor decent to accuse openly. Grey now contented himself with saying that the late Lord Deputy had died in debt, and that his property was held in pledge for his creditors. But Lady Skeffington replied, and no doubt truly, that the official salary had never been paid, and that she could do nothing without it. Cromwell at least believed her, for he gave orders that her goods should be delivered to her, and that she should be sped on her homeward journey. ”

“ Before his release Keatinge undertook to drive the Geraldine chief out of Kildare. The wretched peasants crept back to their fields to save what was left of the harvest; and Cahir O’Connor, who saw how things were likely to end, came to Grey and Brabazon, and took an oath to defend the King’s interests against Kildare, and against his own brother. The Earl had a stronghold in a boggy wood near Rathangan, fortified with earthworks and wet ditches, and almost impregnable had it been well manned and armed. Not being defended it was easily taken, and whatever would burn was burned. ”

“ During the fifteenth century England did nothing to preserve the ties of kinship, and the Celtic reaction tended to swallow up the interlopers. The degenerate English proverbially became more Irish than the Irish themselves, but the distinction would scarcely have been so nearly obliterated had it not been for the change in religion. The nobles of the Pale, the burghers of the walled towns, and the lawyers in Dublin were equally disinclined to accept the new model. ”

“ Intrigues concerning Gerald of Kildare.
A confederacy had at this time been formed in favour of young Gerald. His own claims might not have been enough, in spite of Lady Eleanor O’Donnell’s efforts, but Henry’s ecclesiastical policy was beginning to bear its natural fruit. Priests passed from chief to chief, and communications with Rome were frequent. The Irish said all Englishmen were heretics, and the King the ‘most heretic and worst man in the world,’ in which perhaps they were not far wrong. They considered Henry a disobedient Papal vassal, and a mere usurper in Ireland. ”

“ He declared that he valued an increase of income less for himself than for the common good of Ireland. ‘A great sort of you,’ he wrote to the Lord Deputy and Council (we must be plain) , ‘desire nothing else but to reign in estimation and to fleece from time to time all that you may catch from us.’ He announced therefore that he was about to send an independent person with ample powers to inquire into Irish affairs. He gave Brabazon detailed instructions for a survey of marsh lands, and bade him go to war no more but apply himself wholly to financial affairs. ”

“ Agard, however, said that Grey, ‘which is my heavy lord,’ oppressed him out of spite, because he opposed the Geraldine faction, and prevented him from setting up broad looms and dye-works in Dublin. With the politic St. Leger he got on better, but Bellingham, whose temper was quite as despotic as Grey’s, was much disgusted at the independence of the Mint. Agard leaned to the Puritan side, and praised Bellingham’s godly proceedings. God is with you, he wrote to him, and with all good Christians who love God and their King, with much more of the same sort. ”

“ Croft and his advisers begged and borrowed till both credit and provisions were well-nigh exhausted in the barren wilds of West Cork. Soldiers unpunctually paid could not but be dangerous, and there was no sort of justice to be obtained in the country districts. ‘If in England,’ said Crofts, using an apt illustration, ‘the place of justice were appointed only at Dover, I think no man doubts but the people would soon grow out of order.’ A thorough reform in the official circle, head and members, was necessary before any great improvement could be expected in the people. ”

“ Ulster was in a state of more than usual confusion. Manus O’Donnell, who had been constantly at war with his father, was opposed by his son Calvagh, who had the help of the Scots. They addressed him as illustrious lord, and he went over to Scotland to claim the proffered aid. Returning with a large force, and with a piece of ordnance which the annalists inexplicably call a crooked gun, he entered Lough Swilly, took his father prisoner, and battered Greencastle and another fortress on Lough Foyle. Calvagh thenceforth assumed practical control of his clan. ”

“ An English groat was worth sixpence Irish, and everyone understood what he was doing. But now the country was flooded with base coin of uncertain value, and men bargained, as they do still at Cairo, for sterling money, foreign crowns, and livres Tournois. Trade with England was necessarily conducted by means of a reputable currency; and the whole of the new Irish coinage being only available for local use, felt the effects of inflation as well as of its own intrinsic baseness. ”

“ He insisted very reasonably that the King was as much bound to maintain order and justice in Ireland as in England herself. The sea was no safer than the land, and the ship which brought the Archbishop from Chester had been attacked by two pirates; but the men of Drogheda—no thanks to the Government—had captured the rovers. Even the Countess Dowager of Kildare, who was the daughter of an English knight, complained that her stepson allowed O’Neill to levy tribute on her lands, and that her property and that of her dependents was laid waste. ”

“ Beaton had outwitted Henry, annulled the marriage treaty from which so much had been hoped, and brought his countrymen back to the French alliance. Breathing threatenings and slaughter, the King of England determined to raise an Irish contingent as his predecessors had done. As his object was to destroy the greatest possible quantity of property, he could hardly have done better. One thousand kerne were required for Scotland and 2,000 for France. The order to raise the men only reached Ireland about the beginning of March, and Henry’s impatience expected them to be ready in a few days. ”

“ To men long used to a strong central government such a custom seemed impious. It was nevertheless part of the common heritage of the Aryan race, and had been in vogue among the peoples from whom the later English sprung. The Njal Saga illustrates its use among the Icelanders by many famous cases strictly in point. The feudal system and the canon law had caused the Teutonic nations to abandon a usage which they once had in common with the Irish. Celtic Ireland had never had a very strong central government, and such as it was it had sustained serious damage. ”

“ From the first the subjects of England and the natives of Ireland had been on entirely different planes. Even for us it is extremely difficult to avoid confusion by applying modern terms to ancient things. The Tudor lawyers and statesmen could hardly even attempt to look at jarring systems from the outside. They saw that the common law was more advanced than that of the Brehons, but they could not see that they were really the same thing at different stages. In fact, plain Englishmen in the sixteenth century could not do what only the most enlightened Anglo-Indians can do in the nineteenth. ”

“ He took with him a considerable body of Anglo-Irish partisans, and he committed the government to the Earl of Kildare.
The Yorkist faction headed by the Earl of Kildare.
Richard of York fell at Sandal Hill, but the popularity which he had gained in Ireland descended to his son. In the bloody battle of Towton the flower of the Anglo-Irish Lancastrians fell, and their leader, the Earl of Ormonde, was taken and beheaded. His house suffered an eclipse from which it was destined to emerge with greater brilliancy than ever, and the rival family of Kildare became for a time supreme in the Pale. ”

“ If the Earl travelled on private business, or on his way to attend Parliament, he was not to take coyne and livery save from his own tenants; and in no case except for the actual use of soldiers, nor for more than one night in one place, nor for successive nights within a distance of nine miles. It had been the custom to charge the farmers for ‘black men,’ that is, for soldiers who only existed in name and as a means of extortion. ”

“ Leger with much force, ‘your Grace is mistaken; for we have too many illiterate priests among us already, who neither can pronounce the Latin nor know what it means, no more than the common people that hear them; but when the people hear the Liturgy in English, they and the priest will then understand what they pray for.’ This last observation might be true enough in Dublin, but it was singularly inapplicable to Ireland generally. The key-note of the controversy had, however, been struck, and it was clear that the Primate and the Lord Deputy occupied very different standpoints. ”

“ The King was most anxious to get Lady Kildare’s eldest son into his power, and St. Leger avers that the King had no object ‘but to cherish him as his kinsman in like sort as his other brother is cherished with his mother in the realm of England.’ Having disposed of all who were old enough to be dangerous, it was doubtless Henry’s intention to bring up the children in English ways and in dependence on him. But Lady Mary O’Connor had other views, and the adventures of Gerald show how inextricably the Geraldines were intermingled with Celtic families. ”