Six days after his arrival, which was on the 1st of June, King Richard

marched from Waterford "in close order to Kilkenny." He had now the

advantage of long days and warm nights, which in his first expedition

he had not. His forces were rather less than in 1394; some say twenty,

some twenty-four thousand in all. The Earl of Rutland, with a

reinforcement in one hundred ships, was to have followed him, but this

unfaithful courtier did not greatly hasten his preparations to overtake

his master. With the King were the Lord Steward of England, Sir Thomas

Percy; the Duke of Exeter; De Spencer, Earl of Gloucester; the Lord

Henry of Lancaster, afterwards King Henry V.; the son of the late Duke

of Gloucester; the son of the Countess of Salisbury; the Bishop of

Exeter and London; the Abbot of Westminster, and a gallant Welsh

gentleman, afterwards known to fame as Owen Glendower. He dropped the

subterfuge of bearing Edward the Confessor's banner, and advanced his

own standard, which bore leopards and flower de luces. In this order,

"riding boldly," they reached Kilkenny, where Richard remained a

fortnight awaiting news of the Earl of Rutland from Waterford. No news,

however, came. But while he waited, he received intelligence from

Kildare which gratified his thirst for vengeance. Jenico d'Artois, a

Gascon knight of great discretion and valour, who had come over the

preceding year with the Duke of Surrey, marching towards Kilkenny, had

encountered some bands of the Irish in Kildare (bound on a like errand

to their prince), whom he fought and put to flight, leaving two hundred

of them dead upon the field. This Jenico, relishing Irish warfare more

than most foreign soldiers of his age, continued long after to serve in

Ireland—married one of his daughters to Preston, Baron of Naas, and

another to the first Lord Portlester.

On the 23rd of June, "the very vigil of St. John," a saint to whom the

King was very much devoted, Richard, resolving to delay no longer, left

Kilkenny, and marched directly towards Catherlough. He sent a message

in advance to McMurrogh, "who would neither submit nor obey him in

anyway; but affirmed that he was the rightful King of Ireland, and that

he would never cease from war and the defence of his country until his

death; and said that the wish to deprive him of it by conquest was

unlawful."

Art McMurrogh, now some years beyond middle age, had with him in arms

"three thousand hardy men," "who did not appear," says our French

knight, "to be much afraid of the English." The cattle and corn, the

women and the helpless, he had removed into the interior of the

fastnesses, while he himself awaited, in Idrone, the approach of the

enemy.

This district, which lies north and south between the rivers Slaney and

Barrow, is of a diversified and broken soil, watered with several small

streams, and patched with tracts of morass and marsh. It was then half

covered with wood, except in the neighbourhood of Old Leighlin, and a

few other places where villages had grown up around the castles, raths,

and monasteries of earlier days. On reaching the border of the forest,

King Richard ordered all the habitations in sight to be set on fire;

and then "two thousand five hundred of the well affected people," or,

as others say, prisoners, "began to hew a highway into the woods."

When the first space was cleared, Richard, ever fond of pageantry,

ordered his standard to be planted on the new ground, and pennons and

banners arrayed on every side. Then he sent for the sons of the Dukes

of Gloucester and Lancaster, his cousins, and the son of the Countess

of Salisbury and other bachelors-in-arms, and there knighted them with

all due solemnity. To young Lancaster, he said, "My fair cousin,

henceforth, be preux and valiant, for you have some valiant blood to

conquer." The youth to whom he made this address was little more than a

boy, but tall of his age, and very vigorous. He had been a hard student

at Oxford, and was now as unbridled as a colt new loosed into a meadow.

He was fond of music, and afterwards became illustrious as the Fifth

Henry of English history. Who could have foreseen, when first he put on

his spurs by the wood's side, in Catherlough, that he would one day

inherit the throne of England and make good the pretensions of all his

predecessors to the throne of France?

Richard's advance was slow and wearisome in the forests of Idrone. His

route was towards the eastern coast. McMurrogh retreated before him,

harassing him dreadfully, carrying off everything fit for food for man

or beast, surprising and slaying his foragers, and filling his camp

nightly with alarm and blood. The English archers got occasional shots

at his men, "so that they did not all escape;" and they in turn often

attacked the rear-guard, "and threw their darts with such force that

they pierced haubergeon and plates through and through." The Leinster

King would risk no open battle so long as he could thus cut off the

enemy in detail. Many brave knights fell, many men-at-arms and archers;

and a deep disrelish for the service began to manifest itself in the

English camp.

A party of Wexford settlers, however, brought one day to his camp

Malachy McMurrogh, uncle to Art, a timid, treaty-making man. According

to the custom of that century—observed by the defenders of Stirling and

the burgesses of Calais—he submitted with a _wythe_ about his neck,

rendering up a naked sword. His retinue, bareheaded and barefoot,

followed him into the presence of Richard, who received them

graciously. "Friends," said he to them, "as to the evils and wrongs

that you have committed against me, I pardon you on condition that each

of you will swear to be faithful to me for the time to come." Of this

circumstance he made the most, as our guide goes on to tell in these

words: "Then every one readily complied with his demand; and took the

oath. When this was done he sent word to MacMore, who called himself

Lord and King of Ireland, (_that country_,) where he has many a wood

but little cultivated land, that if he would come straightways to him

with a rope about _his_ neck, as his uncle had done, he would admit him

to mercy, and elsewhere give him castles and lands in abundance." The

answer of King Art is thus reported: "MacMore told the King's people he

would do no such thing for all the treasures of the sea or on this

side, (the sea,) but would continue to fight and harass him."

For eleven days longer Richard continued his route in the direction of

Dublin, McMurrogh and his allies falling back towards the hills and

glens of Wicklow. The English could find nothing by the way but "a few

green oats" for the horses, which being exposed night and day, and so

badly fed, perished in great numbers. The general discontent now made

itself audible even to the ears of the King. For many days five or six

men had but a "single loaf." Even gentlemen, knights and squires,

fasted in succession; and our chivalrous guide, for his part, "would

have been heartily glad to have been penniless at Poitiers or Paris."

Daily deaths made the camp a scene of continued mourning, and all the

minstrels that had come across the sea to amuse their victor

countrymen, like the poet who went with Edward II. to Bannockburn to

celebrate the conquest of the Scots, found their gay imaginings turned

to a sorrowful reverse.

At last, however, they came in sight of the sea-coast, where vessels

laden with provisions, sent from Dublin, were awaiting them. So eager

were the famished men for food, that "they rushed into the sea as

eagerly as they would into their straw." All their money was poured

into the hands of the merchants; some of them even fought in the water

about a morsel of food, while in their thirst they drank all the wine

they could lay hands on. Our guide saw full a thousand men drunk that

day on "the wine of Ossey and Spain." The scene of this extraordinary

incident is conjectured to have been at or near Arklow, where the beach

is sandy and flat, such as it is not at any point of Wicklow north of

that place.

The morning after the arrival of these stores, King Richard again set

forward for Dublin, determining to penetrate Wicklow by the valleys

that lead from the Meeting of the Waters to Bray. He had not proceeded

far on his march, when a Franciscan friar reached his camp as

Ambassador from the Leinster King. This unnamed messenger, whose cowl

history cannot raise, expressed the willingness of his lord to treat

with the King, through some accredited agent—"some lord who might be

relied upon"—"so that _their_ anger (Richard's and his own), that had

long been cruel, might now be extinguished." The announcement spread

"great joy" in the English camp. A halt was ordered, and a council

called. After a consultation, it was resolved that de Spencer, Earl of

Gloucester, should be empowered to confer with Art. This nobleman, now

but 26 years of age, had served in the campaign of 1394. He was one of

the most powerful peers of England, and had married Constance, daughter

of the Duke of York, Richard's cousin. From his possessions in Wales,

he probably knew something of the Gaelic customs and speech. He was

captain of the rearguard on this expedition, and now, with 200 lances,

and 1,000 archers, all of whom were chosen men, he set out for the

conference. The French knight also went with him, as he himself relates

in these words:

"Between two woods, at some distance from the sea, I beheld MacMore and

a body of the Irish, more than I can number, descend the mountain. He

had a horse, without housing or saddle, which was so fine and good,

that it had cost him, they said, four hundred cows; for there is little

money in the country, wherefore their usual traffic is only with

cattle. In coming down, it galloped so hard, that, in my opinion, I

never saw hare, deer, sheep, or any other animal, I declare to you for

a certainty, run with such speed as it did. In his right hand he bore a

great long dart, which he cast with much skill. * * * * His people drew

up in front of the wood. These two (Gloucester and the King), like an

out-post, met near a little brook. There MacMore stopped. He was a fine

large man—wondrously active. To look at him, he seemed very stern and

savage, and an able man. He and the Earl spake of their doings,

recounting the evil and injury that MacMore had done towards the King

at sundry times; and how they all foreswore their fidelity when

wrongfully, without judgment or law, they most mischievously put to

death the courteous Earl of March. Then they exchanged much discourse,

but did not come to agreement; they took short leave, and hastily

parted. Each took his way apart, and the Earl returned towards King

Richard."

This interview seems to have taken place in the lower vale of Ovoca,

locally called Glen-Art, both from the description of the scenery, and

the stage of his march at which Richard halted. The two woods, the

hills on either hand, the summer-shrunken river, which, to one

accustomed to the Seine and the Thames naturally looked no bigger than

a brook, form a picture, the original of which can only be found in

that locality. The name itself, a name not to be found among the

immediate chiefs of Wicklow, would seem to confirm this hypothesis.

The Earl on his return declared, "he could find nothing in him, (Art,)

save only that he would ask for _pardon_, truly, upon condition of

having _peace without reserve_, free from any molestation or

imprisonment; otherwise, he will never come to agreement as long as he

lives; and, (he said,) 'nothing venture, nothing have.' This speech,"

says the French knight, "was not agreeable to the King; it appeared to

me that his face grew pale with anger; he swore in great wrath by St.

Edward, that, no, never would he depart from Ireland, till, alive or

dead, he had him in his power."

The King, notwithstanding, was most anxious to reach Dublin. He at once

broke up his camp, and marched on through Wicklow, "for all the

shoutings of the enemie." What other losses he met in those deep

valleys our guide deigns not to tell, but only that they arrived at

last in Dublin "more than 30,000" strong, which includes, of course,

the forces of the Anglo-Irish lords that joined them on the way. There

"the whole of their ills were soon forgotten, and their sorrow

removed." The provost and sheriffs feasted them sumptuously, and they

were all well-housed and clad. After the dangers they had undergone,

these attentions were doubly grateful to them. But for long years the

memory of this doleful march lived in the recollection of the English

on both sides the Irish sea, and but once more for above a century did

a hostile army venture into the fastnesses of Idrone and Hy-Kinsellah.

When Richard arrived in Dublin, still galled by the memory of his

disasters, he divided his force into three divisions, and sent them out

in quest of McMurrogh, promising to whosoever should bring him to

Dublin, alive or dead, "100 marks, in pure gold." "Every one took care

to remember these words," says Creton, "for it was a good hearing." And

Richard, moreover, declared that if they did not capture him when the

autumn came, and the trees were leafless and dry, he would burn "all

the woods great and small," or find out that troublous rebel. The same

day he sent out his three troops, the Earl of Rutland, his laggard

cousin, arrived at Dublin with 100 barges. His unaccountable delay he

submissively apologized for, and was readily pardoned. "Joy and

delight" now reigned in Dublin. The crown jewels shone at daily

banquets, tournaments, and mysteries. Every day some new pastime was

invented, and thus six weeks passed, and August drew to an end.

Richard's happiness would have been complete had any of his soldiers

brought in McMurrogh's head: but far other news was on the way to him.

Though there was such merriment in Dublin, a long-continued storm swept

the channel. When good weather returned, a barge arrived from Chester,

bearing Sir William Bagot, who brought intelligence that Henry of

Lancaster, the banished Duke, had landed at Ravenspur, and raised a

formidable insurrection amongst the people, winning over the Archbishop

of Canterbury, the Duke of York, and other great nobles. Richard was

struck with dismay. He at once sent the Earl of Salisbury into Wales to

announce his return, and then, taking the evil counsel of Rutland,

marched himself to Waterford, with most part of his force, and

collected the remainder on the way. Eighteen days after the news

arrived he embarked for England, leaving Sir John Stanley as Lord

Lieutenant in Ireland. Before quitting Dublin, he confined the sons of

the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester, in the strong fortress of Trim,

from which they were liberated to share the triumph of the successful

usurper, Henry IV.

It is beyond our province to follow the after-fate of the monarch,

whose Irish campaigns we have endeavoured to restore to their relative

importance. His deposition and cruel death, in the prison of

Pontefract, are familiar to readers of English history. The

unsuccessful insurrections suppressed during his rival's reign, and the

glory won by the son of that rival, as Henry V., seem to have

established the house of Lancaster firmly on the throne; but the long

minority of Henry VI.—who inherited the royal dignity at nine months

old—and the factions among the other members of that family, opened

opportunities, too tempting to be resisted, to the rival dynasty of

York. During the first sixty years of the century on which we are next

to enter, we shall find the English interest in Ireland controlled by

the house of Lancaster; in the succeeding twenty-five years the

partizans of the house of York are in the ascendant; until at length,

after the victory of Bosworth field (A.D. 1485), the wars of the roses

are terminated by the coronation of the Earl of Richmond as Henry VII.,

and his politic marriage with the Princess Elizabeth—the representative

of the Yorkist dynasty. It will be seen how these rival houses had

their respective factions among the Anglo-Irish; how these factions

retarded two centuries the establishment of English power in Ireland;

how the native lords and chiefs took advantage of the disunion among

the foreigners to circumscribe more and more the narrow limits of the

Pale; and lastly, how the absence of national unity alone preserved the

power so reduced from utter extinction. In considering all these far

extending consequences of the deposition of Richard II., and the

substitution of Henry of Lancaster in his stead, we must give due

weight to his unsuccessful Irish wars as proximate causes of that

revolution. The death of the Heir-Presumptive in the battle of Kells;

the exactions and ill-success of Richard in his wars; the seizure of

John of Ghent's estates and treasures; the absence of the sovereign at

the critical moment: all these are causes which operated powerfully to

that end. And of these all that relate to Irish affairs were mainly

brought about by the heroic constancy, in the face of enormous odds,

the unwearied energy, and high military skill exhibited by one man—Art

McMurrogh.

CHAPTER V.

PARTIES WITHIN "THE PALE"—BATTLES OF KILMAINHAM AND KILLUCAN—SIR JOHN

TALBOT'S LORD LIEUTENANCY.

One leading fact, which we have to follow in all its consequences

through the whole of the fifteenth century, is the division of the

English and of the Anglo-Irish interest into two parties, Lancasterians

and Yorkists. This division of the foreign power will be found to have

produced a corresponding sense of security in the minds of the native

population, and thus deprived them of that next best thing to a united

national action, the combining effects of a common external danger.

The new party lines were not drawn immediately upon the English

revolution of 1399, but a very few years sufficed to infuse among

settlers of English birth or descent the partizan passions which

distracted the minds of men in their original country. The third Earl

of Ormond, although he had received so many favours from the late King

and his grandfather, yet by a common descent of five generations from

Edward I., stood in relation of cousinship to the Usurper. On the

arrival of the young Duke of Lancaster as Lord Lieutenant, in 1402,

Ormond became one of his first courtiers, and dying soon after, he

chose the Duke guardian to his heir, afterwards the fourth Earl. This

heir, while yet a minor (1407), was elected or appointed deputy to his

guardian, the Lord Lieutenant; during almost the whole of the short

reign of Henry V. (1413-1421) he resided at the English Court, or

accompanied the King in his French campaigns, thus laying the

foundations of that influence which, six several times during the reign

of Henry VI., procured his appointment to office as Lord Deputy, Lord

Justice, or Lord Lieutenant. At length, in the mid-year of the century,

his successor was created Earl of Wiltshire, and entrusted with the

important duties of one of the Commissioners for the fleet, and Lord

Treasurer of England; favours and employments which sufficiently

account for how the Ormond family became the leaders of the Lancaster

party among the Anglo-Irish.

The bestowal of the first place on another house tended to estrange the

Geraldines, who, with some reason, regarded themselves as better

entitled to such honours. During the first official term of the Duke of

Lancaster, no great feeling was exhibited, and on his departure in

1405, the fifth Earl of Kildare was, for a year, entrusted with the

office of Deputy. On the return of the Duke, in August, 1408, the Earl

rode out to meet him, but was suddenly arrested with three other

members of his family, and imprisoned in the Castle, His house in

Dublin was plundered by the servants of the Lord Lieutenant, and the

sum of 300 marks was exacted for his ransom. Such injustice and

indignity, as well as the subsequent arrest of the sixth Earl, in 1418,

"for having communicated with the Prior of Kilmainham"—still more than

their rivalry with the Ormonds, drove the Kildare family into the ranks

of the adherents of the Dukes of York. We shall see in the sequel the

important reacting influence of these Anglo-Irish combinations upon the

fortunes of the white rose and the red.

To signalize his accession and remove the reproach of inaction which

had been so often urged against his predecessor, Henry IV, was no

sooner seated on the throne than he summoned the military tenants of

the Crown to meet him in arms upon the Tyne, for the invasion of

Scotland. It seems probable that he summoned those of Ireland with the

rest, as we find in that year (1400) that an Anglo-Irish fleet,

proceeding northwards from Dublin, encountered a Scottish, fleet in

Strangford Lough, where a fierce engagement was fought, both sides

claiming the victory. Three years later the Dubliners landed at Saint

Ninians, and behaved valiantly, as their train bands did the same

summer against the mountain tribes of Wicklow. Notwithstanding the

personal sojourn of the unfortunate Richard, and his lavish expenditure

among them, these warlike burghers cordially supported the new dynasty.

Some privileges of trade were judiciously extended to them, and, in

1407, Henry granted to the Mayors of the city the privilege of having a

gilded sword carried before them, in the same manner as the Mayors of

London.

At the period when these politic favours were bestowed on the citizens

of Dublin, Henry was contending with a formidable insurrection in

Wales, under the leadership of Owen Glendower, who had learned in the

fastnesses of Idrone, serving under King Richard, how brave men, though

not formed to war in the best schools, can defend their country against

invasion. In the struggle which he maintained so gallantly during this

and the next reign, though the fleet of Dublin at first assisted his

enemies, he was materially aided afterwards by the constant occupation

furnished them by the clans of Leinster. The early years of the

Lancasterian dynasty were marked by a series of almost invariable

defeats in the Leinster counties. Art McMurrogh, whose activity defied

the chilling effects of age, poured his cohorts through Sculloge gap,

on the garrisons of Wexford, taking in rapid possession in one campaign

(1406) the castles of Camolin, Ferns, and Enniscorthy. Returning

northward he retook Castledermot, and inflicted chastisement on the

warlike Abbot of Conal, near Naas, who shortly before attacked some

Irish forces on the Curragh of Kildare, slaying two hundred men.

Castledermot was retaken by the Lord Deputy Scrope the next year, with

the aid of the Earls of Ormond and Desmond, and the Prior of

Kilmainham, at the head of his Knights. These allies were fresh from a

Parliament in Dublin, where the Statute of Kilkenny had been, according

to custom, solemnly re-enacted as the only hope of the English

interest, and they naturally drew the sword in maintenance of their

palladium. Within six miles of Callan, in "McMurrogh's country," they

encountered that chieftain and his clansmen. In the early part of the

day the Irish are stated to have had the advantage, but some Methian

captains coming up in the afternoon turned the tide in favour of the

English. According to the chronicles of the Pale, they won a second

victory before nightfall at the town of Callan, over O'Carroll of Ely,

who was marching to the aid of McMurrogh. But so confused and

unsatisfactory are the accounts of this twofold engagement on the same

day, in which the Deputy in person, and such important persons as the

Earls of Desmond, of Ormond, and the Prior of Kilmainham commanded,

that we cannot reconcile it with probability. The Irish Annals simply

record the fact that a battle was gained at Callan over the Irish of

Munster, in which O'Carroll was slain. Other native authorities add

that 800 of his followers fell with O'Carroll, but no mention whatever

is made of the battle with McMurrogh. The English accounts gravely add,

that the evening sun stood still, while the Lord Deputy rode six miles,

from the place of the first engagement to that of the second. This was

the last campaign of Sir Stephen Scrope; he died soon after by the

pestilence which swept over the island, sparing neither rich nor poor.

The Duke of Lancaster resumed the Lieutenancy, arrested the Earl of

Kildare as before related, convoked a Parliament at Dublin, and with

all the forces he could muster, determined on an expedition southwards.

But McMurrogh and the mountaineers of Wicklow now felt themselves

strong enough to take the initiative. They crossed the plain which lies

to the north of Dublin, and encamped at Kilmainham, where Roderick when

he besieged the city, and Brien before the battle of Clontarf, had

pitched their tents of old. The English and Anglo-Irish forces, under

the eye of their Prince, marched out to dislodge them, in four

divisions. The first was led by the Duke in person; the second by the

veteran knight, Jenico d'Artois, the third by Sir Edward Perrers, an

English knight, and the fourth by Sir Thomas Butler, Prior of the Order

of Saint John, afterwards created by Henry V., for his distinguished

service, Earl of Kilmain. With McMurrogh were O'Byrne, O'Nolan, and

other chiefs, besides his sons, nephews, and relatives. The numbers on

each side could hardly fall short of ten thousand men, and the action

may be fairly considered one of the most decisive of those times. The

Duke was carried back wounded into Dublin; the slopes of Inchicore and

the valley of the Liffey were strewn with the dying and the dead; the

river at that point obtained from the Leinster Irish the name of

_Athcroe_, or the ford of slaughter; the widowed city was filled with

lamentation and dismay. In a petition addressed to King Henry by the

Council, apparently during his son's confinement from the effects of

his wound, they thus describe the Lord Lieutenant's condition: "His

soldiers have deserted him; the people of his household are on the

point of leaving him; and though they were willing to remain, our lord

is not able to keep them together; our said lord, your son, is so

destitute of money, that he hath not a penny in the world, nor a penny

can he get credit for."

One consequence of this battle of Kilmainham was, that while Art

McMurrogh lived, no further attacks were made upon his kindred or

country. He died at Ross, on the first day of January, 1417, in the

60th year of his age. His Brehon, O'Doran, having also died suddenly on

the same day, it was supposed they were both poisoned by a drink

prepared for them by a woman of the town. "He was," say our impartial

_Four Masters_, who seldom speak so warmly of any Leinster Prince, "a

man distinguished for his hospitality, knowledge, and feats of arms; a

man full of prosperity and royalty; a founder of churches and

monasteries by his bounty and contributions," and one who had defended

his Province from the age of sixteen to sixty.

On his recovery from the effects of his wound, the Duke of Lancaster

returned finally to England, appointing Prior Butler his Deputy, who

filled that office for five consecutive years. Butler was an

illegitimate son of the late Earl of Ormond, and naturally a

Lancasterian: among the Irish he was called Thomas _Baccagh_, on

account of his lameness. He at once abandoned South Leinster as a field

of operations, and directed all his efforts to maintain the Pale in

Kildare, Meath, and Louth. His chief antagonist in this line of action

was Murrogh or Maurice O'Conor, of Offally. This powerful chief had

lost two or three sons, but had gamed as many battles over former

deputies. He was invariably aided by his connexions and neighbours, the

MacGeoghegans of West-Heath. Conjointly they captured the castles and

plundered the towns of their enemies, holding their prisoners to ransom

or carrying off their flocks. In 1411 O'Conor held to ransom the

English Sheriff of Meath, and somewhat later defeated Prior Butler in a

pitched battle. His greatest victory was the battle of Killucan, fought

on the 10th day of May, 1414. In this engagement MacGeoghegan was, as

usual, his comrade. All the power of the English Pale was arrayed

against them. Sir Thomas Mereward, Baron of Screen, "and a great many

officers and common soldiers were slain," and among the prisoners were

Christopher Fleming, son of the Baron of Slane, for whom a ransom of

1,400 marks was paid, and the ubiquitous Sir Jenico d'Artois, who, with

some others, paid "twelve hundred marks, beside a reward and fine for

intercession." A Parliament which sat at Dublin for thirteen weeks, in

1413, and a foray into Wicklow, complete the notable acts of Thomas

_Baccagh's_ viceroyalty. Soon after the accession of Henry V. (1413),

he was summoned to accompany that warlike monarch into France, and for

a short interval the government was exercised by Sir John Stanley, who

died shortly after his arrival, and by the Archbishop of Dublin, as

Commissioner. On the eve of St. Martin's Day, 1414, Sir John Talbot,

afterwards so celebrated as first Earl of Shrewsbury, landed at Dalkey,

with the title of Lord Lieutenant.

The appointment of this celebrated Captain, on the brink of a war with

France, was an admission of the desperate strait to which the English

interest had been reduced. And if the end could ever justify the means,

Henry V., from his point of view, might have defended on that ground

the appointment of this inexorable soldier. Adopting the system of Sir

Thomas Butler, Talbot paid little or no attention to South Leinster,

but aimed in the first place to preserve to his sovereign, Louth and

Meath. His most southern point of operation, in his first Lieutenancy,

was Leix, but his continuous efforts were directed against the O'Conors

of Offally and the O'Hanlons and McMahons of Oriel. For three

succeeding years he made circuits through these tribes, generally by

the same route, west and north, plundering chiefs and churches, sparing

"neither saint nor sanctuary." On his return to Dublin after these

forays, he exacted with a high hand whatever he wanted for his

household. When he returned to England, 1419, he carried along with

him, according to the chronicles of the Pale—"the curses of many,

because he, being run much in debt for victuals, and divers other

things, would pay little or nothing at all." Among the natives he left

a still worse reputation. The plunder of a bard was regarded by them as

worse, if possible, than the spoliation of a sanctuary. One of Talbot's

immediate predecessors was reputed to have died of the malediction of a

bard of West-Meath, whose property he had appropriated; but as if to

show his contempt of such superstition, Talbot suffered no son of song

to escape him. Their satires fell powerless on his path. Not only did

he enrich himself, by means lawful and unlawful, but he created

interest, which, a few years afterwards, was able to checkmate the

Desmonds and Ormonds. The see of Dublin falling vacant during his

administration, he procured the appointment of his brother Richard as

Archbishop, and left him, at his departure, in temporary possession of

the office of Lord Deputy. Branches of his family were planted at

Malahide, Belgarde, and Talbotstown, in Wicklow, the representatives of

which survive till this day.

One of this Lieutenant's most acceptable offices to the State was the

result of stratagem rather than of arms. The celebrated Art McMurrogh

was succeeded, in 1417, by his son, Donogh, who seems to have inherited

his valour, without his prudence. In 1419, in common with the O'Conor

of Offally, his father's friend, he was entrapped into the custody of

Talbot. O'Conor, the night of his capture, escaped with his companions,

and kept up the war until his death: McMurrogh was carried to London

and confined in the Tower. Here he languished for nine weary years. At

length, in 1428, Talbot, having "got license to make the best of him,"

held him to ransom. The people of his own province released him, "which

was joyful news to the Irish."

But neither the aggrandizement of new nor the depression of old

families effected any cardinal change in the direction of events. We

have traced for half a century, and are still farther to follow out,

the natural consequences of the odious _Statute of Kilkenny_. Although

every successive Parliament of the Pale recited and re-enacted that

statute, every year saw it dispensed in particular cases, both as to

trading, intermarriage, and fostering with the natives. Yet the virus

of national proscription outlived all the experience of its futility.

In 1417, an English petition was presented to the English Parliament,

praying that the law, excluding Irish ecclesiastics from Irish

benefices, should be strictly enforced; and the same year they

prohibited the influx of fugitives from Ireland, while the Pale

Parliament passed a corresponding act against allowing any one to

emigrate without special license. At a Parliament held at Dublin in

1421, O'Hedian, Archbishop of Cashel, was impeached by Gese, Bishop of

Waterford, the main charges being that he loved none of the English

nation; that he presented no Englishman to a living; and that he

designed to make himself King of Munster. This zealous assembly also

adopted a petition of grievances to the King, praying that as the

Irish, who had done homage to King Richard, "had long since taken arms

against the government notwithstanding their recognizances payable in

the Apostolic chamber, his Highness the King would lay their conduct

before the Pope, and prevail on the Holy Father to publish _a crusade

against them_, to follow up the intention of his predecessor's grant to

Henry II.!"

In the temporal order, as we have seen, the policy of hatred brought

its own punishment. "The Pale," which may be said to date from the

passing of the _Statute of Kilkenny_ (1367), was already abridged more

than one-half. The Parliament of Kilkenny had defined it as embracing

"Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Catherlough, Kilkenny, Wexford,

Waterford, and Tipperary," each governed by Seneschals or Sheriffs. In

1422 Dunlavan and Ballymore are mentioned as the chief keys of Dublin

and Kildare—and in the succeeding reign Callan in Oriel is set down as

the chief key of that part. Dikes to keep out the enemy were made from

Tallaght to Tassagard, at Rathconnell in Meath, and at other places in

Meath and Kildare. These narrower limits it long retained, and the

usual phrase in all future legislation by which the assemblies of the

Anglo-Irish define their jurisdiction is "the four shires." So

completely was this enclosure isolated from the rest of the country

that, in the reign at which we have now arrived, both the Earls of

Desmond and Ormond were exempted from attending certain sittings of

Parliament, and the Privy Council, on the ground that they could not do

so without marching through the enemy's country at great risk and

inconvenience. It is true occasional successes attended the military

enterprises of the Anglo-Irish, even in these days of their lowest

fortunes. But they had chosen to adopt a narrow, bigoted, unsocial

policy; a policy of exclusive dealing and perpetual estrangement from

their neighbours dwelling on the same soil, and they had their reward.

Their borders were narrowed upon them; they were penned up in one

corner of the kingdom, out of which they could not venture a league

without license and protection, from the free clansmen they insincerely

affected to despise.

CHAPTER I.

ACTS OF THE NATIVE PRINCES—SUBDIVISION OF TRIBES AND

TERRITORIES—ANGLO-IRISH TOWNS UNDER NATIVE PROTECTION—ATTEMPT OF

THADDEUS O'BRIEN, PRINCE OF THOMOND, TO RESTORE THE MONARCHY—RELATIONS

OF THE RACES IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

The history of "the Pale" being recounted down to the period of its

complete isolation, we have now to pass beyond its entrenched and

castellated limits, in order to follow the course of events in other

parts of the kingdom.

While the highest courage was everywhere exhibited by chiefs and

clansmen, no attempt was made to bring about another National

Confederacy, after the fall of Edward Bruce. One result of that

striking _denouement_ of a stormy career—in addition to those before

mentioned—was to give new life to the jealousy which had never wholly

subsided, between the two primitive divisions of the Island. Bruce,

welcomed, sustained, and lamented by the Northern Irish, was

distrusted, avoided, and execrated by those of the South. There may

have been exceptions, but this was the rule. The Bards and Newsmen of

subsequent times, according to their Provincial bias, charged the

failure of Bruce upon the Eugenian race, or justified his fate by

aspersing his memory and his adherents of the race of Conn. This

feeling of irritation, always most deep-seated when driven in by a

consciousness of mismanagement or of self-reproach, goes a great way to

account for the fact, that more than one generation was to pass away,

before any closer union could be brought about between the Northern and

Southern Milesian Irish.

We cannot, therefore, in the period embraced in our present book, treat

the Provinces otherwise than as estranged communities, departing

farther and farther from the ancient traditions of one central

legislative council and one supreme elective chief. Special,

short-lived alliances between lords of different Provinces are indeed

frequent; but they were brought about mostly by ties of relationship or

gossipred, and dissolved with the disappearance of the immediate

danger. The very idea of national unity, once so cherished by all the

children of _Miledh Espaigne_, seems to have been as wholly lost as any

of those secrets of ancient handiwork, over which modern ingenuity

puzzles itself in vain. In the times to which we have descended, it was

every principality and every lordship for itself. As was said of old in

Rome, "Antony had his party, Octavius had his party, but the

Commonwealth had none."

Not alone was the greater unity wholly forgotten, but no sooner were

the descendants of the Anglo-Normans driven into their eastern

enclosure, or thoroughly amalgamated in language, laws and costume with

themselves, than the ties of particular clans began to loose their

binding force, and the tendency to subdivide showed itself on every

opportunity. We have already, in the book of the "War of Succession,"

described the subdivisions of Breffni and of Meath as measures of

policy, taken by the O'Conor Kings, to weaken their too powerful

suffragans. But that step, which might have strengthened the hands of a

native dynasty, almost inevitably weakened the tribes themselves in

combating the attacks of a highly organized foreign power. Of this the

O'Conors themselves became afterwards the most striking example. For

half a century following the Red Earl's death, they had gained steadily

on the foreigners settled in Connaught. The terrible defeat of Athenry

was more than atoned for by both other victories. At length the

descendants of the vanquished on that day ruled as proudly as ever did

their ancestors in their native Province. The posterity of the victors

were merely tolerated on its soil, or anxiously building up new houses

in Meath and Louth. But in an evil hour, on the death of their last

King (1384), the O'Conors agreed to settle the conflicting claims of

rival candidates for the succession by dividing the common inheritance.

From this date downwards we have an O'Conor Don and an O'Conor Roe in

the Annals of that Province, each rallying a separate band of

partizans; and according to the accidents of age, minority, alliance,

or personal reputation, infringing, harassing, or domineering over the

other. Powerful lords they long continued, but as Provincial Princes we

meet them no more.

This fatal example—of which there had been a faint foreshadowing in the

division of the McCarthys in the preceding century—in the course of a

generation or two, was copied by almost every great connection, north

and south. The descendants of yellow Hugh O'Neil in Clandeboy claimed

exemption from the supremacy of the elder family in Tyrone; the

O'Farells, acknowledged two lords of Annally; the McDonoghs, two lords

of Tirerril; there was McDermott of the Wood claiming independence of

McDermott of the Rock; O'Brien of Ara asserted equality with O'Brien of

Thomond; the nephews of Art McMurrogh contested the superiority of his

sons; and thus slowly but surely the most powerful clans were hastening

the day of their own dissolution.

A consequence of these subdivisions was the necessity which arose for

new and opposite alliances, among those who had formerly looked on

themselves as members of one family, with common dangers and common

enemies. The pivot of policy now rested on neighbourhood rather than on

pedigree; a change in its first stages apparently unnatural and

deplorable, but in the long run not without its compensating

advantages. As an instance of these new necessities, we may adduce the

protection and succour steadily extended by the O'Neils of Clandeboy,

to the McQuillans, Bissets, of the Antrim coast, and the McDonnells of

the Glens, against the frequent attacks of the O'Neils of Tyrone. The

latter laid claim to all Ulster, and long refused to acknowledge these

foreigners, though men of kindred race and speech. Had it not been that

the interest of Clandeboy pointed the other way, it is very doubtful if

either the Welsh or Scottish settlers by the bays of Antrim could have

made a successful stand against the overruling power of the house of

Dungannon. The same policy, adopted by native chiefs under similar

circumstances, protected the minor groups of settlers of foreign origin

in the most remote districts—like the Barretts and other Welsh people

of Tyrawley—long after the Deputies of the Kings of England had ceased

to consider them as fellow-subjects, or to be concerned for their

existence.

In like manner the detached towns, built by foreigners, of Welsh,

Flemish, Saxon, or Scottish origin, were now taken "under the

protection" of the neighbouring chief, or Prince, and paid to him or to

his bailiff an annual tax for such protection. In this manner Wexford

purchased protection of McMurrogh, Limerick from O'Brien, and Dundalk

from O'Neil. But the yoke was not always borne with patience, nor did

the bare relation of tax-gatherer and tax-payer generate any very

cordial feeling between the parties. Emboldened by the arrival of a

powerful Deputy, or a considerable accession to the Colony, or taking

advantage of contested elections for the chieftaincy among their

protectors, these sturdy communities sometimes sought by force to get

rid of their native masters. Yet in no case at this period were such

town risings ultimately successful. The appearance of a menacing force,

and the threat of the torch, soon brought the refractory burgesses to

terms. On such an occasion (1444) Dundalk paid Owen O'Neil the sum of

60 marks and two tuns of wine to avert his indignation. On another, the

townsmen of Limerick agreed about the same period to pay annually for

ever to O'Brien the sum of 60 marks. Notwithstanding the precarious

tenure of their existence, they all continued jealously to guard their

exclusive privileges. In the oath of office taken by the Mayor of

Dublin (1388) he is sworn to guard the city's franchises, so that no

Irish rebel shall intrude upon the limits. Nicholas O'Grady, Abbot of a

Monastery in Clare, is mentioned in 1485 as "the twelfth Irishman that

ever possessed the freedom of the city of Limerick" up to that time. A

special bye-law, at a still later period, was necessary to admit

Colonel William O'Shaughnessy, of one of the first families in that

county, to the freedom of the Corporation of the town of Galway.

Exclusiveness on the one side, and arbitrary taxation on the other,

were ill means of ensuring the prosperity of these new trading

communities; Freedom and Peace have ever been as essential to commerce

as the winds and waves are to navigation.

The dissolution and reorganization of the greater clans necessarily

included the removal of old, and the formation of new boundaries, and

these changes frequently led to border battles between the contestants.

The most striking illustration of the struggles of this description,

which occurs in our Annals in the fifteenth century, is that which was

waged for three generations between a branch of the O'Conors

established at Sligo, calling themselves "lords of Lower Connaught,"

and the O'Donnells of Donegal. The country about Sligo had anciently

been subject to the Donegal chiefs, but the new masters of Sligo, after

the era of Edward Bruce, not only refused any longer to pay tribute,

but endeavoured by the strong hand to extend their sway to the banks of

the Drowse and the Erne. The pride not less than the power of the

O'Donnells was interested in resisting this innovation, for, in the

midst of the debateable land rose the famous mountain of Ben Gulban

(now Benbulben), which bore the name of the first father of their

tribe. The contest was, therefore, bequeathed from father to son, but

the family of Sligo, under the lead of their vigorous chiefs, and with

the advantage of actual possession, prevailed in establishing the

exemption of their territory from the ancient tribute. The Drowse,

which carries the surplus waters of the beautiful Lough Melvin into the

bay of Donegal, finally became the boundary between Lower Connaught and

Tyrconnell.

We have already alluded to the loss of the arts of political

combination among the Irish in the Middle Ages. This loss was

occasionally felt by the superior minds both in church and state. It

was felt by Donald More O'Brien and those who went with him into the

house of Conor Moinmoy O'Conor, in 1188; it was felt by the nobles who,

at Cael-uisge, elected Brian O'Neil in 1258; it was felt by the twelve

reguli who, in 1315, invited Edward Bruce, "a man of kindred blood," to

rule over them; it was imputed as a crime to Art McMurrogh in 1397,

that he designed to claim the general sovereignty; and now in this

century, Thaddeus O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, with the aid of the Irish

of the southern half-kingdom, began (to use the phrase of the last

Antiquary of Lecan) "working his way to Tara." This Prince united all

the tribes of Munster in his favour, and needing, according to ancient

usage, the suffrages of two other Provinces to ensure his election, he

crossed the Shannon in the summer of 1466 at the head of the largest

army which had followed any of his ancestors since the days of King

Brian. He renewed his protection to the town of Limerick, entered into

an alliance with the Earl of Desmond—which alliance seems to have cost

Desmond his head—received in his camp the hostages of Ormond and

Ossory, and gave gifts to the lords of Leinster. Simultaneously,

O'Conor of Offally had achieved a great success over the Palesmen,

taking prisoner the Earl of Desmond, the Prior of Trim, the Lords

Barnwall, Plunkett, Nugent, and other Methian magnates—a circumstance

which also seems to have some connection with the fate of Desmond and

Plunkett, who were the next year tried for treason and executed at

Drogheda, by order of the Earl of Worcester, then Deputy. The usual

Anglo-Irish tales, as to the causes of Desmond's losing the favour of

Edward IV., seem very like after-inventions. It is much more natural to

attribute that sudden change to some connection with the attempt of

O'Brien the previous year—since this only makes intelligible the

accusation against him of "_alliance_, fosterage, and alterage with the

King's Irish enemies."

From Leinster O'Brien recrossed the Shannon, and overran the country of

the Clan-William Burke. But the ancient jealousy of Leath-Conn would

not permit its proud chiefs to render hostage or homage to a Munster

Prince, of no higher rank than themselves. Disappointed in his hopes of

that union which could alone restore the monarchy in the person of a

native ruler, the descendant of Brian returned to Kinkora, where he

shortly afterwards fell ill of fever and died. "It was commonly

reported," says the Antiquary of Lecan, "that the multitudes' envious

eyes and hearts shortened his days."

The naturalized Norman noble spoke the language of the Gael, and

retained his Brehons and Bards like his Milesian compeer. For

generations the daughters of the elder race had been the mothers of his

house; and the milk of Irish foster-mothers had nourished the infancy

of its heirs. The Geraldines, the McWilliams, even the Butlers, among

their tenants and soldiers, were now as Irish as the Irish. Whether

allies or enemies, rivals or as relatives, they stood as near to their

neighbours of Celtic origin as they did to the descendants of those who

first landed at Bannow and at Waterford. The "Statute of Kilkenny" had

proclaimed the eternal separation of the races, but up to this period

it had failed, and the men of both origins were left free to develop

whatever characteristics were most natural to them. What we mean by

being left free is, that there was no general or long-sustained

combination of one race for the suppression of the other from the

period of Richard the Second's last reverses (A.D. 1399) till the

period of the Reformation. Native Irish life, therefore, throughout the

whole of the fifteenth, and during the first half of the sixteenth

century, was as free to shape and direct itself, to ends of its own

choosing, as it had been at almost any former period in our history.

Private wars and hereditary blood-feuds, next after the loss of

national unity, were the worst vices of the nation. Deeds of violence

and acts of retaliation were as common as the succession of day and

night. Every free clansman carried his battle-axe to church and chase,

to festival and fairgreen. The strong arm was prompt to obey the fiery

impulse, and it must be admitted in solemn sadness, that almost every

page of our records at this period is stained with human blood. But

though crimes of violence are common, crimes of treachery are rare. The

memory of a McMahon, who betrayed and slew his guest, is execrated by

the same stoical scribes, who set down, without a single expression of

horror, the open murder of chief after chief. Taking off by poison, so

common among their cotemporaries, seems to have been altogether

unknown, and the cruelties of the State Prisons of the Middle Ages

undreamt of by our fierce, impetuous, but not implacable ancestors. The

facts which go to affix the imputation of cruelty on those ages are,

the frequent entries which we find of deposed chiefs, or conspicuous

criminals, having their eyes put out, or being maimed in their members.

By these barbarous punishments they lost caste, if not life; but that

indeed must have been a wretched remnant of existence which remained to

the blinded lover, or the maimed warrior, or the crippled tiller of the

soil. Of the social and religious relations existing between the races,

we shall have occasion to speak more fully before closing the present

book.

CHAPTER VII.

CONTINUED DIVISION AND DECLINE OF "THE ENGLISH INTEREST"—RICHARD, DUKE

OF YORK, LORD LIEUTENANT—CIVIL WAR AGAIN IN ENGLAND—EXECUTION OF THE

EARL OF DESMOND—ASCENDANCY OF THE KILDARE GERALDINES.

We have already described the limits to which "the Pale" was

circumscribed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The fortunes

of that inconsiderable settlement during the following century hardly

rise to the level of historical importance, nor would the recital of

them be at all readable but for the ultimate consequences which ensued

from the preservation of those last remains of foreign power in the

island. On that account, however, we have to consult the barren annals

of "the Pale" through the intermediate period, that we may make clear

the accidents by which it was preserved from destruction, and enabled

to play a part in after-times, undreamt of and inconceivable, to those

who tolerated its existence in the ages of which we speak.

On the northern coasts of Ireland the co-operation of the friendly

Scots with the native Irish had long been a source of anxiety to the

Palesmen. In the year 1404, Dongan, Bishop of Derry, and Sir Jenico

d'Artois, were appointed Commissioners by Henry IV., to conclude a

permanent peace with McDonald, Lord of the Isles, but, notwithstanding

that form was then gone through during the reigns of all the

Lancasterian Kings, evidence of the Hiberno-Scotch alliance being still

in existence, constantly recurs. In the year 1430 an address or

petition of the Dublin Council to the King sets forth "that the enemies

and rebels, _aided by the Scots_, had conquered or rendered tributary

almost every part of the country, _except the county of Dublin_." The

presence of Henry V. in Ireland had been urgently solicited by his

lieges in that kingdom, but without effect. The hero of Agincourt

having set his heart upon the conquest of France, left Ireland to his

lieutenants and their deputies. Nor could his attention be aroused to

the English interest in that country, even by the formal declaration of

the Speaker of the English Parliament, that "the greater part of the

lordship of Ireland" had been "conquered" by the natives.

The comparatively new family of Talbot, sustained by the influence of

the great Earl of Shrewsbury, now Seneschal of France, had risen to the

highest pitch of influence. When on the accession of Henry VI., Edward

Mortimer, Earl of March, was appointed Lord Lieutenant, and Dantsey,

Bishop of Meath, his deputy, Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, and Lord

Chancellor, refused to acknowledge Dantsey's pretensions because his

commission was given under the private seal of Lord Mortimer. Having

effected his object in this instance, the Archbishop directed his

subsequent attacks against the House of Ormond, the chief favourites of

the King, or rather of the Council, in that reign. In 1441, at a Dublin

Parliament, messengers were appointed to convey certain articles to the

King, the purport of which was to prevent the Earl of Ormond from being

made Lord Lieutenant, alleging against him many misdemeanours in his

former administration, and praying that some "mighty lord of England"

might be named to that office to execute the laws more effectually

"than any Irishman ever did or ever will do."

This attempt to destroy the influence of Ormond led to an alliance

between that Earl and Sir James, afterwards seventh Earl of Desmond.

Sir James was son of Gerald, fourth Earl (distinguished as "the

Rhymer," or Magician), by the lady Eleanor Butler, daughter of the

second Earl of Ormond. He stood, therefore, in the relation of cousin

to the cotemporary head of the Butler family. When his nephew Thomas

openly violated the Statute of Kilkenny, by marrying the beautiful

Catherine McCormac, the ambitious and intriguing Sir James, anxious to

enforce that statute, found a ready seconder in Ormond. Earl Thomas,

forced to quit the country, died an exile at Rouen, in France, and Sir

James, after many intrigues and negotiations, obtained the title and

estates. For once the necessities of Desmond and Ormond united these

houses, but the money of the English Archbishop of Dublin, backed by

the influence of his illustrious brother, proved equal to them both. In

the first twenty-five years of the reign of Henry VI. (1422-1447,)

Ormond was five times Lieutenant or Deputy, and Talbot five times

Deputy, Lord Justice, or Lord Commissioner. Their factious controversy

culminated with "the articles" adopted in 1441, which altogether failed

of the intended effect; Ormond was reappointed two years afterwards to

his old office; nor was it till 1446, when the Earl of Shrewsbury was a

third time sent over, that the Talbots had any substantial advantage

over their rivals. The recall of the Earl for service in France, and

the death of the Archbishop two years later, though it deprived the

party they had formed of a resident leader, did not lead to its

dissolution. Bound together by common interests and dangers, their

action may be traced in opposition to the Geraldines, through the

remaining years of Henry VI., and perhaps so late as the earlier years

of Henry VII. (1485-1500).

In the struggle of dynasties from which England suffered so severely

during the fifteenth century, the drama of ambition shifted its scenes

from London and York to Calais and Dublin. The appointment of Richard,

Duke of York, as Lord Lieutenant, in 1449, presented him an opportunity

of creating a Yorkist party among the nobles and people of "the Pale."

This able and ambitious Prince possessed in his hereditary estate

resources equal to great enterprises. He was in the first place the

representative of the third son of Edward III.; on the death of his

cousin the Earl of March, in 1424, he became heir to that property and

title. He was Duke of York, Earl of March, and Earl of Rutland, in

England; Earl of Ulster and Earl of Cork, Lord of Connaught, Clare,

Meath, and Trim, in Ireland. He had been twice Regent of France, during

the minority of Henry, where he upheld the cause of the Plantagenet

King with signal ability. By the peace concluded at Tours, between

England, France, and Burgundy, in 1444, he was enabled to return to

England, where the King had lately come of age, and begun to exhibit

the weak though amiable disposition which led to his ruin. The events

of the succeeding two or three years were calculated to expose Henry to

the odium of his subjects and the machinations of his enemies. Town

after town and province after province were lost in France; the Regent

Somerset returned to experience the full force of this unpopularity;

the royal favourite, Suffolk, was banished, pursued, and murdered at

sea; the King's uncles, Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Gloucester,

were removed by death—so that every sign and circumstance of the time

whispered encouragement to the ambitious Duke. When, therefore, the

Irish lieutenancy was offered, in order to separate him from his

partizans, he at first refused it; subsequently, however, he accepted,

on conditions dictated by himself, calculated to leave him wholly his

own master. These conditions, reduced to writing in the form of an

Indenture between the King and the Duke, extended his lieutenancy to a

period of ten years; allowed him, besides the entire revenue of

Ireland, an annual subsidy from England; full power to let the King's

land, to levy and maintain soldiers, to place or displace all officers,

to appoint a Deputy, and to return to England at his pleasure. On these

terms the ex-Regent of France undertook the government of the English

settlement in Ireland.

Arrived at Dublin, _the_ Duke (as in his day he was always called,)

employed himself rather to strengthen his party than to extend the

limits of his government. Soon after his arrival a son was born to him,

and baptized with great pomp in the Castle. James, fifth Earl of

Ormond, and Thomas, eighth Earl of Desmond, were invited to stand as

sponsors. In the line of policy indicated by this choice, he steadily

persevered during his whole connection with Ireland—which lasted till

his death, in 1460. Alternately he named a Butler and a Geraldine as

his deputy, and although he failed ultimately to win the Earl of Ormond

from the traditional party of his family, he secured the attachment of

several of his kinsmen. Stirring events in England, the year after his

appointment, made it necessary for him to return immediately. The

unpopularity of the administration which had banished him had rapidly

augmented. The French King had recovered the whole of Normandy, for

four centuries annexed to the English Crown. Nothing but Calais

remained of all the Continental possessions which the Plantagenets had

inherited, and which Henry V. had done so much to strengthen and

extend. Domestic abuses aggravated the discontent arising from foreign

defeats. The Bishop of Chichester, one of the ministers, was set upon

and slain by a mob at Portsmouth. Twenty thousand men of Kent, under

the command of Jack Cade, an Anglo-Irishman, who had given himself out

as a son of the last Earl of March, who died in the Irish government

twenty-five years before, marched upon London. They defeated a royal

force at Sevenoaks, and the city opened its gate at the summons of

Cade. The Kentish men took possession of Southwark, while their Irish

leader for three days, entering the city every morning, compelled the

mayor and the judges to sit in the Guildhall, tried and sentenced Lord

Say to death, who, with his son-in-law, Cromer, Sheriff of Kent, was

accordingly executed. Every evening, as he had promised the citizens,

he retired with his guards across the river, preserving the strictest

order among them. But the royalists were not idle, and when, on the

fourth morning Cade attempted as usual to enter London proper, he found

the bridge of Southwark barricaded and defended by a strong force under

the Lord Scales. After six hours' hard fighting his raw levies were

repulsed, and many of them accepted a free pardon tendered to them in

the moment of defeat. Cade retired with the remainder on Deptford and

Rochester, but gradually abandoned by them, he was surprised, half

famished in a garden at Heyfield, and put to death. His captor claimed

and received the large reward of a thousand marks offered for his head.

This was in the second week of July; on the 1st of September, news was

brought to London that the Duke of York had suddenly landed from

Ireland. His partizans eagerly gathered round him at his castle of

Fotheringay, but for five years longer, by the repeated concessions of

the gentle-minded Henry, and the interposition of powerful mediators,

the actual war of the roses was postponed.

It is beyond our province to follow the details of that ferocious

struggle, which was waged almost incessantly from 1455 till 1471—from

the first battle of St. Albans till the final battle at Tewksbury. We

are interested in it mainly as it connects the fortunes of the

Anglo-Irish Earls with one or other of the dynasties; and their

fortunes again, with the benefit or disadvantage of their allies and

relatives among our native Princes. Of the transactions in England, it

may be sufficient to say that the Duke of York, after his victory at

St. Albans in '55, was declared Lord Protector of the realm during

Henry's imbecility; that the next year the King recovered and the

Protector's office was abolished; that in '57 both parties stood at

bay; in '58 an insecure peace was patched up between them; in '59 they

appealed to arms, the Yorkists gained a victory at Bloreheath, but

being defeated at Ludiford, Duke Richard, with one of his sons, fled

for safety into Ireland.

It was the month of November when the fugitive Duke arrived to resume

the Lord Lieutenancy which he had formerly exercised. Legally, his

commission, for those who recognized the authority of King Henry, had

expired four months before—as it bore date from July 5th, 1449; but it

is evident the majority of the Anglo-Irish received him as a Prince of

their own election rather than as an ordinary Viceroy. He held, soon

after his arrival, a Parliament at Dublin, which met by adjournment at

Drogheda the following spring. The English Parliament having declared

him, his duchess, sons, and principal adherents traitors, and writs to

that effect having been sent over, the Irish Parliament passed a

declaratory Act (1460) making the service of all such writs treason

against _their_ authority—"it having been ever customary in their land

to receive and entertain strangers with due respect and hospitality."

Under this law, an emissary of the Earl of Ormond, upon whom English

writs against the fugitives were found, was executed as a traitor. This

independent Parliament confirmed the Duke in his office; made it high

treason to imagine his death, and—taking advantage of the favourable

conjuncture of affairs—they further declared that the inhabitants of

Ireland could only be bound by laws made in Ireland; that no writs were

of force unless issued under the great seal of Ireland; that the realm

had of ancient right its own Lord Constable and Earl Marshal, by whom

alone trials for treason alleged to have been committed in Ireland

could be conducted. In the same busy spring, the Earl of Warwick (so

celebrated as "the Kingmaker" of English history) sailed from Calais,

of which he was Constable, with the Channel-fleet, of which he was also

in command, and doubling the Land's End of England, arrived at Dublin

to concert measures for another rising in England. He found the Duke at

Dublin "surrounded by his Earls and homagers," and measures were soon

concerted between them.

An appeal to the English nation was prepared at this Conference,

charging upon Henry's advisers that they had written to the French King

to besiege Calais, and to the Irish Princes to expel the English

settlers. The loyalty of the fugitive lords, and their readiness to

prove their innocence before their sovereign, were stoutly asserted.

Emissaries were despatched in every direction; troops were raised;

Warwick soon after landed in Kent-always strongly pro-Yorkist-defeated

the royalists at Northampton in July, and the Duke reaching London in

October, a compromise was agreed to, after much discussion, in which

Henry was to have the crown for life, while the Duke was acknowledged

as his successor, and created president of his council.

We have frequently remarked in our history the recurrence of conflicts

between the north and south of the island. The same thing is distinctly

traceable through the annals of England down to a quite recent period.

Whether difference of race, or of admixture of race may not lie at the

foundation of such long-living enmities, we will not here attempt to

discuss; such, however, is the fact. Queen Margaret had fled northward

after the defeat of Northampton towards the Scottish border, from which

she now returned at the head of 20,000 men. The Duke advanced rapidly

to meet her, and engaging with a far inferior force at Wakefield, was

slain in the field, or beheaded after the battle. All now seemed lost

to the Yorkist party, when young Edward, son of Duke Richard, advancing

from the marches of Wales at the head of an army equal in numbers to

the royalists, won, in the month of February, 1461, the battles of

Mortimers-cross and Barnet, and was crowned at Westminster in March, by

the title of Edward IV. The sanguinary battle of Towton, soon after his

coronation, where 38,000 dead were reckoned by the heralds, confirmed

his title and established his throne. Even the subsequent hostility of

Warwick—though it compelled him once to surrender himself a prisoner,

and once to fly the country—did not finally transfer the sceptre to his

rival. Warwick was slain in the battle of Tewkesbury (1471), the

Lancasterian Prince Edward was put to death on the field, and his

unhappy father was murdered in prison. Two years later, Henry, Earl of

Richmond, grandson of Catherine, Queen of Henry V. and Owen Ap Tudor,

the only remaining leader capable of rallying the beaten party, was

driven into exile in France, from which he returned fourteen years

afterwards to contest the crown with Richard III.

In these English wars, the only Irish nobleman who sustained the

Lancasterian cause was James, fifth Earl of Ormond. He had been created

by Henry, Earl of Wiltshire, during his father's lifetime, in the same

year in which his father stood sponsor in Dublin for the son of the

Duke. He succeeded to the Irish title and estates in 1451: held a

foremost rank in almost all the engagements from the battle of Saint

Albans to that of Towton, in which he was taken prisoner and executed

by order of Edward IV. His blood was declared attainted, and his

estates forfeited; but a few years later both the title and property

were restored to Sir John Butler, the sixth Earl. On the eve of the

open rupture between the Roses, another name intimately associated with

Ireland disappeared from the roll of the English nobility. The veteran

Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, in the eightieth year of his age, accepted

the command of the English forces in France, retook the city of

Bordeaux, but fell in attack on the French camp at Chatillon, in the

subsequent campaign—1453. His son, Lord Lisle, was slain at the same

time, defending his father's body. Among other consequences which

ensued, the Talbot interest in Ireland suffered from the loss of so

powerful a patron at the English court. We have only to add that at

Wakefield, and in most of the other engagements, there was a strong

Anglo-Irish contingent in the Yorkist ranks, and a smaller one—chiefly

tenants of Ormond—on the opposite side. Many writers complain that the

House of York drained "the Pale" of its defenders, and thus still

further diminished the resources of the English interest in Ireland.

In the last forty years of the fifteenth century, the history of "the

Pale" is the biography of the family of the Geraldines. We must make

some brief mention of the remarkable men to whom we refer.

Thomas, eighth Earl of Desmond, for his services to the House of York,

was appointed Lord Deputy in the first years of Edward IV. He had

naturally made himself obnoxious to the Ormond interest, but still more

so to the Talbots, whose leader in civil contests was Sherwood, Bishop

of Meath—for some years, in despite of the Geraldines, Lord Chancellor.

Between him and Desmond there existed the bitterest animosity. In 1464,

nine of the Deputy's men were slain in a broil in Fingall, by tenants

or servants of the Bishop. The next year each party repaired to London

to vindicate himself and criminate his antagonist. The Bishop seems to

have triumphed, for in 1466, John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, called in

England, for his barbarity to Lancasterian prisoners, "the Butcher,"

superseded Desmond. The movement of Thaddeus O'Brien, already related,

the same year, gave Tiptoft grounds for accusing Desmond, Kildare, Sir

Edward Plunkett, and others, of treason. On this charge he summoned

them before him at Drogheda in the following February. Kildare wisely

fled to England, where he pleaded his innocence successfully with the

King. But Desmond and Plunkett, over-confident of their own influence,

repaired to Drogheda, were tried, condemned, and beheaded. Their

execution took place on the 15th day of February, 1467. It is

instructive to add that Tiptoft, a few years later, underwent the fate

in England, without exciting a particle of the sympathy felt for

Desmond.

Thomas, seventh Earl of Kildare, succeeded on his safe return from

England to more than the power of his late relative. The office of

Chancellor, after a sharp struggle, was taken from Bishop Sherwood, and

confirmed to him for life by an act of the twelfth, Edward III. He had

been named Lord Justice after Tiptoft's recall, in 1467, and four years

later exchanged the title for that of Lord Deputy to the young Duke of

Clarence—the nominal Lieutenant. In 1475, on some change of Court

favour, the supreme power was taken from him, and conferred on the old

enemy of his House, the Bishop of Meath. Kildare died two years later,

having signalized his latter days by founding an Anglo-Irish order of

chivalry, called "the Brothers of St. George." This order was to

consist of 13 persons of the highest rank within the Pale, 120 mounted

archers, and 40 horsemen, attended by 40 pages. The officers were to

assemble annually in Dublin, on St. George's Day, to elect their

Captain from their own number. After having existed twenty years the

Brotherhood was suppressed by the jealousy of Henry VII., in 1494.

Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare (called in the Irish Annals Geroit More,

or "the Great"), succeeded his father in 1477. He had the gratification

of ousting Sherwood from the government the following year, and having

it transferred to himself. For nearly forty years he continued the

central figure among the Anglo-Irish, and as his family were closely

connected by marriage with the McCarthys, O'Carrolls of Ely, the

O'Conors of Offally, O'Neils and O'Donnells, he exercised immense

influence over the affairs of all the Provinces. In his time, moreover,

the English interest, under the auspices of an undisturbed dynasty, and

a cautious, politic Prince (Henry VII.), began by slow and almost

imperceptible degrees to recover the unity and compactness it had lost

ever since the Red Earl's death.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE AGE AND RULE OF GERALD, EIGHTH EARL OF KILDARE—THE TIDE BEGINS TO

TURN FOR THE ENGLISH INTEREST—THE YORKIST PRETENDERS, SIMNEL AND

WARBECK—POYNING'S PARLIAMENT—BATTLES OF KNOCKDOE AND MONABRAHER.

Perhaps no preface could better introduce to the reader the singular

events which marked the times of Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare, than a

brief account of one of his principal partizans—Sir James Keating,

Prior of the Knights of St. John. The family of Keating, of

Norman-Irish origin, were most numerous in the fifteenth century in

Kildare, from which they afterwards spread into Tipperary and Limerick.

Sir James Keating, "a mere Irishman," became Prior of Kilmainham about

the year 1461, at which time Sir Robert Dowdal, deputy to the Lord

Treasurer, complained in Parliament, that being on a pilgrimage to one

of the shrines of the Pale, he was assaulted near Cloniff, by the

Prior, with a drawn sword, and thereby put in danger of his life. It

was accordingly decreed that Keating should pay to the King a hundred

pounds fine, and to Sir Robert a hundred marks; but, from certain

technical errors in the proceedings, he successfully evaded both these

penalties. When in the year 1478 the Lord Grey of Codner was sent over

to supersede Kildare, he took the decided step of refusing to surrender

to that nobleman the Castle of Dublin, of which he was Constable. Being

threatened with an assault, he broke down the bridge and prepared his

defence, while his friend, the Earl of Kildare, called a Parliament at

Naas, in opposition to Lord Grey's Assembly at Dublin. In 1480, after

two years of rival parties and viceroys, Lord Grey was feign to resign

his office, and Kildare was regularly appointed Deputy to Richard, Duke

of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III. Two years later, Keating was

deprived of his rank by Peter d'Aubusson, Grand Master of Rhodes, who

appointed Sir Marmaduke Lumley, an English knight, in his stead. Sir

Marmaduke landed soon after at Clontarf, where he was taken prisoner by

Keating, and kept in close confinement until he had surrendered all the

instruments of his election and confirmation. He was then enlarged, and

appointed to the commandery of Kilseran, near Castlebellingham, in

Louth. In the year 1488, Keating was one of those who took an active

part in favour of the pretender Lambert Simnel, and although his pardon

had been sternly refused by Henry VII., he retained possession of the

Hospital until 1491, when he was ejected by force, "and ended his

turbulent life," as we are told, "in the most abject poverty and

disgrace." All whom he had appointed to office were removed; an Act of

Parliament was passed, prohibiting the reception of any "mere Irishman"

into the Order for the future, and enacting that whoever was recognized

as Prior by the Grand Master should be of English birth, and one having

such a connection with the Order there as might strengthen the force

and interest of the Kings of England in Ireland.

The fact most indicative of the spirit of the times is, that a man of

Prior Keating's disposition could, for thirty years, have played such a

daring part as we have described in the city of Dublin. During the

greater part of that period, he held the office of Constable of the

Castle and Prior of Kilmainham, in defiance of English Deputies and

English Kings; than which no farther evidence may be adduced to show

how completely the English, interest was extinguished, even within the

walls of Dublin, during the reign of the last of the Plantagenet

Princes, and the first years of Henry VII.

In 1485, Henry, Earl of Richmond, grandson of Queen Catherine and Owen

ap Tudor, returned from his fourteen years' exile in France, and, by

the victory of Bosworth, took possession of the throne. The Earl of

Kildare, undisputed Deputy during the last years of Edward IV., had

been continued by Richard, and was not removed by Henry VII. Though a

staunch Yorkist, he showed no outward opposition to the change of

dynasty, for which he found a graceful apology soon afterwards. Being

at Mass, in Christ's Church Cathedral, on the 2nd of February, 1486, he

received intelligence of Henry's marriage with Elizabeth of York, which

he at once communicated to the Archbishop of Dublin, and ordered an

additional Mass for the King and Queen. Yet, from the hour of that

union of the houses of York and Lancaster, it needed no extraordinary

wisdom to foresee that the exemption of the Anglo-Irish nobles from the

supremacy of their nominal King must come to an end, and the freedom of

the old Irish from any formidable external danger must also close. The

union of the Roses, so full of the promise of peace for England, was to

form the date of a new era in her relations with Ireland. The tide of

English power was at that hour at its lowest ebb; it had left far in

the interior the landmarks of its first irresistible rush; it might be

said, without exaggeration, that Gaelic children now gathered shells

and pebbles where that tide once rolled, charged with all its thunders;

it was now about to turn; the first murmuring menace of new

encroachments began to be heard under Henry VII.; as we listen they

grow louder on the ear; the waves advance with a steady, deliberate

march, unlike the first impetuous onslaught of the Normans; they

advance and do not recede, till they recover all the ground they had

abandoned. The era which we dated from the Red Earl's death, in 1333,

has exhausted its resources of aggression and assimilation; a new era

opens with the reign of Henry VII.—or more distinctly still, with that

of his successor, Henry VIII. We must close our account with the old

era, before entering upon the new.

The contest between the Earl of Kildare and Lord Grey for the

government (1478-1480) marks the lowest ebb of the English power. We

have already related how Prior Keating shut the Castle gates on the

English deputy, and threatened to fire on his guard if he attempted to

force them. Lord Portlester also, the Chancellor, and father-in-law to

Kildare, joined that Earl in his Parliament at Naas with the great

seal. Lord Grey, in his Dublin Assembly, declared the great seal

cancelled, and ordered a new one to be struck, but after a two years'

contest he was obliged to succumb to the greater influence of the

Geraldines. Kildare was regularly acknowledged Lord Deputy, under the

King's privy seal. It was ordained that thereafter there should be but

one Parliament convoked during the year; that but one subsidy should be

demanded, annually, the sum "not to exceed a thousand marks." Certain

Acts of both Parliaments—Grey's and Kildare's—were by compromise

confirmed. Of these were two which do not seem to collate very well

with each other; one prohibiting the inhabitants of the Pale from

holding any intercourse whatsoever with the mere Irish; the other

extending to Con O'Neil, Prince of Tyrone, and brother-in-law of

Kildare, the rights of a naturalized subject within the Pale. The

former was probably Lord Grey's; the latter was Lord Kildare's

legislation.

Although Henry VII. had neither disturbed the Earl in his governments,

nor his brother, Lord Thomas, as Chancellor, it was not to be expected

that he could place entire confidence in the leading Yorkist family

among the Anglo-Irish. The restoration of the Ormond estates, in favour

of Thomas, seventh Earl, was both politic and just, and could hardly be

objectionable to Kildare, who had just married one of his daughters to

Pierce Butler, nephew and heir to Thomas. The want of confidence

between the new King and his Deputy was first exhibited in 1486, when

the Earl, being summoned to attend on his Majesty, called a Parliament

at Trim, which voted him an address, representing that in the affairs

about to be discussed, his presence was absolutely necessary. Henry

affected to accept the excuse as valid, but every arrival of Court news

contained some fresh indication of his deep-seated mistrust of the Lord

Deputy, who, however, he dared not yet dismiss.

The only surviving Yorkists who could put forward pretensions to the

throne were the Earl of Lincoln, Richard's declared heir, and the young

Earl of Warwick, son of that Duke of Clarence who was born in Dublin

Castle in 1449. Lincoln, with Lord Lovell and others of his friends,

was in exile at the court of the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, sister to

Edward IV.; and the son of Clarence—a lad of fifteen years of age—was a

prisoner in the Tower. In the year 1486, a report spread of the escape

of this Prince, and soon afterwards Richard Symon, a Priest of Oxford,

landed in Dublin with a youth of the same age, of prepossessing

appearance and address, who could relate with the minutest detail the

incidents of his previous imprisonment. He was at once recognized as

the son of Clarence by the Earl of Kildare and his party, and

preparations were made for his coronation by the title of Edward VI.

Henry, alarmed, produced from the Tower the genuine Warwick, whom he

publicly paraded through London, in order to prove that the pretender

in Dublin was an impostor. The Duchess of Burgundy, however, fitted out

a fleet, containing 2,000 veteran troops, under the command of Martin

Swart, who, sailing up the channel, reached Dublin without

interruption. With this fleet came the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Lovell,

and the other English refugees, who all recognized the _protege_ of

Father Symon as the true Prince. Octavius, the Italian Archbishop of

Armagh, then residing at Dublin, the Bishop of Clogher, the Butlers,

and the Baron of Howth, were incredulous or hostile. The great majority

of the Anglo-Irish lords, spiritual and temporal, favoured his cause,

and he was accordingly crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, with a

diadem taken from an image of our Lady, on the 24th of May, 1487; the

Deputy, Chancellor, and Treasurer were present; the sermon was preached

by Pain, Bishop of Meath. A Parliament was next convoked in his name,

in which the Butlers and citizens of Waterford were proscribed as

traitors. A herald from the latter city, who had spoken over boldly,

was hanged by the Dubliners as a proof of their loyalty. The Council

ordered a force to be equipped for the service of his new Majesty in

England, and Lord Thomas Fitzgerald resigned the Chancellorship to take

the command. This expedition—the last which invaded England from the

side of Ireland—sailed from Dublin about the first of June, and landing

on the Lancashire shore, at the pile of Foudray, marched to Ulverstone,

where they were joined by Sir Thomas Broughton and other devoted

Yorkists. From Ulverstone the whole force, about 8,000 strong, marched

into Yorkshire, and from Yorkshire southwards into Nottingham. Henry,

who had been engaged in making a progress through the southern

counties, hastened to meet him, and both armies met at

Stoke-upon-Trent, near Newark, on the 16th day of June, 1487. The

battle was contested with the utmost obstinacy, but the English

prevailed. The Earl of Lincoln, the Lords Thomas and Maurice

Fitzgerald, Plunkett, son of Lord Killeen, Martin Swart, and Sir Thomas

Broughton were slain; Lord Lovell escaped, but was never heard of

afterwards; the pretended Edward VI. was captured, and spared by Henry

only to be made a scullion in his kitchen. Father Symon was cast into

prison, where he died, after having confessed that his _protege_ was

Lambert Simnel, the son of a joiner at Oxford.

Nothing shows the strength of the Kildare party, and the weakness of

the English interest, more than that the deputy and his partizans were

still continued in office. They despatched a joint letter to the King,

deprecating his anger, which he was prudent enough to conceal. He sent

over, the following spring, Sir Richard Edgecombe, Comptroller of his

household, accompanied by a guard of 500 men. Sir Richard first touched

at Kinsale, where he received the homage of the Lords Barry and de

Courcy; he then sailed to Waterford, where he delivered to the Mayor

royal letters confirming the city in its privileges, and authorizing

its merchants to seize and distress those of Dublin, unless they made

their submission. After leaving Waterford, he landed at Malahide,

passing by Dublin, to which he proceeded by land, accompanied with his

guard. The Earl of Kildare was absent on a pilgrimage, from which he

did not return for several days. His first interviews with Edgecombe

were cold and formal, but finally on the 21st of July, after eight or

ten days' disputation, the Earl and the other lords of his party did

homage to King Henry, in the great chamber of his town-house in Thomas

Court, and thence proceeding to the chapel, took the oath of allegiance

on the consecrated host. With this submission Henry was fain to be

content; Kildare, Portlester, and Plunkett were continued in office.

The only one to whom the King's pardon was persistently refused was Sir

James Keating, Prior of Kilmainham.

In the subsequent attempts of Perkin Warbeck (1492-1499), in the

character of Richard, Duke of York, one of the Princes murdered in the

tower by Richard III., the Anglo-Irish took a less active part. Warbeck

landed at Cork from Lisbon, and despatched letters to the Earls of

Kildare and Desmond, to which they returned civil but evasive replies.

At Cork he received an invitation from the King of France to visit that

country, where he remained till the conclusion of peace between France

and England. He then retired to Burgundy, where he was cordially

received by the Duchess; after an unsuccessful descent on the coast of

Kent, he took refuge in Scotland, where he married a lady closely

allied to the crown. In 1497 he again tried his fortune in the South of

Ireland, was joined by Maurice, tenth Earl of Desmond, the Lord Barry,

and the citizens of Cork. Having laid siege to Waterford, he was

compelled to retire with loss, and Desmond having made his peace with

Henry, Warbeck was forced again to fly into Scotland. In 1497 and '8,

he made new attempts to excite insurrection in his favour in the north

of England and in Cornwall. He was finally taken and put to death on

the 16th of November, 1499. With him suffered his first and most

faithful adherent, John Waters, who had been Mayor of Cork at his first

landing from Lisbon, in 1492, and who is ignorantly or designedly

called by Henry's partizan "O'Water." History has not yet positively

established the fraudulency of this pretender. A late eminently

cautious writer, with all the evidence which modern research has

accumulated, speaks of him as "one of the most mysterious persons in

English history;" and in mystery we must leave him.

We have somewhat anticipated events, in other quarters, in order to

dispose of both the Yorkist pretenders at the same time. The situation

of the Earls of Kildare in this and the next reign, though full of

grandeur, was also full of peril. Within the Pale they had one part to

play, without the Pale another. Within the Pale they held one language,

without it another. At Dublin they were English Earls, beyond the Boyne

or the Barrow, they were Irish chiefs. They had to tread their

cautious, and not always consistent way, through the endless

complications which must arise between two nations occupying the same

soil, with conflicting allegiance, language, laws, customs, and

interests. While we frequently feel indignant at the tone they take

towards the "Irish enemy" in their despatches to London—the pretended

enemies being at that very time their confidants and allies—on farther

reflection we feel disposed to make some allowance on the score of

circumstance and necessity, for a duplicity which, in the end, brought

about, as duplicity in public affairs ever does, its own punishment.

In Ulster as well as in Leinster, the ascendency of the Earl of Kildare

over the native population was widespread and long sustained. Con

O'Neil, Lord of Tyrone, from 1483 to 1491, and Turlogh, Con and Art,

his sons and successors (from 1498 to 1548), maintained the most

intimate relations with this Earl and his successors. To the former he

was brother-in-law, and to the latter, of course, uncle; to all he

seems to have been strongly attached. Hugh Roe O'Donnell, Lord of

Tyrconnell (1450-1505), and his son and successor, Hugh Dhu O'Donnell,

(1505-1530), were also closely connected with Kildare both by

friendship and intermarriage. In 1491, O'Neil and O'Donnell mutually

submitted their disputes to his decision, at his Castle of Maynooth,

and though he found it impossible to reconcile them at the moment, we

find both of these houses cordially united with him afterwards. In

1498, he took Dungannon and Omagh, "with great guns," from the

insurgents against the authority of his grandson, Turlogh O'Neil, and

restored them to Turlogh; the next year he visited O'Donnell, and

brought his son Henry to be fostered among the kindly Irish of

Tyrconnell. In the year 1500 he also placed the Castle of Kinnaird in

the custody of Turlogh O'Neil. In Leinster, the Geraldine interest was

still more entirely bound up with that of the native population. His

son, Sir Oliver of Killeigh, married an O'Conor of Offally; the

daughter of another son, Sir James of Leixlip, (sometimes called the

Knight of the Valley) became the wife of the chief of Imayle. The Earl

of Ormond, and Ulick Burke of Clanrickarde, were also sons-in-law of

the eighth Earl, but in both these cases the old family feuds survived

in despite of the new family alliances.

In the fourth year after his accession, Henry VII., proceeding by slow

degrees to undermine Kildare's enormous power, summoned the chief

Anglo-Irish nobles to his Court at Greenwich, where he reproached them

with their support of Simnel, who, to their extreme confusion, he

caused to wait on them as butler, at dinner. A year or two afterwards,

he removed Lord Portlester, from the Treasurership, which he conferred

on Sir James Butler, the bastard of Ormond. Plunkett, the

Chief-Justice, was promoted to the Chancellorship, and Kildare himself

was removed to make way for Fitzsymons, Archbishop of Dublin. This,

however, was but a government _ad interim_, for in the year 1494, a

wholly English administration was appointed. Sir Edward Poynings, with

a picked force of 1,000 men, was appointed Lord Deputy; the Bishop of

Bangor was appointed Chancellor, Sir Hugh Conway, an Englishman, was to

be Treasurer; and these officials were accompanied by an entirely new

bench of judges, all English, whom they were instructed to instal

immediately on their arrival. Kildare had resisted the first changes

with vigour, and a bloody feud had taken place between his retainers

and those of Sir James of Ormond, on the green of Oxmantown—now

Smithfield, in Dublin. On the arrival of Poynings, however, he

submitted with the best possible grace, and accompanied that deputy to

Drogheda, where he had summoned a Parliament to meet him. From

Drogheda, they made an incursion into O'Hanlon's country (Orior in

Armagh). On returning from Drogheda, Poynings, on a real or pretended

discovery of a secret understanding between O'Hanlon and Kildare,

arrested the latter, in Dublin, and at once placed him on board a

barque "kept waiting for that purpose," and despatched him to England.

On reaching London, he was imprisoned in the Tower, for two years,

during which time his party in Ireland were left headless and

dispirited.

The government of Sir Edward Poynings, which lasted from 1494 till

Kildare's restoration, in August, 1496, is most memorable for the

character of its legislation. He assembled a Parliament at Drogheda, in

November, 1495, at which were passed the statutes so celebrated in our

Parliamentary history as the "10th Henry VII." These statutes were the

first enacted in Ireland in which the English language was employed.

They confirmed the Provisions of the Statute of Kilkenny, except that

prohibiting the use of the Irish language, which had now become so

deeply rooted, even within the Pale, as to make its immediate abolition

impracticable. The hospitable law passed in the time of Richard, Duke

of York, against the arrest of refugees by virtue of writs issued in

England, was repealed. The English acts, against provisors to

Rome—ecclesiastics who applied for or accepted preferment directly from

Rome—were adopted. It was also enacted that all offices should be held

at the King's pleasure; that the Lords of Parliament should appear in

their robes as the Lords did in England; that no one should presume to

make peace or war except with license of the Governor; that no great

guns should be kept in the fortresses except by similar license; and

that men of English _birth_ only should be appointed Constables of the

Castles of Dublin, Trim, Leixlip, Athlone, Wicklow, Greencastle,

Carlingford, and Carrickfergus. But the most important measure of all

was one which provided that thereafter no legislation whatever should

be proceeded with in Ireland, unless the bills to be proposed were

first submitted to the King and Council in England, and were returned,

certified under the great seal of the realm. This is what is usually

and specially called in our Parliamentary history "Poyning's Act," and

next to the Statute of Kilkenny, it may be considered the most

important enactment ever passed at any Parliament of the English

settlers.

The liberation of the Earl of Kildare from the Tower, and his

restoration as Deputy, seems to have been hastened by the movements of

Perkin Warbeck, and by the visit of Hugh Roe O'Donnell to James IV.,

King of Scotland. O'Donnell had arrived at Ayr in the month of August,

1495, a few weeks after Warbeck had reached that court. He was received

with great splendour and cordiality by the accomplished Prince, then

lately come of age, and filled with projects natural to his youth and

temperament. With O'Donnell, according to the Four Masters, he formed a

league, by which they bound themselves "mutually to assist each other

in all their exigencies." The knowledge of this alliance, and of

Warbeck's favour at the Scottish Court, no doubt decided Henry to avail

himself, if possible, of the assistance of his most powerful Irish

subject. There was, moreover, another influence at work. The first

countess had died soon after her husband's arrest, and he now married,

in England, Elizabeth St. John, cousin to the King. Fortified in his

allegiance and court favour by this alliance, he returned in triumph to

Dublin, where he was welcomed with enthusiasm.

In his subsequent conduct as Lord Deputy, an office which he continued

to hold till his death in 1513, this powerful nobleman seems to have

steadily upheld the English interest, which was now in harmony with his

own. Having driven off Warbeck in his last visit to Ireland (1497), he

received extensive estates in England, as a reward for his zeal, and

after the victory of Knock-doe (1505), he was installed by proxy at

Windsor as Knight of the Garter. This long-continued reign—for such in

truth it may be called—left him without a rival in his latter years. He

marched to whatever end of the island he would, pulling down and

setting up chiefs and castles; his garrisons were to be found from

Belfast to Cork, and along the valley of the Shannon, from Athleague to

Limerick.

The last event of national importance connected with the name of Geroit

More arose out of the battle of KNOCK-DOE, ("battle-axe hill"), fought

within seven or eight miles of Galway town, on the 19th of August,

1504. Few of the cardinal facts in our history have been more entirely

misapprehended and misrepresented than this. It is usually described as

a pitched battle between English and Irish—the turning point in the war

of races—and the second foundation of English power. The simple

circumstances are these: Ulick III., Lord of Clanrickarde, had married

and misused the lady Eustacia Fitzgerald, who seems to have fled to her

father, leaving her children behind. This led to an embittered family

dispute, which was expanded into a public quarrel by the complaint of

William O'Kelly, whose Castles of Garbally, Monivea, and Gallagh, Burke

had seized and demolished. In reinstating O'Kelly, Kildare found the

opportunity which he sought to punish his son-in-law, and both parties

prepared for a trial of strength. It so happened that Clanrickarde's

alliances at that day were chiefly with O'Brien and the southern Irish,

while Kildare's were with those of Ulster. From these causes, what was

at first a family quarrel, and at most a local feud, swelled into the

dimensions of a national contest between North and South—Leath-Moghda

and Leath-Conn. Under these terms, the native Annalists accurately

describe the belligerents on either side. With Kildare were the Lords

of Tyrconnell, Sligo, Moylurg, Breffni, Oriel, and Orior; O'Farrell,

Bishop of Ardagh, the Tanist of Tyrowen, the heir of Iveagh, O'Kelly of

Hy-Many, McWilliam of Mayo, the Barons of Slane, Delvin, Howth,

Dunsany, Gormanstown, Trimblestown, and John Blake, Mayor of Dublin,

with the city militia. With Clanrickarde were Turlogh O'Brien, son of

the Lord of Thomond, McNamara of Clare, O'Carroll of Ely, O'Brien of

Ara, and O'Kennedy of Ormond. The battle was obstinate and bloody.

Artillery and musketry, first introduced from Germany some twenty years

before (1487), were freely used, and the ploughshare of the peasant has

often turned up bullets, large and small, upon the hillside where the

battle was fought. The most credible account sets down the number of

the slain at 2,000 men—the most exaggerated at 9,000. The victory was

with Kildare, who, after encamping on the field for twenty-four hours,

by the advice of O'Donnell, marched next day to Galway, where he found

the children of Clanrickarde, whom he restored to their injured mother.

Athenry opened its gates to receive the conquerors, and after

celebrating their victory in the stronghold of the vanquished, the

Ulster chiefs returned to the North, and Kildare to Dublin.

Less known is the battle of Monabraher, which may be considered the

offset of Knock-doe. It was fought in 1510—the first year of Henry

VIII., who had just confirmed Lord Kildare in the government. The

younger O'Donnell joined him in Munster, and after taking the Castles

of Kanturk, Pallis, and Castelmaine, they marched to Limerick, where

the Earl of Desmond, the McCarthys of both branches, and "the Irish of

Meath and Leinster," in alliance with Kildare, joined them with their

forces. The old allies, Turlogh O'Brien, Clanrickarde, and the

McNamaras, attacked them at the bridge of Portrush, near Castleconnell,

and drove them through Monabraher ("the friar's bog"), with the loss of

the Barons Barnwall and Kent, and many of their forces; the survivors

were feign to take refuge within the walls of Limerick.

Three years later, Earl Gerald set out to besiege Leap Castle, in

O'Moore's country; but it happened that as he was watering his horse in

the little river Greese, at Kilkea, he was shot by one of the O'Moores:

he was immediately carried to Athy, where shortly afterwards he

expired. If we except the first Hugh de Lacy and the Red Earl of

Ulster, the Normans in Ireland had not produced a more illustrious man

than Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare. He was, says Stainhurst, "of tall

stature and goodly presence; very liberal and merciful; of strict

piety; mild in his government; passionate, but easily appeased." And

our justice-loving _Four Masters_ have described him as "a knight in

valour, and princely and religious in his words and judgments."

CHAPTER IX.

STATE OF IRISH AND ANGLO-IRISH SOCIETY DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND

FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.

The main peculiarities of social life among the Irish and Anglo-Irish

during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are still visible to us.

Of the drudges of the earth, as in all other histories, we see or hear

little or nothing, but of those orders of men of whom the historic muse

takes count, such as bards, rulers, builders, and religious, there is

much information to be found scattered up and down our annals, which,

if properly put together and clearly interpreted, may afford us a

tolerably clear view of the men and their times.

The love of learning, always strong in this race of men and women,

revived in full force with their exemption from the immediate pressure

of foreign invasion. The person of Bard and Brehon was still held

inviolable; to the malediction of the Bard of Usnagh was attributed the

sudden death of the Deputy, Sir John Stanley; to the murder of the

Brehon McEgan is traced all the misfortunes which befell the sons of

Irial O'Farrell. To receive the poet graciously, to seat him in the

place of honour at the feast, to listen to him with reverence, and to

reward him munificently, were considered duties incumbent on the

princes of the land. And these duties, to do them justice, they never

neglected. One of the O'Neils is specially praised for having given

more gifts to poets, and having "a larger collection of poems" than any

other man of his age. In the struggle between O'Donnell and O'Conor for

the northern corner of Sligo, we find mention made of books

accidentally burned in "the house of the manuscripts," in Lough Gill.

Among the spoils carried off by O'Donnell, on another occasion, were

two famous books—one of which, the Leahar Gear (Short Book), he

afterwards paid back, as part of the ransom for the release of his

friend, O'Doherty.

The Bards and Ollams, though more dependent on their Princes than we

have seen them in their early palmy days, had yet ample hereditary

estates in every principality and lordship. If natural posterity

failed, the incumbent was free to adopt some capable person as his

heir. It was in this way the family of O'Clery, originally of Tyrawley,

came to settle in Tyrconnell, towards the end of the fourteenth

century. At that time O'Sgingin, chief Ollam to O'Donnell, offered his

daughter in marriage to Cormac O'Clery, a young professor of both laws,

in the monastery near Ballyshannon, on condition that the first male

child born of the marriage should be brought up to his own profession.

This was readily agreed to, and from this auspicious marriage descended

the famous family, which produced three of the Four Masters of Donegal.

The virtue of hospitality was, of all others, that which the old Irish

of every degree in rank and wealth most cheerfully practised. In many

cases it degenerated into extravagance and prodigality. But in general

it is presented to us in so winning a garb that our objections on the

score of prudence vanish before it. When we read of the freeness of

heart of Henry Avery O'Neil, who granted all manner of things "that

came into his hands," to all manner of men, we pause and doubt whether

such a virtue in such excess may not lean towards vice. But when we

hear of a powerful lord, like William O'Kelly of Galway, entertaining

throughout the Christmas holydays all the poets, musicians, and poor

persons who choose to flock to him, or of the pious and splendid

Margaret O'Carroll, receiving twice a year in Offally all the Bards of

Albyn and Erin, we cannot but envy the professors of the gentle art

their good fortune in having lived in such times, and shared in such

assemblies. As hospitality was the first of social virtues, so

inhospitality was the worst of vices; the unpopularity of a churl

descended to his posterity through successive generations.

The high estimation in which women were held among the tribes is

evident from the particularity with which the historians record their

obits and marriages. The maiden name of the wife was never wholly lost

in that of her husband, and if her family were of equal standing with

his before marriage, she generally retained her full share of authority

afterwards. The Margaret O'Carroll already mentioned, a descendant and

progenitress of illustrious women, rode privately to Trim, as we are

told, with some English prisoners, taken by her husband, O'Conor of

Offally, and exchanged them for others of equal worth lying in that

fortress; and "this she did," it is added, "without the knowledge of"

her husband. This lady was famed not only for her exceeding hospitality

and her extreme piety, but for other more unexpected works. Her name is

remembered in connection with the erection of bridges and the making of

highways, as well as the building of churches, and the presentation of

missals and mass-books. And the grace she thus acquired long brought

blessings upon her posterity, among whom there never were wanting able

men and heroic women while they kept their place in the land. An

equally celebrated but less amiable woman was Margaret Fitzgerald,

daughter of the eighth Earl of Kildare, and wife of Pierce, eighth Earl

of Ormond. "She was," says the Dublin Annalist, "a lady of such port

that all the estates of the realm couched to her, so politique that

nothing was thought substantially debated without her advice." Her

decision of character is preserved in numerous traditions in and around

Kilkenny, where she lies buried. Of her is told the story that when

exhorted on her death-bed to make restitution of some ill-got lands,

and being told the penalty that awaited her if she died impenitent, she

answered, "it was better one old woman should burn for eternity than

that the Butlers should be curtailed of their estates."

The fame of virtuous deeds, of generosity, of peace-making, of

fidelity, was in that state of society as easily attainable by women as

by men. The Unas, Finolas, Sabias, Lasarinas, were as certain of

immortality as the Hughs, Cathals, Donalds and Conors, their sons,

brothers, or lovers. Perhaps it would be impossible to find any history

of those or of later ages in which women are treated upon a more

perfect equality with men, where their virtues and talents entitled

them to such consideration.

The piety of the age, though it had lost something of the simplicity

and fervour of older times, was still conspicuous and edifying. Within

the island, the pilgrimage of Saint Patrick's purgatory, the shrine of

our Lady of Trim, the virtues of the holy cross of Raphoe, the miracles

wrought by the _Baculum Christi_, and other relics of Christ Church,

Dublin, were implicitly believed and piously frequented. The long and

dangerous journeys to Rome and Jerusalem were frequently taken, but the

favourite foreign vow was to Compostella, in Spain. Chiefs, Ladies, and

Bards, are almost annually mentioned as having sailed or returned from

the city of St. James; generally these pilgrims left in companies, and

returned in the same way. The great Jubilee of 1450, so

enthusiastically attended from every corner of Christendom, drew vast

multitudes from our island to Rome. By those who returned tidings were

first brought to Ireland of the capture of Constantinople by the Turks.

On receipt of this intelligence, which sent a thrill through the heart

of Europe, Tregury, Archbishop of Dublin, proclaimed a fast of three

days, and on each day walked in sackcloth, with his clergy, through the

streets of the city, to the Cathedral. By many in that age the event

was connected with the mystic utterances of the Apocalypse, and the

often-apprehended consummation of all Time.

Although the Irish were then, as they still are, firm believers in

supernatural influence working visibly among men, they do not appear to

have ever been slaves to the terrible delusion of witchcraft. Among the

Anglo-Irish we find the first instance of that mania which appears in

our history, and we believe the only one, if we except the Presbyterian

witches of Carrickfergus, in the early part of the eighteenth century.

The scene of the ancient delusion was Kilkenny, where Bishop Ledred

accused the Lady Alice Kettel, and William her son, of practising black

magic, in the year 1327. Sir Roger Outlaw, Prior of Kilmainham, and

stepson to Lady Alice, undertook to protect her; but the fearful charge

was extended to him also, and he was compelled to enter on his defence.

The tribunal appointed to try the charge—one of the main grounds on

which the Templars had been suppressed twenty-five years before—was

composed of the Dean of St. Patrick's, the Prior of Christ Church, the

Abbots of St. Mary's and St. Thomas's, Dublin, Mr. Elias Lawless, and

Mr. Peter Willeby, lawyers. Outlaw was acquitted, and Ledred forced to

fly for safety to England, of which he was a native. It is pleasant to

remember that, although Irish credulity sometimes took shapes absurd

and grotesque enough, it never was perverted into diabolical channels,

or directed to the barbarities of witch-finding.

About the beginning of the fifteenth century we meet with the first

mention of the use of Usquebagh, or _Aqua Vitae_, in our Annals. Under

the date of 1405 we read that McRannal, or Reynolds, chief of

Muntireolais, died of a surfeit of it, about Christmas. A quaint

Elizabethan writer thus descants on the properties of that liquor, as

he found them, by personal experience: "For the rawness (of the air)

they (the Irish) have an excellent remedy by their _Aqua Vitae_,

vulgarly called _Usquebagh_, which binds up the belly and drieth up

moisture more than our _Aqua Vitae_, yet inflameth not so much."

And as the opening of the century may be considered notable for the

first mention of _Usquebagh_, so its close is memorable for the first

employment of fire-arms. In the year 1489, according to Anglo-Irish

Annals, "six hand guns or musquets were sent to the Earl of Kildare out

of Germany," which his guard bore while on sentry at Thomas Court—his

Dublin residence. But two years earlier (1487) we have positive mention

of the employment of guns at the siege of Castlecar, in Leitrim, by

Hugh Roe O'Donnell. Great guns were freely used ten years later in the

taking of Dungannon and Omagh, and contributed, not a little to the

victory of Knock-doe—in 1505. About the same time we begin to hear of

their employment by sea in rather a curious connection. A certain

French Knight, returning from the pilgrimage of Lough Derg, visiting

O'Donnell at Donegal, heard of the anxiety of his entertainer to take a

certain Castle which stood by the sea, in Sligo. This Knight promised

to send him, on his return to France, "a vessel carrying great guns,"

which he accordingly did, and the Castle was in consequence taken.

Nevertheless the old Irish, according to their habit, took but slowly

to this wonderful invention, though destined to revolutionize the art

to which they were naturally predisposed—the art of war.

The dwellings of the chiefs, and of the wealthy among the proprietors,

near the marches, were chiefly situated amid pallisaded islands, or on

promontories naturally moated by lakes. The houses, in those

circumstances, were mostly of framework, though the Milesian nobles, in

less exposed districts, had castles of stone, after the Norman fashion.

The Castle "bawn" was usually enclosed by one or more strong walls, the

inner sides of which were lined with barns, stables, and the houses of

the retainers. Not unfrequently the thatched roofs of these

outbuildings taking fire, compelled the castle to surrender. The Castle

"green," whether within or without the walls, was the usual scene of

rural sports and athletic games, of which, at all periods, our

ancestors were so fond. Of the interior economy of the Milesian rath,

or dun, we know less than of the Norman tower, where, before the huge

kitchen chimney, the heavy-laden spit was turned by hand, while the

dining-hall was adorned with the glitter of the dresser, or by tapestry

hangings;—the floors of hall and chambers being strewn with rushes and

odorous herbs. We have spoken of the zeal of the Milesian Chiefs in

accumulating MSS. and in rewarding Bards and Scribes. We are enabled to

form some idea of the mental resources of an Anglo-Irish nobleman of

the fifteenth century, from the catalogue of the library remaining in

Maynooth Castle, in the reign of Henry VIII. Of Latin books, there were

the works of several of the schoolmen, the dialogues of St. Gregory,

Virgil, Juvenal, and Terence; the Holy Bible; Boethius' Consolations of

Philosophy, and Saint Thomas's Summa; of French works, Froissart,

Mandeville, two French Bibles, a French Livy and Caesar, with the most

popular romances; in English, there were the Polychronicon, Cambrensis,

Lyttleton's Tenures, Sir Thomas More's book on Pilgrimages, and several

romances. Moreover, there were copies of the Psalter of Cashel, a book

of Irish chronicles, lives of St. Beraghan, St. Fiech and St. Finian,

with various religious tracts, and romantic tales. This was, perhaps,

the most extensive private collection to be found within the Pale; we

have every reason to infer, that, at least in Irish and Latin works,

the Castles of the older race—lovers of learning and entertainers of

learned men—were not worse furnished than Maynooth.

CHAPTER X.

STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH

CENTURIES.

Although the English and Irish professed the same religion during these

ages, yet in the appointment of Bishops, the administration of

ecclesiastical property, and in all their views of the relation of the

Church to the State, the two nations differed almost as widely as in

their laws, language, and customs. The Plantagenet princes and their

Parliaments had always exhibited a jealousy of the See of Rome, and

statute upon, statute was passed, from the reign of Henry II. to that

of Richard II., in order to diminish the power of the Supreme Pontiffs

in nominating to English benefices. In the second Richard's reign, so

eventful for the English interest in Ireland, it had been enacted that

any of the clergy procuring appointments directly from Rome, or

exercising powers so conferred, should incur the penalty of a

praemunire—that is, the forfeiture of their lands and chattels, beside

being liable to imprisonment during the King's pleasure. This statute

was held to apply equally to Ireland, being confirmed by some of those

petty conventions of "the Pale," which the Dublin Governors of the

fourteenth century dignified with the name of Parliaments.

The ancient Irish method of promotion to a vacant see, or abbacy,

though modelled on the electoral principle which penetrated all Celtic

usages, was undoubtedly open to the charge of favouring nepotism, down

to the time of Saint Malachy, the restorer of the Irish Church. After

that period, the Prelates elect were ever careful to obtain the

sanction of the Holy See, before consecration. Such habitual submission

to Rome was seldom found, except in cases of disputed election, to

interfere with the choice of the clergy, and the custom grew more and

more into favour, as the English method of nomination by the crown was

attempted to be enforced, not only throughout "the Pale," but, by means

of English agents at Rome and Avignon, in the appointment to sees,

within the provinces of Armagh, Cashel, and Tuam. The ancient usage of

farming the church lands, under the charge of a lay steward, or

_Erenach_, elected by the clan, and the division of all the revenues

into four parts—for the Bishop, the Vicar and his priests, for the

poor, and for repairs of the sacred edifice, was equally opposed to the

pretensions of Princes, who looked on their Bishops as Barons, and

Church temporalities, like all other fiefs, as held originally of the

crown. Even if there had not been those differences of origin,

interest, and government which necessarily brought the two populations

into collision, these distinct systems of ecclesiastical polity could

not well have existed on the same soil without frequently clashing, one

with the other.

In our notice of the association promoted among the clergy, at the end

of the thirteenth century, by the patriotic McMaelisa, ("follower of

Jesus"), and in our own comments on the memorable letter of Prince

Donald O'Neil to Pope John XXII., written in the year 1317 or '18, we

have seen how wide and deep was the gulf then existing between the

English and Irish churchmen. In the year 1324, an attempt to heal this

unchristian breach was made by Philip of Slane, the Dominican who

presided at the trial of the Knights Templars, who afterwards became

Bishop of Cork, and rose into high favour with the Queen-Mother,

Isabella. As her Ambassador, or in the name of King Edward III., still

a minor, he is reported to have submitted to Pope John certain

propositions for the promotion of peace in the Irish Church, some of

which were certainly well calculated to promote that end. He suggested

that the smaller Bishoprics, yielding under sixty pounds per annum,

should be united to more eminent sees, and that Irish Abbots and Priors

should admit English lay brothers to their houses, and English

Superiors Irish brothers, in like manner. The third proposition,

however, savours more of the politician than of the peacemaker; it was

to bring under the bann of excommunication, with all its rigorous

consequences in that age, those "disturbers of the peace" who invaded

the authority of the English King in Ireland. As a consequence of this

mission, a Concordat for Ireland seems to have been concluded at

Avignon, embracing the two first points, but omitting the third, which

was, no doubt, with the English Court, the main object of Friar

Philip's embassy.

During the fourteenth century, and down to the election of Martin V.

(A.D. 1417), the Popes sat mainly at Avignon, in France. In the last

forty years of that melancholy period, other Prelates sitting at Rome,

or elsewhere in Italy, claimed the Apostolic primacy. It was in the

midst of these troubles and trials of the Church that the powerful

Kings of England, who were also sovereigns of a great part of France,

contrived to extort from the embarrassed pontiffs concessions which,

however gratifying to royal pride, were abhorrent to the more Catholic

spirit of the Irish people. A constant struggle was maintained during

the entire period of the captivity of the Popes in France between Roman

and English influence in Ireland. There were often two sets of Bishops

elected in such border sees as Meath and Louth, which were districts

under a divided influence. The Bishops of Limerick, Cork, and

Waterford, liable to have their revenues cut off, and their personal

liberty endangered by sea, were almost invariably nominees of the

English Court; those of the Province of Dublin were necessarily so; but

the prelates of Ulster, of Connaught, and of Munster—the southern

seaports excepted—were almost invariably native ecclesiastics, elected

in the old mode, by the assembled clergy, and receiving letters of

confirmation direct from Avignon or Italy.