The state of the English colony was now so precarious that Henry IV.
decided to send one of his most trusted and capable military commanders
to act as viceroy. This was Sir John Talbot, and his appointment was
hailed with joy. Talbot was given a term of six years of office, and a
salary of L2,666 13s. 4d. It was a large income, but as it was seldom
paid, that was a detail which must have impressed Henry as being quite
unimportant. During his occasional journeys to England, the Archbishop
of Dublin acted as the deputy. Talbot soon intimated to the leading
members of the English colony that as his salary was in arrear he
intended leaving the country. This was tantamount to placing them at
the mercy of the Irish, whom Talbot had repelled from Dublin many
times. Thereupon the colonists petitioned the king, but without
success, and Sir John departed in 1419, ostensibly recalled by the
king, and leaving his brother, William Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, to
represent him. Sir John Talbot, however, was destined to renew his
acquaintance with the viceroyalty.
The brief authority of the archbishop was succeeded by three years
under James, fourth {49} Earl of Ormonde; and then Edmund de Mortimer,
fifth Earl of March and Ulster, began a viceroyalty which lasted for
less than two years, although he was appointed for nine. Edmund de
Mortimer was the legal heir to Richard II., but he was an unambitious
man, and there was no guile in him. He appointed Edward Dantsey,
Bishop of Meath, his deputy, but William Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin,
declined to recognize the authority of his ecclesiastical inferior, and
consequently the viceroy had to come to Dublin. This was in 1424, and
the following year the plague carried him off. Sir John Talbot was
then induced to accept the viceroyalty, but his services were wanted
nearer home, and he agreed to the reappointment of the Earl of Ormonde,
who acted for two years, and helped to maintain a sort of peace by
conciliating the native Irish.
The viceroyalties of Sir John de Gray (1427-28), Sir John Sutton
(1428-29), Sir Thomas le Strange (1429-31), and Sir Leon de Welles and
his brother, William, who became his deputy (1438-46), were
undistinguished. The deposed Earl of Ormonde succeeded in clearing
himself of a charge of high treason, but the result of the bitterness
and dissensions the charge provoked and fostered were felt for a long
time.
[Sidenote: The Earl of Shrewsbury]
The reappointment of Sir John Talbot, now Earl of Shrewsbury, brought
that strong and merciless old man--he was seventy-three--back to
Ireland. He was created Earl of Waterford and Wexford, and Constable
of Ireland, but even the valour and wiles of one of the bravest of {50}
warriors could not prevail against the owners of the land which had
been granted to Talbot. Several times he quaintly informed the king
that he was unable to collect a penny of his rents, an admission which
the monarch politely disregarded. But Talbot left his mark on Ireland.
Long service in the Continental wars had taught him many forms of
cruelty and lust, and at seventy-three he showed that he had not
forgotten what he had learnt. Not always victorious, he was always
cruel and vicious. He found time to ape the statesman by presiding
over a Parliament that decreed various ordinances, including the
prohibition of moustaches--which were then almost exclusively worn by
the native Irish, and coming into fashion amongst the Anglo-Irish. A
writer of the period described Talbot as another Herod, and the
country, including the colonists, who had found in him an oppressor
instead of a protector, sighed with relief when the charms of a
continental war called him from Ireland, and he left the Archbishop of
Dublin to represent him. Talbot was little better than a hireling, and
when he was killed at the age of eighty in a battle in France, he was
not fighting for his country or for himself, but for a salary, and, no
doubt, inspired by the lust of conflict.
[Sidenote: A mother of kings]
Talbot's retirement from Dublin enabled the king to remove a dangerous
person, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, from his court, but although
the duke's commission as viceroy was executed in 1447, he did not see
fit to leave England until 1449, landing at Howth, near Dublin, on {51}
July 6. His deputy, Richard Nugent, met him and the duchess, a
remarkable woman, who was one of the Earl of Westmorland's twenty-two
children, and was the most beautiful of them all. Denied the throne
for herself, she became the mother of two kings--Edward IV. and Richard
III.--and it was her counsels which shaped her husband's destiny in
Ireland. As befitting a prince of the blood royal, the duke made a
triumphal entry into Dublin, and, guided by his wife, wisely
conciliated the native chiefs and the leaders of the Anglo-Irish. They
gave many banquets and entertainments in Dublin Castle, at which Irish
and English mingled, quarrels being forgotten in the presence of the
woman who was known as 'The Rose of Raby.' And when on October 21,
1449, she gave birth in Dublin Castle to her ninth child, George,
afterwards Duke of Clarence, she diplomatically invited the Earls of
Desmond and Ormonde to stand as sponsors.
The object of the duke and duchess was, of course, to gain adherents in
Ireland for the coming conflict between the rival claimants to the
throne of England. For hundreds of years Ireland had been looked upon
as a source of income to the Kings of England; the viceroyalty was a
place of profit, and most of the profits went into the king's treasury.
Richard had many followers in England, and they were well aware of the
fact that his viceroyalty was merely a pretext for exiling him, but
they made good use of the misfortune, continually noising it abroad
that the Duke of York was accomplishing wonders in {52} Ireland, that
his statesmanship, diplomacy, and valour proved indisputably that when
the time came he would make an admirable king of both countries.
The disadvantage of a policy of conciliation, however, was the lack of
revenues. Taxes could only be levied by force, and the viceroy
deprecated that. He pawned his jewels manfully, and borrowed from his
friends in England, France, and Ireland. Twice he wrote to the king
asking for supplies, but that monarch had no intention of disguising
the exile by lavishing money upon him, and the duke was compelled to
return to England. This was in 1450, and for the next nine years he
was absent from the country, his deputies in turn being the Archbishop
of Armagh, 1454, Edmund Fitz-Eustace, 1454, and Thomas Fitz-Gerald,
Earl of Kildare, who acted from 1455 to 1459. The duke's first choice
was Sir James le Botiller, who was created Earl of Wiltshire before he
succeeded his father in the Earldom of Ormonde, but this nobleman
resided chiefly in England, and eventually became a Lancastrian.
[Sidenote: Independence of its Parliament]
The bewildering changes of fortune brought about by the Wars of the
Roses had their full effect upon Ireland. The Duke of York was, of
course, the leader of the Yorkists, and his sun was at its zenith when
he defeated the Lancastrians at St. Albans and captured Henry VI. He
was declared Protector of England and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In
1459 fortune turned against him; he was beaten in several encounters,
and, finally, fled to Ireland with a few followers. In Dublin {53} he
found some consolation, although he had been unable to bring his wife
with him. The Irish and the English joyfully welcomed him, and the
Irish Parliament met at once and proclaimed him viceroy, formally
declaring the acts of the Lancastrian Parliament at Coventry null and
void so far as they concerned Ireland. The most significant feature of
this meeting of the Irish Parliament was the formal statement that it
was absolutely and entirely independent, and could not be controlled by
the English Parliament. It acknowledged the obedience of Ireland to
England, but 'nevertheless, it was separate from it and from all its
laws and statutes except such as were accepted by the lords spiritual
and temporal.' Richard established a mint at his castle of Trim; his
son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, was appointed Chancellor of Ireland, the
viceroy's person was declared sacred, and conspiracy against him high
treason.
The Duke of York was undoubtedly the most popular man in Ireland, but
the Lancastrians, who had gained the adherence of the Earl of Ormonde
and Wiltshire, looked to the latter to remove the viceroy. The earl
sent one of his retainers to arrest the duke on a charge of falsely
representing himself to be His Majesty's--Henry VI.--Lieutenant for
Ireland. The luckless squire was seized by Richard's officers, brought
to trial, and eventually hanged, drawn, and quartered. The next move
of the Lancastrian party was an abortive attempt to induce the native
Irish to turn against the viceroy and murder him. {54} This charge was
denied vigorously, but there was every reason to believe that it was
true. The Earls of Kildare and Desmond, however, came to Richard's
aid, and they speedily secured the allegiance of the principal
chieftains in Leinster and Munster. News of Yorkists' triumphs in
England took Richard hastily to London, where he found an excited
populace awaiting him, and calling upon him to crown himself King of
England. The path to the throne seemed easy, but Queen Margaret,
making one desperate rally for her family, met Richard near Wakefield
on the last day of 1461, defeated his army, and killed him.
A nebulous state of affairs now existed in Ireland. The Earl of
Kildare ceased to be deputy at Richard's death, and Sir Roland
Fitz-Eustace, who acted as deputy to the new viceroy, George, Duke of
Clarence, was a mere figurehead. In 1464 the Earl of Desmond succeeded
as deputy to Clarence, but he incurred the enmity of Elizabeth Grey,
Edward's plebeian wife, and she induced her husband to supersede the
Irish earl by one of her favourites, the Earl of Worcester. The
marriage of Edward IV. and Elizabeth Grey had caused much dissension in
English court circles, and the king regarded any criticism of his
action as being tantamount to high treason. A contemptuous remark
about Elizabeth Grey cost the Earl of Desmond his life, Worcester
executing him at Drogheda in 1468, ostensibly on a charge of high
treason. It was said that Edward IV., when quarrelling with his wife,
had angrily exclaimed that he, if he had taken the advice of the {55}
Earl of Desmond, would not have found himself burdened by such a wife.
Elizabeth never forgot this, and, as we have seen, it led the deputy to
his death.
[Illustration: St. Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle]
Worcester retired in 1468, and the Earl of Kildare ruled for the absent
Duke of Clarence. Edward IV., however, began to entertain fears that
the young Prince might imitate the example of his late father, and make
the viceroyalty an office rivalling the throne itself, and convert
Ireland into a stronghold against him and his house. The Duke of
Clarence and the Earl of Warwick were undoubtedly conspiring against
Edward, who promptly offered a reward of L1,000 or L100 a year for life
to whoever captured the duke or the earl. The latter, however, did not
survive the _coup d'etat_ of 1470, when Henry VI. was restored
temporarily. The Earl of Warwick, who was nominally Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland, being represented there by Edmund Dudley, was beheaded by the
Earl of Oxford on Tower Hill.
[Sidenote: The Duke of Clarence]
The Duke of Clarence, who had the faculty of pleasing both parties, was
appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1470 by Henry VI., and on the
deposition of that monarch Edward IV. confirmed the appointment,
granting him the office for twenty years, to date from 1472. Meanwhile
the Earl of Kildare continued to rule the country until 1475. Then the
Bishop of Meath, William Sherwood, acted for a time, until Gerald,
ninth Earl of Kildare, became deputy. In 1478 Clarence was removed,
and John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant for
{56} twenty years. He could not rule in person, however, and so he
conveniently appointed his infant son, George, to the office, at the
same time nominating Lord Grey as his locum tenens. Grey arrived in
Dublin to find that the Earl of Kildare refused to recognize his
authority, giving as a reason his opinion that Grey's appointment was
made under the Privy Seal, and was, therefore, illegal. The Chancellor
sided with Kildare, declined to surrender the Great Seal for Ireland,
and advised Kildare to summon a Parliament at Naas. That complacent
assembly voted the Earl a subsidy. This was the state of affairs in
1478, and it really marked the beginning of the great struggle between
Ireland and England. By now the Anglo-Irish families had lost their
sympathies for the English and had become almost exclusively Irish.
Grey proceeded to hold a Parliament of his own at Trim, and, of course,
it formally annulled all the acts passed by Kildare's assembly. These
Parliaments were merely travesties of the word as understood to-day;
they did not represent even the opinions of those permitted to take
part in their proceedings, while a cynical disregard of the English
colony was their most characteristic feature. They were termed
'Parliaments' in order to dignify the proceedings, but their only use
was to declare their subjection to the person summoning them.
The death of the infant Prince George in 1479 enabled Grey to retire
from the contest with dignity, and for two years Robert Preston, first
{57} Viscount Gormanstown, represented the nominal viceroy, Richard,
Duke of York. Then in 1481 the Earl of Kildare, the only man who could
rule Ireland with any hope of success, was reappointed deputy to the
young prince. The death of Edward IV. and the accession of Edward V.
found Kildare still in power.
The mysterious disappearance of the king and his younger brother from
the Tower of London brought Richard III. to the throne, and he
nominated his son, Edward, aged eleven, viceroy for a period of three
years, Kildare remaining as deputy. It was announced throughout the
colony that Richard intended visiting Ireland, and Kildare was,
therefore, declared Lord-Deputy for one year only. The death of Prince
Edward in 1484 brought the viceroyalty to Richard's nephew, John de la
Pole, Earl of Lincoln, but the Battle of Bosworth opened a new era for
Ireland as well as for England.
[Sidenote: Effect of Bosworth Field]
The Earl of Kildare, notified of the appointment of the new king's
uncle, Jasper, Duke of Bedford, declined to be bound by the results of
the Battle of Bosworth Field, and when a priest brought to Ireland a
boy whom he declared to be the Earl of Warwick, son of the late Duke of
Clarence, and therefore the rightful heir to the throne of England,
Kildare eagerly seized the opportunity thus presented. Lambert Simnel,
the youth in question, was received with royal honours by Kildare and
the Anglo-Irish, his claims declared proved, and his identity admitted.
On May 24, 1487, the impostor was crowned King {58} of England and
Ireland under the title of Edward VI. The ceremony took place in the
Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, and in the presence of the whole
viceregal staff, the principal ecclesiastics and the civic officials,
Kildare had the leading part after Lambert Simnel, although the Earl of
Lincoln, who had been appointed viceroy by his uncle, Richard III., was
also present. Immediately the coronation was over a special coinage
was struck, and the comedy protracted by the creation of Kildare as
Regent and Protector.
The Earl of Lincoln was given the command of the army to strike the
decisive blow in England, but the Duke of Bedford, Henry's viceroy, met
the rebel forces at Stoke and crushed them. Simnel was taken prisoner,
and Henry, with that sense of humour and a political tact rare in
monarchs, decided to emphasize his victory by ridicule rather than the
executioner's axe. Simnel was made a turnspit in the royal kitchens
and a salary paid him regularly. Had he been executed, his unlucky
followers might have made him a hero and themselves patriots; as it
was, they were compelled to seek oblivion for their cause and hide
their shame. Kildare, however, remained defiant. To him Simnel had
been only the means to an end that had enabled him to demonstrate to
the English throne and its advisers that the destinies of Ireland could
not be subject to the vagaries of English politicians. Henry
determined to try diplomatic persuasion, and he sent Sir Richard
Edgecombe, a Privy Councillor, to offer Kildare {59} a free pardon if
he would swear fealty to the king and give a bond for his good
behaviour. The deputy offered to submit, though he would not give a
bond, and after considerable wrangling the question of security was
waived aside, and the Earl of Kildare once more reigned in Dublin
Castle. The records of the meetings between Kildare and Edgecombe are
very full, and it would seem that the earl's threats to turn
'Irish'--that is, formally separate his family from England--had more
to do with Henry's capitulation than anything else.
[Sidenote: Perkin Warbeck]
Kildare's appointment was as deputy to the Duke of Bedford, and for
four years Irish affairs had no connection with English. But the
success of usurpers breeds impostors, and Henry, who had seized his
throne by force, had once more to face an impostor and a rebellion.
Perkin Warbeck, avowing himself to be Richard, Duke of York, and armed
with a circumstantial story of his escape from the Tower of London,
landed at Cork, having journeyed from Lisbon, and sent messages to
Kildare ordering him to join him there with an army. Whatever the
earl's answer may have been, Perkin did not wait for it, preferring to
seek temporary safety in Paris. The deputy, however, had always shown
a fondness for impostors, and Henry, unable to trust any of the leaders
of the English in Ireland, sent Walter Fitz-Simon to be the deputy in
place of Kildare. Fitz-Simon worked assiduously to secure the Earl's
fall, and when he returned to England in 1493, leaving Viscount
Gormanstown as his deputy, he was able {60} to nullify the effects of
Kildare's passionate protests to Henry VII. The next year Henry
appointed his son, then aged four, afterwards Henry VIII., to be
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and his deputy was the notorious profligate
and zealous soldier, Sir Edward Poynings, the son of Elizabeth Paston.
The "Paston Letters" throw much light upon the workings of the
viceroyalty of the period, although Poynings himself had only a couple
of years' experience of that country. He did Henry two notable acts of
service, however, by capturing Kildare and sending him a prisoner to
London, and by driving Perkin Warbeck out of Ireland.
When Kildare was imprisoned in the Tower of London, his fate seemed
settled, but he was too clever for the age he lived in, and he
succeeded, a stranger in a strange country, in securing his liberation
and the annulling by Parliament of his act of attainder. Kildare
thereupon became the lion of the London season. He was invited
everywhere, and every class of society crowded to see the man who had
held Ireland in his power. All the time he was nominally under arrest,
with serious charges pending against him. When Henry summoned the earl
to his presence, and offered him the choice of any man in the kingdom
to be his counsellor, Kildare promptly chose the king himself! It was
a piece of shrewd flattery, but it had less to do with Kildare's
restoration to favour than his marriage with the king's first cousin,
Elizabeth, daughter of Oliver St. John. The moment his alliance with
the clever daughter of a {61} powerful family became known, Kildare's
enemies melted away, and the king, saving his face by insisting upon
Kildare's son remaining in London as a hostage for his father's good
conduct, restored Kildare to his deputyship, and sent him back to
Ireland. Henry Deane, a cleric who had been holding the post, retired,
and was rewarded later with the See of Canterbury.
The character of Kildare is well illustrated by a story told concerning
his fiery temper. The Bishop of Meath, suffering from jealousy and a
grievance, declared to the king that all Ireland could not rule the
earl. 'Then, in good faith,' cried the king, 'shall the earl rule all
Ireland!'
[Sidenote: The Hill of the Axes]
Perkin Warbeck revisited Ireland, but the men of Waterford drove him
from the country without any help from Dublin. In 1503 Kildare was
summoned to London to receive evidence of the king's pleasure and
approbation. This took the shape of a portion of the king's wardrobe,
a signal mark of honour in those days. Returning with his son Gerald,
who had married into a powerful English family, Kildare won the famous
Battle of Knocdoe, or 'The Hill of the Axes,' and was given the garter
for his success. The Battle of Knocdoe was the result of a bitter
quarrel between the Earl of Kildare and the Earl of Clanricarde. The
latter had married a daughter of the deputy's, and had treated her with
such cruelty that Kildare intervened. In revenge Clanricarde formed a
confederacy between certain Irish chiefs to overthrow the authority of
the king in Ireland.
{62}