Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3)

Charges against Grey. Circuit of the Council in the South, 1539

Aylmer and Alen were less than two months in London, but they left behind them a mass of accusations against Grey which in time brought forth fruit. Alen soon afterwards received the Great Seal, and during the last days of 1538 proceeded on a tour in the South with the general view of establishing the King’s supremacy, of improving the revenue, and of providing for the administration of justice. Archbishop Browne, Brabazon, and Aylmer accompanied the new Chancellor. At Carlow the party enjoyed Lord Butler’s Christmas hospitalities, and the old Earl treated them well at Kilkenny, where they spent New Year’s day, and where Browne preached to a large congregation. English translations of the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Articles, and Ten Commandments were published, and copies given to the Bishop and other dignitaries, who were ordered to promulgate them wherever they had jurisdiction. Next morning several felons were hanged, and certain concealed lands sequestrated to the King’s use; neither of which proceedings were calculated to increase his Majesty’s popularity. The councillors then went to Ross, which they found much decayed through the rivalry of Waterford and the disorders of the Kavanaghs. Here the Archbishop preached again. At Wexford there was another sermon, and the Kilkenny ceremonies were repeated, including the execution of divers malefactors. The Councillors were dissatisfied with Saintloo’s conduct as seneschal, and accused him of converting fines and forfeited recognizances to his own use. Badly armed and badly horsed, the soldiers appeared to do the people less good by their protection than they did harm by their extortion. The evils inherent to all palatinate jurisdictions were greatly aggravated by the seneschal’s lax administration. It was doubtful whether he had the right to appoint a deputy at all. He had nevertheless made such an appointment by parole and without any formal record, and his irregular substitute had arrogated all the powers of a Judge of Assize.219

The royal supremacy. The Munster Bishops

From Wexford Alen and his companions went to Waterford, where Browne preached to a great audience, and where the new formularies were again published. The usual hangings followed. Four felons suffered, ‘accompanied with another thief, a friar, whom, among the residue, we commanded to be hanged in his habit, and so to remain upon the gallows, for a mirror to all other his brethren to live truly.’ The assizes or sessions were attended only by the inhabitants of Lord Power’s portion of the county of Waterford. The other and larger division of the shire belonged to Gerald MacShane of Decies, who pretended to hold of the Desmonds, and altogether ignored his tenure of the royal honour of Dungarvan. The Lord of Decies, James Fitzjohn of Desmond, the White Knight, and Sir Thomas Butler of Cahir were summoned with several others. Butler came to Clonmel and made a favourable impression, but the Geraldines sent only ‘frivolous, false, feigned excuses, not consonant to their allegiance.’ Browne preached again at Clonmel in the presence of two archbishops and eight bishops, all of whom afterwards, before the whole congregation, took the oath of supremacy, and swore to maintain the succession as established by law.220

Taxation of southern counties

After much pressing, the inhabitants of Wexford, Waterford, Kilkenny, and Tipperary consented to pay a yearly subsidy to the King; 100 marks for Wexford, and 50l. for each of the other three. This source of revenue was quite new, and the Council were very proud of inventing it; but they confessed to doubts as to its substantial value, especially in Waterford, where Sir Gerald MacShane had power to pay or to withhold. From Clonmel the councillors returned to Dublin by Kilkenny, where they hanged one man more and levied some further fines. They had been absent from the capital five weeks.221

Grey in Ulster. The Scots, 1539

About the time that the Chancellor and his companions were turning homewards, Grey undertook another expedition against O’Neill. Again the ostensible object was to catch young Gerald of Kildare, and in this the Lord Deputy failed. But he very nearly caught O’Neill himself, actually carried off his ‘housewife,’ and ravaged much of his country. O’Donnell was present, or at least some of his people, for the horse which his standard-bearer rode was taken. James Fitzjohn of Desmond was in alliance with the two great northern chiefs to protect the ‘naughty boy,’ as Alen called Gerald, and if possible to force the King to restore him. The bastard Geraldines of the Pale were ready to help their natural leader, who grew more dangerous as he grew older. The Antrim Scots were always available for service against the English Government, and Brabazon wished to cripple them by a naval expedition. O’Neill and O’Donnell now sent Roderick O’Donnell, Bishop of Derry, to Scotland for 6,000 Redshanks. In the meantime they professed themselves ready to treat with Grey, and promised to bring young Gerald to meet him on the last day of April at Carrick Bradagh, near Dundalk. They never came, and Grey penetrated to Armagh in spite of bad weather and foul ways. O’Neill still refused to show himself or to give any hostage, but he professed peaceable intentions. The weather made it impossible to advance further, and Aylmer was sent to Blackwater, where he succeeded in making a truce. Again, Grey says that he had intended to seize his nephew by fair means or foul. ‘If they had kept pointment with me having young Gerald with them, howsoever the thing had chanced by the oath that I have made unto your Grace, they should have left the young Gerald behind them quick or dead. If it were the pleasure of God I would that I might once have a sight of him whom as yet I never saw with my eyes.’222

The O’Tooles

The O’Tooles had never been punished for their victory over Kelway, and Grey, who had for the moment no worse enemy than a gouty foot, resolved to chastise them. They proposed to parley near Ballymore Eustace, but did not come. Though in great pain, Grey rode to Powerscourt in a day, entered the mountains and penetrated to Glenmalure, cutting the woods on both sides as he went. ‘Before my coming thither,’ he said, ‘I think there never was Deputy with carts there.’ He had some skirmishing with the natives, but took no man of importance, and returned to Maynooth without having improved his gout.223

Intrigues concerning Gerald of Kildare

A confederacy had at this time been formed in favour of young Gerald. His own claims might not have been enough, in spite of Lady Eleanor O’Donnell’s efforts, but Henry’s ecclesiastical policy was beginning to bear its natural fruit. Priests passed from chief to chief, and communications with Rome were frequent. The Irish said all Englishmen were heretics, and the King the ‘most heretic and worst man in the world,’ in which perhaps they were not far wrong. They considered Henry a disobedient Papal vassal, and a mere usurper in Ireland. ‘When Dr. Nangle, my suffragan,’ says Archbishop Browne, ‘showed the King’s broad seal for justifying of his authority, MacWilliam little esteemed it, but threw it away and vilipended the same.’ The plan was that O’Toole, to whom Gerald promised to restore Powerscourt, should harass the Pale from the south, while James Fitzjohn of Desmond, with some Scotch mercenaries, attacked it from the west and O’Neill from the north. If Tara could be reached O’Neill might be proclaimed King of Ireland, and Gerald restored to his own in Kildare. Besides her own friends, Lady Eleanor commanded the services of a Bristol captain named Kate, or Cappys, who spoke Irish fluently and owned his own ship. John Lynch, a Galway merchant, met him at Assaroe, on the Donegal coast, and warned some of the confederates that Grey would be too strong for them, and that he was active enough to surprise them when they thought he was amusing himself. But Delahide, Leverous, and others, answered that they had perfect intelligence, that Grey could not ride twenty miles in the Pale without their knowledge, that his army consisted chiefly of churls and ploughmen, of which 300 might easily be vanquished by 100, and that he had no good officers under him. These are the arguments with which the foes of order in Ireland have always deluded their adherents, and sometimes themselves.224

Catholic movement

Wherever Lynch went he found the priests preaching daily ‘that every man ought for the salvation of his soul fight and make war against our sovereign lord the King’s Majesty and his true subjects; and if any of them which so shall fight against his said Majesty or his subjects, die in the quarrel, his soul that so shall be dead shall go to heaven as the soul of St. Peter, Paul, and others, which suffered death and martyrdom for God’s sake.’ ‘And forasmuch,’ Lynch adds, ‘as I did traverse somewhat of such words, I was cast out of church and from their masses during a certain time of days for an heretic; and I was greatly afraid.’ The result of all this preaching was an invasion of the Pale in the month of August. Lord Butler’s policy had kept the O’Briens quiet, and nothing was done on that side. But O’Donnell and O’Neill entered Meath with the greatest army, as some thought, that had ever been seen in Ireland. There was a large contingent of Scots, both from the mainland and the islands, and most of the Northern chiefs added their quotas to the host. O’Neill of Clandeboye, O’Rourke, Maguire, MacQuillin, O’Cahan, Magennis, and MacDermot are among those mentioned. Tara was reached, but no restoration of the ancient kingdom followed. Much damage was done to the modern kingdom, including the burning of Ardee and of Navan, which was the best market town in the county. The invaders set fire to the standing corn, carried off every portable article of value, and, sweeping all the cattle before them, turned in high spirits northwards. They had met with no enemy, and had probably attained their object of providing funds for a general rising, which was fixed for September 1, and which James of Desmond was expected to join.225

Grey routs the O’Neills at Bellahoe, 1539

Grey summoned the men of Dublin and Drogheda, those citizen soldiers whom the Irish dreaded so much, and hurried after O’Neill. Out of a nominal 350 he could muster no more than 140 of his own men, but he had some help from the gentlemen of the Pale. The marchers, like Rob Roy at Sheriffmuir, waited to see which was the winning side. ‘I must help the King,’ said Fitzgerald of Osbertstown, to Gerald’s messenger, ‘but if ye be the strongest we must go with you.’ Without waiting for such Laodiceans, the Lord Deputy dashed forward, and, as Lynch had foreseen, caught the Ulstermen quite unprepared. They were encamped at Bellahoe, the ford which divides Meath from Monaghan, on the Farney side of the water, and he routed them before they had time to form. The Irish leaders who knew the country escaped, with the exception of Magennis, whose post was near the ford. He fell into the hands of the Louth men, who were bribed by some of his own clan to kill him, and did so. The only person of note killed on the English side was a gentleman named Mape, who charged up the river bank by Lord Slane’s side, and who was carried by his runaway horse into the midst of the Irish. According to Stanihurst, whose account of this affair is at least highly coloured, the mayors of Dublin and Drogheda and Thomas Talbot of Malahide were dubbed knights on the field by the Lord Deputy. He also says that Black James Fleming, Baron of Slane, led the attack, and called on his hereditary standard-bearer to do his duty in the front. But the standard-bearer, whose name was Robert Halpin or Halfpenny, thought the service desperate, and refused to advance his banner, preferring ‘to sleep in an whole sheepskin his pelt, than to walk in a torn lion his skin.’ Calling him a dastardly coward, the Baron ordered Robert Betagh to supply his place, which he cheerfully did: Mape, though he had refused to lead, was fain to follow, and fell fighting in the first rank.226

Grey is accused of favouring the Geraldines

After this great success, which shattered the Irish or Catholic confederacy for a time, Grey remained in the North. A fleet had been collected at Carlingford to chastise the Scots, and the crews had taken part in the fight or pursuit at Bellahoe; but not much could be done against the islanders. The old Earl of Ormonde had just died, and his son was too busy to visit Ulster. He had incurred vast expense in subsidising the O’Briens and the Clanricarde Burkes, who were ready to serve the King with 800 gallowglasses, 800 kerne, and some horse. James Fitzjohn of Desmond was growing daily stronger, while his rival was basking in Court sunshine; and Ormonde attributed this state of affairs to the Lord Deputy, who favoured all Geraldines and depressed all who owed their promotion to Cromwell. James Fitzjohn had seen the Earl’s brother, the Archbishop of Cashel, and had promised to meet Ormonde also, but he failed in his appointment, and threatened at every moment to attack Tipperary.227

The Desmond heritage. Grey goes to Munster, 1539

The English Government had in the meantime declared that James FitzMaurice was right heir to the earldom of Desmond. He had been a royal page, and was provided with a force sufficient to guard against any sudden attack. He landed at Cork or Youghal in August, but three months elapsed before any serious effort was made to put him in possession of his own. Leaving Dublin early in November, Grey joined Ormonde near Roscrea, about which there had been fierce dissensions. The castle was now in the hands of the O’Meaghers, but they gave it up peaceably to the Lord Deputy, and he handed it over to Ormonde. Modreeny, which the Earl now acknowledged as O’Carroll’s, was also surrendered. Taking hostages from O’Carroll, MacBrien Arra, O’Kennedy, O’Mulryan, and O’Dwyer to be faithful and pay the King tribute, Grey and Ormonde cut passes through the woods near the Shannon, the inhabitants of which had guided the O’Briens in their raids. They halted two days at Thurles, where Sir Gerald MacShane and the White Knight thought it prudent to submit themselves, and victualled their troops about Cashel and Clonmel. At Youghal they delivered all the castles of Imokilly to the young Earl of Desmond, and two nephews of former Earls accepted him as the head of their House. At Cork Lord Barry, who had held aloof for years, came in and gave security. Hither also came the sons of Cormac Oge, and it was probably on this occasion that their sister Mary MacCarthy married the young Earl. The union was not fated to last long, nor to give an heir to the House of Desmond. The barony of Kerrycurrihy was taken possession of at Kinsale, and MacCarthy Reagh, in whose castle of Kilbrittain Gerald of Kildare had lately found a home, consented to come to Cork and to give his brother as a hostage. He hesitated to sacrifice his cattle, and was easily persuaded by Ormonde, who was now on unusually good terms with Grey. Barry Roe and Barry Oge also gave security. The army then shifted to O’Callaghan’s country, and near Dromaneen James Fitzjohn came to the other side of the flooded Blackwater and defied Grey. He would, he said, conclude nothing without the advice of O’Brien, who could dispose of all the Irishry of Ireland. Grey could not pass the river, and returned to Cork. John Travers, a native of Ireland who had learned the art of war elsewhere, had lately been appointed Master of the Ordnance, and accompanied this expedition, in which only 800 men were employed. Travers said that he would go anywhere in Ireland with 2,000 men, and Grey’s exploits, no less than Sidney’s later, show that he was right: the difficulty was not to take but to keep. ‘Six thousand good men,’ Travers added, ‘divided in three places as I could give instruction, with certain craftsmen to inhabit the places they win, might make a general reformation in one summer.’ The advice was sound, but the Crown could not afford to take it.228

Grey’s last raid into Ulster

Once more before young Gerald had left Ireland did Grey turn his attention to the North. For the third time O’Neill promised to meet him, and for the third time he failed to appear. Without victuals, and trusting to plunder for the support of his men, the Lord Deputy then rode ‘thirty-four miles of ill way’ to Dungannon, and again nearly caught the troublesome chief. But the guides, perhaps intentionally, delayed the soldiers on their night march, and daybreak found them still five miles from Dungannon. O’Neill had time to escape. Six days were spent in promiscuous burnings, during which the soldiers had no bread and lived on freshly killed beef: it is no wonder that disease was rife in the ranks. This was Grey’s last warlike expedition; successful in a certain sense, but quite useless as a matter of policy.229

Recall of Grey. Consequent confusion

Grey had often asked leave to go to Court and lay the state of Ireland before the King, begging that his adversaries might not be allowed to ruin him behind his back. His request was now to be granted in an unexpected manner. One of his last acts in Ireland was a quarrel with the Council, in spite of whose remonstrances he sent over Travers, the Master of the Ordnance, with despatches, though he seems to have agreed with them that a man who could be better spared would have done the business just as well. Sir William Brereton, Marshal of the Army, had lately broken his leg, an accident from which he seems never to have fully recovered; Edward Griffiths, another useful officer, was dying of diarrhœa; Travers was the only available officer, and his own department was in bad order. Yet Grey sent him, perhaps because he thought his talk would be favourable to him. The immediate result of Travers’s journey was that the King sent for Grey, professing his anxiety to see him and to send him back to Ireland in time for the fighting season at the end of May. Brereton was to act as Lord Justice during his absence. Henry declared himself willing to raise the wages of soldiers in Ireland, which had been fixed three years before at 5l. 6s. 8d. a year for horsemen and half that sum for footmen, and which had been found quite inadequate. Deplorable disorders had resulted from the necessities of the men. Henry expressed his intention of keeping the troops on the Irish borders instead of in Dublin. Coming events cast their accustomed shadow before, and Grey’s recall, for recall it was understood to be, was known to the public sooner than to the officials. It was of course suggested that Grey purposely concealed the truth in order to embarrass the Council; and he refused their prayer to stay until arrangements had been made for the defence of the Pale. His activity had evidently inspired respect, for he had no sooner crossed the Channel than the O’Tooles made a raid towards Dublin. O’Byrne warned the citizens, and they had time to make ready. The Kavanaghs attacked the Wexford settlers. The O’Connors burned Kildare. Alen and Brabazon had also been called to England, but they were obliged to wait for a fitter time. ‘The country,’ wrote Brereton in excusing their absence, ‘is in very ill case, being assured of no Irishman’s peace.’230

Trial and execution of Grey

An enormous number of charges were brought against Grey. He was accused of maintaining the King’s enemies and depressing the King’s friends, of injustice to Irishmen and others, of violence towards Councillors and others, and of extortion. There is no reason to suppose that he could have taken young Gerald, with whom, in Stanihurst’s quaint language, he was accused of ‘playing bo-peep;’ but no doubt he had been guilty of much injustice, as his unprovoked invasion of Ferney and his treatment of O’More sufficiently prove. He cannot be called a man of scrupulous honour, or he would not have arrested the Geraldines at dinner, or professed his intention to capture his nephew by fair means or foul. But Henry VIII. knew how to pardon such conduct, though he could punish his instruments when it suited him. The Irish chiefs felt that they could not trust Grey, and therefore kept no faith with him. He was accused on all sides of greed, and especially of making useless expeditions for the sake of plunder. The usual inquisition made after his arrest shows that he had some private hoards. He was violent in Council, and no doubt it was often hard for a Viceroy, especially for one who suffered from gout, to deal with the Dublin officials, who were independent of him and sometimes spies on his conduct. ‘I think,’ says Walter Cowley, ‘there is not one of the King’s Council there but my Lord Deputy successively have sore fallen out with them.’ But he was rude and tyrannical to others also, as to Lord Delvin, whose life he was accused of shortening by insults, and especially by calling him traitor, ‘which,’ says the old Earl of Ormonde, ‘shall never be proved.’ In any case and whatever his actual guilt, a cloud of witnesses appeared to denounce Grey.231 He pleaded guilty, rather in hopes of mercy than acknowledging his faults; but no pardon followed. That he had any treasonable intention is more than doubtful, but there was more against him than against Buckingham; he suffered a year’s imprisonment in the Tower, and then underwent the fate to which his treacherous compliance with a tyrant’s wishes had condemned his Geraldine kinsmen.

CHAPTER XIII.

1540 and 1541

The O’Neills. Scottish intrigues

With the usual plundering inroads on the Pale Brereton was able to cope; and the greater chieftains were quiet, for Gerald of Kildare was safe. O’Donnell, who may have resented his treatment by Lady Eleanor, readily reverted to his father’s policy, and no difficulty was made about his pardon. O’Neill held aloof, but again professed himself ready to come to Carrick Bradagh. Again he failed to appear, and pleaded that he dared not approach Dundalk through fear of Grey’s manifest treachery. He offered to come to Magennis’s Castle at Narrowater, a beautiful spot near the mouth of the Newry river and the foot of the Mourne Mountains. Brereton agreed, and a meeting at last took place. O’Neill declared his readiness to perform all that he had promised to Skeffington, to send a trusty messenger to the King, and to leave pardon or punishment for the past to the royal discretion. Till the answer came he was content to be at peace with the Government, and to keep his neighbours quiet. He was at this time intriguing with Scotland, and his secretary was actually at Edinburgh. Cromwell had received information that eight Irishmen had been with the Scottish King, to whom they had brought sealed letters from the principal chiefs, containing offers to take him as their lord and to do homage to him. It was even said that James meditated an invasion of Ireland in person. O’Neill probably waited for the result of these negotiations before sending a confidential servant with a letter to Henry. He begged the King not to send his enemies into his country, where Grey had, as he affirmed, sowed dissensions from selfish motives. He was willing to do anything he was asked unless the new Lord Deputy should prove very extortionate, and he advised the King not to waste his money in Ulster. Henry answered graciously, and acknowledged some trifling presents which accompanied the chief’s letter. Future royal favours, his Majesty was careful to point out, must depend on performance and not on promises. Pardon in the meantime would be granted for the heinous offences committed.232

Murder of James FitzMaurice, Earl of Desmond, 1540

With the sea at hand, and Ormonde ever ready to help him, it was supposed that James FitzMaurice would be able to maintain himself as Earl of Desmond. At first he confined himself to Kerrycurrihy and Imokilly, but after three months he was tempted to go inland towards the Limerick district, in which James Fitzjohn’s strength lay. Near Fermoy he was set upon and murdered by his rival’s brother, who had earned the title of ‘Maurice of the Burnings.’ James Fitzjohn, who now believed himself to be undisputed Earl, at once repaired to Youghal, where he was well received and joined by all the chiefs who had lately made such professions to Grey and Ormonde. The garrison had, through over-confidence, withdrawn to Waterford. Gerald of Kildare had just escaped to France, and the web of policy which the English Government had cast over both branches of the Geraldines was torn to pieces for the time.233

James Fitzjohn is allowed to succeed him

There was no evidence of James Fitzjohn’s complicity in his cousin’s murder, and Ormonde received the King’s authority to pardon him, if he could be brought to promise good behaviour. He preferred to ally himself with O’Brien, and pleaded that Irish confederacies were too strong for him to withstand. To gain his confidence Ormonde risked his own person in the Desmond country for two nights, and passed right through it to parley with O’Brien, who refused to listen to anything. But Desmond would not show himself, and Ormonde then went for a few weeks to England. On his return he found that little harm had been done, and this he attributed solely to O’Brien having been out of his mind. But Desmond claimed the credit of holding his hand. ‘In like,’ he wrote to Ormonde, ‘I desire you, according to my full trust, for to bring me in the King’s favour the best ye can; and in case that his Grace will so accept me, I trust we shall both be able to do his Grace acceptable service according to our duty.’ On his return from England Ormonde at once resumed negotiations, and St. Leger had been scarcely a month in Ireland before he received friendly letters both from Desmond and O’Brien.234