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

Holy Cross

Another famous Cistercian abbey was that of Holy Cross on the Suir, whose beautiful ruins recall, though they do not rival, Fountains, Furness, and Rivaulx. This monastery was founded by Donald O’Brien, King of Limerick, shortly before the Anglo-Norman invasion. A fragment of the true cross preserved here attracted many pilgrims, and is thought by some to have been contained in a richly sculptured shrine which still stands. Long after the dissolution pilgrimages continued, and Sir Henry Sidney noted the ‘detestable idolatry used to an idol called the Holy Cross, whereunto there is no small confluence of people daily resorting.’ The abbots had seats in Parliament, and from the extent of their territorial power were sometimes called Earls.312

Dunbrody and Tintern

Two Cistercian abbeys near one another in Wexford are remarkable from the circumstances of their foundations. Dunbrody was built by the ruthless conqueror, Hervey de Montmorenci, who sought to expiate his cruelties by becoming its abbot and endowing it with all his property. Tintern was founded in fulfilment of a vow made during a storm at sea by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who brought monks and a name from Wales. Tintern was the only Irish abbey which retained the original black dress of Citeaux, thus acknowledging the foundation of Stephen Harding rather than that of Bernard.

Hospitallers. Kilmainham

Strongbow founded a preceptory for Templars at Kilmainham in 1174, and it became rich and powerful. Under Edward II. the order was suppressed in Ireland with as little pretence of justice as elsewhere, and its possessions granted to the Hospitallers, who showed less charity to the really poor, though their doors were always open to strangers and travellers of importance. The priors of Kilmainham were often chosen from the greatest families – Talbots, Butlers, and Fitzgeralds – were always summoned to Parliament, and became very important personages. Being exempt from episcopal jurisdiction they sometimes acted almost like independent princes. In 1444 the Prior, Thomas Fitzgerald, espoused the cause of Archbishop Talbot in his quarrel with the White Earl of Ormonde, and he challenged the latter to trial by combat. The fight was appointed to take place at Smithfield, and both champions were kept in close custody; the Earl being confined in the Tower, of which the Duke of Exeter, inventor of the rack and other gentle instruments, was then constable. The Duke was authorised to allow his distinguished prisoner exercise enough to keep him in good fighting condition, his swordsmanship being evidently thought adequate. The representative of the Church militant was considered wanting in skill, and was detained in the city to receive instructions at the royal expense from Philip Treherne, fishmonger and fencing master. Ormonde’s friends cleared his character, and the combat never took place. Many acts of turbulence were charged against Fitzgerald; but he was far outstripped by James Keating, who became prior in 1461, and who defied the King, the Deputy, and his own Grand Master for thirty years. Marmaduke Lumley was sent to supersede him, but died of the ill-treatment which he received. In 1511 Sir John Rawson, the last prior, was appointed. He was an able man and a chief supporter of the Government, but did not think it necessary to observe his vow of chastity. At the dissolution Rawson was created Viscount of Clontarf, where there was a cell of his house, and enjoyed a pension of 500 marks till his death in Edward VI.’s time. Sir William Weston, the English Provincial, was less fortunate, for he was forced to leave his priory and died the same day. The great possessions of Kilmainham were granted to different persons, and the site of the commandery is now fitly occupied by a military hospital, which owes its foundation to the great Duke of Ormonde.313

Pensions to monks

Pensions were generally granted to the heads of the dissolved houses and sometimes to the other monks. Thus the Abbot of Mellifont received 40l., and several of the monks from 3l. 6s. 8d. to 20s. The Prior of Fower in Westmeath and the Abbot of St. Mary’s, Dublin, received each 50l.; the Prior of St. Thomas’s, Dublin, 42l.; and others were paid in proportion to the importance of their convents. In a few cases priors received as little as 3l., and monks as little as 13s. 4d. The ejected brethren often got other preferment. Edmond O’Lonergan, Prior of Cahir, who received a pension of 3l. 6s. 8d., was made vicar of the parish, and William Walsh, Prior of Ballydrohid, had a pension of 6l. 8s. 4d. till he should receive a benefice of greater value. Hugh Doyne, one of the monks of Conal, who had received a pension of 40s., surrendered it on being presented by the Crown to a vicarage. Pensions were charged on the lands of the dissolved houses, and power of distress was sometimes given. The absence of complaints may justify a supposition that payments were pretty regularly made. Great numbers of monks doubtless withdrew to the Continent. Mary herself grumbled at the numerous pensions payable to clerks, and directed her Deputy to make them the first objects of his patronage, so that the pensions might be gradually absorbed.314

Titular abbots still appointed. Cistercians

In the case of the Cistercians at least titular abbots were sometimes appointed for many generations. Alemand, the French historian of Irish monasteries, says that the learned Nicholas Fagan, Bishop of Waterford, was Abbot of Innislonagh, and was buried in the abbey in 1617. According to the same author, who wrote towards the end of the seventeenth century, there were in his time Abbots of Mellifont, Tintern, and Boyle, living in the neighbourhood of their abbeys, but dressing like laymen. They were probably chiefly occupied in receiving novices for education in foreign convents. An important paper drawn up at Waterford in 1646 bears the signature of one prior of Augustinian canons, and of four Cistercian abbots, to say nothing of Jesuits and mendicants, but some of these may have been appointed after the breaking out of the rebellion. In the reign of James I. some Cistercians certainly lurked in Ireland. The nuncio Rinuccini, who had the charge of Irish patronage from 1645, apologised for preferring so many regulars on the ground that men of family seldom became secular priests.315

The dissolution not carried out in remote districts

In 1541 a commission was issued to the Earl of Desmond and others to survey and dissolve all religious houses in Cork, Limerick, Kerry, and Desmond. In these districts and in the purely Irish regions of Connaught and Ulster, the process of dissolution was slow and uncertain. The title of the Crown was theoretically acknowledged, but in some cases nothing was done for many years. As the native nobility were subdued or reconciled, Henry VIII.’s policy was gradually carried out. In the wildest parts of Ulster the consummation was delayed until after the flight of the Earls in the reign of James I.316

Number and wealth of religious foundationsMany are losers by the dissolution

Without counting the mendicant orders, about 350 religious houses can be traced in Ireland. Many of these had disappeared before the reign of Henry VIII., having become parish churches, or been absorbed in episcopal establishments. Others were dependent on English foundations, and were destroyed by the Act of Absentees; others, again, were cells to more important houses, and followed their fortunes. A yearly income of 32,000l., with personalty to the amount of 100,000l., has been attributed to the Irish monasteries, and their possessions must certainly have been considerable. The monks, and especially the Cistercians, generally chose fertile situations near a river or on the coast, for the sake of fish and water carriage. The most beautiful and convenient sites were in their hands, and their system of cultivation was much superior to that of lay proprietors. The ceaseless wars of Ireland did not entirely spare the religious houses, but they escaped better than other kinds of property. The spoiling of the Church could never have been considered a great or glorious work. The wealth of the monks is not to be measured by the extent of their lands. It is in the vast number of their houses, orchards, gardens, fishing-weirs, and mills, that we must seek the evidence of accumulated capital. The immense circuit of the walls at Kells or Athassel seems to show that great numbers of artificers and labourers were sheltered within the enclosures, and that the monks knew how to defend their own. The system of corrodies or resident pensions probably reconciled the great nobles, and opposition to the dissolution came partly from those who were impoverished by their abolition. It is to these pensions, which were perhaps often abused, that Cowley probably alludes when he accuses the monks generally of immorality and of showing no hospitality save to themselves and ‘certain bell-wedders, which ringleaders have good fees, fat, profitable farms, the finding of their children, with other daily pleasures of the abbeys, and fearing to lose the profit thereof, repugn and resist the suppressing of abbeys, surmising it should be prejudicial to the common weal, which is otherwise.’317

The Friaries suppressed. Not before 1541

In 1541 a commission was issued to Sir Anthony St. Leger and others to survey and suppress all the friaries in Ireland. The total number was rather under two hundred, of which the Franciscans had more than half, the Dominicans forty-three, the Augustinian hermits twenty-four, and the Carmelites twenty-one. As in the case of the older monasteries, the houses within reach were at once dissolved, and the rest were perforce respited. Their possessions were not large, and the friars managed to exist without them. The Dominican historian says there were about six hundred members of his order in Ireland just before Cromwell’s conquest, and the Franciscans were probably much more numerous. The houses of Grey Friars had been very generally reformed by the Observants, and it is with these stricter votaries that we generally meet. They swarmed everywhere, and to them is due the preservation of the Roman tradition until the Jesuits made head in Ireland. Archbishop Browne is never tired of testifying against them, and Thomas Agard, his enthusiastic supporter, calls them crafty bloodsuckers. Almost the only open opposition to the dissolution came from a Franciscan, Dr. Sall, who boldly preached against it at Waterford. During the Cromwellian war and subsequent persecution the Franciscans claim thirty-one martyrs, which shows that they must have been very numerous. In 1645 the Carmelites reckoned twenty-seven houses in Ireland, but most of these were doubtless desecrated and deserted. No candid Protestant can altogether sympathise with Browne and Agard, for we have the most overwhelming proof that but for the friars a large part of the population would have been altogether debarred from the exercise of religion.318

All kinds of men share the plunder

Most of the men who had been useful in carrying out the suppression received a share of the spoils. Brabazon, St. Leger, Sir John Alen, Chief Justice Luttrell, Edmund Sexton, Sir Thomas Cusack, and Robert Dillon, were all enriched in this way. Prime-serjeant Barnewall denied the King’s right to dissolve the monasteries, but profited largely by the measure. Celts, Normans, and Saxons, Papists and Protestants alike, showed a fine appetite for the confiscated lands. Desmond had a lease of part of St. Mary Abbey, perhaps to induce him to spend some of his time in Dublin. Three at least of the new peerages – Upper Ossory, Carbery, and Cahir, were partially endowed from similar sources. Edward Power, bastard brother of the first baron of Curraghmore, was granted the possession of Mothel, of which he had been prior. In some cases, as in Clanricarde and Thomond, the Government made a virtue of necessity, and gave monastic lands to lords or chiefs who would have had the power to seize them in any case. It is scarcely necessary to say that the House of Ormonde profited enormously by the dissolution. Sometimes the plunder was too small to excite much cupidity, and then the monks might be spared. Thus the Austinfriars of Dunmore in Galway, who had ‘neither land nor profit, but only the small devotion of the people,’ were respited during the King’s pleasure, on condition of assuming a secular habit. A like indulgence was given to the canons of Toem in Tipperary, which the O’Meaghers had been able to prevent the Royal Commissioners from visiting. Many houses were reasonably granted to the founders’ kin, for the dissolution must have been a heavy loss to some families. Most of the corporate towns had founded or fostered monasteries, and Waterford, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Galway, Limerick, Clonmel, and Athenry received a portion of the spoils. All Saints was specially granted to the citizens of Dublin in compensation of their loss during the Geraldine siege. As a general rule, monastic lands were at first let only on lease, and in succeeding reigns large fines were obtained by the Crown. At the first threat of dissolution some houses hastened to let their lands for long terms, and to cut down their woods and sell their jewels, and thus the plunder actually realised often fell below expectation. I have met with but one case of a charitable foundation being laid immediately upon the ruins of a monastery, and that was owing to private liberality. Henry Walshe, son of a Waterford merchant, bought the Grey Friars from the King, and founded a hospital for sixty or more sick persons. This institution received a royal charter, and still exists on a reduced scale.319

No university in Ireland

No care was taken to supply the place of the monasteries which were devoted to education. There had been three attempts to found a university in Ireland before the reign of Henry VIII. In 1310 John Lech, Archbishop of Dublin, obtained a bull from Clement V., who ordered the establishment of the desired institution, which would, he hoped, ‘sprinkle the said land, like a watered garden, to the exaltation of the Catholic faith, the honour of the mother church, and the profit of all the faithful.’ Lech died soon after, and his project was buried with him; but his successor, Alexander de Bicknor, actually made a foundation in connection with St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and under the patronage of John XXII. Bicknor’s University maintained a very precarious existence till the time of Henry VII., when it finally disappears. The institution was not crushed by the weight of its endowments, for it does not seem to have had any. In 1465 Bicknor’s work was ignored by the Parliament of Drogheda, which founded a new university on the ground that there was none in Ireland. But it was not enough to declare that Drogheda should be as Oxford: there was no endowment and no popular support, and this scheme also failed. Very near the end of his reign Henry VIII. made up his mind that one cathedral was enough for Dublin, and he suppressed St. Patrick’s. Christ Church had already been acknowledged as the metropolitan church. But it was not till the next reign that Archbishop Browne propounded his abortive plan for restoring the University which had once faintly glimmered.320

Archbishop Browne

The principal instrument by which Henry carried out his ecclesiastical revolution was George Browne, Provincial of the English Austinfriars, who was appointed Archbishop of Dublin in 1535 after regular election by the two chapters. He was consecrated by Cranmer, Fisher, and Shaxton of Salisbury, who were significantly commanded to invest him with the pall. Browne’s appointment is ignored at Rome, but no rival prelate was at first set up. He had already distinguished himself by preaching strongly against the invocation of saints, and, whatever his faults were, he was certainly a sincere Protestant. ‘The common voice goeth,’ said Staples, who had not quite made up his own mind, ‘that he doth abhor the Mass.’ Browne was married, but whether before or after his consecration does not appear. He zealously promoted the King’s supremacy and the destruction of images, and complained bitterly of being thwarted by his colleague of Armagh, by the Irish generally, and even by Lord Deputy Grey. Cromer was in communication with Rome, and circulated a sort of Papal oath of allegiance among the clergy, in which obedience to heretical powers was denounced and all their acts declared null and void. The old jealousy between Armagh and Dublin may have had something to say to this; for Browne, if we may believe Staples, claimed authority over all the clergy of Ireland. The new Archbishop did not bear himself meekly in his great office, and he received a stinging rebuke, which the writer was pleased to call a gentle advertisement, from the King himself. Henry accused his nominee of neglecting the instruction of the people and the interests of the Crown. ‘Such,’ he added, ‘is your lightness in behaviour and such is the elation of your mind in pride, that glorying in foolish ceremonies, and delighting in we and us, in your dreams comparing yourself so near to a prince in honour and estimation, that all virtue and honesty is almost banished from you. Reform yourself therefore … and let it sink into your remembrance that we be as able for the not doing thereof to remove you again and to put another man of more virtue and honesty in your place, both for our discharge against God, and for the comfort of our good subjects there, as we were at the beginning to prefer you.’ Well might Browne answer that the King’s letter made him tremble in body for fear. He defended himself at length, and invoked the fate of Korah should he fail to advance the King’s service. His defence seems to have satisfied Henry, but he continued to make many enemies and to excite much criticism. ‘His pride and arrogance,’ said Staples, ‘hath ravished him from the right remembrance of himself.’321

Bishop Staples

Edward Staples, originally a Cambridge man, and afterwards parson of Tamworth and a canon of Cardinal College, was appointed to the see of Meath in 1530 by Papal provision. Either as Bishop or Privy Councillor he incurred the hatred of the Geraldine faction, and fled to England on the breaking out of the rebellion in 1534. Early next year he returned, and was one of the commissioners for suppressing the nunnery of Grane. Staples did not at first fully embrace the reformed doctrines, for he accused the Archbishop of Dublin of heresy, and appears to have been attached to the Mass; but he was as zealous as Browne for the royal supremacy, and his conversion to thorough Protestantism was gradual like Cranmer’s. Staples was a noted preacher, and was promoted for that reason; but the King at one time accused him of slackness and threatened to remove him.322

CHAPTER XVI.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE YEAR 1551

Accession of Edward VI. Ormonde and Desmond

The death of Henry VIII. made no immediate difference to Ireland, for St. Leger continued to govern as before. There was such a tendency to depress the Ormonde interest that the widowed countess thought it wise to go to London, where she pleaded her own cause with much success. She was supposed to have designs upon the heir of Desmond’s hand, and the English statesmen, who naturally dreaded such an alliance, encouraged her to marry Sir Francis Bryan, who was in favour with Somerset as he had been with Henry VIII. The new government directed their attention to economy and the repression of jobbery among the Dublin officials. It was discovered that many who drew the King’s pay were serving in the houses of councillors, ‘some in the place of a cook, some of a butler, housekeeper, and other like,’ so that they were practically useless when called to arms. This was strictly forbidden for the future. The Irish Council were earnestly charged finally to put down ‘that intolerable extortion, coyne and livery, having always respect to some recompense to be given to the lords and governors of our countries for the defending of the same.’ Desmond was thanked for his services, and the young king offered to have his eldest son brought up as his companion, ‘as other noblemen’s sons whom we favour are educated with us in learning and other virtuous qualities, whereby hereafter, when we come to just age, we, in remembrance of our childhood spent together, may the rather be moved to prosecute them with our wonted favour, and they all inclined to love and serve us the more faithfully. We shall consent and right glad to have him with us, and shall so cherish him as ye shall have cause to thank us, and at his return to think the time of his attendance on us to be well employed.’ If this offer had been accepted, and if the same results had followed as in the cases of the young Earl of Ormonde and of Barnaby Fitzpatrick, the unspeakable miseries of the Desmond rebellion might have been avoided.323

The bastard Geraldines

The Pale was at this time much disturbed by the depredations of a gang of freebooters, headed by some of the bastard Geraldines who had lost their lands. They overran the southern half of Kildare and the northern half of Carlow, plundering and burning Rathangan, Ballymore Eustace, and Rathvilly. At first they acted with O’Connor, but he was forced to go to Connaught to look for reinforcements, and the MacGeohegans and others were induced by St. Leger to kill his men and drive his cattle. The Fitzgeralds, after defying the Government for a year, were crushed at Blessington in the autumn of 1547. The O’Tooles sided with the English, and thus justified Henry VIII.’s policy towards them. The Irish generally fell away from O’Connor and O’More, to whom they feared to give food and shelter; and the chiefs were obliged to make such a peace as was possible with the Government. The annalists dwell strongly on the strength of the English at this time, on the unexampled bondage in which they held the southern half of Ireland, and on their complete victory over the man who had been ‘the head of the happiness and prosperity of that half of Ireland in which he lived, namely, Brian O’Connor.’324

Bellingham’s first visit to Ireland, 1547

Sir Edward Bellingham, a gentleman of the bedchamber, was sent over for the first time in the summer of 1547, in charge of reinforcements. This able soldier had been Governor of the Isle of Wight, and had served at Boulogne in 1546. He had also held diplomatic appointments in Hungary, and at the Emperor’s Court. The Privy Council, who expressed themselves satisfied of his military ability, directed the Irish Government to be guided by his advice, and to pay him the unusual salary of forty shillings sterling a day. He was employed by the borderers of the Pale against the O’Mores and O’Connors, and seems to have made his mark from the first. After a short stay Bellingham with difficulty obtained leave to return to England. He must have succeeded in impressing his views on Somerset, to whose religious party he belonged, for St. Leger was recalled in the following spring, and Bellingham was appointed in his stead.325

Butlers and Kavanaghs. Bellingham Deputy, 1548

Bellingham landed at Dalkey on May 18, 1548, and the state of Leinster at once engaged his attention. Moryt Oge Kavanagh had taken a horse and other property from a neighbour, and Bellingham called upon Cahir MacArt to restore it, and to punish the thief. The chief denied all responsibility, on the ground that the culprit was in Sir Richard Butler’s suite, and that he could not in any case hang a man for stealing, but only enforce restitution according to the Brehon law. We can now see that in this at least Cahir MacArt was more nearly right than the English lawyers. Moryt Oge had grievances, and said that he was oppressed by one Watkin Powell, but he restored the horse, subject to the Lord Deputy’s opinion as to whether he had a right to it as a set off against his own losses. He came to Carlow to plead his own cause, but Sir Richard Butler, who had promised to meet him, did not appear. Butler was accused of showing a bad example in the country by plundering houses, wounding men, and taking gentlewomen prisoners. If this, or even a small part of it, were true of the Earl of Ormonde’s brother, it is not surprising that robberies should have been things of every-day occurrence.326

The Pale constantly threatened

The defenders of the Pale were fully occupied. Having consulted such men in England as understood Irish affairs, the Privy Council concluded that the principal damage was done ‘skulkingly in the winter’s nights.’ If the Lord Deputy’s presence near the border was not enough to prevent incursion, soldiers accustomed to the country were to be quartered there permanently, and nightly watch to be kept, especially on O’Connor’s side. Truces were not to last beyond the winter. This border service must have been very disagreeable. John Brereton, who held the office of seneschal of Wexford, of which the duties were very ill discharged by Watkin Powell, was stationed at Kildare, and complained bitterly that he was harassed to death. He could get no leave because he had no second captain, and even in May and June he could scarcely enjoy an undisturbed night. At one time he was roused from his bed by shouts, at another by the announcement that some alarm beacon was blazing. On foot or on horseback he had to march at once, and yet he was unable to answer every summons. A proprietor at Rathangan, who is called Raymond Oge, had his haggard burned by some of the O’Connor kerne. Two English troopers were with him by chance and helped to defend his castle, but the fires which they lit on the roof were not answered. Horses left out in a bog near a wood were carried off and the keepers killed. Nothing was safe unless shut up in a bawn, or fortified courtyard. Owen MacHugh O’Byrne, who was retained permanently by the Government as a captain of kerne, was inclined to do good service, but his men would not advance beyond Lea Castle, saying that ‘if Captain Cosby wanted wilfully to lose his life, they did not set so little by their lives.’ Cosby was a man of great personal courage. The Constable of Lea, the same James Fitzgerald whose allegiance in Grey’s time had been so elastic, required a letter from Bellingham to encourage him. The Lord Deputy himself spent some time at Athy, where eighteen beds were provided for him and his suite; but the border was never quiet for a moment. Fitzgerald and Cosby had no official authority, and their orders carried no weight. If a cow strayed an alarm was raised, and while soldiers were sent on a fool’s errand in one direction, the rebels or brigands had their time to themselves. O’More came to the Barrow and carried off horses and sheep. Owen MacHugh skirmished with him, but the hostile chief, ‘like a jolly fellow,’ offered the royal kerne 6s. 8d. a fortnight to serve him, and pay to their leaders in proportion. Before Cosby could get his men together the O’Mores had vanished.327